Oh, and in case you didn't know...

All that money you put into Beck is going into e-meters now. L. Ron Hubbard's eternal thetan thanks you for your generosity. No need to belabour the point, but these guys are the most gullible people on the fucking planet. Next to Mormons. Though their founders certainly had quite the scam running for themselves. See Joseph Smith and good ole' LRH, who in his later years spent all his time sailing around in international waters with a fistful of pills and a bedroom full of young boys. Just saying.

And to think, Beck...I trusted you...

Thoughts on our constitution...

Don't get me wrong. It's a perfectly lovely constitution. I love it, I kiss it, I hold it close to my breast and wipe away its tears with my hair. But I think the time has come for a constitutional convention. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water, but some serious amending is in order.

1. Pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to privacy. Anything that people so commonly believe is actually in the constitution probably should be. In the process, you also create a strong constitutional argument to maintain some variation of Roe v. Wade no matter how far to the right the court goes. In addition, it would be widely supported by the public, including any libertarian sympathizers in bed with the republicans. It would be suicide to vote against it. And it'll have wide ranging implications for the recent examples of consolidation of power within the executive branch...especially in regard to certain patriot acts who will remain nameless.
2. Clarify the 10th amendment. Make it obvious that it is a merely a truism, that the powers not vested in the federal government belong to them. I'm sick of worrying day in and day out if Clarence Thomas is going to suddenly, miraculously convince his peers that we need to return to the good old days where the federal government couldn't regulate child labor laws because manufacturing was a wholly intrastate activity, regardless of the fact it was getting shipped to Texas from New York. Or that buying chicken out of state and selling it in state was wholly intrastate, so no labor laws for those whiny chickenmongers! Again, everyone other than conservative think tanks knows the federal government can and should have sweeping authority over the states. We're one of the only countries in the world that puts so much power in the states hands, and look what it got us. (See: Our entire history up until the New Deal era). It's time to neuter the whackos in Arkansas who would love nothing better than to write anti-miscegenation laws into the books. Fuck them.
3. Eliminate the privileges and immunities clause. It's completely fucking worthless since all the constitutional grants of power to the branches of government tend to have some kind of activating clause already. Plus, almost all its cases fall into the dormant commerce clause anyway. Kill it. Useless. Next.
   
4. Appoint me dictator for life. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
   
5. I know this doesn't relate directly, but can someone please kidnap and brainwash Antonin Scalia to be a decent human being? Because I hate having to hate him. He's god damned hilarious. Like in good ole' Vieth v. Jubelirer, where SCOTUS was hearing a case about gerrymandering in PA. They decided that because they hadn't come up with a workable standard for adjudicating these types of cases, they must not be cases the Supreme Court should hear anymore. In a concurrence (essentially "I agree with the majority but for different reasons") Kennedy said that while he was voting with them he hoped that a workable standard could be agreed upon because these were important cases to hear. Scalia, in the majority opinion summed Kennedy's position up as follows:

"When it has come to determining what areas fall beyond our article III authority to adjudicate, this Court's practice , from the earliest days of the Republic to the present, has been more reminiscent of Hannibal than of Hamlet...Justice Kennedy's opinion boils down to this: 'As presently advised I know of no discernible and manageable standard that can render this claim justiciable. I am unhappy about that, and hope that I will be able to change my opinion in the future."

Okay, so he's not Ruth Buzzy standing over there. But how can you not love that. The rapier wit. If only he wasn't intellectually dishonest, hateful, and fuller o' hubris than Dubya on a bender. We. Need. This. Man. The liberal movement needs new thinkers. This country needs a new constitution. I need to stop reading constitutional law this late at night...

another reason i can't stand michelle malkin

this.

michelle, a moonbat didn't receive the nobel prize. one of the greatest playwrights in the history of the written word (and an accomplished poet to boot) won the nobel prize for literature. to complain that harold pinter received the award, indeed to even infer it, shows such a profound sense of cultural ignorance that it boggles the mind. this is why people like michelle malkin arent tasked to nominate nobel prize laureates. all they know is sowing xenophobia, covering bush's failures, and moaning about some diarist on daily kos.

it's like new york times conservative writer david brooks said today:

"For a movement that is supposed to be winning the battle of ideas, conservatives are in a mess...A lot of the energy that used to go into ideas is now devoted to defending Republican politicians. Many former conservative activists have become Republican lobbyists. (When conservatism was a movement of ideas, it attracted oddballs; now that it's a movement with power, it attracts sleazeballs.)"

