In Your Facebook

At some point in the near future, hopefully, I'll be gearing up my own little e-business on the side, since it appears to be the only way to do more than eke one's way through life in our postmodern paradise. And with such a venture will come the requisite social marketing presence, of which Facebook is still currently the primary mode of disseminating marketing piffle.

So it's not that I necessarily wanted the vaunted Facebook IPO to fail so epically, it's just that none of the numbers made any sense. No one seemed able to explain where the $100bn market cap came from (after being estimated at $45bn a little over a year ago), for a company with almost no discernible revenue model.

Someone should put Jamie Dimon on the case; he seems pretty adept at falling into buckets of shit and not splashing a drop.

Sperm Donor

Of course, extreme cases such as this jism-spraying retard should not be seen as being indicative of anything, except maybe to restate the time-honored maxim that stupid people really shouldn't breed -- or at least they should know when to fucking stop.

However, I think it's fair and reasonable to say that no court should strike any deal or cut any breaks whatsoever for this dipshit until he presents a receipt attesting to having gotten a vasectomy, maybe two just to be sure. But really, no deals or breaks should be had at all -- it's a surefire bet that every single one of Desmond Hatchett's thirty kids is receiving some form of government assistance, and that Hatchett's minimum-ass wages need to be garnished until every last cent is repaid. Fuck this gaping asshole.

Extra kudos, btw, to the commenters who use Hatchett's idiocy to complain about blacks, women, Democrats, Obama, and the "welfare state" in general. On that last count at least, there's a small amount of truth, in that more creative ways should be found to either incentivize good behavior, or disincentivize stupid behavior. Either pay this dipshit a couple hundred dollars to do the right thing and get clipped already, or just garnish every goddamned dime he makes until the taxpayers' investment in his progeny is recouped.

Providing a safety net for those genuinely in need should not mean enabling useless bastards like Desmond Hatchett to fuck everything that moves and force everyone else to pay for it.

SEO Tips and Tricks

So it seems that out there on these weird wild intartubez, there is a particularly auspicious asshole in Greenville, SC by name of George Tierney, whose Twitter MO seems to be harassing Sandra Fluke, calling her a "cunt" and asking her "when [she will] shut [her] god damn dick sucker". Fair enough; apparently Ms. Fluke's testimony a few months back pinched a nerve or several, and Tierney feels free to utilize his sacred First Amendment rights to, I dunno, challenge Ted Nugent to a contest to see who can be the biggest fucking jackass.

So. TBogg has duly noted Tierney's attempt to be this generation's Phil Donahue/Alan Alda male-feminist type, and of course Tierney promptly orders Mr. Bogg and his site managers not only to, um, cease and desist reprinting Tierney's own tweets verbatim, but, ah, to stop affecting Teh Google with these mischaracterizations. How someone can claim to be misrepresented by not only quotes, but screen shots, should be an interesting tale.

This is and always has been your garden-variety movementarian conservtard in a nutshell, folks -- smarmy, self-satisfied, quick to lob a nasty epithet, and even quicker to get all butt-hurt and chest-puffy when someone has the nerve to, you know, quote them.

Tierney should see a lawyer, that way someone can at long last explain to him how the fuckin' law works. Jesus, you can't make this crap up, parody has long been a thin substitute for reality.

Semantics

If one wishes to characterize Romney's prep-school hijinks as "bullying", hey, good luck with that. Last time I checked, a couple people holding someone down while another person shears the victim with a pair of scissors, like a trussed-up sheep, is not a "prank", it's called assault and battery.

From shearing queer kids to making a buck off of gutting American companies and putting American workers in the unemployment line, and pocketing the difference for himself. No, no behavioral pattern there at all.

State of Failure

Gosh, it's just too bad California isn't a Wall Street bank. Then we would be considered "too big to fail", and bailed out forthwith, and given a nice fat bonus for our troubles. Instead we're just a state that contains 1 in 8 Americans, and gets 77 cents backs for every federal tax dollar we pay in tribute to the high lords in DC. Ho hum.

Remember, friends 'n' neighbors, AIG alone got $180 billion in the bailouts. Even half of our $16 bn deficit would help out hugely. Apparently it's better to let us die on the vine.

Porn Again

Not only is it hi-larious that America's porniest city is in the shadow of Disney World, but that well over half of the top 20 cities are in deep red states, right through the bible belt.

