Bloodthirsty Liberal

I think our Tin-Pot Pin-Ups is better, but this Charles Johnson infomercial isn’t half-bad.

From, of course, The Nose on Your Face.

The Balloon Boy Halloween costume, from (who else?) The Nose on Your Face.

And while we’re on the subject (also courtesy of TNOYF), the worst Halloween outfits of all time:

. Vlad the HIV Positive Vampire

. Bonzo the Wacky, Pedophiliac Clown

. (tie) Mr. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

. (tie) Lactose-intolerant Frankenstein

. Jihad Joe (comes complete with Koran & working suicide belt )

. (tie) Peaches the Lovable, Coprophagic Puppy

. (tie) Low Self-esteem Princess (comes with eating disorder and nagging self-doubt)

. Captain Shanker

. The Scotch & Blow Kid

. Randy: Your Overage Internet Pal

. Sudsy the Alcoholic, Herpes-riddled Moose

I think of Halloween as for the kids, but here’s how I’m going to look when I answer the doorbell, a bowl full of Almond Joys in my hand:

Or is that too frightening? (The Helen Thomas masks were sold out.)

Was it Mickey Mantle who said, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself”? The Don Johnson of Libya knows only too well what he meant.

The Nose on Your Face dumpster-dives to find the alternate, rejected titles to the Veteran’s Affairs Death Planning Book:

There are more. Who says our government isn’t going all out on our behalf?

Okay, Vigilant Reader Judi really needs to find something to do with her time. Until that tragic day comes, however, we are blessed that she sends us links to interesting—and hysterical—stuff:

I bet Tim Geithner is a great guy to have a beer with—as long as he’s buying. But other than pouring free money into the coffers of the big banks (whose profits have amazingly skyrocketed as a result), what exactly has he done for the economy?

Even the supposed good news isn’t all that good when you look at it:

Alan Lancz, money manager at Alan B. Lancz & Associates, said the GDP report signaled the economy was improving, but he worries that investors are getting ahead of themselves and buying stocks as if the economy will rebound quickly off the bottom.

“The good news is it’s heading in the right direction and the bad news is the higher the market moves the more it’s discounting a V-shaped recovery,” he said.

…

The GDP report is the strongest sign yet that the recession is winding down. However, the Commerce Department revised the first-quarter GDP figure much lower, saying economic activity tumbled 6.4 percent. That is the worst quarterly reading in nearly 30 years.

The latest report also said consumers cut spending by 1.2 percent in the second quarter, after a 0.6 percent increase in the first quarter.

Investors have been looking to consumers to help lead the economy out of a recession. Spending has been cut as consumers continue to worry about jobs. The unemployment rate is expected to move higher after hitting a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June.

“We’re still not in very good shape in the employment part,” said Steven Stahler, president of the Stahler Group in Baton Rouge, La., adding he doesn’t expect to see consumers leading the country of out recession soon.

Maybe the economy is bottoming out, but the next unemployment report is going to make that hard to sell. The statute of limitations for Blaming Bush is perilously close to running out. Soon, there will be lots of Obamavilles—shanty towns and tent cities reminiscent of the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression—blotting the landscape.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I understand that in the movie Brüno, the title character, played by the brilliant but unhinged Sacha Baron Cohen, wants to be “the most famous Austrian since Hitler”.

If that’s not twisted enough, he pursues that goal by traveling to the Middle East (”Middle Earth”, he calls it) to be kidnapped by a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, “the best in the business” (Al Qaeda is “so 2001″).

Hilarity ensues:

I show this not to be a plot-spoiler (or not just, anyway), but to admire the way that Baron Cohen completely emasculates this guy without wielding a knife or shedding a drop of blood.

Maybe you don’t agree—but the terrorist does:

Abu Aita’s Israeli-Arab lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, denied his client has been involved in any acts of violence. He said he is preparing a lawsuit against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the terrorist reference could get Abu Aita in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by Palestinians.

“This joke is very dangerous. We are not in the United States, we are not in Europe. We are in the Middle East and the world operates differently here,” Abu Ahmad said.

Whether as Brüno, Borat, or Ali G, I think Sacha Baron Cohen may be the only hope for world peace. And I’m not kidding.

I don’t usually read Iowahawk. No reason; he’s just not on my radar screen.

But when Alert Reader Judi sent me this link, I felt I had to share it with the rest of you.

Widow of Murdered Fly Seeks White House Apology, Shit

…

“Bob was wonderful husband and provider,” said the widow, Mrs. Vivian Vvzzvzwwzzz, wiping tears from her compound eyes. “Even though he was always busy at the Rose Garden turd pile, he always flew home in time to tuck in our maggots.”

The 17-day old widow said the grieving process since the murder has taken its toll.

“Although it’s been nearly 48 hours, I still get an empty feeling in my thorax everytime I think about it,” she said. “I feel like I’ve aged an entire week. Mating season is over, and here I am, stuck trying to raise 532 larvae on my own.”

Vvzzvzwwzzz described the “abdomen-wrenching horror” she experienced while watching the President casually assassinate her husband during the live broadcast.

“It was just before supper time and I was predigesting the evening shit for the kids,” she recalled. “When I looked up at the TV I saw Bob there, and of course I was pretty excited. He started waving at me, and then, all of a sudden, SLAP! My whole world, my life, layed smashed across the back of Obama’s left hand. And with 360 degree peripheral vision and hundreds of eye facets, it was impossible to look away.”