this is my problem with the current administration and its apologists. the intellectual dishonesty and the anti-intellectualism. people, even people that i disagree with politically (see Ezra Pound) can also be brilliant artists. to belittle their creative work because you don't like their politics is the sort of "us vs. them" bullshit that has reduced the political discourse in this country to a red v. blue thing.

i have no problem with republicans in general. i have no problem with conservativism in general. i happen to think that the present administration and republican leadership in general have shown themselves to be cynical and morally bankrupt. that doesn't make me a democrat. that doesn't make me anything other than a discerning american citizen who is disgusted with the state of our country. i want people of conscience and honesty on both sides of the fence to sit down and figure out how to make things work, not to take jabs at each other.

one caveat: if you don't meet the above criteria (conscience and honesty) i don't want you at the table. that applies whether you're dubya, jesse jackson, ann coulter, or a member of peta.

Presidenting Am Hard Work

Flashback to the first presidential debate from last year. Here are some fun quotes from Dubya about the difficulty of his job:

Bush: Hard work.

Bush: You know, It's hard work.

Bush: It's hard work.

Bush: Everybody knows it's hard work.

Bush: We've done a lot of hard work.

Sure we knew it was a tough job, but why did he feel the need to make us aware of exactly how tough it was?

We finally have an answer. In addition to presidenting, Dubya has been acting as a film producer in his spare time. Not that hard a job in and of itself, but when you couple it with stripping americans of their civil rights, freeing the rich of the obligation to pay their "membership dues" (read taxes), and instigating unjust wars on intelligence you know to be bullshit, you've got yourself one doozy of a duty.

For your enjoyment/vomit-inducement, some asshole presents "A Very Beazley Christmas." It features the sort of production values you only find in snuff films, along with numerous republicans getting wet all over a puppy. What more could any man ask?

As a fun addendum, notice that Dubya doesn't toss around the word "christmas" nearly as often as his buddies at the American Family Association would like. Why does Dubya hate Jesus? Don't they know he's the shizzle?!

why the hell won't 50 cent perform at my bar mitzvah

Oh. Because I didn't offer him half a million dollars to do it. Much love to the street, right .50?

the atheist assault on christmas...

...has been so successful even dubya is getting in on the act.

from the washingtonpost:

__________________________

Religious conservatives are miffed because they have been pressuring stores to advertise Christmas sales rather than "holiday specials" and urging schools to let students out for Christmas vacation rather than for "winter break." They celebrated when House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce.

Then along comes a generic season's greeting from the White House, paid for by the Republican National Committee. The cover art is also secular, if not humanist: It shows the presidential pets -- two dogs and a cat -- frolicking on a snowy White House lawn.

"Certainly President and Mrs. Bush, because of their faith, celebrate Christmas," said Susan Whitson, Laura Bush's press secretary. "Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths."

That is the same rationale offered by major retailers for generic holiday catalogues, and it is accepted by groups such as the National Council of Churches. "I think it's more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards," said the council's general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman.

But the White House's explanation does not satisfy the groups -- which have grown in number in recent years -- that believe there is, in the words of the Heritage Foundation, a "war on Christmas" involving an "ever-stronger push toward a neutered 'holiday' season so that non-Christians won't be even the slightest bit offended."

__________________________

For the record as much as this asshole loves christmas, if I have to listen to much more of this self-righteous "put the christ back in christmas" bull I'm going to burn my tree. Is your God so weak that seeing a banner at Wal-mart that says "happy holidays" can thwart his divine will? On a related note, why would the one true god allow all these bullshit non-jesus holidays to prosper? Is it not within his power to wipe the christ-killing chanakuh supporters and pc-spewing kwanza lovers? Not that I don't join in the wide-spread contempt for the stupidity of kwanza, but if people want to use december to celebrate the birth of the flying spaghetti monster's meatball baby let them. If they get enough people on their side, let them hang banners.

entertainment tips...

there aren't a lot of plays that are more difficult to produce for a small company in a small space on a small budget than slaughter city. but if you get a chance, check it out.

from the chicago reader:

Inspired in part by a 1991 fire at a chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, that killed 25 workers behind padlocked doors, Naomi Wallace's intelligent, artful 1996 play is an adept blend of populism and dark fantasy, part Odets and part Orwell. A mysterious female union organizer disguised as a man arrives at a slaughterhouse and ignites the passions of the workers, who find themselves clamoring for both love and justice. Sabrina Lloyd's cunning, bold staging for GroundUp Theatre mostly finds the right notes, and her committed ensemble has a spellbinding intensity. Adding a three-member chorus who harmonize on classic folk tunes, Lloyd gives this deeply humane, poetic piece of political theater even more heart.

it's highly recommended, and features someone near and dear to this asshole's heart (they even get some love in the above review), so if you in the greater chicagoland area check this shit out. seriously.

puppy blogging

in my effort to avoid studying for torts, he are some pictures of my dog dressed up for christmas. if anyone would like to beat the shit out of me for participating in this, they are welcome to it. just leave the time, location, and means with which you'll be busting my nose in the comments.

