You Are Dumb - Idiots Say The Damndest Things

What They're Up Against

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:32:42 -0500

Election 2008, 27 August 2008

Memo to Karl Rove, Richard Cohen, and Megyn Kelly: YOU ARE DUMB.

I haven't really been paying much attention to the Democratic convention this week. With the Republicans invading my home turf next week, I need a bit of a political buffer zone. But I do need to give a certain amount of attention to Michelle Obama's speech on Monday. From all accounts, the Obama campaign put a great deal of care and effort into presenting the presumptive future First Lady in the best possible light and counteracting the wildly xenophobic right-wing propaganda from the primaries that she's some kind of raging militant.

And I hope, today, that they realize just how little anyone cares about that effort. And on the off chance they don't, allow me to helpfully provide a Michelle Obama Speech Reaction edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"I don’t think she did too well on saying I love America. That wasn’t adequate enough because, look, people are gonna hear that, and then those that have paid attention to her earlier comments are gonna try and square those two off." - Karl Rove, FOX News.

Assuming the human race survives and America regains its sanity, we're going to look back on this decade and wonder who the fuck it was that a news organization would pay Karl Dograping Rove to tell the viewers whether Michelle Obama demonstrated enough love for America. Karl Rove hates America. And it's not even an honest hate like Osama bin Laden's hatred of America. Karl Rove hates America in a sick, corrupt, selfish manner. He doesn't even have enough respect for America to bomb it. He just tunneled his way to the inside and started eating, like a fat fucking earwig. It must be tricky, gauging Michelle Obama's patriotism while you employ an army of Constitution-fucking Bush administration lawyers to keep your turd-blossoming ass free of a minimum-security prison.

"Last night, she gave the standard “Log Cabin” speech expected of nearly all American public figures -- born poor, raised in faith, etc. -- with nary a mention of race. It was a speech designed to reassure, but it did not do that at all. Politics can sometimes be ugly. In this case, we witnessed how a dynamic woman with a razor-sharp intellect had -- for the moment -- been lobotomized." - Richard Cohen, professional dickwad, Washington Post.

Oh, look, it's our good buddy Richard Cohen, last seen in these spaces lamenting how people think Stephen Colbert is funny and he isn't. Well, congratulations, Dick, because this was fucking hilarious. Worthy of Joseph Heller. Michelle Obama, portrayed as an angry black woman for the entire calendar year of 2008, gives a speech in which she doesn't rail against "whitey", espouse black militant theology, or wear a dashiki, and here comes Richard Cohen to immediately label her as inauthentic, overcautious, and LOBOTOMIZED.

I really hope the Obamas don't spend too much time finding that sweet spot where they don't intimidate racists while still pleasing media barnacles like Cohen, because that sweet spot is like Bigfoot, Jesus, and Richard Cohen's dignity. It doesn't fucking exist, and any time you spend searching for it is time you could better spend elsewhere. You cannot win with these people. It's the journalistic equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru.

"Do you think that, you know, her saying that she loves America, that she loves this country, is going to do it for those who questioned her patriotism? Because she said something -- what she said was, and I wrote it down, was, 'The world as it is just won't do.' If you replace 'world' with 'country,' you're back to the same debate, arguably, that you have been having about Michelle Obama's feelings about this country. Did she give her critics any fodder with that comment?" - Megyn Kelly, Fox News

And here comes Megyn Kelly, playing the role of three more Romulan ships in our Kobayashi Maru analogy. Even if you go over every single word for hidden meanings, exploitable loopholes, and potential misunderstandings, along comes Fox News to speculate on how unpatriotic it would have been if you'd said something completely different. But seriously, Megyn, if that's your REAL gratuitously-devoweled name, why stop there?

I mean, if you replace the word "she" with "I", "critics" with "boss", "fodder" with "head", and the word "comment" with "job application", you could argue that Megyn Kelley got her job by sucking off Rupert Murdoch. Which gets you back to the same debate, arguably, that we've been having over whether the entire on-air staff of Fox News, from Brit Hume to Steve Doocy, are complete and utter whores, or if they'd do it even if they weren't getting paid.

Let's all just cross our fingers that if Obama didn't know who his enemies were before this week, he certainly does now, and treats them with every last bit of plausibly-deniable contempt these wormhumpers deserve.

Temporal Anomaly

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:48:52 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 14 August 2008

Memo to Thursday: YOU ARE WEDNESDAY.

The nice thing about being the sole owner and proprietor of your website is this. You make the rules. When you make the rules, then you're the only person you answer to when you break the rules. Especially when the rules are little more than arbitrary traditions that serve no practical purpose. My point is, just because it's not Wednesday doesn't mean there aren't IDIOTS SAYing THE DAMNDEST THINGS.

"She is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that." - Minnesota's own Michelle Bachmann.

This, right here, is why I have so much trouble with the "live and let live" thing when it comes to religion. If Michelle Bachmann wants to believe that 2,000 years ago, Jesus saved the planet, that's one thing. Yes, it's ridiculously bad theology, but given the other claims made about Jesus, I can let slide that "saving the souls of a few hundred million Christians" is the same as "saving the planet".

But to believe that is one crazy thing thought by one crazy person. What's happening here is on a whole other level. Someone is setting public policy based on the belief that Jesus saved the planet 2,000 years ago, and on top of it, that it's the only time the planet will ever need saving, and the only type of saving the planet will ever need. That is certifiably batshit. That's driving down the road with your engine on fire, insisting everything is fine because you got the first free tune-up at the dealership ten years ago. And even if Bachmann's just saying it to score cheap political points, that means that there's an entire constituency out there to whom this argument sounds sane. And we knew that, I guess, but that doesn't mean I can't be irked every time it's reaffirmed.

"Why would I want to do that? I’m gonna have a good life out here in the private sector. Why would I go back to telling everybody in the world how much money I make and…barely surviving to have some obscure cabinet post and have some 20-year-old from the White House telling me what I’m gonna do? - Mike Huckabee, in an interview with an Arizona newspaper.

And speaking of crazy Christian hypocrisy, let's all take a long, hard look at Mike Huckabee, one-time presidential candidate, covenant marriage booster, weight-loss guru and soon-to-be TV show host. One of the enduring myths about Huckabee is that he's a true believer. That he may be a right-wing, prosletyzing douchebag, but at least he's not cynically exploiting his faith for political gain. Well, guess what. The Huckster feels the same way about public service and money as every other goddamned Republican.

The salary he'd "barely survive on"? Well, he was being asked how he felt about taking a CABINET POST in the unlikely event of a John McCain administration. You know what the lowliest of the lowly cabinet positions pays? To borrow from an old punchline, $150,000, same as in town. A hundred and fifty grand is subsistence level for Huckabee. I guess he was willing to settle for the lower-middle class Presidential salary, $400K, because of all the heathen-bombing perks and the cafeteria priveleges. Sounds like someone needs his fake saviour to come by and kick over a few tables.

"NOBODY WANTS TO MARRY A POTTYMOUTH... Outrage follows, much of it extremely unladylike." - Tim Blair, blogger for the Daily Telegraph, commenting on the anger from female bloggers after a story about a female blogger convention landed in the New York Times "Fashion and Style" section.

