The sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies is coming along nicely, so Sheri and I thought we’d revive our practice of posting bits and pieces of the work in progress.  Today it’s a selection from our chapter on heroes, legends, and dummi-gods.

Trivia Time:  The Latin word for bear, ursus, comes from the Greek arktos, which means “unlubricated.”

Hercules (1983)
Directed by:  Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)
Written by:  Luigi Cozzi

The screen is black.  Sadly, it doesn’t stay that way.

An heroic anthem lumbers across the soundtrack, played by the Ambien Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by a slow loris.  A deep-voiced, but effeminate narrator (sort of a cross between Darth Vader and Paul Lynde) rumbles at us,

“In the beginning, before Creation, there was darkness.”

$1.75 worth of Black Cat firecrackers explode, indicating that the Big Bang has occurred, and getting some flakes of charred paper stuck on the camera lens.

“From the primordial explosion,” Darth Lynde explains, “Emerged the Fire of Chaos.”  At this performance, the Fire of Chaos will be played by a Kingsford Charcoal Briquet, confirming Stephen Hawking’s theory that the Universe has no boundary in space-time, and that its edges light quickly.

“Chaos merged with Darkness, and from this union were born the elements:  Night, day, matter, and air.”

We’re pretty sure that Night and Day are not elements; nevertheless, we’re willing to split the difference and agree that out of the Primordial Darkness and the Fiery Chaos of Creation, there emerged a pretty catchy Cole Porter tune.

“Then,” the Dark Lord of the Lisp continues, “Out of this misty radiance of the cosmos, there came forth a jar. Golden and glittering.  Pandora’s Jar.”

Pandora’s Jar?  I thought she had a box.  (I know, I know, that’s what she said.)

Then some Minoan hillbillies put Pandora’s Jug on a fence post and take pot shots at it.  It blows up real good.

“From the fragments of the Jar, the planets and the solar system were formed.”  So according to the filmmakers, the Ancient Greeks attributed the origin of the cosmos to the Pottery Barn Rule:  You break it, you create the universe.

Due to layoffs and budget cutbacks, the Greek pantheon has been reduced to three gods, and outsourced to the moon.  This understaffed celestial call center is ruled by Zeus, father of gods and men, lord of creation, and judging by his wig and beard, an off-season Salvation Army Santa with one of those crowns you get when you taste Imperial margarine.

The gods live in a crater, in the middle of an open air (or open vacuum) temple which recalls the majestic architecture of Classical Greece; except the columns look like giant plaster dildos, and appear to be covered in melted wax like Chianti bottles, so it’s sort of like ancient Athens if the Parthenon were a gayer, more fetish-oriented Shakeys.

Zeus creates a champion “who is stronger and more intelligent than all other men,” a process which involves a “Spotlight Dance on Lou Ferrigno!’ while he goes through his Mr. Universe pose down routine in front a green screen.  Ordinarily this would just be horrifying, but Hercules goes the extra mile by having Lou wear a flesh-toned G-string to simulate nudity.  And for those who’ve wondered about the steroids/shrunken genitalia connection, check out the contrast between Lou’s bloated musculature and flat-front thong; it’s like someone grafted Barbie’s crotch onto a Stretch Armstrong doll.

Zeus plays flashlight tag with the earth, before depositing a glowing glob into a baby, in a scene about which the less said, the better.

Sybil Danning, who is dressed like one of King Tut’s molls from the old Batman TV show, conspires with the Captain of the Guard to kill the king and the queen, and the “little Hercules” (apparently Sybil saw Lou in his flesh colored jockstrap).

Before our regicide gets underway, however, the Captain has Viet Nam-like flashbacks to more expensive cheap Hercules movies from the 50s and 60s, with actual costumes and sets and battle scenes.

Meanwhile, an archer with a patent leather do-rag pulls a big sword out of a hibatchi and is rightwise born king of all England as soon as they invent it.

The Captain rallies his troops, and again we get a fresh perspective on the founders of Western Civilization.  In addition to their Illyrian helmets, Boeotian shields, and bronze spears, Greek soldiers were also equipped with Bedazzlers, judging by the generous use of rhinestones on their armor.  Apparently there’s a previously unnoticed footnote to the Iliad which reads, “Fashions by Bob Mackie.”

So the royal family is slaughtered, but a maid snatches up “Poor Little Prince Hercules” and flees through the forest, although according to the Foley artist she’s running through corn flakes with a goat in her arms.

She puts Baby Hercules in a boat and sends him drifting down the river, where he bumps into Moses going the other way.  The boat drifts past some View-Master slides, then goes over a waterfall, but the infant is saved at the last moment when his boat is caught in mid air by a giant cartoon hand from Monty Python.

Hera is one of the three remaining gods and is pissed that she has to work a double shift, so she sends two snakes to kill Hercules.  And when I say “snakes,” I mean “two yard long turds that have been flocked like Christmas trees and spray-painted the color of split-pea soup, then given two bicycle reflectors for eyes.”  It doesn’t work out.

Herc is plucked from the river by two Greek peasants who live in the Flintstone’s house for some reason (possibly Fred was laid off from the quarry after the transition from stone to bronze tools, and he and Wilma walked away from their mortgage.  Or maybe Dino matured into a velociraptor and learned how to open the front door).

Herc’s foster mother is barren, but likes to press the infant to her dry breast just to mess with him.  Nevertheless, he grows up into big ‘n tall Lou Ferrigno, who mercifully trades in his invisible G-string for a Naugahyde diaper.

