The World Had No Need For A Fred Durst Sex Video. None.

Somebody's Working Like A Horse To Be The Top Douchebag of 2005 Jeff-Jimmy-Joshua Gannon now has a blog, to defend himself and provide a forum for his side of the story. A little bit of shame would be alot for this male prostitute/imposter journalist/gay porn internet magnate/White House plant/leaker of classified information.

What's A Decent Article Doing In The LA Times? No way Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter; if you remember correctly, the President said back in 2002 that we would use false claims of WMDs to launch a unilateral invasion of Iraq to fascilitate an Islamic theocracy that was both cold to us and warm to Iran at the cost of thousands of US lives and hundred of billions of dollars. We're WAY in-focus.

Douchebag Deathmatch Showdown! Who do you root for in this situation: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach vs. PETA? Is both groups ritualistically killing themselves in accordance to Kosher law too much to hope for?

That's What You Get For Singing About Your "Goodies" Best urban legend I've heard in awhile... "I have been hearing from many people that the hip-hop artist Ciara used to be a man and had to have a sex change. Even more, I heard that she stated it on nation televison!" "I have heard a rumor that the R&B star, Ciara, was born male. That he/she decided that he wanted to be a female at the age of 5, and his mother let him grow his hair out. I was told that he had surgury, so he no longer has a penis. and apparently he/she was on Oprah having an in depth converstation about it, along with discussing it in a magazine article."

Blurring The Line Between Urban Legend And Corrupt Business Practices "A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard, saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date. The unnamed woman from Georgia says that a chip inside the cartridge tells the printer that it needs re-filling even when it does not. The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, the world's biggest printer firm, declined to comment on the lawsuit."

To Boldly Waste One's Life At least it's for a worthwhile cause! "Fans of the Star Trek: Enterprise TV show are protesting the show's cancellation with street demonstrations in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, London and Tel Aviv. Trekkies are holding rallies worldwide on Friday to bring attention to their cause. Rallies will be held at the Paramount studios in Los Angeles and at the offices of CBS and the Sci-Fi channel in New York. Additional rallies are set for the local Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C., the offices of the BBC and Channel 4 in London, and at Tel Aviv University in Israel."

-The Sikh Geek

HELP! TIMELY RESPONSE IMPORTANT HELP!

God, And You Know, Stuff Like That A new study has found that "religion really does matter" to today's teens. It also discovered that their religious beliefs are rooted in ignorance and bullshit. "Though the phone survey depicted broad affinity with religion, the face-to-face interviews found that many teens' religious knowledge was "meager, nebulous and often fallacious" and engagement with the substance of their traditions remarkably shallow. Most seemed hard put to express coherently their beliefs and what difference they make. Many were so detached from the traditions of their faith, says the report, that they're virtually following a different creed in which an undemanding God exists mostly to solve problems and make people feel good. Truth in any absolute, theological sense, takes a back seat."

The Freedom To Fear For Your Own Safety According to a Amnesty International report, woman and girls live in daily fear of violence and sexual assault, two years after the liberation of Iraq and its blossoming into a beaconing neo-Athens of democracy and freedom. "The lawlessness which followed the overthrow of the dictator's regime has made the situation worse for women as the number of killings, abductions and rapes has increased."

Nothing Succeeds Like Success, And Corrupt Incompetence Play government for a moment. What would you do if a company with questionable ties to the vice president was rewarded huge government contracts and ended up overcharging the military by millions? You reward them with performance-based bonuses!

At Least He Didn't Use The "Omlette and Broken Eggs" Analogy Motherfucking liar, Richard Perle said during his recent debate that "I'm sometimes asked now that we know there were not weapons of mass destruction in Iraq shouldn't we re-evatulate the decisions to go to war and that seems to me a little bit like deciding at the end of the year not that it was foolish to have purchased insurance becuase your house didn't burn down." As DailyKos points out, "$300 billion and counting, 1,500 dead and over 10,000 maimed American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians either dead, maimed, or suffering the loss of their loved ones" is one motherfucker of an insurance policy, especially when the chance of the house of the US "burning down" from a non-existant WMD program is pretty slight.

-The Sikh Geek

New Photographs of Old Ghosts

What's "Honorary Cash Cow" When Translated Into Hebrew? Madonna has been promoted to the highest non-ordained position in the Church of Kabbalah. According to one source, "Her teachers think she has reached the pinnacle of spiritual understanding." The pinnacle of spiritual understanding? Just like the Buddha or Jesus? Sure.

More Diplomatic Genius From The White House "George Bush has banned Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House - because she is a divorcee. The unprecedented snub has effectively sabotaged Charles's plan to take his bride on a Royal tour of America later this year. The trip would have been the pair's first official tour as a married couple. But the US President - a notoriously right-wing Christian and reformed alcoholic - told aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be playing host to the newly-weds, who are both divorcees. The decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced."

If You Really Want To Help, Don't A group calling itself "the Minuteman Project" is so intent on "protecting our country from an invasion by people from all over the world across our southern border with Mexico" that they are gathering around 500 wackos to "assist" the US Border Patrol in detaining illegal immigrants for one month in Arizona. The government is understandibly weary of a mass of patriotic nutcases with a vague mission and equally vague stance on carrying guns. The patrols will start on April 1st. Seriously.