As a world-renouned pottymouth myself, I must call bullpucky on the farkakt ravings of this stupid melonfarmer. I would marry a pottymouth in a chicken-befriending minute, and there are millions of other global citizens who would do the same. I don't know what gosh-darned century Tim Davis thinks he's from, but "ladylike" behavior isn't some heckish Victorian constraint anymore. So Tim Davis, please offer a nice big piece of sugar to the horse you rode in on.

Why So Stupid?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:54:43 -0500

Republicans, 6 August 2008

Memo to the Wall Street Journal, the entertainment media, Mark White, and Robert Arp: SAME DUMB TIME, SAME DUMB CHANNEL.

How does he get such wonderful quotes? Well, it's all the product of an extensive research and development budget that allows me to manipulate cellphone signals and instantly locate stupidity on a global scale. "The Dark Knight" is a huge success, and like any huge success, will inevitably cause IDIOTS to SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS about it. Here we go.

"Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past. And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell. - Andrew Klavant, in the Wall Street Journal.

Now, in the week or two since his ridiculous fucking article got posted, Klavant has been, quite justly, mocked along the entire length of the Internet for saying it. But I couldn't do a Batman column without mentioning it, because it's so goddamned stupid. it's not just stupid, it's stupid circa 2003. Even the majority of wingnuts these days don't use the "Dubya as bold leader doing unpopular things to fight the Evil Hordes" framing much anymore.

Klavant, on the other hand, is so delusional he thinks Bush is somehow going to restore civil liberties in the next six months, that he's even bothering to pretend to "confront terrorists" anymore, and that "cherished in moments of folly" isn't just "Love it or leave it, hippie" in a rented suit and a comb-over. Here's a hint, dipfuck. When 78% of the country doesn't even think W's a hero, much less a superhero, it's NOT a parallel to a vigilante unfairly becoming the focus of public scorn. It's just a long line of people slowly coming to their senses, while you march in the other direction hoping against hope that the slag heap they're marching away from has a free buffet.

"...curse..." - IGN, The Telegraph, the LA Times, and countless others.

Look, fuckers, THERE IS NO CURSE. Yes, a camera guy died. Yes, Heath Ledger died. Yes, Christian Bale allegedly beat up his family. And yes, Morgan Freeman got in a car crash. You know what all these things have in common, besides the individuals involved all being in "The Dark Knight"? NOTHING. Stunts go wrong all the time. Actors OD all the time. Car crashes happen all the time. And Bale's alleged domestic abuse isn't some externally-imposed accident, he's just an alleged dickhead.

Maybe the Dawkinsian school of atheism has it wrong by going after the big guns of organized religion. Maybe we should instead start a campaign to eradicate the casual mysticism that permeates every aspect of society we live in. Three bad things happen to three actors from the same movie, and it's a CURSE. Three very bad things happpen to three actors who were never in a movie together, and it's "they always die in threes". The Huffington Fucking Post is running the daily horoscopes of McCain and Obama. Maybe this is the shit we should be eradicating. Maybe we can stop slowly indoctrinating people with the existence of supernatural banality. Of course, try taking the horoscopes out of the daily paper and you'll probably get burned in effigy. Or effigy ascendant, depending on what part of the month it is.

"But if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn't that imply that we should torture terrorism suspects if there's a chance of getting information that could save innocent lives? Of course, terrorism is all too present in the real world, and Batman only exists in the comics and movies. So maybe we're just too detached from the Dark Knight and the problems of Gotham City, so we can say 'go ahead, kill him.' But, if anything, that detachment implies that there's more at stake in the real world - so why aren't we tougher on actual terrorists than we are on the make-believe Joker?" - Mark White and Robert Arp, in the International Herald-Tribune.

Before I delve into some specifics, I'd just like to point out that the above is not logic. It's not reasoning. It bears no resemblance to any of the verbal and mental constructs humans have developed to forge a path between ideas and conclusions. It's just the clumsy juxtaposition of Something People Like and Something I Want. It's the semantic equivalent to "Pie is delicious, so why hasn't anyone given me a Playstation 3?"

Clearly, White and Arp like hurting people and are desperate for a way to feel good about it. How else can you explain their rhetorical backflip from a fictional obsessive vigilante unwilling to violate his own ethical codes even when it would make his life much, much simpler, to a nation deliberately abandoning its moral compass for the illusion of greater safety? It is, as I believe Sigmund Freud put it, "fucked inn der kopf".

These two, by the way, are the authors of "The Philosophy Of Batman: The Dark Knight Of The Soul", which is one more point in my Unified Shit Theory, specifically, the corollary that any book entitled The Blank Of Blank, where the first blank is some intellectual discipline, and the second blank is some nerdy pop culture thing, IS SHIT. The Genetics Of The X-Men? SHIT. The Physics Of Stargate: Atlantis? SHIT. The Epidemiology of Halo 3? SHIT. Stop writing these books, and stop excerpting them in major publications as if they weren't desperate cries for help.

Slavery Redux And Other Tales

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:20:44 -0500

Racism, 9 July 2008

Memo to Jonah Goldberg, Mike Huckabee, and Jerry Holkins: YOU ARE DUMB.

It's that time again. Time for the semi-weekly roundup of the astonishingly stupid things that spew from the mouths of the general public and the punditocracy. Because IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS.

"There's a weird irony at work when Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolishes slavery." - Jonah Goldberg, in the LA Times.

Holy shit! Barack Obama is gonna bring back slavery! I don't want to be a slave! I saw like 20 minutes of Roots this one time, and man, Geordie LaForge got his ass kicked. This is gonna suck. I'm voting for McCain, because he's a Republican, just like Abraham Lincoln, who I think was anti-slavery.

Wait, Obama was just giving the "we need national service" speech? The one pretty much every politician gives at some point? And none of them actually institute because, well, if we were the kind of people who wanted national service, we wouldn't need the government to make us do it? And even if they did, that wouldn't actually be slavery? Oh.

Man, it's almost as if Jonah Goldberg was deliberately exaggerating Obama's position in order to make white people more anxious about having a black person run the country. I'm sure that's just a rhetorical accident, and future Jonah Goldberg columns will be filled with more of the reasoned, intellectual discourse that made his "Liberal Fascism" book such a hit.

"The thing that many of us loved and admired about Jesse Helms was that, here was a guy, he didn't care what you thought about his view, but you were going to always know where he stood because he stood for something and he stood clearly. I think we're not seeing that in Barack Obama."- Mike Huckabee, Fox News.

Loving and admiring someone for their consistent stand is all well and good up to a point. When it becomes mind-bogglingly stupid is when that stand was, by all available evidence, that black people are inferior. That's when you're supposed to stop the goddamned love and admiration. Not get away with proclaiming it on national teevee. Now, I'm not saying Mike Huckabee's a racist, I'm just pointing out that he does love and admire racism.

And really? Comparing Obama unfavorably to Jesse Helms? The only acceptable way to compare Obama to Helms is to mention how uncomfortable ol' Jesse would have been using the same water fountain as the senator from Illinois. But that won't get you the Rupert Murdoch dollar, which Mike Huckabee desperately needs after showing the kind of political acumen that screams "I'm less appealing than a plastic Mormon and a doddering nutjob".

