Friday, May 23, 2008

A Checklist For Pastor Hagee

I figured that since Jeremiah Wright got a full week of press to demonstrate his asshattery, it would only be fair for John Hagee to get the same. Hagee, you may recall, is the jowly dough-boy who opined from the pulpit that Hitler was an instrument of God for shooing the Jews back to Israel where they belong, and that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for New Orleans holding a Gay Pride parade (then why was the gay part of town the least damaged, I wonder?) Here's a summary of his stupider statements. Oh, and did I mention that McCain went out of his way to seek this idiot's endorsement because you can't be a Republican contender until you get down with the fundies, and digging up and embracing the corpse of Falwell was deemed too aerobic an activity for a 71-year-old man? And then it took McCain three months to reject said endorsement, after Hagee's increasingly insane rants came to light? So with that in mind I've put together a series of talking points for the right reverend Hagee to use when he stops running from the press:

God digs genocide. The genocide in Rwanda was God's way of showing the power of radio and the glory of the machete: a cheap, efficient, and useful weapon, whether clearing brush or butchering the neighbors. Plus, it's just black people -- God doesn't like them much.

Indiscriminate death always benefits the faithful. The Black Plague wiped Christendom's slate by killing all the feebs and weirdos, leaving only the strong Christians to rebuild Europe: just like God wants it. AIDS almost killed off the gays until the damn demon-possessed libruls stepped in and came up with retroviral therapy.

The mind of God is an open book, which only I am privy to read. That's right, MY Bible has stuff in it yours can only dream about. With pictures. And flowcharts. And stuff.

Democrats want to eat your babies. My babies? Yes, your babies. Raw. And they'll set up government-run camps to breed babies for their awful blood orgies during which they summon the spirit of Socialized Medicine and dance around nekkid.

Global warming is either a lie perpetuated by the liberal elite or God's wrath on the liberal elite, I haven't decided which yet. But when I do decide, I'll be sure and let you know what God thinks about it.

Monday, May 19, 2008

In Which I Watch C-SPAN, And Am Disgusted

OK, it's late. I'm drunk.

But C-SPAN flipped my shit tonight.

It's the prototypical Senate subcommittee hearing: the Government Affairs Subcommittee on Government Information, in fact, chaired by Tom Carper (D - Somewhere). Testifying before the committee committee committee (sorry, it's just somehow fun to type that word committee committee committee), the Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, was blase and reflective about Lockheed-Martin's software that the Nation Archives was using to store all government documents.

Wait, what?

Lockheed-Martin?

Really? Rilly? O RLY? 4RL?

Lockheed-Fucking-Martin?

Don't they make airplanes? And land mines, and super-secret-Navy-Seal-tell-you-hafta-kill-you stuff?

Do we really want Lockheed-Martin in charge of the PROGRAM FOR PRESERVING OUR NATIONAL HISTORY?

Worst part of it: the Inspector-General of the National Archives and Records Administration, Paul Brachfeld, quotes a Dave Matthews Bland lyric, and the subcommittee subcommittee subcommittee chairman winks at the motherfucker.

Salient quote: "People would be shocked at the kind of records we hold." Good thing that's all classified, then. Oh, wait, no it isn't.

It's the NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

Friday, May 16, 2008

I Wonder How Many Sermons On The Evil Of Homosexuality He's Preached?

Megachurch minister arrested in Texas for planning to have sex with 13-year-old.

Of course, it isn't the church's fault. I mean, they have 26,000 members and 40 ministers, who can keep up with all of them?

And I'm waiting for the tearful "we have all sinned" court appearance where he'll inevitably ask for forgiveness and seek compassion from his invisible sky wizard, and by extension, the jury.

It must be nice to go through life convinced that not only are you irreparably flawed, but that forgiveness is just a genuflection away. How that must relieve one of responsibility.

I'll bet money this guy will "minister" to other inmates while he's in.

Because he's a man of God.

*barf*

Cory Maye: A ReasonTV Recap

I've blogged about this before, and now ReasonTV is covering the story, based on the admirable reporting of Radley Balko.

This story is a tragic example of how the Drug War ruins lives, for both the cops and the people they are supposed to be protecting.

Click the title for the link.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Plot of GTA V Revealed!

Not really.

This is just what one rabid fanboy (me) think it should be. With a title designed to draw suckers into reading my blog.

OK, Rockstar always ups the ante with every iteration, right? And having built the game systems they can now squeeze out another one (a GTA IV.5, so to speak) like they did with III. So next year, I want to see a GTA game starring....

....Dwayne Forge's lesbian ex-girlfriend.

Think about it. Unless you haven't played the game, in which case you are excused and you should probably go here instead. Dwayne, the surly, chronically depressed ex-con who is crippled with self-loathing rivaled only by his disdain for the system that chewed him up and spat him out, is one of the best characters ever written into a video game. But he shouldn't be the main character -- that would be too close to CJ from GTA:SA. Dwayne is the Greek chorus of the game, and he should be on the sidelines in the next one. And by making the character a lesbian, Rockstar gets to mess with the heads of the player base, while addressing issues of sexism and gender and sexual freedom in a visceral way (rocket-propelled grenades = visceral).

So, here's my idea. Dwayne gets framed and jailed. Maybe he's sitting on Death Row. It's up to his ex, who has accepted herself and changed her life while Dwayne was inside, to free him. She follows a trail that leads from gangbangers to crooked cops to a conspiracy involving the highest levels of government. Remember, this game will take a couple of years to make, at which time we'll be deep into the corruption and treason trials of several key former Bush administration officials (a man can dream, can't he?).

I think it could work.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sexist Radiohead T-Shirts

At the Radiohead show in Atlanta Thursday night I was standing at the T-shirt booth and wondering just what kind of idiot would pay $40 for a t-shirt. Then my phone rang, and it was my friend Terry asking me to buy him a t-shirt.

"They're 40 bucks, dude," I said.
"I don't care. I want a Radiohead t-shirt."
"They're not all that great. They have slogans written on them. They don't even say they're Radiohead tour t-shirts."
"What do they say?"

I read a few of them to him. They were the kind of cryptic dyspeptic grumbling beloved by Radiohead fans. One, though, stood out. On a plain black t-shirt, in a font that mimicked the electronic CRT displays of the 80s, was printed: "I am trapped in my body and cannot escape."

"That's the one I want," Terry said. I should mention at this point that Terry is trapped in his body and cannot escape. He has inherited spastic paraparesis which has locked his muscles, stiffened his jaw, and left him nearly blind. For him to wear that t-shirt would be a truly blackly humorous form of performance art.

So I told the woman running the kiosk that that was the shirt I wanted.

"It's a baby tee," she said. "A girl's shirt."

"There's not one with that slogan on it in a men's size?"

"Nope. That one's for women," she said.

Wow. So the assumption there is that only women are trapped in their bodies. I understand that body image is a problem that disproportionately affects young women, but still. Also, it's a baby tee. One size: curvy and small. No fat chicks need apply. BBW who are trapped in their bodies will hafta choose a different shirt.

That's kinda sexist, Radiohead.

So I got Terry one that read: "You used to be all right. What happened?"