battle of fuckwits

Posted on August 31, 2016 by greg

Jeebus Caramba! Donald Trump is going to Mexico! That’s bizarre enough on its own, but wait…he’s going there to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto. And if you’re wondering if this is the same President Enrique Peña Nieto who publicly compared Trump to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, the answer is yes.

Almost nobody in Mexico likes Trump. Almost nobody in Mexico likes President Enrique Peña Nieto. This is like mixing snot with pus. Nothing worthwhile can come of this. This meeting makes no sense in any rational universe. Maybe Enrique Peña Nieto thinks he can humiliate Trump, thereby finally making him popular among Mexicans…despite the fact that his invitation to Trump has made him even less popular. Or maybe Trump thinks he can humiliate Enrique Peña Nieto, thereby making him popular…among the people who already like him?

Donald J. Trump meets with Mexican President President Enrique Peña Nieto

Donald J. Trump meets with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto

Seriously, on the surface this move looks completely fucking insane for both parties. I have no idea why they’ve agreed to meet, President Enrique Peña Nieto must have been drunk when he issued the invitation. And Donald Trump — well, who the hell knows why he does anything. They’ll very likely both come off as…wait.

Wait just a minute. Is there…could it be possible…what if…?

What if they’ve both made themselves immune to iocaine powder?

i had no idea, mostly

Posted on July 30, 2016 by greg

Because waiting for online customer support wasn’t quite painful and annoying enough, I decided to see what I could learn this morning from the patriots at FreeRepublic. It was, as always, enlightening. Or maybe endarkening.

Here are a few of the things I learned.

— I’ve learned Planned Parenthood runs “a national dead-baby-body-parts chop shop” and apparently is staffed and supported by “millions of homely man haters.” I had no idea.

— I’ve learned our borders (they refer to borders — plural — but only appear concerned with the Southern border) are totally open in order “to allow the free flow of drugs. Our rulers must be making piles of cash from the drug cartels.” I honestly had no idea.

— I’ve learned that “Billionaire tycoon and maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help” to get elected as President of These United States. This makes “Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine, to name just a few” nervous. Therefore, you shouldn’t “be surprised if Trump has an accident.” Except, it won’t be an accident. “They will kill him before they let him be president.” I had NO idea; you can’t pin this one on me.

— I’ve learned that it’s curious how the “USA has elected an enemy agent twice in a row…. its as if our country has suddenly decided to commit suicide? don’t people even care about (if they have any?) their children anymore?” This guy isn’t sure why this is so, but suggests “maybe its something in the water (or fast food burgers, or?)” I had no idea. None at all.

It’s the hamburgers maybe?

— I’ve learned Al Gore’s daughter, Karenna, (who was recently arrested for protesting the construction of Spectra Energy’s West Roxbury Lateral pipeline) isn’t considered to be attractive by conservatives. They believe she “looks like an oGre under a bridge.” This is possibly because she “doesn’t have electricity anymore and can’t put on makeup.” However, they kindly offer suggestions on how to approve her appearance for future arrests: “Plastic surgery, face lifts, fillers and botox are your friends, girl… Or a paper bag.” I had no idea (that you should capitalize the G in oGre).

Karenna Gore arrested for protesting without makeup.

— I’ve learned a great deal about Hillary Clinton. For example, she “associates with the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks” and has transferred “to Russia a large portion of our uranium reserves – after receiving $140,000,000.” I’ve learned “she is a Treasonist.” Yet the compassionate patriots of FreeRepublic are concerned about her health. It seems her “disappearance from the debate stage” wasn’t because she had to walk farther to the rest room, but according to “a law-enforcement source with inside connections” she actually “was missing from the stage due to health issues stemming from a previous brain injury.” I’ve also learned “Hillary is not your neighborhood girl.” In fact, it turns out she’s a serial killer who has “over 100 dead bodies in her path to the White House.” But the patriot who revealed this ugly truth isn’t terribly worried about becoming her next victim; he has warned “any Clinton spooks out there intending to silence me as you have done to over 100 others, make sure you are more heavily armed than I am.” I had no idea about any of this, although I was pretty sure Hillary wasn’t from my neighborhood.

Wait…Waco too? What?

— And finally, I learned there are “several thousand to approximately eight million Islamic fighters inside the United States” and each and every one of them is “being welcomed by Obama,” who is the not-so-secret “active Head of the Moslem Brotherhood in America.” Not only that, it seems “Obama gave 5 MILLION federal hires top security clearance. Guess who?” (Did you guess Muslims?) Again, I had no idea (especially considering there are only three million Muslims in the U.S. — which means the other five million are totally in disguise).

