Eastwood vs. Ghandi

Usually, I use this blog to instruct anyone reading it on how they should think and feel, and, if there's space left over, how they should act. Today is different, though. Today we'll be focusing on how to act, without asking those pesky questions like "Why?" or "Won't a lot of innocent people be incinerated?" or "Good god, have you lost your f$^%ing mind?", because the answer to all of these questions is the same: questioning is for pussies, and action is for badasses. Clint Eastwood killed a lot of people without stopping to ask questions, while Ghandi did a lot of questioning without ever killing anyone, and I think we all know who we would take in a bar fight. So here, in convenient 6 step form, is how you should act, in order to be a badass:

1) Buy a gun and use it to kill something. Preferably a communist, but there's no reason to be picky.
2) Drink a large quantity of cheap whiskey, and repeat Step 1.
3) Develop knee-jerk political opinions on several issues. This sounds like you need to think, but you can just rip up the opinion sections from a couple of newspapers and pull random sentences out of a hat. Why, you ask? Stop being such a whiny bitch and wait for Step 4.
4) Find someone who disagrees with one or more of your newfound, deeply held convictions, and start a fight. If physical weakness or a low pain threshold prevents you from winning a fight, make sure you have a larger friend to hold you back while you yell loudly and gesture like a pissed off orangutan wearing a $75 polo shirt.
5) Join a political party, fraternity, charity, church, university, or any other social organization. Treat anyone who belongs to a different organization as if their opinions and goals are diametrically opposed to yours, and publicly announce that you will destroy them with God on your side. For example, if you attend San Diego State University, you should remember that Presbyterians, Pi Kappa Alpha, and the Green Party are a bunch of lying, pig-f%*&ing Nazis whose days are numbered.
6) Do the same thing with people from other countries.
7) Buy an even bigger gun and use it to carry out your threats from Part 5, then petition the government to carry out your threats from Part 6.

All this may seem incomprehensible, violent, and pointless, but can anything incomprehensible and violent really be pointless? Don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question, which is the only acceptable kind of question, assuming you answer it yourself like Donald Rumsfeld does, so allow me to do so. Wait, what was the question?

Censorship

I am beginning to get tired of being censored all the time. As an American, it is my God-given right to say whatever I want, whenever I want, without the fear of someone telling me, "Hey, buddy, shut the f&@k up," or "Your kind isn't welcome around here," or "Hey man, this is my apartment. You can't just barge in here and start yelling about some Jewish conspiracy. Who the hell are you anyway? And what are you doing waving that gun around in my house? Damn, I've gotta start locking my doors." Don't believe me, read the Constitution while you're really drunk.

But I'm not just talking about the freedom to wear blackface to the mall and yell political slogans at people while they eat dinner in their own house. I'm talking about a lesser known freedom, and one which is under attack at this very moment, all across America: the freedom to use other peoples' and organizations' web space to promote viewpoints that they consider offensive.

That's right, newspapers, political organizations, bloggers, and private citizens all over the country are being permitted to remove comments from their websites, simply because they disagree with the opinions of the people posting them. Comment "moderation" is simply the newest form of censorship, and one that is being used, very effectively, to stifle minority viewpoints. Especially those of white, Protestant men with anger management issues. This is clearly outlawed by the First Amendment. I'll spare you the long-winded details and just show you the relevant section:

"...no...prohibiting the free exercise...of speech, or...the...i..n..t..ern..e..t..."

It's all there, people, you just have to read carefully. Anyone with a website* that allows comments is obligated by law to use their server space to store and display any information that anyone else wants to put on it. No matter that you pay the server fees, and that the domain name is registered to you. The Constitution protects my right to put my soapbox on your blog (just like your lawn) and yell anything I want, no matter how "insane" or "bizarre", whether it's a simple swear word, or a direct death threat against your children.

