Is Joey Pants Going the Distance?

Probably not, but what he does will decide who the next mayor of Toronto will be. As Royson James said in the Star on Tuesday, Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone is the kingmaker in this race now. If he stays in the race, Rob Ford will win. If he gets out, George Smitherman will.

That thinking is predicated on the fact that the supporters of Pantalone, a committed big government liberal and mentor to David Miller, will never support the populist shitheadery of Ford. Therefore, if he keeps campaigning, that's 16 points that Smitherman will never have. And sixteen points, if the recent Global poll is even halfway right, will be the difference of a blowout victory for Smitherman or a squeaker of a win for Ford.

Sarah Thomson's support was diffuse, whereas Pantalone's is as monolithic as it gets. His voters are every bit as ideological as Ford's are. They'll grudgingly vote for Furious George, but voting for Big Rob, who they rightly see as a pig and a dolt, is a bridge too far.

All things being equal, I have a healthy respect for Joey Pants. I long ago stopped caring what the government pisses my money away on, since the majority of the delusional and greedy populace is always going to want subsidized sports stadiums and a municipal ice cream castle for every child upon their graduation from fucking pre-school. I could write about how silly it is three times a day for the rest of my god damned life and I'll never change enough minds to make a difference.

But I can insist that the bastards pay for it. If you want a zillion new subway lines, I can demand that you cost it with actual numbers that make sense. I'm sick to fucking death of the "I Have a Dream" school of budgeting that I've seen out of everyone from George W. Bush to Dalton McGuinty.

Pantalone and Sarah Ford - and to a much, much lesser degree, the wholly ridiculous Giorgio Mammoliti - were the only candidates in this campaign who bothered even trying to reasonably cost out and pay for their promises. Ford, Smitherman and Rocco Rossi are all either lying, stupid or both. All three of them are running on the same stupid platform of wishful thinking, and even David Miller was more responsible than that.

Granted, I would never do anything crazy, like actually vote for Pantalone. Just because I know that I'm never going to cure the idiot public's appetite for subsidized everything, it doesn't necessarily follow that I'm going to enable it. I'd rather vote for a transsexual again. But I do respect his honesty.

Well, he's mostly honest, anyway. Joe's campaign manager, John Laschinger, went running to the Toronto Sun yesterday to laughably insist that his guy is in it to win it. And that's a courageous position to take ... if you're trying to get Rob Ford elected. Even Ford's brother and campaign manager, Doug, has admitted that Pantalone dropping out and endorsing Smitherman would be a game-changer.

Which brings us to the dying dreams of Rocco Rossi, which is like porn to me. Ford's friends in the blogosphere have extra rough on Rossi because they know that his vote comes almost exclusively from Ford at this point. And that shouldn't surprise anyone, since Rossi's entire platform has consisted of being a balder, thinner version of Ford for the last few months.

The only reason that Rocco ever got the 7% of the vote that he has is that a certain portion of the population thinks that bald gentlemen are more sensual than portly fellows with drinking problems and anger-management issues. Well, as a bald guy with a drinking problem and anger-management issues, I should be mayor. I'm the best of both worlds.

Team Rocco's mantra for the last couple of weeks has been that if they drop out, their vote goes almost exclusively to Ford. So multiple sources within the campaign are looking for a "dignified" way to drop out.

Rocco Rossi’s advisers eagerly await the next opinion poll, with some saying he should withdraw from the mayoral race if he doesn’t get a bump from Sarah Thomson’s departure.

The Star spoke Wednesday with more than a half-dozen of the advisers, including several campaign co-chairs, many of whom have taken part in campaign conference calls since Sunday.

“The question is can Rocco be a factor in this race with enough support to be a ‘1, 2, 3 player’, or will he stay in the single digits and be a Ralph Nader to Rob Ford,” said one senior adviser, speaking on background and referring to perceptions that Nader’s candidacy in 2000 siphoned votes from Al Gore and handed George W. Bush the U.S. presidency.

Contrary to their previous protestations, the Rossi campaign seems to be quite comfortable with the idea of Ford as mayor.

Two participants in Wednesday morning’s campaign call said it ended with Rossi saying something like: “For now, we’re seeing where things fall, if the Sarah vote is coming to me.”

Another insider said the campaign is looking for an exit strategy so Rossi can bow out gracefully. “The writing is on the wall, but (Rossi) wants to see how this Sarah Thomson thing plays out,” the insider said.

There's no reason in the world that Sarah Thomson's vote would go to Rossi, who in most recent polls had even less support than she did. Thomson made it clear that she priority over the last two weeks has been to stop Ford, and supporting Smitherman is the clearer way of doing than going to Rossi, who seems as though he was actually born to lose. Furthermore, Rossi's most senior people are debating among themselves whether they should deny Ford the mayor's chair.

Not that it matters all that much. Pantalone has nearly twice as many committed voters than does Rossi, none of whom will go to Ford, while at least some of Rossi's vote will go to Smitherman. And that assumes that Rocco's support has even stayed at its already pathetic levels throughout this week's cataclysmic events, which I highly doubt. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next group of polls show him at four or five percent.

I expect Joey Pants to drop out no later than Monday, while Rocco Rossi vaingloriously fails to realize that nothing he does matters at all, at this point.

