This week's "This Modern World" cartoon with Tom Tomorrow is titled "Stupid or Lying." It deals with the current spinning by GOP officials and pundits.

In general, I think the GOP-Bush crowd is a mix of stupid and dishonest. Some are one or the other, but some manage to combine the two--David Brooks, for example.

Or perhaps "delusional, toady-ass-kisser is the best description for Brooks.

Get "This Modern World" here.

Love, love, love this guy. I check out The Rude Pundit every day in hopes he has posted a blog. He doesn't blog every day, but often enough to give me another reason to live.

His motto: Proudly lowering the level of political discourse

Seriously, this guy can write and he has a vicious, dark and nasty sense of humor--just perfect for the totally bizarre political-governmental times in which we live. Why do I like his writings? Because we live in a time of great vulgarity in our public life and in our government. Of what do I speak? What do I consider vulgar in America today? Well, gosh, let's see:

• The entire Bush family
• Tom DeLay
• Rush Limbaugh
  
• Bill Frist
• The so-called "Christian" Right believers who are just pawns in the game
• Suburban sprawl
• America's health care system
• Obesity - a country and a culture that wants to eat itself to death
• America's dependence on foreign oil
• Hummer SUVs
• Homophobia
• Immigrant bashing
  
• Karl Rove
• Elizabeth Miller
• Fox News
• Lack of critical thinking skills on the part of 50% of Americans

There--is that enough vulgarity for you? So, no, in the context of all this vulgarity, I do not consider The Rude Pundit to be vulgar.

Be sure to scroll down and read earlier postings at The Rude Pundit. Here are titles of some of my favories (check out the Archives on the lower right-hand side of his page):

• Harbingers of Republican Death
• George Bush's Addiction To Himself
• Dick Cheney Will Destroy Us All
• Karl Rove Contemplates His Leather Slave ("Oh, my")
• Patrick Fitzgerald: The Grown-Up in the Room
• Feeding the Right-Wing Monster With Harriet Miers' Corpse (another "Oh, my")
• Neverending Tales of the Christ Weary
• The Republican In Fall

I am posting the first paragraph from the Pundit's blog today:

11/10/2005

A Warning To Democrats: Beware of Large, Cornered Weasels

The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family. It's a crazed, vicious little fucker that can carry a carcass three times its size. Shit, it can bring down a caribou or a small bear, if it wants to. And its jaws can crush bones. Typically, all a wolverine has to do to drive away other predatory animals is growl, raise the hair on its back, and bare its teeth; that'll scare cougars and wolves shitless. And if you corner it, you better watch out: those bastards'll fight until they tear their way through your body, leaving you stunned and staring at your own viscera steaming on the snow below you. It's better to kill it than try to fight it. Or, if you're all scientific or protective of endangered species, put it into a deep sleep and cage the sharp-toothed weasel. Read entire posting

I swear. How stupid can people be. Always looking for new excuses for OBESITY.

Yes, yes. We are the victims-beneficiaries of our genes. No doubt about it.

But as for obestity, I thought we had figured out the main cause: junk-food eating American suburbanites driving madly around highways in large vehicles and then returning to the cul-de-saced homes in neighborhoods with no sidewalks.

Years ago, a friend said, "They can take away my health insurance because I smoke and have HIV on the same day they take away health insurance from the fat-assed Americans who eat themselves to death."

Indeed.

From The New York Times...

In Study, Hormone Reduced Appetite in Mice

Hungry or full, fat or thin: it is mostly a matter of hormones, dozens of them, carrying messages between the digestive tract, the fat cells and the brain. Eat. Don't eat. Burn calories. Store fat.

Today, researchers at Stanford University are reporting that they have found a previously unknown member of this chemical cascade, a hormone with a much coveted power: it sharply reduces the desire to eat.

The new substance, which the scientists named obestatin (OHB-statin), is made in the stomach and small intestine, and it seems to prompt the brain to send out a signal that says "eat less."

Mice given the hormone for eight days ate half as much as usual and lost weight, the researchers are reporting today in the journal Science. The hormone seems to reduce hunger in part by slowing the passage of food through the stomach and small intestine. Read entire story

It would be the utlimate-ugly-job, but someone has to do it. No idea who created this piece; a friend sent it to me.

Yes, such are the priorities of many Americans: sex is worse than violence-death.

Quick! Pick out the drag queen in this picture and win a Cracker Jack Tierra!

I have always loved Ricky Martin--regardless of what he will or won't own up to about... well, you know.

Anyway, The Washington Post totally and completely dissed his new album. But, who cares about his music. That new look, I just don't know. We call it Thug Bottom.

Photo: Sony

Having grown up around substantial numbers of "Good Chris-chuns" and small-town hypocrites, I learned decades ago that it is a good idea to keep a close eye on the self-appointed enforcers of morality, paricularly in small towns. When you aren't looking, these a-holes are probably robbing your garage or fornicating with high-school girls down by the creek.

So, it is in this spirit of communitarianism (see, I use big words, too), I bring you this blog: Bobo's World: Dispatches from the Heartland. Bobo covers weekly church-related crime.

Enjoy! And may Jesus bless you--have a nice day.

Do you ever wonder, Has the Republican Party become one big affirmative action program for stupid white people? (Hey, I'm white, very white, so don't dis me.)

The gushing letters and cards that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers wrote to El Presidete El Jefe Jorge Bush over the years are... embarrassing. It's sort of the same as those situations where someone at work, in school or at a party just makes such an ass of themselves in a group. The person lacks social skills, or says something completely inappropriate.

You can feel it. You want to run away... to hide... you just want the person embarrassing themselves to stop--now.

That's pretty much the way Poor Harriet's letters to Dubya (and sometimes Laura) read. Oooohhh... stop! You fool! You are making everyone uncomfortable.