Before. Kicking his bear's ass like a real boy.

After. Second from the left, craving the sweet embrace of death.

some thoughts about the chicago smoking ban...

it's finally happened, eventually. the american cancer society is going to have their cake and eat ours too. of course they'll be eating it in blissfully smoke free restaurants in candy cane forests where cancer and dry cleaning bills are a thing of the past!

i'm calling bullshit for several reasons.

any society that is free to tell you what's best for you is free to go the other way once the minority changes. i don't like governmental regulation by majorities, because majorities have this nasty tendency to shift. today it's banning smoking in public or seatbelt laws. but if the fundies really get the power they're seeking should they be able to ban sodomy because research far more convincing than the ACS's shows it can be a major public health risk? sure they can use condoms and reduce the risk to nil, just like restaurants can build non-smoking sections, but they can't eliminate the risk! or maybe the vegetarians get into power and tell us that since meat is much less healthy for us than a vegetarian lifestyle, which is also supported by infinitely superior research than the ACS's, and so we're going to be chomping sprouts from here on out. so what if studies show that diets that balance the right kinds of meats with vegetables are healthy too! there's no guarantee they won't still be at risk so why even take the chance?!

next, if you want to jump on the health bandwagon, explain to me why there haven't been dramatic drops in the occurence of smoke-related health problems in areas that have done this for years? there are a lot of things that are bad for your health in this world. smoking is just any easy one to pick on, and it's not half as bad as the shit people don't lose any sleep over. for all the talk about the "science" behind this, the anti-smoking movements numbers on this issue are so blatantly flawed that anyone who took and understood even a little bit of science and statistical analysis in college should be able to see through them.

you want to do some good in the world, folks?

how about people focus all this energy on ending the abuse of antibiotics, which threatens to be the ext mundi smoking can only dream of being. why not talk about why america is one of the last first world countries on the planet that doesn't recognize medical care as a fundamental right? why not talk about coal miners or packing plant employees if you want to talk about workplace safety? why not talk about bankruptcy "reform" if you want to talk about powerful interests forcing their will on the public to our detriment?

simple. this is about dry-cleaning bills. it's about "my hair smells funny." it's about "icky poo smoking is gross!"

i don't like your perfume. i don't like the stench of your chemical hair care products. i don't like smelling your breath after 9 tequila sunrises. but i end up taking them home with me anyway.

cowboy up, people. cowboy up. ____________________________________________

• Chicagoist weighs in with all the insight you'd expect from a bunch of quasi-bohemian yuppies.
• Smoking bans are the biggest thing to hit dumbass soccer moms and yuppie fucks with too much time on their hands since the War on Terror!
• Of course, smoking bans don't effect business. At all. In the least. Period. End of sentence. And there is no science to support saying it does.
  

It's always Some Asshole...

...going on about some thing or another. So let's drop the pretense folks.

1. You don't really care what I think. I don't really care what you think. However, I'm immensely interested in what I think. So, as countless NASCAR lovin' Reagan worshipin' war-mongerin' Americans have said before, "love it or leave it."
   
2. Don't accuse me of bias in favor of or against anything. My hatred is as pure as the driven snow and shines on everyone regardless of the color of their skin, the stupidity of their religious beliefs, the cynicism of their politics, the absurdity of their artistic vision, and whether they read US Weekly or not. Wait. Scratch that. If you read US Weekly you should be ashamed of yourself.
3. I like sports. I might talk about them from time to time. If your urbane self-image is so weak that you can't suck it up and deal with the occassional conversation about athletics, you're in the same intellectual boat with people who think allowing gay marriage will force all couples to divorce. And if you like Ballet but think athletics are beneath you, I've got a phone call for you. It's pot, line one. Something about your blackness..?
4. If you object to sophistry, pretense, self-importance, obscenity, and pictures of my incredibly cute puppy this is not the Asshole for you. There are plenty of other assholes out there for your reading pleasure as you blow off work. Pick one of them.
5. This Asshole thinks the President is a cynical, monsterous threat to the very democratic principles our country was built upon. If you disagree, feel free to flame away!
6. This Asshole thinks the Democrats are a cynical, monsterous threat to the country as well, but only in that they make it virtually impossible for people of intellect to ever be happy voting for anyone.
7. That is all.

More to come in the future kids.

Asshole...OUT!