Our Heroes Tortured By Evildoers Can't Get Money From Evildoers Who Are Now Heroes, Unlike The Evildoers Who Were Tortured By Our Heroes. I Think. "The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist. The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money. The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention. Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States. But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says."

-The Sikh Geek

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: I Think "Jeff" Has a Question.

Puppet Vs. Theocrat: Who To Root For? Iyad Allawi, the stooge picked by the American occupational authorities as the post-interim-constitution, pre-interim-election prime minister, says he will gather up his handful of votes and stage a secular challenge to the Shi'a party and their choice for prime minister, Al Dawa leader Ibrahim Jaafari. Allawi, only slightly delusionally, believes he is "poised to block Dr. Jaafari's nomination and possibly peel off enough members from the Shiite's United Iraqi Alliance to form a government of [his] own." Despite barely scraping into double digits in the percentage of the vote his party got, he seems pretty optimistic. You think maybe Washington is telling him something they're not telling the rest of us?

It Must Be Time for Another Appearance on Leno The popularity of make-believe California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to plummet, with just 55 percent of citizens approving of his job in office, down from around 70 percent in September. Additionally, about 53 percent of Californians now think their state is on the wrong track, compared with 38 percent previously. Boy, California, I sure didn't see that one coming: You mean the guy whose old job was pretending to be a murderous robot from the future isn't such a good choice for governor? Huh. Live and learn.

But, Dash It All, Chaps, We Had Wogs to Abuse! A very interesting read today: The Guardian goes in-depth on how the British government rushed to the Iraq War, against the advice of a number of top cabinet officials, including Blair's own attorney general. Right up until the outbreak of hostilities, Lord Goldsmith, the AG, was equivocating on the legality of the war, seeking assurances that there were, in fact, weapons of mass destruction currently in production. He never drafted an opinion endorsing the legality of the war, which is one of the conditions demanded by Blair's defence minister; no matter, Blair's government just lied and said that Goldsmith had written such an opinion. Interesting stuff.

Good, Old-Fashioned Mob Justice A group of 500 armed yayhoos calling themselves The Minutemen have announced that they're going to "patrol" a 40-mile stretch of border between Arizona and Mexico in April, when the number of illegal border crossings is at a peak. In other words, 500 people have announced their intention to usurp a function of the U.S. government. So what's the reaction of the U.S. Border Patrol? "Concern," because apparently it's not illegal to form an armed band of vigilantes dedicated to bashing Mexicans. Doesn't this sound like an area ripe for new legislation?

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro ...as Hunter S. Thompson once opined. And this is about as weird as it gets: The Pro Wrestling Republican Coalition, dedicated to linking the Republican Party and sports entertainment. There is much to enjoy in this profile of various coalition members. Like this reference to a wrestler/Republican who recently served as press secretary for a GOP congressional candidate in New Jersey: "Most recently, Roman served as one of Undertaker's Druids at Wrestlemania XX in Madison Square Garden." But the reason I'm posting it today is because of the last man profiled: Bobby Eberle. That's Bobby Eberle the Texas Republican, of GOPUSA fame, and the owner of none other than Talon News, the fake web site that enabled hot military stud "Jeff Gannon" to get drawer-drippingly close to spin hunk Scott McLellan in the White House press room. Oh, what a tangled web, etc.

-Consider Arms

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Hunter S. Thompson RIP.

"Looks Like Satan Wins Tonight" First Hunter S. Thompson, and now Dr. Eugene Scott, a great American original. You may remember his late-night Bible talk show, in which he would smoke cigars, play the saxophone, wear fake glasses, or don Indian headdresses. He would often cut to footage of himself or family members riding horses in circles, for no discernible reason. If he suspected that not enough people were calling his 1-800 number to donate money, he would say in resigned tones, "It looks like Satan wins tonight." A fine reminder in this age of cookie cutter evangelicals how much fun the nutty man of God can be, Dr. Scott died at home, aged 75.

Nice Try, Man of Cats Longtime MLWL favorite Ahmad Chalabi has dropped his bid to be named prime minister by the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition that won 48 percent of the vote in the elections last month. Instead, it looks like Dawa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafari has gotten the nod, which isn't too surprising; Jaafari had the backing not only of Dawa, but also the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Note: Dawa has, since its establishment in 1958, worked towards establishing an Islamic theocracy in Iraq.

Does Lactose Intolerant Know About This? In a move that is sure to outrage the members of Raid, Vegan Reich, and Earth Crisis, a UC Davis researcher has released findings showing that raising children on a vegan diet significantly raises the risk of malnutrition. No less a tofu-head than Paul McCartney himself pronounced the study "rubbish," pointing out that vegan diets can "help you with colon cancer and stuff." I don't know about you, but I'm sold.

Americatown: The Patriotic-est Place on Earth In an effort to shed the gritty image that has led to the nickname "Fayettenam," city officials in Fayetteville, NC have hit on a new theme: patriotism. Specifically, the city wants to be known as "the most patriotic town in America." The city fathers are hoping this entails, among other things, daily parades, tax breaks for people who display the flag, painting the roads to look like flags, a daily flag-saluting ceremony outside the courthouse, and fireworks every Saturday. Reserve your hotel rooms now, fans of ironic kitsch!