"The darkest revelation of modern times was that the game would include no player authorship of tracks. The benefit of this feature really can't be emphasized enough. Habitual readers of the site will know that I don't fully endorse Guitar Hero's method of going about it, but as an American citizen I tend to prefer more freedom over less... If one game has infinite songs, while the other has finite songs, the reckoning is clear.... I am a Harmonix stalwart to the end, but they've been outflanked." - Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, Penny Arcade.

Normally I wouldn't categorize Tycho as an idiot, but when the man is wrong, his is a wrong that dwarfs galaxies. To say that he has a bug up his ass about making music with video games is to do a disservice to the entire field of rectal entomology. Never mind that it's a fetish shared by almost nobody else, and more importantly, almost nobody else with talent.

Here, we have him boldly stating that a piss-poor version of the feature he craves, from the people who thought Battle Mode was a great fucking idea, gives the next Guitar Hero game an insurmountable advantage against the next Rock Band game. Which is true, in a universe consisting entirely of Tycho and this one guy I knew on the Internet once. You don't want to visit that universe.

Tycho says that infinite songs is automatically better than finite songs. By that logic, the comments on YouTube are better reading than Shakespeare, because YouTube features infinite user-created content. These are the ravings of a madman, and I hope he comes to his fucking senses soon.

Two Jims And A Big Baby

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:44:40 -0500

Dead People, 25 June 2008

Memo to James Lileks, Karl Rove, and James Dobson: YOU ARE DUMB.

For those who wonder about such things, no, yesterday's lack of column was not a tribute to the death of George Carlin. Not that he's undeserving of tribute - I'm just saying the two events weren't related. I do think it's both fitting and sad that he died when he did, though. Sad, because he died before the stupidity he railed against had fully bottomed out and we perhaps started to climb out of the hole we've dug ourselves. And fitting, because he died with all his most cynical feelings about the state of the human race completely justified. And in honor of that, IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"I never heard Carlin be as hard on himself as he was on his favorite strawmen. That wasn’t his job, of course, and you can’t fault him for the routines he didn’t do. But the more you confront and accept your own human faults the less outrage you find in the small mishaps of others, and I never got the feeling Carlin spent a lot of time interrogating his own character with the same confident derision he brought to things much greater than himself." - James Lileks.

Fuck you, James Lileks. Not for speaking ill of the dead, a pastime which I support wholeheartedly and, I suspect, will engage in with great glee when YOU finally pass on to a magical land where all the people remember Paul Anka and serve Jell-O salads and nobody is black. No, fuck you for being such a condescending prick about it. With the faux-sympathetic bit about how maybe Carlin would have been nicer if he'd recognized his flaws - flaws which you yourself don't actually bother to fucking enumerate.

About the only bad thing Lileks points out about Carlin is that Lileks found his later, politically-charged work less funny and more lecture-y, which is what happens when someone who's right is yelling at someone who's wrong. That's not Carlin's fault. But don't worry, James. Carlin never expected you to listen, and in your posthumous ramblings, you've managed to help vindicate Carlin's work. Dipshit.

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." - Karl Rove.

I'll give Karl credit where credit is due. Only the first sentence is racist. The rest of it is some of the weirdest fucking image-mongering I've ever seen, and that includes the entire rest of Turd Blossom's illustrious career. Is Karl Rove trying to turn us away from Barack Obama by telling us he's essentially a cross between James Bond and Jon Stewart? Because I'll forget that FISA bullshit in a minute if it means trading in the retarded brush-clearer for someone who hasn't run up a record class deficit in addition to all his other record deficits.

I mean, obviously, Karl's trying to tap some deep vein of doughy, middle-class American resentment here, but as someone who would never come within 1,000 feet of a country club willingly, if I were forced to be at one, I'd be desperately looking for the guy making fun of everyone else in the country club. And I'd endure second-hand smoke to join in.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology. He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter. Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?" - James Dobson

As irritating as this long election season is, you have GOT to love all these chances to see some of the most dominant rhetorical forces of the past decade, like Rove and Dobson, completely off their fucking game. First Rove attacks Obama for having metaphorical pretty girls date him, and now Dobson loses his shit because Obama mentioned his name in a speech about abandoning religious extremism in politics. And he does this by... being religiously extreme in politics. Even to a country deadened to hypocrisy, James Dobson accusing Obama of distorting the Bible will be the laugh line of the month.

Oh, and Dobsie? Let me answer your question. No, you aren't required to conform your efforts in a democracy. Assuming that means what I think it means. You do, however, have to be prepared to LOSE. And from the sounds of things, you've got a lot of preparing to do before November.

Demonstrably False

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:28:00 -0500

Election 2008, 11 June 2008

Memo to Amy Winehouse, K-Mart, and John McCain: YOU ARE DUMB.

Of the stupid things that come all too frequently out of the mouths of stupid people, few stupid things are more stupid than the Demonstrably False Statement. This is a statement that is so clearly and obviously contradicted by widely known facts AT THE TIME that the person saying it must be either lying out their ass, mind-bogglingly stupid, or both. We've had a slew of these in the past week, which means it's time for a theme edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"I don't want to play anything down, but I'm the least racist person going." - Amy Winehouse

This is, context-free, already a highly suspect statement. Under no circumstances would I, or honestly, anyone who isn't Amy Winehouse, put Amy Winehouse on a list of the ten, hundred, thousand, or ten thousand least racist people on the planet. It just wouldn't occur to us. And that's based solely on knowing that Amy Winehouse exists.

Where the statement becomes Demonstrably False, however, is when you're saying it in response to the release of a video in which, drunk, high, or both, you and your friends change the lyrics to the kids' ditty "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to the very, very, very not least racist at all "Blacks, Pakis, Gooks and Nips". I guarantee you, if there were ever a contest for least racist person going, that would be explicitly in the bylaws as an automatic disqualification. And if it wasn't, and you somehow managed to make it to the second round, the bit where you pulled at the corners of your eyes to make them all slanty would definitely seal the deal.

"It is not our intent to associate with any one particular group or cause." - K-Mart.

Once again, hearing this by itself, I would automatically be suspicious. Corporations associate with particular groups and causes all the time. Target donates money to schools. Wal-Mart hopes to hasten the Rapture. And I don't know exactly what they're up to, but I guarantee TCBY is up to something.

So when K-Mart rolls out a line of pants with "True Love Waits" plastered across the ad, and promotes the pants by saying they show "just where she stands" and has a "bold abstinence screen print" that happens to be the name of a national Christian abstinence-promotion group, I can't help but think that yes, in fact, it IS K-Mart's intent to associate with a particular cause - abstinence - and possibly with the group as well.

And on top of the lie, the abstinence pants themselves clearly violate Lambert's First Rule of Abstinence Promotion, and do so to an alarming degree. This rule states that any abstinence program must remember that it is competing in the marketplace against the orgasm, and must make its pitch suitably appealing to account for that fact. A pair of gray sweats with puffy, 1972-era multicolored lettering across the back competes with an orgasm in much the same way matter competes with anti-matter. Except the explosion happens nine months later in this case.

"I did not—that was in prepared remarks, and I did not—I'm not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage... My supporters and friends can comment all they want about the press coverage, and that's their right. They're American citizens. I will not because I believe it's not a profitable enterprise for me to do so. - John McCain, to Newsweek.