As always, draw your own conclusions.

Qu'ils Mangent de la Brioche

Is there anyone following the ongoing economic debacle that would seriously contest Taibbi's contention here? Not only is it no secret that any austerity measures will come solely out of the hides of the peons, they scarcely bother to conceal it anymore.

And why should they? They barely bothered to hide the model that ruptured the economy in the first place, the "we fuck it up, you rebuild it and give us all fat bonuses" racket they dumped on us a few years back. As many folks (including, of course, yours truly) wrote at the time, the bailout completely disincentivized them from avoiding the same sort of bad behavior down the road.

It ain't rocket science. If you catch your kid poaching cookies from the jar and lying about it, you don't beat him, but you also don't just whistle a happy tune and bake another few dozen cookies to replace the ones he took. Except in this case, Junior was stealing cookies from every house in the neighborhood, and all you did was just replace the cookies to placate the neighbors, and not even talk to Junior about his bad behavior. So again, why wouldn't he continue to do what he was doing?

I dunno. It is weird and counterintuitive to watch how economic issues don't unfold here, how they seem largely inert, or maybe they're just being ignored, because no one wants to read about how someone gets their job sent to Shenzhen, then loses their house on the subprime ARM adjustment, then either murder-suicides his family or ends up in a tent city scavenging cans for cheap vodka. One would hope that if enough people were exposed to the magnitude of the human damage that a rapacious financial has instigated and perpetuated, they might rise up, get on their hind legs and be men when it counted most.

The main thing to keep in mind is that there is enough to go around, but in a plutonomy, the players at the table never know when -- or even how-- to say "when". It takes a certain type of person to take money that they didn't even earn -- that they inherited, or stole, or coerced, or simply got lucky on -- and presume a sense of entitlement, a mission to simply hoard and push the peasants around.

Keep taking their shit, until you realize you really don't have to.

Pray the Gay Away

I'd like to go on record and wholeheartedly thank the fine voters of Nawth Caraliney for their valiant stand against those awful hommaseckshuls and their pernicious ways. Clearly this whole "marriage" thing is just a sneaky attempt to gull us fine upstanding members of polite society into, I dunno, leaving our virgin butt-cheeks unprotected.

Seriously (and I said the same thing when my own fine progressive state voted the same way), what the fuck is wrong with these people? The nation and the planet are on the verge of truly catastrophic circumstances, on a lot of fronts. It is inexplicable that this is even on the top 100 of any serious person's concerns.

Extra kudos to the Obamanauts for scrambling on this one like Randall Cunningham. To use the standard Lucy with the football analogy does a disservice to poor Lucy; rather than simply yanking the football and cackling with glee, it's more like they substitute a lead-filled pumpkin, but continue to insist that, nope, that there's a god's-honest gin-yew-whine football, I tell yew whut.

You have to love the faithful defenders in the comments there -- if Obama proposed tomorrow that, say, payroll taxes be increased on workers by 20%, and Planned Parenthood be completely defunded of federal dollars, they would rise as one and stomp and huff that Romney would raise the tax by 50% and repeal Roe outright with a single swing of his mighty sword. Let the N8r b8ing begin in 5...4...3...2...

I dunno. Ask Dick Lugar about the value of centrism, of dickless incrementalism, of letting yourself be pushed around, time and again, by some fat, crazy slob, losing the respect of the rest of the playground, when all it would take to win that respect back would to fucking pimp-slap his stupid ass down already.

Then again, maybe not -- NC certainly proved today that dumb 'n' ign'int is alive and well, in generous portions, for no good reason at all. Perhaps this is really the way 'murkins want it, dumb and dysfunctional, drafting foolish and mean and useless initiatives to make closeted god-botherers feel better about who-knows-what, while the rest of it all goes up in smoke.

But this is no way to run a mature democracy, not one that hopes to survive. These are the actions of drowning souls, desperately pulling down whatever is within reach.

Money Talks

Another reminder, as if you needed one, heading into yet another interminable election season, that Saint Barry O is not your friend. The most charitable thing you can say about the man is that he seriously seems to think that punting on first down is a valid negotiation tactic.

Not to insinuate that maybe Obama's energies are better spent elsewhere than on griefing potheads, but sweet Jebus, time and again he insists on letting the animals who already nuked the economic system once prepare to do it all over again. This JOBS Act, with its stupid (even by gubmint standards) recursive acronym, is being billed as a boon to "startups"; what it will more likely do is create more Instagram IPOs. Because it's been a good long time since we had a Pets.com-led tech bubble, n'est-ce pas?

