Why couldn’t it have been his scumbag John Edwards-wanna-be brother instead?

R.I.P. Doug.

More rock greatness down the tubes.

He was some sort of singing, dancing Canadian rodent.

I just learned that Steven Crowder was the voice of The Brain on the PBS kid’s series “Arthur”. Little kids make you suffer through a lot of bad TV, but I always liked Arthur. Sort of washed the Teletubbies out of my brain. 

A movie review of Avatar from a parallel universe. I’m not sure if the blog owner is one of us or someone poking fun at the “wingnuts”, but either way, good stuff.

I just got back from seeing Avatar in 3D with my son and brother-in-law who is spending the holidays with us.

Quick impression – I loved Avatar. I loved it for the same reason I loved Independence Day; jaw-dropping CGI without any burdensome plot. Full disclosure: I consider 90 minutes of things blowing up a completely satisfactory use of $10 not unlike the people of Idiocracy enjoying their biggest hit movie.

Avatar contains some of the most spectacular visuals I’ve ever seen. The 3D is not overpowering, but rather it creates a lush dream world that is somewhere between a Thomas Kinkade painting and an early 70s Yes album cover.

Humorously enough, for all the magnificent 3D visuals, the characters could not be more 2D. I won’t go into the details because there are so many good reviews. Some links to Big Hollywood reviews here.

Even worse than Cameron’s mediocre ability to flesh out characters is his unimaginative dropping of such politically loaded gems like “shock and awe” and “fight terror with terror” into the mouths of the villains. Seriously, if he wants the genius moniker, I suspect he could have worked a little harder at it.

I knew about Cameron’s lefty agenda going in, so that didn’t really phase me. Besides, all I need to know about what he thinks about me is captured in this fan video.

These remarks from Sting just reinforce my belief that artists are fed a load of crap about what the opposition believes, and they’re fine with not delving too deeply into reality.  I mean, artists are paid for their ability to live in a fantasyland.

The British singer, who released the seasonal album “On A Winter’s Night” this week, said he’s fascinated by American politics, Obama, and also by Obama’s opponents on the right.

“It’s aggressive and violent and full of fear,” he said of the backlash against Obama. “They don’t want change, they want things to feel the same because they feel safe there.”

“My hope is that we can start talking about real issues and not caring about whether God cares about your hemline or your color,” he said. “We are here to evolve as one family, and we can’t be separate anymore.”

I agree.  So why does the left keep making an issue out of color, or religion, or any of the categories into which they like to separate people? It makes me angry to put up with this kind of educated ignorance.

There is a group, called the right, that has studied unadulterated and uneditorialized history, that judges people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, or any of the other identity politics classifications, and have found that character wanting in this particular administration.  What’s frightening about this administration is that the books we’re having to study to understand what’s going on right now don’t deal with Franklin and Jefferson, they deal with the Bolsheviks and the bourgeouisie.

I’d like to add, that from today on, I reject the race (class, gender) card and the power it wields.  As soon as it’s hurled at me, you are scratched out of my book of reasonable people forever.  I no longer consider you a rational member of the human race and will not engage you in conversation. Playing the race (class, gender) card means you fold.  Game over. Why? Because that card is played when you have lost the ability to engage in a conversation of the basic values and principles that keep us free as individuals.  It’s easier for you to live in a fantasy land where the bad guy is some hater that you have created out of some white sheets, than to realize that you as a person, have fallen, like so many in history, for totalitarian ideology wrapped in the guise of loving kindness. And if you keep pointing an accusatory finger in my direction, no one will point an accusatory finger at you.

And this ain’t no fooling around. Word is that musicians are up in arms about their music being used to “torture” detainees at Gitmo.

Broken, defeated and confused.
 

No doubt Hillary Rosen and the parasites of the RIAA are interested too. Napster got nothing on the Pentagon’s use of unlicensed music.

But the controversy is real. Anyone who has lived next to an apartment full of college kids can empathize at the de-humanizing exposure to music. This goes double if it they are the disaffected suburbo-anarchists.

Tom Morello, whose musical talent stands in inverse proportion to his self-important activism is outraged against the machine.

Any validity to his statements is lost by the fact that he tirelessly pisses off Philadelphians by standing with convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These musician have always stood for love, justice and all the other fuzzy sentiments that come cheaply to well-insulated artistic types.

“Everybody Hurts” may have saved thousands of lives!
 

Oh well, considering that these folks are still active now, it’s Obama’s problem now.

UPDATE: More from Big Hollywood.

I don’t know what Day By Day’s copyright standards are or I would have reposted it here but this pretty well sums it up.

