Sunday, January 30, 2011

Mr. Schmuck And Mr. Muck

by BROOKSIE
Yesterday I was really bored so I was shooting rubber bands at the ceiling while listening to Katy Perry and occasionally working on this column, which is going to be the basis for my one act play, Alexander Hamilton Meets Those Giant Worms From Dune.






Alexander Hamilton: Sir, I saw you mentally undressing my wife, inserting a finger in her backside, and trying to raise the deficit!

Edmund Burke: All true, sir, however: I saw you trying to bugger one of your slaves after making him wear a wig and glasses that made him look a bit too much like Benjamin Franklin!  Obama will destroy America!

Hamilton: Accursed mountebank! I shall beat you with my hickory walking stick!

Burke: Not if I beat you first, traitorous Yankee!  Begone with thee!  God shall be my witness as I conk your noggin!

[Cane fighting ensues for several minutes until both men fall to the ground. Then a moment of awkward silence, then they laugh and embrace. THE END.]




Read It And Despair

The Tea Party Wags the Dog - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com:
"Who are they polling. I am an over-educated, high income professional, like most of my friends. We were an important part of The big Democratic victory in 2008. There is no way I would ever vote for Obama again, and I am unlikely to vote for any Democrat, at this point. I don't know anyone who still supports Obama.

Obama, along with our Democratic Congress, rewarded failed bankers rather than prosecuting them and he continued two different wars. Obama is worse than Bush. I don't want to pay for Obama's/Bush's wars. And, I don't want my taxes raised because of Obama's current economic policies. But taxes will have to be raised, soon, because of those policies.

I hope he enjoys his poll numbers today, because his election numbers , next year, are going to really disappoint him."

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report Lacks Analysis - NYTimes.com

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report Lacks Analysis - NYTimes.com

A good review of this subject but there's something about the "there's nothing we can do about it" view that strikes me as being way too sanguine about being non-sanguine. I've heard this view espoused before, that bubbles are not avoidable...well, perhaps, but then why not simply advocate for getting rid of all financial regulation? Or perhaps this is not best described by an either/or, on/off model--since it seems like a given to me that the size and extent of the bubble are important. And my general impression is that many, many people were aware that they were giving loans to people who could not repay them (to cite one example where delusion did not seem to interfere with rational thought) but rather, everyone was chasing bonuses and commissions for themselves. So while the Mass Delusion hypothesis might explain some of the variance in terms of behavior, we should really hesitate before ascribing the whole thing to world-wide insanity. Perhaps, as Paul Krugman noted, banking needs to be boring again. And I think any full analysis would have to include nations where there was not a bubble, i.e. Canada.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Advertisement

Eharmony--where yon't get raped, or your money back*.

*US & Canada only

Ben Bernanke Calls Out Lady Gaga As 'Poser Ass Bitch'



Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke surprised everyone on the House Financial Services Committee by testifying that pop singer Lady Gaga is "a frontin' poser-ass bitch" and that, "If given the opportunity, I would slap that ho' down."  Even more surprising was the reaction of committee chair Spence Bachus, who declared that he would subpoeona Lady Gaga to testify regarding "corruption in the Obama Administration."
Lady Gaga was  not available for comment prior to publication.

Jack Lalanne's Hairpiece Promises Tell-All Tale Of Its Years With Jack Lalanne


Fitness guru Jack Lalanne's male wig announced that it would be telling the "unvarnished truth" about its years with Jack Lalanne.  "It will be a sizzling tale of celebrity gone wrong, with no detail too sordid to be untold: The booze, the hookers, the pills, the steroids, the gambling addiction--but above all, it will be a warning to the youth of today about what too much carrot juice can do to a man."
The wig promised that at least 1% of any profits will donated to Male Pattern Baldness Institute For Male Pattern Baldness Prevention.










Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Mommy Prison: The Abortion/Infertility Solution

Prof. O. Rang Tang
Director of Human
Studies

My colleague Ross Douthat inspired me to think about the argument humans have about abortion. I was thinking really hard the other day about how to solve the human abortion dilemma in a way consistent with our cherished Simian, pro-life values, and finally I flashed on it (or in other words, I had an idea): Mommy prison.

We'll simply set up an intake at abortion clinics, and when women come in for an appointment through the front door, we'll simply have them hustled out the back door Guantanamo-style--hoods and everything.  Then they'll be shipped to an offshore island prison in some tropical hell-hole and stay there until the baby is born, after which the neonate can be FedEx'd to its new, non-Muslim parents.

In fact, we just might be able to keep the humans mom there in the prison, and reproducing after every birth in order to utilize every precious fertilized embryo which the Great Ape, in His Simian Wisdom, created.  Mind you the humans do not typically worship the Great Ape but what the hell do they know? Honestly, humans...

At any rate, this would probably shut them up for a goodly while, until Celebrity Idiocy is on again and then their minds will be too numb to do anything other than open another can of banana lager.  But what to do when the Great Ape, in His Inscrutable Omniscience, decides to create too many humans?  Good question, but this is not a theology course.  I suppose we could always lock them in a cage and let them kill one another, they seem to be pretty good at that.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Michelle Bachmann Is One Scary Bitch

Michelle Bachmann Speaks At Iowans For Tax Relief


Deadrodentyping Blogspot Yes, wanting tax cuts is just like the war that ended slavery, there's a war between the "self-anointed elite" and 'real Americans' (trans: Bush is real America, Obama is a Stalinist), and the more we cut taxes the more special America becomes.  m I really the only one who finds "rhetoric" (not sure what that means but let's not split hairs, this is the age of output not input) rather terrifying?



Saturday, January 22, 2011

If Guns Don't Kill People, Then Why The Hell Did You Buy A Gun?

by GLOCK
MODEL 19
#AX789US

Okay, I was, as usual, sitting in the desk drawer of this named Fred or Joe or Aziz or whatever, I don't really give a shit, fully loaded of course in case someone wants to kick the door in and force his fat wife to have an abortion or rape his dog or whatever.  Look, I don't give a shit why you want to kill someone or who the hell it is.  I'll kill anyone or anything.  I can pop off 10 times in less than 10 seconds--with me you have the firepower of an 1861 infantry platoon.  I can shoot the shit out of pretty much anything smaller than a grizzly bear and even if I don't kill it, that bear would not be feeling well at all.  And I take pride in that. It's my job.

But to say,  I don't kill people?  Then why the hell did you go to "The Shooting Gallery" on Main and Fifth and plonk down $431.99 plus tax to take me home?  Not including ammunition, lessons, and even that weekend with the "Freedom Militia"?  Oh yeah, I know all about it--I was there, you idiot.  You paid $1000 of your hard-earned cash to play soldier like you were six years old just to severe sunburn and poison sumac.  I would have gone to Disney World.  I mean, what the hell?

Yes, I'm sure you could shoot into a crowd of people and massacre them with a rusty steak knife or a heavy wooden chair.  I'm sure you hide a  car in your pocket, walk up to the fifth floor and kill your ex-wife that way.  I'm sure you could assassinate a political figure from 20 meters with a tomahawk.  Yes, please go postal with a boomerang and let me know who it works out for you. Jackass.

No, I can kill people and I'm pretty damn good at it.  So maybe you should mention that at your next NRA meeting.  You don't want to get on my side.







Guns Not Abortions

by SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK


I think I had the best idea of my life last night.  I was, as usual, searching for ideas to rebuild America's manufacturing base by reading Deuteronomy--a great place to look for new legislative proposals, by the way--when I thought to myself, "I think I've got this pro-life thing licked."  Give guns instead of abortions.  (Yes, I think I gave it away in the title there.)