Farewell Then, Beard #3 Rush Limbaugh has finalized his divorce, separating him from Marta, his third wife. Now, I don't necessarily care about three marriages. Nor do I think it's a big deal to be hooked on pills all the time. I'm just saying that the next time you hear Rush crowing about the "moral values vote," maybe you should keep those things in mind. Hey, how many times has Bill Clinton been divorced? Let's see: Never. And how many times has he been hospitalized for drug dependency: Oh, yeah, never. Hmm. Makes you think.

-Consider Arms

A Shoe Of Truth Thrown At A Douchebag Of Falsehood

Fuck Yeah! What's a use of a shoe better than Kruschev banging it on a desk at the UN to make a point? Joining the sacred pantheon that houses the dudes that threw pies at Ann Coulter, and throwing it at Richard Perle while screaming "Motherfucking Liar!" at a Dean/Perle debate in Portland, Oregon. (Thankfully, DailyKos keeps its language just how we like it, filthy.) Dick started off by commenting that Democrats "looked at the Democratic Party and chose a physician to lead them." Yeah, medical doctors are such a lowly and disrespected career; it's right above carny and right below Port-A-John cleaner. Perle is such a loathesome, warmongering piece of shit I could only hope the shoe was a heat-seeking ballistic wingtip.

Support Our Brave, Child-Fucking Troops Nobody's a fan of child prostitution, but it's a whispered fuck that a sizeable chunk of our taxmoney goes to support it. Grit your teeth and read this article by Charles Colson on the military's ‘Unmentionable Topic’. “It’s the same thing the military brass and senior enlisted men have failed to mention. It’s the same thing medics who pass out condoms fail to mention. It’s the same thing the U.S. government has failed to mention. It’s the same thing our churches, inhabited by veterans who keep the secret, fail to mention. It’s the unmentionable topic among Navy veterans . . . namely, that many of the mysterious Asian prostitutes who tend to our men in uniform are kids, and many of these kids are, basically, slaves.”

It Must Suck To Attend William Cooper Middle School "Each student was required to wear identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beamed their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passed under an antenna posted above a classroom door."

Finally, A Gift For Both The Sarcastic Liberal AND The Douchebag Neo-Con In Your Life A Coca-Cola logo-styled "Enjoy Capitalism" t-shirt.

The English Langauage Fails It especially fails when you need it to describe a lawsuit brought against the Gorilla Foundation which houses "Koko" the gorilla, by two former female employees who claim that they were ordered to bond with the talking primate by bearing their breasts. If you thought that your job sucks, at least it probably won't end with you muttering the phrase "I refused to expose my breast to perform acts of bestiality with one of the gorillas."

Condi in 2008: SHE PLAYS THE FUCKING PIANO PEOPLE! The rumour mill in the Beltway is abuzz with talk that Cheney is going to resign for "health reasons" in 2005, putting Condi in the VP seat and jockeying her for a 2008 presidential run. Keep in mind that this terrifying prospect is being put forth by WorldNetDaily, the same site that shills for books entitled "The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse" and "Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection."

-The Sikh Geek

It Came From Nathan Glazer's Attic

There's major news on the "return of the living dead" front. Iran Contra aficionados are dancing in their seats over the news that two key figures from the Reagan administration's scandalous conduct in Central America have been promoted to top jobs in the Bush Administration. In this entry, we'll deal with the less savory of the pair (as far as such designations have meaning): Convicted perjurer Elliott Abrams.



Elliott Abrams, friend of the Contras and foe of interfaith marriage, has been named to one of the highest foreign policy posts in America: deputy national security adviser. The appointment has passed with little notice by the mainstream press; after all, who cares about some bureaucrat ascending another rung on the ladder?

Ah, but Abrams is no mere bureaucrat! A hardcore Cold Warrior and Reagan Administration official, Abrams has neoconservative street cred like Florida has beaches.

Born into a liberal Jewish household in New York, Abrams was a Democrat for much of his young life. While attending Harvard Law School, he lived in the attic of Nathan Glazer, the Trotskyite-turned-neocon sociologist. He worked for Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Scoop Jackson, the two Democrats closest to neocon thought on domestic and foreign policy, respectively. He married Rachel Decter, whose mother, Midge, is a formidable neocon publicist and who herself is married to Norman Podhoretz, "neocon Yoda figure" as Slate calls him, and the father of New York Post columnist John Podhoretz (Norm, like Glazer, is also an ex-communist). Abrams is also a longtime friend of neocon folk hero Natan Sharansky, currently a member of the Israeli Knesset.

Abrams ditched the Democratic Party in the late 1970s, finding Jimmy Carter's foreign policy "hopeless." He joined Reagan's State Department and initially distinguished himself by his principled opposition to U.S.-backed dictators like Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Manuel Noriega of Panama. This flirtation with credibility went out the window when Abrams distinguished himself by his fanatical defense of the murderous Salvadoran government, even after evidence of massacres in that country became public. When his wife told the Washington Post that she'd like to mow down NY Times columnist Anthony Lewis with a machine gun, Abrams said, hilariously, "I wouldn't waste the bullets. I would rather have them go to the Contras."