Of course, all that does is submerge us into the Dark Age of Furious George Smitherman's Awful Reign, which will be just as bad as a Ford victory and probably worse than the Miller years. Sure, he's a bald guy with a temper, but he's not the ladies' man that I am.

I guess I should start raising money for my 2014 challenge, huh?


Note: Chances are that I'm going to hear that I've been taking it easy on Furious George, which is sort of true. That's because he hasn't been much of a factor in the last few months. In light of the Gobal-Ipsos poll and the Thomson withdrawal, he is now. My knives will be coming out for him shortly.

To my readers outside the city, fear not. This loathsome and silly election will be over three and a half weeks and I'll return to writing about stuff that more of you can relate to. All things being equal, I'm amazed that my hits have gone up during this mess and not down.

I thank you for your continued patience.

A Deficit of Responsibilty and Honesty

I consider myself a strong fiscal conservative. However, I do not believe that Republicans are fiscal conservatives, and haven't been since 1976. Republicans are believers in supply-side economics, which is a philosophy that should be utterly discredited by now. The fact that it already hasn't been, in the face of a very clear history, should tell you everything you need to know about the conservatism, intelligence and honesty of the GOP.

Supply-side economics has been attempted three times in the last half-century. The first time was the 1962-'64 tax cuts proposed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and were opposed by congressional Republicans. The second time was the 1981 Kemp-Roth tax cut signed into law by President Reagan. Third were the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts.

All three spurred the economic growth and federal revenue to one extent or another. All three also occurred at the same time as rapid growth in federal spending, particularly in military spending. In two of the cases, 1962-'64 and 2001-'03, the United States was fighting wars and massively increasing discretionary program spending. In none of the cases did the increased economic growth or tax revenue match the explosions in spending and increasingly large budget deficits resulted.

Fifty years of experience has shown supply-side economics to have a 100% failure rate. The fact is that you simply cannot cut spending in a way that makes large tax cuts work in a democracy for the simple reason is that spending is the surest and simplest way to get reelected. At this point, suggesting that supply-side theory can create anything other than debt is an exercise in trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Psychiatry has a term that defines that nicely.

The United Kingdom's new prime minister, David Cameron, is someone that I would describe as a true fiscal conservative. He understands the crippling force of debt and the harm that it ultimately causes society at every level. Moreover, he's taking the steps necessary to confront it. There's nothing empty or rhetorical about what he's proposing, unlike the flaccid and dishonest GOP on the other side of the pond.

Cameron's plan is far more radical than anything Margaret Thatcher would ever dreamed of proposing, but so are the economic problems that he's facing. Most of Britain's government departments - including defense - will be cut between 20-40% over the next five years and taxes are going to go up rather significantly.

Let's for a moment compare this to the biggest economic debate in the United States, the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Notably, the question isn't whether to extend them, but to whom. Neither the Democrats or the Republicans are thinking of doing anything silly, like actually pay for them, but both want to extend them. And that's going to cost a fortune.

Obama Democrats want to extend the cuts to everyone making less than $250,000 at a cost of $3 trillion over the next ten years. The GOP wants to extend them to everyone and make them permanent, if at all possible, at a cost of $3.7 trillion over the next decade.

To put that in perspective, if you combine the 2008 TARP program and the 2009 stimulus plan that Republicans can't stop harping about, you wind up with about $1.7 trillion after rounding the numbers up - considerably less than half the cost of the GOP tax cut proposal. If you add the total costs thus far of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you still come in under $3.7 trillion. Throw in the projected costs of ObamaCare, and only then do you break $4 trillion.

Long story short, $3.7 trillion dollars is an awful lot of money.

Keep those numbers in mind as we explore the almost incandescent dishonesty of Indiana representative and House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence on Meet the Press this past Sunday. It'll be enlightening, I promise.

MR. GREGORY: OK. All right, Congressman Pence, you can...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: That just does not make sense.

MR. GREGORY: ...you can take on the substance of that. But first, answer this question about the time, maybe, because this is where the news is, should the House take this up before the midterm vote?

REP. PENCE: David, there is no question that there should be no higher priority for the Congress of the United States today than making sure that no American sees a tax increase in January of 2011, not one. I, I, I have to tell you, this, for all the world, seems like a moment where Congress is putting politics ahead of prosperity. You know, it--what, what they're proposing here, even a--even if they found some way to just extend middle class tax relief, would be an enormous tax increase in January on job creators in this country. You know, higher taxes won't get people hired. Raising taxes on job creators won't create jobs, and the American people know that.

But let me say one last thing. I, I...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: David...

REP. PENCE: ...I think it would be unconscionable for this Congress to adjourn without giving the bipartisan majority in the Congress that wants to extend all current tax relief an up or down vote.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But let me ask you this because this is a key question

REP. VAN HOLLEN: David--wait, David.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah, hold on, Congressman, I'll get right back to you. But I want to ask this key question. In this Pledge to America that...

REP. PENCE: Right.

MR. GREGORY: ...that we'll talk about in, in greater detail in just a moment, is this commitment to bringing down the deficit.

REP. PENCE: Right.

MR. GREGORY: As well as extending the tax cuts. How do you answer the charge from Democrats, from the president as well, that you don't have a way to pay for extending the tax cuts, and yet you're committed to deficit reduction?