The question from Newsweek, by the way, referred to his comments about the press coverage of Hillary Clinton. Now, since John McCain clearly stated he's not in the business of commenting on the press, and clearly stated that any remarks that might be seen that way were in his prepared remarks, but not in his now-infamous Green-Screen Skeletor speech, I think we can deduce from this that despite what his speech writers tried to provide him on what was obviously three different Teleprompters, McCain exercised his own judgement and refused to cross a line he felt was important.

Ergo, when the prepared remarks said:

"The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes receives."

What actually came out of the mouth of either John McCain, or what, if they're smart, the campaign will claim was an animatronic McCain simulacrum created for the express purpose of covering up another secret trip to an Iraqi market, was this:

"The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes receives."

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from John McCain's example here, and that lesson is, don't fucking vote for John McCain.

I Am Lazy

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:08:52 -0500

Video Games, 30 April 2008

Memo to Grand Mal Automata: YOU ARE DUMB.

It is one of the great constants of the universe. Like the motions of the spheres, every year or so Rockstar puts out a new Grand Theft Auto game, and every time they do that, the traditional, misinformed chorus of IDIOTS come forward to SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"The glorification of killing of any police officer is just wrong. I mean, it desensitizes people to the real mayhem that's going on out on the streets, and we already have a real problem with people not valuing human life." - Eugene Blagmond, Fraternal Order of Police.

We definitely have a real problem with people not valuing human life. For example, real life New York police officers who pump fifty bullets into an innocent man (Sean Bell) then get acquitted of manslaughter charges because, well, we're an authoritarian society in which even when police do wrong, they cannot possibly have done anything different because being a cop is tough.

But by all means, blame the video game. Let's just hope none of the cops are playing it in their spare time either. We'd hate to give them the idea they can do whatever they want in a consequence-free environment.

"The figures show that East European immigrants are not proportionately responsible for any increase in crime. This plays on untrue stereotypes." - A spokesman for the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, reacting to the fact that in GTA IV, you play an Eastern European criminal.

I'm afraid the police are going to have to step back on the list of people who really have much more important things to worry about than their portrayal in a goddamned video game. Now, if CNN introduced a Flash-based Lou Dobbs simulator on their website, I could maybe see the JCWI being concerned about a video game. But as long as the Lou-ster and his ilk are out there, Eastern European immigrants don't have anything to fear in America as long as they stay out of the sun and avoid continuing-education Spanish classes.

"As for the 'idea people,' the television programmers and ad execs that come up with jewels like 'OMFG,' they have jobs because we are quiet. We have decided to give them our children." - Deirdre Reilly, Gatehouse News Service.

This isn't really about GTA IV. But I found it searching on GTA IV news because she mentions it in a long list of ills affecting society. I just wanted to include it here so that, for one, if she ever Googles her own name and finds this column, I can advise her to replace her picture with one that makes her look less like an electrocuted Joker who took too much Botox, then got in a time machine and went to a prom circa 1987. And, two, to remind her that just because the acronym "OMFG" appeared, apparently, in a Gossip Girls ad* doesn't mean they invented it. It's not like "Febreze". The term had a life, insipid as it was, before advertising.

"There's no reason at all to besot a child's mind with the kind of behavior celebrated in this series of video games... The last Grand Theft Auto game included prostitutes, killing police officers, porn, cocaine and killing people with Gatling guns and chain saws. Still want to buy that game for junior?" - Yael T. Aboulhalkah, Midwest Voices.

Actually, the last eight Grand Theft Auto games included prostitutes, killing police officers, and cocaine. Eight times makes them traditions, and as we all know, you can justify anything by calling it a tradition. None of the GTA games have had porn in them, and I'm pretty sure they took the Gatling guns and chain saws OUT of the latest installment. Just because you can throw around the word "besot" like anyone else with thesaurus.com bookmarked doesn't mean you've got your facts straight, dipshit.

"Since the first version was released in 1997, the Grand Theft Auto series has lowered the bar for graphic and grotesque video game content." - Tim Winter, Parents Television Council.

This is doubly wrong. First, what you mean is, it's RAISED the bar for graphic and grotesque video game content. It's lowered the resistance to it, maybe. Lowered the bar for the acceptability of? I don't know. It's not my goddamned job to straighten out the PTC's mixed metaphors, thank fuck.

But more importantly, grammatical considerations aside, no it fucking hasn't. Enjoy the following list, compiled with loving care by someone who gives a damn, of eight games more violent, grotesque, or offensive than the Grand Theft Auto games, all released during the same year as a Grand Theft Auto game:

1998 (Grand Theft Auto) - Mortal Kombat IV
1999 (GTA London, GTA 2) - Silent Hill
2001 (GTA 3) - The Typing Of The Dead
2002 (GTA Vice City) - BMX XXX
2004 (GTA San Andreas) - Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
2006 (GTA Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories) - Saints Row. Also, Sneak King.
2008 (Grand Theft Auto IV) - No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii)

I suppose it's great that Grand Theft Auto draws the ire and fire of all these morons - it makes so much money with each release that the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world don't dare cave to puritanical fuckwits. And it means that we can safely play the most violent, offensive, and hilarious game known to man (No More Heroes) on our family-friendly, innocuous Wii consoles, in an environment that's completely outrage-free.

In other words, these critics may be stupid, but at least they're stupid.

*Whatever the fuck "Gossip Girls" is. And no, don't tell me.

America's Racism Experts

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:55:30 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 20 March 2008

Memo to the National Review Online: YOU ARE TRANSLUCENT.

In case you were wondering why I waited a day to mention the Capital O Capital R Capital S Obama Race Speech, well, this column deals with stupid shit. And the ORS was many things, but stupid shit was not one of them. Now, as a veteran observer of the Kerry campaign, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea of any Democratic presidential candidate deciding that the best way to confront a controversy is with a thirty-minute speech full of complex arguments and nuance. But for the time being, Obama seems to have pulled it off.

Because it was a half-hour full of complex arguments and nuance, it gave plenty of opportunities for people who, by dint of genetic determination, political affiliation, or financial remuneration, are inevitably going to miss the fucking point. And it takes a bit of time for all that stupidity to arise from the ORS. Luckily, there is an organization committed to tracking down stupid people, finding out what they think, and letting the rest of us know what that is. It's called the National Review Online, and they've devoted an incredible amount of energy and resources to missing the fucking point. So here's an all-Obama, all-race, all-conservative, all-NRO edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS.

"Instead, the entire Wright controversy evolved due to America’s failure to understand the Wright’s past and the present status of race. No doubt, the next time some public figure utters a racist comment — and it will happen — we will then expect to hear about context that explains and excuses such an apparent hurtful outburst. - Victor Davis.

Davis starts off sounding reasonable, until you realize that oh, he's being dismissive and sarcastic. It's especially stupid, because Davis spends his whole article slamming Obama for his false "moral equivalence", operating under the premise that Jeremiah Wright's "racism" is no different from redneck, KKK, white "racism". Which I'm sure helps Davis sleep at night, but isn't, you know. Actually true.

