and this week's "i love humanity" award goes to...

actually, it's a tie between

1. the skull-bong guys


these geniuses decided it'd be cool to hit a cemetery, dig up a corpse, detach the skull and make it into a bong from which they could smoke their devil weed. i mean, how fucking cool is that?

and they were the undisputed front-runners until along came

2. the epilepsy hacker

i really, truly loved this one--guy hacks the epilepsy foundation's website, finds a support-group page and bombards it with seemingly-helpful messages which, once opened, assault the reader with strobing, flickering images designed to send said (presumably epileptic) reader into a custom-made seizure.

so it's dual winners this week (and yes, byzantine boy, a good alternate title for this post might've been "criminals i'd fuck if we were sharing a cell" if only i'd had a picture of the epilepsy hacker to know for sure).

a dialogue (sort of)

reader noblesavage (a die-hard hillary supporter) had some thoughts about the candidates in general and yesterday's primaries in particular--i thought i'd respond to some of 'em:

It was a disappointing night for Hillary only because of the expectations game. If you were to say two weeks ago that she would win Indiana, that would have been a surprise as Obama was ahead in Indiana and way ahead in North Carolina.

i wonder, though, how different the outcome might have been had not many of its poor blacks been kept from voting due to the supreme court's recent upholding of indiana's version of the poll tax--or if rush limbaugh's "operation chaos" had not been in play.

Why should Hillary get out now? Obama now has enough damage that another hit would be potentially very devastating to his campaign. You will notice the Rev. Wright matter, part deux, was far more hurtful to Obama than the first dust-up.

she's gotta do the pleasure/pain equation, noblesavage--is staying in on the (increasingly small) off-chance that something bigger than wright will come along before the convention worth the hit she'll take to what's left of her prestige and stature within not only her party but the country as a whole? i mean, if at least a few of barack's supposed gay trysting partners don't get in front of a camera pretty damn quick, it's gonna be too late.

Hillary has stayed in so long, it appears, because she believes Obama is not tough enough and is not capable of managing the Fall campaign. She repeatedly told Bill Richardson that Obama can't win in the Fall.

if he can run this hard and this well against a team as smart and shrewd as the clintons, he can handle the debates with mccain with one hand tied behind his back. as far as the dirty stuff goes, i think the wright thing's done as much damage as it can (which may be considerable--we don't know yet), whereas the dems haven't even begun to scratch the surface of mccain's past.

I think Obama can win. I also think it would be a lot easier for Hillary to win. And the recent polls clearly bear this out. Particularly when you look at the cross-tabs and really get inside the polls.

i've been torn about this from the beginning: which would alienate middle-america least--the shrill woman with all the baggage, or the black guy who could be a closet racist? up to this point they've been playing to the choir--now it gets interesting.

In the meantime, MSNBC will be in high dungeon mode demanding Hillary get out because she is keeping Obama from his rightful nomination and all but calling her a racist for it (usually in very sexist terms).

that's both obama's weakness and his strength--post-wright, every attack against him is now gonna be characterized as racist. the repubs are gonna have to walk a fine line to avoid alienating the middle; and, frankly, if his back's against the wall i dunno that mccain's up to that kind of restraint.

I don't know much about Obama, but I find it interesting how so many people prefer the person they don't know in Obama versus the person they do know in Clinton as if Obama has no faults or shadow or human frailty.

baggage aside, the perceived difference between obama and clinton is, for lots of people, the difference between a warm bath and a cold shower. to me, the true tragedy of hillary clinton is that she always thought being the smartest girl in the class would be enough to take her to the top--hell, all those years around all those hollywood people, she never figured out what her husband always instinctively knew: that politics is show business. some voice and acting lessons, who knows where she might be right now?

The other part about Obama's message is he is either naive or feckless when he talks about bringing people together.

i couldn't agree with you more.

So, people are going to be "surprised" about Obama soon enough and disappointed if not "betrayed" by Obama soon enough.

He cannot deliver what he is selling. Even if he doesn't realize that.

yeah, this is the thing that's gonna be interesting--once he gets in, sees the big picture and reality sets in, and "hope" and "change" turn to politics as usual, there are gonna be a lot of very naive, very vocal, very disappointed people who are gonna feel very betrayed.

Get out?

Well, we shall see if Hillary takes your advice guttermorality. I doubt she will.

she has the opportunity to go out on a win, lick her wounds and regroup; it's my opinion she should take it. will she? that's anybody's guess.

don't you remember you told me you love me baby?

far and away the best "missed connections" of the week so far (and yeah, i do have too much free time at work):

so where do we go from here?

tell you the truth, i was looking to indiana as a litmus test for barack--i figured if hillary won big there, it would mean there was sufficient concern among middle-american democrats about his viability, in light of all this most recent wright ugliness, to justify her staying in.

but she didn't--and, apparently, there's not.

will barack's association with rev. wright matter to voters at large in november? i thought it would, but now i'm not so sure; i guess we'll find out.

regardless, the democrats have made their choice, so it's time to put those questions aside.

and it's time for hillary to get out.