I do, though, have one idea. I have an idea these folks might be supporting Donald J. Trump? Just a guess.

hillary fbi scandal omfg you guys

Posted on July 6, 2016 by greg

Hillary is NOT going to prison, you guys! Who could have predicted this? Nobody could have predicted this! This was totally unpredictable! Nostradamus on his best day could not have predicted this!

Well, okay, anybody who read actual news accounts of the email scandal rather than all the opinion pieces could have predicted it. The facts are surprisingly clear. Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State in 2009 and almost immediately asked for a secure phone like the one the National Security Agency provided for President Obama. The NSA said no.

Clinton and her staff said, “Oh, c’mon, let me have a secure phone.” The NSA said, “Nope, sorry.” The Clinton folks said, “Okay, how about if you just give a few high level staff a waiver, like you did for Condi Rice and her staff?” The NSA said, “Yeah, no, we don’t do that anymore.” The Clinton folks got a face-to-face meeting with seven senior State Department staffers with five NSA security experts, and said, “Guys, we really need a secure phone system.” The NSA said, “What, you guys are still here? Okay, you can give Hillary one of these.”

Sectera Edge

The Clinton folks said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” The NSA said, “Sure, it’s clunky and weighs almost a pound, and yeah it’s so awkward our own IT techs think it’s difficult to use. Oh, and the trusted display–the one you have to use for secure communications is really, really, really tiny. Also, it runs on Windows CE, which is a wee bit slow (because the operating system was already 13 years old in 2009). And by the way, the State Department will have to buy and install a whole new secure server infrastructure in order to actually use it.” The Clinton folks said, “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Here’s a question: have you ever tried to cook a new dish while reading the recipe? It’s a fucking nightmare. You’re trying to caramelize the onions, while slicing up the peppers, and you know you bought Mexican oregano recently–where the hell IS it? It’s chaos. Now try to master a new communications device that has a notoriously steep technological learning curve while conducting negotiations with world leaders in crisis situations and simultaneously maintaining timely, sensitive international communication. You’re going to end up scorching some onions.

And remember this: Hillary Clinton is a grandma. Did you ever have to help your grandma with technology? You know what that’s like.

This is NOT to excuse Clinton. She chose convenience over security (and also, what the hell is that pin she’s wearing? Looks like some sort of Star Wars medal). Her reasons for choosing convenience may be understandable and her decision might have been naive at the beginning, but Jeebus Krush at some point she and her staff had to realize they were taking ridiculous risks with security. What she did was stupid and probably negligent, but it didn’t rise to the level of criminality.

So no, anybody who’d paid attention to the actual facts of the situation couldn’t have been surprised by the FBI’s findings. Still, a lot of folks are upset that Hillary wasn’t charged with a crime. Okay, maybe upset isn’t the most accurate term. Let’s go with livid. A lot of people are livid. No, not emotional enough. A lot of people are fucking furious. There we go. A lot of people are fucking furious at the FBI, at James Comey, at the entire government of These United States of America, and at the whole combustible universe.

The folks who are most upset? Conservatives, of course, but also the Bernie or Bust folks. Yesterday I spent a bit of time scanning the reactions of those two groups: the right-wing cranks at FreeRepublic and the Facebook page for The People for Bernie Sanders.

So here’s a little game. I took some verbatim comments from each group and I’ve included them below. You try to guess which quote came from which group:

Yesterday we celebrated our Independence from a tyrannical government. Today we were reminded that those in charge are above the law. Nice.

After today I can carelees how the corrupt FBI director can or cannot say. He is a sell out.

this is the last straw. We WILL NOT accept that woman for President. Absolutely, positively not, under ANY circumstances.

Any idiot can see that the fix is in and this whole damned thing stinks to high heaven.

The United States of Corruption.

No indictment, No Justice!

That FBI ruling was a joke. It’s obvious the rules don’t apply to Hillary Clinton. No punishment for enemies getting a hold of top secret information because of you? No punishment for lying under oath? It’s so obvious the system is rigged for her.

Hillary needs to go to court and be tried by the people!!!!

How about outrageous, scandalous, corrupt beyond belief? The entire upper echelon of our government is composed of oath-breaking traitors.