"Indeed, Obama says that pretty much any inconvenient discussion of race is a distraction from what America really needs: a huge expansion of the welfare state. Obama says our racial problems can be healed with more money." - Jonah Goldberg

I give Jonah Goldberg credit. He is not, for a change, the dumbest person on National Review Online this time. It took him an entire page to get to the bit where he makes shit up, passes it through the official English -> Conservative dictionary, and screams in panic that Obama's going to take all the rich people's money and give it to poor Negroes. For Goldberg, this is actually an improvement.

"My problem is he spoke as if he hates America, as if he believes there's something fundamentally wrong with the greatest nation on earth. You can talk about racism, senator. But what how do you think about America? Is it what we hear from Mrs. Obama and the Obamas' pastor? How imperfect do you believe our union to be?" - Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Apparently, the most important qualification for the President, for Lopez, is what how does he or she think about America. And she thinks that what how Obama thinks about America might be insufficiently patriotic. I wish Lopez would quantify exactly what much how much criticism of America is acceptable, but I'm betting it's not what how very what how much.

"Remember when we were hearing about the need to purge Michael Moore and the MoveOn crowd from the Democratic Party? Obama is the polar opposite of all that–and in a devilishly clever way. Rather than move the Democrats away from the Michael Moores or Jeremiah Wrights, Obama buys absolution for them from the rest of the country. No, Obama does not fully agree with Jeremiah Wright, but the Democratic Party under Obama will be complacent about its Michael Moore wing. That’s why the MoveOn types are so excited about Obama." - Stanley Kurtz

Kurtz has apparently developed advanced strawman minigun technology, capable of firing nearly one thousand strawmen per minute. Obama is Wright is Michael Moore is MoveOn is Democrats? And, you know, I do remember when we were hearing about that need for a purge. We were hearing it from REPUBLICANS LIKE KURTZ. The left was too busy giving Moore awards and MoveOn money to care.

"Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama’s speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the 'useful idiots' useful." - Thomess Sowell.

Am I the only one who finds Red-baiting adorably quaint in 2008? I can't be the only one. I just want to pinch his widdle cheeks and say "Yes, Obama's a big bad Communist!".

"If Obama wants to move past the divisive racial politics of the past, why does he rehash these divisive racial politics of the past?" - Liam Julian.

Because, fucknuts, pretending everything is fine when it isn't? That's Republican strategy. It ain't fucking working in Iraq, it's not fucking working in the financial markets, it's not fucking working about climate change, and it won't fucking work on race either. It only works for individual Republicans who get out before the bombs go off, their portfolio collapses, their coast gets flooded, or the riots start.

"For two decades, Obama tethered himself to a fire-breathing pastor peddling bitter Marxist 'black liberation theology' in the name of God. Behind the “audacity of hope” was a grievance-mongering preacher animated by the voracity of hate. And understand this: The Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama were not merely passing 'associates.' They were mentor and mentee, guru, and student, with fates and fortunes intertwined. - Michelle Malkin.

I am legally obligated to point out that the above is part of a piece on racial politics in America written by a woman who put out an entire book celebrating the interment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. There is a point when "consider the source" becomes "fuck the source and the horse it rode in on", and Malkin is so far past that point that she needs the Hubble to spot it.

Your Guide To Identity Politics (Special Edition)

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:30:29 -0500

Election 2008, 12 March 2008

Memo to Geraldine Ferraro: YOU ARE DUMB.

One of these days, I really am going to get to my column about the difference between opposing Barack Obama, and opposing Barack Obama because you hate black people. It's a subtle difference, which is apparently why many white people are concerned they'll be accused of being on the wrong side of it. That will have to wait, however, so I can deal with Geraldine Ferraro, who, um, opposes Barack Obama because she hates black people. It's an exciting, special, all-who-the-fuck-is-Geraldine-Ferraro-again edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." - Geraldine Ferraro, March 7.

This is a slightly more blunt version of an argument that's been floating around the Clinton camp (Ferraro is one of Clinton's big advisers) for a while now. That people aren't voting for Barack Obama, they're voting for the "first black president", no matter who he is. Any old pile of melanin would do, really. Ferraro takes it a bit farther than most, though, chalking* up Obama's lead in the popular vote, states won, and delegate count entirely to his skin color.

I'm not sure how that would work, exactly - how Obama knew that now was the time to take political advantage of America's long-standing love affair with black males. But it's clearly a strategy that Ferraro has studied for some time.

"...if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race." - Geraldine Ferraro, April 15, 1988.

OK, apparently there's been some kind of secret affirmative action policy going on in politics since at least 1988, and none of us knew it because, well, we'd expect it to lead to a lot of African-Americans winning elections and taking office. But Ferraro knows! The years of experience gained from being forgotten after helping Mondale lose to Reagan cannot be denied! That said, for our collective sanity, let's NOT ask her about Eliot Spitzer's lieutenant governor and what it'll mean if he becomes the first black governor of New York. Because I'm thinking we don't want to know.

Obviously, Ferraro has issues. I don't know if she was raised that way, or if she's just bitter because the most famous Geraldine of all time is a black man, or what, but once people started yelling at her for being stupid, she doubled down on dumb:

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" - Geraldine Ferraro, March 11.

That's deeply fucking stupid, is what that is. That's so fucking stupid it should disqualify you from saying it, except maybe on Fox News. Oh, wait, it WAS on Fox News, your number one network for listening to oppressed white anchorpeople talk about how oppressed they are twenty-four hours a day. For Geraldine Ferraro's benefit, I've compiled a short list of reasons she's being attacked for her statement, so that she knows where "being white" ranks.

Because you said something stupid.
Because Clinton got an Obama staffer fired for calling Clinton a "monster", and it's payback time.
Because you said something borderline racist.
Because politics, and political reporting, is about who said what awful thing today.
Lingering resentment over the Mondale loss.
Because you're a woman.
Because about fifteen other people above you on the list weren't available for interviews
Because it's March.
Lingering resentment over the cancellation of Tucker Carlson's show.
Lingering resentment over expensive Italian sports cars.
The press corps is still gassy from those ribs at McCain's house.
Because you cried that one time... wait, no, that was Pat Schroeder.
Because Ralph Nader told them to from his mind-control bunker.

...

597. Because you're white.

I don't know what it is about this primary that's bringing out the crazy and stupid in people who were, if not, apparently, normally sane and smart, were at least quiet about it. I can't tell if it's good in the long run because it's dragging all these latent attitudes out into the light, or hurting in the short term because it makes the Democratic Party establishment look like even bigger idiots than usual. Probably both.

* If you'll pardon the expression.

G.O.P.U.

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:46:11 -0600

Republicans, 13 February 2008
Memo to Republicans: KEEP BEING DUMB.

After the latest in an endless series of pathetic failures by the MAJORITY Democrats to keep a lame-duck President with a 30% percent approval rating from getting every single fucking thing he wants, I need to remind myself that as awful as they are, the Republicans are still worse. So it's time for an all-GOP edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS.
"He said it appears John McCain has won. This wasn't a certainty. [People] expected to hear results and hear analysis of what they had spent the whole day doing," - Unnamed spokesman for the Washington State Republican Party.

This is notable because it's the last excuse for something ridiculous from the Washington GOP caucus. Ridiculous even by caucus standards. Now, caucuses are stupid, arcane things. Artifacts of a bygone era, byzantine processes composed of layer upon layer of abstracted representation that would be grounds for invasion of a third-world banana republic if they ran their elections that way. We get away with them here for two reasons - first, they're used to settle internal party business rather than an actual function of government, and second, we pretend they're like primaries, with votes and percentages and winners, even though they're not.