Herc is out in the forest, harvesting Styrofoam trees, when his father is mauled by stock footage of a bear.  Hercules is so enraged that he screams and punches the camera, then throws a Build-A-Bear into orbit.  It collides with a bone hurled by a slightly more intelligent hominid from 2001: A Space Odyssey, then the murderous plush toy explodes into a Laser Floyd show, finally settling down and becoming the constellation of Ursa Major.

Meanwhile, Minos has abandoned Crete and is also now living on the Moon (it’s getting really built up over there), where he has been crowned king of an exterior set from Star Trek.  He uses the transporter to summon Dedalus, who in this version of the myth is an alien chick dressed in a plastic unitard and a shower curtain with a cellophane Dracula collar, a codpiece, green spray-painted cowboy boots, and a golden leather football helmet with fish fins.

Minos believes in Science!, so he commands Dedalus to create some mechanical monsters which can destroy Hercules.  She responds with some Mexican Day of the Dead figurines and a Millennium Falcon model someone assembled while on acid, then burned in the driveway.

Back on Earth, Hercules is plowing a field by dragging some rocks behind him.  Weaker men might have preferred to plow using something with an edge on it – like a plow – but Herc likes to flaunt his demi-godly strength, and frequently uses rocks in place of ordinary household items, like forks, or toilet paper.

Suddenly, Hercules’s friend Mulletus gallops over the hill and screams, “Your mother is in danger!”  Then he turns and trots off.   Herc’s expression is rather blank, but he undoubtedly appreciates Mullutus telling him that his mom is about to be killed.  He probably would have appreciated a ride even more.

By the time Hercules arrives, his foster mother has been killed by an infernal machine (it’s supposed to recall the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans grown to Brobdignagian proportions, but it more closely resembles a Norelco shaver made out of Legos and despair).

After an implied fight with the Tinker Toy monster thing, Herc cremates his mother, then torches the Flintstone place.  Mulletus asks why he’s burning down his own house, and Herc replies, “I don’t have a house anymore.”  Well, no, now that you’ve just set it on fire.

Hercules goes off to audition for some king (I think his name is Brad) who’s looking for bodybuilders with a minimal amount of stage combat training.  Our hero doesn’t seem to qualify, but his Fairy Godeditor helps out by enchanting Herc’s sword, so that whenever he smacks someone it burps out a crappy video effect.

Next, Hercules must fight twenty men at once.  Unfortunately, he never learned the complicated rules of Greco-Roman wrestling, so he just picks up a giant log and crushes everybody.  Then he hurls the log into deep space, where it becomes the Duraflame constellation.

The king’s daughter Cassiopea wears a veil, because it is foretold that she will marry the first man who sees her face, or maybe because she just hasn’t waxed her mustache lately.  She’s Greek, after all.  The king subcontracts Hercules to escort Casio to Athens, but first he has to clean all the horseshit out of the stable, then see what he can do about rinsing some of it out of the script.

Herc tosses a rock into the Grand Canyon, which somehow makes the Colorado River take an elevator to the top and drown all the horses.  It also turns the stable into a sparkling gay bathhouse

The mildew-free tile and wet, dead horses arouse Calliope, and she removes her veil in slow motion.  She and Herc stare at each other blankly for a minute, then they kiss; but suddenly, a badly superimposed Zeus appears and shoots a lightning bolt at them from his forehead.  Then Sybil Danning shows up in a formal swimsuit and has the unconscious lovers taken aboard her ship.

You know those majestic triremes people in Hercules movies are always sailing around the world?  Well, they can’t afford one of those, so instead we just get to watch Herc go swimming (apparently he was thrown overboard in lieu of chum).

Herc washes ashore on that island where H.R. Puffnstuf is mayor, and is immediately molested by Witchiepoo.  She takes him to the Cave Room at the Madonna Inn and tests him for steroids and diabetes, then drinks his blood sample and transforms from a hideous crone into a beautiful maiden!  Or at least into a pleasant-looking woman in her thirties without a lot of dried rubber cement on her face.

Cut to the Los Angeles County Arboretum, where Circe (for it is indeed she!) and Hercules are standing beside a waterfall.

“This,” Herc exclaims, “is a Garden of Eden!”  Apparently it’s the beta version.

Circe was exiled to this Sandals Resort by Minos, but she can help Hercules find Callista if he will only help her to recover a lost talisman.  “We need the charm, to carry us wherever we want to go,” she tells him.  “Even to Thera!”  Which is where Sybil took the kidnapped, Chlamydia.  Unfortunately, “they threw it where no one could possible get it.”

But Hercules can get it.  All he’ll need is both hands and a flashlight…

Meanwhile, Casserole is imprisoned in one of those cardboard jails where people pay “fines” to get “bailed out” at Rotary Club fundraisers.

Circe leads Herc across the “Rainbow Bridge,” which leads to “the Gates of Hell.”  They don’t find his girlfriend or the charm, but they are greeted by lots of dead pets.

Charon, the skull-faced boatman ferries them across the Styx (at this performance the role of the River Styx will be played by a cement floor and a fog machine) to “Skull Island,” where they can presumably rescue Princess Tiger Lily.

Circe and Herc find her talisman; it’s in a big plastic Easter egg on a papier-maché nest, but it’s “protected by a triple barrier,” according to Circe.  Herc reaches for the egg, which makes his hand disappear, and weird electronic music play, so apparently two of the three barriers are a process shot and a Theremin.