Comey goes through the facts, finds the evidence, shows her lies, says that top secret information was left unprotected, and then says not to prosecute. The follow through was not congruent with the set-up. She’s guilty of negligence, she put top secret information at risk, which was illegal, they could easily bring charges. And who cares if Clinton has a ton of lawyers to fight it, she did this crime as Comey stated, and doesn’t deserve the presidency.

Is there not ONE HONEST person in this government?? I am beginning to think NO! GOODBYE AMERICA!

If Hillary is elected this November, then there is NO DOUBT this country is over.

Can’t have a racist or corrupt wall street WHORE as president!!!

SHILLARY FOR PRISON

Because of Hillary E-mails she can be Blackmailed as President from our enemies who have already hacked her server.

It’s not a very fair game, because I don’t recall which comments are from which group. I deliberately mixed them up. But the level of vitriol against Hillary is pretty much the same from both groups.

Here’s the thing (well, the thing as I see it): most of the ‘scandals’ directed at Hillary Clinton (and her husband) are bullshit. Republicans have investigated the shit out of any rumor or suspicion that touched the Clintons in any way. Seriously, back in 1997 when Bill was still in office, Republicans launched an investigation into the Clintons’ Christmas card list. I am NOT making this up. They held hearing for days, they called more than thirty witnesses to testify under oath, demanded 40,000 documents about the Christmas card list. Nothing came of it, of course. I don’t even remember what the hell the point was. But it allowed Republicans to spend a month of so on television, talking about yet another Clinton scandal that was being investigated by Congress.

You spend a quarter of a century launching bullshit investigations and claiming Hillary is the devil, some proportion of the public is eventually going to start believing there must be horns or a forked tail hidden away somewhere. This email business is one of the few incidents grounded in actual behavior that merits actual criticism. The criticism has been massively amplified and exaggerated, but this time some measure of it is deserved.

That doesn’t make it criminal. The FBI made the right call. And the furor over the FBI decision is less about national security than it is about twenty-five years of raw, partisan vilification, and the willingness of some segments of the public to believe bullshit just because it’s repeated often.

And can you guess what the Republicans are going to do in response to this? I’ll bet you can. Go ahead, you guys, take a guess.

Right. Good guess! They’re going to hold investigative hearings to find out if the FBI is part of the conspiracy to keep Hillary out of prison. Watch the news, hear all about the New Hillary FBI Scandal. They should be able to keep — oh, let’s call it FBI-gate — in the news cycle until the election in early November.

(Stay tuned for Clinton Voter Fraud-gate, due to be released in mid-November!)

been thinking all day

Posted on November 14, 2015 by greg

People tell me I think too much, and they’re probably right. But that’s my tool. Thinking about stuff doesn’t allow me to impose any order on the world (not that I’d want to), but it makes the disorder tolerable and often amusing. Thinking is what I do to keep from becoming discouraged, or depressed, or angry. And what happened in Paris is enough to discourage anybody, to make anybody depressed, to make anybody completely fucking furious.

Consider the astonishing cruelty of this attack. Targeting regular folks out having fun for an evening, and doing it deliberately and without pity — that’s the very definition of cruelty. The thing is, I don’t believe these terrorists were lacking in compassion and humanity; I believe they purposely rejected compassion and humanity. Which is infinitely worse.

It’s damned hard not to give in to rage, because at times like this rage is so very attractive and seductive. There is, in most of us I suspect, at least a small kernel of burning cold fury. There’s the desire to make somebody suffer. It would cathartic to be able to lash out, to make some sumbitch somewhere pay.

The best way for me, personally, to get around all that is to think. To try to comprehend why this happened. It’s not easy. Hell, it’s damned hard to care enough about the motivations of the terrorists to ask why it happened. The massacre of so many innocent people feels like it must exist outside of any possible why. I mean, is there any answer to why that could possibly make sense to anybody?

And yet, if we ever want to stop this sort of shit from happening (or at least reduce it), then why is a question that has to be asked and desperately needs to be answered.

We won’t find the answers in ISIL’s claim of responsibility. It didn’t happen because Paris is “the capital of prostitution and obscenity, the carrier of the banner of the Cross in Europe.” It wasn’t because of “hundreds of apostates…gathered in a profligate prostitution party.” You could, I suppose, debate whether or not it had anything to do with “the cause of Allah, in support of His religion and His Prophet.” The vast majority of Muslims would disagree with that view of Islam, of course — but it can’t be denied that a twisted version of Islam is at the center of ISIL’s worldview.