But Abrams wasn't just a wacko; he was also a pretend spy. Although not a main player behind the Iran-Contra skulduggery, Abrams nevertheless traveled to Britain in 1986 with a secret Swiss bank account number and the code name "Mr. Kenilworth" in order to solicit a $10 million donation to the Contras from that well-known advocate of democracy, the Sultan of Brunei.

While Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was preparing a multi-count indictment of Abrams, Abrams took the manly way out and pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, a misdemeanor. In 1992, Abrams was one of the recipients of Poppy Bush's famous Christmas Eve pardons, clearing his criminal record.

Bush says that Abrams' central task is promoting "the expansion of freedom in the world." Surely he's aware of the irony of entrusting such a task with a man famous for defending murderous tyrannies, who personally acted as the courier in a transaction that provided a terrorist organization with millions of dollars. Then again, maybe not.

Be sure to watch for this series' next thrilling installment: The Negroponte Checkmate!

The Eve of Destruction

Who Says There Is No Justice In This World? Me, for one. Bush named the first US director of national intelligence and it none other than John Negroponte, the man who oversaw death squads in Central America. One former senator said that Negroponte's job was an uneviable one. "Your successes will remain secret, while your mistakes will all be public." Well, if a pile of murdered nuns doesn't trip you up on your way to diplomat and department head, I don't think that will be much to worry about.

It Just Doesn't Stop Getting More Bizarre Jeff Gannon, the fake reporter for the party-line Talon "news" who was given day-passes for two years into the White House press room to lob softball question at Bush before getting found out, and then found out for prostituting himself to men on the side, and THEN suspected for being involved in the Valerie Plame outing, has NOW been revealed to have been allowed into the press room before his shell "news" organization ever existed. Frank Rich (a NYT Arts critic) describes with hilarious and devestating detail, the whole mess in this piece.


Global Climate Change: What Me Worry?


Torture Update! A British detainee at Gitmo has been blinded in one eye after guards there "held both of his eyes open and sprayed (pepper spray) into his eyes and later took a towel soaked in pepper spray and rubbed it in his eyes." Remember the detainee at Abu Ghraib who was hung from his wrists while being interrogated? He doesn't remember being tortured, mostly because he was killed during that interrogation, according to reports recently reviewed by the AP. Good thing our new Attorney General has made stopping dirty movies one of his top priorities.

Axis Of Evil Update! New CIA Director Porter Goss admits that North Korea has more nukes now than when the US labelled them a threat and one-third of a double-pointed "Axis of Evil." He also said that the war in Iraq feeds the international terrorist threat! Iran and Syria have created a united front to deal with any potential threat from the US! Russia will be selling Syria arms! Bonus!

Yeah Syria, But You Were TOTALLY Happy That It Happened... "While acknowledging that the United States does not know who was behind the Monday bombing that killed the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, Ms. Rice said Syria should be held at least indirectly responsible, 'given their continued interference in Lebanese affairs.'" We don't know... but you should be held indirectly responsible. Did you now that she can FUCKING PLAY THE PIANO?!

-The Sikh Geek feels sick

...And You Will Know Them By Their Trial of Dead Links

Go CNN! Who the fuck cares if you're using the exact same sketchy photo to rep both Iranian and North Korean nuclear plants?! Like, aren't they both part of the evil quadrangle anyways?! Force someone else to resign and get Larry King to tell me how a hot supermodel figures into all of this.


My Head Hurts Let's get it organized. For two years the White House gave a daily press pass to a pseudo news reporter from GOP-bought-and-paid-for Talon News, so he could lob softball questions to Bush. Then he gets found out by the media. Then his gay prostitution on the side business also gets found out. Now he has ties to the Plame CIA leak mess?

Six Degrees of a Six-Point List From Empty-handed via Ameriblog via...
By its own admission, the White House has:

1. Planted fake news stories on local TV stations to push its agenda
2. Put journalists on the government payroll.
3. Had supposed independent journalists testify to Congress when they were being paid off by the govt.
4. Paid off journalists to push its agenda in the larger media.
5. Launched unprecendented tactics to subpoena a number of reporters and try and force them to reveal confidential sources -- all about a story concerning a White House member who broke the law by revealing a CIA agent's identity, thus endangering the lives of friends to the US around the world.
6. And now, planted fake journalists in the White House press room and passed them CIA documents to push its agenda.

To Think That Some Dude From ESPN and Some Dude From Comedy Central Are at the Top of the Shitheap... (from the blog of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann) "Ward Churchill says some detestable things about 9/11 victims, so the Governor of Colorado wants to squeeze him out of the University there. Marine Corps Lieutenant General James Mattis tells an audience in San Diego “it’s fun to shoot some people,” particularly in Afghanistan, and his superior officers ask him to please not say stuff like that again. Eason Jordan makes a remarkable gaffe, implying that the U.S. military is hunting journalists. He backs off within moments of the remark, apologizes, and still gets forced to resign from CNN. Brit Hume and other political commentators twist Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words to make it look like he would’ve supported President Bush’s partial privatization of Social Security, and nobody corrects their journalistic blunders, let alone resigns."

-The Sikh Geek

What Will Happen To The Zapatistas Now That Kaffiyehs Are All The Rage With Talkivists?

