Saturday, May 29, 2010

J'accuse!

Okay: ONE of you bastard readers edited the wikipedia entry I cursorily fisked here to make it more coherent and less amusing. C'mon--fess up.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Alas, the party is more or less over.

Take my word for it: if you had visited America Speaking Out last night, you would have had a blast. Literally a good eighty to ninety percent of the ideas that had been submitted treated the site with exactly as much respect as such transparently condescending bullshit deserves. It was truly glorious. These ideas are still present, but now they have more or less been pushed aside in favor of serious--for a HIGHLY eccentric definition of "serious"--ideas.

Let's pretend for a moment that anyone in the republican party was taking the submissions to this site seriously: no genuinely GOOD ideas would be sufficiently wingnutty for them to try to implement; the site's alleged non-partisanship is obviously a very thin smokescreen. So all they'd be able to use would be the wingnutty ones. And where do the wingers GET these wingnutty idea? From fox news and right-wing radio. And where do THEY get their talking points? From RNC blast faxes (it's possible that in some cases the talking points actually START with the wingnut demagogues--the basic equation is the same, though). So what you have here is a perfectly closed circuit. By its very nature, the website instantly neutralizes itself. Republicans have been whining of late about the way the term "epistemic closure" is being bandied around with regard to their ideology, but this site only strengthens that accurate perception.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

It has come to my attention that as mind-bogglingly brilliant as it is, the idea of duck characters on currency has not yet been sufficiently fleshed out. So now, I present to you the complete, official plan.

Penny--Gus Goose
Nickel--April, May, and June Duck
Dime--Magica de Spell
Quarter--Neighbor Jones
Fifty-Cent Piece--Beagle Boys
Dollar Coin--Flintheart Glomgold
Dollar Bill--Donald Duck
Two-Dollar Bill--Grandma Duck
Five-Dollar Bill--Daisy Duck
Ten-Dollar Bill--Ludwig Von Drake
Twenty-Dollar Bill--Grandma Duck
Fifty-Dollar Bill--Gyro Gearloose
Hundred-Dollar Bill--Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck
Five-Hundred-Dollar Bill--Gladstone Gander
Thousand-Dollar Bill--Scrooge McDuck
Five-Thousand-Dollar Bill--Goldie O'Gilt
Ten-Thousand-Dollar Bill--Cornelius Coot

This is why we can't have nice things!

The republican party helpfully posted this website for Concerned Citizens to submit their helpful ideas--only I fear certain anti-American jackanapes are not taking this brilliant initiative entirely seriously. Since it's anyone's guess how long this site will last, here are some of the best ideas I've found there so far. Believe it or not, a few of these were submitted by yours truly. You will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS guess which ones. I did this because I Love America.

-I think cats just don't do anything, so we should make them get jobs or get out of America.

-I've noticed lately that America's birds are getting a little on the small side. The North African Ostrich is the world's largest and therefore best bird. Why is it that the greatest country on earth doesn't have the world's biggest birds? Liberals want our birds to be small because they hate the Constitution. Jews did 9/11.

-Idea for New Jobs: Construct Additional Pylons. This will keep our drones gainfully employed and increase the side of our base. My Life for Ayre!

-Get those lazy scientists to restore dinosaurs and wooly mammoths to Utah and Montana. Tourism will go through the roof

-We should invent and patent more colors. Like fuchsia, but not that because it's already been invented.

-The government needs to take off every "ZIG"--for great justice. Otherwise, what will we do when someone sets up us the bomb? We will be on our way to destruction. Also, we need to be extremely careful about the security of our base, so we can ensure that it all belongs to us. I am very concerned about this.

-Instead of spending billions of dollars a year on rockets, we should just shoot satellites and astronauts into space with big cannons.

-Instead of lame Presidents, duck comic characters should be on our currency. Donald on the One; Huey, Dewey, and Louie on the Five; Daisy on the ten; Gyro on the twenty; Gladstone on the Fifty; and Scrooge on the Hundred. This will teach Americans the true meaning of values.

-change the national anthem to "It's Raining Men"

-Hire cats to get rid of all the mice that are infesting the cities

-dance off: New York vs. New Jersey.