So there you have it. Free speech is a universal right, except for illegal or recent immigrants. If you don't want people's off-topic or violently offensive writing on your website, you can always stop allowing comments, or you can change you URL once a week so that no one can find your site. But if you allow readers to post on your personal baking or fishing blog, then I claim my right as an American to anonymously call you a Nazi on your comment thread. So go ahead, you fascist, gingerbread-baking bastard. Prove me right and censor me.

*It has come to my attention that many people outside the United States believe that they are not subject to U.S. law. This sticky legal point is currently being settled with guns.

Vegetarian Fascists

As I have said before, the writing on this blog is very well researched. I spend an incredible amount of time watching cable television, surfing the internet, reading People Magazine, and drinking tequila, all of which provide me with a wealth of information and experience on which to build my arguments. For those of you who are still not convinced of the quality of my writing, I would like to remind you that many of the statements I make on this blog run counter to positions held by Adolf Hitler, and you might want to think about that before you question my opinions. To make sure that everyone is clear on this, I am not saying that disagreeing with me makes you a fascist, Nazi-loving, white supremacist maniac. Just that it makes you much more similar to one.

Offended? Perhaps you just need some education about American politics and media. In America, any positive statement, no matter how well-intentioned, leaves the speaker open to immediate political annihilation. Consider, for instance, the statement

"I believe that all people have a right to basic human dignity, and that it is wrong to force people convicted of minor traffic violations to parade through the streets wearing pink thong underwear while the public throws rotten sauerkraut at them. I hereby propose an amendment to protect the rights of people convicted of minor traffic violations."

Your opponent's response to such a statement might go something like this:

"I see that the gentleman from Milwaukee has taken the side of convicted criminals, and would rather spend the legislature's time protecting these criminals than defending law abiding citizens. In fact, his amendment reminds me of a proposal made by Hitler in 1945 to release incarcerated Germans to fight on the Soviet front **cough** fascist **cough** Excuse me."

This may seem unfair, but there is a simple solution. Simply rework the original statement like this:

"The practice of throwing sauerkraut at prisoners may have originated in German prisons under Hitler. I have therefore introduced an amendment banning it. Hitler."

This strategy is extremely important in politics, but it is also easily applicable to many everyday situations. Just remember that anything that you find personally offensive or unpleasant will most likely be related to Adolf Hitler in some way. For instance:

1. Dogs - Hitler owned a German shepherd.
2. Drugs - Hitler was a meth addict.
3. Vegetarianism - that's right, he was a vegetarian

Hitler was also extremely homophobic, and he was probably a closeted homosexual, so gays and homophobic rednecks are all just a bunch of fascist, xenophobic lunatics. He was short, white, ugly, and he had a mustache. He disliked cigarettes and alcohol, and I'm sure that he had many other personal characteristics that may be shared by some of your personal enemies. But why limit yourself to Hitler's actual characteristics, when you're pretty sure that Hitler would likely have approved/disapproved of the thing in question, if he had expressed an opinion (or if he had ever heard of it, or if it existed in the 1940s, depending on context). The important thing is that Hitler would side with your opponent, and that makes you right. But make sure you strike first, because once Hitler's on your side, you're always going to be wrong. Just like those dirty, fascist vegetarians.

Numbers

Recently, I was informed by a TV commercial of a new roadside study, which found that 80% of drivers who tested positive for drugs tested positive for marijuana. To help me interpret this statistic, it explained that marijuana wasn't as fun and safe as I thought it was, and then asked, rhetorically, whether or not I was willing to risk my life (and presumably also the lives of innocent children and puppies) for a little entertainment. I'm not a statistics expert, and so I was forced to conclude that 80% of all traffic accidents in the United States are caused by marijuana, killing many, many puppies. Needless to say, I now support all forms of mandatory penalties for marijuana use.

This isn't the first time that statistics have been used to enrich my life and inform my decisions. My cheesecake diet, for example, was inspired by another TV commercial. If I used regular cream cheese, I might be killing myself with bucketloads of saturated and trans fat, but my brand contains 35% less fat than regular cream cheese. Thanks to this statistic, I can sleep soundly with the knowledge that eating 8 pounds of cheesecake every day is perfectly safe, and in fact quite nutritious.