Herc reaches for the egg again, and this time his arm bursts into flame and burns cheerily like the WPIX Yule Log.  Then it freezes.  Then he reaches inside the egg (which is squishy – apparently ickiness was the third barrier) and pulls out a Christmas ornament.  And just in time for the holidays!

Okay, so now they can go find Cassette, right?  Nope.  Circe uses the talisman to transport them to the set of a Beach Party movie, where Herc has to fight the King of Africa, who arrives on a sedan chair borne by the Washington Generals.

The King offers to give our hero a ride to Thera, but only if the demi-god agrees to irrigate the land, because apparently Herc went to Agricultural college.  This could take awhile, so Circe transforms Hercules into Ultraman, and he grows large and tall enough that we really can’t help but look up his skirt.  Thanks Circ.

Unfortunately, one upskirt shot and Circle falls in love with Hercules, which makes her lose all her powers.  But they accidentally arrive at their destination anyway –  “the Green Isle of Thera,” so named because everything is shot with a green filter.  And wouldn’t you know, the instant they arrive, Circe is shot with a laser by – I’m not kidding – a robot Cyclops centaur.  Hercules smacks the thing around until it makes a sound like a 1970 Plymouth Duster swallowing a valve, and then, in it’s death throes, it performs anal sex on itself with its own tail.

I’m still not kidding.

Herc breaks into the Green Lantern Corps’ central power battery for some reason, then falls down a hole.

Meanwhile, Sybil takes Cassavetes to her father, who turns out to be that Minos guy from the Moon.  He watches Herc futz around inside a snowglobe for awhile, then suddenly stands and shouts, “Science!” like Thomas Dolby if he were dressed like an Amish Burger King.

Herc wakes up chained to the floor, just as Sybil arrives with a chalice full of “The Black Lotus” and tells Herc they’re going to get high and then boink.  But for probably the first time in the history of these movies, Hercules doesn’t actually drink the roofie.  Instead, he pulls off the fake chains, and then actually fights some opponents who weren’t made out of miss-matched Aurora model kits and added later in post production.

Minos takes Cass Sunstein into Mount Doom, where he plans to stuff her into a picnic basket and lower her into the lava.  She seems okay with this, probably because the “lava” appears to be Campbell’s tomato soup on a low simmer.

Herc arrives, freshly unboinked, and goes mano a mano with Minos.  But the king is armed with a glowing, flaming, multi-colored sword that’s kind like a light saber if they came in Neopolitan flavor.

Since our two foes are elderly and lumbering, respectively, it’s not exactly the climax of the 1938 Robin Hood.  But Herc does accidentally make the volcano erupt with stock footage, setting fire to the entire island, and killing hundreds of extras from other, less cheap Hercules movies.  Castrol and Herc panic and run around the tiny set, while we cut to shots of burning Styrofoam pyramids and hear the ADR folks shrieking gamely from the looping stage.

So, Herc has managed to kill everybody on the island, but he did get the girl.  He just doesn’t seem to know what to do with her.  Mama Cassiopea tries to give him a kiss, but he deflects it and retaliates with a little pack-patting hug.  Then they suddenly shoot into the stars, where they become the Just Good Friends constellation.

Movies, The Book | 13 Comments »

Moondoggie: Rawr.  I’m attacking you.

Rawr.

Okay.  I’m spent.

Riley: Pretty scary, huh?  This is what Night of the Lepus would’ve been like in 3-D.  Yes…The only unlucky rabbit’s foot is the one that’s coming right at your face!

Wild Things | 5 Comments »

Let’s check in with Tucker Carlson’s Daily Galler (I mean, let’s not actually go there, but let’s open the email his flying monkeys sent me [actually, I don't think his monkeys can really fly, but judging by their prose style they tend to drop acid and watch Dragnet, so they probably think they can].  Anyway…).

So if I’m reading these hilarious allegories right (and admittedly the words are a little blurry when viewed through tears of laughter), then workers who vote to organize for better pay and benefits are the moral equivalent of black rats carrying a disease that killed off half of Europe.  On the other hand, the Tuckerites are more sympathetic to Feminist issues in the workplace, and regard women struggling for equal pay and opportunity as no worse than the Spanish Influenza of 1918.

As always, however, the prime similes are reserved for the President, and Tuck’s Medicated Spam does not disappoint, comparing him to a black man vaguely remembered for spousal abuse.  And therein lies the genius; most people going with the domestic abuse analogy would have compared Obama to Mel Gibson, in a pathetic attempt to keep the reference hip and topical, but if there’s one thing Tucker believes in, it’s keeping it real.

Behind the Subtext | 11 Comments »

Remember in Battlefield Earth, when the primitive, loincloth-clad humans were able to pull thousand-year old F-16s out of mothballs, fill them with aviation fuel they found somewhere, and — after a brief, tutorial slide show — take off and successfully dogfight their interstellar conquerors, even though they hadn’t yet mastered toilet paper or the pulley?  Well, just when you think the right wing blogosphere has begun running out of bizarre conspiracy theories, they suddenly dig up a 50-year old cache of crazy and start going all Top Gun on your ass.

So…Do you have strong, healthy teeth, and vague, Bolshevist yearnings?  Yeah, me too.  Turns out, Robert W. Welch, Jr. and General Jack Ripper were right, and a half century of fluoridation has left America weak, easily confused, and prey to the subversive blandishments of a Red Diaper Moor.  Oh, and the Final Solution was just a byproduct of Nazi experiments in dentifrices and aromatherapy.