Come June, odds are that the administration's sole domestic "accomplishment", the fatally-flawed-from-inception Affordable Care Act, a pork-laden industry-written boondoggle that should never have gotten as far as it did in the first place, will be flipped by the Supreme Court, thanks to the self-serving antics of Swingin' Tony Kennedy, who apparently never met a fence he couldn't ride until splinters shoot out of his ass. So that leaves killing bin Laden, which is enough reason to give Obama the nod again, but only just.

Again, it is a fine thing to nobly take it upon oneself to "change the system from within", as it were, to accept and even embrace the inherent perfidies of our flawed system, and "vote" accordingly, invoking the usual pronunciamentos of serving as the final bulwark of reason against the barbarian asshole horde.

Of course, this is twaddle, and we all know it, even the folks who truck in such tendentious jabber. It is Chomsky's evil of two lessers, over and over and over again, an endless, perpetual Groundhog Day campaign cycle culminating in a same-as-it-ever-was denouement. Some will tell themselves and each other -- and ankle-bite any doubting Thomases with their bien pensant horseshit -- that once Barry gets his second term, why, that's when the real change will begin, just you watch, pally.

Friends 'n' neighbors, cash in your IRAs and 401(k)s and such like, and bet heavy on this here prognostication: Obama will win (suitably close for popular consumption and media horse-race profiteering), but nothing will change. Not a goddamn thing. The SEC will not suddenly grow teeth, Obama will not have a change of heart and bring Paul Volcker back into the fold. Not one Goldman Sachs swindler will ever be frog-marched off to a cell next to Bernie Madoff. Not one industry or CEO will so much as pay an extra percentage point in taxes for outsourcing hundreds of thousands of American jobs to Asian sweatshops, and pocketing the difference. Not one Democrat will be truly emboldened by an Obama victory. They'll make the requisite mouth noises, they always do. But they won't actually commit to anything. They are already bought and sold to the highest bidder, and they are always thinking of the next election.

That's not to say you shouldn't at least participate in the collective charade, cast your pebble into the entropic void, if for no other reason than that you have convinced yourself of the simple nobility of that act, that it is the price one must pay if one is to be permitted to complain. Go for it. Just keep in mind that so long as the benchmark remains so low as "just be less of a toxic asshole than Mitt Romney", then the Democrats will do the bare minimum to meet that benchmark and nothing more. They'll work just hard enough to keep from getting fired.

And then they'll turn right back around and do what they've been doing, because to try to force them to do anything even a bit different or better gets characterized as Savonarola-level apostasy. The popular notion in recent years was that the Republicans treated the Democrats the way Lucy treated Charlie Brown when she held (and inevitably pulled) the football. I submit that while the essence of the metaphor is entirely correct, the correct application of it is in how both parties treat any and all Americans who happen to not be lucky enough to reside within the donor class.

But I'm sure that this quadrennial tilt at gutless incrementalism will be much more effective than the last one, or the one before that.

Our Dumb Media

Whether or by accident or by design, because it's impossible to tell anymore, the cheap, disingenuous re-interpretation of Hilary Rosen's poorly-phrased remarks about Ann Romney gained traction where none should have been had, creating the typical unforced error for the usual circular Democrat firing squad. It is ever and always thus, a vested interest for The Party, its largely artifical divisions, and most importantly for the perpetual campaign industry, to keep "the race" "close".

To the extent that a former shill for the dinosaur music mafia ventriloquizes the sentiments of corporatist limo-libs, what Rosen meant should have been clear enough to anyone. But the game is to be drawn into the weeds by a contrived "debate", a hollow controversy to distract from that which is not controversial in the least.

Saying that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life is obviously not the point -- the point is that Ann Romney has never had to work a day in her life; that is, she (and of course her husband) has never not had the luxury of financial self-determination. She has never had to hold on for dear life to a job she detested, just to pay bills or retain something resembling health insurance. Never known the glory of getting a 5% annual bump at work, like it'll offset the 10-15% increases in food and fuel prices.