LA story

so on my way home tonight i stopped at borders on la cienega to pick up a book [and yes as a matter of fact it was a self-help book what's your fucking point], and paused on my way in to peruse the sale racks in the parking lot. as i browsed, i couldn't help but notice a pair of cute boys checking out the racks on the other side of the entrance to the store.

it was about this time that the doors to the store swung outward and this expensive blonde came striding out, swinging her borders bag--one of those gorgeous, anonymous wannabe-actress types you see all over the westside.

as she passed, one of the boys turned to the other and, in a voice i'm sure he figured wouldn't carry, muttered, "fuck, i'd hit that."

having heard this clearly from at least 20 feet away, i wasn't nearly as surprised as they were when the blonde stopped in her tracks, spun on her heel and froze them in mid-snicker with what had to be the stink-eye of all time, at which point the offending boy stammered, "no, no, no, you don't understand--it's ok, we're gay--i didn't mean it--i was just sayin' that 'cause you're hot."

at which point the girl's glare morphed into a brilliant smile and, thus validated by the ultimate arbiter of all things hot, she turned and strutted across the parking lot to her dented lime-green-metallic nouveau-beetle and drove away.

god, i love this city.

the whole black-white thing

an open letter to angry black people (and their white apologists):

as anybody who reads this blog knows, when it comes to this subject i am an angry white man. and tell you the truth, i don't know what offends me more--all the black people luxuriating in their victimhood, or all the white people falling all over themselves apologizing for things they had nothing to do with.

yeah, blacks are still on the low end of american society, but it's no longer whitey's fault, nor has it been for awhile--hell, these days we white folk are so cowed by political-correctness, all jesse jackson or al sharpton has to do is look at us cross-eyed and we reflexively drop to our knees and beg forgiveness for past sins while simultaneously pulling out our wallets--we're no challenge anymore.

no, here's the real problem: contemporary african-american culture is killing itself because it places no value on family stability, nor does it value education. and that's it--end of story, two factors, all you need to destroy a people.

and in response you can throw all the anecdotal evidence to the contrary you want at me, and i'll merely come back at you with the cold hard facts of (a) the billions of dollars that have been poured on the "problem" over the last 40 years, to little avail, (b) the skyrocketing black illegitimate birth-rate statistics over the same period, (c) black high-school drop-out numbers, and finally (d) black incarceration statistics which inevitably follow the unholy combination of (b) and (c). [are there other factors i haven't mentioned? of course, and that'll be fodder for future posts; however, this is the nut of the problem.]

at which point (if past experience is any indication, because i've gone through this so many times) you'll probably abandon rational argument and come back at me with something emotional like "well, what can you expect from us after all we've been through at your lily-white hands?"

and i'll come back with (a) it wasn't at my hands--i never owned a slave, and i'm done with apologizing for the sins of my forefathers--you ain't milking that cow anymore at my expense, and (b) the fact that pretty much everything legislative that can be done to level the playing field for african-americans has not only been done but, far as i'm concerned, done to death (institutionalized anti-white discrimination in the form of affirmative action, for instance).

and i'm tired of hearing about racism as being the source of all your problems--if big bad white america is so cruel to people who look and sound different, and if past trauma is a justification for present poor performance, how do you explain the fact that, within one generation of coming to this country with only the clothes on their backs and not even speaking the language, your typical asian families (even the ones from war-torn vietnam) own homes and businesses and their kids are excelling in college--how the hell could that possibly happen in evil racist america?

i'll tell you how: just like the jews (that american blacks love to demonize so much), the asians typically have a basic cultural ethos which has allowed them to not only survive but flourish no matter where they find themselves, and it goes something like this: (a) respect your elders, (b) establish a stable family before you start squeezing out kids, (c) education is the key to success in life, and (d) embrace and assimilate into the prevailing culture.

sadly, none of the foregoing elements play any part in mainstream african-american culture today, which, bottom line, is why you are where you are--and all the money and white guilt in the world isn't gonna change that fact; you're gonna have to change that within your own community if it's ever gonna happen.

if there's a bright side to this story, it's that more and more african-americans are getting it every day (even at the risk of being called oreos and uncle toms by the majority of their so-called peers who would still rather take the easy road of blaming whitey for their problems), and are joining the ranks of the middle-class in america at ever-increasing rates. i can only hope this trend will continue--that african-americans will quit whining, clean up their own backyard, quit living in the past and start living for today.