But there’s something about ISIL that almost everybody seems to overlook. We’re used to seeing Islamic terrorism through the lens of al Qaeda. But here’s a true thing: al Qaeda was all about religious ideology. Sure, they talked about some day creating a new Caliphate, but mostly they were (and mostly still are) interested in changing the way Muslims think and see the world around them. Al Qaeda was stateless, a shadowy extremist presence that existed largely outside of borders.

ISIL, on the other hand, is about seizing territory to establish an actual geographic Caliphate — an Islamic state with cities and towns and fields and a population. Where al Qaeda had widespread terrorist cells, ISIL has a fucking army. Al Qaeda’s war was a terrorist propaganda war. ISIL is primarily focused on fighting a ground war.

For the most part, ISIL has fought a conventional Middle East guerrilla war. Not much different, really, from the one fought by Lawrence of Arabia against the Ottoman Turks. Highly mobile forces that require the enemy to stretch out its defenses. Surprise attacks using classic swarming tactics that overwhelm towns and villages. Aside from the shift from camels to Toyotas, the biggest difference in ISIL’s approach and Lawrence’s is the now common use of suicide tactics. Suicide bombers create confusion and chaos, and in turn that makes it easier for more conventional military tactics to succeed.

Suicide tactics may be effective in this sort of limited ground war, but they use up people. Even in a highly motivated religious army like ISIL, there are a limited number of folks willing to blow themselves up. Because of that, ISIL has to continuously recruit potential ‘martyrs’. How do you do that?

Advertising. High publicity events. Theatrical events.

In Syria or Iraq you can send eight suicide bombers to create enough chaos to allow your forces to assault a small village or town and seize control. But as a result, your army is now somewhat depleted in numbers AND you possess a small village that somebody has to defend. That small military success doesn’t do much to help you gain new recruits. And if your goal is to control territory, you must have an influx of new fighters.

However, if you send those same eight suicide bombers to Paris, you get the entire world’s attention. More importantly, you get the attention of young, disaffected Muslims in France, and Germany, and England, and Spain, and the United States, and Russia. Young disaffected Muslims who see a small band of dedicated Islamic warriors taking on the great nations of the world — attacking their cities, bringing down their planes (let’s not forget ISIL is also almost certainly responsible for the recent bombing of the Russian airliner). These are young, disaffected Muslims who’ve been living in Western media-driven cultures, where they’ve seen who knows how many movies celebrating the heroic adventures of fighters facing overwhelming odds — and either winning or dying gloriously.

That’s seductive for young folks. How many young men (and yeah, it’s mostly young men) have joined the U.S. military because they’ve been seduced by movie versions of war and combat? It’s no different for young Muslim men.

There are other reasons for the attacks in Paris, of course, but they all come down to recruitment. There’s the intent to spark a harsh response against Muslims by the people and/or the government of France, which would radicalize the Muslim population, which would lead to — that’s right — more recruits. There’s the ‘we can strike you anywhere’ braggadocio, which is classic Evil James Bond Empire stuff — which also draws recruits.

But we have to remember that attacking Paris and bringing down passenger planes is secondary (or even tertiary) to ISIL’s goal of establishing a physical, geographical Caliphate in the Middle East. The only way to defeat a ground army is on the ground. And if Western nations send their armies to fight a Muslim army in the Middle East, that will create still more recruits for ISIL.

Which means the Western world is largely fucked until some sort of Arab coalition steps up and takes on ISIL. Which isn’t impossible, but not very likely in the foreseeable future. And that brings me right back to being discouraged, or depressed, or angry.

Yeah, maybe people are right. Maybe I do think too much.

But I also think this. Most people are decent. Most people are fundamentally good. And no matter how many ISILs and White Supremacists and hateful fanatics there are in the world, they’ll always be vastly outnumbered by decent people. That’s another thing that keeps me from being discouraged, or depressed, or angry.

i know what you’re thinking

Posted on September 21, 2015 by greg

It’s Monday and I have work to do. A lot of work. SO much work. I do NOT have time to noodle around on Teh Intertubes, avoiding all the very important work that needs doing. Seriously, I have an excess of work to do. If work to do was testosterone, I’d be Chuck Norris. I have work to do like Trump has hair — it’s an imposing, structurally improbable amount of work. The amount of work I have to do would intimidate a border collie.