You gotta give it up.

What words are most commonly heard in the Obama White House?

“Clean-up in aisle three!”

“We know some of this money is going to be wasted,” Biden said during a roundtable discussion in New York with business leaders aimed at promoting the two-year stimulus plan.

…

“There are going to be mistakes made,” said Biden. “Some people are being scammed already.”

“Our credibility depends on transparency” for how taxpayers dollars are used, he added.

Oh yeah, transparency. How’s that recovery.gov website coming along?

Anyhow, while his mouth was open…

Speaking of Paterson Monday night, the loose-lipped Biden said, “Your once and future governor of the state of New York has been extremely generous to Barack and me and has been a major part of us trying to put this economy back together.”

The vice president’s comments were significant because the unpopular Paterson is facing a possible Democratic primary challenge from state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Polls show Cuomo would trounce Paterson if the election were held today.

Asked about Biden’s endorsement — or at least the strong prediction that Paterson will enjoy re-election — White House spokesman Robert Gibbs punted.

“I have not seen the remarks,” he said. “But let me go see if I can find that and see what the context is.”

…

“It was a statement of friendship and admiration for the governor, and was not intended as a political statement,” Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said.

Three…two…one… punchline:

“There’s been some criticism that we’ve not gotten enough money out so far,” Biden said. “Well look, since I’m the guy who was put in charge of it, I want to make sure in the first 100 days we do it right.”

Hilarious, but he threatens to upstage his boss.

Turns out, President Obama’s plagiarizing of Bush policies and language has been going on for a lot longer than we thgought:

Credit to Jon Stewart: he’s been on this from the beginning:

Christopher Hitchens elaborates on his “black dyke got it wrong” comment (and cleans up his language):

[T]he president did intermittently grasp the main point of the evening, which is that any humor must in some way be at the expense of the guest of honor: namely and on this occasion, himself.

…

Now, Wanda Sykes didn’t get this point at all. She used up almost all her time with loud attacks, not all of them thigh-slappingly funny, on the previous administration and on the critics of the incumbent one. I am pretty sure that this is a first. Anyone with a memory even of the Clinton-Bush years will be able to remember that the comic talent, whether funny or not, was always engaged to “roast” the chief executive to some degree. And this in turn prompts my question: Did the inviting committee fail to explain this to Ms. Sykes? How does it come about that the whole point of the annual press beano was negated by a performer who is more than 100 percent in the president’s corner?

…

Still, at least that weak opening stuff was in some manner launched in Obama’s direction. The rest of Sykes’ time was spent vocalizing the talking points of moveon.org and Air America. If I am in a taxi and Rush Limbaugh is on the radio, I ask the driver to switch the station or switch it off altogether. Limbaugh’s life, like his appeal, is a closed book to me. But I presume that he was on painkiller medication for some reason before he began to become dependent on it, and before he became an object of our adorable “war on drugs.” It’s not so much that it isn’t very funny to mock him for his Oxycontin habit. It’s that it’s near-impossible to imagine our Sable Sapphist lampooning a black equivalent of Limbaugh for an addiction to, say, crack.

…

President Bush used to tell jokes about his weaknesses, the most salient of these being his tragic struggle with grammar, itself quite possibly rooted in dyslexia. Many of President Obama’s jokes, his speechwriters should take note, were at the expense of his strengths—”I might lose my cool”—and were thus bordering on the narcissistic. (If I have a fault, and I’m the first to admit it, it’s probably this: I am too sweet and too patient and too tolerant of the mistakes of others.)

Any tendency to narcissism doubles the need for a follow-up speaker who can make the president wince, not smirk. This we did not get. And Limbaugh’s dependence, like Bush’s dyslexia, is actually a disability. Can you easily picture any jokes from the Sable Sapphist that would in any other way breach the protocols of the Americans With Disabilities Act? Any other person of whom she would dare say, “I hope his kidneys fail”? Any other context in which torture would be funny enough for her to yell, “He needs a water-boarding, that’s what he needs”? Reality and comedy check here: Would she even say this about Osama Bin Laden?

This is all fine—excellent, even—but much ado about a rather minor event.

Leave it to Hitch to make the larger point:

When comedians flatter the president, they become court jesters, and the country becomes a banana republic.

To comedians I would add the press. Sykes’ three-pointed jester’s hat is no sillier than Chris Matthews’s thrill-tingled codpiece. Washington today resembles a royal court, with obsequious ministers trying to outdo each other for the affections of their liege.

It may be hugely entertaining, but it ain’t democracy.

Wanda Sykes gets a laugh out of President Obama by praying for the failure of Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys (organ damage never fails to crack me up too)—

This screen cap is from the second Sykes finished her “joke” about Rush Limbaugh being the 20th hijacker on 9/11

—and the audiosphere waits for Rush’s volcanic reaction.

But Rush’s silence on the subject is tangible, palpable.

But there’s no mystery: he knew he couldn’t top Christopher Hitchens:

“The president should be squirming in his seat. Not smiling,” he said. “The black dyke got it wrong. No one told her the rules.”

If you say something that Hitchens finds over the line, you really need to reexamine your limits.