REP. PENCE: Well, look, in the Pledge to America, which I look forward to chatting about, we say, look, we've got to do something to get this economy moving again. We give real and meaningful proposals to begin the process of reining in runaway federal spending by both political parties...

MR. GREGORY: But, but how do you pay for the tax cuts is the question.

REP. PENCE: ...and reforming the government.

Look, job one needs to be to create jobs. The American people know the last thing you want to do in the worst economy in 25 years is raise taxes on small business owners and family farmers. We have to vote before Congress adjourns for the political season, the fall elections, on an up or down vote. More than 30 Democrats support extending all the current tax relief. And, and we're calling on Speaker Pelosi and leaders like Chris, give us an up or down vote, let the Congress work its will and give the American people certainty...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Dave...

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Van Hollen, go ahead.

REP. PENCE: ...that there will be no tax increase.

The fact is that the GOP doesn't have any "real and meaningful proposals to begin the process of reining in runaway federal spending by both political parties." They intend to extend tax cuts that will cost nearly $4 trillion dollars over ten years without having any way to pay for them while increasing defense spending.

What they actually propose to do is cut "non-defense discretionary spending", which is roughly 17% of the budget. They are very deliberately not saying anything about cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense. Even if you completely eliminated the 17% of the budget that Pence is promising to cut, which no one is suggesting will happen, the United States will still be behind the eight ball because of the Bush tax cuts, increased military spending, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the exploding interest costs on the existing debt.

The only "certainty" in the Republican and Democratic plans is that the deficits will get wider and the debt will grow until interest on the debt costs more than the Pentagon, at which point American foreign policy as we currently know it is finished.

REP. PENCE: If the current tax relief was enough to get this economy moving again, the economy would be moving and it's not. What, what Chris and the Democrats in Congress and the administration continue to insist on is a tax increase in January of 2011. But I want to stipulate to the point. That's why Republicans, in the Pledge to America, called for a 20 percent business deduction on all business income immediately, to be voted on in this Congress. We think there needs to be more pro-growth tax relief to get the economy moving again. But, for heaven sakes, let's not raise taxes on job creators.

MR. GREGORY: All right, but let me ask you a bigger question about tax cuts or tax hikes. You say in the Pledge to America that you want to bring spending down to 2008 levels, which you well know is not enough to really seriously tackle the deficit, even if you bring it back to 2008. So the question for you, and I'll ask Congressman Van Hollen, how can you rule out tax hikes as we move forward if you want to get serious about tackling the deficit?

REP. PENCE: Well, look, I, I--number one, I think you rule out tax increases because our problem isn't that the American people are taxed too little, our problem is that Washington spends too much. In the Pledge to America we call for cutting discretionary spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, cutting the amount of funding allocated to Congress, freezing all pay on nonsecurity federal employees, ending federal control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ending TARP. That'd save a trillion dollars over 10 years alone. And, you know, reducing discretionary spending back to those 2008 levels, that would be--I mean, that would save $100 billion this year.

MR. GREGORY: That's fine, but that doesn't...

REP. PENCE: We, we can get there through fiscal discipline and reform.

MR. GREGORY: ...that really doesn't tackle the deficit completely.

That might be the most ridculous thing I've ever heard. Pence is lying, stupid or both.

The American people obviously aren't being taxed enough, as evidenced by the deficit. Congress, over the last fifty years - including under Saint Ronald of Reagan, who raised taxes almost as much as he cut them - raised less revenue that it spent. And God, did it know how to spend. And the American people, in their infinite self-interested ignorance, kept reelecting the people who spent more than anyone had.

Freezing spending at 2008 levels - which was horrible enough - still only puts you back at Bush's deficit levels and doesn't do anything to address the existing debt, which will continue to grow because of interest. As long as deficits are still in place, you don't reduce the debt or even bring down your interest costs in any real way. Period.

Deficits, particularly deficits of this size, aren't just spending-related. They're far more indicative of a revenue problem, especially when no one is serious about cutting spending revenue below Bush levels. It ignores entirely that the United States has been consistently in deficit since 1961.

I understand that a tax increase - which letting the Bush tax cuts expire isn't because their expiration was written into them, due to the fact that Bush couldn't otherwise pass them through a Republican Senate - isn't good for job creation. I also understand that this isn't a good time to do it, with the economy so delicate. But it may be the only time.

Letting the tax cuts expire might very well be enough to push the economy into recession. But the GOP would oppose it even if things were grand and everyone was farting through silk. They'd say that it would cause a recession, anyway.

There's some precedent for wounding the economy in order to save it. In 1982 President Reagan gave Paul Volker political cover to cause a deep and very deliberate recession by hiking interest rates in a very weak economy. That was done to finally break inflation, which was accomplished beyond anyone's expectations. But it did hurt a lot of people for a protracted period and was politically unpopular beyond words as it happened.

Righting America's fiscal house might actually be more important than a double-dip recession and continued or increased joblessness. That's certainly not true politically, but its imperative for the future fiscal and foreign policy health of the United States. I can't be the only one to notice that China has become increasingly aggressive in its trade and military policies in recent weeks, can I?

Here are the facts about tax cuts. President Bush and Nancy Pelosi sent out $150 billion in "refunds" in early 2008. A third of President Obama's stimulus - roughly $300 billion - was tax cuts. People like Representative Pence will be the first to tell you that nearly half a trillion dollars in tax relief did virtually nothing for the economy. And the idea that decade-old tax cuts are going to stimulate anything is too silly to even be considered a plausible lie. It's a mirage.