It’s a lot of work, is what I’m saying. And I’d actually be doing all that work (I’m confident about this) except I somehow found myself (and I suspect I have a good reason for doing this) scanning some conservative websites (probably I was doing research, I bet) and I discovered that a LOT of conservatives are terribly upset about gay Doritos.

Oh my sweet Jeebus on a waffle, gay Doritos, you guys! I had no idea gay Doritos even existed. I was gobsmacked. Who knew the constellation of snack foods extends to sexual preference? Gay Doritos! Okay, officially they’re called Rainbow Doritos, but c’mon people — ain’t nobody in Western society that thinks these chips are in any way representative of colorful meteorological phenomena. Nope, dude, these are most definitely gay Doritos. And like anything that could possibly be even remotely gay, conservatives have spent a LOT of time thinking about these chips.

The chips come in several colors. The green are homosexual, the pink are lesbian, and the purple ones are transgendered Doritos.

Trans chips, you guys! According to The American Thinker (and no, I’m not making that up; that’s an actual conservative site — though I think they they’re confused about the definition of ‘America’ and ‘thinking’), the purple chips only look purple but “actually feel yellow and demand the right to commingle in the snack bags that have only yellow ones.” In other words, the purple chips want to use the same bathrooms as yellow chips.

Conservatives are really pissed off about this, on account of Doritos are an important element of the nutritious American conservative sports-related diet. How is any decent, god-fearing American heterosexual man supposed to enjoy watching two teams of sweaty men dressed in tight, bun-hugging uniforms grapple with each other if gay sex is forced down their throats in the form of their favorite snack food?

Also, think of the children!

Doritos are a product marketed to children, so they make the perfect gateway snack to introduce children to the joys of homosexuality.

Gay Doritos are a gateway snack, you guys! How could this happen in America? Blame noted Christian-hater and pervert-activist Dan Savage and his It Gets Better project. Real conservatives hate Savage, who has “called on Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee to do a certain love act on him” (okay, he said Carson and Huckabee should “suck my dick” but I’m not entirely convinced the invitation was sincere). Most of the world understands the It Gets Better project is attempting to prevent LGBT kids from killing themselves, but a lot of conservatives think the movement is probably secretly recruiting decent young hetero kids to get gay. Why else would they be flooding the snack food aisle of your local market with gay Doritos?

Well, okay, maybe they not actually flooding the snack food aisles. And okay, maybe gay Doritos aren’t even in your local market at all. And yeah, okay, maybe they’re not in any store. Okay, maybe the only way to buy gay Doritos is to deliberately point your browser to a specific website and order them. And okay, maybe you have to make a donation of at least US$10 in order to get them. But dammit, gay Doritos exist in the real world and conservatives intend to do something about it.

In fact, they intend to do two things about it. First, boycott!

“I think we need to boycott Pepsi and all related Frito-Lay products to deliver a message to Pepsi that if they are going to push gay propaganda on our kids, we are not going to give their products lip service any longer”

Lip service. I declare, sometimes I think these guys must be trolling us. They can’t be that fucking stupid — except, you know, they repeatedly demonstrate they’re that fucking stupid. The second thing they’re doing (and I swear, I am NOT making this up):

[W]e should push other companies to launch pro-heterosexual campaigns. Perhaps we could persuade a hot dog maker and a hot dog bun company to do a joint effort promoting man-woman relationships. Until we try sexualizing food like the left does, we’ll never know. And if we think like the left, we desperately need to find out.

That’s SO fucking stupid that I had to stop what I was doing and 1) bang my head against the desk and 2) check to make sure American Thinker is not a spoof site. You guys, it’s not a spoof site!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m going to give ten of my hard-earned dollars to It Gets Better and buy a bag of gay Doritos and have them delivered to Kim Davis at her office. You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves for thinking that. It would be silly to send gay Doritos to:

Kim Davis
Clerk of Court
600 West Main Street Room 102
Morehead, KY 40351

a stick-thing

Posted on July 21, 2015 by greg

So I’m taking my walk, working out plot issues, being all serious in my head, and I see this old Ford F150 pickup start to pull out of a driveway ahead of me. As I approach, an old guy in the driver’s seat rolls down his window. He’s got to be maybe 75-80 years old. I figure he’s lost or something, going to ask me directions.

So I slow down and take off my sunglasses. People are less nervous if they can see your eyes. You take off your sunglasses and you seem more trustworthy and honest. It’s stupid, but there it is. Anyway, I take off my sunglasses and the old guy leans out and says, “I’m going to give you a free pen.”