Still Riding On That Post-Election Glow "A car bomb exploded in front of a hospital south of Baghdad, killing 17 and wounding 16. A suicide driver rammed a US Bradley fighting vehicle and exploded in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad, injuring three soldiers. Two Iraqi civilians were killed during a clash between US troops and insurgents in Mosul. US Marines killed two insurgents during an attack Friday night on a Marine position near Husaybah along the Syrian border. At least 31 people were killed Friday, including 23 in the two sectarian attacks. In an attack on the bakery in eastern Baghdad, gunmen in several cars blocked the street in front of the shop and stormed inside, shooting and killing 11 people, police said. The assailants escaped."

Apparantly, 30 Better Than Our Syncronicity Fetish After a two-year abscence, the number 53 has finally appeared in the Venetian lottery. The number (or lack of it) had been blamed for several deaths and bankruptcies, and when it appeared a consumer group called Codacons, which had called for a banning of the number from the lottery, declared that the "bewitchment" of Italy had finally ended.

Two Steps Away From Blaming Budget Problems On "Evil Robots From The Future" "In a fiery speech to Republican faithful Friday evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ridiculed Democrats as wasteful spending 'addicts' who have been taking 'sleeping pills,' and he characterized California's problems as stemming from 'evil.'" This after calling the state Democrats "lazy" and "girlie men." Great job California.

There Are No Words Tom Sizemore Or maybe there are two: "The Whizzinator."

-The Sikh Geek

Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream

"A Cheap Holiday In Other People's Misery..." Britain's Channel Four is preparing a show entitled "Guantanamo Guidebook" that will film seven volunteers over 48 hours being subjected to various interrogation techniques such as extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and mild physical contact. One volunteer was forcd by doctors to leave after he contracted hypothermia. Ironically, or unironically, Channel Four was also the brains behind the show "Big Brother."

George Washington Would Lead Our Country With A "Lord's Gym" Sweatshirt On It's been awhile since we've checked up on the Presidential Prayer Team For Kids, but not to worry, they are still as amazing as ever. In addition to encouraging kids to pray for the Secretaries of Energy and Veterans Affairs, they are also skullfucking George Washington's corpse with their mind-numbingly terrible paraphrases of the first president's quotes. "If we said this in words used today, it would read something like this: It's been so obvious that God's hand has been right here helping us through this entire Revolution. Anyone who doesn't believe that's true and doesn't thank God for His help isn't a very good person! But there will be plenty of time for me to turn into a preacher who tells of God's marvelous help for our troops once I no longer have to lead this Revolutionary Army!"

Even The Burger King Has More Class Charles and Camilla to marry.

There's ALWAYS Enough Money To Tell Kids They Can Get AIDS From A Dirty Toilet Seat Despite slashing funding for basic services, despite the fact that they actually lead to an increase in teen sexual activity and despite the fact that they have been proven to hemmorage false and misleading information, Bush has asked for a $40 million increase in funding for abstinance only sexual education. How much does it really cost to have a teacher scream "JUST KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!!!" to a a group of disinterested teens?

If They Were Doing Any Better With The Axis Of Evil, We Would Be Blown Up Already North Korea publically declared for the first time today that they have nuclear weapons "to defend themselves against the US" while rejecting attempts to restart disarmament talks. In honor of this ball-shattering, nightmare-inducing news, we present a gallery of North Korean propaganda art.


Maybe He's Hoping For A Presidential Appointment To Secretary of Big-Haired Douchebaggery "Rock star Jon Bon Jovi is a staunch liberal Democrat. But he may be turning over a new leaf. He's now backing Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger for president. Though no one has yet to tell Bon Jovi that the U.S. Constitution forbids the Governator from running for president, the rocker says he would jump the Democratic ship to help Arnold. 'I would vote for him right now. I've known him a long time. I think he's a brilliant man, on and off the camera, and he's the most hard-working man, the most focused I've ever seen.'"

-The Sikh Geek

How the Republicans Reach Out to Gay America

"Jeff Gannon," Hot Military Stud The scandal over Jeff Gannon, the Texas GOP plant in the White House press corps, continues. In a bizarre turn of events, it turns out that his name isn't Jeff Gannon at all - it's James Guckert. What's more, James Guckert is the man behind web sites like HotMilitaryStud.com and MilitaryEscortsM4M.com, both of which were apparently gay prostitution sites. Gannon/Guckert has resigned from Talon News, the phony news agency run by the Texas GOP.

-Consider Arms

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: The Bad News Is, I Just Told You The Good News.

Well, That's One Way to Pass Inspection For synchronicity fans: How many kids did the unlicensed daycare worker hide in the closet during inspection by the state?

The Failure of Triumph Let's not get all carried away about what a big success the Iraqi election was. For starters, that 57 percent turnout figure could well turn out to be a myth - although it's still being repeated by right wingers and their lackeys, Iraqi election officials have backed away from it, saying "Only God Almighty knows the final turnout." He's apparently not sharing that info, either; it's been more than a week since the election, and we don't know who won, or even how many votes were cast. Another good point: to whom does the oft-cited "14 million eligible voters" figure refer? Is that only people who registered to vote, or is it adults over 18, or what? Because if 57 percent of registered voters turned out, that's pretty low - lower than the U.S., where between 80 and 90 percent of registered voters turn out for national elections (the problem is that so few Americans are registered). Another question: How many adults are there in Iraq - and for that matter, how many Iraqis are there? No one seems to know the former, and estimates of the latter range from 25 million to 27.5 million. If Iraq has an adult population of 18 million, as Ken Pollack (you know, the "Threatening Storm" guy) estimates, then 8 million voters (a number that might be high, since no one can verify it) wouldn't be a 57 percent turn out, but more like a 45 percent turnout. But I guess that asking these questions makes me an enemy of freedom, so forget I said anything.

