Self-writing jokes

The Wall Street Journal writes:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is barring private American AIDS organizations from winning federal grants to provide health services overseas unless they pledge their opposition to prostitution, as part of a broader Republican effort in recent weeks to apply conservative values to foreign-assistance programs. [Emphasis added.]

Maybe Scooby can call on Jeff Gannon, James Guckert Deuce Bigalow at the next White House press conference.

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So long, and thanks for the all the bush

Steve of No More Mister Nice Blog writes:

It’s begun to dawn on me that there’s nothing I can do here that isn’t being done with more style, wit, and/or reportorial doggedness by dozens of others. It’s gotten harder and harder lately to say something fresh, to make a connection no one else seems to be making. And it often seems futile — the political world doesn’t pay much attention to the first-raters on the Internet left, and often snickers when it does (see: Gannon, Jeff, revelations about). I’m not in the same league as those first-raters, so I can’t imagine ever having any more impact with this blog than I’d would if I were just muttering about Bush in a bar.

I’ve enjoyed this, but I don’t read as many books as I used to, and I think and talk about this way too much. I need to move on. Maybe I’ll do something similar someday, but right now it’s time to let go.

NMMNB was one of the first blogs we discovered (back in the day,) and it had remained one of our favorites. Indeed, while we’ve often our own work, let’s say, uneven, Steve always managed to put things together in a way that made us feel we’d thought of that. Thanks.

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Damn Aliens!

No rant shall be ruined by the mere inconvenience of facts:

Here’s some factual information. In 2000, 85% of the candidates endorsed by the NRA won their elections. In 2002, that rose to 89%. And in 2004% after a marvelous cover story on George Soros and the other anti-American aliens who seek to overthrow this nation’s Constitution, the total rose to 95%.

My fellow astronauts:

Soros, who emigrated from Hungary in 1956 and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen[.]

And so it goes:

Young and old women, little boys or anyone else that the leftist lawyers know to be taxpayer subsidized repeat customers are of no interest to the pro-criminal left, any more than alien terrorists are to be met with anything stronger than appeasement and consent.

The amazing thing about that sentence is that it makes just as much sense regardless of the order in which you put the words. Try it at home!

No wonder the leftists hate George W. Bush. His foreign and domestic policies are just so logical and consistent. There is good and evil in the world. And if the evil bastards attack and want to take innocent lives, kill the sons of bitches.

The world’s a beautiful thing when you can reduce it to a few meaningless sentences. All this wanking is enough to make us miss the good old days when we had Stanton Carlisle to kick around.

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Yeah, that totally sounds like Christina Ricci’s fault

According to Michelle Malkin, if teenagers are into cutting these days, it’s because of Christina Ricci:

This madness would not be as popular as it is among young people if not for the glamorizing endorsement of nitwit celebrities such as twentysomething actress Christina Ricci. Several of the websites I researched highlighted the same quotes from Ricci describing her experiences with self-injury:

We’ll skip the comment about the fact that “several of the websites I researched” has become the wingnut way of saying “I found these on google.” Instead, we’ll see what mental health experts have to say about cutting:

Teenage girls are the most common group of cutters. Some of these girls have had an experience in their past that has led them to associate physical pain with an eventual reward. Others simply feel inadequate, unworthy and undeserving of any happiness. They are unable to assert themselves constructively [...] Treatment for cutters is multifaceted. A therapist must first address the underlying causes of the behavior such as depression or anxiety, simultaneously teaching ways to control the actual behavior of cutting. Some psychiatrists and therapists have specialized experience in treating this condition.

Does anyone else want to jump in?

Self harm or self injury and attempted suicide are often symptoms of abuse. Some counsellors have found that between 50 and 90 per cent of their clients who harm themselves have been abused.

Malkin also throws out this statistic:

In Britain, health care researchers estimate that one in 10 teenagers engages in addictive self injury.

The likeliest source is The Samaritans. What do they say about “cutting?”

Self harm is a way of communicating distress about feelings that are difficult to cope with and can’t be expressed in any other way.

Of course, it’s always much simpler to blame “Hollyweird” — even when the only evidence you can offer is your firm conviction that there just has to be a politically convenient scapegoat to the problem you’ve identified.

Bonus points: Malkin writes:

According to psychiatrist Gary Litovitz, medical director of Dominion Hospital in Falls Church, Va., the growing trend here in America has alarmed school guidance counselors around the country.

Which makes it sound like she did some actual non-Google research and talked to the guy. Or maybe she just read this article he wrote:

An alarming trend is seen among adolescents, particularly teenage girls, to the point where guidance counselors around the country are seeking training and education on how to identify cutters and how to best help their students get out of this vicious cycle.

“Research.” If Malkin actually cared about this, she could have provided this link to The Samaritans’ report on cutting (PDF file.) But then people might have noticed that, amazingly, of all the reasons teenagers gave for “cutting,” neither Christina Ricci nor Angelina Jolie were mentioned. If you ask us, when we think of Angelina “cutting” isn’t what we wanna do.

(Via alicublog.)

Update: More from MalkinWatch and Terminus.

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No, not the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen again!

First it was Adam Yoshida — now it’s Kaye Grogan’s [aka The Editors' secret wife] turn to suggest a new alliance is needed:

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe the United States should ditch this unpopular group of nations, and reorganize with real allies, not a bunch of artificial pretenders.

Time to say goodbye to the UN — the saccharine of international alliances. And then the medication starts to wear off:

If anyone really believes there were not WMD’s originally in Iraq, then they must enjoy being in denial. Common sense should tell at least some of us, no one goes to war or threatens war with just a few missiles that would fizzle out like a bad batch of fireworks, before they would hit their target. I mean come on ? get out of the dark ages and face reality!

“Originally.” We guess we’d better get out of here before Germany is attacked again for “originally” having a Nazi government.

The threats against the United States are as real as a heart attack, and to think otherwise is pure nonsense!

So real, Kaye has to use a lot of !!!, to be sure you get it!!!

It seems mighty strange, many terrorists involved in the terrorist acts ended up being captured in Iraq.

Kaye, you forgot !!!.

Terrorists are not deserving of kid-glove treatment from us.

Yeah, they have it way too easy. Time for our old classic (!) — Sadly, No! Gipsy. (6MB Flash file.)

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Great observations about science and human progress

Over at The Rant, Lee Ellis explains why it might be a while before we see hydrogen-powered cars:

Hey, it took decades to replicate the Buck Rogers comics and get a man to the moon.

Which reminds us a great deal of K-Lo’s useful aspects of The West Wing.

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Well, good thing TV Guide is a refereed journal!

Having filled out the complaint form over at Focus on the Dysfunctional Family, it was with great trepidation that we clicked on the submit button. Once. Twice. And then we ended up here:

Well we knew our complaint couldn’t be as serious as all those other issues, so we immediately clicked on What are the long-term consequences of violent and sexual television programming? It’s a good thing we did:

One of the most conclusive studies was conducted by Dr. Leonard D. Aaron. He examined a group of children at age 8 and then again at 19 and finally at 30. Children in the United States, Australia, Finland, Israel and Poland were studied. The outcome was the same; the more frequently the participants watched violent television at age 8, the more likely they were to be convicted of crimes by age 30, and the more aggressive was their behavior when drinking. (34)

We were a bit skeptical but then we checked out the footnote:

(34) TV Guide, 22-28 August 1992

And given that when it comes to such research TV Guide is the penultimate reference (right after the New England Journal of Entertainment Weekly,) we knew we needed no additional proof.

Then again, Focus on the Spelling’s point would have likely been more convincing if they had actually managed to spell the name of their source correctly: it’s Leonard Eron.

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Could it be because she needs a belt to hold up her breasts?

Over at Townhall’s blog, Ryan writes:

Suddenly the fabulous Michelle Malkin came by to surprise the group. [...] I’ve never seen so many smiles and cameras appear so fast. Ms. Malkin clearly enjoys a bit of celebrity status among the bloggers at CPAC.

If you’re wondering how it is that a woman who looks like this and that enjoys celebrity status, you might need to know that the bloggers look like this guy and that other guy.

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All those countries look the same

You say Iran, I say Iraq:

Thanks to Blair for the pic.

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Good thing we have Human Events Online!

Don’t take our word for it — take the word of the world’s leading constitutional scholar, Ann Coulter:

For example, in recent issues of HUMAN EVENTS…

I also read the following quote. “People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them.” Was this an Islamic terrorist? Jacques Chirac complaining about Paris traffic? No. . . it was a radical environmentalist complaining that the insecticide DDT was actually saving lives.

Liberal coverage — NONE

No liberal coverage? Could it have anything to do that the alleged quote dates back to 1972?

Charles W?rster, a leading environmentalist with the Environmental Defence Fund captured Green thinking succinctly in 1972 when the US Environmental Protection Agency was in the process of banning DDT. When someone pointed out to him that banning DDT would cost lives in poor countries he is reported to have said: “So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any.”

And that would be us being very generous, since even the wingnuts who keep pushing the claim always describe this as an alleged quote. Some people have, apparently, done more research:

They [House Hearings on the Federal Pesticide Control Act of 1971] did allow Wurster to submit a letter that was included in the transcripts (page 268):

I wish to deny all of the statements of Mr, Yannacone. His remarks about me, attributed to me, and about other trustees of EDF are purely fantasy and bear no resemblance to the truth. It was in part because Mr. Yannacone lost touch with reality that he was dismissed by EDF, and his remarks of May 1970 indicate that his inability to separate fact from fiction has accelerated.

I respectfully request that my denial of any truth to Mr. Yannacone’s remarks be made part of the record of these hearings.

None of the authors who have quoted Wurster’s alleged comments have indicated that he denied making the remarks. No one that I know of has ever produced a transcript or other record of the supposed news conference.

So there you have it — the liberal media won’t give prominent coverage to alleged quotes made in the early 1970s by people you’ve never heard of. Of course, that won’t stop many from arguing that the liberal media is out to get you. When you’re young and in love, it’s hard to resist such a tempting conspiracy of fucksticks. (Or a fucksticracy as we call it around the house.)

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This is what we’re aiming for now?

Just when you thought Alan Greenspan had reached the pinnacle of uselessness:

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan embraced President Bush’s vision of an “ownership society” on Thursday, saying private Social Security accounts could foster feelings of wealth among poor Americans. [...]

While admitting private accounts would not solve the solvency problem facing the government retirement system, he said they would create “a sense of ownership.”

“These accounts, properly constructed and managed, will create … a sense of increased wealth on the part of middle and lower-income classes of this society, who have had to struggle with very little capital,” Greenspan told the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. [Emphasis added, fuckstickery in the original.]

Private accounts will not solve the problem, but they are good because they will give poor Americans a sense of increased wealth and make them feel like they’re wealthy.

Alan! What have they done to you?

PRAY FOR ALAN.

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Live from Hamburg, it’s Sadly, No!

Looks like Bush picked the wrong week to continue being a flip flopping liar.

President Bush, Feb. 12, 2005:

I will work with members of Congress and listen to any good idea that does not include raising payroll taxes.

President Bush, Feb. 16, 2005:

President Bush says he has not ruled out raising taxes on those who earn more than $90,000 a year to help bolster Social Security’s finances.

President Bush, Dec. 11, 2004:

Secondly, we must not increase payroll taxes, because higher taxes would slow economic growth.

President Bush, Feb. 16, 2005:

U.S. President George W. Bush suggested in an interview published on Wednesday he may be open to raising the cap on Social Security taxes paid by high-income earners.

President Bush, Feb. 5, 2005:

We will not increase payroll taxes.

President Bush, Feb. 16, 2005:

[White House spokesman Trent] Duffy said that while Bush is open to talking about such ideas as the raising the payroll tax cap, “that doesn’t mean he’s embraced it.”

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Anything else?

President Bush says:

Bush Criticizes Syria, Iran As Instable

This was followed by Bush criticizes water as wet along with Bush criticizes Jeff Ganon for having a big schlong, with our personal favorite President Bush criticizes Ann Coulter for abnormally large Adam’s apple coming in last.

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Lieutenant Koko, Reporting For Duty!

Well, now we know why the scientists keep making them:

The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has. [...]

The robot soldier is coming. [...]

His colleague, Jeff Grossman, spoke of the evolving intelligence of robot soldiers. “Now, maybe, we’re a mammal,” he says. “We’re trying to get to the level of a primate, where we are making sensible decisions.”

Innocent primate?

Mr. Pless: Mr. Kramer, he is an innocent primate.
Kramer: So am I. What about my feelings?

Then again, if we can get bathroom monkey, surely we can do this. Let’s just hope that the monkeys primate soldiers don’t start writing “MONKEY HATE NEOCONS” in red lipstick on the walls.

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Oh, how embarrassing this must be for you

Then again, this is just another day at the office for Mark Steyn. Over a week after many web sites (including this one, damnum absque injuria and snopes) debunked the German unemployed to the brothel story, Mark Steyn is the latest to enter the race in what may well turn out to be one of the most (ab)used urban legend of the year so far. As we would expect of Steyn, he cranks up the hack-o-meter:

Here are three small news items from around the world you might have missed:

1) An unemployed waitress in Berlin faces the loss of her welfare benefits after refusing a job as a prostitute in a legalized brothel. [...]

A trio of itsy-bitsy little stories from the foot of page 27 of your daily paper, if they made it at all. But they’re as revealing about the course of the war as anything going on in Iraq.

Yes, there’s nothing like an urban legend involving a woman being forced to prostitute herself to enlighten us about how things are going in Iraq. Nothing at all!

The waitress forced into prostitution by the government pimp is, at one level, merely an example of the unintended consequences that follow every legislative initiative. But, at another, it’s the logical reductio of the modern secular welfare state. Like all those European utopias John Kerry wants America to be more like, Germany has a permanently high unemployment rate

Steyn shows his talent by leaping from urban legend to plain lying. Those EU utopias who all have high unemployment rates in common?

In December 2004, the lowest rates were registered in Ireland (4.3%), Luxembourg (4.4%), Austria (4.5%), the
United Kingdom (4.6% in October) and the Netherlands (4.7% in November).

Denmark? 5.1%. Sweden? 6.4%. Portugal? 6.7%. (PDF link)

When the Germans legalized their whorehouses, they thought it showed how relaxed and enlightened they were. The al-Qaida types take a different line: They think it’s a sign that the West is decadent and weak and cannot survive. And they have a point: The government forcing women into prostitution is merely the latest example of the internal contradictions of the modern secular state.

Yes, the latest example… of something preposterous:

Mr Perkins: This is preposterous!
Headmaster: Yes, it is. Or at least, it would be…if it were true.
Mr Perkins: …What?
Headmaster: I’ve been joking, Mr Perkins. Pardon me, it’s my strange academic sense of humour. I’ve been pulling your leg.
Mr Perkins: Oh, thank God!
Headmaster: I wouldn’t cancel afternoon school to bury that little shit!

Who will be next to fall victim to this urban legend? Only the shadow knows.

Thanks to Harry H. for the link.

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Yeah, those too

David Frum opens up a can of worms and spills it all over himself:

True story: I arrive at a Washington DC office building this morning. The guard asks me to show ID so he can sign me in. I produce a driver?s license. He says: “Sorry I can?t read small type ? would you mind spelling out your name for me?” I reply, “Sure. A-b-r-a-h-a-m, L-i-n …” Okay, that last part I made up. But is anybody else getting the impression that some of these so-called office security policies are kind of beside the point?

Never mind office security policies — have you looked at so-called national security policies lately?

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Your terrorist group is so extreme…

This is not your father’s extremist terrorist group:

Jane’s warns of new terror group more radical than Al-Qaeda

The movement, Al-Takfir Wa Al-Hijra (Excommunication and exile), has gradually built its presence in Europe in recent years through loose networks of imams and supporters, according to Jane?s Intelligence Review. “It is so extreme that it once tried to …

How extreme is it? You tell us.

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You took the words ball right out of my mouth

Good news everybody!

LONDON (Reuters) – A British woman was sentenced to two and a half years in jail Thursday for ripping off her ex-lover’s testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused her sex.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage in May last year after Geoffrey Jones, 37, who had ended their long-term relationship, rejected her advances.

She grabbed him by the genitals, tearing off his left testicle, then hid it in her mouth before a friend of Jones handed it back to him saying “that’s yours.” [Emphasis added.]

Well, at least he didn’t say “Here, I think you dropped this.”

Sadly, in related news:

One To Support Welsh, Cuts The Testicles!!

LONDON (Reuters) – A fan of Welsh Rugby cut the testicles following a bet lost related to the unexpected victory of his team vis-a-vis in England this weekend, brings back Tuesday Daily Mirror.

Geoff Huish, 26, were convinced so much that England would carry it Saturday that it declared before the match with the people who had accompanied it to drink glass in a private club: “If the Welsh gain, I cut myself them.”

His/her companions thought that it joked.

But after the victory of its team, Huish returned at his place and cut the testicles by means of a knife.

It then traversed, its gonades in the hand, the 200 meters separating it from the club where it was presented at general amazement. [Emphasis added, well-deserved general amazement in the original.] [French original]

Happy Valentine’s Day for ALL!

(First link thanks to She Flies With Her Own Wings. Thanks to Blair for the second link.)

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No they didn’t. No, they didn’t!

James Pinkerton, previously seen being a hack here, does it again:

Long before Dean became a short-lived presidential phenom, the Cato Institute had him pegged. The libertarian think tank released its “report card” on the nation’s 50 governors, giving the Vermont governor a “D”:

We’ve blogged about this before, but it bears repeating. It wasn’t until Dean became a presidential phenom that Cato started flunking him. In 2000, Cato had written:

In some ways he is. [Vermont?s most fiscally conservative governor in decades.] In his first three terms as governor (Vermont still has two year terms), state spending rose by less than personal income growth. In 1999 he sought and won support for an across-the-board income tax cut to make the state more economically competitive.

By the same token, when Bush was busy “just being a governor” he didn’t earn much praise from the Cato folks:

He is a politician who seems to always want to keep everyone happy. His last budget climbed to growth rates not seen since Ann Richards: his last budget grew by close to 10 percent, among the largest increases in the nation in 1999. He shoveled a record $2.1 billion of new money into the Texas schools and then declared himself “the education governor.” In 1993 Bush crafted a convoluted tax-restructuring scheme that proved to be hugely unpopular with small businesspeople who would have seen their tax bills rise. The plan blew up, Bush was politically wounded, and finally he strategically retreated and signed a $1 billion property tax cut instead.

What else would you expect from a man (Pinkerton) who spent a column worrying about the reelection of Jean Chretien as Canadian PM months after Chretien had announced his retirement?

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Are you sure you guys are staying on message?

The latest book being plugged by Human Events Online is The Coming Crash in the Housing Market. While we’d normally pay little attention to the matter, our attention was caught by the sales pitch for said book:

Over the past four years, the stock market has crashed, layoffs are up, consumer confidence has evaporated [...] Startling similarities between the “warning signs” of previous economic crashes and what we’re seeing today in real estate[.]

Which goes to show that it’s ok for conservatives to talk smack about the economy — as long as they have a book to sell anyway. Well, at least social security is almost saved.

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