Creepiness abound.

Ever have a dream where you're a bunny who's murdered your bunny twin brother and you're trapped in a glass box with an omnipresent skull observing you?



Apparently Andrew Brandou has, and a lot more. Check it out.

More holliday fun with Randall Terry.

"Okay. You stand here, and she's gonna whip you."



I'm really starting to like this Randall Terry guy, he seems to love Halloween as much as I do. He should get credit as writer, producer, and choreographer for this little number.

The funniest part is that, if I'm not mistaken, these lunatics are protesting health care reform dollars going to pay for abortions, something that isn't even being considered in either the house or the senate. So they're protesting against something that doesn't even exist. Oh well, on with the show!

Hideous creature advances 1998 cooling fraud on Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck had someone or something called Christopher Booker on his show yesterday with his very own anti-global warming anecdote:



Apparently someone turned off the air conditioning at a senate hearing on global warming back in 1988 (which would explain Booker's melted appearance), therefore climate change is not happening. Booker then segues nicely into claiming the world has been cooling since 1998, yada yada yada. This, as we all know, is bullshit.

And FOX wonders why the Obama administration doesn't take them seriously. Well, a part of the problem I would say is the fact that FOX has no standards, something this clip is a good example of.

Here's about thirty more examples:

Stephen Colbert endorses Ref 71.

He also invites the cowards who put this thing on the ballot to hide in closets vacated by gay people. Brilliant.

I was hungry for hands, give me a break!

I know its Halloween, but this ain't right:



Ladies and gentlemen, may I present a dish I like to call meatloaf hand with onion fingernails. Courtesy of the aptly named NotMartha.org

I can't help but wonder if this was inspired by Llamas With Hats:

A handy dandy guide to burning our leaders in effigy.

Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry has been nice enough to produce a video guide for Halloween, showing us how to "start drawing from our proud American history of burning people in effigy."



Is it me, or does all of that look really, really illegal? Or at the very least moronic; setting a lighter fluid and cardboard fire in a yard full of dead leaves. What strikes me is how wholesome the whole affair appears to be until things catch on fire. I love the little segment where the girl's friend apparently tries to talk her out of it to no avail.

Hopefully we can all find better things to do for Halloween, here's a concept sketch I've produced for my costume:



Kidding of course. This is just one of the mind bending images produced by Dan Hillier. Check him out if you want some more spooky yet impossible costume ideas.

Venture Bros. manages to get even weirder.

The new season of Venture Bros. started last week, with the first episode featuring some Tarantino-esk plot chopping and reshuffling, as if the show wasn't hard enough to keep up with in the first place.

Ever since this show started I've tirelessly lobbied my friends and family to get into it, with limited success. But from what I've seen of season 4 so far, I suppose its worth another shot.

I've never seen an animation that packs so much detail into a half hour; obscure cultural and sci-fi references, skewering satire, site gags and one liners that fly by so fast it takes several viewings to get them all, plus copious amounts of blood. There's something for everybody.

Even actual character development, with the brothers Hank and Dean becoming young adults, something almost unheard of in popular animation (Bart and Lisa never aged).

Its only weakness is that Venture Bros. really is one of the those shows you have to see from the beginning to get everything. Luckily, every episode can be viewed for free at Adultswim.com. Someone please validate me!

Did they have "The Gay"?

In Magic Johnson's new book he apparently accuses Isiah Thomas of spreading rumors that he was gay after he tested positive for AIDS:

The criticisms are made by Johnson in When the Game Was Ours, which he co-wrote with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan. The book, to be released on Nov. 4, tells the inside story of the most important rivalry in basketball history.

Much of their story involves Thomas, who as captain of the Detroit Pistons served as a primary threat to the championship ambitions of Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers. The book offers revelations that have stunned Thomas. Magic addresses years of rumors by finally accusing Thomas of questioning his sexuality after Johnson was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. Magic also admits that he joined with Michael Jordan and other players in blackballing Thomas from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team, saying, "Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. ... Michael didn't want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn't pushing for him. Karl Malone didn't want him. Who was saying, 'We need this guy?' Nobody.''

"Magic acted and responded off some really bad information that he got,'' Thomas went on. "Whatever friendship we had, I thought it was bulls--- that he believed that. Let me put it to you this way: If he and I were such close friends, if I was questioning his sexuality, then I was questioning mine too. That's how idiotic it is.''

The book's main source for this allegation is Magic's longtime agent, Lon Rosen, who says Thomas told him in 1991, "I keep hearing Magic is gay.''

