Mustainica

In case you don’t know who Dave Mustaine is: guitar player and one of the founding members of Metallica. The band’s nickname in the early days was Alcoholica because of how much they drank. They kicked Dave out of the band for drinking too much. Let that sink into your brain for a minute while you drain your second glass of Chardonnay of the night. Dave then formed his own band Megadeth and they have been one of the most successful metal bands around for about 25 years. Dave also graduated, by his own admission, to abuse of every conceivable drug that can be bought, stolen or manufactured in a storage shed by men with no teeth and gray skin. After 13 trips to rehab Dave was finally clean. Good for him and I mean that. But now I’m wondering about the deleterious effects those drugs had on Dave’s brain.

A few days ago in Singapore, Dave said that President Obama staged the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin just so he could impose a ban on guns in the United States. Yesterday on Facebook I saw Joe Lynn Turner post that Dave was speaking the truth and he offered him congratulations. Oh, Joe Lynn Turner was the singer for the band Rainbow back in the 80s. I’m guessing even less people know who he is than know who Dave Mustaine is so I’m assuming his post was mostly a grab for attention. Well done Joe Lynn, now off you go, back into exile. No, your Facebook privileges have been revoked for a week, you can’t play Bejeweled Blitz.

So, let me get this straight: the shooting at the theater in Colorado and the shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin weren’t just random events. Obama, in his down time between dealing with a bad economy and a presidential election coming in November, hand-picked a whacko and said “I have a job for you”? Then he sent his new slice-of-bread-short-of-a-sandwich henchman out to murder people with assault weapons so he could make a new push to ban them.

The thing about these kinds of conspiracies is the sheer number of people who would have to be involved and keep their mouths shut. The president can’t take a dump without a hundred people knowing about it so how would he stage two mass murders without the following being in on it: secret service, NSA, CIA, FBI? Now consider that you’re hinging your entire plan on an unbalanced person. If they carry through with the attack what’s to keep them from shouting to the world that “President Obama hired me to do this! He paid me in Snickers bars and expired coupons!” Ok, everyone will just say “he’s crazy” and move on, but once he opens his mouth, the idea is in your head.

I’m not buying it. Much like the people who want to believe we never landed on the moon, the whole idea breaks down under the weight of the number of people that would know the truth and would have to not talk about it. You can’t tell your best friend that you were once a woman and swear them to secrecy without them spilling the news to someone the next day and suddenly your neighbor is calling you “Betty”. It’s human nature to gossip. The president is not going to be able to perpetrate mass murder and not have someone screaming about it.

Dave wants his theory investigated. Well Dave, I’m quite sure there will be an investigation. Get ready for the federal government to climb up into your ass and camp out there for a while. Those tent pegs are going to hurt going in.

Healthcare! the Musical

President Barack Obama walks out to center stage, enters a single spotlight and sings

(sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

I am President O-ba-ma
I want health care for everyone
we have a bill that is 2000 pages long
it’s not perfect but it’s very strong
I am President O-ba-ma
I want healthcare for everyone

the spotlight moves stage right to a group of Republican leaders

(sung to the tune of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas)

We’ll never
allow this to happen
we’ll lie and cheat and stall
we’ll make up stories about death panels
we’ll get Glen, Rush and Sean on the call
we’ll win
and let the democrats take the fall

the spotlight moves down to the floor to a group of uninsured Americans

(sung to the tune of Over the Rainbow)

Somewhere out in the world
people have health care
it’s not me or anyone I know
this old world just isn’t fair

the spotlight moves stage left to a group of democratic leaders

(sung to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust)

We wrote a bad bill, we know it
but we’re gonna to push it through
we’re doing it fast, not getting it right
gonna blow a lot of dough
are you ready, are you ready to pay
can you tell we don’t have a clue?
we’re the United States congress
we’re all smarter than you

we are filibuster proof
we have 60 votes
and another repub gone, and another repub gone
we have the votes we need
hey, we’re gonna jam it through
this bill’s all we’ve got

a harp trills in the background as the spotlight follows a newsie holding up a newspaper