No, not Chrissy this time. This time we got the sensitive artist Matthews, Dave.

I know I’m going out on my own here, because so many of my friends love his ballads ‘n’ stuff. His talent is undeniable.

My main gripe with Matthews is how this chucklehead who performs neither Rock nor Alternative is constantly bombarding the Alternative and Regular rock stations with his melancholy strains of love and social insight. Also I’m completely baffled by the women who hear this lyric and say, “I love you Dave!”

But don’t worry Honey, he also respects you for your intelligence and spirituality.

Usually, I just change the radio station when Matthews is on. But today, we are blessed to have is opinion on the issues.

Pretty standard sensitive rock-star drivel, actually.

Or maybe the extreme-left agenda that is bringing socialism (and spending) to its greatest level in our history.

Oh, so you don’t mind the socialism. I mean really, isn’t it just the warm, fuzzy embrace of an all loving government. Yeah, maybe we did blow things out of proportion a bit.

Added Bonus 1 – CNN Tonguebath!!:

Dave Matthews is uniquely qualified to share his thoughts on race because CNN observes:

And let’s face it kiddies, if the world was like a giant Grateful Dead concert, we would all live together in harmony and mutual love – at least until the doobage is gone.

Added Bonus 2 – Real Kudos!!

Credit where credit is due and all that:

I’m guessing though that if we look closely at the cause Matthews funded, we’ll find it went to the New Orleans Prevention of Cannibalism fund.

Apparently, according to the bastions of rationality that are Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg, ACORN is doing the job Republicans won’t do, which is helping the poor.

GOLDBERG: Everything, I mean, you know, there are boneheads in all organizations. We’ve worked for them. We know that they’re there. But do you kill the whole thing? And I don’t think so. A lot of people think that you should kill it. But you can’t answer, you can’t tell me where those people who become even more disenfranchised go. Because we know the Republicans aren’t going to take care of them. Cause we see that doesn’t work anymore for them. So now where do they go? I am sick and tired of people dismantling stuff and saying, “Oh, we’re for the people,” and then leaving the people this. Because they don’t care. Find a way to fix it.

BEHAR: They haven’t dismantled the Catholic Church and they have some boneheads in there.

GOLDBERG: This is true.

Just in case you evil right wingers needed to know what’s involved in helping the poor,  I have provided a list that you can refer to when you get “confused” as you often do. If you have trouble reading, there are videos that we have just released this week which will provide much of the same assistance.

1. Provide poor people with low interest loans on properties that are out of their price range.  Picket when they get foreclosed upon and go bankrupt.  It won’t help their future ability to buy a home, but hey, you looked pretty philanthropic when you where breaking the locks for them.

2. Teach poor people how to commit tax fraud in order to open a brothel.

3. Remind poor people that there is no shame in selling your body. Have posters of Heidi Fleiss on the wall, because she is a hero.

4. Teach prostitutes and pimps how to claim their underage sex slaves as dependants on their tax forms.

5. Tell a hooker how to seduce a bank president in order to get a loan to open a brothel where you will instruct youngsters who barely speak English about the LA sex industry.

6. Tell an abused woman how she can “lay groundwork” with battered women’s charities and the authorities in order to provide a cover for murdering her abuser.

7. Offer, in exchange for sexual favors, to get your contact in Tijuana’s help in smuggling children across the border to be sex slaves.

There are also ways that the poor can offer their own contributions.  Getting involved in politics by registering dead people, cartoon characters, and football teams to vote Democrat.  Just make sure the office is closed when the poor come for their paycheck.

These are just a few ideas. Because you know the Republicans never helped a poor person in quite this way.  It’s change we believe in.  If the Catholic Church wasn’t so corrupt they would get with the program and start helping the poor too. Who is going to provide these valuable services if ACORN is shut down?  I mean, do we want to give a monopoly to the mob, or the international sex-slave trade?

(BTW I know there are a few progressive ideas that I have failed to note.  So if you have any more ways in which we can educate the ignorant Teabaggers among us on how to bring about economic justice to the unfortunate in this corrupt America, just leave it for me in the comments.)

Thought you might like to know…

I learned two things this past week that challenged my assumptions.   First that Jack Kerouac was a conservative Catholic who supported the Vietnam war and was friends with William F. Buckley. I think I’ll read “On the Road” with that in mind now. My second surprise that the lead singer for Depeche Mode has a string of ex wives and three children.  Now I can hear “Behind the Wheel” without suffering all of the Brokeback Mountain images that used to come to mind.

Sometimes the strangest things make me feel good.

