Die Commies! Die!

A new comic booking touting the righteousness and moral superiority of the right is set to hit store shelves in the near future. Liberality! will no doubt be a huge hit with the Pat Robertson, Bill Frist crowd. The enlightened concept is somewhat intriguing:

LIBERALITY FOR ALL #1 It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City...And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations dominated ultra-liberalism. What if today's anti-war Liberals were in charge of the American government and had been since 9/11? What would that society look like in the year 2021? What would be the results of fighting “a more sensitive war on terror” and looking to the corrupt United Nations to solve all of America 's problems? In Liberality For All , the reader sees a vision of that future where there is only one justified type of war…the war against Conservatives and their ideals. - ACC Studio

According to the Boston Globe the series features:

...radio pundits Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, and Oliver North as biomechanically tricked-out members of a conservative underground resistance called F.O.I.L. (the Freedom of Information League).

Riveting, absolutely riveting...

Is Anyone REALLY Surprised?

Well I suppose that every sportsfan in the world knew deep down that Lance Armstrong's complete and utter dominance of cycling was too good to be true. Lance has some s'plainin' to do:

The director of the Tour de France said it was a "proven scientific fact" that Lance Armstrong had a performance-boosting drug in his body during his 1999 Tour win, and that the seven-time champion owed fans an explanation. In a story Wednesday, Jean-Marie Leblanc praised L'Equipe for an investigation that reported that six urine samples provided by Armstrong during the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell- booster EPO. The French sports daily on Tuesday accused Armstrong of using EPO during his first Tour win in 1999. "For the first time _ and these are no longer rumors or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts _ someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a banned substance called EPO in his body," Leblanc told the paper. "The ball is now in his camp. Why, how, by whom? He owes explanations to us and to everyone who follows the tour," Leblanc said. "What L'Equipe revealed shows me that I was fooled. We were all fooled." - Associated Press

It seems like Lance went up and pulled a Palmiero. For shame! Sure he hasn't lied to congress yet, but there's still time. Lance you dink, how's it feel to have an asterisk placed next to every athletic accomplishment in your career? If you need some group therapy I'm sure Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire are around (rooting around behind the local pharmaceutical plant looking for substances to use 'unknowingly'). I guess it's easier to LiveStrong when your juiced.

Bending Over At The Pumps

Our fearless leader, Paul Martin announced today that the federal government will not cut back on gas taxes. Martin stated that:

"The federal government does not make money from increasing gas prices...Any calculation done of the federal government's bottom line shows there is not any undue benefit occurring in that way." CTV.ca

Martin is also quick to remind us of his so called "new deal" which promises to direct a portion of gas tax revenue to provincial governments and municipalities in order to fund infrastructure and public transit projects. According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation the deal sucks on several levels and mayors across the country agree that the 'new dea'l is long overdue. Some food for thought:

This year Ottawa will spend only $324 million or 7.2% of its $4.5 billion in gasoline taxes, excluding GST, on highway and road renewal. The federal gas tax increased over 560% between 1985 and 1995, from 1.5 to 10 cents per litre. (well above average inflation levels). Ottawa increased the federal gasoline tax from 8.5 to 10 cents per litre in 1995 as a deficit reduction measure.

Not only is the deficit gone but new numbers show that the federal surplus is larger than our finance minister projected:

Newly released figures show that in the first three months of fiscal 2005-06, Ottawa recorded a surplus of $4.8 billion - including a $1.7-billion surplus in June alone...In last February's budget, Goodale projected a surplus of $4 billion in the current fiscal year, all of which has been earmarked for rainy-day funds rather than spending or tax cuts. - Canada.com

And lest we forget that the humble number cruncher Ralph Goodale has 'underestimated' in the past:

In the most recent miscalculation (2004), Ralph Goodale, the finance minister got the numbers right but the order reversed. He forecast a surplus of $1.9 Billion but it was actually $9.1 Billion...when the feds underestimate the budget surplus, they also reduce spending on things that Canadians want; health care, education, child care, cities, defense, and highways. Once the fiscal year is closed, Canadians have no say where surpluses go. It's automatically goes into the government's piggy bank. "Piggy bank financing is a poor way to build long term programs," says Ellen Russell, senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. - Kamloops Daily News

So I think it's pretty clear that Martin's statements about the gas tax are, at best, a little misleading and at the worst totally wrong. The fact of the matter is the federal does make a pretty penny off of gas taxes and in the past has spent it on whatever the hell it wants. I guess only time will tell if the 'new deal' is a good one.