Statistics can also be represented graphically, in order to help you understand them more easily. For example, I have created the chart below to illustrate the extreme danger posed by auto-erotic asphyxiation. As shown in the chart, you are more than three times as likely to die from strangulation during some weird bedroom ritual than from corn dogs, wolverines, falling pianos, clam chowder, and unicycle accidents combined (disclaimer: specific statistics on this blog may have been made up, but they are at least as reliable as US Weekly survey data). Obviously, running out of air while naked with a plastic bag on your head is a hazard that needs to be taken much more seriously by the American Medical Association. I encourage you to write an obnoxious letter.

Thanks to statistics, I also smoke slim cigarettes to prevent cancer, park my car several blocks from my house to avoid the area around my home where accidents are most likely to occur, own 45 dogs to prolong my life by at least a decade, and only drink laboratory grade distilled water filtered by reverse osmosis. And the best part is that TV and magazine ads do all the math for me. All I have to do is sit back and read the numbers.

Thanks a Lot, TNT.

While watching television the other day, I witnessed probably the most appalling and offensive thing that has ever been aired outside of Portugal. I was casually viewing the movie "Casino", in which Joe Pesci's character and his brother are severely beaten with baseball bats, in full view of the camera, and then buried alive in a corn field. Needless to say, I was extremely entertained, as were my five year old son and eight year old daughter. But then came the offensive part.

During the commercial break, TNT had the audacity to run an advertisement for the "Durex Play Vibrations", which I discovered, after several days of intensive Internet research, is a vibrating "cock ring". This device's method of operation is too foul to mention in a publication as respectable as my blog, but suffice it to say that not only is it a "sex toy", but one that is designed to enhance the sexual experience of women.

As stated in other disclaimers on this blog, I am not a medical or health professional of any kind. I do feel, however, that I am qualified to make broad and emphatic statements regarding public health, cardiology, dentistry, epidemiology, and especially gynecology, based on inferences from The View and Bill O'Reilly. That said, I make the simple, noncontroversial statement that the female orgasm (like female sexuality in general) is a liberal myth, and that, as a simple corollary, the Durex Play Vibrations is a disgusting instrument of Satanism designed to help perverts commit sodomy.

Let me just say here that I consider myself fairly progressive when it comes to sex. People can do whatever they want, within the bounds of a heterosexual marriage, as long as both partners are fully clothed, in the missionary position, and in total darkness. And no anal. What I find offensive is that sexual perversions are put on full display, on primetime television, while my children and I are trying to entertain ourselves by watching a man shoot another man in the back of the head, causing blood to spray out of his mouth and nose.

My children can understand violence on a basic, visceral level, and they seem to be very entertained by it without any guidance from me. Sex, though, is a complicated subject beyond their current understanding. And now, thanks to the incompetent failure of TV networks to shield my children from content of the programs I allow them to watch, I might actually have to explain something about human sexuality to my children. And why the hell should I be expected to do that?

Satanic Cults and Cholesterol

Do you live in a state of constant fear? Do you sit up at night with a bottle of whiskey, sweating through your bulletproof vest, cradling your assault rifle, and staring at your front door while you wait to defend your home and family from the nameless death that waits outside for you to fall asleep? I think we all do.

But how can you expose this abstract terror that stalks you? Who is this invisible enemy that makes your reach into your shoulder holster and click off the safety every time you hear a noise behind you at the mall? What authority can unmask this fiend and name the source of your anxiety so that you can kill it? Obviously, the same authority that you turn to for everything else: your TV. But you're not watching TV right now, and the remote is all the way across the room, so you'll have to settle for the next best thing and get your absolute truth from this blog.