"C'mon, Isiah, you know Earvin better than anyone,'' Rosen replies.

"I know,'' Thomas answers, "but I don't know what he's doing when he's out there in L.A.''

On Wednesday, Thomas denied that conversation. "I don't know Lon like that,'' he said, adding that he reached out to Johnson at the time. "I remember calling Magic and saying [of the allegations that he was rumor-mongering], 'You know that's some bulls---.' ''

Now, all this he said she said stuff and feuds between players isn't particularly interesting or surprising. It's the unmentioned subtext that I'm after; namely the fact that questioning someones sexuality is grounds for terminating a friendship.

It's interesting to see this dynamic at work; the NBA (especially back then) being such a homophobic environment that the worst way Thomas thought he could hurt Johnson was by suggesting he was gay. This mentality still prevails today in most, if not all men's professional sports. How long can that last?

There are, of course, exceptions that prove the rule:

"Cooling since 1998" falsehood goes unchallenged on CNN.

Mary Matalin was allowed to spit out all kinds of climate change denier nonsense on yesterday's "The Situation Room", including the nugget that I posted about on Tuesday:



This is how the misinformation and anecdotes stay alive; Wolfe Blitzer has a guest on his show who presents an argument that has been proven false, yet he fails to challenge it and continues with the segment. Matalin accomplishes her mission just by getting the nonsense out there, infecting the brains of thousands more CNN viewers.

Of course, I probably shouldn't expect anything less from one half of the most unholy political unions in history:



Seriously? Gross.

Rep. Anthony Weiner dances in the flame.

Nobody puts into words the case for the public option more convincingly or articulately than Rep. Anthony Weiner:

"There's a divide here. Some people think a watered down health care plan could be a success for us. Some, like myself, believe that if we don't get this right, we won't get another chance for twenty years."

I agree with just about everything this guy says, and I'm glad he has the balls (or a blue enough district) to say it.

Does this mean we can finally prosecute the BeeGees?

This is weird territory for sure; Musicians call for release of records on Guantanamo detainee treatment:

Dozens of musicians endorsed a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the National Security Archive, a Washington-based independent research institute, seeking the declassification of all records related to the use of music in interrogation practices. The artists also launched a formal protest of the use of music in conjunction with torture.

Specific songs mentioned include Queen's "We Are the Champions" and "March of the Pigs" by industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails. Another former prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, told Human Rights Watch that he had been forced to listen to the rapper Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady" for 20 days.

This hits pretty close to home for me. In the year 2000, I myself was forced to listen to the rapper Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady" for 20 days by a person who shall remain nameless, and I can personally attest to its damaging psychological effects.

A who's who of the Anti-Vaccine Crusade.

Wired magazine came out with a couple of great articles about the anti-vaccine hysteria.

One debunks the latest myths about the H1N1 vaccine.

Another sheds some light on celebrities and politicians who promote this nonsense.


Jim Carey? Say it ain't so!

Nuggets of Disinformation.

This stuff is a little old, but worth getting into. The climate change issue has pretty much fallen by the wayside for the last year and a half, for obvious reasons. But its important to be aware of what's happening in this debate; especially to be able to tell information from disinformation.

When someone tries to form an opinion on something they don't fully comprehend, they often rely on anecdotal evidence to make up their minds, and they don't really think that much more about it after that. I've gone back and forth on climate change a few times that way, until I finally got sick of that and really sank my teeth into some hard information. And the case at this point appears to be convincing that human activities are producing co2 which is in turn causing temperatures to rise. But...

Since climate change is an extremely complex scientific phenomenon, there's ample opportunity for bad actors to slip little nuggets of disinformation into the debate that, when not vetted carefully, can be persuasive enough to push someone to one side or the other.

Here's a fine example:



Phelim McAleer, producer of "NEJW", paid a visit to Lou Dobbs last week and had a few nuggets to bury:



So McAleer says that since the hottest year on record was back in 1998, the globe has been actually cooling ever since. He backs this up with an idiotic anecdote about people supposedly growing wine in Britain at some point in the past. Rubbish.



Climate Clock of the Week with Peter Sinclair is a good source for fact-backed analysis of nuggets like this. The problem is that even though McAleer's argument is a proven fraud, its still a victory for him in that that nugget and that anecdote have been freshly introduced to probably thousands more susceptible minds.