And he hands me an ink pen. Which I accept, because what else are you gonna do? Then he pulls out another pen and this stick-thing, with grooves on it and a sort of propeller on the end. He says, “I made one of these for my brother when he was trying to quit smoking. You rub the pen along the ridges and it makes it spin.” And he demonstrates. He rubs the pen vigorously along the ridges and sure enough, the propeller spins.

“Very cool,” I say. Because, again, what else are you gonna do? Also, because I’m starting to like this guy. He’s having so much fun making the propeller spin. He tells me “You have to rub it at on the angle, and if you rub the other angle, it spins the other way.” And again, he demonstrates. Sure enough, it spins the other way.

The stick-thing and the ink pen.

He hands me the stick and says, “You do it.” So I do. When the propeller starts to spin, I realize I’m making a mistake, so I fumble with it a bit. “Show me again,” I ask him.

And he laughs and does. First one angle, then the other. “You have to apply pressure,” he tells me. “Try it again.”

This time I make it work, which pleases him enormously. “You look like you could use two,” he says, and reaches for another stick-thing. He’s got maybe five or six in the other seat of the pickup. I tell him one is enough, on account of I’m taking a walk.

“What do you call it?” I ask him. He shrugs and says “It’s just a stick-thing I make.”

Then I ask if I can take his photo. “No no,” he says, “no no nonono, you don’t want my picture.” I tell him I really would like his photo. But he just shakes his head and laughs and rolls up the window. So I wave and he pulls out of the driveway and I continue my walk.

a new human rights abuse

Posted on April 5, 2014 by greg

Oh sweet Jeebus in a pickle barrel, have we not suffered enough at the hands of George W. Bush? Wasn’t it torment enough for us to live through the eight long, grim, disgraceful years of his presidency? Must we endure one more disappointing moment of this wretched, graceless, inadequate creature?

The best thing the former president ever did was leave office and disappear from public view. But now he’s back. He’s back and recklessly inflicting his painting on the blameless public. Just fuck me with a chainsaw and be done with it.

Bush portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin. No, wait…that’s his dog Barney.

It wasn’t enough that W. Bush was the worst president in the history of the United States (which is quite an accomplishment; we’ve had some astonishingly bad presidents). It wasn’t enough that he authorized the pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign nation that was no threat to the U.S. It wasn’t enough that he authorized the illegal detention of more than 1200 people, many of whom were U.S. citizens, following the attacks of 9/11, or that he authorized the repeated torture of people suspected of having information about those attacks. It wasn’t enough that he authorized and signed into law the PATRIOT Act, which permitted indefinite detention of suspects and warrantless wire taps and expanded the power of the State to search through records that had previously required a court order.

No, clearly that wasn’t enough. Now the unprincipled sumbitch has foisted a fresh horror on the world. George W. Bush has become a fucking painter.

Bush portrait of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. No, wait…that’s the Dalai Lama.

Bush says he took up painting after reading an essay on Winston Churchill (another unprincipled sumbitch, but one who was at least intelligent and witty). The notion of the least curious human ever to occupy the Oval Office reading an essay on Winston Churchill is only slightly less preposterous than the notion of him painting. If he wanted to emulate Churchill, couldn’t Bush simply have started wearing a Homburg?

But no — the shameless bastard had to pick up a paint brush and perpetrate another outrage against humanity.

Bush portrait of Vladimir Putin. No, wait...that's former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.

Bush portrait of President Vladimir Putin. No, wait…it’s former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Bush, I’ll admit, is a better painter than he was a president — but that’s not saying much. His painting, in my opinion, is hopelessly amateurish and incompetent. That description also applies to his presidency.

Others disagree — at least in regard to his painting. Art critic Jerry Saltz was quite taken with Bush’s bathroom self-portraits. He said the work was:

‘simple’ and ‘awkward,’ but in wonderful, unself-conscious, intense ways. They show someone doing the best he can with almost no natural gifts — except the desire to do this. The reclusion and seclusiveness of the pictures evoke the quietude (though not the insight, quality, or genius) of certain Chardin still lifes. These are pictures of someone dissembling without knowing it, unprotected and on display, but split between the promptings of his own inner drives and limited by his abilities.

Yeah. Okay. Someone doing the best he can with almost no natural gifts — except the desire to do this. Yeah, that could also describe his presidency.