On Saturday night, with 87% of precincts reporting, the race was called for John McCain. Not by the media, but by the head of the state GOP, Luke Esser. McCain supporter. At the time he called it, complete with sending out press releases saying McCain "won", McCain had about 200 votes on Huckabee. Huckabee threatened to sue, Esser and the Washington GOP provided a variety of excuses, promised to count the votes, no really, and finally offered up a complete lie in the traditional Bush administration manner - claiming what we all saw them do was something completely different and much more acceptable. And right now, it looks like that's where it's gonna sit, unless Huckabee decides that it's worth losing by a little bit less to stick his neck into the ridiculous morass of rules and rituals that is the caucus system.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't. They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican." - Owatonna MN teen Cody Hauer.

Oh, shut the fuck up, you little wanker. Do not come crying to us about the supposed "liberal bias" of the Owatonna PD. I realize it's your duty as a Ron Paul supporter to assume that everyone is out to get you because of your brave political stance, but Owatonna is a pit-stop in the vast wasteland between Minneapolis and Iowa, not a hotbed of radicalism.

The reason you got pulled over five times is not because you were a Republican. As a Ron Paul fanboy, you're only barely Republican as it is. It's because of the three and a half foot wide "Ron Paul Revolution" sticker. Covering the back window of your car. Which is illegal, whether you're pimping Ron Paul, Sanjaya, or some other laughingstock who already lost their contest a while ago. At least Cody makes the misguided effort to emulate his poor, crazy, racist hero, though. He's challenging the law on First Amendment grounds, and claims "To be honest, I'm probably not going to win, but I'm going to go down fighting." With that attitude, Cody, someday you too could be excluded from debates during your quixotic and doomed run for political office.

"We have families because we don't abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism." - Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, on why the conservative blogosphere isn't as large or as effective as its liberal counterpart.

Be careful with that snark, son. It's obvious you don't know how to use it or where to point it. Since RedState is one of the leading lights of the online right, I can only assume that it's because Erickson has made the ultimate sacrifice - aborting his many fetuses and accepting welfare and unemployment benefits so that he can, unencumbered by family or capitalism, provide one of the leading Internet outlet for the mindless cheering of family and capitalism.

I have to say, the lameness of his cheap shot is the second-most surprising thing about that quote. The most surprising? RedState has an EDITOR? That means the shit that goes up on their site was even worse in draft form, and that's fucking terrifying.

Pray For Our Fallen Flag Pins

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:40:48 -0500

Patriotism, 10 October 2007
Memo to stupid people: WHERE WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT STUPID THINGS?

It's an interesting philosophical point. What would stupid people do without incredibly stupid things to talk about? I mean, sure, stupid people can say stupid shit about smart things (hello, creationists) but for an idiot to truly shine, to be happier, as they say, than a pig in shit, what they really need is something incredibly stupid to talk about. Which is why today's Idiots Say The Damndest Things is devoted entirely to stupid shit people have said about the single dumbest political issue of the last week, Barack Obama's lack of a flag lapel pin.

There's something a little off about a presidential candidate who disdains wearing the flag of the nation he seeks to lead. But maybe it's because the voters he's seeking see a defeated America as a good thing... Now, there's nothing wrong with not wearing a flag pin, and if it were just a personal preference, it would be a nonissue." - The editors of Investors' Business Daily.

In case you're wondering what those ellipses are hiding, there was exactly ONE paragraph of pure "what we're talking about" backstory between the claim that not wearing a flag pin is a signal to traitors and the claim that there's NOTHING WRONG with not wearing a flag pin. Following that? Another seven and a half paragraphs about what's wrong with not wearing a flag pin.

Along the way they blame Obama for "politicizing" his lack of a flag pin. Which quite frankly shows a level of drive and ambition from Obama that I've never seen before or since. Because the only way Obama could have politicized it was to e-mail the small newspaper interview where the pin thing came up to Matt Drudge, convince his close personal friend Drudge to run with it in giant letters on his website, then get Fox News, The Politico, and Investors' Business Daily to blow the thing up, er, precisely to its correct proportion? Hm. There's something wrong with somebody's logic, and I can't help but think it might be a bad idea to take investment advice from them.

"Obama's decision to scorn the flag is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard of him doing. Even if he thinks the flag pins are stupid, his response should be that he won't let the right claim the flag, not to cede the flag to those he disagrees with." - Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online.

Other than pointing out how grateful Obama must be that Jonah Goldberg is pondering correct flag-pin strategies for him, I don't have much of a comment here. I just think it's hilarious and telling that Goldberg has to so carefully qualify "single dumbest thing I've ever heard" the way he does. Even he knows the single actual dumbest thing he's ever heard is, "Hey, let's do a whole bunch of articles about Star Trek!"

"Why is it the de facto position on the Left that those who reveal outward manifestations of patriotism are, in fact, hypocrites or worse, fakes? What psychic awareness do they possess that the rest of us don’t, allowing them to glean intent and motive whenever the mood hits them to advance the notion that people who love this country and want to wear or wave the flag are, by definition, phonies?" - Rick Moran, Family Security Council.

It's not a psychic awareness, Mr. Moran, whose name I am not morphing in the obvious way because then I'd have to do it for Ed Koch in a few paragraphs too, just to be fair. It's called STATISTICS. You see, by observing large groups of people, one can start to develop a sense of the percentages involved. Things like the inverse ratio between the number of flag magnets on a car and that car's miles per gallon. Or the correlation between the likelihood of wearing the flag and writing incredibly stupid shit on a Family Security Council website.

In other words, dumbass, the Left does not think people who wear the flag are BY DEFINITION phonies. We think people who wear the flag are ON AVERAGE phonies. And we don't do it whenever the mood hits us. Just when some douchebag in a pickup truck blaring Lee Greenwood cuts us off in traffic.

"I don't wear a flag pin and never have, but it is not because I think those who do are jingoists, but because I don't wear pins, jewelry or rings. I don't like to put holes in my clothing... But Obama's justification simply jarred me. He wore the flag pin 'right after 9/11,' but then stopped... He has made the key to his platform that he was against the war with Iraq. But following 9/11, we went to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, a regime harboring al-Qaeda... The war in Iraq came in 2003, so what we are hearing from Obama is a confused statement mixing up the two wars. Does he now believe the United States response of waging war in Afghanistan after 9/11 was wrong? - Former New York Mayor Ed Koch

I regret having to trim bits from Koch's rambling, incoherent rant, but in my defense, it was really, really long. And I didn't think the bit about his medical bracelet was relevant. And trust me, the bits I excised in no way help me comprehend what in the sweet, merciful fuck Ed Koch is talking about.

As best as I can figure, removing the flag pin was an indication that Obama had stopped supporting the war, which isn't actually what Obama said and makes no fucking sense anyway. Since Obama stopped wearing the flag pin in late '01 or early '02, that means he stopped supporting "the war" at that time, and the only war at that time was America Vs. Afghanistan. Ergo, Obama can't tell the two wars apart. Someone needs to take away Koch's pen, give him his pudding, and put him to bed.