She has never had to put something back at the supermarket because she just couldn't afford it. She's never had to live paycheck to paycheck, to know the ineluctable frisson of understanding that you're just a paycheck or two, quite literally, from the street, from utter destitution. How many hard-workin' mommas had hard-workin' husbands who got their fuckin' jobs outsourced by Mittford and his Bain Capital buddies? Nothin' controversial 'bout that, right? Just bidness, son.

None of this makes Ann Romney a bad person, any more than her experience at being a parent and grandparent automatically fast-track her for sainthood. Rosen's point was and is, and will remain, exactly the same as the point used to be about George W. Bush -- that a person who has never had to worry about their financial future is manifestly unqualified even to speculate, much less authoritatively comment, on the realities that the average 'murkin faces every time they try to pay bills and remain solvent.

And no one should expect anything contrary to what they've heard this past week along this line, not from the Romneys and the GOP establishment, nor the Obamas and the Dem establishment, and certainly not from the refs. The first group has no shame nor scruples, the second no guts or backbone, about even the most uncontroversial points. Obama would rather make a career busting pot growers and drone-bombing villages than stand up even for a second against his professional calumniators. I'm not sure what's sadder, that simple fact, or as bad as he is, he's still light-years better than anything on the other "side".

Six more months of this bullshit. It's almost enough to make one miss the comedic stylings of the rest of the Republitards that have been tossed by the wayside. Where's Rick Perry when you could use a good laugh?

Just Asking

You think Santorum's foamy asshole ever gets sore from all the bullshit he pulls straight out of it? Of course, one would expect nothing less from a Joe Pa U alumnus (Go Fightin' ShowerFuckers!). But Jesus H. Christ, this guy doesn't even fucking try to conceal the fact that he invents things to suit his narrative. And he'll never retract or correct himself, because he's never wrong about anything. Which is a pretty neat trick.

On the one hand, it is gratifying to watch Santorum not only twist in the electoral wind, the math dangling ever provocatively just out of his reach, but willing to monkeyfuck his party's already dwindling chances in, ahem, Tampa (apparently Branson had an Andy Williams convention going when the GOP wanted to have its convention). On the other, it is enormously annoying to realize that, due to the limitless supply of butthurt stupidity in this nation, Santorum will no doubt land squarely on his cloven hooves smack dab in the middle of K Street.

In the meantime, if it encourages the louche, hypocritical "fruits 'n' nuts" reflexive California haters out in Real 'murka, I would like to humbly offer this demurral: Yes. You're sooo right. It sucks out here. That's why one in every eight Americans lives here. It's just awful. Whatever you do, don't fucking come out here. Just don't risk it. There's barbecuing in January. Barbecuing in November. Summers without 95% humidity. Winters without eight feet of snow and people frozen inside their homes. The largest, most diverse agricultural breadbasket on the planet, locally grown food of all types within an hour's drive. Stuff to do and see, and people who are actually conversant about books and movies and teevee shows that don't have Kardashians in them.

It's terrible. Run for your lives. Stay in Alabama and marry your cousin. Take Rick Santorum's every word as divinely ordained gospel.

Self-Awareness

You think there's ever a point where fucktards like this realize how much they actually undermine their own "arguments" with their sheer stupidity? I mean, the disingenuous denials of racism are bad enough, but that aside, what the fuck is this coinage "re-nig" supposed to be derived from? Is it a lame play on renege in which case it makes no sense at all, or could remotely be construed to mean the opposite of what this window-licking fool thinks it means?

I've said it before, and I'll say it yet again -- if the South ever tries to secede again, this time let's do the right thing and let them already. I'm goddamned tired of my blue-state tax dollars going down a drain to support cousin-fucking losers whose idea of clever involves coy plays on the N word.

Pain In The Gas

I realize that it's the Kenyan Moooslim's fault, since he refuses to initiate hostilities and bomb oil-futures speculators, that gas prices are the way they are. There is something hinky about the fact that Americans, in the aggregate, are actually driving less, yet the price increases apace.

And I'm sure I said something to the same effect last time prices were this high, but as long as there are Excursions, Suburbans, Expeditions, Tahoes, Denalis, jacked-up F250 King Cabs, and all other number of giant, boxy suburbatard short buses trolling around with one, maybe two people inside (which seems to be roughly 99% of the time in my experience, and frankly, I have never seen one that appeared to actually be at carrying capacity, not even once), I suggest that gas is not priced high enough.