At least, that’s what I’ve gleaned from the latest RenewAmerica column by Cynthia A. Janak.

Fluoride — what you do not know

As you, my readers, know, I am a very curious person and when some item catches my attention I research to find all the facts. As you can see by the title Fluoride did just that. Let me tell you why. One day I was curious when brushing my teeth as to what is in my toothpaste. What caught my eye was that there was a warning on the label. That set off the red flag as to the fact that my toothpaste has the potential to be dangerous to my health. Needless to say, I finished brushing my teeth quickly and started my research.

And research is one of Cynthia’s specialties, according to her bio:

Cynthia Janak is a freelance journalist, mother of three, foster mother of one, grandmother of five, business owner, Chamber of Commerce member. Her expertise is as an administrative professional. Her specialties are adoptee and genealogy research and research journalism. Hobbies: Writing prose, crocheting, Conservative Studies, and rehabbing houses. You can visit her website at www.cynthiajanak.com.

I paddled over to Cynthia’s site and took a quick look around, but I wouldn’t recommend getting out of the boat unless you’re interested in an administrative professional’s alarums about the HPV vaccine, and the shaky link between autism and vaccination.  But I don’t mean to denigrate Cynthia’s expertise, especially when I see that she has consulted with the FDA over the Internet!

I was part of an international effort by a group of women to bring out the truth about Gardasil and Cervarix.  The FDA gave us the opportunity to present our concerns by sponsoring a listening session webinar.   UPDATE: FDA has not responded to the concerns that were brought to their attention.

I don’t know which GS-2 at Health and Human Services drew the short stick and had to log into that chat, but I bet her inbox was remarkably clean by the end of it.

The first and only ingredient I looked at was Sodium Flouride. The reason being is that Sodium Flouride is the reason for the Warning label on my tooth paste. Here are my findings.

I’ll spare you the lengthy quotations from Wikipedia and just push on…

I just had to find out more about this because I thought my toothpaste was safe and in essence it isn’t. So why do we have fluoride in this product? I decided to go and find the history behind Fluoride and this is what I found. [...]

What interested me here was I. G. Farben. I know that I. G. Farben was the company that did the studies at Auschwitz. The other thing that interested me was about the fumes the fumes of these compounds have a pleasant, slightly aromatic odor. But a few minutes after inhalation there’s a feeling of pressure to the larynx and difficulty in breathing. I instantly thought about the gas chambers in the concentration camps. I just had to look this up to verify association.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd102.htm

“To whom it may concern: I, Oliver Kenneth Goff, was a member of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League from May 2, 1936 to October 9, 1939. During this period of time, I operated under the alias of John Keats and the number 18-B-2.

Goff’ (or “Keats”) was careful to maintain his cover by never meeting directly with his NKVD handlers, instead using a Grecian urn as a dead drop.

My testimony before the Government is incorporated in Volume 9 of the Un-American Activities Report for the year 1939…”

“We discussed quite thoroughly the fluoridation of water supplies and how we were using it in Russia as a tranquilizer in the prison camps. The leaders of our school felt that if it could be induced into the American water supply, it would bring about a spirit of lethargy in the nation; where it would keep the general public docile during a steady encroachment of Communism. We also discussed the fact that keeping a store of deadly fluoride near the water reservoir would be advantageous during the time of the revolution, as it would give us opportunity to dump this poison into the water supply and either kill off the populace or threaten them with liquidation, so that they would surrender to obtain fresh water. …”

I apologize for the long excerpt, but I’m a sucker for spy novels and Cold War thrillers, especially Fleming’s The Man With The Seared Palate, about a plot by the Soviet Union to tamper with America’s stoves, so that people would overheat their Sloppy Joes, and when they’d take a bite it would burn the roof of their mouth. At the same time, Smersh agents would snatch away the victim’s beverage and refuse to give it back until they pledged allegiance to Khruschev.

I could not find any reference to this being used in the gas chambers but I did find the above reference to what they did with the water and how they used Fluoride as a tranquilizer.

1942.  At the Wannsee Conference, Dr. Josef Mengele, D.D.S., is personally chosen by Gestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich to oversee Hitler’s plan for fluoridating the Jews.

I just had to read further because I was under the impression like all of us that Fluoride was good for better teeth and less cavities. Boy, was I wrong.

“[T]he German General Staff [devised a] scheme was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water. In this scheme, sodium fluoride will in time reduce an individual’s power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain, and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. Both the Germans and the Russians added fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile.”

However, the plan backfired on the Nazis in late 1944.  Desperate to free up badly needed combat troops for the front, the SS recruited Cavity Creeps as prison guards, but they completely failed to intimidate the well-enameled POWs.

This just made me sit back and digest all that I have read because during the last 10–12 years people in the independent media have been complaining how apathetic the people of the United States are. In the last few years they are calling the people “sheeple.” Do you think this is why?

I imagine this is how Mr. Rogers would have sounded if he’d subscribed to The New American and saved his urine in Mason jars.  But I guess the most important lesson I’ve learned is that Americans went to the polls in 2008, like lambs to the slaughter, and elected Obama because we’ve been brainwashed over the last fifty years by our own dental hygiene.  Which means that the only people we can trust to lead us in these dark times are meth addicts.

I call shotgun on the Bandwagon.

Get the Butterfly Net! | 27 Comments »

Well, I don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to savor this victory, but I’m going to savor the hell out of it while I can.  In the meantime, Bill S. pointed us to this secret strategy video stolen from the National Organization for Marriage and released by WikiLeaks.