But first, the very few dangers which are purely fiction, and which you can stop worrying about:

• Global warming - Do your remember global cooling back in the '80s, when temperatures were plummeting, and the apocalypse would soon be upon us unless we drastically reduced carbon emissions? The fact that scientists said that, which I interpret as being contradictory to my oversimplification of what I hear from Fox News they are saying now, is hard proof that science is a myth, and that nothing could possibly be wrong. Which is convenient, because it's summer and my house is a comfortable 56 degrees.
• Car accidents - I don't wear my seatbelt to protest frivolous legislation, and that makes me an activist.
• Cholesterol - It will be a cold day in hell when I begin to suspect McDonald's of misrepresenting the truth for monetary gain.
  
• Waking up one day and realizing that your life is a terrible fraud, that you have wasted your precious time on Earth pursuing money to buy consumer electronics and friendship, that trying so hard to get to the top has only left you old, tired, and lonely, and that you have never really loved or been loved by another human being - Yeah, right. Like that could ever happen to anyone.
  

And now, the moment you've been waiting for. Here are the real threats facing you every day. These are the things that you should really fear, and that you should destroy with the weapons you've been stockpiling.

• Terrorism - Sure, living in rural Montana makes your death at the hands of a suicide bomber incredibly improbable, and the land mines you planted in your yard are statistically much more likely to kill you, but isn't your safety too important to be left up to statistics?
• Satanic cults - This is probably happening in your community, and it could involve someone you know, or even a family member. Seriously, it was on the five o'clock news.
  
• Rap music - Violence and misogyny (yes, it's a word; see definition here) were invented by minorities, and our children will soon be corrupted, drop out of school, and turn to lives of depraved, wanton violence unless all music is immediately banned (except Country and Classic Rock).
  
• Mexican people - Millions are flooding across the border to steal our jobs, sell drugs to our children, kill our pets for sport, and seduce our women with their sensual accents. God bless the Minute Men.
  
• Medical marijuana - If the radical anarchists suffering from terminal illness get their way, smoking pot will soon be mandatory for everyone. The fabric of American life will be burned away by hippies, and millions will fall through the gateway to hard drugs, turning to lives of prostitution and armed robbery to support their heroin and crack addictions.
• Last, and probably worst: people who are not you - Good lord, you're surrounded! Quick, barricade yourself in your bomb shelter with a five year supply of bottled water and ammunition. Don't worry though. It'll be safe to come out pretty soon, once they've all been killed off by marijuana poisoning and satanic cults.
  

Rush Limbaugh and the Power of Music

Do you listen to the words in any of the music that MTV, iTunes, and Clear Channel feed you, or do you just like "the beat" or think that "he/she has a great voice"? I agree, lyrics are overrated, as are words in general. I barely know how to read or write, but thanks to the miracle of voice recognition software, I can still successfully operate a blog that people can listen to using other software intended to help blind people access the Internet. Sometime, though, words can be dangerous, which is why God/America created music.

Take the song "Unfaithful" by Rihanna, for example. To be fair, this song was not written by said artist, but by a group of corporate hacks who's goal is to sell as much homogeneous garbage as possible (and who are apparently very, very good at their chosen profession). That said, every time I hear this song at the gym, I feel a strong urge to reach down my throat and rip my own spinal cord out through my mouth to stop the unbearable agony that this song causes me. This is because I have a rare medical condition that leaves me unable to ignore song lyrics, and so I am forced to actually think about what she is saying. In case you are morbidly curious, the song is about how painful it is for her to see her boyfriend destroyed by her ongoing affair. Right.

Back to my main point, though. If you actually read the lyrics to this song, or listened to someone read a transcript of it, you would probably not survive. Your mind simply could not handle the stress of such banality, and your brain would be ripped apart like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in a hurricane. This is why you simply listen to "the beat" and "her voice" every time you watch the video, play the song on your iPod, or request it for the fifth time today on the radio. If the music was not there to protect you from the words, there would be dire consequences.

Still don't believe me? Well, that's convenient, because I have created a demonstration to prove my point. What I have here is an excerpt from Rush Limbaugh's first radio broadcast after completing a drug treatment program (that's right, it happened). Normally, this would be impossible to listen to, and it might even be dangerous. The clip has been edited, however, and set to the intro from "None Shall Pass" by Aesop Rock (a great song available for free download here), rendering it magically tolerable. Just listen.