Paying the Piper, NY City Style Mike Bloomberg, billionaire, wanted to be mayor of NY City so darn bad that he switched his party registration, becoming a Republican. Because New York exists on a system of baksheesh more elaborate than anything in the Levant, Mike became mayor, thanks to his vast private fortune. Now he's finding out what it means to be a Republican: Although he personally supports gay marriage, he is ordering city lawyers to appeal a court ruling that struck down a New York City ban on civil unions. "I think people have the right to love, to live with and to marry whoever they want, regardless of their sexual orientation," Bloomberg whines, while ordering his lawyers to ensure that people don't have those rights. His reward? Denounced by both gay rights advocates and gay marriage opponents as an "unprincipled coward." Welcome to the Big Tent, Richie Rich!

Screw You, Poor Person George W. Bush unveiled his budget Monday and, as he said of another budget proposal, it's got a lot of numbers in it. Like these: $3 billion will be cut from 18 federal programs relating to low-income housing; 8 percent of the federal program that helps poor people pay for home heating will be cut; $60 billion over 10 years will be cut from Medicare, including programs aimed at fighting obesity and preventable diseases and training programs for doctors who work in pediatric hospitals. Additionally, the federal food stamp program will be slashed, taking food stamp benefits away from people who receive the vouchers as part of federal childcare programs. The massive cuts in social programs are needed to pay for the failed war in Iraq and the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of society. I bet you'll vote next time, hippie.

We'll Get You Yet, FDR! Walter Benjamin once wrote that the totalitarian forces gathering strength in Europe in the 1930s were so frightening precisely because it seemed that, if they won, not even the dead were safe from them. I think I know what he meant: here's the invaluable Paul Krugman once again proving that he's the only NY Times columnist worth reading. The real goal of Social Security "reform" isn't to provide "young workers" with "choice": it's to dismantle the welfare state created by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

-Consider Arms

Consider Arms and The Sikh Geek Keep Wearing The Same Outfit to the Prom

A Mess Of Our Own Making In Neo-Athens Bonus points to any reader who can find something encouraging in the following quote! "Insurgents have killed 17 Iraqis and two US soldiers in a fresh wave of attacks, as partial returns from the elections show a Shiite alliance with ties to Iran rolling up a strong lead over pro-US prime minister Ayad Allawi."

Did He Also Have Top Go To The Brig Without Dessert? "A US soldier who stamped on Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison has been sentenced to six months in jail and discharged from the army."

More From That Damned Liberal Media In the lead-up to the election, the NY Times killed a story about the bulge in Bush's back during the presidential debates, because the evidence of the bulge being an electronic cheating devise were only speculatively proabable. Not as realistic as the leader of the free world wearing a "badly tailored suit" during a nationally televised presidential debate.

Because She Has The Sense To Know It Was Also On A T-Shirt In A Wham! Video

You Sold Your Soul To Become Meatloaf?! You took out a huge full-page ad in Variety to defend the sequel to Deuce Bigalow, Rob Schneider? WTF.

No Fucking Comment

A class entitled "Passport to Manhood."

Since "Crunk Juice" Did So Well... Madonna is reportedly considering becoming the endorser for a Kaballah energy drink. "We are going after the Red Bull market but Kabbalah Energy Drink tastes better. It is infused with Kabbalah water, which is holy water."

-The Sikh Geek

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Assistance from a Distance.

Ward Churchill, Honky Ward Churchill makes things hard for people on the left. Because of idiot comments like the ones that have landed him in hot water this week, it's harder than ever to have a rational discussion about the World Trade Center attacks. Now I've found something else to hold against this tenured radical: Mr. American Indian Movement is as Euro as me! Churchill is not actually Native American; his "membership" in the Keetowah Cherokee tribe was granted to him under a program designed to recognize "friends of the tribe" - Bill Clinton is another recipient. In essence, he was made an honorary Indian, but keeps acting as if he's been made to suffer his whole life because of his "indigenous" status. Dick.

You're Off the Team Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is simultaneously dragging the Democratic Party and the great state of Connecticut through the mud. Yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, Lieberman not only voted for Torturemaster General Alberto Gonzales, he actually praised Gonzales' advice to deny Gitmo detainees their Geneva Convention rights, calling the decision "progressive" and "remarkably just." "You've got to appreciate the context," he said. Oh, we do, Joe. We do.

Eagles "A Lock" For Superbowl, Rice Says Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (I can't believe I just wrote that) says that a U.S. attack on Iran is "not on the agenda." I'd like to propose a new way of looking at such pronouncements from this administration. In the glamorous world of professional wrestling, when a wrestler or manager or valet (or Vince McMahon) makes a pronouncement about what won't happen, that's a near-guarantee that it will, in fact, take place. "Austin, you'll never get a title match against Triple H!" means "There will be a wrestling match between Steven Austin and Triple H tonight." In other words, the Iran Invasion Watch is still on, for reasons like...