And in conclusion, Bill has composed a hasty but heartfelt little ditty for the occasion:

OH, HAPPY GAY
(to the tune of “Oh, Happy Day”)

Oh, happy Gay! (Oh, Happy Gay!)
Oh, happy Gay! (Oh, Happy Gay)
When bigots lost (bigots lost!)
When bigots lost (Really lost!)
Oh, when they lost (Bigots lost!)
On prop 8 today
(Oh Happy Gay)

Oh, by the way (May I say)
Oh, by the way (May I just say)
Their case was weak (Weak it was!)
Oh, lame and weak (Weak it was!)
How week it was!
Testify, Tisinai!

I hate kick someone when they’re down, but, “ suck on that!”
Unless they’re just a dumb, spiteful clown-or NOM Asshat!

Oh happy Gay (Oh happy Gay)
Oh happy Gay (Oh, happy gay)
Equality (Quality!)
Equality (Quality)
Equality (Quality)
In Cali-for-ni-a
OH HAPPY GAY!

-Bill S

Update: Our friend Evan at Truth Wins Out has a delightful compendium of anti-gay wingnuts working their bile ducts like a pump handle.

Free At Last, Guest Column | 10 Comments »

Anybody watch Rubicon on AMC the other night? It’s pretty good. It’s about an analyst at a NSA-type organization who notices some synchronicity in the world’s crossword puzzles. And then people start dying. (Damn you, NY Times!) As the promo tells us, “Not all conspiracies are theories.”

And I have to say how happy I was that Scott paid a call on our old friend Pastor Swank. It made my whole morning to read of the Pastor’s homey encounters with buns, crack, hepatitis-laden earrings, watchful librarians, and scalding spouses. (I think we now have the background we need to properly appreciate the story of how the Pastor was planning on abandoing his wife to the actions of his homicidal son and fleeing town on a Greyhound Bus.)

And speaking of crazy old guys and conspiracies, Chuck Norris has uncovered the scoop of the century: President Obama is planning on assassinating his U.S. opponents. You know, because he’s a liberal!

Obama’s US Assassination Program?

Sound too conspiratorial to be true? Like the cover-up ops of spy novels? Well, it’s reality.

And the fact that you are hearing about it from the actor who starred in Invasion USA doesn’t mean it’s not!

And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people.

It’s even more bizarre than the federal law against growing your own tomatoes that my “Number of the Beast is Obama” relatives and acquaintances keep raving about. And it’s even more inhumane and abusive than reinstating the inheiritance tax!

It’s not an extremist belief or theory of the far right.

It’s an extremist theory of the crackpot section of a really gullible portion of the Glenn Beck wing of the wingnuts.

And it’s the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: a presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are in the literal scopes of the executive branch based upon nothing more than allegations of terrorism involvement as the branch defines it.

It’s a little known fact that members of the elite Presidential Assassination Program find the executive branch a much deadlier weapon than the AK-47, what with its high-tech literal scope and all.

Of course, the CIA has executed covert assassinations of foreigners for decades. But tragically, Obama is expanding this program to include American, non-Islamic, stateside, homegrown terrorists.

Okay, this is the crux of Chuck’s objection to this imaginary assassination plan: not all of the people on the hit list are Muslims!!!

According to Chuck, the outlines of the conspiracy were first revealed in January, when The Washington Post reported: “As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a (Yemeni) compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture.”

The horror, the horror!

“A shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing”?

“Or capture” Chuck. Remember to read to the end of the sentence.

That’s right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet.

Remember the good old days when conservatives were whining about how liberals were too soft on terrorists, what with the chicken l’orange at Gitmo. (Not to mention the wimpy way liberals were always objecting to water boarding and “24″ and such.) Well, those days are gone, and now the problem is that the Democrats AREN’T Mirandizing al-Qaeda members, which is against everything that conservatives hold dear.

Well, the real new problem is that apparently Obama has decided to kill everybody and let God sort them out. At least, that’s what Chuck has taken from some media stories that somebody in his “Birthers” news list group mentioned, or he heard about through his fillings or something.

The gist of the evidence of this conspiracy is:

A former director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, confessed before Congress: “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”

Meaning that, for instance, a strike is planned against a Yemeni compound where a U.S. citizen is thought to be plotting with al-Qaeda leaders, they need to get permission from the President before sending the missile.

If you are wondering who the “we” are to whom Adm. Blair refers, they are Smith, Wesson and the White House.

Hey, that would be a great idea for a syndicated TV show: “Now, from the producer who brought you Walker, Texas Ranger, watch out for Smith, Wesson, and the White House. They get the bad guys! No due process. No trial. Just a bullet. Coming this fall!”

Now we know what deputy national security adviser John Brennan meant when he admitted in May, “And under President Obama, we have built upon the work of the previous administration and have accelerated efforts in many areas.”

Yes, now we know. That reference to “many areas” tells it all. And it’s more horrible than we could have possibly imagined!

Brennan further explained then that the problem of homegrown terrorists ranks as a top priority because of the increasing number of U.S. individuals who have become “captivated by extremist ideology or causes.” He went on to say, “There are … dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts of the world and … are very concerning to us.”

Do you think “different parts of the world” doesn’t include their country of origin?

And do you think that “are very concerning to us” doesn’t mean “And so we are planning on shooting them dead in their karate studios or while they sit at their typewriters working on their next Town Hall column, because we hate those stupid Tea Parties SO MUCH!”?

