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August 13, 2005

walken for what?

I'm not sure if I believe it, and I know I hadn't heard of it.

Guess who for president.

After a little clicking around, I say it is either legit, or very dry.  Or both.

[Via Bad Signal]

Posted by mrbrent at 4:25 PM

August 12, 2005

hello wonkette

Wonkette has a little Howard Beale moment.

Yeah, yeah, ass-fucking, Jenna, yaboobs, gin, crack.  Is that the post you wanted?

Posted by mrbrent at 4:57 PM

ASYFW fun facts

America Supports You Freedom Walk FunFacts!

HEY!  ASYFW is just another in a long line of bashes thrown by the world's foremost party-thrower -- the United States Pentagon!  And you know what they say: If the Pentagon's a rockin', don't come knockin'!

HO!  Nothing says, "We've gathered to remember 3,000 dead American civilians," like Clint fuckin' Black!  So grab a Bud and get ready to party with the pastiest, sissy corp-County bland-fest Nashville has to offer!

ZOWEE!  Plan B: ASYFW.  Plan A: NASCAR's the Kickin' Furrner Ass 9-11 Memorial 500!

BAR THE DOOR SALLY!  You may think that ASYFW is a thinkly veiled war rally, but -- waitaminnit!  It's being sponsored by the Washington Post and other media outlets!  That means the Pentagon's motives are as pure as the drven snow!  Plus also, the fix is in, baby!

DAMN!  ASYFW deftly self-destructs the very meaning of the word "Freedom", as "Freedom's" walk is one that you must register with the DoD in order to participate!  That's right, freedom's just another word for "Your paper are not in order!"

HELLO!  ASYFW has a website!  From it, I learned:  "The first 1,000 to arrive for screening at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, will receive the official America Supports You campaign lapel pin."  Not only do you get a pin, but you get to get screened!  Also, the first 500 registrees will receive a Stephen Hadley bobblehead!

TAXI!  Remember: if you don't march in America Supports You Freedom Walk, well, then, you hate freedom, and America and your mom, motherfucker!

Posted by mrbrent at 11:15 AM

August 11, 2005

america supports you freedom walk

Further to the yesterday's "thoughts":

Before we even get to (someday) how this war rally is the evilest cherry on top of the administration's evil, evil ice cream sundae of evil, I think it's "back to the drawing board" time for the overworked copywriter who came up with the name "America Supports You Freedom Walk".  Which is just stupid, like it was lifted off the crayon drawing attached to the fridge of the loving parent of some retard.  The administration respects us so little now that they just phone it in when they're trying to manipulate us into some patriotic zombified state.  It's like there was a wager in the Department of Defense that there was no way that the citizenry would ever buy anything called "America Supports You Freedom Walk".  "Dude, you're on!"  But, hey, let's examine how "America Supports You Freedom Walk" is the dumbest phrase since "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism".

Like, just who is "You" supposed to refer to?  Could it be the second person plural of "we, the American people"?  I hope not, because that would make the name all paradoxical and brain-hurty.  Or could it be the Freedom Walk itself (which we'll get to in a few sentences)?  Or instead was the name of this little rally originally a paragraph long, but then cut to five words, forgetting that without a referent, "you" is meaningless?  Like, "Hey, All You Elvis Fans, Who Mean So Much To The Southeastern Economy, And Also You Single Mothers Who Are Attractive, And You Unindicted Co-Conspirators, Yeah, Even You, And All Your Redneck Friends: America Supports You Freedom Walk".  But alas, no, even with an explicit referent, it cannot stand on it's two feet.  Why?

Because it is a punctionationless phrase crawling through a desert of context.  Like one of those street signs where a line break ostensibly implies punctuation but is ultimately a little confusing.  Like this sign I saw in a small New England town: "Drive carefully/this means you/children playing".  The meaning is obvious, but it's tempting to scrunch the last two lines together as one sentence, as who can tire of saying, "This means you children playing!"  "America Supports You Freedom Walk" is missing a colon, a comma or some quotation marks.  "Freedom Walk" is probably a phrase acting as a noun, but it could as easily be a short imperative sentence.  "Freedom, walk!"  (And not run, I guess.)  Or maybe "you freedom walk" is akin to the "you children playing" in the aforementioned sign.

This all is just a roundabout way of saying, "My gosh, what a half-witted thing to call something," which is mostly relevant in light of the odiousness of the actual event.  It's like leading with your teeth in a pool cue fight.

And given that Sec. Rumsfeld wants to throw a little party with soda pop and cake on the day commemorating the most horrific day of a lot of our lives, let me be the first to swing this pool cue.

If the best way the administration can underhandedly solidify in the minds of American idiots the specious connection between 9-11 and our stupid and poorly managed wars is to offer a "country music concert", then let's welcome them to the petard of their overwhelming vulgarity.

Good God, I could write about this for days.

Posted by mrbrent at 4:51 PM

australian meat pies

Dudes.  I used to think that the Jamaican beef patty was the king of all meat pies.  But yesterday, I had an Australian meat pie, and discovered how wrong I was.  Sure, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for spicy/greasy, but how can anyone stand against the irrestible force of savory/fluffy/flakey?