Here's the fact about spending. There isn't enough of it to cut in discretionary areas to make a significant difference. No serious person is suggesting that there is. Even Paul Ryan's roadmap, as drastic as it sounds, only proposes reforms that will take twenty or more years to see any savings from.

This is primarily a revenue problem. There is now a full five decades of history that proves it, and no one is seriously suggesting otherwise with any degree of honesty. And fixing that is going to suck for everybody, regardless of when you do it. The only problem is that it becomes politically impossible to do it when and if the economy fully recovers.

David Cameron is right and the Americans - Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers and the voters alike - are selfish, stupid, self-destructive and delusional. They'll wait until it's too late, by which time things will have spiraled so far out of control that nothing will work.

In the not-too distant future, you'll be seeing bumper stickers that say "America: A Nice Place While It Lasted." Take that to the bank, assuming that there are any left.

The Revenge of Katy Perry

If there's one thing that everybody knows, it's that children ruin everything. Just ask Susan Smith. They smell funny and make a mess when they eat. They can't hold their liquor, they don't know anything about politics, they choke if you give them a cigarette, and god help everyone if you try to tell them a particularly saucy fuck story.

I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone bothers with the snotty little bastards. If it was up to me, they'd all be deported to Syria and not allowed to come back until they turn 25.

This was all driven home by Katy Perry's catastrophic appearance on Sesame Street last week. If nothing else, we learned that Sesame Workshop, Jim Henson Productions and PBS all have some unexplainable and terrifying allergy to superior hooters. It's almost like reverse eugenics and it would frankly make me fear for the future if I wasn't going to be dead soon, anyway. The only difference between last week and today is that I now embrace my eventual demise instead of fear it.

I don't know when these people became so determined to protect the goddamned children from everything that's truly beautiful in life, but it leaves me convinced that Barack Obama was lying and that Hope is as dead as Nietzsche said God is. I'm so tired of being surrounded by the enemies of beauty but I remain too furious to give up the fight.

If the producers of Sesame Street had any sense of aesthetics, they'd have shot Ms. Perry wearing nothing but a bra and panties and delivering her little song on a trampoline. Or wrestling Jessica Simpson. But they don't and the leaders of tomorrow won't even enjoy the timid scene that was shot.

To the best of my knowledge, Elmo doesn't have discernible sex organs at all. But if he saw Saturday Night Live this weekend, he does. I just saw it myself and I'm here to tell you that my mighty putz is ready to tear through my pants and start slapping you all about the head and shoulders as my testicles shudder and quake, full to the brim with liquid justice.

Who am I kidding? I can't lie to any of you. I'm not wearing any pants.

There's just something about a pretty brunette with big, fat titties - freed from the terrible oppression of a brassiere - that reminds me that there's still something tragic about the fact that we're all doomed. From time to time it's important to realize that the collapse of society might actually cost us something worthwhile. We need to know that the whole world really isn't Bishop Eddie Long and the entire Catholic Church.

My only regret is that something this spectacular was relegated to the banal and ugly cabaret of boredom that Saturday Night Live has become since 1993. Some things are so important that they require a more fitting venue, like an Oval Office address.

However, I always try to let you make up your own minds about such things. Hopefully, the barbarians at NBC Universal don't force YouTube to take this down in five minutes because Hulu isn't available outside of the United States.




Special thanks to The Superficial and The Moderate Voice.

Update: If YouTube screws me, I'll screw them back! This should work just fine This is just too important for you to miss.






And look! A bouncy, bouncy gif! Thanks to What Would Tyler Durden Do

Fuck! If any of you know how to make gifs work in blogger, I'd surely appreciate your help.

They've Got The Whole World In Their Hands

I've been suggesting for a few years now that the War on Terror can be ended in Kashmir. That's a view you don't hear very often because most people aren't as smart as I am, but it's as likely as anything else I've heard proposed, and most often, more so. More importantly, the history tends to bear it out.

It should be noted that there were no terror training camps in Afghanistan prior to 1989. The Pashtun mujaheddin that the United States, Saudi Arabia and China supported were armed and trained in the tribal provinces of Pakistan during the anti-Soviet jihad.

That's sort of important because that's exactly where they're fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan from today. Moreover, a good number of them are exactly the same people that we armed and trained all those years ago. In intelligence circles, this is known as "blowback." Another example of blowback is the diversion of US mujaheddin funding to the Pakistani nuclear program. Some accounts have as much as 50% of the Afghan aid going into the Islamic Bomb.

Once the Soviets began withdrawing from Afghanistan and the civil war began, the remaining Arab fighters began establishing training camps in the south and east of the country under the sponsorship of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence.

There were two motives for doing this. First, Afghanistan is strategically important to Islamabad, particularly the military, and the Pakistanis wanted to continue their influence there, hoping that a faction that they controlled would prevail in the coming battle for Kabul. The camps would be used to train Pakistan's preferred factions, although the Arabs would be the primary face of them.

Secondly, the ISI hoped that the lessons that the learned in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad could be applied in the Indian occupied half of Kashmir. Fighters would be trained in Afghanistan and then smuggled past the Line of Control in Kashmir to support the independence movement there. It isn't a coincidence that Kashmir exploded into violence in 1989, the year that the Soviets began demobilizing from Afghanistan. Afghan-trained terrorists arrived in Kashmir in large numbers in 1992.

The terror camps had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, which had only been formed that year. Osama bin Laden had already returned to Saudi Arabia, later moving to Sudan and not returning to Afghanistan until mid-1996. Bin Laden and his band of Arabs had nothing to do with the Afghan civil war. Bin Laden was forced out of Sudan under pressure from the Clinton administration, which might have created another incidence of blowback in the form of 9/11. It's impossible to imagine the Sudanese, who want nothing more than better relations with the U.S, tolerating something like that being planned and executed from its territory.

The camps, indeed, the entire superstructure of terror in Afghanistan is a Pakistani creation and remains largely - although not entirely - under the influence of the ISI.

Pakistan supports terrorism because it is seen as a strategic asset against the militarily superior India. The fact that those assets are being used against American and NATO forces is seen by the ISI as unfortunate but the cost of doing business. Pakistan is not going to diplomatically persuaded to stop supporting terrorism, nor is there any prospect of a military attack accomplishing that goal. I've been discussing the consequences of invading Pakistan at Jay Currie's place, so I'll refer you there.

However, Pakistan would end its support of terror if their reasons for that support were resolved. The first step on that path would be to resolve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. Once that's settled, everything else is relatively simple.

Kashmir has been a cauldron of wrong for as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but hasn't received half the attention, despite a much higher body count and the potential for even more disastrous consequences. Kashmir is far more likely to be the flashpoint of a nuclear exchange than is Iran or North Korea. And it could be easily avoided.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, called for a national plebiscite on Kashmir's status. The people could decide to join India, join Pakistan, or achieve independence. India has refused to hold the referendum, knowing that it would lose highly strategic, if overwhelmingly Muslim populated, territory.

Although the violence has declined somewhat since 1994, there are still approximately 2,500 violent incidents in Kashmir every year. The Indian security paramilitaries (as opposed to the Army) have been credibly accused of gross war crimes, although every side in the conflict is guilty of atrocities to one extent or another.

In the last couple of weeks, separatist protests have begun anew in Indian Kashmir and Jammu. Surprisingly, the New Dehli is responding by easing security measures in the territory and openly talking about modifying its hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which protects those security forces accused of crimes from prosecution.

India's relaxation of security in the face of renewed protests might be a response to Pakistani President Zadari's declaration that Kashmiri separatists are "terrorists." Or it might not. Right now it's impossible to say with any certainty.

But this might create the ideal circumstances for a deal between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, preferably allowing the plebiscite called for under Resolution 47. That would almost certainly create an independent Kashmir.

If that happens, Pakistan would have far fewer reasons to support terrorism and several more reasons to oppose them. Islamabad's not altogether paranoid fears of an American "tilt" toward New Delhi would suddenly mean considerably less than they currently do. More important, without Pakistani support, the odds of the Afghan government being able to handle the Taliban without large numbers of NATO troops increases dramatically.

Wouldn't that be nice? I sure hope that someone in Washington is having the same idea.

A Better Endorsement Than Mine ....

I was having a conversation with Voltaire's Ghost in the comments to this post last night and one the points he made were about Sarah Thomson's qualifications to be mayor. Specifically Voltaire wondered about whether "her ideas add up, if she could handle the job, if she has the smarts for it, and the impression I get is that this is pretty much a vanity project for her."

That got me to wondering what makes Rob Ford so goddamned special, anyhow. What precisely has he done with his life that qualifies him to be mayor? We know that he likes football and eating, although not necessarily in that order, and that everything he has - including a multi-million dollar business and his political career - was handed to him by his daddy.

Other than demonstrating that he's a fabulously wealthy guy who can afford his own stationary, can anyone name three things that he's done on City Council? Seriously, three will do. He's been there for a decade, and I can't think of a single idea of his that was actually enacted, or even came close to being so. I'll grant you that he's developed quite a personality cult in the local blogosphere and the Toronto Sun, but that's not exactly a legislative achievement.

Anyhow, Conrad Black spoke out and endorsed Sarah Thomson this morning in the paper that he used to own, the National Post. He does so in critiquing the same Bob Hepburn Star column that I did on Thursday.

I don’t wish to sound like a school-teaching stickler in denigrating Rob Ford’s intellect, but anyone who says, as Mr. Ford did, that “They have other fish to fry beside feathering their own nest” is not fit for high public office. Smitherman is just a drop-out from the McGuinty economic miracle that has made Ontario a have-not province. Rossi and Pantalone are ineffectual panderers to right and left, respectively (though at some candidates’ meetings, they may have got their directions mixed). Sarah Thomson is the only one who has an original program, and is untainted by the gravy train Rob Ford abhors.

Sarah Thomson, Hepburn sermonizes excitedly, is running as a woman: “Can anyone figure out why she thinks she has a chance of winning? She gets media play because, honestly, she’s the only woman in the race, not because she’s qualified.”

I would have thought this truth in political packaging refreshing. She is a woman, a mother, and not a priggish or Stepford version of her sex. She’s also a successful businesswoman and a peppy self-made person who would bring some panache and originality to the job. After eight years of government by ultra-green David Miller, the friend of the garbagemen and of those who have indecent fantasies about speed bumps, it’s time for a representative person who yet has some style and can deliver a program.

There is no more that is wrong with being a woman than there is anything wrong with the Hepburn white hope, Smitherman, overtly pitching to gays, Ford to the heavy-set Archie Bunkers, and Rossi and Pantalone to the right and left of the Italian community. The real question is where are the other women; and the answer is that they haven’t come forward because uptight gender-bothered stuffed shirts in the municipal media have ignored Thomson.

Hepburn grumbles that her only previous election was an unsuccessful try for alderman in Hamilton, Ont. This is a good thing. The best mayor we could have is a can-do, straight-talking woman who is not mired in the rancid bouillabaisse of municipal affairs, looks like a successful person and is one; has some flair and the energy of comparative youth; doesn’t look and sound and think like the “before” half of a 3 a.m. television commercial for weigh-loss or hair-growth nostrums and will shake things up and confer some fun on municipal affairs.

The fetid little in-group of city hall reporters has stonewalled the less familiar candidates. They aren’t the Electoral College; and they should open the race up instead of trying to shut it down. If, in a week or two, none of the second tier of candidates has moved too far, Rossi and Pantalone should pull out in favour of Thomson. Smitherman is a melting iceberg and Ford is a deflating gas balloon.

My thinking exactly. Bravo, Conrad!


On another note, everyone who's interested should read this expose on Rob Ford's math. In, of all places, the Sun.

Don't Mess With The Lohan!

Am I the only one that's starting to get the impression that Lindsay Lohan is a beautifully beknockered James Bond? Every time the villainous California judiciary gets into explaining the details of how she'll meet her end and its hands, she's already on the road and enjoying her sweet, sweet freedom. There's definitely a pattern developing here.

Just last night I thought that my faith had left me forever. I saw no way out for Lindsay this time. I thought that the forces of evil had at long last triumphed, and I mourned the death of everything that is good and right in the world. It was sad beyond words.

It also goes to show just how little I know. People - and I include myself in this - tend to forget that the Lohan has magical powers that protect her from the evil that envelops us all. She's like a hard-nippled Hammer of Justice that exists only to confound the malevolence of the world. We get so distracted by her magnificent mammaries that forget that sometimes.

Clearly her super powers include, but aren't limited to, getting judges so angry that they forget the law that they're supposed to be applying. That's pretty much what ended up happening yesterday. The sinister Judge Elden Fox, in a fit of pique, sent Lindsay to the pokey for a month without bail. That, as it happens, is illegal. The state of California guarantees the right to bail for defendants in misdemeanor cases, which probation violations in DUI cases decidedly are.

By nightfall, Lindsay's shyster was appealing Fox's ruling before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg, who promptly reversed the order and restored the balance of the universe. I awoke to this news with what the Quakers call "peace at the center." All was right in the world again.

By no means was Judge Schnegg's order ideal. For instance, bail was set at $300,000 and Ms. Lohan has to wear that infernal SCRAM bracelet that I find so hot again. Moreover, her bail conditions stipulate that she's prohibited from "possessing any controlled substances, must refrain from drinking and must stay out of places where alcohol is primarily sold."

I would have given her a hug and a prize, probably an eight ball of blow. But that's just another argument for my passing the California bar and getting myself elected to the bench, isn't it? Besides, I look amazing in black. I'm a winter, you know.

As Rick James once said, "Cocaine is an amazing drug" and Lindsay proves it over and over again. As long as she's on it, there's just no foiling her! She's like a bisexual Road Runner with much nicer legs and a super tight little ass and the judiciary is Wile E. Coyote, forever doomed to be crushed by its own ACME anvil. I'm not proud of unfavorably comparing the courts to a cartoon, but in this case, I'm not exactly ashamed of it, either.

For a few hours yesterday, I had lost my faith in Truth, Justice and the American Way. And even from the Lynwood Correctional Facility for Women somewhere on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Lindsay was there for me still. That girl should be given a cape and have a federal holiday named after her.

There's a lesson here to be learned by us all: Don't mess with the Lohan!

The Light and the Promise of Universal Justice Extinguished

On the evening of April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "Promised Land" speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a speech that delivered hope to millions and continues to do so even today. The speech closed with this, one of his most revered closings;

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Less than 24 hours later, King was dead, murdered by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel. In the hours, days, and even years that followed, people the world over had come to believe that the light and the promise of universal justice had been extinguished forever. It was a sad and fearful time to be alive.

I wasn't alive in April of '68. As a matter of fact, I was still 23 months away from being born. I understand the importance of the King assassination as a historical event, but I have no real feeling for it, although it has provided me a compelling reason to keep my ass out of Memphis.

Never in my lifetime have I felt that the light and the promise of universal justice had been extinguished. I had spent my life hoping that we as a civilization had turned a corner from that dark day in nearly 43 years ago.

I learned this afternoon that I had spent my life hoping in vain. The scales were lifted from my eyes, brothers and sisters. They have at long last been lifted and I can finally see! I can see what injustice and contempt for the common man seep from the system's pores. A system that brave young men and women are dying even today to uphold contemplates nothing less than our total subjugation at its feet.

I now know that there is no promised land and there probably never was. And if it exists, my god-fearing friends, the system and The Man will do everything in his might to keep us from it. I'm just glad that I don't have children to explain this to, and I pity those of you that do.

Everything that was supposed to be good and great about the human condition seems like a cruel mockery now, an almost pornographic taunt of what could have been were we not governed by the presence of evil.

I don't know that if we'll ever be able to live in harmony as a people. I don't know that still phrases like "We the People" aren't going represent anything other than a sickening tease of what are supposed to be mankind's highest ideals, but I do know that we won't be seeing it in my lifetime. I haven't seen the promised land. I thought I did, but it was a cruel and cold mirage that now only makes me hungrier, thirstier and aching for hope.

The promised land might yet be out there, but I know that I'll never get there with you. I'm just too tired, defeated and emotionally crushed to make that journey anymore. All hope is gone. After all of these years, all of the great dreams have finally died.

I now know that none of us have anything better to look toward than dying alone. And I know that you probably feel the same way.

Sesame Street is Bad for Children and Other Living Things

I spent my early childhood years preoccupied with the Watergate hearings and developing my long list of reasons to despise Sam Ervin, so I'm not very familiar with Sesame Street. However, I do have a niece and nephew and have had a few girlfriends with young children, so I know that it's supposed to teach you to spell and whatnot.

I'd like to take Sesame Street to task for that. You see, spelling isn't everything. Christ, it's not even one of the top five things that you should strive to better about yourself. Here's an example. I've read two or three of Bill O'Reilly's books, and the spelling was fucking impeccable. Just beautiful. But that doesn't mean that I learned anything from them or would recommend them to anyone that I wasn't angry at.

Things like spelling are highly overrated. Sure, it's nice to be able to pull it off, but it's hardly an essential feature to being a success in life. Looking good and having nice jugs, however, are. And I think that it's a modern tragedy that children won't be learning that from Katy Perry on Sesame Street.

Katy Perry's appearance on the long-running PBS children's show has been pulled after parents complained about the singer's cleavage-baring dress.

A clip leaked on the web this week (nearly a million people have viewed it on YouTube), showing Perry, 25, in a low-cut dress and veil, performing a kid-friendly version of her hit "Hot N Cold" with Elmo.

It was set to air later this year as part of the show's 41st season.

TMZ reports that parents quickly fired off angry letters, demanding it not to be broadcast. "They're gonna have to rename it cleavage avenue," complained one.

You know, that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea, at all. I wonder if that's been trademarked yet ...

There are only a few things I know about Katy Perry;

1. She has a cute face and just the most wonderful tits in music today.


2. She was raised by a Pentecostal family that often spoke in tongues. Those fucking people scare me.


3. She's only marginally talented, but made it big because of her luscious sweater puppies.


4. She's engaged to some incomprehensible, unfunny Limey asshole.


5. Did I mention her tits already?

There's a lot that kids can learn from Ms. Perry, such as the utility of having fantastic breasts. That's pretty powerful and it couldn't be more appropriate in an age of economic decay. Kids need to know that they're going to exploit every advantage they have just to avoid being cannibalized when they grow up and life looks like the set of Escape From New York. The sooner they know, the better off they'll be.

But they won't be learning any of it because of the cowardice of PBS and the fact that today's parents are insisting on raising a generation of social retards. And that's fine for the parents. They might be able to salvage just enough of their decimated 401(k) accounts to avoid the worst of the pending holocaust, but they're throwing their kids to the literal and figurative wolves.

Wow, I'm starting to sound like one of those Goldline commercials on Glenn Beck's show, aren't I?

I guess I just feel strongly about children not learning about the magical powers of great tits. My problem is that I'm just too passionate sometimes.

Maybe I can help. If you have young children, you should sit them down read them Postcards of the Hanging every night at bedtime. They'll learn everything they'll need to know right here. I hope to be known someday as "the Education Blogger."

Finger Lickin' Good: Why KFC is Brilliant

I wasted two years of my life studying advertising in college and while that didn't get me anything worthwhile, like an adult job, I sure did learn a lot about who the purchasing public is and how they think.

I extrapolated from that much of what I know about political communications, since the two aren't as different as you would think. Joe McGinness isn't the conservative movement's favorite boy lately, but he did write the seminal tone Selling Of The President, which detailed the triumph of modern advertising techniques in modern presidential politics. Knowing something about how it works comes in handy from time to time.

Here's the basic fact of life in advertising: If you're a woman, or anyone over the age of 54, you don't exist. Nobody cares what you think and no one ever will. This is because broads and old people are what is known as "brand loyal." They find a product that they like and they stick with it, come hell or high water. I tend to be uncommonly brand loyal for my demographic (male, age 35-54), but that's only because I'm in touch with my feminine side. Unsurprisingly, that's also why I eat pussy like a professional.

The only group that any advertiser on earth cares anything at all about is men aged 18-34. Those people tend to be incredibly reckless with their disposable income, spending it on anything that even slightly hints at the possibility of getting laid. If you ever wondered why the "typical housewife" in, say, a handi-vac commercial is really cute and has bigger than average tits, now you know. Young-to-middle-aged men are the most predictable creatures in all of Christendom.

The Artists Formerly Known as Kentucky Fried Chicken know this as well as I do, or at least their marketing department and ad agencies do. That goes a long way in explaining why they're using hot co-ed ass to sell chicken sammiches.

KFC wants folks to watch its backside.

Or, more precisely, the backsides of female college students it's recruiting to promote its hot new bunless Double Down sandwiches.