Does it suck to spend 60 bucks to fill up a mid-size family sedan? Hell yeah it does. But how often, if at all, in any conversation about oil prices and the geopolitics thereof, does the notion of conservation, of perhaps driving even a little bit smaller and smarter, even come up? In that instance, in the psychological divination underpinning the dark arts of economics, one assumes that the true price-point equilibrium has not yet been reached.

Or it could just be that the den of thieves that comprises our financial system, and the refs who provide prefabricated commentary on all this, have a vested interest in keeping our ongoing electoral industry ritual "close", whilst one wing of The Party implodes in a spasm of collective insanity.

Dumb All Over

Has anyone else, over the last couple weeks, been having to remind themselves what year it is, that the notion of any debate over contraception seems as inconceivable (cue Inigo Montoya) at this point as any basic civil rights issue from the past six or seven decades? Seriously, a couple months ago most people would have rightly assumed that there was no argument to be had over birth control pills, and yet our Crusaders o' Infinite Regression went and found one.

Thank the Flyin' Spaghetti Monster that Fatboy Limbaugh just could not resist waddling into this, pendulous belly sloshing heedlessly against, you know, a pretty easy majority of the population. Limpballs' hasty apology/retraction indicates that he and his sponsors found out real quick what the pinkwashers at Komen found out last month -- women put up with a lot as it is, but when you start fucking with their ability to manage their own lives, you're just asking for it.

Maybe Darrell Issa could convene another claque of middle-aged men to dictate to the little ladies what's best for them, hilarity would be guaranteed to ensue.

But hey, while they're giving Limpballs et al what for, perhaps the boycotters might also consider going after the bigger institutions that persist in this medieval nonsense. I do not understand how or why a woman who disagrees with this guff could in good conscience continue to vote Republican, or stay Catholic. You want it to stop, take the money out of it, that is really the only way.

But more practically, this cafeteria philosophy only tends to empower the mossbacks in the long run, if said cafeterios won't actually take a stand on any of it. One question is why institutions continue with unconscionably outmoded doctrine, but an equally legitimate question is why members of those institutions who have individually passed them by continue to stay and put up with it.

It's like watching Tina Turner keep on trying to convince herself she can bring Ike around. But that never did happen, did it? So Republican and Catholic women can continue to contribute to organizations that, on a very fundamental level, treat them with contempt and disdain, or they can tell them once and for all to get bent already, that they ain't puttin' up with that shit anymore.

That is not an endorsement per se, tacit or otherwise, of another political party or religious denomination. Indeed, people (not just women in particular, but people in general) may find that extricating themselves from all of that -- from power structures who, in the age of instant contact and social agglomeration, are as outdated as their medieval positions -- could be an actual liberating movement.

Rickrollin'

Li'l Ricky's sweater vest continues to unravel:

Speaking to a tea party group in Michigan on Saturday, former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) accused President Obama of being a “snob” because he wants “everybody in America to go to college.”

The statement is a curious one considering that Santorum — who holds a B.A., M.B.A. and J.D. — holds more advanced degrees than Obama, who has a B.A. and a J.D.

Well, it's not that curious since Ricky speaks for and to the for-me-not-thee claque, who never met a handout they wouldn't take for themselves, but will bellow like a wounded farm animal if anyone else were to partake. It's true that college is not for everyone -- the poor teachers at the state system forced to try to work remedial math and English students who shouldn't have graduated from high school in the first place can attest to that -- but the bottom line is that the lifetime income gap between people with degrees and people without is only going to grow.

And of course Santorum knows this, just as surely as he knows what sort of catchy bullshit stokes the fires of his moron brigades. If this is what he's reduced to spouting, that debate debacle has him circling the drain even faster than it previously appeared.

Hearts 'n' Minds

You know, on the one hand, it almost gives you a headache to think that after ten years in that puckered butthole of a country, anyone could still be stupid enough to antagonize the Afghan populace by burning Qurans. On the other, it would be notable if they got one-tenth this indignant over the ongoing routine enslavement, rape, torture, murder, and daily oppression of their own women and children. That this sort of behavior can even euphemistically be referred to like it's just some cultural quirk or tic, a difference of opinion, is just revolting.

It would be nice if we could airlift their victims and, I don't know, send them to school -- or hell, just not enslave and rape and abuse them, but it ain't gonna happen. It's time to get the fuck out. There's nothing you can do with this contemptible mindset. If this is where we and they are at after a long decade, it's time to go.