This Despite Condi's promo, the leading Iranian opposition group in exile is hysterically squealing that Teheran is almost in possession of a detonator that it would need to start the chain reaction to explode a nuclear bomb. The group says that this intelligence comes from "the Iranian people." The only way to avert Iran getting a functioning nuclear weapon, the group implies, is for a U.S. invasion that will, coincidentally, install this opposition group as Iran's new rulers. This would be worth ignoring, if only there hadn't been a similar shady opposition group with similar worthless intelligence from a similar Middle Eastern country beginning with the letters "Ira."

The Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity Marquette University has shut down a College Republicans fund-raiser for a group called "Adopt a Sniper" that raised money "for U.S. troops" by selling bracelets that read, "1 Shot 1 Kill No Remorse I Decide." The obvious nauseating aspect of this aside, why would someone hold a fund-raiser for American troops? Isn't that what taxes are for?

-Consider Arms

In Chinese Astrology, 2005 Is The Year Of The Flaming Douchebag

Like Taking Candy From A Baby, But Remarkably Worse... Big ups to Vikings quarterback Duante Culpepper for giving diamond necklaces to a paralysed child at an awards ceremony on Wednesday, and then taking them back (causing the child's mother to cry). Now and forever, the Douchebag Pantheon will resound with the words, "Where's that kid at? I've got to get my stuff back."



And I Thought Nintendo Controller Belts Were The Nadir Of Eighties Retro Elliot Abrams was recently promoted to national security advisor to George Bush. If that name sounds familiar it's because Abrams has previously pled guilty to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra affair. Well, at least he'll have a good handle on all those arms we illegally sold to Iran when we fight a preemptive war against them...

The Shame Of Connecticut Joe Lieberman, the very fibre of your being echoes with the words "fucking douchebag." Less than a year ago he declared a three-way tie for third place in a primary to be "the people of New Hampshire putting me into the ring." Now everyone's favorite anti-candy crusader is one of two dissenting Democratic senators who are going out on a limb to fight for the nomination of Bush's torture-loving lapdog, attorney general nominee Gonzales. Leiberman called the denial of rights to Gitmo detainees "progressive" and "remarkably just" while also citing the fact that the Bush administration allowed the prisoners to receive food and water. Yeah, not allowing those under your care to starve to death is truly the markings of an angel of mercy. Asshole.
Get video of Mister Joementum sucking face with George Bush here.

-The Sikh Geek

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Laura Bush, Gangbuster.

State of the Union: Everything Is Fine...In Narnia Joshua Micah Marshall takes apart the SOUA, especially in regards to the bullshit Bush was peddling about Social Security. Sadly, Marshall does not mention my absolute favorite part of the speech: the part where the president said that his wife is going to defeat America's street gangs. Because, you know, there's nobody better to reach out to alienated young people in gangs than a prim white librarian who married an oil brat.

The President May Have Exaggerated When He Said that Social Security Will Involve Raping Your Children If Something Isn't Done By 2007 Meanwhile, how did the dreaded liberal media do in parsing the president's speech? Pretty terrible, according to MediaMatters, whose front page today is full of grisly details: six Republicans to one Democrat on "Hardball," CBS using the "personal accounts" lingo about Social Security, David Brooks being David Brooks on ABC, etc. The most that anyone could muster in terms of a backbone was Ceci Connelly's lame explanation on Fox News that Bush "may have stretched the truth" when he said that Social Security will be bankrupt in 2042. How did you get your job at the Washington Post, Ceci? Were you the 14th caller to a radio show or something?

Stop Attacking Our Freedom With Your, uh, Freedom Two dread enemies of public order, the Veterans for Peace and the Quakers, have been banned from a Tennessee high school's organization fair for distributing material that parents found "anti-American." Among the quotes in the literature that the magificently named principal, Wayne Shank, found particularly offensive was one by that noted bomb-tosser and freedom-hater, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Jeff Gannon, Ace Reporter Maybe you've heard of TalonNews.com, maybe not. Maybe you've heard of Jeff Gannon, Ace Reporter, maybe not. But some of the milksops in the White House press corps are crying foul over the fact that Gannon has had White House press credentials for two years. Maybe it's because they're soft and sloppy and he makes them look like chumps. Maybe it's because they can't keep up with his superhuman productivity and effortless grasp of complex policy questions. Maybe it's because his web site is owned by a Texas Republican Party big shot and he actually asks questions like this at press conferences: "Since there have been so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"

The Usual Suspects: High School Students, Elected Officials, College Professors There are a number of people who won't be at President Bush's speech today in Fargo. Among them, elected Democratic officials, high school students, librarians, and people who wrote letters to newspapers in support of gay rights. All of these people are officially banned from the event, according to a blacklist circulated by the Republican Party to the people taking tickets at the door.

-Consider Arms

DC Is Hollywood For The Ugly

This Just In From The "Sikh Geek Kicks Ass" News Bureau... For the past two years the White Hosue has been issuing a dialy press pass to a pseudo-journalist named Jeff Gannon, a self-described "white house correspondent" to TalonNews.com, a GOP shell if a website. Why would the White Hosue give a man with virtually no journalistic credibility an open seat in the press corps? Perhaps it's due to hard-hitting questions such as these: "Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the US economy, [Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

Well, There Go All Of MY Plans To Visit North Korea! The Illest Kim Jung has declared a war against shaggy hair in his hyper-bizarre dictatorial island. According to this Salon article, men in North Korea now have to conform to "socialist style" hair, no longer than two inches, with an exception being made for bald-headed comb-overs (Score, MC No Shame!). The "dear leader" of North Korea claims that long hair deprives the cranium of precious oxygen, something "blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle" are in desperate need of.