Anybody have any more welcome surprises?

Not everyone is as interested as me in the behind-the-scenes lives of neurotic Jewish comedians. But if you’re 1) slightly curious, 2) don’t mind and endless stream of d*ck jokes and 3) like sweet stories, then I recommend you seeing Funny People.

Mrs. Cranky and I saw it Friday night and it was really a good movie with enough hilarious one-liners to be a comedy and enough, oh what’s the word, warmth, to be a drama. When Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler were on the Dennis Miller show plugging the movie, I learned that it was loosely based on the time when they were struggling comedians living together in L.A. And judging by the inside jokes and celebrity cameos, it probably was true to form. This fanboy of comedy was very pleased.

You’ve probably seen the trailers* and know enough about the plot line that I won’t need to rehash it here. But I will tell you that some of the scenes alone make it worth the admission. The scene were Emminem is ripping Ray Romano was one. Also the scenes with the Swedish/Nazi doctor that weren’t in the trailer were great.

Andrew Breitbart’s conservative Big Hollywood blog wasn’t as impressed, but there is a good read here.

* Paramount won’t let you embed the video AND they bumped my five second YouTube of Will Farrell in Zoolander. So, screw ‘em.

Well, if a Hollywood actor/comedian says stuff like this,

well odds are that he was conservative at heart.

Bless him. He now knows that boutique liberalism isn’t anyone’s friend.

Who is Paul Rodriquez? Here, refresh your memory (content warning).

Maybe Michael Jackson set the stage for Obama. Or perhaps the legend of the Numinous Negro is a real and tangible part of our culture.

Either way, I think there is a connection here. And I’m done watching this spectacle of human embarassment. I’m referring to his fans, celebrities and all the hangers-on that showed up.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Michael Jackson was an alleged pedophile and is now a dead alleged pedophile. It’s a tale of rags-to-riches-to-little-boys that you’ve heard a million times over.

Cara Ellison points us to a commentary at Beyond the Pale that is worth a read.

Why the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth?

Read the whole thing for a much more tactful and less vitriolic perpective than you might find here.

Enough with the media coverage and the idiocy. I realize that last November we certified that were are a nation of brain-dead lunatics, but do we have to continue to put our stupidity on display whenever an occasion like this rears its head? In a pathetic nation of reality TV zombies, I guess the answer is yes.

Hey Pookie Toon fans! As of today, the comics page has a permanent link on our sidebar. According the MapQuest, go left approximately 250 pixels and head south. You can’t miss it.

Andrew Breitbart has a must read on The Only Story That Matters.

Michael Jackson’s shtick was simply a more sophisticated, well financed variation on the molester with an ice cream truck. When after paying millions to his young accuser, Jordy Chandler, Jackson was later found to have gay porn producer Marc Schaffel, an un-indicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial, as his PERSONAL VIDEOGRAPHER and close pal on the very private grounds of Neverland Ranch.

…

Well, a year later, Schaffel was back at Neverland and again acting as Jackson’s personal videographer who chronicled the taping of the famous Martin Bashir BBC documentary that later appeared on ABC in the U.S., which centered around two young brothers hanging with Jackson and Schaffel as their ‘chaperones’ at the creepy amusement park cum bachelor pad.

Why did Michael Jackson bring back the gay porno producer to use a video camera to oversee kid trips to Neverland AFTER it was admitted by Jackson’s own people the Jackson/Schaffel alliance was blatantly improper?

Needless to say, it doesn’t end with “a world in mourning falls on it’s knees to curse God for denying us another 40 years of bizarre, criminal behavior”.

But boy, could he spin on his toes and grab his crotch (as well as the crotches of others) with the best of them!

I’ll grab mine, now you grab yours!

It was a nice reprieve while it lasted though.  We could turn on the television or the internet without hearing about North Korea threatening nuclear war, Iran shooting young women in the face, an economy being dragged behind the pick-up truck of the Obama administration,  passing the largest energy use tax in history, sending terrorists on a taxpayer funded island getaway, or the government taking over the healthcare industry.

But anyway – how’s Bo doing?  Is Christ On Earth still stealing a Newport when he gets a chance? Admittedly, a hazard of the trade when you’re passing out all those cigarettes to homeless people in exchange for votes for so many years.  That just means he’s human!  I was getting worried there for a second.

Michael Jackson is dead. Thought we should say something.

Here is the eulogy.