If you actually read between the lines, the reason Obama stopped wearing the flag pin was simple. He didn't want to be part of the post-9/11 jingoistic hateful insanity that gripped most of the country and nearly all the politicians of both countries. An insanity that led to an overflowing toilet's worth of awful, awful policy decisions that we're only just beginning to regret five years later. Which, by the way, INCLUDES fucking up Afghanistan, even though all good liberals are still supposed to say that clusterfuck was a good idea.

And that's about the strongest endorsement for Obama I can think of.

Moronized

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:25 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 5 September 2007
They're crazy. They're stupid. They are, at the very minimum, metaphorically motherfuckers. And they want you to vote for them, first in the primaries (all of which, by the way, were just bumped up to two weeks ago), and then in the general election. Yes, it's time for a special Crazy Motherfucking Presidential Candidate edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"If we leave [Iraq] under bad circumstances, we’re going to have a haven down there for terrorists. The whole area, I’m afraid, will become nuclearized. The Sunni countries are looking at what Iran is doing. And if we can’t help with stability in that part of the world, they’re going to help themselves, and they’re going to go nuclear." - All-but-presidential candidate Fred Thompson.

OK, first of all, NUCLEARIZED? After six and a half years of Babbly McSpeaksintongues running things, using the word "nuclearized" ought to be an automatic disqualification. In fact, I propose that we incorporate that Scrabble rule into the 2008 campaign. At any point, any candidate can challenge a word another one uses, and if a panel of linguists agree that it's not a fucking word, that candidate will be forced to withdraw from the race. That'll thin the herd a shitload more effectively than a bunch of Iowans walking around a civic center.

And second, if we somehow teleported every soldier, every diplomat, and every mercen... I mean "independent military contractor" out of Iraq right now, they're not going to be building centrifuges to enrich uranium tomorrow. And even if they did, they could only run them for about an hour a day, because that's how often the ELECTRICITY WORKS. As for the other Sunni countries, I'd love for Thompson to explain how our Iraq adventure is acting as a deterrent for, say, Saudi Arabia. Preferably without making up any new stupid words.

"It's time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station. The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called ‘recovery’ efforts has been mind-boggling. Enough is enough. The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end. This whole fiasco has been a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence at all levels." - Tom Tancredo, who, in his defense, probably thinks New Orleans is in Mexico.

Thank goodness a Republican has come along to stop hurricane victims from getting all the aid they weren't getting anyway because of all that awful federal waste, fraud, and corruption that in no way could possibly be traced to the Republican president, the Republican congress, or individual Republican members of Congress who might now be running for President on a "get tough on flood victims and kill all the Mexicans" policy.

Here's a hint, douchebag. That's not gravy in those people's living rooms. It's mud. More accurately, it's STILL MUD. And just because YOUR federal government can't do a goddamn thing right doesn't mean THE federal government can't do a goddamned thing right. The problem isn't the car, it's all the drunk morons trying to steer it while giving each other handjobs. Not in a gay way, in a Republican way.

"Well, I guess the only comment I'd make to Fred Thompson would be: Why the hurry? Why not take a little longer to think this over? From my standpoint, if he wants to wait until January or February, that would be ideal." - Mitt Romney, running on his Least Likely To Flip Out And Kill You platform.

This isn't particularly crazy, or stupid, or banal. Or it wouldn't be, if it weren't Romney's attempt to address the issue that he's "too nice" to run a serious, vicious political campaign. The whole thing sounds like shameless manipulation to me. Who are these people talking about how nice Mitt Romney is, and how much is he paying them? Obama gets "not black enough" AND "too black", and Romney has to disabuse the notion that he's not a complete ratbastard, and surprise, surprise, he doesn't actually manage to pull it off. GO LIBERAL MEDIA.

"Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary." - Proving my bipartisan nature, Democratic candidate Bill Richardson.

Bill, God created Adam, Eve, and Steve, not Adam, Iowa, and New Hampshire. The founding fathers guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not life, Iowa, and... oh, fuck it.

This probably belongs in Comedy Court, since this latest tardbomb to drop out of the mighty Richardson gullet was later explained as a "bad joke" and pandering to the Iowa crowd, but I'll be damned if I'm going to convene an entire Comedy Court over an n-th tier fuckwit like Bill Richardson. The guy botched the "are gays born that way" question in a debate. Right in front of Melissa Etheridge. I wouldn't give him a day-old sandwich, much less a full day in Comedy Court.

And you'll pardon me if, in 2007, I'm just a LITTLE BIT FUCKING TOUCHY whenever a presidential candidate says any aspect of American life, even the Iowa caucus, is ordained by the Bible. It's like the old saying goes, four thousand times bitten, four thousand and first time shy, babe.

Who Should The Sweaters Vote For?

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:32:45 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 18 July 2007
The universe must love stupid people, because it made so fucking many of them. Our species spends tens of thousands of years slowly developing the tools of language, and these dumbasses squander it. IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"I was embarrassed to be writing checks." - Stupid Bus Chyck.

I don't know who Stupid Bus Chyck is, I just know that if it hadn't been for the guy reciting his credit card number and expiration date very loudly over his cell phone, she'd have been the single dumbest person I'd encountered on the bus all day. This gem was one of many that loudly escaped her gaping maw, and it's the one that makes the least sense. Because of all the emotions writing a bunch of checks because for some reason your debit card was deactivated might inspire, I can't imagine how "embarrassment" is one of them.

It's not like you're violating some social more by doing it. If the place takes checks, they expect people to write them. There's nothing outre about it. You're not flashing your tits as a form of ID, are you? Because if you are, that's not standard procedure, and you should probably either report the clerk or date him.

"Gay sweaters" - John "Maverick" McCain, on one of the major problems with his campaign.

This is so awesomely stupid I'm mentioning it despite not having the original quote, but apparently, McCain's handlers are dressing him in ugly-ass cardigans, and McCain thinks that ugly-ass cardigans are the in thing amongst the homosexual male set.

I don't know what McCain's so upset about. He should relax. People aren't worried that he's gay, or that his sweaters are gay. People are worried that he's completely fucking insane, or that possibly his sweaters are completely fucking insane and are controlling his mind. Mostly it's just him, though. Plus, I have it on good authority that if his sweaters WERE gay, they'd be better off voting Republican anyway.

"You will be betrayed again, if you are fool enough to back Democrats in 2008. True, we conservative Christians might not seem the logical home for you, but you do know where we stand, we are ready to compromise and we will never, ever betray you. You might want to think about that as you watch the debate, and make your donation and voting choices." - Mark Noonan, of Blogs For Bush, explaining why homosexuals should vote Republican.

Which is completely insane, even by Log Cabin Republican standards. I mean, the Log Cabin Republicans at least are savvy enough to exchange hatred and bigotry for a capital gains cut. Noonan, on the other hand, is arguing that it's in the best interest of gays to vote for people they KNOW will screw them over HUGELY, instead of people who MIGHT screw them over a LITTLE BIT. Because the former is at least a certainty.

Although, to be fair, Noonan himself follows that exact same logic by continuing to support Lunatic the Dancing Monkey despite him screwing us all over in record amounts, so I'm not too terribly surprised he's inviting others to join him in his special crazy place. And speaking of a special crazy place...