Wholly Water

Although I pick on various religions fairly broadly, I tend by and large to go easy on the Mormons. But one thing I find peculiarly annoying is their "baptism" of dead people. The problem with it is not that they're "praying in" Holocaust victims, the problem is when they do anyone outside the faith without permission.

Now, of course as an atheist, it goes without saying that, as far as I'm concerned, it's just an empty, meaningless anodyne ritual. So what's the harm, then? Well, no "harm" in the sense that a mortal offense has been committed, and retribution must be had, or anything like that.

But it is a dick move. It's inconsiderate and presumptuous. It's disrespectful. It goes without saying that if acolytes of another institutionalized superstition were doing the same to LDS ancestors, they'd be annoyed by it.

This is not quite as irritating as their tax-free political meddling in the California referendum process, but it still sucks. You want people to stop calling you a cult, this is one thing you can remedy toward that end.

Ich Bin Ein Douchebag

Fun times at the CPAC.

Maybe it's just me, but at this point, every time I see Sarah Palin on my teevee (and fail to find the remote quickly enough) I think of those little yappy purse dogs. Doesn't even matter what she's saying anymore; she could be saying the sun will rise in the east tomorrow, and it would still come out this fingernails-on-chalkboard white noise. The CPACkers are still lining up for this stale guff, but then, somebody still watches Survivor, right? Chacun à son bloody goût, n'est-ce pas?

Extra kudos to Mike Huckabee for misusing not just one, but two classic phrases, previously invoked on truly serious, momentous scenarios, repurposed for his little clown conference. Surprised he didn't work in some "first they came for the deep-fried butter-stick eaters" schtick while he was at it.

Mitt For Brains (Spreading Santorum)

Ah, the heady thrill of a brief, deep gulp of the air of victory, adrenaline replacing oxygen in the exultation of pulling off a hat-trick upset in low-turnout flyover states with large swaths of ardent morons in the throes of their latest Anyone-But-Mitt mancrush. A series of new mistakes has piled up around these idiots' ears like a flurry of cholo-lettered neck tattoos; politically, the teahadis' panties lie at the foot of the bed of yet another coyote-fuck one-night-stand. Really, it's about to the point where they can't keep the names straight anymore, not that there's a whole lot of difference in the first place.

'Course, the obviousness of the 'baggers' ongoing failure to land a man who understands their special needs flies right past the usual fambly-valyews hacks, bless their pointy little heads:

“I think the reason Santorum didn’t get more votes before was because of the belief that he couldn’t win,” said Richard Disney, an organizer for the Tea Party in Reno, Nev. But, Mr. Disney said, he voted for Mr. Santorum mainly because “he was the only candidate I could stomach,” and he expects other Tea Party members are coming to the same conclusion.

Before the vote in South Carolina in January, a group of religious and conservative leaders met in Texas and decided to rally around Mr. Santorum’s candidacy to try to stop Mr. Romney. But Mr. Gingrich’s decisive victory in South Carolina suggested that evangelical voters were not taking their cues from the leaders.

Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, who attended that Texas meeting and backs Mr. Santorum, said Wednesday that one reason the leaders’ influence was not felt was that “these voters do not vote in lock step.” He also said many of the leaders were not from South Carolina and they would be more effective in states that vote later as they circulate newsletters, e-mails and video clips of Mr. Santorum’s debate highlights.

“All that has been going on and it will increase after last night,” Mr. Bauer said.

He also pointed to what he saw as the fortunate emergence in recent days on the national scene of several issues of intense social importance — abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage — just as Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, with their strongholds of conservative voters, were preparing to go to the polls.

“The conventional wisdom is that it’s always the economy, and of course it is for most Americans,” Mr. Bauer said. “But no one is able to call a ‘time out’ on these values issues, and I wouldn’t be surprised if in part that helped stimulate voters to turn out for Senator Santorum.”

I don't know about you, folks, but I'm long tired of having these moronic pseudo-debates with these moronic individuals and groups. This is not the mark of a mature industrialized economy, much less a world leader. These are the dick-thumbing squabbles a bunch of boy-raping tribesmen in Bachabazistan have, when they're not picking bugs off each other's asses.