Anyway, there is legislation to legalize all this. As Chuck explains, there was this act, “H.R. 1955,” which was passed in the House but was rejected by the Senate.

Everyone thought that legislation was dead

. . .Cue the ominous music

. . .until the Obama administration resurrected its tenets in its 52-page “National Security Strategy,” released in May.

And because this strategy has 52-pages, no one could possible link to it, quote from it, or even cite some of its horrible tenets. So, just trust Chuck when he says that it’s been assembled from parts of dead legislation, zapped with lightening, and now IT’S ALIVE and spreading terror among the villagers!

So alarming is the feds’ potential abuse of power that officials from London to the Kremlin are recognizing the threat to U.S. citizens.

The European Union Times reported, “Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government.”

And if we can’t trust the Kremlin to tell us when we should be alarmed, then who can we trust? Well, certainly we can panic when we read an undocumented quote from a European paper stating that unnamed officials from unknown countries are warning that this law is going to cause half a million US citizens to be put in jail for opposing the government.

But I guess there is different legislation that allows the President to deal with the really annoying people via the “No due process. No trial. Just a bullet” option. Here, let him explain it himself.

President Obama explained in an often overlooked statement within the “National Security Strategy”: “We are now moving beyond traditional distinctions between homeland and national security. … This includes a determination to prevent terrorist attacks against the American people by fully coordinating the actions that we take abroad with the actions and precautions that we take at home.”

Could it be any clearer? Right out of the horse’s mouth. Or do I need to spell out what “fully coordinating the actions that we take abroad with the actions and precautions that we take at home” means?

Damn it, you heard him yourself! The President just admitted that he plans to “Fully coordinate, with extreme prejudice, the actions that we take to blow up terrorist headquarters in Afghanistan, with missile strikes at home, in downtown Los Angeles, if we feel this will prevent an attack on the American people by someone disagreeing with White House policy.” Could it be any clearer? COULD IT???

Remember the words “a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing”?

That’s right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet.

. . .And a grave. In the Non-Islamic part of the cemetery. But no flowers. And a cut-rate funeral. With a really bad eulogy given by Pastor Swank. That’s what those on the shortlist of half a million will get. Unless somebody does something!

In Part 2 next week, I will give further evidence of “Obama’s U.S. assassination program” and explain why I say the administration is going after non-Islamic stateside radicals.

Next week is already here, and Part 2 is equally compelling. I will address it later today, or maybe tomorrow. Unless they get me first. With no arrest. And no trial. Just a bullet. And no health care. Just a Band-Aid. A generic one, from the Dollar Store.

I Cover the Wingnut World | 27 Comments »

From The Daily Caller’s teaser email, The DC Morning, which, as we’ve learned from Jim Treacher, is a pun on “D.C.,” and the multiple meanings of “morning”…

I must be getting old, but I gotta tell you, these kids today, with their meth, and their bow ties, and their cozying up to dynasties four or five periods before the Georgian era.  In my day, we renounced independence from the House of Hanover when we didn’t want to pay our taxes, and we liked it that way.  But then the Tudors got that TV series, and it had a slim and buff Henry VIII, and showed a lot of skin, and now all the youngsters think it’s much sexier to renounce them.

I’m a little unclear about that last part, however, because while I’ve admittedly done zero research on the subject, I somehow doubt that it’s “middle class people” who are lining up at our embassy in London to renounce their citizenship for tax purposes. That seems like the sort of thing more characteristic of our dickish home-grown oligarchs, doesn’t it?  But I will stipulate that the middle class is full of feeble, blood-sucking Fabians, because you can’t argue with The Daily Caller, or you’ll wind up looking like a pedant trying to correct a parrot’s grammar.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 8 Comments »

As some of you may (or may not) know, I teach in a very low income school in downtown Los Angeles. Needless to say, the California Economic Crisis is hitting us, and hitting us hard. We’re losing our Computer Teacher, our Librarian, our Social Worker, our School Counselor and so much more.

In response to the HUGE need that all public schools are facing in our country right now, Kohl’s Dept. Stores have set up a fund that will give $500,000 to the 20 schools that get the most votes through their FaceBook charity app thing. If you would like to help a public school in need, a public school that employs me, for instance, please take a moment and vote for us (up to FIVE times!) at Kohls’ Dept. Store FaceBook app: Kohl’sCares:

We are like 10,000 votes behind the top vote getter, so any and all help is much appreciated. If you are on twitter, and can tweet this (and would like to tweet this), please do! It’s totally free and easy to do. (mentioning it on FaceBook rocks, too!)

There are over 1,000 students who will benefit from your vote, and if we end up in the top 20, all of my first grade students will create a special art project for each and everyone of the WoC commenters who voted for them. What kind of “Art Projects”, you may ask? Well, Art Projects such as battle scarred Cat in the Hat:

Now a word from our sponsor | 8 Comments »

I was getting a little worried about World O’ Crap Spiritual Advisor J. Grant Swank, since he hasn’t been posting much lately on RenewAmerica, but it seems he was just looking for a change, and has now moved his base of operations to MichNews, and become a food critic. Today’s main course?

Portland Maine’s Munchiest Morning Bun

Memo to Salivary Glands:  Stand By for Action!

What a delight to wake up for the new day, climb into the wheels and make the journey inside Portland’s innards. Not only are there the wharfs with all their ambience—boats, fishermen, smell of the ocean and tourist shops galore—but there is my fav bakery.