PETA, Your Stupidity Never Ceases To Underwhelm Us

But Don't Let It Soften Your Post-Election Hard-Ons The CIA has corrected itself and admitted in an offical report that Saddam Hussein abandoned his chemical weapons programs in 1991. Nobody left in Iraq looking for weapons we now admit were never there in the first place. Mint.

From The Land Of Rasputin "Almost immediately after he left, Olga broke into hysterical sobs and phoned a friend, who persuaded her to go to the police. There, detectives nodded knowingly. "Gypsy hypnosis," they said."

-The Sikh Geek

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: The New Iraqi Prime Minister Is...Dennis Miller?

They've Got G.I. Joe. Can Barbie Be Far Behind? In one of the few moments of genuine humor in the Iraq war, insurgents who claim to have taken an American soldier named "John Adam" hostage have, in fact, taken a toy hostage. Based on footage aired by the guerrillas, it appears that the "soldier" in their custody is, in fact, a G.I. Joe-type doll. If these motherfuckers touch Optimus Prime, though, I'm parachuting into Fallujah myself.

What a Resounding Success! Let Us Never Speak Of It Again Conspicuously missing from all the hoopla over what a tremendous success Sunday's elections were was one rather obvious question: Who won? Well, it's Wednesday, and while we're not entirely sure who won yet, the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest single faction, is claiming victory. Who's that, you ask? The UIA is a coalition of religious Shiite partis like the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Revolutionary al-Dawa Party, and the Badr Organization, which was trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. If you've noticed the repetition of the word "revolution" in those names, you've no doubt wondered how this faction regards the benevolent imperialism of the good ole U.S. of A. Well, fear not. Here's prime minister-apparent Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on the occupation: "No one welcomes the foreign troops in Iraq. We believe in the ability of Iraqis to run their own issues, including the security issue." Hey! That doesn't sound like gratitude to me.

Take Your Latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, Body-piercing, Tax-raising Freak Show Back to Vermont It looks like Howard Dean is all but assured to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a sign I can only take as hopeful. However, keep in mind that Dean was "all but assured" to be the Democratic presidential nominee just one year or so ago.

A Preview of Life In the USA, Circa 2011 As the lede paragraph to this story begins: "Rocked by scandals and shoddy results, Gov. Jeb Bush's drive to turn over many state services and millions of taxpayer dollars to private companies..." has apparently stalled, thanks to opposition by Republicans. Apparently, privatizing Medicaid in the state is a bridge too far even for the GOP, which is also upset that the public functions farmed out to private companies have been managed shoddily, crookedly, and behind schedule. Welcome to the magic of the marketplace, fellas.

The Man of Cats Returns! Well, so says Judith Miller, the NY Times "reporter" who is Ahmad Chalabi's biggest U.S. cheerleader these days. When last we left Chalabi, the disgraced Iraqi National Congress leader, he was ducking various warrants for his arrest and crying to the Iranians about how unfair the U.S. was being toward him. In a delusional appearance on "Hardball" after the election, Miller claimed that Chalabi, in fact, is negotiating with U.S. officials about assuming a position in the new Iraqi government, perhaps as oil minister. Miller claims this is because Chalabi is responsible for putting together the United Iraqi Alliance, a fact that the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani will doubtless be intrigued to learn. For these insane claims (first question: Since when are "U.S. officials" going to put people who didn't run in the election into cabinet positions?), Miller cites anonymous sources. Say, Judy, one of these "sources" wouldn't happen to be a certain Man of Cats, would it?

-Consider Arms

So THAT'S What 200 Boxes of Cake Mix Looks Like!

Put On A Coat, It's Going To Get Drafty The Church of the Bretheren (similar to the Quakers and Mennonites) has been contacted by Selective Service who requested that they have "alternate service" programs in place in case of a draft. Officials deny that these requests were in advance of a draft. Rather they said that "Alternative Service Director Cassandra Costley stopped by the Brethren Service Center simply because she was in the area." Right...

That Sounds Awfully Familiar... Nice piece from a weblog called Critical Montages that dug up a clip from elections in Vietnam that echo the printed page pep rally of the past few days.


Space Travelers, Writers For A Conservative Website or Demonic Deceivers? From our favorite online Hillary-haters, WorldNetDaily, comes a little gem from their bookstore. Weirdos.

Big Ups To Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair? Who voiced the strongest public opposition to the $40 million coronation/inauguration? Try Judy Bachrach from Vanity Fair, who turned a three-minute fluff piece on Fox News into an exciting and uncomfortable mess when she butted heads with the 3am Cinemax talking head and said that the ball wouldn't keep the troops safe in their flimsy Humvees.

Since The MLWL Has Felt So Lonely In The Absence Of Freedom Fries Here is as complete of an article as I could find about the Calvin peeing on whatever stickers.

-The Sikh Geek