This way, we'll not only save lives by preserving those wonderful future-worshipers which our Lord craves so much, but we'll save even more lives by giving every future a mom for self-defense.  Assuming she doesn't use the gun to kill herself, and assuming her future child/children do not find the gun and decide to 'play' Alien Versus Predator, or the gun doesn't accidentally go off and spatter some brain matter on the ceiling...but that's all part of His Divine Plan.  Not something we should be messing with.  There was guy named Frankenstein and he tried to do that and looked what happened to him--the bank foreclosed on his castle, as I recollect.

And of course, if that child happens to be born without a cortex but requires expensive life-long medical care to keep breathing, I'll be gladly voting against paying for that.  (After all, isn't medical care just another example of people interfering in The Divine Scheme Of Things?  Just like abortion and birth control, but unlike an assault rifle or income taxes.)

So the next time you hear a woman saying, "I can't afford to raise a child," just hand her a Glock.  You'll both be glad you did.




Thursday, January 20, 2011

Tree Of Shit: Or, How The Hippies Turned Our Children Into Little Bastards

by
BROOKSIE

We all have a garden and in that garden is a tree.  And twice per week, I yank down my trousers and fertilize it with my own fecal material.  Or as they call them in the journo biz, "columns".

This week's column is on civility.  Yes it's down the proverbial hole ever since the long-hairs rose up and bitched to their mommies about having limb blown off in Vietnam.  After six people died in a needless preventable tragedy--made possible by gun control regulations that defy all common sense--I found, fortunately, someone to blame. And it's not me.

(After all, there is really no point in writing a political column if you're the culprit.  It's like a detective investigating his own murder.)

Turns out the incivility is, in fact, caused directly by (yes, it was the hippies, but it was a bit more complex than that) a lack of humility and modesty.  And yes, what seems like another age, everyone was modest and humble (Joseph McCarthy, Hitler, Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Victoria, The Spanish Inquisition).  Which of course is why I have to constantly write columns about it and criticize liberals and such: I have sacrificed my humility for the sake of teaching others about humility.  Believe me, I'd much rather be sitting at home and playing online Yahtzee!  But modesty compels me to be immodest.

So we're all involved in a wonderful process which makes us better people or maybe just go to WalMart and buy some ammo and shoot someone in the head. Either way, it's one big beautiful tapestry.  So when I pander to the right with ideas about how "elitists" and "Asian-Jewish meritocrats" are controlling our government and skull-raping Real Americans (ironically, not the people who read the NY Times) with their elitist-hippie-meritocratic-asian-jewish culture (and of course implicitly suggesting that the wealthy and powerful are somehow just regular folks who eat at Applebee's), it's not pandering to the paranoia and suspicion of reactionary weirdos or just plain weirdos.  No, not at all.  It's actually a growth process, and every contribution makes our Tree of Shit grow just a bit higher.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Judge Not The Human Palin, Lest Ye Be Judged

by Professor
O. Rang Tang
Generally it is best for apes not to overly concern themselves with the affairs of human.  However, it is interesting to examine them in the spirit of detachment paired with curiosity.  (After all, perhaps by observing the lower species, we might even learn a bit more about apes.  I know some find this attitude shocking--to think we could learn from studying humans--but perhaps we can.)





Take, for example, the  shrieking and howling in regards to the human known as 'Palin'.  It's gotten so bad that sometimes those humans keep me up at night!  Anyway.

Evidently this Palin human is both renowned and reviled in their circles.  For example, the human known as 'ROSS' complains that Palin is an embarrassing idiot, and wonders why other humans keep watching her.  How typical of the human!

Why do humans watch anything?  They'll watch another human juggle coconuts or bananas--a bit in the manner that we might watch a play by Monkey Shakespeare.  It's almost ape-like (Yes, it's heretical to some, but still we should consider the possibility).