Sorry, but this is just fucking stupid. The economy has gone through a catastrophic meltdown that will take at least a decade to recover from (if it ever fully does), millions of people have lost their jobs and houses and livelihoods, and these jagoffs are worried about the usual fags-a-gittin-hitched, daughters-on-the-pill bullshit their grandparents fretted over? Are you fuckin' kidding me?

It's too bad the Catholic Church is butt-hurt over their businesses' employee insurance being "forced" to provide coverage for contraceptives. I can't believe this is a discussion, that there are adults in this (or any) country upset about birth control. (Invariably, these are always the same asswipes who are up in arms about the prevalence of abortion, but we'll get to that.)

Then again, I can't believe there are free, independent adults who take marching orders on their reproductive rights from a bunch of pedophile-enabling celibates. I can't think of a group of people on the planet less likely to have a clue about how normal human sexual relations work than a bunch of Catholic clergymen. Put it this way -- ten bucks says the insurance covers boner pills, and the diocese is just fucking jake with all that.

And in fact that seems to be the case -- voters identifying themselves as Catholics have consistently been out in front of the average American overall on this issue, polling regularly in favor of being (again, I can't believe this has to be said) allowed access to birth control and contraceptive options. And of course they're going to be way the hell out in front of their "leaders" on this, men who literally have no idea what they're making pronunciamentos about, except in the most abstract, dogmatic terms. Like Wall Street, the church is another beast that needs to be starved, that will not go away until enough of its constituents/victims get wise and stop feeding it.

Naturally, Ross Douthat, the thinking man's David Brooks, steps to the plate and attempts to articulate the right-wing culture vulture's view on these vital issues, in the guise of attempting to split the difference.

Problem is, there's just no difference to split here anymore, not really. Douthat correctly outlines the three big "social issue" buzzfeeds of the past week: mandated coverage of contraception, the Komen Foundation's botched attempt to roll Planned Parenthood, and the Ninth Circuit Court flipping the egregious Prop. 8 ruling. What he misses is how these issues are already lost for the sanctimonious god-pesterers.

Look, it can't be re-stated often enough or emphatically enough -- anyone worried about contraception or gay marriage is simply nuts. And as we always say, trying to deal rationally with fundamentally irrational people is by definition a waste of time. I wish it weren't so, but it is. It is like trying to argue with someone who doubts the existence of gravity, or thinks the earth is flat.

Abortion, as an issue per se, is trickier, in that intellectually honest brokers can come to different conclusions on it, at least to a degree. In other words, a goofball like Santorum insisting that life begins at conception falls into the aforementioned irrational group, but someone, say, objecting to a late-term abortion that was not due to any particular danger to the fetus or the mother has at least a point worth making.

But that point is not the one that Komen was attempting to make by withdrawing its funding, and Douthat knows it. For one, PP obviously provides a broad spectrum of women's health services that have nothing at all to do with abortion. For another, abortion is, well, legal; like it or not, this has been settled law for nearly forty years now. For yet another, the immediate and widespread reaction -- not only the wave of donations to PP but the threat of a boycott against Komen's increasingly tedious pink-washing guff -- should make it clear to one and all that, while individuals may be squeamish about abortion, and not choose it for themselves, they also don't trust a sanctimonious turd like Rick Santorum to sort it out for them.

Now, critics of that will invariably cite some god-awful statistic about how abortion has become this afternoon lark that women just like doing for shits and giggles, that it's like going to a resort or something, that's it's practically a method of birth control unto itself. Two things to say to this: 1) Maybe you should provide -- no, insist on easier access to regular birth control, then; 2) Why in the hell would you want someone who uses abortion as birth control to even become a parent?

Where these pathological idjits should lose just about anyone with a shred of conscience or dignity is where they insist that even in cases of rape or incest, abortion should be illegal? Really? You would rather force a woman to bear a rape-baby, to be confronted with that pain and indignity literally every minute of every day for the rest of her life, than even to let her just take a morning-after pill, much less get an actual D&E procedure? Proves my point about being unable to talk to these people -- not to mention the fact that they're so far beyond butt-fucking stupid, they fall for literally anything.

Now, the problem is not that this Santorum surge (and yes, feel free to upchuck a little in your mouth at that visual) is for real. It's not. He's unelectable; he knows it, and more importantly the party knows it. But it's enough to keep the horse race interesting, and since the refs get paid to keep things interesting, they'll milk it as long as they can -- just long enough, inevitably, to force the Mittster to genuflect in the direction of these weirdos to try to get them on board.