Bonus tip: If you find yourself working from home, DO NOT leave Fox News on in the background. This is the news cycle:

• Farah Fawcette has died.
• Clip of Jim McGreevy on Today show talking about Sanford scandal.
• Protests in Iran appear to be ending.
• Sanford crisis discussed.
• Farah Fawcette retrospective. Did you have the iconic poster? Apparently everyone did.
• Sanford crisis turns up steamy emails.
• Protests in Iran is an indicator of social and political unrest.
• Farah Fawcette has anal cancer – did they really need to say that?
• Farah Fawcette live coverage of Ryan O’Neill leaving the hospital parking lot.
• Should Sanford resign? Let’s ask the panel.
• Farah Fawcette retrospective again.
• Clip of Jim McGreevy on Today show talking about Sanford scandal again.
• Breaking: Michael Jackson hospitalized.
• Michael Jackson live coverage.
• Michael Jackson – Greta what do you think?
• A Very Brady Sequel on Comedy Central – channel switch.

10. In protest of CBS, stopped trying to be funny in 1997, no one noticed.

9. After quintuple bypass surgery, discovered that he had no heart!

8. Misplaced humor bit “Big Ass Ham” found in his pants!

7. Still has violent stomach reaction to Doritos.

6. Used to play to college students, now prefers to play WITH them.

5. Got big laughs dropping watermelons from towers, now tries dropping bombs in his monologue.

4. Obama, Uma. Uma Obama! Ha ha ha ha, yeagh.

3. Primetime? Forget it CSI Topeka is on.

2. Lowest rated CBS show? Two words, Katie Couric!

1. Used to mentor Conan O’Brian, now gets schooled by him.

Letterman could not have expected the firestorm that he ignited by taking on the Palins on the occasion of their trip to New York.

In case you haven’t seen this yet. Here he is doing his usual schtick which became unfunny sometime after I graduated college. Whether the loss of amusement was due to him losing his edge or me no longer smoking pot, we may never know.

Well, the pitbull removed her lipstick and took a bite out of Letterman. It culminated this morning with Palin’s appearance on the Today show.

In my opinion, if he wasn’t so self-admittedly in the bag for Obama, this joke probably wouldn’t have sparked the outrage it did. It is the comedian’s role to make fun of public figures, but since he took Obama off the table, the attack on the Palins seem more partisan and gratuitous.

The attributed source of the outrage was the Alex Rodriguez/Willow Palin joke which was certainly in bad taste and did cross the line. But I’m not sure that the joke alone would have led to the same level of outrage.

By taking sides, Letterman appears to delve into mean spirited partisan politics.

That’s my opinion. Yours?

Come, my turtle dove.   Let us jet off to New Yawk, so that we may dance lightly in our carbon footprint and hate on whitey:

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama landed in New York Saturday afternoon, and after taking a helicopter from JFK into Manhattan, drove up the West Side Highway, where the northbound lanes were shut down by police for their visit, past Ground Zero, into the Village for dinner at the Village’s Blue Hill restaurant. From there, they went north to Times Square, where they went to to see a production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater on West 44 Street.

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” is your typical black person’s romantic drama.  Set against the backdrop of emancipated slaves fleeing the racist South (as if there’s some other “South”), nothing’s mo’ entertaining than an evening of ebonified steppin’ and fetchit dialogue.  A lead character who’s been sexually emasculated by The Man ™ and railroaded by his justice system, whose wife (cast to the winds of diaspora) decided to move on with her life cause she got tired of waiting on him to get out of jail, the only white character is a Jewish former slave trader who sows mistrust between black folk and everything works out thanks to one character who never forgot his black magic witchcraft roots:

Scene Five- In the final scene Loomis and Zonia leave the boardinghouse as it is Saturday. Bertha tells Mattie that all she needs in life is love and laughing- which they all start to do. Then Martha Pentecost [Loomis] enters with Selig looking for Loomis and Zonia. Loomis reenters with Zonia and he recounts the last decade of his life; his search for her and the heartache it has caused him. Martha tells him that she has moved on with her life because she couldn’t wait for him any longer. Martha also reveals that she had Bynum put a binding spell on her and Zonia and that is why they have come to find each other. Loomis goes into a rage and pulls out a knife. He denounces his Christian background and slashes his chest. The stage directions read “Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.” He leaves and the play ends with Bynum yelling “Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!”

How do you top that?  Protagonist finds spiritual redemption by cutting his chest with a knife (in some iterations he then smears his blood all over his face), renounces his Christian faith and abandons his former wife and daughter to the delusion of Whitey’s God.  What an odd entertainment choice for this President.

Lawdy!  I don’t think Jeremiah Wright could have said it any better.  Now put your shiny, new money in the offering plate and pass it down for the greater good.