Then the human 'ROSS', while seeking attention from the other humans, complains about humans paying attention to other humans! Absurd, certainly, and showing the limited intelligence of the human.  However, some among us will be delighted to discover that this Douthat, as he also calls himself, worships our Monkey Jesus.  Why?  We don't know, but I do know that he asks the other humans not to judge their fellow human, Palin, as Monkey Jesus asks us to do.  (Although in doing so he is in fact judging the judgement of his fellow humans...I know, absurd, but we are discussing humans here, so bear with me.)

I suppose the lesson here is that humans like to do silly things, such as stand up and call attention to themselves and then ask their fellow humans not to pay attention to other humans.  And, it should be added, pass judgement on other humans...and then tell other humans not to judge other humans!

Does this behavior shed any light on ape behavior? Probably not--for after all, were we not given the ability for rational thought and comprehension by Monkey Jesus?  Most likely it is simply, as my colleague Professor Bonobo Sartre once said--Bananas!









Sunday, January 16, 2011

Afghanistan Bribery Commission Reports Serious Underpayment Of Bribes

How To Condescend To Humans

Professor O. Rang Tang,
Ph.D., Human Studies

Gentleapes, we have to recall that in dealing with humans on a daily basis, we must remember that they always have a need to believe that they are right.  This is especially true of the human variety known as "pundits".

Take, for example, the recent brouhaha: Who is able to blame whom over who shot whomever in the head and why.  Now as we all know, the job of a pundit is to always be right.  Frequently this involves pointing at the other pundits and predicting how they went wrong.  With a blessed amnesia that allows them to forget that they have ever been wrong about anything.

Recently one human shot several others include a human-child.  Now as much as I loathe these little bastards (given that they will merely grow into human-adults), I was somewhat moved.  After all, I'm a parent myself, of a bonsai tree. [Laughter]  But what was most interesting to me was the reaction of the other humans to her demise.  Now you would think that a child having a piece of metal go through its brain and out the other end would horrify the adults; this would be the normal reaction, after all, of apes, would it not?  [Mumble agreement mumble]  Indeed it would, good gentleapes.

But consider the reaction of the human who calls himself 'Brooks':  They were vicious charges made by people who claimed to be criticizing viciousness.   Most curious indeed.  Not one mention of the a 'vicious' crime, but then he is upset about what is apparently, to him, the 'real' crime: Blaming others for what they said.


Or consider the case the human known as 'Will', who decries the alleged false logic of the so-called 'liberal' human  (not really sure what 'liberal' means, but apparently they like hats) without a single word about the horror of a massacre.  Or the human 'Deathhammer', who claims that, ...rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.

Yet not one word about prevention, or the horror of it all, or why such meaningless and senseless tragedies are allowed to happen.  Not even the victim herself eerily predicting a catastrophe.  Thus, we can only conclude that for many humans, the most important thing about their lives is to believe that they are correct in all their views.  Forthwith, I am suggesting that in our dealings with them, it is best to feign agreement in all matters.  But do it in bemused condescending way.  Much the way they talk about each other.

Someone has just handed me a note: There will be a poo-flinging party later for all chimpanzees only. Repeat, a poo-flinging party for all chimpanzees only.  Now we will break for some very ripe bananas, courtesy of the gibbons [applause] and then we will resume with yet another (sigh) speech from a gibbon regarding, um, the joy of eating very ripe bananas.  [Smattering of applause]







Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Poor Little Sara...

Really, we should know better.  This is America, and therefore when it comes to 'conservatives', we aren't allowed to question their patriotism, their judgement, their words, or their actions. Limbaugh isn't responsible for anything and neither is Palin nor Beck...they're just on a Divine Quest to tell the everyone else what's wrong with them. Even if he/she happens to be a junkie, an alcoholic, or just an idiot.