-For far too many years, the unproven “theory” of “gravity” has been taught in public schools unchallenged. The harmful side effects of this are legion. Witchcraft, atheism, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, suicide, hip hop music, socialism, and eastern religions, are just some of the fallout of this false teaching. Perhaps more importantly, American students are falling behind other nations in math and science because they are being taught this false atheistic guess. Ever since the Isaac Newton saw the apple “fall”, the writing has been on the wall. We can not trust the courts to do what our Founding Fathers would have wanted. (Seriously. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, not one of them believed in “gravity”! Look it up.) We need a Constitiutional Amendment that mandates the teaching of a how everything is pushed to the ground by the hand of god, and outlaws the disproven “theory” of “gravity”. Once our students and future leaders know we were created, and that the planet is 6000 not 6 billion years old, perhaps the scientist of other nations will stop snickering because we don’t accept the obvious truth of God’s hand on our heads.

-Isn't it about time for a 9/11 theme park?

-Why not just give everybody a puppy

-I would like to see a river of fire built between the US and Mexico. I would also like level 12 mages to guard the border just in case.

-Soo this one time I was feeling really unique, rogue if you will, so I bought a gun and an American flag for my front yard and a pickup truck and watched Fox news

-Xenu would never filibuster, he would absorb the soul of Tom Cruise and gather his energy to pass legislation.

-I think you guys really need to stop this boring Pledge of Allegiance thing and sing your national anthem every day in schools like we do in Canada. Except you should probably change your national anthem to "Everybody Dance Now" or possibly "Funkytown" because seriously no school kid is awake enough to be patriotic first thing in the morning. They just want to groove. Also: all chairs should be on wheels. I cannot understand why chairs without wheels even still exist in your country. Your government is failing you.

-The government should give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life. It's lonely here--there's no one left to torture.

-So, I was at this Tea Party last night, and I was all like "hah hey guys, I bet you don't have any real tea here huh? haha" and they're all like "darn tootin we don't have any! the only tea we have here is the letter T in 'america'" and so i'm all like "uh guys lolz america doesn't have a T in it" and they're like "well it doesn't now but you just wait and see" so I waited and didn't see anything so then I'm like "whatever you guys are weird you can keep your distorted views of America. I'm going to starbucks"

-I'm so sick of evolutionists peddling their anti christ agenda. Leading Christian scientists have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Jews buried the dinosaur fossils back in the 1920s.

-Free Taco Bell every Thursday.

-Mcdonalds should be fined heavily whenever the McRib is unavailable. Make this RETROACTIVE.

-I gots ethics yes I do I gots ethics hows bout you?

-Dogs should not be hired by the police because they are not smart enough to know when to use their weapons.

-We should take all our scientists from NASA and other liberal agencies and have them work on something important to America like alchemy. We could end our dependence on foreign oil by paying the Asians (with gold) to make us deloreans that run on corn and garbage.

-I don't like how cows are free in where ever that is, in Asia probably. We need to use our military to lock those cows up, like we do it here.

-Someone just told me that Santa isn't real. My belief in Santa is a long-held tradition that has existed since the establishment of me 8 years ago. I demand that my traditional values be respected and all Santa-deniers be burned at the stake.

-The government needs to mandate that all Americans walk into walls and make noises like "duh duh duh." This is what the hero did in the original Dragon Quest, and DQ went on to be the most popular gaming franchise ever. So I think this would solve our deficit problem. Also, too.

-The problem with the lottery is that no-one ever wins. If people won the lottery more often, there would be more rich people and less poor people. We'd have more more and would be able to buy more stuff. This would fix the economy. The government should pass a law saying that the lottery should be easier to win.

-move the GOP to Burma to save taxes

The Congress simply must reform confiscatory death tax policy by passing the Doodche-Baggs Act in 2010.

-pay us for all of these awesome ideas.

-Invent a machine that takes carrots and celery, and makes money out of them. That would be a good idea.

-We should wipe out the Middle East and put up lots of Kay Jewelers, because every kiss begins with Kay, and if Kiss went to the middle east they'd rock the house down

-Why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near?

-If you guys don't stop messing around, people will stop taking this site seriously.

-I propose that we limit the constitution to 140 characters, for great justice.

-Release Starcraft 2 immediately.

-Abolish Hot Pockets. Put women folk back in the kitchen to make delicious American dinners.

-You ever see that Frank Langella Dracula movie? It was made in the 70s, I think. Good movie. Good movie.