And now that I've watched it again, its actually Lou Dobbs that first introduces this nonsense into the conversation! To think, at the beginning of the interview, Lou Dobbs wondered aloud why we just don't deal with the "salient and crystal clear?" on this issue. It only took him another minute in the program to demonstrate that he was one of the reasons why.

Bill Maher ain't no slave to the needle.

On the Real Time with Bill Maher finale, Bill took some time to tell us how vaccination is "a risky medical procedure" and how his childhood vaccines might have caused his horrible allergies; "Was it because I was vaccinated as an infant? I don't know." Ironically Maher, a devout atheist, might as well have said "Did God give me horrible allergies? I don't know.", because there is equal amounts of evidence to support either of these claims. Absolutely zero.

Guests Chris Matthews and Alec Baldwin weren't buying it either, and they take the opportunity to have a little fun with Maher:



I like Bill Maher a lot; he has a long history of sniffing out bullshit where ever it can be found on the cultural landscape, even when its spread by politically like minded people. Case in point, Maher angrily throwing a bunch of 9/11 truthers off his set a few years ago.

But this anti-vaccination stuff is nonsense. While some vaccinations can have side effects, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that they are perfectly safe, and there is a long history of unwarranted hysteria surrounding vaccination, which time and time again has been proven false. The most recent being Jennifer McCarthy's assertion that a measles vaccine gave her son autism, something that is scientifically impossible.

But Maher really goes beyond that, speculating that chemicals used widely in modern food production and chemicals we're exposed to in the environment over the course of our daily lives constitute an "aggregate toxicity", which is the real reason people get sick. Again, no evidence, this is just him spit balling here. And that's really too bad; I think Maher is letting his corporate paranoia get the best of him, and this whole issue hurts the credibility of an otherwise very rational thinker.

This stuff is more in the realm of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, except instead of the corporations out to get you, it's the government (surprise, surprise).

Yes We Cannabis!

Looks like Obama might actually come through with at least one of his campaign promises; AP Newsbreak: New medical marijuana policy issued.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

For those who don't know, Obama's Drug Czar is none other than former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. While Kerlikowske could hardly be considered pro-legalization, he did preside over a period in Seattle where marijuana crime was considered a lowest priority offense, a policy that has seen success and continuation under his successor.

Whether the DEA will actually conform to this policy is another question, with agents continuing to raid perfectly legal medical marijuana clinics on the same day this policy change was announced. Also, how will this affect the plot of Weeds?

Breaking: Meghan McCain has huge tits.

The sexy wrongness of Meghan McCain continues unabated as she is forced to apologize for posting this photo on twitter.

After a string of critical comments were posted about the picture by some of her 60,000 Twitter followers, Miss McCain complained that she was "just trying to be funny" and was considering deleting her Twitter account.

"When I am alone in my apartment, I wear tank tops and sweat pants, I had no idea this makes me a 'slut,'" she said on Twitter. "I can't even tell you how hurt I am.

"This is why I have been considering deleting my Twitter account, what once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment," she said.

After saying she planned to "sleep on it", Miss McCain – whose Twitter handle is @mccainBlogette – tweeted again to apologise.

"I do want to apologise to anyone that was offended by my Twitpic. I have clearly made a huge mistake and am sorry 2 (sic) those that are offended."

It's a shame that a woman can't show the slightest bit of sexuality and still stay in the good graces of the Republican party. There's really nothing racy about that photo at all, besides the fact that it's proof that Meghan McCain's double D's do indeed exist.

But beyond her suppressed hotness, McCain seems to be one of the few Republicans who recognizes the problems in her party and is willing to do some truth telling on the subject.



I sincerely hope Meghan McCain's sex tape surfaces soon so she can give up this futile task of modernizing the Republican party. Maybe Rachel Maddow should ask her for a private interview over a few wine coolers and, y'know, see what happens? I would pay to watch that.

With a whimper...

Stop the presses, Glenn Beck sobs again. This time while listening to...Paul Anka?




This is a good example of how he and his audience fetishises a long lost "good ol' days" fantasy world where everyone was responsible and took care of themselves and didn't have the government taking what they had earned. For most of us, of course, this world never existed. But many people still cling to the idea that America was better back in the 50's or so, when it was segregated and dominated by religion and on the brink of nuclear war.

