November 25, 2003

From the home office in Ann Arbor, MI...

Top Ten Liberals' Nicknames for Ann Coulter

10. Bitch
9. Right Wing Wacko Barbie (Coming soon, from Mattel!)
8. Psycho
7. Ally McBeal of the Radical Right
6. Psycho Bitch
5. Far Right Fanatic Barbie (Comes with a "McCarthy Was Right!" pin for you to wear!)
4. ***CENSORED***
3. Neocon Nutcase Barbie (Dick Cheney Ken doll sold separately!)
2. Raving Lunatic
1. Honorary Stupid White Man

Quote for the Day: "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

Idiotic/Stomach-Turning Quote for the Day: "Cheney is my ideal man. Because he's solid. He's funny. He's very handsome. He was a football player. People don't think about him as the glamour type because he's a serious person, he wears glasses, he's lost his hair. But he's a very handsome man. And you cannot imagine him losing his temper, which I find extremely sexy. Men who get upset and lose their tempers and claim to be sensitive males: talk about girly boys. No, there's a reason hurricanes are named after women and homosexual men, it's one of our little methods of social control. We're supposed to fly off the handle."--Ann Coulter

November 20, 2003

You Might Be A Republican If... (Author unknown)

You think "proletariat" is a type of cheese.

You've named your kids "Deduction one" and Deduction two"

You've tried to argue that poverty could be abolished if people were just allowed to keep more of their minimum wage.

You've ever referred to someone as "my (insert racial or ethnic minority here) friend"

You've ever tried to prove Jesus was a capitalist and opposed to welfare.

You're a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty.

You think Huey Newton is a cookie.

The only union you support is the Baseball Players, because heck, they're richer than you.

You think you might remember laughing once as a kid.

You once broke loose at a party and removed your neck tie.

You call mall rent-a-cops "jack-booted thugs."

You've ever referred to the moral fiber of something.

You've ever uttered the phrase, "Why don't we just bomb the sons of bitches."

You've ever said, "I can't wait to get into business school."

You've ever called a secretary or waitress "Tootsie."

You answer to "The Man."

You don't think "The Simpsons" is all that funny, but you watch it because that Flanders fellow makes a lot of sense.

You fax the FBI a list of "Commies in my Neighborhood."

You don't let your kids watch Sesame Street because you accuse Bert and Ernie of "sexual deviance."

You use any of these terms to describe your wife: Old ball and chain, little woman, old lady, tax credit...

You scream "Dit-dit-ditto" while making love.

You've argued that art has a "moral foundation set in Western values."

When people say "Marx," you think "Groucho."

You've ever yelled, "Hey hippie, get a haircut."

You think Birkenstock was that radical rock concert in 1969.

You argue that you need 300 handguns, in case a bear ever attacks your home.

Vietnam makes a lot of sense to you.

You point to Hootie and the Blowfish as evidence of the end of racism in America.

You've ever said civil liberties, schmivil schmiberties.

You've ever said "Clean air? Looks clean to me."

You spent MLK Day reading "The Bell Curve."

You've ever called education a luxury.

You look down through a glass ceiling and chuckle.

You wonder if donations to the Pentagon are tax-deductable.

You came of age in the '60s and don't remember Bob Dylan.

You own a vehicle with an "Ollie North: American Hero" sticker.

You're afraid of the "liberal media."

You ever based an argument on the phrase, "Well, tradition dictates...."

You've ever called the National Endowment for the Arts a bunch of pornographers.

You think all artists are gay.

You ever told a child that Oscar the Grouch "lives in a trash can because he is lazy and doesn't want to contribute to society."

You've ever urged someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when they don't even have shoes.

You confuse Lenin with Lennon.

Quote for the Day: "In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination."--Mark Twain

Idiotic Quote for the Day: "Man thought hurt, but slightly dead."--Providence Journal Headline

November 18, 2003

My, it has been a while since my last entry, hasn't it? How time flies when you're having...well, time flies, anyway. The most exciting thing I've done in the last three weeks was attend Michael Moore's speech at EMU. There was a huge turnout, about 6000 people, and Moore was fantastic! He mainly focused on issues from his new book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" Like many people, he wants Bush out of the White House, and discussed how we might go about accomplishing that. Moore believes the 2004 election can't be about "Anyone but Bush," it has to be focused on getting the best person from the Democratic party to run, the person who is the most qualified to handle the mess this country is in, and getting people motivated to vote for that person. He encouraged everyone in the audience to donate one weekend next fall to activities such as voter-registration drives, handing out campaign literature, etc.

Moore also played a little game called "Stump the Canadian," in which he took the Canadian in the audience with the lowest GPA, and three Americans in the audience with straight A's, and squared them off in a test of knowledge about each others' countries. Incidentally, the Canadian with the lowest GPA (or at least, the one with the lowest GPA who was willing to volunteer) had a 3.0, which is a B average. Moore himself said, "I think that's as dumb as we're going to get with the Canadians." The Canadian won the contest, but it was close. Moore stated that he played that game at all 39 of the stops on his tour, and the Canadians won every single time. On the up side, EMU's Americans did better than the Americans at the other stops, including U of M, so that's something, at least. Still, it demonstrated just how pitifully uninformed Americans, even educated Americans, tend to be about other countries, especially our closest neighbors.

There was supposed to be a Q and A session after the speech, followed by a book signing. Unfortunately, during the Q and A, one of his security personnel informed him of a family emergency, and he had to leave right away. I had hoped to get my copy of "Dude, Where's My Country?" signed, along with a friend's copy of "Stupid White Men," so I was a *little* disappointed, but that's trivial considering the circumstances. Hopefully the family emergency wasn't too serious!

In other news, the ever eloquent "Bushwhacked" author Molly Ivins has a pair of excellent articles on Alternet this week. "Won't Run, Will Bug Out," calls Bush out on the carpet for his rapid about-face on the situation in Iraq. Her problem is not with his decision to pull out before the next election, she's all for that (and considering the mounting casualties, and lack of WMD's, I whole-heartedly agree with her), but with the blatant mis-handling of the whole Iraq situation. In "Call Me a Bush-Hater" she talks about the public's growing dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, and the right-wing's confusion over why the public is fed up. Many on the right claim they have never seen such hatred for a President, and Ivins aptly points out that there WAS such hatred, 8 years of it in fact, aimed at Clinton by the GOP. Ivins goes on to compare and contrast the two situations, exposing the right-wing's hypocrisy in the process, as well as making the excellent point that not everyone who criticizes Bush's policies is a de facto "Bush hater". It IS possible to hate someone's policies without hating the person, and throwing the term "Bush-hater" around like errant Pedro Martinez pitches isn't going to solve anything. If anything, it's a weak, juvenile attempt to deflect attention from the real issues, and intimidate critics into silence.

Alternet also has a fantastic interview with Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and author of "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century," a collection of op-ed pieces he wrote for the New York Times between January 2000 and January 2003. Krugman, who's actually a moderate, describes just how scary the Bush Administration really is (the whole picture, not just economics and foreign relations), and paints a bleak picture of the country's possible financial future. This is definitely an article everyone who cares about this country must read, especially with the elections less than a year away.

On a lighter note, Chuck has a fantastic parody piece on his weblog (see the November 16th entry) making fun of everyone's favorite anorexic, blonde, neo-con pundit, Ann Coulter, guest written by a friend of his. Very funny piece, well worth a read! Which brings me to another fantastic parody piece, Ann Coulter's Neocon School of Beauty and Elocution. Now you, too, can learn to be a liberal-bashing, bottle-blonde, brainless-rhetoric-spouting spokeswoman for the Far Right! (Just what you've always wanted, I'm sure!)

Quotes for the Day: "Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."--Gore Vidal

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States."--J. Bartlett Brebner

Idiotic Quote for the Day: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."--Ann Coulter