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! House and Senate pass health care reform bill! President Obama vows to sign the hell out of it!

the spotlight moves stage right back to the republicans

(sung to the tune of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot)

It’s over
we lost the battle
but we won’t give up on the war
it’s over
the vote is there’s
we just have to lie and cheat some more

the spotlight goes back to shine on President Obama

(sung to the tune of the chorus of We Are the Champions)

I am the champion . . . my friends
and I got what I wanted in the end
I am the champion
I am the champion
no time for detractors
cause I am the champion . . . of health care reform!

the stage lights come up

The One Not So Wise Man

Last week the mayor of Arlington Tennessee (a suburb of Memphis) with the ironic name of Russell WISEMAN, was upset that President Obama pre-empted the annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas with his speech about the war in Afghanistan. Mr. WISEMAN posted his displeasure on his Facebook page:

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load . . . try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose”

Cosmic Overdrive did a little digging and found these other entries on Mr. WISEMAN’s Facebook wall:

posted November 7, 2009
“So I take the kids to the movies for a fun Saturday afternoon and decide to buy them some candy, wouldn’t you know they’re out of m & ms, you can’t tell me this wasn’t a liberal Hollywood plot to deprive my kids out of a tasty treat . . . screw you Susan Sarandon, you’re probably a muslim”

posted November 23, 2009
“Tried to have sex with the wife tonight, shot down again, 103 days in a row; I know what’s going on, the muslims don’t want me to have any more kids because one of them could grow up to be president, so they’ve brainwashed my wife into not being sexually attracted to me anymore, well thank you Osama Bin Muhammad . . . “

posted December 5, 2009
“The kids have been playing a lot of video games lately so I decided to take them out for some sun and exercise, we’re not out more than 5 minutes and it starts to rain, tell me this wasn’t done on purpose by the earth’s atmosphere to ruin my kid’s day, damn you ionosphere!”

Mediocre Minds

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
Albert Einstein

As evidence that Mr. Einstein knew what he was talking about I present these signs seen at various Tea Party protests:

“Obama listens to Mao, I listen to Fox News”
“Obama and his Marxist buddies are after your freedom”
“The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s ovens”
“Obama loves taxes, bankrupt USA, loves babykilling”
“Barrack Hussein Obama: The new face of Hitler”
A cartoon of Obama slitting the throat of Uncle Sam

and the vilest of them all:

“National Socialist Healthcare Dachau Germany 1945” printed over a photo of a pile of dead Jews

This is the devolution of this country. Soon we’ll be back to single-celled paramecium swimming in the muck. How did we go from a country of intelligent, thoughtful, progressive pioneers to degenerate, ignorant, hate-spewing separatists?

If there is even one person, much less a thousand, who think these type of incendiary signs are appropriate to the national discourse, then as a country, we are lost.

Tim Pawlenty's Empty Words

Tim “Good ‘n” Pawlenty, the vanilla, republican apologist governor of Minnesota, said some things about President Obama in an interview with Newsmax.com that I found to be stupefyingly ignorant.

Pawlenty called Obama’s economic policy “corrosive to . . . freedom and liberty”. Excuse me Tim, what about Bush’s economic policies like deregulating Wall Street which led to the collapse of the past year or spending $12 billion a month on the Iraq War, and I believe Bush was still president when the first $700 billion were given to the banks. And how exactly have your freedoms been eroded? You’re still free to say any disingenuous and asinine thing you want. The constitution hasn’t been changed by this administration’s spending policies.

More from Pawlenty: “His solutions are federalization of policy, spending way beyond anything we’ve seen in terms of deficit levels, spending the country into bankruptcy”. When Bush entered office we had a SURPLUS. A surplus, Timwit, is defined as “an amount in excess of what is needed”. When Bush finally, mercifully, left office we had a $600 billion deficit. If you are so worried about debt levels you should have opened your freaking mouth somewhere between 2004 and 2008.