This fetish dovetails nicely with what these people think is in store for America's future. Democracy Corp, a Democratic polling and consulting firm, studied the beliefs and opinions of the Teabag protesters that were showing up at town halls and rallies around the country this summer, and found that they live in a virtual alternative reality;

First and foremost, these conservative Republican voters believe Obama is deliberately and ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt our country and dramatically expand government control over all aspects of our daily lives. They view this effort in sweeping terms, and cast a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of the United States as it was conceived by our founders and developed over the past 200 years. This concern combines with a profound sense of collective identity. They readily identify themselves as a minority in this country - a minority whose values are mocked and attacked by a liberal media and class of elites. They also believe they possess a level of knowledge and understanding when it comes to politics and current events, one gained from a rejection of the mainstream media and an embrace of conservative media and pundits such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, which sets them apart even more.

I have written about this belief before; that the angry, populist sentiment being stoked by Beck is a kind of fusion of quasi libertarian orthodoxy, combined with conspiracy theory and god ole' American rebelliousness. And that's pretty scary, because people like Beck and the Teabaggers don't just have a problem with Obama; they have a problem with how society has been organized and run for the last hundred years.

How racist people convince themselves they're not racists? Nigger rig it.

So a while back I saw this video of an openly racist redneck bar owner in rural Georgia who proudly displayed a sign outside his joint that featured the term "Nigger Rig It"



Now I'm not unfamiliar with the term. I grew up saying it and always thought it was funny just as long it didn't slip out in front of black people (one of the perks of being white: racism as a guilty pleasure). I'm a little smarter than that now, but
I immediately recognised this retards mechanism for excusing his racism.

It seems that simply by putting up pictures of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, and being a registered member of the NAACP, the guy thinks he has permission to still throw around his favorite racist jokes. Offensive yes, but not really that interesting. I mean, a racist in Georgia? Who'da thunk it?

Then I saw the "Heros" section of the new GOP website:



The dark faces there are Octavius Catto, Jose Celso Barbosa ,Jackie Robinson, Hiram Revels, John Langston, Pinckney Pinchback, Joseph Rainey, Mary Terrell, and Fredrick Douglass.

Most of these historical black "Republicans" are over a hundred years dead, and all predate the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when the all the pro-segregation Democrats defected and ran to the open arms of the Republican Party.

It seems that the GOP, much like your redneck bar owner, seems to think all one needs to do is put pictures on the wall and everything will be copasetic.

We be lovin' it!

I love watching football on Sunday for a lot of obvious reasons. But one not so obvious reason is the commercials; specifically the commercials selling very unhealthy food to targeted audiences. My previous post on Jim Breuer's Pizza Hut commercial is a good example of this.

Well this week was no disappointment, as Taco Bell rolled out the inexplicable Black Taco.

I can't help but picturing the marketing brainstorm the yielded this culinary innovation; hell, black president- why not black taco? Progress, right?

But that's more bizarre than actually racial. McDonald's, on the other hand, has a long history of pandering to black consumers with some pretty hilarious results:



The McDonald's ads that rolled on Sunday were for their annual monopoly promotion, and featured a lot of black people eating the product and a pair or red dice rolling at the screen, to which I couldn't help yelling "Clickity clack!". I can't find the video on the internet, but you'll find web ads all over the NFL's official website. So is this more of the same pandering? Or am reading into the subtext a little too much.

Either way, it brings to mind this hilarious video from a while back:

It's Always Sunny Darkest Comedy Ever.

I really have to hand it to this show, they have my demo locked.




The depravity that is routinely featured on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia really knows no bounds; every plot is a booze fueled grift to cheat the system or exploit someone else. To do any thing but work. Every character has absolutely zero interest in the future beyond settling a score with another character or getting out of a predicament their own slothfulness put them in. And because their attention spans are so short, every episode ends with them tiring of the scheme or getting too fucked up to remember what the scheme was in the first place.

So why does the fact that this reminds me of my life 2003-2005 comfort me so? Someone out there gets me!

Schadenfreude anyone?

If you're not familiar Betsy McCaughey you at least are likely familiar with her work. She was the originator of claim that government run health care would lead to rationing and, ultimately, death panels. Sarah Palin of course immediately dispatched a twitter (or was it a facebook post?) about it and the rest was history.

McCaughey, a former medical corporation executive and a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, has since emerged as one of the leading opponents of health reform, mainly by fear mongering seniors.

Well last night on MSNBC she ran into a buzz saw by the name of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who...well, see for yourself.