"I'm not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore." - Peggy Noonan, writing for the Wall Street Journal.

I fucking love this quote. Not because of what it says, but because of what it doesn't say. What it doesn't say, and what Peggy Noonan studiously avoids for her entire article, is that the people who you said had "Bush Derangement Syndrome" this whole time were 100% fucking CORRECT this whole time.

We were right. You were wrong. Passionately disliking the president was SANITY. Passionately supporting him was the derangement. Well, fuck you, Peggy Noonan. You bought into him, you sold him to the rest of us, and now you want to pretend you want nothing to do with him? And now you're tossing around "Bush Derangement Syndrome" like it was an understandable conclusion, and not a propaganda tool used against anyone who questioned a man who was clearly a complete fucking doofus. That's what you get for not listening to us.

On Lou Dobbs And Masturbation

Thu, 31 May 2007 11:05:18 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 30 May 2007
Memo to Laura Mallory and John Hawkins: YOU ARE DUMB.

Everybody's talkin' at me, and I don't hear a word they say. But I do read them, and upon reading and partially deciphering the screeds they send forth upon an unsuspecting world, I am left with one inescapable conclusion. IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS.

"This is just the latest reminder of why we shouldn't want 10% of a moderately hostile neighboring country residing within our borders as guest workers/Z Visa holders." - John Hawkins, Right Wing News

This is, on the face of it, your normal anti-brown rantery - the usual "they're immigrating so they can take over" Pat Buchanan "invasion" seal-the-border build-a-fence garden-variety bullshit. What makes it special is the event the leading "This" refers to. Normally, this sort of thing would be triggered by, say, a report of an illegal immigrant committing a crime*, or a big protest where someone dared wave the Mexican flag, or a redneck overhearing someone speaking in Spanish. You know, REAL THREATS TO THE COUNTRY.

But what set John Hawkins off? The Miss Universe pageant, which was held in Mexico City, and during which, at one point, Miss USA was booed by the audience. Who knows why. Maybe it was because she fell earlier in the evening. Maybe it's because the entire audience wants to retake Aztlan. Or maybe it's because somehow, they got the idea that we're a bunch of racist rednecks who live in constant fear, who think Mexico is just a giant system for exchanging spicy food for lost American jobs. I'm not sure where they get that idea. Do they even get Lou Dobbs in Mexico? And if they do, is he dubbed into Spanish?

"I have a dream that God will be welcomed back in our schools again. I think we need him." - Laura Mallory, of Lawrenceville, GA.

This is the kind of thing you hear stupid people say all the time. I'm sure that to her it sounded very poetic. I wonder if she even knew she was echoing Martin Luther King, or, as is more likely, this is what she ACTUALLY DREAMS ABOUT. What makes it special, once again, is the context. You see, Mallory said this after losing a lawsuit. A lawsuit against her county's school board. A lawsuit where she tried, unsuccessfully, to get the Harry Potter books removed from her schools' libraries.

A lawsuit based upon the grounds that Harry Potter promotes witchcraft, witchcraft is a religion, and thus reading Harry Potter books in school is... and can you see this coming, because it's pure stupid awesome - a violation of the separation of church and state.

I know expecting internal consistency from morons is like expecting roses from a colostomy bag, but using a principle you clearly don't believe to try to win your insane lawsuit? That's either coldly calculating or incredibly obtuse. To help us find out which, I present to you this bonus Mallory quote.

"They’re really very long and I have four kids. I’ve put a lot of work into what I’ve studied and read. I think it would be hypocritical for me to read all the books, honestly. I don’t agree with what’s in them. I don’t have to read an entire pornographic magazine to know it’s obscene." - Mallory, last year, when she still thought she had a fucking case.

That settles that, then. A cold, calculating manipulator of the legal system would probably understand the meanings of words like "hypocritical" and "honestly". Nor would they be under the mistaken assumption that one "reads" a pornographic magazine. Much less reads the entire thing in one sitting.

*Other than the one right-wing nutjobs feel the need to continually remind us they've committed, of course. Thanks, guys!

Ninja-Free Zone

Tue, 08 May 2007 22:09:18 -0500

Idiots Say The Damndest Things, 9 May 2007
In my years writing You Are Dumb, I have established a very small handful of Great Truths previously unknown to the universe. Not many - certainly not enough to get me ranked with the world's great philosophers, but a few. And the very first Great Truth revealed to the world through this site is this: Mormons are the anti-ninjas.

Since even I rarely encounter either Mormons or ninja in the wild, this truth, while resonant, has tended to lay dormant. But with Mitt Romney, Anti-Ninja, running for president, it's time to remind ourselves of it all over again. Because Mitt is true to the Mormon ideals of a complete lack of stealth. This isn't some smooth politician who wins you over during the election then goes crazy once he's in office, no. We've already documented his love for Battlefield Earth, but who knew that was just the beginning of a week-long crazy campaign? So in honor of Mitt, today is an all-singing, all-dancing, all-Mormon, no-ninja edition of MITT SAYS THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"Governor Romney believes both science and faith can help inform us about the origins of life in this world."

OK, technically, this is a Mormon's spokesman saying the damndest thing. But the context is key. Remember that Republican debate last week? The one where three of the ten candidates* said "no" when asked if they believe in evolution? Well, Mitt Romney wasn't one of them. The Jesus-freaks noticed, and he tried to appease them - the quote was a response to a Christian Broadcasting Network request.

Of course, looking to faith to inform us about the origins of life is stupid. You can look to faith to inform you about all kinds of metaphysical shit if you want. Go to town on the origin of consciousness. But on the origins of life? The only thing you've got is who sparked the primordial soup, and that ain't the answer Pat Robertson and Company are looking for. They want the two naked people and the snake. No, the OTHER two naked people and the snake. With the apple. Mitt wants to make them happy without the rest of us noticing, but as a Mormon, he's really really bad at it.

"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

OK. Let's say you're crazy. Just completely fucking nuts. But you want to blend into the background. So you find a place that's just chock full of nuts. Like, say, Regent University, Pat Robertson's duly accredited tardfarm. What kind of ninja could go to Regent University and seem crazy by comparison? NO KIND OF NINJA. Only someone completely devoid of ninjitsu could manage this.

In case you're wondering: no, marriage is not contracted in France. Not in seven-year terms or any other. It's not true. In fact, it's SO not true that there's been a great deal of effort put forth in trying to figure out where in the living blue fuck Romney got this idea in his head in the first place.

The leading contender is, I shit you not, the Orson Scott Card book "A Memory Of Earth". And it fits. Card is a Mormon. Romney's a Mormon. Card writes religiously-themed SF. Romney's favorite book is religiously-themed SF. Card hate gays. Romney either hates gays or, at least, wants everyone to believe he does. The only problem is, fake outer space is a long way from real France.

Which means the more familiar Romney is likely to be with "A Memory Of Earth", the farther his tiny brain had to go to confuse it with the decadent, anti-family Europe of his imagination. I'd prefer to think that one of the Republican frontrunners isn't THAT crazy. I'm much more comforted by the possibility that, perhaps, he thinks the French are Vulcans.

*A fascinating ratio, by the way - reminiscent of the Bush approval rating or the percentage of the vote Alan Keyes got a couple of years ago.