The king is dead, "mon"!  Long live the king.

Here, go learn up, and then govern yourselves accordingly.

Posted by mrbrent at 10:48 AM

August 10, 2005

WAR-AID

Let me run this by you.

If I were to tell you that this September 11, the fourth anniverary of the September 11 that everyone means when they say "9-11", there was going to be a Freedom Walk, would you be surprised?  What if I said that it was going to start at the Pentagon, how about that?  And what if I added that the Freedom Walk would end in a country music concert, with Clint Black?

Yeah, I'm not lying.  Announced here.   By Donald Rumsfeld.

Fortunately, we have a full month to plumb the depths of the levels of offensiveness of this little par-tay.

[Via Wolcott, who is, as they say, a delight.]

Posted by mrbrent at 12:34 PM

framed

I read some smarty-pants thing a couple weeks ago about how successful political parties "frame" their positions and the events of day.  After a thorough "framing", all that's left are little little tiny narratives that mysteriously brainwash the electorate into heeding the commands of the "framer".

I'm not quite sure I believe all this "framing" bushwa (wouldn't abducting and interrogating the electorate work just as well?), but I thought I'd give it a try, with this story about Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas.

So these are my suggested little tiny narratives:

President takes corageous stand against mother of Iraq War casualty!

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley valiantly throws self in front of Sheehan train!

101st Fighting Keyboarders realize that "Orwellian nightmare of liberalism" has extended to immediate family of dead American soldiers!

Hannity on Sheehan: "She's just there to hurt the presidential feelings -- which is treason"

Rumsfeld, cackling grimly: "Sheehan smuggled into America from Iran"

Are we brainwashed yet?

For the record, I'm terrified of white women in their 50s -- just like President Bush!  We have something in common!

Posted by mrbrent at 11:29 AM

August 9, 2005

coincidence?

This afternoon's Yahoo! Container of Aggregated Headlines was eerily narrative.  First, the set up:
• U.S. motorcycle fatalities rise sharply

Which is certainly no good news.  But, in light of the next headline:

• U.S. appears headed for a peanut surplus

What?  Why are all of the motorcycle-riding peanut eaters mysterioulsy dying?  Who could possibly hate peanut farmers so much as to...

• North Korea still facing food shortages

Nice try, North Korea.  No, you still can't have our "surplus" peanuts.

Posted by mrbrent at 2:01 PM

better luck next time, pentagon

This story caught my eye a few days ago, but I wasn't feeling sufficiently snarky to write about it.  On Saturday the story broke that Iran supplying bombs to Iraqi insurgents, according to unnamed military sources.  Take it from the lede:
Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and smuggled over the border.

I know that the last thing I'm supposed to be doing is questioning authority, especially when the authority is an anonymous Pentagon source, but I call bullshit.  I'm certainly no foreign affairs analyst or military expert, but I find most dubious that "IED" plus "better design" equals "Iran", unless there is a two-car garage sized gap in my knowledge precluding me from realizing, like everyone else does, that Iran is the infamous master of bomb-design and has been for years, bombing things over and over, only for the purpose of refining their evil but considerable bomb-designing skills.

Of course, some "senior military official" added that "one large shipment [of IEDs was] captured last week in north-east Iraq, coming from Iran," further proof of the dastardly acts of those mustache-twirling Iranians!  But it's important to remember that the Iraq/Iran border is long and poorly defended.  Bombs smuggled across the Iran border may be Iranian, but they also may be Pakistani, Azerbaijani or even Tibetan.  Stating as fact that these smuggled IEDs are Iranian is like asserting that heroin smuggled in from Toronto is Canadian.

Not that I'm accusing any administration of trying to lay the groundwork for some invasion to be named later.  That's just crazy talk.

But if you look into it, I think you'll find that Iran not only has been supplying IEDs to Iraqi insurgents, but also cigarettes to the late Peter Jennings.  Also, think about this: the Bufallo Bills lost the Super Bowl four consecutive years -- four years the Iran was also a sovereign nation!  Coincidence?

Ask the Pentagon.

Posted by mrbrent at 10:44 AM

it is the morning

Real quick, real early. Directly following the first-thing sprint around the internets, looking for novelty, finding only conservative Deadheads and a Shuttle landing:

"I got yer novelty right heah!"

And then, "To the dayjob, Robin!"

Posted by mrbrent at 10:29 AM

August 8, 2005

peter jennings

Peter Jennings was always my favorite anchorman of the big three.  (Well, at least the big three following the end of the Grand Old Men of News era -- I have no favorites of the Grand Old Men because they are all equally grand). : Peter had the style, Peter had the urbanity, and, most telling of all, Peter was Canadian.  And how much does it say about us that Peter Jenning's Canadian-ness gave him the whiff of intellect that elevated him above cornpone Tom Brokaw and frogs-with-guns Dan Rather?

And I am jumping on no funereal band-wagon.  I'll have nice things to say about Brokaw and Rather, should that time ever come, but back in high school, which was the last time the evening news ever mattered to me, ABC was my source for news, and I wouldn't have minded being like Peter when I grew up.

I bet that Peter was the coolest looking smoker of all time, though, that's also the sad part, innit?

Posted by mrbrent at 12:20 PM