oh, and as for the reparations issue, it would be much more useful if you'd choose to look at it this way: by the very act of dragging your ancestors over here in chains, the slaveholders of old inadvertently paid reparations to present-day african-americans--because, had that not happened, where would you be today? you'd be back at home either (a) starving to death in somalia; (b) being hacked to pieces in rwanda; (c) slaving away in a diamond mine in south africa for a dollar a day, or (d) [insert african hellhole of your choice here].

in other words, had american slavery never happened, you'd be somewhere in africa desperately fighting with your last breath to get to where you are right now--here in america, land of the free and home of the brave. think about that a minute--think about the billions of people in this world who would kill to be where you are right now--and, instead of bitching about the past, thank your lucky stars for the present and make the most of where you are and what you have.

in summary, what i'm saying is, (a) to american blacks: make the hard choice--let go of the past and embrace your future here in what is still the most prosperous, forgiving and upwardly-mobile country on earth; and (b) to liberal self-hating whites: grow a spine and stfu.

[and thanks to reader joey7777 for the interesting back-and-forth in the comments section of this post that inspired me to pull this off the back burner, finish it up and publish it]

you really wanna understand the utopia this country will become when the democrats get control? fine--come spend some time with me in california

in response to my previous post, reader hubbard provided me with a link to a wsj article which, in its own way, sums up what can go wrong when the dems get their hands on unchecked power, and i wanna talk about that a minute--and you should read it whether you live here or not, because it's instructive in terms of what can happen when any one faction gets outta hand.

and yeah, yeah, yeah, i know--the republicans have made such a fucking mess of things nationally that it's really tempting to think that if we achieve our goal of "hope" and "change" this november, we can start to clean up everything that's wrong with america--but lemme tell you, with congress and the executive being controlled by democrats, we're basically just gonna be trading one set of problems for another.

how do i know this? i'll tell you how: because i live in a state that's been controlled by democrats for as long as i can remember, that's why. even though california as a whole really isn't that liberal (reflected by the fact that we elect a fair share of republican governors), the majority of our legislative districts are gerrymandered in such a way as to ensure that the democrats cannot lose--and they never do; seriously, there is virtually never any turnover from democrat to republican (or, in those relatively few districts that republicans control, vice versa) from election to election.

hell, the democrats in this state are so powerful that, when arnold schwarzenegger took 'em on in a special election shortly after he became governor, he got his balls cut off and handed to him--seriously, every proposition he put forth to correct the balance of power and control spending in this state (all of which were eminently sensible, btw) was, due to the overwhelming power of the democrats' negative ads, defeated--and he's basically given up any hope of reform and done their bidding ever since (governator, my ass; he's proven himself to be an approval-hungry, pussy-ass girlyman, and he should be ashamed--but, of course, he's too busy basking in the glow of his new-found reputation as global-warming visionary to be bothered by such petty concerns as the fact that he sold out the constituency who put him into office).

so basically, we have us some brazen-ass democrats running this state who, unhindered by such petty concerns as having to answer to their constituents at election time, have pretty much led us down the road to economic ruin.

consider: since 2000--due to the insane appreciation of california real estate (and its concomitant effect on property taxes)--our state has enjoyed an enormous influx of revenue, unprecedented in the state's history; i'm talking increases outta all proportion to what anybody could have expected. we should be rolling in cash, folks. and yet, here in 2008, not only has our legislature spent it all, we're facing a $10 billion budget deficit this year--because, in response to this huge influx of cash, our lovely legislators grew the government with the assumption that all that money would just keep coming in forever.

then the real-estate bubble burst, and property-tax income increases came to a screeching halt.

our legislature's response: decrease spending, maybe? adjust the budget so that it doesn't automatically increase each year? hell, no--now they're looking for ways to tax us more so they can keep spending. in the midst of a recession, yet.

now, in any normal situation, we'd be able to vote the bums out, restore some sanity--but not in california. the dems can't lose, and they know it. so, arrogant and unrepentant, they push on with their vast social and government programs, even though their policies are destroying the economic viability of what once was the greatest state in the union.

seriously, folks--businesses are fleeing california for more favorable climates, as are the middle-class taxpayers who make all this spending possible. and soon, all that's gonna be left here are the very rich who can afford all the taxation, and a vast pool of the very poor; i.e., welcome to the third world, california.

and you know what? for years, i thought that the dems were merely deluded, that they didn't realize they were killing the goose that laid the golden egg. until i realized the truth: dems fucking love poor people--the more the better. because it's the poor, looking to the dems to grab from the rich for their benefit, who keep 'em in office, and--fuck what happens to the state--because the way their districts are drawn, they'll still have their office, their prestige and their salary, guaranteed.

and when you look at it that way, all of a sudden what's happening in california--decreased revenues, increased taxes, floods of poor illegals--makes so much more sense.

and, as has been said more than once, and proven over and over: as goes california, so--sooner or later--goes america.

[and yes, this is a slightly-drunken post, but it doesn't make it any less true, goddammit]