-Wages should be based on proper performance of English grammar, syntax, and elocution. Failure to correctly use the subjunctive mood results in an immediate tax increase. Failure to correctly differentiate between the possessive "their" and the contraction "they're" results in a $100 HERITAGE FEE. Improper use of gerunds results in immediate deportation.

-Spawn more overlords.

-OUTLAW WOMEN!

-Add an amendment establishing pizza as a food for humans. A seagull ate my slice. ;_;

-If we eliminate all taxes, we'll see revenues go through the roof. Reagan proved it could work.

-America is the only country to have successfully landed on the moon. The day may come when another country duplicates this effort. This must be avoided at all costs. I propose that we destroy the moon to show the world that we will not let our accomplishments be trivialized.

-Replace George Washington with John Boehner on the doller bill. Orange ink is always cheaper.

-My neighbor is a scat musician and it's very annoying. Please arrest them, also, skibbity bee-bop.

-Bring back Firefly to allow the great American Joss Whedon to bring much glory to this country!

-There are too many states these days. Please eliminate three. I am NOT a crackpot.

-We ought to think of a better name for it than "yiffing."

-I think that American has given a lot of money to France (ie the French revolution, etc.) and the statue of liberty does not begin to cover it. I mean they made it out of copper - couldn't even spring for silver, you cheap snooty socialists? I think we should make it into pennies and then give them the pennies (we dont want them) and then have them convert that into euros and then back into dollars and then we will be able to buy France

-Americans should have the ability to print our own money.

-This is more of a question than an idea, but could God make a car so fast that he himself could not drive it? Wait my roommate just walked in and informed me that it is and that's why Dale Earnhardt was called up to heaven.

-Creating a new line of hot dog marketing where they create packages of buns equal in amount to the number of hot dogs in the package. This imbalance in American Culture has been destroying us at the heart for decades now.

-A game of Monopoly takes too long to finish

-My grandpa said the homos are everywhere waiting to rape me so I decided to rape them first. Now I'm in prison and can't vote :(

-There are not nearly enough funny hats in the government. Please institute a hat policy similar to that of the vatican where the hilarity of the hat scales with the importance of the government official.

-Americans need equal access to unicorns and rainbows to overcome barriers in the pursuit of sparkly happiness. Traditionally, unicorns have been too rare to truly impact the world and rainbows are too tied to occurrences in nature. Recent technological advances however make these limitations part of our dark past. The democratization of unicorns and rainbows is crucial for the US to be a major player as a world happiness leader in the future. Let the US be a shining light for the world, and let the shining light come from a the horn of a unicorn and sparkle in all colors of the rainbow.

-Fund 4chan's server costs with taxpayer money.

-Why does everyone have that Justin Beiber haircut? It's soooo cute, especially with a cute polo and mirror sunglasses, but if you do something too much it gets less cute. My friends Stacey, Tiffany, and Quinn said their last few dates had the same haircut, which is not cute, if you're trying to impress me.

-The GOP must return to its Pro-Life principles. No longer should we allow death into this country. The USA was founded by people looking for the Fountain of Youth in the hopes of gaining immortality, and it is high time we devoted all possible resources to completing this quest.

-Fire all government employees and hire illegal aliens instead

-In order for Americans to prosper, unicorns MUST be available to all. Oh, race cars too.

-Sometimes when I get to the bottom of the yogurt cup, the shape makes it harder to get the last bites. I tried using both a spoon and a fork, with some luck. I think Yoplait should redesign their package so it's easier to get to the bottom of the yogurt.

-Make sure in the next Batman movie Christian Bale doesn't make that stupid voice

-First and foremost, our primary goals for foreign policy would be to nuke korea. Not North Korea... SOUTH Korea. By eliminating most of the competition for Starcraft: Brood War, we will be able to usher in a new age of cyber champions

-The moon is so 20th century. let's put a man ON THE SUN

-Build a ten-story golden statue in honor of departed heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio. This will create a great deal of jobs.

-DC needs to hold a donut raffle to raise funds to pay for the new great american railroads.

-Encourage the WASTE system to compete with the US Postal Service. This will create jobs.

-Get Michael Steele to release his rap album. Use the revenue to buy something off the McDonalds dollar menu

-We need to legalize gay marijuanage.

-I know this guy in Nigeria he says he's going to inherit a lot of money, but he needs our help to get it. All we have to do is wire him some cash and in return he'll give us part of the money that he will be inheriting. This would be a good way to balance the national budget deficit.