What Passes for Progress in Congress - NYTimes.com

What Passes for Progress in Congress - NYTimes.com

Sadly and infuriatingly true. Do we need any further evidence of the irrationality of American politics? Beck, Limbaugh et al. will shake their little fists and bluster and pout about they are the *real* victims ('how dare you sir?'), the so-called moderate right will write about the sad decline of our values because no one reads Tolstoy or Rienhold Niebuhr, the 'true Christians' (i.e. Republicans) will find a way to blame porn and video games, and the Democrats will coward timidly in fear of the NRA and its cult-like worship of the gun and its magical power to bestow \"freedom\". Is that what we're supposed to call a massacre these days?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

How The Hippies Lied About It

by DAVID BROOKS
Darn, those rascally hippies! First they invent Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, and the Federal Drug Administration--and now they lie about the shooting of Ms. Giffords.  Have they no shame?




Instantly they blame the heated rhetoric of violence-laden imagery and death threats emanating from everywhere on the right--while suppressing the truth that this was a crime committed by man with a severe mental illness.  Almost as though no one knew anything about this man before he shot a congresswoman.  Imagine that?  And there are roughly 30,000 articles so far listed on Google News on this topic, so you have to question as to whether or not I really had the time to parse all of this data.  And just because a sheriff is spouting off, blaming 'rhetoric', proved or unproved (and yes, impossible to prove--it's not like the Divine Cultural Transmission I'm always going on about) doesn't mean you have to report it! Fox News would never report unsubstantiated opinion as fact!

So anyway, in spite of our spineless GOP-endorsed gun-regulations, IRS-plane-flying-into-of and general all around hate speech...none of that means that anyone on the right-wing is in anyway responsible for anything.  Especially not anything that goes wrong in this country.

Perhaps one day, we'll have some sort of centralized system of governance of some kind that will allow us to establish some kind of mental health safety net...a place where we could send them for help...we could call it, "Australia" or perhaps "Penitentiary".  Well, that's just a pipe dream, but as John Lennon might have said (had he not been shot in the head), "Who knows?"  Guess I'm just a cock-eyed dreamer after all.





Do Schizophrenics Have A Right To Own Land Mines?

[begin segment]
Larry Mantle: Okay, we're back on AirTalk with noted skeptic Michael Shermer. So many weirdos are in the news.  I feel like one is typing something about me right at this very moment, pecking away, not just at his keyboard but at my soul.

Michael Shermer: The world is filled with weirdos. No way we can predict which one is going to become violent.

Larry: Sounds reasonable. Let's take  a call.  Hello, caller, you're on AirTalk.

Caller: Hi, Michael, I bought a gun and I'm going to kill some bitch real soon.

Shermer: Great call.

Larry: Well what do you think, Michael, can we predict if this guy is going to kill you or perhaps act out dangerously or violently?

Shermer: No, I suspect he's probably just on XBOX Live and probably believes he's playing Grand Theft Auto, and called your show by mistake.

Larry: I agree.

Shermer: Studies have shown that sometimes people actually read scientific studies.

Larry: Interesting. Well that's the kind of intelligent conversation we love here on AirTalk.

Shermer: I do predict that your next discussion will be how any tax increases will ruin California's economy without any discussion of the results of not increasing taxes.

Larry: [laughter] Oh, too true, you got me on that one Mike.  So, is there anything at all we can do to prevent lunatics from getting guns buying land mines or anti-tank weapons?

Shermer: I'm skeptical.  [Laughter]

Larry: It's great we can laugh so soon after a massacre.

Shermer: I agree.  After all, people die needless and tragic deaths everyday.

Larry: Especially in American high schools and colleges.

[laughter]

[end segment]





Saturday, January 8, 2011

Sadly, The Only Shocking Thing About This Shooting Is That Anyone Is Shocked By It

Honestly, is anyone really that surprised by a massacre in America these days?

Your Load of Spurious Bullshit #2 (Obamacare)

by DAVID
BROOKS
It's really hard to conceal my glee that Obama's health care plan might just unravel like a ball of string being knocked about by a kitten.  But I'll set that outside for later while I write this incredibly objective analysis of what's going wrong with it (in other words, my usual sewage-spill-on-the-beach).



To begin at somewhere in the middle,  the new system is based on a series of expert projections on how people will behave.  I prefer the sort of science that supports whatever half-baked garbage I happen to be spewing on a given day, which merely coincidentally just happens to align with the Republican Party line.  For example, one day I'll whine about THE DEMON DEFICIT, and the next day I'm swinging from the church bells and crying hallelujah over the tax cut which will invariably increase THE DEMON DEFICIT.  It's almost as though I don't even read what I write. (Well...perhaps I don't.  I'm a busy man.)

One day I'm going on about the potential validity of studies on acupuncture ( it's the Buddhist version of leeches)--and the next I'm hammering away at the results of  a mathematically complex, abstruse study on the estimated number of Medicare signer-ups, deriding it as a 'system' (i.e. Big Brother wants to turn Granny into Soylent Cow Feed); and,  'a series of expert projections on how people will behave.' (Translation: Elitist smartie-pants think they can use science to control your brain and toss Granny into the Soylent Cow Feed.)

This would seem to contradict my very facile assertion that scientific results should not be tossed aside, but be preserved to remind us that people are astoundingly complex.  So complex it seems,  that I've decided that scientists should not bothered trying to predict behavior--in other words, human beings are so amazing and wonderful and complicated and beautiful that we can't be bothered trying to predict where or when they're going breathe/drink/eat/shit/die.  That's just the first step in Obamindcontrol.

But if you want to confound actual effects with a placebo, apparently I'm all for it.




I even go so far as to describe an estimate as "absurd".  Did I ever once use absurd to describe Dubya's OPERATION BETTER THAN MY DAD?  Highly unlikely.

In spite of all of those contradictions,

And what will happen if corporations start dumping their poorer/sicker employees?  Instead of having cutting them loose when they get really sick and pack them off to the emergency room, they'll just pack them off to the emergency room when they get really sick.  Or even worse, they might not even have to use the emergency room.

And how can we trust the CBO?  (Refer to comments about science above.)  Meanwhile, data from (insert name of some right-wing think tank) suggest that in the face of an invasion by winged alien dinosaurs, health care costs could soar!  And if the dinosaurs could talk, they might even sign up for Medicaid!

And of course, we own the Supreme Court by one vote.  (Now THAT is some fucking democracy.)
And what of the cost projections? This isn't like all that money burned and buried in the sands of Iraq in order to make democracy safe for Moqtada al-Sadr.  No, it's money being wasted on poor people.  Makes we want to puke.  And, of course, the right-wing media, think-tanks, lobbyists, AM radio loons, bloggers, and the remaining columnists like myself will be there, ready to fan the flames of fear.  Because, after all, what does the GOP have to offer any more?

We don't believe in controlling the finance industry, or polluters--hell, we don't even believe in evolution anymore or we would be terrified about that crayz liberal-loon idea about antibiotic resistance.  In fact, about all we can do is quote passages from the Federalist Papers and then ask ourselves, "What would Madison do?"  We may as well be discussing the relevance of Deuteronomy to running the NYC trash collection and sewer system.  What metallic composition of pipes do we need in a sewer? Ask the prophet Jeremiah or maybe Jefferson and see what they wrote.  But as long as 51% of American in 51% of congressional districts continue to swallow our spew, we'll keep spewing.  Speaking of sewers...

Winter Is The Time To Light A Wood Fire, Brew A Mug Of Tea Or Coffee, And Dig Out Your Dr. Zhivago Role-Playing Game

Idaho Man Proud That He Does Not Know What Planet He's On

Friday, January 7, 2011

Coal Is The New Cool

Tell Them
Willie Boy 
Is Here

In between bouts of watching baseball and sneering at the politicians, the voters, and pretty much the world and everyone and everything in it, I do a bit of research in order to back up my writing.