Here is some coverage of Letters from Poor Harriet:

• The Rude Pundit (raunchy and wonderful, very funny)
• Sun-Herald (South Mississippi)
• Times of London
• The Smoking Gun
• Buffalo News

Oh, dear Lord... get me out of here. This is so... humiliating. But, I think I will read what The Rude Pundit has to say before I go.

Ever read any of the scary B.S. over at Agape Press ? It's "Reliable News from a Christian Source."

Well, if you are familiar with the content on the Web sites of the some of the other wacko right-wing "Christian" organizations, then don't bother. Nothing much new.

However, it is refreshing to see the clarity and honesty in this news relesase on Agape Press today. These folks don't even pretend to hide their Jew-baiting. Shucks, they do it in the first sentence. In fact, the the second word of the first sentence is "Jewish." While not Jewish, I tend to shift uncomfortably in my chair when someone begins a sentence with "A Jew or "A Jewish man..." I just figure the rest of it won't be... pleasant.

Oh, well, why should gay people get all the attention? Yes, Jew-baiting is alive and well in America's fundamentalist right-wing. I know that these people profess to love Israel, but I suspect it stops there--they probably hate the Jews who populate Israel.

Oh, yeah, the news release takes to task "the Jewis man" (they might as well have added "dirty" between "a" and "Jewish man") because he is filing suit against the Air Force for not keeping the relibious wackos out of people's personal religious life.


Lawsuit Seeks Stop to Chaplains' Faith-Sharing in Air Force
Report Says the Military Branch May Accommodate Plaintiff's Wishes

By Jody Brown
October 12, 2005

(AgapePress) - If a Jewish man in New Mexico has his way, Christian chaplains in the U.S. Air Force could be prohibited from evangelizing among the ranks. And apparently the Air Force is willing to consider the man's suggestion.

According to an Associated Press report, Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque -- a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and father of two Air Force cadets -- has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that senior officers and cadets at the Academy illegally impose Christianity on others at the elite school. Now comes word that the Air Force has withdrawn from use by its chaplains a code of ethics that endorsed the evangelizing of troops who are unaffiliated with any religion.

The code, which was issued by the Air Force Chaplain Service in January, states: "I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies. However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are not affiliated." An Air Force spokeswoman says the code of ethics has since been withdrawn "for further review." Read entire wacko screed by clicking here.

Is El Presidente El Jefe Jorge Bush close to having a complete-total-screaming nervous breakdown? I am seeing more stories and columns in the blogosphere like this one today from Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue. (Note: Thompson has been around -- press secretary to two congressman as well as a chief of staff, and a long-time journalist.)

Scary stuff, but not surprising. Let me again remind those people who voted for Bush what they voted for: a guy who has messed everything in his life, with the exception of his marriage. Dubya has ruined every business his dad's business partners ever bought for him, he destroyed America's reputation around the world... and on and on. Where would I stop? The list is endless.

Somehow you thought this violent, two-bit redneck drunk-of-a-clown had more "character" than Al Gore or John Kerry. Well, you know the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

We tried to tell you. Shame on you--you fools who voted for Bush.

God help the republic.

Here is Thompson's column...

Government by Temper Tantrum By DOUG THOMPSON Oct 11, 2005, 06:53

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President George W. Bush’s temper tantrums are on the rise with White House insiders reporting increasing tongue-lashing of staffers, obscenity-filled outbursts and a leader driven to the edge by what he sees as party disloyalty and a country that no longer trusts him.

Conservative backlash over his latest Supreme Court nominee may, in fact, have pushed the President over the edge.

“He’s out of control,” one White House aide says privately. “There’s no other way to put it. His anger spills over in meetings. He berates anyone who brings him bad news but there's not a lot of good news we can bring the President right now. He calls other Republicans 'motherfucking traitors' and it is becoming more and more of a challenge to keep that anger from showing in public.” Read entire column

But which one was it? From Capitol Hill Blue's "Today in History."

1962 - 1st appearance of a Gabor sister on Merv Griffin Show

Supposedly the Bush Administration will cut back on our system of massive farm subsidies in order to get a new World Trade Organization agreement.

When pigs fly.

This is total bullshit. Large farming operations are a part of the Big-Government-Right-Wing Republication-Coalition. They get tons of handouts, just like other sectors of corporate America. Don't weep for the small, family-owned farms: they don't exist anymore. This is big business, and the "farmers" who get subsidies are ones who spend the winters in Miami in their condos.

Farming in America in 2005 doesn't look anyting like "Green Acres." It more closely resembles the Chicago Board of Trade.

This article from Bloomberg News:

This is from John Aravosis' AmericaBlog... I won't even comment. Why bother. Anyway, here is Lou Beres' statement at the Web site of the Christian Coalition of Oregon.

Christian Coalition leader molested his 3 daughters
by John in DC - 10/10/2005 12:48:00 PM

There ought to be a constitutional amendment to stop Christian conservative activists from getting married, adopting kids, or at the very least can we please ban heterosexual men from the priesthood?

From Editor & Publisher:

After news broke that local law enforcement officials were investigating complaints that Louis Beres, longtime chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon, had molested three female family members when they were pre-teens, The Oregonian in Portland went out and interviewed Beres' family members.

Two told reporters that Beres, indeed, had molested them. All three said they have been interviewed for several hours by detectives.

"I was molested," said one of the women, now in her early 50s. "I was victimized, and I've suffered all my life for it. I'm still afraid to be in the same room with [Beres]."

The coalition led by Beres, 70, champions socially conservative candidates and causes. Its Web site describes the group as "Oregon's leading grassroots organization defending our Godly heritage." The group opposes abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research. It is affiliated with the national Christian Coalition, which was founded in 1989 by television evangelist Pat Robertson.