Pawlenty: “History proves that it is weakness, not strength that tempts our enemies. And he is projecting potential weakness, and enemies may see that and their respect may be reduced as a result . . .” How could other countries respect us less than seeing us elect a chimp-brain like Bush TWICE? Opening dialogue and maintaining good relationships with world leaders is not weakness you clod. Do World War I and II ring a bell in your tiny, oxygen starved brain? One country allied with another, fighting a common enemy? Alliances built on trust and common ground, that’s strength.

He won’t shut up: “President Obama has governed in an extremely liberal way, and he hasn’t accomplished many major initiatives, but the few that he has have been almost exclusively partisan.” I agree partially. Obama hasn’t accomplished much so far and I’ve been disappointed in his administration. But for a republican to complain of partisanship is like Bill O’Reilly complaining that Keith Olbermann is a blowhard. Obama said he would listen to new ideas except the republicans don’t have any. They keep handing him the same old dead carp wrapped in newspaper and want to call it caviar. Obama’s smart enough to shove it into the trash disposal and move on.

This interview Pawlenty gave was a lot of empty words wrapped up in his own ambition. Pawlenty has presidential aspirations. God help us if someone this dense gets elected again.

The Comedy of Glenn Beck

MC: And now welcome to our stage from the FOX network, Glenn Beck!
Audience: Yea, woohoo, (whistle) (clap clap clap)
Glenn Beck: Thank you everyone, its great to be here at the Zany Banana Laughing Ha Ha Hut and it’s always a thrill to come back to Boise. It looks like we have a nice fiscally conservative crowd tonight. The other day I was on my TV show telling some lies and I got a phone call from Sean Hannity and he said “Hey, knock it off, that’s my job!”
Audience: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: How many socialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? I don’t know because I don’t understand what socialism is. I just swing the word around like an uneducated, fear mongering baboon.
Audience: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Heckler: You’re a loser! You’re not funny!
Glenn Beck: Oh look we have a liberal in the crowd. You probably want me to talk about global warming.
Heckler: You’re a douche bag! Bring out Gallagher!
Glenn Beck: Hey pal, come up here and I’ll put my carbon footprint up your ass!
Audience: ha ha ha ha oooh ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: I’d better be careful or I’ll end up on Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World.
Audience: Yeah ha ha h a Go for it ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: Hey do you guys have hobbies? I have a hobby. I like to spin conspiracy theories. I had this one a few weeks ago where I said that President Obama had a deep-seated hatred of white people but I didn’t think he hated white people.
Audience: oooh ha ha ha ha ahhh ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: I know. Think about it. This is the kind of stuff I think about all day. It’s just how my mind works. Another thing I like to do on my show is cry. I like to cry a lot on my show because . . . the reason is . . . that I just . . . (sob) love this country . . . (weep) so much.
Audience: awwwwwww
Glenn Beck: What’s not to love? Where else could a doughy, talentless clod like me make millions speaking for hours on end on subjects I know nothing about? Thank you everybody! I’ll be here all week! Tip your waitresses! Try the veal! Don’t buy into socialized medicine!

The Noble Nobel

When the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year it is inevitable that we have a collective conversation on whether the winner deserves the prize. The 2009 winner was announced last week and it was a shocker: President Barack Obama.

I support Obama but I don’t deify him. Those that do are as wrong as those that deified George Bush. I voted for Obama mainly because I didn’t believe in John McCain anymore. I was worried about Obama’s lack of experience, but like a lot of people I wanted to believe in his message of hope.

I am disappointed in the president’s desultory performance so far. I try to temper that with the fact that he’s only been in office for nine months, but there is little to be excited about. There are too many projects started and not getting finished or being completed in a half-assed fashion so we end up with watered down solutions to problems.

What I do agree with are his attempts to broker better relations with republicans and with other countries. George Bush called himself a uniter and not a divider and he was the exact opposite. He divided the citizens of this country and separated us from the rest of the world. Obama has had many meetings with republican leaders and leaders of other countries trying to bridge the gap the Bush administration created.

The operative word is “trying” or “attempting”. Partly because of limited time in office and partly because of reluctance by the other parties involved, Obama hasn’t accomplished any of these goals.

The Nobel Peace Prize should be for a person’s body of work or for one grand accomplishment that’s effect is felt worldwide. As much as I admire Obama for trying, he has not succeeded yet. I believe the Nobel committee made a mistake.