-i just think if it was like biodome, the illegals wouldnt get in.

-Abolish society.

-I got some dogs. My back's not so much anymore, but I got some dogs. I could use some work, dogs'll help.

-I'm a good Christian woman and my husband is high up in Wal-Mart. How come I gotta pay for fancy bottled water? Shouldn't you all give me that? I vote the right way every time I can. I want something. Give me something!

-All Males over the age of 18 should be forced to have mandatory facial hair in the form of a handlebar mustache. if they are unable to grow facial hair they should be imprisoned until they can.

-Make subway bring back tuna to the $5 footlong menu

-Make my PS3 have better graphics

-Deport my dog. His English is terrible.

-Rock and roll all night and party every day.

-A whole lotta art should be a crime. Unless it's a picture of a little kid with real big eyes hugging a puppy on black velvet.

-Internet should be ENGLISH ONLY

-LIZARD PEOPLE

-bunny rabbits should be called money rabbits and used as legal tender.

-I should have the right to name my children using numbers. If I want to name my child l33t, I should be able to name him that, darsh gone it. Who is the guberment to say that I can't name my children using numbers?

-let's take away all of the guns from everyone and build a giant robot that has thousands and thousands of guns that will be fired and reloaded automatically by mechanical parts

-I think I smelled drugs coming from my neighbors garage. Please send the Police to his house in the middle of the night to shoot his dogs and scare his kids. We cannot let drug dealers and others of the criminal element take over our society! Enough is Enough!

-Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

-Life is pretty good, but i prefer crunchier, less sweet cereals like corn checks.

-Edit the Pledge of Allegience so that "Under God" is in ALL CAPS.

-We should be able to collect $200 after passing "Go"

-Magnets, how do they work?

-Americans have become too darned big for our britches, probably because McDonald's is so cheap. Somehow we need to make bigger britches.

-I believe the GOP should embrace generally nicer hairdos and should wear more hats.

-If Obama hadn't chosen Kal Penn to work in the administration, Dr. Kutner would still be alive on the hit TV show House, MD. Impeach Obama.

-I think we should pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars.

-The GOP should do a 180 and embrace all liberal values to the extreme. The Democrats will be like all w.t.f?!?!? and rage-quit. Then, with their base undefended, we bring sum major PAWNAGE up in their bizzle.

-I think we should have an official "Ranking of the Races." That way, we can all know, once and for all, which races are the best. I'm working on this idea. I'm trying to figure out how to make it un-scientific. Because, you know, science is for sissies and atheists and lesbians.

-Dolphins are not good role models because they live in groups, just like communists.

-As an avid bird lover, it is my opinion that all bird species should be federally protected. Especially b**bies and t!ts. They are my favorites.

-Hop on one foot.

-The government should never give you up, Never let you down, Never run around and desert you. Never make you cry, Never say goodbye, Never tell a lie and hurt you.

-Onan spitteth his seed against the fence. And that there is the generally accepted problem bout all them people in them big cities and what not.

-We should try to treat other people with respect unless they're poor.

-Hire the unemployed like me to search for illegal pot. If we find any we get to sell it and keep the money.

-Abolish fractions! They make my head hurt.

-Why is there only a tap for water in my home? There should be a system in place to pipe other commodities (soda, hamburgers) into the homes of those who can afford them. Also why do the pipes only go one way? I propose a FREE and JUST system that would allow the pipes to give as well as take. This would allow one to shove a tip back into the pipe, affectively thanking it for the burgers it has provided them.

There is A LOT more where that came from. I can say without a hint of irony that it's things like this that give me hope for the future. Click on over and submit your own brilliant proposals!

EDIT: Sometimes "inappropriate" words get filtered. This is pretty easy to avoid, but when I tried to submit a Dragon-Quest-related proposal, I discovered that one of the banned words is "Japan." Republican xenophobia taken to insane new heights? Or just sheer, raving madness? You decide.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Duck Comics: "The Golden River"

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The dumbest bootleg Pacman machine EVER.



Seriously, "Newpuc2," yer not even TRYING here.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Why did you not watch Parks & Recreation this season?

I mean, I assume you didn't, given its dismal ratings. So, seriously--what's WRONG with you? This is the best sitcom I've seen since...well, EVER, maybe. You know why I stopped watching The Office? Well, I would have sooner rather than later ANYWAY, once I realized that I could no longer stand ANY of the characters, but Parks & Rec is what sped the process along: the gulf in quality between the two is just embarrassing.

