Say, how’s the bailout going?
Some bailout holdings down $9 billion
Stock intended to eventually earn taxpayers a profit as part of the Bush administration’s massive bank bailout has lost a third of its value — about $9 billion — in barely one month, according to an Associated Press analysis. Shares in virtually every bank that received federal money have remained below the prices the government negotiated.
Most of the Treasury Department’s investments since late October have been in preferred bank stocks, more than $180 billion worth, with investments in giants like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, and many small community banks. But the government also negotiated options to buy up to 1.2 billion shares of common bank stock that was valued at $27 billion.
The Treasury Department said it did not expect these common stock options to be profitable immediately and negotiated them so taxpayers could share in the wealth if the bank stocks recover.
Now, however, the value of that common stock is worth less than $18 billion. If the government exercised all its warrants to purchase the stock today, it would lose money on 51 of its 53 agreements. Taxpayers would be out $9.1 billion.
Oh.
You know, it’s nice that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep rich people from feeling bad about themselves, but I think I’ve come up with an even better plan: we take all the money left over in TARP and we set it on fire.
Just think of all the homes we could heat with that money. Imagine how much better this country would be if we converted all our cars to run on currency. After all, could there be any greener fuel than cold hard cash?
I’m not saying this solution would be perfect — I mean, burning $350 billion of our money supply doesn’t sound like a healthy way to grow an economy — but it’s better than what we’re doing now.
UPDATE: Alternatively, we could just use the money to prop up a pile of worthless shit and tell people that it’s the most valuable commodity in the world. Since the late ’90s, our economy has run entirely on this principle (e.g., that mortgage derivatives and pets.com shares would keep growing in value forever), and I see no reason to change that now. List your ideas for worthless commodities that we can use taxpayer dollars to prop up in the comments. My vote goes to…
…POGs!
…the person in the comments who suggested Beanie Babies has the right idea. This could be balanced out by reviving the Furby as well.
UPDATE II: Atrios tells me that:
Just under 10% of all mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure.
My solution: let people get kicked out of their homes. We can then move them into new apartment complexes constructed entirely from POGs. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
GAVIN ADDS: And there’s also the shocking unemployment news today, sure.
See, everyone’s getting so excited, but this is just one of those high-spirited George W. Bush practical jokes that we’ve come so well to appreciate.
Remember when he got to the White House, and his people made up a story that the Clintons had trashed the place, removing ‘W’ keys from the keyboards and writing on the bathroom walls, and all that? That was a good one!
Now with the $8.5 trillion in bailouts, when Obama gets to the White House, all the money will be gone from the US Treasury, and stuffed into the pockets of the same arrogant bubbleheads responsible for cratering the economy, who will then squander it in short-sighted and selfish ways designed to give each of them a short-term advantage over their competitors, in effect taking a leaf blower to it all and blowing it into a giant, blazing fireplace of Fail — after which everyone will agree to act surprised.
It’ll be like, “Here’s your US Government, Mr. Obama. We took the dollar signs off the keyboards.”
Rich Lowry at America’s Shittiest Website™ wants a bailout too:
The annual rite has arrived — the NRO fundraising week (give or take a few days).
Er, the begging started on November 17, so I don’t think “give or take a few days” is quite telling the truth. I’ll bet Rich also tries to convince his girlfriends that 4 inches equals 9 inches “give or take a few inches.”
Believe me, we like asking for contributions even less than you like reading our appeals for contributions.
Probably not, or we wouldn’t be reading this.
I know this isn’t the best time to be asking anyone for help. Times are tough all around, but they are especially tough here at NR and NRO.
In fact, the NR cruise had to be shortened by a day this year.
We’re not complaining.
Liberals “complain.” National Review writers simply point out that their current financial state is requiring them to euthanize their pet dogs because they could no longer afford the kibble.
We’re not here for our shareholders (we don’t have any) or for massive bonuses (never have existed at NR and never will), but to defend our country’s freedoms and its ideals.
Which is why Lowry has magnanimously declined to draw a salary for the next two years and to work completely for free.
I know some of you are thinking, “Well, why don’t you free-market types get out and make a profit?”
Well, now that you mention it, Rich, yes, we were thinking that.
We do everything we can to maximize revenues and minimize expenditures.
Except move to cheaper office space in New Jersey. But, Rich, you’re avoiding the question. Why don’t you make a profit?
We’re a serious magazine and website of opinion. We’re not Vogue or Vanity Fair, with luxury merchandisers lining up to shower us with expensive advertising.
Oh dear, dear, dear. I think Rick just admitted that his readers are in such a crappy demographic that National Review can’t even attract ads from Absolut Vodka or, for that matter, Cool Ranch Doritos or even for those Miracle Pills That Burn Fat Without Diet or Exercise. That, of course, doesn’t prevent Lowry from shamelessly begging his financially-challenged readers to rustle up their last few quarters from under their sofa cushions and send them his way. Trickle-up economics, as it were. Better yet, sucker-nomics.
If it’s any consolation, it ain’t working, and NR reader appears to be finding only Oreo crumbs and funky tissues under their sofa cushions. Here’s the NR thermometer today after more than two weeks of begging.
If the fundraiser keeps up like this, don’t be surprised if you see in the next few days an online bachelor auction of that sly, sexy devil Mark “The Moooosliminator” Steyn.
Above: Mark Steyn (not pictured: Hugh Hewitt)
Don’t We Know Archaic Barrel?
Each Christmas season, I notice an increase in traffic to this post, on Google searches for “Pogo Christmas song.” I’m sure the resulting page must frustrate the poor dears a bit, as I only allude to the song and don’t quote it in full.
It’s worth doing, however, as it’s my favorite carol, and I bellow it out whenever the rest of you ginks are assaying “Deck the Halls.”
I anticipate its return will forever displace “The Carol of the Bells” from the house speakers at every shopping mall in America. About time, too.
Only the first two verses come from memory. I had to look the rest of it up. From the magnificently silly mind of Walt Kelly, I give you…
Deck Us All with Boston Charlie
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo![...]
Above: Dschinghis Khan - ‘Moskau’ with English subtitles (3:20)
Above: Joe Cocker - ‘A Little Help With My Friends’ with English subtitles (4:06)
Above: The Clash - ‘Complete Control’ with English subtitles (3:12)
Above: Twink of e-vil
For a more thoughtful, or at least a more carefully laid-out rationalization toward the criminally insane murder of hundreds of millions of people (and truly, if much more of this stuff appears, we’ll start to suspect a trend), visit David Yerushalmi at his inaptly named site, SaneWorks.
Kim Priestap, one of the dimmest bloggers at Cheez Whiz? Dang!, has been sitting up in the wilds of lovely Mio, Michigan spitting and fuming ever since that story about Michelle Obama’s secret champagne and caviar lunch turned out to be a hoax. Imagine her delight when she caught wind of the rumor that B. Hussein Muslim X was going to buy Michelle a 300 trillion dollar ring and then install her as head of his harem:
Barack Obama is so thankful for his wife’s support during his campaign that he’s buying her a rare rhodium and diamond ring that costs $30,000. I love jewelry as much as the next girl, but this is a bit over the top. I know, it’s his money, so he can spend it as he wishes, yet this looks a bit…out of touch. Here we are enduring a terrible recession. Investors have lost trillions of dollars in the stock market. Americans are losing their jobs, and at Christmas time no less. Spending $30,000 on a piece of jewelry doesn’t represent the compassion or the hope and change that he espoused throughout the campaign.
Now that’s a story too good to check on Google, Kimbo was no doubt thinking, and so she didn’t. Of course, sooner or later some liberal troll was bound to come by and point out, with linkie and everything, that the story was, like the caviar lunch, a steaming pile of bullshit and CheezWhiz on a saltine cracker.
But, ooooh nooooo, some liberal troll is not going to outsmart a famous CheezWhizDang blogger like our Kimbo, who issues this update in response:
[T]he Obama camp is denying that President-Elect is purchasing the rhodium ring. As I said earlier in my post, this kind of purchase, although completely within his right, is inconsistent with the persona he presented to America during the campaign. I’m not surprised he’s denying it.
In other words: “Liar, liar, American Express Card on fire!” Of course Barry would lie about it. If he lied when he said he wasn’t a Muslim terrorist in order to get elected, you think he wouldn’t lie about a $30,000 ring also?
Needless to say, a trip by the keyboard-challenged Kimbo back to Google would have put a kabosh on her latest spin by revealing that the Italian designer who was supposed to design the ring also called the whole story a steaming pile of bullshit and carpaccio on a bruschetta.
I anxiously await Ms. Priestap’s next update where she says that Barry, who after all probably killed his own grandmother to keep his Kenyan birth certificate under wraps, threatened to kill the ring designer as well if he didn’t keep his big fat Italian bocca shut. “I’m not surprised the pasta-eating pansy is denying it,” she’ll huff. “If Barry X wants to prove he didn’t buy that ring, he’ll have to cut off both of Michelle’s hands. Muslims do that sort of thing, you know. It shouldn’t be all that hard for him.”
In such a churchyard, a wanderer will one day espy a dark and austere headstone, and will thereupon ask her companion, “Who indeed was this, who did provoke the epitaph, ‘Beware The Howling Stupid Which Is Beyond Death?’”
And her companion will shudder and sing to her some version or another of the Ballad of Old John Henraker, at least one collected incidence of which features the line, “Rackin’ his hind in a trailer-home quarter, a dragster front-rocketing from’t,” which will puzzle future ethnographers no further since apparently they have just found the stack of printed-out posts that we left wrapped in plastic under a certain equestrian statue (hello!)
Michael Ramirez neatly sums up the disadvantage American automakers face in trying to keep up with their more nimble competition; click to enlarge:
A bailout will only feed the beast for a few more years. The only solution, I think is bankruptcy, which Nancy Pelosi says is out of the question. But that is because her concern is the UAW and its constituency of retirees, not the automakers and not present and future workers in the auto industry.
Because, okay, let’s leave our old people on an ice floe; but also, imagine being a conservative and being like, “Hey, that red dragster is certainly lean and mean with its nationalized health care, high wages and benefits, and comprehensive tax-fueled Eurosocialist-style welfare state, not to mention pervasive unionism and up to seven weeks of legally guaranteed paid vacation, growling powerfully from its exhaust headers. But gasp! look at those UAW contracts* the America-colored dragster is towing!”
While you’re imagining yourself trying to think such a thing, imagine the room that you’re in collapsing with a horrible furniture-sucking roar, a hot, wallpaper-stripping howl, into a lightless vacuole the size of a Crenshaw melon. That object is Hinderaker’s head. And while we can take heart in knowing that somewhere, perhaps lighting some great and dark vastness between stars, is an equivalent quasar streaming supercompacted, quantum-shredded smartness back into the universe, it is also the case that that quasar doesn’t have a blog.
* Cf.
Oh, what the heck, today was ruined anyway:
Parents complain to U.S. Agencies About Mattel “Islam is the Light” Doll
Back on November 25th, I ran this post BOYCOTT MATTEL’S BABY DOLL TALKING DAWAH: “ISLAM IS THE LIGHT”.
There is a movement afoot!
And a door is a jar!
We’re writing to ask for your help with a local citizen’s campaign this December. Our goal is to convince stores to stop selling a Mattel talking doll that says “Islam is the light,” a way of inviting someone to join Islam - also know as “Da’wa.” We have started this campaign in Virginia and Maryland, and we need your help to take it nationwide.The controversial toy is called the “Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle & Coo” doll, manufactured by Mattel-Fisher Price. We’ve put up a website to provide resources for parents to download an information packet to give to store managers. As parents, we’ve already started asking store managers to remove the dolls from the store shelves, or to put labels on the dolls stating “Notice: this doll says ‘Islam is the light,’ an invitation to your child to join Islam.”
THE “ISLAM IS THE LIGHT” DOLL IS STILL ON THE SHELVES
You might’ve imagined that the paranoid right had gotten bored with this one already, as they seem to have gotten bored with the theory that Obama is Malcolm X’s secret love child, not to mention with the ever-forthcoming Michelle Obama Tape, Barack Obama Tape, and Other Michelle Obama Tape, not to mention the Obama’s Grandmother Tape and the various secret evidence that Obama was born in various places unremarked on his birth certificate, which is in various ways a transparent forgery.
But no, no they haven’t.
You may have heard about this controversy in the media.
But wait, was it the one directly after the Teletubby doll that said “Faggot, faggot, bite my butt,” or was it between that one and the Elmo book that asked, “Who wants to die?”
It received a lot of print and TV media attention in October and earlier in November. Yet - hard as it is to believe - most stores are still carrying the doll on their shelves for the holiday shopping season.
Zomg, on their shelves.
The doll has no warning label letting parents know that it clearly says “Islam is the light.” In fact, we found one store in Virginia where the dolls had the audio disabled AND the front packaging panel (where the name is displayed) ripped off, which made it harder for parents to know that this was the controversial doll.
This no-audio, no-name doll may have been bought by Muslims and “returned” as a way to strategically damage its packaging, rendering it apparently harmless to parents while all the time it carries the Islam phrase encoded in its very software. Even on the shelf, it is staring crazy-eyed at our children like a bearded and smelly suicide bomber.
A few newer dolls are being distributed without the sound file, but most still say “Islam is the light.”
Bottom line - parents are still buying the doll RIGHT NOW, taking it home, and may not realize what the doll says until Christmas morning when their child unwraps the package and the doll tells her that “Islam is the light.”
And then poof, Christmas is ruined by genies.
MATTEL DENIES EVERYTHING
This cat was caught on tape talking about a dog named Long Johnson. THE CAT DENIES EVERYTHING:
Those who follow the antics of right-wing pseudo-grass-roots organizations may not be terribly surprised to see the ‘About’ page at LabelThatDoll.com, under a ‘Who We Are’ header, where it carefully fudges the issue of who they are and where they came from, and instead recites a familiar, legalistically composed litany of calumnies against Islam. While the conceit is that a group of otherwise apolitical parents in the Washington, DC metro area has been moved to launch a slickly professional media campaign by a doll that seems to invite girls to join a major world religion, when last we checked, almost 100% of the site’s 308 total visits in its one full day of operation came from Pammy. This is like launching a grape boycott by trying to appeal directly to winos.
So who are they? We’d start poking under rocks here, although they declare a special interest in locating ex-Muslims who are willing to be quoted saying bad things about Islam, which is more in the style of these folks, and/or possibly whatshisname. But in whatever case, expect the anti-Muslim rackets (and donation appeals for cynical anti-minority shock campaigns) to pick up briskly in time for Christmas, for the holiday spirit is once again upon us.
Shorter Ed Driscoll:
Above: Run, Mr. Sulzberger, run
* “One wonders what value the [New York Times] has as an information source to be trusted by their readers.” Cf. Number 859.
Update for the purpose of clarity: Due to the logistics of printing and distributing millions of copies of Time Magazine each week, an issue will be dated a week in advance of its publishing date. For instance, the current issue is that of December 8th, 2008.
Further critical update: Um, the Dec. 17, 1979 issue of Time actually includes a lot of material about the Riverfront Coliseum incident. Thanks to J—, the Goddamn Batman, and actor 212, and abject apologies from me for not reading the whole article as I should’ve. Nonetheless, um, does Driscoll’s argument make any more sense now than it did?
Shorter Editorial Board Member, Wall Street Journal:
Above: Wunderkind Bret Stephens on a wingnut welfare junket
* Cf.
I was just watching Obama on the teevee and I have to say that at the very least it will be refreshing to have a president who can speak in complete sentences. That’s not to say that everything Obama does will be super-rosy — his over-reliance on Villagers for key cabinet positions is very problematic, if predictable.
But at least if he fails, he’ll fail eloquently. That counts for something.
Above: Dorothy Rabinowitz
Deepak Blames America
The media look within to explain the sick delusions of the Mumbai killers
Sooner or later it was inevitable that some wingnut would blame the tragedy in Mumbai on the Mumbaiites themselves, arguing that their cow-free diet turned them into a bunch of curry-breathed cowards unable to stand up for themselves. That’s why ten terrorists kept the city of 19 million under siege for three days.
But what couldn’t be anticipated is that Ye Olde Butte Missile, whose sole act of courage in his entire lifetime was a decision eleven years ago to have his tuna salad on rye rather than wheat, would be leading the charge:
Somebody Get Me A Gun
This post … describes a microcosm of India’s failure to defend itself aggressively against Islamic terrorism. The hero of the story is Sebastian D’Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, who took one of the most famous photos of the terrorists in action …. D’Souza describes his experience at the railway terminal where many innocent Indians were murdered:
“I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said. “With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.
…
But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”
…
What is the point of having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.”
If Mr. D’Souza ever wants to emigrate to the United States, we’ll take him.
I wondered earlier today how a mere ten terrorists could bring a city of 19 million to a standstill. Here in the U.S., I don’t think it would happen. I think we have armed security guards who know how to use their weapons, supplemented by an unknown number of private citizens who are armed and capable of returning fire. The Indian experience shows it is vitally important that this continue to be the case. This is a matter of culture as much as, or more than, a matter of laws.
Apparently, Hinderaker gets most of his knowledge about gunfights while masturbating to an old video tape of Rambo. The likely reason the police didn’t fire back is that their pistols or bolt-action rifles weren’t likely to be effective against gunmen wielding AK-47s. If the cop missed, he’d be dead before he could fire the next shot. There’s also this tricky problem of collateral damage — the cops wouldn’t want to hit bystanders, whereas the terrorists didn’t care. Instead of seriously thinking about the consequences of the mismatch in firepower between the terrorists and the station cops, Hinderaker prefers a racist explanation which turns a country filled with dusky people into a nation of cowards. Let’s just hope that, the next time Hinderaker dines in an Indian restaurant, his dal has strange “creamy” taste eerily reminiscent of snotchos.
Above: Thomas Sowell
This K-Lo post is amusing…
Self-Reliance [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
…when you consider the following:
Our swollen toes and other (true!) NRO journalistic sob stories [Jack Fowler]
Folks, these things don’t happen by magic or the sprinkling of pixie dust. It takes a lot of bucks to run NRO. Of course, each and every dollar we have is stretched to the max — we don’t have the luxury of, well, having luxuries. Cabs? Ha! Subway fare? Think again! How do I get to the press conference then? By foot! That’s how we operate. Calluses, fallen arches, and vibrant conservatism are the consequences.
NRO exists in no small part because of the generosity of our readers. Join the ranks of these revered souls. If you come to NRO every day or many days, if you understand how important NRO is both to you and to the cause of conservatism, then help us out. Whether it’s cold hard cash or warm soft cash — we need it, boy do we need it, and pledge to spend every penny über-wisely. For an alternative, picture this world wide web without NRO (as surely its inventor, Mr. Gore, does).
So please donate today. Come on, I’m begging – and that’s a very ugly sight, so ugly that we’re prohibited from running my picture with this post. Make your generosity known here.
And:
Consider [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
And:
If You Are Happy with Jonah’s Shatnerfest [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Or, if you’re not, donate NOW.
Basically, I will sleep if you donate now.
And:
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
Your donation — whether it be $5,000 or $50 — will go directly toward the cost of running NRO: our recent necessary server upgrade, salaries, author’s fees (which have not grown with inflation since NRO was first established) and essential support services. Your generosity, in other words, will keep this light on and shining bright in the wilderness.
And as you donate, I encourage you to e-mail me with your suggestions as we look toward the next four years together.
Make your donation here. Thank you for your support. We can’t do this without you.
And so on.
Has anyone else noticed that a lot of wingnut punditry consists mainly of lecturing everybody on the need to be self-reliant while simultaneously begging for money? It’s almost like they don’t actually believe the stuff they’re writing…
Each year, a time comes to give thanks for the blessings we have received, and to roast a big turkey. We’ll do the thanks and blessings later, because here comes Pastor Swank.
OBAMA, WILL YOU EVER END A SPEECH WITH ‘AND GOD BLESS AMERICA’?
J. Grant Swank, Jr.John McCain and Sarah Palin concluded their speeches with “And God bless America.” The crowds cheered.
Did you ever hear B. Hussein Obama do that?
Hm. It is possible.
I cannot recall him ever stating such a praise petition to the God of the Bible.
Another question that comes to mind is this: Will we ever hear the National Anthem at B. Hussein’s scheduled events?
A good question, for he has been known to close events with a repeated phrase from the Algerian song ‘Kradoutja,’ which has been known in the West under various titles including ‘The Streets of Cairo.’ His followers have held hands and sung in unison, “All the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance…”
Some may note that Obama was excoriated for cutting the National Anthem from his events, but as we well know by now, the fact that he was blameworthy and bad for stopping doing something does not mean that he ever did that thing at all in the first place. For instance, we all remember how he stopped his 20-year support for his radical Christian pastor, his best friend of all time Jeremiah Wright, while actually being a Christian-hating radical Muslim all along.
I doubt it. Will be glad to be proven wrong.
B. Hussein is out to mesh all religions as one, just as his mother believed. Forget America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Out. Done. Disappear. Read “Obama is not Christian but Muslim” at http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/swank/080515
See? It’s just like we were saying.
He in truth is a Muslim, just as he let slip on an ABC interview these words: “ my Muslim faith.” There is such substantial evidence that he was born Muslim and held to Islam as his religion, just his father stated when he was born. Read B. HUSSEIN: Who is Barry Soetoro? at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21594.shtml
Therefore, B. Hussein knows that to invoke prayers or praise to the Judeo-Christian heritage deity is anti-Allah. It is totally contrary to the Koran stipulations that infidels must be slain while Islam World Rule takes hold. Therefore, he cannot provide even “And God bless America” statement for that is entirely hypocritical in the eyes of the Muslims who know him to be Muslim.
After following his work for a few years, it seems fair to say that Pastor Swank’s default discursive mode will soon be indistinguishable in tone from the ravings on a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap.
Further, B. Hussein has no concern or allegiance for the National Anthem. He is out to make this country socialist / communist, just as one his staff members had a communist flag taped to his office wall.
Read MUSLIM OBAMA SAYS IN HIS BOOK HE’S ON THE SIDE OF MUSLIMS at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21764.shtml
Read GADHAFI: B. HUSSEIN IS MUSLIM at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21594.shtml
Ah, but luckily, Obama is ineligible for the presidency.
God bless you, Pastor Swank. And by ‘God’ we secretly mean Ba’al.
You want something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Well, then, be thankful that you are not B. Daniel Blatt, aka “GayPatriotWest.” In case you’ve forgotten, Blatt provides truckloads of unintentional comedy as he ties himself up like a pretzel on a near daily basis explaining how he can be a gay conservative Republican. And that just can’t be a very comfortable way to spend one’s life.
Blatt is the kind of guy that, had he been born a turkey (at least, that is, of the avian variety), he would have spent his formative years dreaming of growing up to be a spokesman for Butterball. And then when he was rejected for that job by Butterball and sent back to the barn to await his execution, he would have spent his final days before Thanksgiving, not recriminating against Butterball, but reproving himself for not being a good enough turkey to please the Butterball folks. And seconds before his final appointment with the guillotine and the plucking room, he would have cried out “Butterball’s Best Boy Forever!” Ker-thunk!
Well, today Blatt has outdone himself. And in a long line of lame rationalizations, foolish analogies, and frissons of self-loathing, that really is saying something. Blatt brings it home in a post titled “On Joining Forces with Social Conservatives When Necessary to Preserve Our Liberty,” which you might think says it all but astonishingly only provides the scarcest glimmer of the inanity to follow:
My main concern in politics is maintaining my freedom. And, in practical, definable terms, the daily threats to my liberty are not being pushed by religious conservatives. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve told me I’m breaking the law if I light up in a bar. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve forbidden me from buying food made with trans fats. … It isn’t the religious conservatives who have told me that I have to separate my trash, even to the point of removing individual trashcans in my office building.
Shorter Gay Patriot West: I’m willing to forgo marriage to the man of my dreams (well at least I would be if I had a man of my dreams) as long as I can eat all the trans fats I want. Hell, you can even fire me for being gay (well at least you could if I had a job) as long as I can still smoke in a bar. And I’d trade the theoretical possibility of marriage in a heart beat if I could just put glass and paper in the same trash can again.
So this Thanksgiving, when Uncle Miltie is complaining at dinner for the eleventh time that turkeys aren’t as juicy as they used to be, that cranberry sauce makes him constipated and that people keep sneaking into his room and stealing shit from him when he’s stuck on the toilet, it’s time for you to just sit back, relax and remember this: at least you aren’t B. Daniel Blatt.
UPDATE: Bonus silliness from B. Daniel Blatt:
How do you know when you’re linked on a left-wing blog? [That would be us.] You discover an increased number of hate comments in your spam queue.
…
Oh, and one last point, anyone who would use a doctored photo and put it forward as authentic is someone obviously someone [sic] who is easily duped.
A big slice of absinthe-laced lemon chess pie for anyone who can explain the logic of that “last point,” which, sadly, we fear won’t really be B. Daniel Blatt’s last point. We think the one who is easily duped is Mr. Blatt if he thinks that we put forward any picture on this site as authentic.