Bush portrait of Putin in the shower. No, wait...that's Bush his ownself.

Bush portrait of Putin in the shower. No, wait…that’s apparently Bush his ownself.

Painting is hard work, to be sure. It takes a great deal of practice and a certain amount of native talent to be good. Bush, to his credit, is doing the work and practicing (though it’s a shame he wasn’t as diligent at being president). He says it’s changed the way he views the world (again, a shame he didn’t start painting before he became president).

“I see colors differently. I am, I guess, tapping a part of the brain that, you know, certainly never used when I was a teenager.”

Tapping…isn’t that how they get syrup out of the tree? Anyway, insert your own brain joke here.

Bush portrait of…okay, I don’t know who the fuck this is supposed to be.

I’ll admit, if I had my way George W. Bush would be painting portraits behind bars. If he’d been the leader of any nation other than the United States, he’d have likely been tried for war crimes.

But that’ll never happen. So I suppose we should be grateful that it’s Bush who took up painting and not Dick Cheney. Who knows what sort of shit taco that fiend would serve up? Probably paintings of gory hunting scenes. Using the blood of slaughtered animals. Or puppies.

where all the white fish-holding womens?

Posted on January 15, 2014 by greg

Okay, yeah — there was another school shooting earlier this week, but nobody died (yet) so it’s not really news. And okay, yeah — there was that retired police officer who shot and killed a guy for texting his daughter during the previews at a Florida movie theater (well, that’s not entirely accurate; he got his gun out because of the texting, but he only killed the guy for throwing popcorn at him), but that’s Florida and what do you expect? And okay, yeah — Senate Republicans blocked 1.4 million jobless folks from getting aid, but that’s what Republican Senators do and what do you expect too? And okay, yeah — after spending what seems like a decade accusing President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton of failing to personally take up arms and repel the assault on the US compound in Benghazi (Benghazi!) Congress has decided to reduce funding for embassy security, construction and maintenance by $224 million, but jeebus on toast, did you expect anything else?

Yeah, okay — it’s been a big news week and it’s only Wednesday. But ain’t nobody talking about the really important news. You guys! Sarah Palin has a new teevee show! That’s right — she’s back on television

OMG OMG OMFG It’s Sarah!!!

Well, she’s not back on it right now. But according to the countdown clock (yes, there’s a countdown clock!) it’s only 2 months, 19 days, 6 hours and 39 minutes until Amazing America debuts! Starring Sarah Palin, you guys!

What will Sarah be doing (besides amazing America)? I’m glad you asked. She’ll be exploring and experiencing…

… the coolest and most original people, places, businesses, and gadgets that appeal to Red, Wild and Blue America.

Gadgets! There’s going to be gadgets! And original people! Actual original people (Sarah doesn’t like those icky cloned people, and who does because clones totally suck). The show is going to be on The Sporstman Channel, which you may not have ever in your entire life heard of, but which features such engaging quality programming as Addictive Fishing with Captain Blair Wiggins, MeatEater (the new season), Skull Bound, and Pigman: The Series.

If you do not watch her new show, Sarah Palin will Godfather your ass with an elk’s head.

According to the show’s producer, Governor Palin (that’s right — people don’t believe it, but Sarah was an actual real I’m-not-making-this-up no-shit real governor for half a term of the most socialist state in the Union) deserved a larger stage than “just hunting and fishing.”

“We wanted to have a little more fun than that. So we’re doing bull riding. We’ve got the NRA Museum. We have some fire rescue workers. It just runs the gamut of cool things in America.”

The gamut, you guys! Because what could be more fun and more cool than the NRA Museum and riding bulls while rescuing people from fires? Nothing! The audience will also be educated about Sarah’s philosophy and world view, in which she offers insights like this:

“I think this world would be better off having more young women holding a fish in a picture than holding their camera in front of a bathroom mirror, taking a selfie.”

So true! We’ve all noticed how rare it is these days for women to hold fish. It’s been years since I’ve seen a woman holding a fish. Why don’t women hold fish anymore? That’s what’s wrong with America (plus we have a negro president — and isn’t it curious that there are NO PHOTOS OF HIM HOLDING A FISH!!!).

Real governors don’t need no cell phones and bathroom mirrors

So set your alarm clocks, America. Thursday April 3rd at 8 o’clock in the evening on the Sportsman Channel. Watch it, or the terrorists will abort a white Christian baby. During a gay pride parade.

gregfallis.com

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