Okay, I GUESS you would be forgiven for having tuned out after the not-that-good six-episode first season. Clearly, everyone involved was still trying to figure out what they were doing. But GODDAMN did the season that just finished tonight rock the hell out of your face. Or it WOULD have--but you didn't see it, did you? And now useless fucking NBC has so little faith in it that they're shunting it back to JANUARY as a mid-season replacement show. Grrr.

Look, people: I will be heartbroken if this show goes the Arrested Development route and gets canceled after a truncated third season. So I am ORDERING you--by the powers vested in me by the Blogging States of Blogonia--to purchase the second-season DVDs as soon as they come out, and then to watch it religiously when it comes back on. Come on--it's not as though I'm asking you to do something unpleasant.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Don't let the door etc.

Now, it's no secret that I'm not exactly an optimist about the direction this country is headed. For every lurching step in the vague direction of "forward" we may take, it seems like a large portion of the population becomes just that much more psychotic. I'm not sure that this is a stable dynamic, to put it mildly.

So anyway, it is necessary for me to sometimes ignore the big picture and take my small pleasures where I can find them--and there are few small pleasures bigger than seeing the craven opportunist who was my senator for most of my life (I only reregistered in Ohio in '08, on the theory that my vote against McMaverick/Mooselini would mean more) given the boot. I mean, I totally believe in redemption narratives (remember that John Cole used to be a full-metal wingnut), but Specter made NO SECRET of the fact that he was switching parties for NO OTHER REASON than to avoid getting crushed in the republican primary. Although in retrospect, it looks like he would've been screwed either way, it's still quite rewarding to think that his greatest act of opportunism specifically led to his downfall.

Dude always annoyed the shit out of me: he was one of these alleged moderates who would occasionally emit faint bipartisan squeaks...and then, when push came to shove, would virtually always vote with his party, no matter how wingnutty. We don't need that crud. Sure, as a Democrat he was voting with the Democrats most of the time, but would it not be better to have someone who votes that way on principle, as opposed to because their political well-being depends on it? I don't know how you're supposed to trust someone like that.

Anyway, I'm feeling magnanimous here: Arlen, if you want to let the door hit you in the ass on your way out--go for it. Have a blast.

Monday, May 17, 2010

IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS!

Bruce Tinsley comes out and admits that he reads the blog where we all heap abuse on his daily exercise in misanthropy, racism, homophobia, and other good conservative values! Edifyingly, his comment is every bit as illiterate as you'd expect from reading his strip on a daily basis. Congrats, Davey K--you've Made It. Though I'm actually not sure how proud you should really BE of something like this.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Duck Comics: "The Flying Horse"

Saturday, May 15, 2010

And now, hilarious pornographic Disney fanfiction.

Courtesy of Disney Weirdness: this. WHOA.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Duck Comics: "Krankenstein Gyro"

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Land of the Free Update



Ever smoke pot? Even a little? Or just live with someone who does, for that matter?

Well, then. In that case, you really have only yourself to blame when stormtroopers in riot gear smash their way into your house in the middle of the night and slaughter your pets in front of your terrified children, don't you? America: love it or leave it.

UPDATE: Pynchon knew the score back in 1990:

Most of Brock's troops had departed after terrorizing the neighborhood for weeks, running up and down the dirt lanes in formation chanting "War-on-drugs! War-on-Drugs!" strip-searching folks in public, killing dogs, rabbits, cats, and chickens, pouring herbicide down wells that couldn't remotely be used to irrigate dope crops, and acting, indeed, as several neighbors observed, as if they had invaded some land far away, instead of a short plane ride from San Francisco.
--Vineland


And you thought this was hyperbole. Oh ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Brief Crimenote

I saw this story, which is kind of sad; this woman is obviously mentally ill. What really struck me, though, was the behavior of the sheriff's deputy, who kept a cool head and avoided the bullshit cowboy heroics about which the bloodthirsty right fantasizes so fervently. That's surely the kind of person you want protecting and serving.

I suppose given how deeply fucked up we are about firearms in this country, there really wouldn't be much point in noting that had the woman had a gun rather than a knife, these events would very quickly have been upgraded from "kind of sad" to "horribly tragic."

Monday, May 03, 2010

Duck Comics: "The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin"