2011: Here's the Year in Preview

Latest Newspaper Column:

Well, friends, another Christmas Day has come and gone. Meanwhile, serious professional journalists are hard at work on their columns looking back at the year just past, typing furiously to come up with the usual "Year in Review" piece. Not this columnist. I'm always looking ahead, because I'm a forward-thinking kind of guy. So once again, we bring you the high points of the year 2011, or, as we like to call it, the year in PREview.

January: The Republicans formally take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa immediately springs into action, announcing that his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will begin investigations into the alleged cost of President Obama's trips overseas (which the media dubs "Trip-Gate"), allegedly slipshod training of the Obama's dog ("Bo-gate"), alleged incidents of texting while driving among White House staff ("OMG-Gate"), and alleged use of foreign-made fertilizers in the White House vegetable garden ("Manure-Gate"). "We're gonna get those Obamas for something," Issa proclaims confidently as he signs a subpoena to compel the testimony of "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Milan for the "Bo-Gate" hearings. "Just you wait."

February: Fox News host Glenn Beck is apprehended at the National Cathedral, attempting to break into the tomb of former President Woodrow Wilson.

When questioned by police, Beck explains that he was going to show that the tomb is empty, because his "exhaustive historical research" has determined that Wilson was not only the founder of the Progressive movement that Beck despises, but he is also an immortal shape-shifting vampire who rose from the grave and disguised himself first as Adolf Hitler, then Barack Obama.

"Don't you understand!?" Beck shrieks as he's dragged off to a mental institution. "Income tax! Eugenics! Pearl Harbor! Health care! It's all connected! Let me get my chalkboard and I'll show you! Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Fox News immediately extends Beck's contract and gives him a $3 million raise.

March: Panic ensues when a lone terrorist tries and fails to bring down an Athens-to-New York flight by banging his head very hard against the plane window in hopes of breaking it and depressurizing the cabin. Despite the failure of the attempt, the Transportation Safety Administration institutes security measures that require passengers' heads to be secured firmly to their seats by leather straps, with Hannibal-Lecter-style masks over their faces for the entire flight.

"We understand that passengers may be inconvenienced by being treated like insane serial killers because some delusional lunatic failed to pull off a cockamamie stunt that had no chance of succeeding," says TSA head John Pistole. "But don't you want us to keep you safe? Huh? Don't you? Answer me when I'm talking to you!"

April: Country-pop star Taylor Swift, long known for her autobiographical lyrics, releases what she calls her "most personal album yet."

The record, called "Yeah, I'm Talking About You, Jerkhole," contains songs describing former boyfriends, music critics, a high school teacher who once made a sarcastic remark to her, and the dry-cleaner who ruined her favorite silk blouse. The first single, titled "Bite Me, Kanye West," becomes Billboard's No. 1 hit for 17 consecutive weeks.

May: Failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin inks a multimillion-dollar deal to star in a second season of TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska." At the same time, daughter Willow announces that she intends to follow older sister Bristol on "Dancing With the Stars," ABC announces that Bristol herself will be appearing on "Celebrity Apprentice," husband Todd signs on to do a five-episode guest spot on "Deadliest Catch," and Fox schedules a three-hour special on son Track's military career.

Palin then takes to her Facebook page to ask why the "lamestream media" won't respect her family's privacy.

June: Frustrated by continued lackluster performances on the golf course and correspondingly lackluster endorsement deals, Tiger Woods' management company, IMG Sports Management, takes out a full-page ad in Sports Illustrated pleading with Woods to start sleeping around again.

"We know it might seem crass," the ad reads. "But you can't deny it. You're a better player when ... well, when you're a player. Come on, man, we've got beach houses in the Hamptons to pay for here."

To be continued ...

Heartwarming Letters to Santa

Latest Newspaper Column

Dear Santa: Thank you so much for the gift of the Republican House majority this year. I will try to be a good majority leader. I'm so grateful, it just chokes me up. In fact, it makes me so emotional, I think I'm going to have to go cry again. So if you don't mind, I'd like you to bring me a gross of handkerchiefs and some Visine (it gets the red out).

- John, Washington, D.C.

(Note to staff: Double-check and make sure Johnny doesn't also want us to bring him another 50-gallon drum of fake tanning lotion like last year. - S.)

Dear Santa:

I know a lot of people think I should be on the naughty list for releasing all those State Department cables. But I think we can both overlook each other's little failings, don't you?

I'm sure you know the ones I mean. Like certain documents showing this past January's vacation in Cancun with that trio of Hooters girls a certain jolly bearded fat man met on his trip to the Macy's parade. Ho-ho-ho indeed, eh, Mr. Claus? You know what you need to do.

- Julian, London

(Note to staff: I have no idea what this guy is talking about, I swear. But just to be on the safe side, get that Ferrari to him anyway. - S.)

Dear Mr. Claus:

Greetings from the Transportation Safety Administration! We are sending you this letter to make sure you have plenty of time to bring yourself into compliance with the latest TSA regulations regarding flight into and out of American airspace.

Remember that all liquids and gels must be properly contained in containers no larger than 3.4 ounces, inside a bag no more than one quart, and not more than one such bag may be carried per passenger. The TSA has decided that Play-Doh and Silly Putty are covered under this regulation, so, those are probably out.

In addition, due to the possibility that explosives may be contained inside electronic devices, the TSA will not allow any Xboxes, PS3s, Wiis, etc., to be carried aboard your sleigh without each one undergoing individual inspection, which may involve complete disassembly (but not, regrettably, reassembly).

Finally, please be advised that neither you nor any accompanying elves will be allowed to enter U.S. airspace before passing through a full-body scanner and/or an "enhanced pat-down." While this may result in several million children not receiving Christmas gifts at all, and some having receipt of said gifts delayed until mid-August of 2011, I'm sure you will agree that it's a small price to pay for security.

We apologize for any inconvenience. Well, OK, actually we don't. But, hey, what are you going to do? We've got you by the short hairs, fat boy, and you know it.

- John P., TSA

(Note to staff: We're going to need more coal. And go ahead with that plan to arm the sleigh with Sidewinder missiles. - S.)

My Dear Mr. Claus:

Greetings from His Royal Highness, Prince Charles. The Prince has asked me to convey to you his sincere felicitations for this most joyous of seasons.

The Prince, however, had the serenity of his holiday most grievously disrupted when he and his lady were most rudely accosted by a gang of hooligans while on their way to a show in the West End. Something to do with recent budget cuts, a topic over which the Royal Family has, of course, little control, and, it must be said, little interest.

Therefore, it is His Highness' request that you place said hooligans upon your "naughty" list and forbear from providing them with the customary largesse at this Yuletide season. We trust this request will be honored. On behalf of His Royal Highness, I am, your most humble and obedient servant,

- Chauncey Uppington-Smoot

Royal correspondence secretary

(Note to staff: Geez, you think the fact that this guy's kid is about to have a multimillion-dollar wedding while the country goes broke and college tuition triples might have something to do with why people are cheesed off? Can you guys send Chuck a clue? - S.)

Whatever your holiday wishes are this year, may they all come true.

Christmas Specials That Weren't

Latest Newspaper Column:

It's that time of year, the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa season, and the airwaves are filled with cheer and cheesy TV specials. We all have our favorites. I'm rather partial to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" myself, which should surprise no one.

But, as in every creative field, for every holiday special that takes its place in our hearts and on our DVRs, there are a dozen or more that failed to make the cut. It is to those unsung and unaired works of television art that this week's column is dedicated.

This year's almost-rans:

"A WikiLeaks Christmas Card": Santa's made his list and checked it twice, and now WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange has gotten hold of it and is prepared to spam the information about who's naughty and nice across the Internet. Unfortunately, no network could be found to host the show, and all of the major newspapers refused to run ads for it.

"Basically," explained New York Times editor Bill Keller, "All of us in the media business are outraged at the behavior of Assange and WikiLeaks. Everyone knows that if you're going to leak something, you need to leak it directly to an actual reporter, not just post it on the Internet like some...blogger or something. It's simply not done."

"Sarah Palin's Caribou-Killin' Christmas": The former governor of Alaska was all set to host a warm and tender holiday special to be simultaneously broadcast on The Outdoor Channel and the Food Network.

During the special, Palin was supposed to shoot various native creatures (wolf, caribou, snowshoe rabbit and field mouse) from an aircraft with a high-powered rifle, then take them back to her home in Wassilla and cook them up for Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, one of Palin's handlers forgot and left a television on in her trailer. When she saw a rerun of the comedy series "The Office" in which a major character uses the word "retarded, " Palin became enraged. Claiming that this was a direct insult by "Hollywood liberals" to her special-needs child and "all of God's special snowflakes everywhere," she stormed off of the set to sulk, then demanded that the entire rest of the show be presented, unedited, via her Facebook page and Twitter feed.

"Who do they think we are?" an executive from the Food Network was reported to have said, "Fox News?"

"John McCain's Christmas in Arizona": Santa Claus and his elves were to make a personal appearance as the climax of this special, held at the palatial home of the senior senator and failed presidential candidate.

The production collapsed when Santa and his entourage, including elves, got lost because they'd been given directions to the wrong one of McCain's houses, then were arrested and jailed because the elves couldn't produce proper citizenship documentation at a traffic stop.

This column has not been able to confirm reports that Arizona plans to balance its state budget by selling the coal they expect to find in all of its citizens' Christmas stockings to China.

"Man vs. Mall": British adventurer Bear Grylls has faced a number of hazardous situations in his TV career: grizzly bears in the Rockies, dehydration in the burning desert, sheer cliffs and poisonous snakes. But when confronted with the prospect of being caught in the rush of shoppers at a Black Friday 5 a.m. "doorbusters" sale in the Jersey Gardens outlet mall in Elizabeth, N.J., Grylls backed out.

"Keep the money," Grylls told the show's producers, "I'm not bloody stupid." A last-minute plan to replace him with "Jersey Shore" star "The Situation" was abandoned when, as one of the producers put it, "we realized he's just a really awful person."

"Barack Obama's Bipartisan Christmas": The president had hoped to get congressional Republicans to appear in a holiday celebration of peace and reconciliation.

However, incoming Majority Leader John Boehner demanded as a condition of his party's participation that the Democrats repeal the estate tax, agree to a Constitutional Amendment making "Don't Ask Don't Tell" the law of the land, abolish the Department of Education, sell the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge outright to BP and Halliburton, and apologize for Obama winning the election.

When the White House agreed, Boehner sent word back that the Republicans couldn't make it to the show because they were "washing their hair that night".

Guess we'll just have to make do with the shows we've got. Happy viewing, and Happy Holidays! All of them.

Are You Effing KIDDING Me?

Nigeria charges Dick Cheney with bribery -

The Nigerian government on Tuesday charged former Vice President Dick Cheney with bribery for his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal.

The African country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is pursuing Cheney in connection with an investigation of bribes totaling $180 million believed to have been paid to Nigerian officials by Halliburton, the company Cheney headed from 1995 to 2000.

Look, I'm no fan of Shooter Cheney,  but being charged with bribery by Nigeria is like being charged with prostitution by Heidi Fleiss. 

Wikileaks: So What Else Is New?

Latest Newspaper Column:

Recently, the website WikiLeaks engaged in another one of its infamous info-dumps, releasing what it says is a collection of 251,287 State Department documents into the public eye.

Most of the documents are copies of cables that were sent back and forth between Washington and our embassies. Many of them contain, shall we say, less than flattering pictures of the people our diplomats deal with. The juicier ones, in fact, read like notes passed by mean high school girls, but with better vocabularies.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one cable states, is "feckless, vain and ineffective." The prime minister and defense minister of Kazakhstan are a couple of hard-partying drunks. French President Sarkozy is "impulsive," "mercurial" and surrounded by "yes-men." Libya's Muammar Qaddafi is an eccentric nutcase who never goes anywhere without a voluptuous blonde Ukrainian "nurse."

I read this sort of thing and I have to ask: Is any of this really new information? Qaddafi's a loon, Berlusconi's an empty suit, and Sarkozy's arrogant and impulsive. Oh, and according to another cable, the Afghan government's corrupt. I mean, stop the presses. Everyone who cares already knows this stuff.

Of more interest are revelations about our so-called allies in the Middle East. The good news is that it seems that we're not the only ones worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions. The bad news is that they all seem to want to leave it to us to do something about it.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, according to one cable, urged the U.S. to "cut the head off the snake before it's too late."

Hey, I've got an idea, Your Majesty: You do it. We're kind of busy right now, and the snake's in your backyard. Meanwhile, while we cast about for al-Qaida in Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen, it's another well-known "secret" confirmed by these cables that it's the Saudis who are among the biggest, if not the biggest, financiers of terrorism, who hope, according to the leaked documents, that if you give the maniacs enough cash, they'll "leave the House of Saud alone."

Again, this is not really news to anyone who's been paying attention the past few years.

It also appears, much to no one's surprise, that many Middle Eastern leaders can't stand each other. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "hates Hamas" and knows Iran is a sponsor of terrorism, but won't say it because it might "create a dangerous situation" (presumably most dangerous to Mubarak himself).

The above-mentioned King Abdullah says the country of Iraq "is in his heart," but its president, Nouri al-Maliki, is not. As for Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, grumpy King Abdullah describes him as "rotten."