Sadly, Portland’s innards are a bit too far for me to join the Pastor at his fav bakery.  But I do live in a very dense urban area, so I don’t even have to climb into wheels to reach a munchy morning bun; often I can just ride on the legs.

The morning bun is laden with syrup and walnuts spilling over its freshly baked self.

I’m a carnivore, but even I blanch at the thought of eating baked goods that have evolved and become self-aware.

If it is a gorgeous day, step outside to the waiting iron tables with matching light-weight chairs. Watch the birdies come to your toes, chipping away at any crumbs dropped from your festivity.

This may be the most adorable and light-hearted thing Pastor Swank has ever composed.  It’s like a greeting card written by Daphne Du Maurier after she was smacked in the head with an Indian club.

You might even spy the owner, Matt. He is an exceptionally cordial fellow. Over the years, we have become so-so friends.

And thus, an unusually tepid bromance was born.

Having moved to Maine in 1991, I have concluded that the morning bun is near the top of the list of the state’s highlight options.

Much tastier than a Yellow Sharpie®.

If you are ever in Portland, be sure to order the bun so as to test my suggestion. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Pastor, I don’t think you’ve ever disappointed me.  But then, I’m not, say, your wife, and you haven’t, say, just handed me a sack of second-hand earrings that belonged to a crazy old woman…

AMERICA’S PRIME RETAIL: THE YARD SALE

I got a small bag full of freebie earrings. Obviously, the woman meandering around her yard wanted to get rid of them and I thought my wife would like to have them.

“I don’t wear earrings that belonged to other people for I don’t trust the earrings for health reasons,” my wife exclaimed as I walked smilingly through the Maine cottage door.

“Just soak them in alcohol,” daughter Heidi cried out as she was leaving with baby to visit a friend in Portland.

So there! I won.

“I’ve browbeat my wife until she’ll gladly risk hepatitis C just to make me shut up!  I am the KING!”

But then, in the middle of his end zone dance, the Pastor gets a sad:

Spending a Saturday morning going around yard sales alongside Sebago Lake is tops. It’s the best America can offer when it comes to home grown yard sale retail. And then each time I think that, I wonder when DC is going to levy a sales tax on yard sales. Could happen these days. True, sadly.

Hm…That would almost make a good name for a website.

But in the meantime, till DC catching on, I thoroughly get a kick out of yard sailing. And it’s not just in buying things for nothing or cheap. It’s visiting the strangers-become-quick-friends-of-sorts along the way.

Once we came upon a Baptist Church having a “Free Yard Sale.”  It was in September. We had a ball going through this item and that, walking off with a lot of pre-Christmas presents that were actually brand new, at least brand new looking. When it comes to the little grandchildren, those stuffed animals were a giant hit.

And each stuffed animal was like ten thousand presents in one, thanks to all the bedbugs.  But between Swank’s so-so friends, and his strangers-become-quick-friends-of-sorts, I’m reminded of Clarence’s flyleaf dedication at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends,” and suddenly realize why the Pastor spends so much time cadging free crap off card tables.

Now this morning I drove off into some angst unknown to me.

Oh oh — Swank has climbed inside his wheels and driven into unknown angst!  And you’ll never guess what angst it is.  Turns out, the Pastor is a bit of a coke whore

“You had better get home as soon as you can,” the head librarian exclaimed when catching my eye.

“Your wife has been calling. She’s frantic because you have the car seat in your van. It seems Heidi needs it to put Grant Michael Wray in that seat so that the two of them can visit a friend in the city!”

I said: “I’ll see you in divorce court. At 71, I’m not used to having a child’s car seat in my life. It’s like having cocaine.”

Here’s hoping Swank and Lindsay Lohan wind up sharing a room at Hazelton.

Needless to say, I split down the center of town for the cottage. Bottom line: no divorce court, just a scolding that has still left a few blisters.

And the we hope the pedestrians and cyclists who were knocked into the gutter by a coked-up preacher barreling through the center of town also escaped with minor injuries.

But I think before nightfall all will be well within the family. It usually is. Time does heal.

But back to the main point: yard sales are America’s prime retail. You can bank on it.

So the lesson of today’s sermon is, if you’re suffering from blisters administered by your wife’s tongue, pull into a stranger’s driveway and buy a broken egg timer and some used stuffed animals.  It’s better than lancing.

Get the Butterfly Net! | 24 Comments »

I’m sure you remember RenewAmerica’s A.J. DeCintio, the retired teacher who “first exercised his polemical skills arguing with friends on the street corners of the working class neighborhood where he grew up,” and who now makes a living as a model for Take a Lap!, the fashion catalog for men who want to look like a middle school P.E. coach.

Liberals discover the root of evil

Pity the perverse loves.

Um…okay.

Why?

Oh — it’s a question?  I thought “Pity the perverse loves” was either an aphorism your grandma stitched on a sampler; or maybe it was Rerun’s hilarious catchphrase from What’s Happening Now!!

Well, while most of us agree with our ancestors…

I don’t.  My ancestors were jerks.

…who, for millennia, recognized them as roots of iniquity, liberals and other Democratic leaders have given them the boot, claiming to have discovered “the” root of all evil (and it’s not money).

Why are definite articles all so “ironic” nowadays?  Anyway, as our ancestors always said, don’t boot “the” root.

Before I reveal this singular, frightening reality the nation’s self-anointed paragons of rationality profess to have uncovered, I’ll list some other things it is not.