This is a good example of how an adversarial press is supposed to work; this woman is making a career for herself by repeatedly and intentionaly misrepresented facts and spreading complete fabrications in order to prevent meaningful reform of her former industry. And Dylan Ratigan treats her as such, instead of sitting there and listening to her fill airtime with unsubstantiated claims. Granted, two guys beating up on a woman doesn't exactly look good, but it's still gratifying to see a bamboozler like McCaughey get surprised by a real journalist.

Gohmert Pile

Here's some social upheaval for ya. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert explains how giving homosexuals protection from hate crimes (never mind equal rights under law) will lead to child fucking and corpse fucking all kinds of terrible things. But don't get any ideas, he's not a bigot or a racist; he voted for Alan Keyes.

And he wasn't done there, it all ties in with how we're teetering on the brink of Nazism beacause of...hate crime legislature? I think that was the original topic.

Hustling for pussy caused early man to evolve.

In 1992, archaeologists digging in Ethiopia discovered the pulverized skeleton of an as yet undiscovered species of ape that was 4.4 million years old. This month, after 17 years of reconstruction and study, scientists announced that the skeleton was in fact the oldest fossil of a human ancestor ever found, Ardipithecus ramidus.



Cute huh? Careful ladies, he knows how to get what he wants.

One theory that scientists have put forth to explain how Ardi evolved from swinging in trees on all fours, to running across grasslands on two legs, was to secure sex from a female:

Virtually all apes and monkeys, especially males, have long upper canine teeth—formidable weapons in fights for mating opportunities.

But Ardipithecus appears to have already embarked on a uniquely human evolutionary path, with canines reduced in size and dramatically "feminized" to a stubby, diamond shape, according to the researchers. Males and female specimens are also close to each other in body size.

Lovejoy sees these changes as part of an epochal shift in social behavior: Instead of fighting for access to females, a male Ardipithecus would supply a "targeted female" and her offspring with gathered foods and gain her sexual loyalty in return.

To keep up his end of the deal, a male needed to have his hands free to carry home the food. Bipedalism may have been a poor way for Ardipithecus to get around, but through its contribution to the "sex for food" contract, it would have been an excellent way to bear more offspring. And in evolution, of course, more offspring is the name of the game.

So ladies, next time you have to fend off the advances of some knuckle dragging d-bag in a bar, bare in mind he's just trying to evolve.

Jack Ass Pot!

If you've been watching football on ABC, NBC, FOX, or ESPN you've probably already had the misfortune of seeing this comercial:




Now, I don't have anything against celebrities (A or D list) doing endorsements and advertisements, but really Jim? Maybe if the product wasn't as revolting as cheese injected pizza this would be okay.

But "Jack Pot!"?!?! Wonder how he came up with that one. Perhaps its what you're supposed to scream as you shit out a block of processed cheese hours after dinner.

I love Jim Breur, but damn. He needs to either start or stop smoking weed again.

Exibit A

There can be no doubt that the modern enbodiment of the historical derangement that I discussed in my first post is none other than Glenn Beck. In this interview with the conservative website Newsmax, Beck carines from one end of the crazy spectrum to the other; belching out conspiracy theories and Nazi comparisons and wraps the whole thing up with the claim that only God can save us.

You can see for yourself here.

He ends the interview by pimping his new book:



I'll say this; if Beck's followers need a book to instruct them on how to win arguments idiots, how stupid are they?

Since no one asked for it...

Well here it is, my first post. And since I've always regarded blogging as so much intellectual masturbation, I suppose it's fitting that I spend my first post on my first blog explaining the penis in the title.

Anyone who knows me knows that I've had a fascination with the historical figure of Rasputin for some time now; between his political influence with the Romanov family, his reputation as healer and mystic, the sordid rumors of orgies and his legendary member, and his ultimately violent demise and folklore that followed, Rasputin's life was a remarkable fusion of fact and fiction. He was a controversial public figure in a time of tremendous political and social upheaval, so much so that nearly a hundred years after his death there's a museum that claims to display his preserved 13 inch penis.



How does this shit happen?

Today the United States is experiencing a period of political and social upheaval not unlike the end of Tsarist Russia; at least that's what some people plainly believe. We're either creating a new era of social justice and responsibility or destroying everything our nation was built on. We're either entering a new age of scientific enlightenment or swirling down the drain towards Armageddon. We're either finally getting what we deserve or getting bilked out of everything we've worked for. As a result, one can observe all kinds of rumors and strange behavior today that Rasputin himself would have shook his head at in disbelief.

That's what this blog is about. And some other stuff. Enjoy!