Humor: Saving the World From Hip Hop

If you've known me for a while, you've probably figured out what sort of devoutly religious person I am. Yes, I know that you all supported me in my short-lived campaign to rule all of Catholicism with my iron-fist of religious zeal but you must do more.

You see, there are unspeakable evils going on in this world. Evils that cause boils and burning rashes, uncontrolled fits of "booty" movement, and urination on underage girls. Yes my friends, I am talking to you today about the evils of Hip Hop music.

Hip Hop promotes Satanism and drug use, and even the devil's own : homosexuality.

Here are some links to sites that you should all go to, or else forswear your Heavenly reward and burn like vermin in the Hell of your putrid afterlife:

The Truth

Christians Against Hip Hop

Unstoppable: Long Live The Pope - The Pope Is Dead

I guess it's too late for me to scramble to rush and become Catholic so I can become Pope. That would be really smooth. Seriously, I've often thought about how cool it would be to be the leader of a cult - but this once in a lifetime opportunity to rule THE CULT on Planet Earth, how sweet would that be? I've even put a little thought into the deep and meaningful sorts of messages I'd spin out from under my funny hat.

"Look, it's ok to believe in life and stuff - but we in the Vatican have got the pardoning our sins REALLY covered. If I catch any of you jerkwads killing in the name of Christ anymore we're not just going to excommunicate you, we're going to hunt you down and cut you into little tiny pieces. And then I'm going to tell those guys to tell me they're sorry, and I'm going to square it with the Man Upstairs. Got it? No more free ride. And that falls onto all of you sort-of Christians too, that stole your ideas from us. Reformation? Hah. Don't make me laugh, you guys are in the crosshairs too. If you don't like it lets see you mow down my Youth Brigades in the name of your morality. Christ died for your sins, now it's your turn. Everyone, no crap, you better behave or I am going to come down from my Pope Mobile and beat the tar out of you. There's a new Pope in town."

I wonder if it would be sacriligeous for the Pope to demand his outfit have spurs?

Politics: The Wisdom of Ann Coulter

"Coulter is spinning her downfall as a new kind of terrorist-war McCarthyism. 'People are hysterical about speech right now,' she told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. 'Everyone's comments are being taken out of context and wildly misinterpreted.' At the risk of further de-contextualization, here are some of Coulter's past comments:

'[Clinton] masturbates in the sinks.'---Rivera Live 8/2/99

'God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.''---Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01

The 'backbone of the Democratic Party' is a 'typical fat, implacable welfare recipient'---syndicated column 10/29/99

To a disabled Vietnam vet: 'People like you caused us to lose that war.'---MSNBC

'Women like Pamela Harriman and Patricia Duff are basically Anna Nicole Smith from the waist down. Let's just call it for what it is. They're whores.'---Salon.com 11/16/00

Juan Gonzales is 'Cuba's answer to Joey Buttafuoco,' a 'miscreant,' 'sperm-donor,' and a 'poor man's Hugh Hefner.'---Rivera Live 5/1/00

On Princess Diana's death: 'Her children knew she's sleeping with all these men. That just seems to me, it's the definition of 'not a good mother.' ... Is everyone just saying here that it's okay to ostentatiously have premarital sex in front of your children?'...'[Diana is] an ordinary and pathetic and confessional - I've never had bulimia! I've never had an affair! I've never had a divorce! So I don't think she's better than I am.'---MSNBC 9/12/97

'I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote.'---Hannity & Colmes, 8/17/99

'I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote.'---Politically Incorrect, 2/26/01

"If you don't hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don't love your country."---George, 7/99

"We're now at the point that it's beyond whether or not this guy is a horny hick. I really think it's a question of his mental stability. He really could be a lunatic. I think it is a rational question for Americans to ask whether their president is insane."---Equal Time

"It's enough [to be impeached] for the president to be a pervert."---The Case Against Bill Clinton, Coulter's 1998 book.

"Clinton is in love with the erect penis."---This Evening with Judith Regan, Fox News Channel 2/6/00

"I think we had enough laws about the turn-of-the-century. We don't need any more." Asked how far back would she go to repeal laws, she replied, "Well, before the New Deal...[The Emancipation Proclamation] would be a good start."---Politically Incorrect 5/7/97

"If they have the one innocent person who has ever to be put to death this century out of over 7,000, you probably will get a good movie deal out of it."---MSNBC 7/27/97

"If those kids had been carrying guns they would have gunned down this one [child] gunman. ... Don't pray. Learn to use guns."---Politically Incorrect, 12/18/97

"The presumption of innocence only means you don't go right to jail."---Hannity & Colmes 8/24/01

"I have to say I'm all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents, a lot of whom consider it a badge of honor to be sent to juvenile detention. And it might not be such a cool thing in the 'hood to be flogged publicly."---MSNBC 3/22/97

"Originally, I was the only female with long blonde hair. Now, they all have long blonde hair."---CapitolHillBlue.com 6/6/00