RELATED: For criticizing this expensive, one-off trip, noted Huffin’ Glue Poster and Lightworker aficionado Mark Morford sez Rush Limbaugh has depraved gay sexual fantasies about children.  Always a classy outlet that Huffin’ Glue Post is.

To recap, saying Sotomayor’s membership in “La Raza” and comments about being able to make better decsions because of her race = You’re the racist.   Criticizing a gratuitous, climate-harming jaunt to watch a racist play means you’re a child-hungry pedophile = good clean fun!

Check out this summer replacement series coming to ABC this May.

Debbie Schussel says:

Full disclosure – I thought Beavis and Butthead was completely lame, so I didn’t care much for Judge. Office Space began to change my perception and after watching Idiocracy (at Brian’s recommendation), I’ve gained all kinds of respect for Mike Judge.

Bonus! A drinking game for Swamp Rabbit and other interested participants. Every time you find a hostile review blasting this show for it’s stereotyping and cliches, take a drink. If you find that the same reviewer really liked a show or movie that played on redneck, Christian or any other conservative stereotypes, drink the whole dang bottle, I’ll buy you a new one.

In honor of the new Star Trek movie opening tommorow, there is a great discussion of the worst and best Trek films over at Big Hollywood.

Head over to the comments and leave your two cents. Or, be a grown up and just skip it. That lawn won’t mow itself.

He really should have thought twice before reminding us that he existed by vomiting forth more idiocy in Vanity Fair.

Thank goodness bankrupting the country doesn’t qualify as a “disaster”. Luckily, the job market is always flush with openings for bad adolescent poets. Give me Keith Morris any day.

Actually, there are a lot of people in America pissed off about the current economic crisis, you just don’t like our views (limited government, self-determination, support of the U.S. Constitution, strong national defense, the list goes on). And the way you respond to the average Americans who are involved in this grass-roots movement demonstrates that you’re the same bitter, ignorant, little pimple-faced twat who eventually had to bulk up into a steroid rage to prove your manhood.

I guess times are tough over at Vanity Fair if this is the best they can do. Hopefully it’s an unpaid internship for old H.R.

h/t Rob

Let me preface this by saying that I rely on the work done by the good people at Newsbusters and the Media Research Center. Having said that, Brent Bozell’s latest screed against South Park underscores the increasingly hardline school of old conservatives against the new regime that enjoys griping about them darned younguns’ who don’t appreciate the rich, moral fiber of Wilford Brimley. Though Bozell’s jihad against Parker and Stone’s ribald satire is nothing new, his latest jeremiad in defense of the axis of the Chicom enabling Disney Corp. and the bland Jonas Brothers  (of all people and all corporations) warrants an apology or at least a STFU:

But for Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the perennial ninth graders behind “South Park,” everything is a sick joke, especially abstinence until marriage. To them, no one could seriously advocate that position and live by it. In their typical crayon-scribble plot, the Jonas Brothers wore purity rings only as a corporate scam run by Disney, so they could “sell sex” to pre-pubescent grade-school girls. The dictatorial CEO of Disney was of course, Mickey Mouse, who screamed profanities and beat up one of the Jonas boys until his nose bled for threatening not to make the purity-ring pitch.

Our “heroes” from South Park eventually exposed Mickey Mouse and his plot, turning up the microphone at the concert hall as Mickey sneered backstage that he makes money when little girls are sexually aroused, and “little girls are f—ing stupid. The purity rings make it OK for me to do whatever I want! Even the Christians are too f—ing stupid to figure out I’m selling sex to their daughters. I’ve made billions off Christian ignorance for decades now. And do you know why? Because Christians are retarded. They believe in a talking dead guy.”

What part of that isn’t true?  (more…)

Andrew Breitbart goes into the bowels of hell (legendary short man Bill Maher’s presence) and learns first hand how leftists frame arguments in such a fashion to shut down debate by shouting “racism!”

Additional clips here.

Dicentra over at the PW Pub actually lays out some transcripts from the video.

This is a great lesson in how liberal filibustering and Breitbart is spot on with this comment:

They pull out the “have you stopped beating your wife?” argument from the very beginning in hopes of stopping the debate immediately. When that fails, they just run their stupid mouths to ensure that an opposing viewpoint is not allowed airtime. Why do you think they want the new-and-improved fairness doctrine so badly?

I have to give Breitbart credit for taking them on, but after so much of the same thing time-after-time, isn’t it a waste of time and energy?

via Jeff G

UPDATE: Andrew explains. Thanks to Gabriel for the link.