It's just infuriating to see it come to this, to think that a country of 320 million people, instead of being a vibrant, mature democracy that can debate big ideas and big issues with integrity and intellectual honesty, has so many bozos who would much rather live in some repressed, lace-curtain nation of finks and busybodies. You honestly have to wonder whether any of them have wives, daughters, mothers, any sort of female perspective in their lives.

But it's important to keep in mind that there are plenty of women involved in these sideshow antics. When you decry the vicissitudes of the intrusive patriarchy, please remember: we can't do it without your help, ladies. You could try some grand Lysistrata-type of gesture, but then, no one wants to fuck these guys in the first place. That may be part of why they're so hellbent on controlling others' sex lives.

Hoodie and the Blowfish

Line forms to the left, ladies! Photo swiped from Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Aside from the fact that I can hold a grudge like Newt Gingrich clutching a snack cake, and ten years down the road I still hate the fucking Patsies like a case of the clap because of the Tuck Rule, this time around it was just good to know that Saint Brady's Super Bowl loss tonight made the Baby Bundchen cry. In two blessed weeks of unstoppable hype, in which every bit of tedious minutia gets raked over as if it means something, Gisele Bundchen's prayer is probably the most off-putting -- and should be even more off-putting to people who actually believe in god.

Hell, I doubt if even Brady would have the gall to pray for success. He goes in, he does his job, win or lose. He wakes up every morning knowing that he already got a rare deal out of life's lottery, what with an easy first-ballot Hall of Fame NFL career, more money than he can spend, and a billionaire supermodel girlfriend. It's okay to still play to win, and be a true competitor, but to beseech the Big Guy for divine intervention after all that would just be greedy.

At any rate, oddly this might be most frustrating for Peyton Manning, a supremely gifted quarterback who managed to win just one championship, will probably not get to another in what's left of his career, and watched his adequately but lesser talented brother just get out from under his shadow with a second Super Bowl win, first with a wild-card team, now with a lame 9-7 team -- and against Peyton's biggest nemesis both times.

And no, I didn't bother with the halftime show. The Black Guy Pees' effort last year pretty much ruined that for me, until they get an actual rock band again, instead of this canned, choreographed dance crap.

[Update (2/6, 6:45 PST): Looks like Bundchen, unsatisfied with her earlier efforts to be an insufferable dunce, decided to double-down and trash the Patsies' receivers going butterfingers on the final comeback attempt. Too funny. She's partly right, of course, but the fact is that Justin Tuck's sacks and heavy pursuit had Brady rattled, and he wasn't 100% by the end. Some of his throws were money, and should have been caught, but some of them were dead ducks.

But it's not like those guys haven't made countless clutch catches for Brady (who, as much as I abhor the guy and his team, still have to admit that he would never have thrown them under the bus like that) in the past. And she just made it that tiny bit harder on team chemistry in the off-season. Awesome.]

[Update #2 (9:00 PST): Okay, okay, I'll stop with the updates. But Kee-rist, ya gotta see this takedown of what has to the bitchiest, douchiest sportswriter evar. Has to be read to be believed. I mean, I never, and I mean fucking never envisioned myself even remotely defending Tom Brady, but goddamned if this particular assclown didn't make me reconsider. He's only taken his team to the goddamned championship game five times in the last decade, winning three and losing two by a handful of points, and this asshole complains about it like Brady fucked his mom and shaved his dog.

Bear in mind that, of 32 teams in the NFL, in 46 years four teams (Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Jacksonville -- the last two being expansion teams from 2002 and 1995 respectively) have never even made it to the Super Bowl, and ten more have made it at least once but never won. So nearly half the teams (and their fans) have no idea what it's like to win a championship -- and several others, such as the Raiders and 49ers, have been and won multiple times, but not in many years.

Again, Brady has gone five times and won three. In the past decade. And this douchehat has the balls to not only complain, but to single out Brady for his "hideous performance" (27/46, 276 yds, 2 TD, 1 INT). Slash in KSK comments nails it as "weapons-grade douche". I mean, it's been funny to note how Gisele is starting to Yoko Brady's mojo, but this pathetic, personal sort of shit this columnist pulls out of his ass is just nuts.

I hope the guy at least has enough sense to realize that nobody in the Patsies organization will ever talk to his dumb ass again. I sure as fuck wouldn't.]