"I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn't."---TV Guide 8/97

"Let's say I go out every night, I meet a guy and have sex with him. Good for me. I'm not married."---Rivera Live 6/7/00

"Anorexics never have boyfriends. ... That's one way to know you don't have anorexia, if you have a boyfriend."---Politically Incorrect 7/21/97

"I think [Whitewater]'s going to prevent the First Lady from running for Senate."---Rivera Live 3/12/99

"My track record is pretty good on predictions."---Rivera Live 12/8/98

"The thing I like about Bush is I think he hates liberals."---Washington Post 8/1/00

On Rep. Christopher Shays (d-CT) in deciding whether to run against him as a Libertarian candidate: "I really want to hurt him. I want him to feel pain."---Hartford Courant 6/25/99

"The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster. "---Beyond the News, Fox News Channel, 6/4/00

"My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism."---MSNBC 2/8/97

"You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard."---Washington Post 10/16/98

Man. With friends like this why do Conservatives have other friends?

Politics: Don't Talk While I'm Interrupting

There never was a golden age of polite discourse in American politics, a sad truth borne out by even cursory study of the libelous pamphleteers who helped found the Republic, the violent secessionists who tried to rip it apart and the campaign tactics of Jesse Helms.

Yet we seem to be reaching a new low in the way we speak to each other, except in terms of volume, which defined as either the amount of blather or the noise level thereof continues to hit new highs. On television and the Web, talk radio and the pages of newspapers, multiplex screens and the Senate floor, the art of persuasion has given way to bluster and tirade.

Well, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right, so I'm offering up this guide to modern political speech. It's a bipartisan, multimedia template that works for any point of view on the partisan spectrum, in any venue. Forget talking points -- these are shouting points. Repeat after me:

I am right, and you are wrong.

You are not just wrong, you and those like you are intellectually insufficient and morally suspect. Why do you hate our country? Think of the children. God said to tell you that he is not pleased.

Stop interrupting me while I'm shouting. Feel the crushing weight of my arguments, which are built on logic and constructed from facts that are sturdy and sound. You just whine about how you feel.

Your information is flawed because it came from a source I know to be aligned with the forces of darkness. I am able to parse the media and edit what I see for bias and spin, while you are a gullible sap who believes everything you see on the TV or read in that wholly discredited rag you just quoted.

You speak in cliches, slogans and sound bites. I speak in pithy phrases and time-tested words of wisdom. You call names, I tell it like it is. You are vulgar, I am colorful.

My candidate is a hero. Yours is a zero. One cannot compare the youthful hijinks of my guy with the youthful wantonness of yours. My guy makes mistakes, yours commits sins of the worst kind. And likes it. My guy was misquoted, or simply misspoke, while your guy was caught on tape saying exactly what I expected him to say.

The mainstream flows right by my house while you live somewhere way out past the flood plain with the other weirdos. You are not in touch with the values of America, which I and those like me just happen to exemplify. You and your ilk have poisoned the culture, and I know the antidote.

The celebrities who celebrate your point of view are pinheads to whom we should pay no attention whatsoever. The celebrities who celebrate my point of view are concerned citizens who have done their homework and speak from the heart.

The most extreme example or action of an individual who agrees with any idea or position you favor will do just fine as a representation of your actual ideas or positions. The most extreme example of anyone or anything associated with my ideology shows that inclusiveness is a vital part of our message.

Your economic outlook is really a call for class warfare. You would bankrupt the country and sell the parts at auction.

Read the Constitution. It clearly shows whatever it is that I want it to show. Context, schmontext. A nugget, a morsel, a soundbite plucked from any source can serve to make my point. Your copy of the Bill of Rights is missing a few. The flag waves for me; tremble in its shadow.

Your attempt at humor reveals your narrow-minded bigotry. Your reaction to my own attempt at humor shows that you cannot take a joke.

I disagree with what you say, and I will defend to the death my right to tell you so. Jerk.

Politics: America's war on itself

"I have a persistent mental image of US foreign policy, which haunts me even in my sleep. The vanguard of a vast army is marching around the globe, looking for its enemy. It sees a mass of troops in the distance, retreating from it. It opens fire, unaware that it is shooting its own rear.

Is this too fanciful a picture? Both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were groomed and armed by the United States. Until the invasion of Iraq, there were no links between the Ba'athists and al-Qaida: now Bush's government has created the monster it claimed to be slaying. The US army developed high-grade weaponised anthrax in order, it said, to work out what would happen if someone else did the same. No one else was capable of producing it: the terrorist who launched the anthrax attacks in 2001 took it from one of the army's laboratories. Now US researchers are preparing genetically modified strains of smallpox on the same pretext, and with the same likely consequences. The Pentagon's space-based weapons programme is being developed in response to a threat which doesn't yet exist, but which it is likely to conjure up. The US government is engaged in a global war with itself. It is like a robin attacking its reflection in a window."