And you’ll want to stick around until he reveals “this,” because as Coach DeCintio tells us in his bio, he “he now applies those [polemical] skills, somewhat honed and polished by experience, to social/political affairs.”  Let’s watch him polish.

It is not the world’s dictatorial, murderous Marxist heroes, madman Mao, for example, whom an Obama appointee praises as one of her favorite philosophers.

Turns out, it was Madman Muntz.  And while he’s not one of Anita Dunn’s favorite philosophers, he can get you a better deal on a 4-track car stereo.

But never mind that — there’s still more stuff it’s not!

It is not the immorality of the generational theft that has characterized the federal government’s budgets for 50 years.

Coach DeCintio has inspired me to come clean and admit something that has always shamed me.  When I was 11-years old, I was busted for shoplifting a generation from the A&P.  But since it was just that whiny Generation X, they let me off with a warning.

It is not the danger of change agent Obama’s program to double the national debt in the next eight years.

I hadn’t heard about that program; I guess Obama must be a secret change agent.

It is not the cowardice and duplicity exhibited by post-everything Obama as he refuses to say exactly what tax increases and entitlement decreases will be necessary to avoid the disastrous explosion just mentioned.

He’s post-everything?  Post-Apocalypse?  Post Emily?  Postum?

It is not the dangers to freedom and prosperity inherent in the liberal/Democratic love of centralized power.

It’s the humidity.

It is not the tyrannically insulting unfairness of the “Louisiana Purchase,” the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the “Union Payoff,” and the hundreds of other abominations

Look, I’m sure your wife appreciates the effort, but if it’s making you feel that inadequate, just stop reading the Redneck Kama Sutra and go back to the “Missionary Position.”

It is not the democracy and Constitution scorning notion advanced by Nancy Pelosi and her gang that a piece of legislation can be “deemed” passed

“Excuse me, Miss…Where are the scorning notions?”
“Third floor, next to the contumely and linens.”

It is not the ugly, human rights hating nature of the ethos promoted by Islamist psychopaths.

But it is ……………….. Fox News.

Would that be “the” Fox News?  And who knocked over my jar of ellipses?

They quote from former DNC chair Howard Dean, who declared that FNC’s coverage of the Sherrod firing “was absolutely racist” and then (in English perfectly worthy of a raving buffoon) went on to condemn the network for “pushing a theme of black racism with this phony [emphasis added] Black Panther crap and this business [sic] and this Sotomayor [sic] and all this other stuff.”

Of course, that response is deserving only of the bitter Swiftian sarcasm of, “And this they call the triumph of reason.”

That’s kind of a weak rejoinder for the author of A Modest Proposal.  Maybe the Coach is quoting Tom Swift from Tom Swift and His Sucky Sarcasm Machine.

This supreme irrationality is further highlighted by the fact that in smearing FNC, liberals behave as if a “right-wing” (to use Rich’s term) bias has permeated television news since the fifties.

However, the truth is this:

When fifties TV execs (who had honed their entertainment skills in vaudeville) created the character of Uncle News Anchor, they overwhelmingly chose left-wing actors to fill the roles, a reality that has persisted to this day.

It’s a funny coincidence that we were just talking about Walter Cronkite, because even today a lot of people don’t know that he was originally played by Blacklisted actor Zero Mostel, and later by Will Geer.

Moreover, those execs packaged Uncle so cleverly and the actors did their job so well that by the seventies, one Uncle was deemed by a majority of the public to be “the most trusted man in America.”

That man, of course, was Ilya Kuryakin, who wasn’t even an American.

Swift would appreciate the irony.

“The most trusted man in America” — Even though the viewers of Newton Minow’s “wasteland” had absolutely no idea about how Uncle chose what news to report, what news to ignore, what news to repeat, what news to let die, which “newsmakers” to put on film (never live), which to ignore, which film to use (often ad nauseam), and which to leave on the cutting room floor.

Well, actually UNCLE had a pretty simple rule.  If a story was called “The (Something) Affair,” it was pretty much guaranteed a spot on the Six O’ Clock News.

Not to mention that in those days, the public, still in awe of the technology that brought us the “boob-tube,”

I remember I was so floored by the mere existence of television in the 1970s that frequently, while gazing awestruck at The Hudson Brothers, or Match Game ’72, I would abruptly scream, “WE ARE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!”

…bought into television’s feigned verisimilitude and therefore failed to perceive how Uncle and his identical-twin minions influenced “the news” in more subtle ways, for instance by their choice and intonation of words as well as by smiling, scowling, or even slightly raising an eyebrow.

This propaganda technique, known as “the Big Smile,” was pioneered by Goebbels after Nazi scientists, working at a secret underground installation at Peenemünde, developed a fast acting tooth whitener.

The clones of Cronkite, of course, were created in the final days of the war by Josef Mengele, as recounted in the book, The Uncles from Brazil.

That supremely dangerous, parochial, pretentious, and, irony of ironies, illiberal vision of news was, however, perfectly fine with liberals and the Democratic leadership because, as Huck Finn might have observed, “It’s how they would have done it themselves.”

And if Huck had to choose a news purveyor today, he’d almost certainly select  Fox News, because at least they’re not afraid of the “N”-word.

Finally, for those who demand still more evidence in support of the notion that perversity underlies the liberal/Democratic demonization of FNC, I close with this:

Given the constancy of human nature, it is impossible that liberals have booted the perverse loves to the line of the unemployed.

Ah, see?  I knew it would all make sense in the end.

I Pity the Fool | 18 Comments »