Coal is good and it is always good.  I can prove this because once upon a time we did not have coal.  Fortunately some people understood that burning coal could prevent deforestation.    Although we pretty much have ended up chopping down the forests anyway, but instead of coal we now have oil and we're almost out of that but we still have plutonium.  I am certain that there is no downside to that one.   At any rate, China wants coal including America's coal.

Can something really be exported if it supposedly affects the entire planet? I'm going to dodge this question, because otherwise I would actually have to look at things known as "facts" which might contradict my cosy world-view: The one in which I rich deserve all of the good things in my life and which in turn allows to despise anyone or anything which could conceivably cause me the slightest inconvenience.  Also, I would be implicated in the 100-year struggle of the business elite against any kind of constraint on the waste products they spew and which harm no one.  Sometimes I like to inhale from a bag of soot and prance about like a chimney sweep--it's fun!

But I digress.  The point is this: China wants stuff.  Who are we to deny them that stuff?  If people want to buy stuff and they have the money to buy stuff, that's a good thing.  Remember, there are no limits--wealth is infinite and our capacity to clean up our own waste is infinite and our ability grow food is infinite.  (Until April 15th comes around, then it's time to bitch and whine about how finitude of my income.)

And as my history lesson above demonstrates,  the faster China burns through this coal, the happier and richer and better off we all will be, and we shall never ever never have to worry about the consequences.  In sum: Burn baby burn.



Only God Can Perform An Abortion

by
ROSS DOUTHAT
As per usual, I was spending my time productively, watching MTV, when Jersey Shore

was somehow cancelled that night due to the entire cast collectively have taken a temporary vow of silence in order that they could learn to more authentically communicate with one another.  So I ended up doing watching Teen Mom with Jesus.  (I should add that I was doing a wee bit of mescaline over the holidays...at any rate he looked like Jesus. Beard and everything, told me he lived at the YMCA when he had the cash.  I am learning so much about my faith these days.)

But I discovered something troubling as well.  Abortion is not the huge laugh festival Hollywood makes it out to be.  In fact, it's often a painful and gut-wrenching choice a woman has to make.  Do I have the time and energy to give this child what it needs to succeed in an ever more crowded, overpopulated and competitive world? Can I afford to raise this child? Do I want to bring a child I know will be disabled his entire life into this difficult world?  What would happen to my child if I, the mother, have a terminal disease?  These are the types of questions that too many women must grapple with.

Fortunately, there is an upside to this, a proverbial silver lining: Buying votes with cheap baby-based-sentimentality (BBS).  Because if it's one thing real Christians love, it's babies.  Mainly, the ones that haven't been born yet.  (Just for the record, let's all recall that by 'Christians' I mean people who agree with my views, not the fakie Christians who are going to rot in hell.)  Sure we can drop bombs, cancel the health insurance of our beloved 9/11 responders (the people we've been using to buy votes since 9/11), let mining companies poison our water, hand out antibiotics like chicken feed (as long as they're being given to chickens), and I-won't-bore-you-with-the-rest-'cause-who's-paying-attention-anyway, but God Forbid if some liberal-hippie-doctor touches an unborn embryo...

Because abortion?  That's God's job.  Not some commie hippie with an M.D.  Only He in his Divine Wisdom can decide when He wants to implant an embryo, or not, or maybe it implants but then He kills the mother with septicemia.  Now if God decides to give you dengue fever or polio or bubonic plague or blow you up with a land mine...I'm pretty okay with that.  Accidentally bombing a Muslim farming family?  Well they were going to hell anyways, and who eats goat-cheese besides dirty hippies?  So you can blow up, run over, mow down, shoot, stab, maim, kill, starve, or deny health care--well that's just fine with me.  But once you lay your hands on a fertilized ovum, you'll have Ross to deal with, toots.

Why, you ask? Because God in His omnipotent glory needs people like me to fight for Him, and somehow that makes your embryos my business.  And there's nothing hypocritical about any of that.  And if there was I'm sure He will iron it the wrinkles with His Divine Steam Iron of Providence.  So hands off, commies.