Quick Hits

Advertisers are pulling their ads from the Glenn Beck Show since he called President Obama a racist. My question is, how do we get Glenn Beck to pull out of the Glenn Beck show?

Michele Bachmann’s son Harrison has joined Teach for America. This is part of Americorp which Michele herself termed a “re-education camp” for young people. Today we’re going to teach Michele a new word. The dictionary defines "irony" as incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
Repeat after me Michele: Irony. No, not iron. Not Iran. No, not I run away. No, I didn’t say Ernie . . .

The Cosmic Overdrive award for best comeback line goes to Representative Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) who was asked by someone at a town hall meeting "Why are all Americans being forced into a government-run health care and insurance plan?" Larsen answered “With regards to the first comment about being forced to buy health care, I'll say it again... The bill does not force anybody to buy health care ... The bill does not force people to change their health care plan. Now folks will say that's not true, but I've got facts on my side and you've got Glenn Beck on your side.” And brother when you have Glenn Beck on your side you have been screwed worse than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan.

Lou Dobbs says there are legitimate questions about President Obama’s birth certificate. I think there are legitimate questions as to why Dobbs is on TV and not working as a Walmart greeter.

Actor Jerry O’Connell has entered law school. Great, now he can sue himself because of all the shitty movies he’s made.

Sarah Palin is still an idiot. What, you need more proof than the past 10 months? Okey Dokey. There is a provision in the proposed health care bill for money for end-of-life counseling. The Wasilla Whackjob has interpreted this as the government setting up ‘death panels’. Well Susie, grandma wasn’t feeling well so we drove her out into the country and dropped her off at a farm where she could run free.

Nitwits

Nitwit #1 Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer, whose CNBC show might as well be renamed “Oily Man Yells Nonsense at You For an Hour”, believes that he knows how we all feel about President Obama. In a discussion with Joe “I Was a Congressman So I’m Smarter than You” Scarborough, he said:

“When Americans hear health care reform, it just means tax increases. Until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit.”

You want the most powerful man in the world, the most visible man in the world, and the elected leader of this country . . . to just go away for awhile. With the economy in ruins, the major car companies going bankrupt, the health care system out of control, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unrest in Iran over the elections, the never ending disputes between Israelis and Palestinians, North Korea threatening the world with nuclear weapons, etc., you think Obama . . . should just go away. And this isn’t just your postulation. You believe we, the American people, also want him to go away.

Yes Jim, you have your thumb on the pulse of the American people. Wait, that’s right, your thumb is up your ass because you’re a shouting, sweating, prevaricating buffoon. Roll your damn shirt sleeves down you braying jackass and stop acting like you do your TV show to help people. You do it because you get paid an obscene amount of money to give bad investment advice and play a keyboard of morning radio DJ farting noises. You, Jim, are who the American people would like to just go away.

Nitwit #2 Representative John Culbertson

From Twitter, tweeted by Culbertson:

Good to see Iranian people move mountains w social media, shining sunlight on their repressive govt – Texans support their bid for freedom

Oppressed minorities include House Repubs: We are using social media to expose repression such as last night’s D clampdown shutting off amends.

I was walking through the supermarket parking lot the other day and I thought I recognized the driver getting out of a beat up Toyota Celica as millions of Iranians taking to the streets in protest of their sham election and fighting for freedom with some paying with their lives to defy Iran’s supreme leader who continues to threaten them with death if they don’t lie down like lambs and accept the false election results. But then I realized it was just Republican Texas representative John Culbertson going in for some corn pads and a lottery ticket. They look so much alike and their struggles are eerily similar.

Much like the Iranians who live in an oppressive environment forced to accept whatever bile Ayatollah Khameini spews forth and to be ruled by whichever lunatic he picks to be president, Representative Culbertson lives in a big house, gets paid an exorbitant amount of money for which he does nothing useful, gets free healthcare for life for he and his family, can say anything about the president without fear of physical torture and has freedom of religion, thought, satellite TV shows and ice cream flavors.

So you see, it was an honest mistake.