If you were to listen to this excerpt in its original form, you would need a week long drug and alcohol bender to erase it from your brain before you could function normally again. Thanks to Aesop, though, it's still not good, but at least you're distracted from the words. And that, my friends, is the power of music.

Note: This post violates multiple copyright laws, and uses a good song is a way that would almost certainly not be appreciated by the artist (my apologies to Aesop Rock and Definitive Jux Records). It does, however, mock Rush Limbaugh. And that, I think we can all agree, is what really matters.

Scripture Lesson

Do you fear homosexuals because God (read: "James Dobson and Pat Robertson") told you to? Or do you fear them because they are revolting, and because you personally can't stand the thought of those disgusting, sweaty, perverted things that you imagine them doing every time you see a man with tight pants, that you see in gory, graphic detail every time you close your eyes, and that haunt your dreams every single night when you sleep and distract you when you're trying to work or watch baseball? Or do you simply fear them because Bill O'Reilly does?

Regardless of your reason, rest assured that it is valid, and that your position is totally justified. In the unlikely event that you ever begin to doubt yourself and begin to think of homosexuals as "people", instead of Satan's army sent to murder your children, turn your wife into a crew-cut lesbian, and force you to listen to David Bowie, you can always fall back on the highest source of authority, as translated into American English (God's language).

That's right, I'm talking about the immortal wisdom of the book of Leviticus, which states unequivocally: Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable (Leviticus 18:22). Apparently, the godless, queer-sympathizing half of America just cannot understand this, but it could not possibly be more clear. Also, in case you've forgotten, here is a short refresher list of other moral reminders from Leviticus:

• Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material (19:19)
• Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard (19:27)
• ...anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him (24:16)
• Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves (25:44)

These are all very straightforward, simple instructions, which anyone should be able to understand. So put on your 100% cotton t-shirt, comb your beard, gather up your Canadian slaves, and get out there and stone you some blaspheming homosexuals. It's your responsibility as a Christian, and it's the only course of action. Because God said so, right here on this blog.
 

Skip Bayless Sucks

There's no punchline to this one. That guy's an asshole.

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

Do you have any idea what your kids are watching on TV? Of course you don't. That TV is way the hell down in the basement in your eight year old's room, and you'll be damned if your going to walk all the way down there just to see what's on when you have a perfectly good widescreen plasma right here in your room, a 21" flat panel in the living room, the new LCD in the den, and the old standby on the end of the dinner table. Anyway, that's really your wife's responsibility, and since she's tied up watching reruns of Sex and the City in the living room, why should you be bothered to turn off the game to go talk to your damn kids?

Damn straight. But what if...wait, don't we get Cinemax? Oh god. The kids could be watching porn, or worse yet, hearing strong language and viewing situations meant for adult audiences, for which viewer discretion might be advised! OK, don't freak out, you're just imagining the worst-case scenario...it's probably not that bad. Yeah, they're probably just surfing the Internet and setting up their Myspace pages so that they can meet some new friends and give their names, ages, address, phone number, and a map of their route to school to strange men with vans and mustaches.

Wait, what? Oh god! How could this have happened? Who let my children get exposed to these awful things, and what can I do to stop this before it's too late? Alright, don't panic. Just turn the volume down on TV and think about this. OK. Should I start with the letter to my congressman to demand censorship, or should I call my lawyer about suing Myspace and the cable company? And Dell and Panasonic, they're at least partially responsible since they provided the equipment. Alright, let's see here...oh, the school, too. How could those bastards not have warned my kids about online predators and inappropriate comedy shows? Who else? I don't think I can sue my wife without getting a divorce, but what about her parents? I could probably take some kind of action against them. After all, they did give us that TV for Christmas. All right, that's a good list to start with, now where's my lawyer's number?

What's that, honey? I can't hear you very well, I'm watching the game. The kids? I don't know, can't you check on them? I know they might be doing something they shouldn't, but I'm working on it, OK? Man, somebody's gonna f*@%ing pay for this.