Fetch Me My Gun

This is a real book, I kid you not:

This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn moneyfor a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland. - Amazon.com

The sequel "Tommy and Lou Kill Some Commies" comes out next year. Oh, and when did broccoli become the pinko vegetable of choice? Sweet merciful crap what is the world coming to...

God's Army

The strength of Dubya's ties to the evangelical side of religion is nothing new. That being said the following still leaves me a little staggered. Do people actually believe that the U.S. army, or any freakin' army for that matter, is doing God's work?

God Loves Army Men

The craziest thing is that this showed up in my Adsense Ads. Google's omnipotent smart search ads put a very right-wing ad on my left-leaning blog. I can't imagine my blogreaders (the 5 or 6 that I have, thanks mom) will be flocking to these sites. Oh well.

Summer of Crap '05

As the end of summer fast approaches it's time for movie fans to wax nostalgic about all the celluloid gems of the past few months. There was the high octane classic Stealth:

A pretty fair military-hardware action movie until you start thinking about it -- at which point it turns incredibly sour in your mouth. I can therefore recommend it to any and all audiences lacking higher brain functions. Sea cucumbers, perhaps. Ones waving American flags. - The Boston Globe

And we can't forget that Deuce Bigalow Part Deux:

...is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes...As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks. - Roger Ebert

Of course we can't leave out the genre most favoured by brain dead cephalopods, the romantic comedy:

Must Love Dogs is bad; and not even in a cute, breezy, watch-it-and-forget-about-it sort of way. It’s just bad — the kind of movie only blue-haired ladies pumped up on Hormone Replacement Therapy and Vicodin could intermittently giggle at, though they’d probably find more pleasure in playing connect-the-dots with their goddamned liver spots. Ironically, given that it’s a film about online dating, it actually plays out like a half-witted, 98-minute Match.com commercial attempting to tactfully remind you that you’re 30ish, single, and so hard-up for a fucking date that you're willing to post that 10-year-old Glamour Shot to a website if it might get you laid. - Pajiba

It's staggering that box-office numbers are so low when considering the wealth of original material out there like Dukes of Hazzard:

As Dukes drags to a close, you might ask yourself how many car chases you can watch before your eyes glaze over. At one point, the film's narrator says, "If you have to go to the bathroom, now would be the wrong time." I beg to differ. There is no wrong time to flush this turd. - Rolling Stone

And last but surely not least the insta-classic, Supercross, which was apparently written by feces flinging monkeys:

The most amazing fact about Supercross is that it took three people to write it. Two chimpanzees with a typewriter could have done just as good a job. Really, it took two people just to come up with the story for this film!? And two people to actually write the script? And the best they could come up with are gems of dialogue like, "He's lucky to have you, to help him and stuff" (girlfriend to motocross racer who feels his brother doesn't appreciate him) and, "Your shoes cost more, but you're just like the rest of us" (short-skirted motocross groupie to lawyer-girlfriend of motocross racer)? - Baltimore Sun

If anyone ever blames plummeting box-office sales on downloading in your presence remind them kindly of the absolute garbagio that was created in the summer of '05 and smack them upside their ignorant heads.

Black Gold

As the price of oil nears the seventy dollars a barrel in the US (and over a dollar CDN per litre) it's damn well time people started to accept some of the real reasons behind the Iraq war. Sure Saddam will stand trial for his crimes, and with a constituiton in sight the democratic ideal seems to be creeping into the collective minds of the Iraqi people. But don't kid yourself, the horror that is Iraq isn't going away and, mark my words, it'll get worse before it gets better. As the casualties rise and the cost of the war balloons to almost inconceivable numbers ask yourself if it's all worth it? If "it" is the end of terror, it ain't going to happen no matter how secure the Iraqi vote is. As an aside, when did the focus of the war on terror shift away from Bin Laden, who has yet to be caught and wasn't mentioned once in the State of The Union speech. If "it" is making Saddam pay, then once he's jailed the army should be gone right? Again, it's not going to happen. WMDs? Give me a break. Even if he did have them there was still the problem of deployment. Was Saddam's army going to slingshot them over the Atlantic into Washington? Maybe an army of carrier pigeons? Oh wait they're extinct, but that's beside the point. So then what is "it"? What was the catalyst behind the original intent to go into Iraq and the subsequent continued desire to stay there? I urge you to read the following:

As justification after justification has fallen away, nothing of any real value to Americans remains in Iraq besides the oil itself, nearly a ninth of the world’s proven reserves. Without that oil, all that remains is a terrifying landscape of sand and soldiers with nothing to fight for but their own existence. Although our desire for Iraqi oil may seem a distasteful explanation for war, it is the only explanation by which we may continue to believe that we live in a rational universe. Put another way: if this war is not about oil, then truly we stand poised at the abyss...We consume 25 percent of the world’s oil and produce only 8 percent of it. Changing that ratio would require radically reinventing the U.S. economy, an option no president has ever presented to his people. Maintaining that ratio, on the other hand, not only keeps the economy growing; it keeps Americans happy. This may not be the best part of what democracy is about, but neither is it an undemocratic goal. “Oil, enough oil, within our certain grasp seemed ardently necessary to greatness and independence in the twentieth century,” wrote the economist Herbert Feis in 1946, when it was becoming clear that the United States would soon be unable to produce from within its own borders all the oil it required. Ever since then, the story of the Middle East has been the story of one president after another attempting to maintain that “certain grasp.”...In fact, our preferred method of assuring access to Gulf oil has been to “guarantee the sovereignty” of some oil-producing nation, thereby allowing us to treat any threat to the oil system as a threat to a state, which provides a useful political framework for our financial transactions. The history of American client states is well known. Harry Truman promised King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia—the largest producer of oil on earth then and now—that no threat to its sovereignty “could occur which would not be a matter of immediate concern to the United States.” Dwight Eisenhower expanded the pledge. “Our country supports without reservation the full sovereignty and independence of each and every nation of the Middle East,” he said, and would back it with the full force of the U.S. military...If we view the current occupation through the lens of fifty years of U.S. policy, we can begin to construct a rationale for war that is not charming but at least has the benefit of coherence. Our best client state, Saudi Arabia, is in danger of collapsing under the weight of a thousand fattened princes, and our friendship is further troubled by the fact that fifteen of its citizens killed nearly 3,000 of ours...Soon we will be at war with Iraq for no other reason than that the people there are shooting at our soldiers. - Harpers

Why is this so to believe? Wake up people and smell the oil.

Heaven In A Bottle

Like sweet ambrosia from the gods Sam Adams has blessed us mortals with our own heavenly brew:

Samuel Adams is releasing 8,000 bottles of the kettle-shaped bottle reminiscent of the copper brewing kettles used by brewmasters for hundreds of years. The Utopia is 25% alcohol and therefore the “strongest beer in the world.” ...The Samuel Adams Utopias 2005 edition costs $100 per bottle which sounds pricey but the brew is meant to be consumed in two-ounce servings like a port or dessert wine. - Luxist.com

The bottle looks pretty sweet. It's too bad I lack the cashish for such a luxuriant purchase. I guess it's more of Ye Olde Faithful for my benders.

Weapon Of Choice 2008

Considering Bush's approval rating has fallen to a catastrophic new low, the voting public might want to consider a new kind of no nonsense leaderhsip:

"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track." - Walken For President

Insta-Not-Hot

The BEP's Fergie illustrates how one can go from hot to incredibly not-hot in one sweaty crotch filled evening. Her reps adamantly claim that the wet spot in question is not pee. Either way it's farking narsty and these might be in order.

Car As Manhood

Perhaps the best description yet of the General Lee:

The Dukes of Hazzard, based on the 1970s TV show about two good ol' boys who drive around all day in an orange-colored extension of their penises with absolutely nothing to do... - Pajiba.com

Sadly, but not suprisingly, I want one. It's amazing what bored, testosterone fueled males can come up with.

Love The Apologies

Well, I'm back from the cottage but I'm still training my replacement at 'work' (term used very loosely) so posts will be few and far between. Sorry, I'll get back on the blog horse as soon as possible.