There have been demands (including, disappointingly, in this very paper) that WikiLeaks and its founder and spokesman Julian Assange be prosecuted. A former adviser to Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, went further, suggesting that President Obama "put out a contract" on Assange, and "use a drone or something" to assassinate him. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said the person responsible for the leaks should be executed for "putting national security at risk."

Well, now, let's hold on just a minute here before we fetch the rope.

Assange, to be sure, is an unlikable, pompous twit with an ego so massive it has its own gravitational field. He's under suspicion for rape in Sweden. Also, he has bad hair. There very well may have been a crime committed by whoever released the documents to WikiLeaks. But a capital one? So far, it seems like most of the information released is just embarrassing, not life-threatening or disastrous to our diplomatic efforts.

On a recent trip to Kazakhstan by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Berlusconi and the Kazakh leadership were quick to act as if nothing had happened. The fact is, they might be annoyed, but most world leaders are not going to sulk and jeopardize their own national interests because someone sent a snarky cable about them.

Even Iran's nutball President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off the disrespect as "psychological warfare" by the U.S. and said "such mischief will have no impact on the relations of countries."

Diplomacy has always been the art of negotiating with people you detest and who you know probably detest you, all the while pretending neither of you knows it. As one wit put it, it's the technique of sweetly saying "nice doggie" while looking around for a suitably large rock.

A bunch of leaked cables isn't going to change that.

BSWATs

In my interactions on various online fora, I've noted recurring patterns in so-called "debate" technique among the wingnuts and teatards. I'm collecting and numbering them here so you can recognize them. I refer to them as BSWATs (pronounced 'bee-swats.") The last three letters stand for "Wingnut 'Argument' Techiques." You can figure out what the first two stand for.

1) The simple unsupported contradiction and the repeated assertion of a demonstrably wrong premise as “Fact.” This clip from ”Family Guy” illustrates the technique:




2) A similar technique: dismissing the argument out of hand, without attempt to debate:

"Kevin Bacon was the star of Footloose."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." (leaves discussion).

3) Ignoring what was said in favor of whining about the way it was said.

Example:
“Of course Kevin Bacon was in Footloose. Here’s the DVD box, you idiot. His name’s right there.”
”You called me a name! You libs don’t have any arguments. All you do is insult people.”

4) Handwaving away any information that contradicts you by dismissing the source out of hand.

“Look, Kevin Bacon starred in Footloose. It says so right here in the Internet Movie Database.”
“IMDB? LOL.”

5) Dragging some irrelevant celebrity bogeyman’s name into the conversation:

“Keith Olbermann thinks Kevin Bacon starred in Footloose, too. You sound like Keith Olbermann.” Other names used: Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, George Soros.

6) "Yew thank yer purty smart, don't yew?" Usually expressed sarcastically: “Well, I guess not all of us have your wide expertise about movies. We’re all in awe of your knowledge.”

7) Attempts to change the subject:

“Well, Tom Cruise was in Top Gun and he’s a liberal and he’s crazy!”

8) Projection, or “I know you are, but what am I?” Example:



9) “I’m not your Google monkey”: making a wild and untrue assertion and insisting its the reader's responsibility to back it up for you or to disprove it:

“I know for a fact that Anthony Michael Hall was the star of Footloose.”
“That doesn’t sound right. Can you cite some source that backs that up?”
“I don’t have to back that up. You look it up!”

10) "Help! Help! I'm bein' repressed!" Asserting that because you're "entitled to your opinion." that any disagreement is an attempt to stifle your free speech rights.

11) Extreme leaps, often bizarre, usually off-topic:

"Kevin Bacon was the star of Footloose, not Anthony Michael Hall."
"So you're saying Anthony Michael Hall is a lousy actor and probably a child molester!?"

Watch for these BSWATs . See how many you can tag.

Sorry, Can't Back You Up On This One

Crooks and Liars Calls Sarah Palin A  Traitor

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm no fan of the Resigning Woman or her belligerent and numerous brood.

But I didn't like it when I was called a "traitor" for criticizing Dubbya, and I don't like it when the Snowbilly Grifter gets the same treatment, even from a blog I agree with 90% of the time.

Treason has a very specific definition and criticizing the President  ain't it. It wasn't treason when I did it, and it isn't when Caribou Barbie does it, no matter how unfairly or stupidly she does it.

Besides, there are so many more accurate things to call the Quitta from Wasilla. "Fuckwit" comes immediately to mind.