Blog Hits 4 Jesus

The Supreme Court has ruled that a student's unfurling of a banner reading, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" is not protected speech, because it could reasonably be deemed as supporting drug use. (In case you didn't know, there's some fine print in the Constitution that exempts drug speech. Thus, Dude, Where's My Car? has absolutely no protections under the First Amendment.)

You know who the real loser is in all of this? No, not the student, who judging by the speed of the legal process is probably dead by now. No, not the general public. Eroding rights are something we should be used to by now. If you're able to speak freely, the terrorists will win. (Unless you're leaking secret CIA identities. That's cool.)

No, the real loser is Jesus. Because now, he'll have fewer stoners in his flock. And stoners are generally pretty fun to hang out with. Now that church and bong hits have been constitutionally separated, Jesus just isn't as cool to party with anymore.

Conservapedia

Love Wikipedia, but think the articles are just too left-leaning ("you got evolution in my science article!")? An elderly woman who led the charge against feminism in the 70's has put her money behind Conservapedia. Written primarily by her son, who lectures against vaccinations in quack medical journals, the encyclopedia has such whimsical quirks as banning the use of "CE" and "BCE" in order to tie dates firmly to Christianity.

Learn such interesting tidbits as, "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."

Unfortunately for the authors, conservative bloggers are mocking their efforts as being, well, embarrassing for their movement. Here are some highlights one pointed out...

What does Conservapedia think about Descartes?

"Descartes locked himself in a stove and meditated, arriving at the unsurprising conclusion that nothing existed. He then used Anselm's proof of the existence of God to decide that perhaps he wasn't deluded, and perhaps things did exist after all. He thought the soul lived in the pineal gland, and when you lift your arm it's just an accident because your brain doesn't control your body, God does. This 'god-robot' theory of consciousness got him into ferocious arguments with Hobbes, but then Hobbes loved a good argument and was usually wrong."

Yes, but what about Einstein?

"Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Or Washington?

"Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

I bet you have plenty to say about the Holocaust, right?

"The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."

Yeah, what's with them and the touchiness?! Let's face it, Wikipedia has been going downhill since they started writing about hacks like me. From now on, I'm only citing Conservapedia in all of my academic articles. Nobel Prize in Righteousness, here I come!

A Modest Proposal

The 2008 presidential campaign season is upon us, like... something upon... something else. Potential candidates are crawling out of the woodwork with newly-created exploratory committees to raise funds and test the theory, "Does anyone in Iowa know who the hell I am?"

Of course, not everyone can be president. Most of these people will wind up losing primaries, dropping out of the race, and starting the embarrassing process of begging to be a vice presidential choice.

My modest plan eliminates the need for this awkward, humiliating tradition whereby each losing candidates come to the winner and apologizes for suggesting in an attack ad that he or she may have run over babies with a riding mower. And then asks politely if they could be trusted by the winner to succeed them should any unfortunate accidents befall them. *cough* *shotgun to face* *cough*

My suggestion is that candidates campaign not alone, but in pairs right from the start. Already paired up, there's no need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a running mate after the grueling primary season. And as a bonus, people are often more popular as half of a pair!

Take Hall and Oates, for example. Who knows who they are when they're apart?

Hall: "Hi. I'm Hall."
Random Person: "DIE, STRANGER!" *punches Hall in face*

Now, take this exchange.

Hall: "Hi, I'm Hall, from Hall and Oates."
Random Person: "I know you." *punches Hall in face*

Much better, no?

Imagine the harnessed power of a Hall and Oates '08 ticket! Hall would be president, because his name comes first. It ain't "Oates and Hall," after all. Oates would be veep, hanging out in the Undisclosed Location(tm) waiting for Hall to die. Hall would provide us with the string of hit singles our nation wants. Oates would provide us with the mustache we so desperately need.

Pre-Election Jitters

Rush Limbaugh has accused Michael J. Fox of "faking" his Parkinson's disease to advance the cause of stem cell research.

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners today, encouraging them to go online to watch Fox's commercial, which first aired Oct. 21 in St. Louis during a World Series game. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act."

Having been through more than a couple bouts with unprescribed medication, Rush knows all about the shakes.

Question 7? What's the Question Again?

Question 7 on the Nevada ballot would legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use. The proponents of the measure have finally cobbled together enough cash to put on a TV commercial. Unfortunately for them, they didn't bother to sober up before putting it together. Bummer!

For starters, being able to hear it would be nice. The volume is recorded so low that you can't even tell what it's about. I wouldn't have had an idea until I saw the ending, where words appeared on the screen. From what I can gather, their argument is that, um... well, there is an argument. Of that we can be somewhat sort of certain, kind of.

The first shot is of some state politician. I don't know who he is because I couldn't hear, and come on, nobody knows their state politicians. The shot is supposed to link him to Bush somehow, because in the background, about twenty feet behind the guy, is a blurry, ghostly President Bush caught in motion! Apparently this was the only shot of the two together that could be dug up. Be careful, citizens! This guy, presumably against the measure, once walked past Bush!

The second shot is a black and white photo of Osama bin Laden. The picture slowly zooms from a dot in the distance right up into your face. Agggh!!! He's totally after us! And dude, my hands are really weird looking in the black light! Remember, if you don't legalize pot, the terrorists will have won.

Next we see Yucca Mountain. We know it's Yucca Mountain because helpful text says, "Yucca Mountain". For those who don't know, Yucca is a giant slab of rock a couple hours northwest of Vegas, where the rest of the country wants to store its nuclear waste in underground caverns. Residents of Nevada tend to oppose this because they're convinced that their state would otherwise be habitable. They are wrong. Anyway, the commercial is trying to suggest that marijuana opponents should lighten up, smoke a bowl, and accept some nuclear waste while they're at it. I think. I'm not really clear on this one.

Finally, we see a cartoon checkmark and ominous text telling us to vote yes on 7 to "regulate marijuana". I looked this up, and that is indeed the way the ballot question is phrased. By "regulate", they actually mean "de-criminalize", which is tricky because I bet it would be really easy to get people opposed to it to accidentally vote for it, the same way Floridians voted for Pat Buchanan. But Floridians are pretty dumb, so I don't know if that trick will work here. Regardless, this is the first clue as to what the commercial is supposed to be about. Except it comes at the end, where the low-budget UHF station that they're airing it on can (and will) accidentally clip it off with a mis-timed Mork & Mindy promo. D'oh! This is really harshing their buzz!

I write this as someone who would actually probably vote for the measure, seeing as how ridiculous our existing drug laws are. But still, couldn't they find any competent creative people to put this together? I'd figure all the artists and writers out there would jump aboard pro-bono, just so they didn't have to venture into the ghetto and get shot buying a baggie.

Everything I Needed to Know About Politics I Learned from Road House

The new White House chief of staff told employees that they had to either "re-engage" or that now was the time to quit. Somehow, this struck me as very much resembling Dalton's speech to the staff at the start of Road House, where he tells them that if anyone wants to quit, now's the time to do it, because it's "my way or the highway." I can see the new guy showing up in overly tight black clothes, chain-smoking, and laying down the rules- no dealing, no skimming from the till, and so on and so forth.

I wonder if this makes Iraq our "regular Saturday night thing"?