Tea Baggers

Somehow, the "American Family Association" has gotten my e-mail address. So I get e-mails like this:

Please support TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party day, April 15

March 18, 2009

We currently have people in 600 cities organizing for the TEA Party Day Rally April 15. Help us grow that number to 1,000!

Dear Professor,

Our country faces a grave danger. Our elected officials in Washington are leading us down an unwise path. We need to act now to stop this situation.

I’m writing asking you to help us and also to motivate others to get involved. AFA and other groups have called for a day of TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party rallies across the U.S. on April 15, including one at noon in front of the city hall in your community. Get with a few friends and go to the rally.

Oh, you're taxed enough? Really? Are you really going to pretend that you don't know that the Obama tax plan only raises taxes on those making over $200,000 a year? And only sets them back to pre-W rates? You do know that most of these gullible mouth=breathers that are mailing tea-bags to their congressmen would actually pay less under Obama's plan, right. But you're just going to go ahead and whip these poor dupes into a frenzy to protect you and your millionaire buddies from paying a little extra come tax time, aren't you? What's the matter, Wildmon?* Trying to censor television shows doesn't take up enough of your time?
For those unfamiliar with the Rev Wildmon, here's an exerpt from his website:

If you are not familiar with his name, you likely are aware and probably have participated in some of his successful boycott campaigns. What about the successful boycott of 7-Eleven to drop Playboy... or the successful boycott of K-mart to remove the porn from their subsidiary Waldenbooks... One of the first activities of the new CEO of K-mart after getting rid of the porn was to contact Don Wildmon and pledge to lead K-mart in a family-friendly direction. Donahue also credited Don Wildmon and the AFA for destroying his program.

He's also been the driving force in the current Disney boycott. He has appeared on Meet the Press, McNeil-Lehrer Report, Good Morning America, The Tomorrow Show, The Today Show, Nightline, the 700 Club, and other television programs. He has also been featured in several publications including Time, Newsweek, People, TV Guide, Christianity Today, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal.

This is the stuff of which he is proud! Boycotting Disney, for God's sake.

Her's another fun fact about the Wild man:

Wildmon is simultaneously leading an effort to boycott the fast food giant McDonald's, and marshaling the troops in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that would reverse the state's Supreme Court recent decision in support of gay marriage.

Why McDonalds? A short time back, the home of the Hamburgler donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) in exchange for membership in the NGLCC and a seat on the group's board of directors. That outraged Wildmon, the undisputed kingpin of calling boycotts against companies that might have a scent of gay-friendliness.

"This boycott is not about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, choosing to put the full weight of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage," said AFA chairman Donald E. Wildmon.

Finally, these warnings about the consequences of McDonald's actions: From columnist Bob Unruh, writing for WorldNetDaily: "Your dollars for Happy Meals and Big Macs could end up paying for sex-change operations of McDonald's employees if the home of the Golden Arches continues its promotion of homosexuality..."

Oooohhh, McDonalds is promoting the big, scary, homosexual agenda. What exactly are the Wildmen of the world afraid of here? Do they think that they will bite into a burger, feel faint, then wake up in a stylishly decorated loft listening to showtunes? That Ronald McDonald will force them to get washboard abs and enjoy Project Runway? Rev. Donald Wildmon, you are a pathetic, fearful, hate-filled little man. Please do us all afavor and Go Away!

*Rev. Donald Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association

Billy Bob Neck

I'm 99% sure that this is satire, but either way it's funny, and i could use a good laugh.



(h/t Jesus' General)

Why the Bonuses Matter

I keep hearing that the bonuses being handed out at AIG really shouldn't be a big deal. They only amount to 1/10 of 1% of the bailout, etc. But they do matter, and they are important, because this shit is going to keep happening as long as the little pricks that run these businesses know that they can gamble with other people's money, rack up huge profits, and when it inevitably implodes, not only will the rest of us pay for it, they will still get the bonuses they were expecting. There are no consequences for these fuckers. It's like if you walked in to work and pooped on your boss's desk and he said "that's inexcusable! But, I sure would hate for you to quit, so here's a million dollars. Now send someone else in here to clean up my desk!" Wouldn't you poop on your boss's desk every day, if that happened? Well, these sons of bitches will keep pooping all over the taxpayers unless there are negative consequences for doing it. Losing their bonuses would be one small step in the right direction. They should be given pink slips, and when they apply for new jobs with another company, hiring managers should look at their resumes and say "OH, you're one of those AIG assholes? Security, come remove this human stain from my office." That's how it would work for us normal working stiffs. If I screwed things up so badly at work that the entire company was teetering on the edge of extinction, I would expect to be fired. And I would expect to be treated like a pariah by other companies. Of course, these pricks get to live by another set of rules, where there are no consequences for failure. They get rewarded for success and rewarded for failure.

Glenn Beck's Maniacal Grin

Since my most recent post, I've been spending way too much time trying to figure out Glenn Beck and why he always looks like this:





Seriously. Every time I see him, he has that loony, demented grin. He could be at his best friend's funeral and i don't think he could wipe that deranged expression off his face.

So, I've been trying to figure him out. Does he just like being outrageous because he's a publicity whore, or is he actually baboon-ass crazy enough to believe the shit he says?

Here's my theory. Glenn Beck is crazy, alright, but not the kind of tin-foil-hat crazy that would believe in the kind of paranoia that is his stock in trade. No, Glenn suffers from the kind of bug-eyed, foaming at the mouth, poo-throwing crazy that afflicts teenage arsonists. He knows what he's saying is ridiculous. And he knows that there are nuts out there who will believe it. And that's why he can't stop grinning. He knows he's lighting a fuse, and he's rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation of the explosion. He can't wait to see what's going to get blown up. Like a teenage firebug, he probably gets aroused thinking about it. And he's going to keep fanning the flames as long as he's allowed to stay on the air.

Glenn Fucking Beck

I was going to complain about Beck being a moron and defending the bonuses at AIG. But then I see this: http://crooksandliars.com/node/26723

Beck starts out by raising fears about Russia (Um, Glenn, the Cold War is Over), then goes completely over the edge talking about FEMA prison camps. First he says that he was tired of hearing about them and wanted to debunk these rumors. But then he did a lot of "research" and found that *gasp* he COULDN'T debunk them!!!! I don't know how you can be unable to debunk something as patently absurd as FEMA prison camps, it should be like debunking the tooth fairy or martians. (Now even i'm sick of the word "debunk." I will try not to use it again in this post)

Now, it's one thing to say that he can't technically disprove the existence of these prison camps, but by the end of the interview, he's referring to them as though they are established fact! Glenn, you idiot! This is an old militia movement conspiracy theory. This is black helicopters, new world order, UN communism nonsense. No sane person believes this. But you know who does believe this crap? People like Timothy McVeigh. People like the Montana Freemen. People wh run around in the woods with automatic weapons preparing for a war against the US government. And when these crazy motherfuckers see someone like you on TV, on a major news channel, talking about htis kind of stuff, it just confirms their delusional beliefs. This kind of irresponsible chatter just encourages these lunatics.

Sorry this post wasn't funny, but there's nothing funny about this kind of thing.

Here, how's this?