Women on college campuses are being paid $500 each to hand out coupons while wearing fitted sweatpants with "Double Down" in large letters across their rear ends

The promo comes as KFC is in the doldrums domestically. The world's largest chicken chain's U.S. same-store sales fell 7% in the second quarter. Nearly all its growth now is in international expansion.

Last week, the chain confessed that more than six in 10 Americans ages 18 to 25 — the chain's key demographic — couldn't identify who Colonel Sanders was in the KFC logo.

Now, it's turning to cute women parading around campus with "Double Down" emblazoned across their fannies.

It turns out that having a really old guy with a military rank for a first name is good marketing tool during peacetime or when America is fight popular wars. Otherwise, not so much. That's when you go with the tried and true standby of tits and ass.

There are a number of reasons to reasons to run this promotion on college campuses. If you happen to be one of my more unimaginative readers, I'll spell them out for you.

First, college-aged men fit the perfect demographic and tend to be the least brand loyal component of it.

Second, those guys are going to graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and enter into a declining job market that promises them nothing but a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed. A good percentage of them will be unemployed or underemployed for years, despite their fancy degrees. Introducing them to the concept of "comfort food" as a lifestyle choice is just smart marketing.

Third, everyone wants to fuck college girls. They're just younger, tighter, and better than almost any other kind, except strippers. Everybody knows that. How can a multinational corporation not exploit their hot little bodies for fun and profit? Frankly, I'm amazed they waited this long. Maybe it takes a total economic collapse to bring out the creativity in the corporate machine.

Of course, some people can think of nothing better to do than complain.

The nation's largest women's group doesn't like it one bit. "It's so obnoxious to once again be using women's bodies to sell fundamentally unhealthy products," says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. What's more, she says, KFC has forgotten something important: Women make more than half the decisions about what to eat for dinner.

(...)

The stunt hasn't reached Colorado State University — and senior public relations major Candace Carlucci hopes it never does. "It may be funny, but it's also inappropriate and degrading," she says. "There must be another way for KFC to get its message out."

Terry O'Neil and NOW should shut the fuck up and make me a steak. They've just proven to me that special interest groups exist only to provide upper-middle-class lifestyles to people who don't know how life works.

If KFC knows anything, it's that they aren't marketing to people who have women making their dinner decisions for them (for example, families) because they aren't going to be regular customers. Furthermore, any mother who would feed their kids Double Down sandwiches every night should be indicted for child endangerment. That shit'll kill you.

Young, single men know that, of course. They just don't care. They - by which I mean "I" - will see a tight, supple co-ed ass and their mouths will start watering. More than usual, I mean. And for chicken, too! If nothing else, the phrase "a fine piece of chicken" will return to what it was supposed to mean!

NOW has no idea what they're talking about and they never did. That's why they threw Bob Packwood under the bus and gave Bill Clinton a walk, despite the fact that Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that NOW feared would disproportionately hurt single women and children. So fuck them.

I'm more surprised by Candace Carlucci, whose fancy education should've taught her that capitalism is supposed to be inappropriate and degrading. That's why it's fun and practised the world over. Hasn't she learned anything from the fact that Glenn Beck has a career?

You know what the worst part of writing this post has been? Now I'm horny and hungry!

True Colors, Shining Through: Dick Armey Isn't Very Bright

You might have noticed by now that I don't have a great deal of respect for the Tea Party movement. Anyone fluent in American history will tell you that riding a wave of populist anger is a good way to achieve national prominence, but it almost never wins national elections. This is evidenced by the fact that the only truly populist president, Andrew Jackson, was elected in 1828. There have been any number of populist nominees, but none were elected.

Infiltrating and overthrowing a party's power structure through the primary system is one thing - and not a particularly different thing to do - but using that structure to win actual elections is quite another. Barry Goldwater's enthusiasts took over the Republican party without breaking a sweat between 1961 and '64 ... and got destroyed by Lyndon Johnson in the general, winning only seven states.

I don't believe the Tea Partiers believe or even know much of anything. If they really were interested in taking down the much-dreaded "special interests", they might consider repealing sections 501(c)(4) and 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows for political participation without paying taxes by non-charitable groups. They would also support a ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffers.

Nor do I think that the Tea Party is particularly serious about the economy, the deficit or the debt. Sure, they make the right noises about those things, but they lack anything that be described as specificity. Worse, they exclude such wide swaths of the budget untouched - Social Security, Medicare and defense - that there's little left to cut or reform. Indeed, if they ever achieve a governing majority, they'll be tied down by their own campaign rhetoric.

Having said that, I will give them great political credit for focusing almost exclusively, although only in the most superficial way, on the economy. Their leadership knows that it is not just the winning issue of this cycle, it's the only issue.

An exclusively economic platform also helps the movement escape the trap of social issues, which have a long history of dividing conservatives. Fiscal and foreign policy conservatives have long feared and distrusted the Christian Right, and the country as a whole never embraced their views. Economic populism also has the potential to bring disaffected conservative Democrats into the movement that abortion and gay marriage doesn't.

Earlier this summer Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, the only potential Republican presidential candidate that I don't find myself laughing out loud at, called for a "truce" on social issues. Unifying the conservative movement around core principles that are universally agreed upon isn't just smart politics, it's a great governing strategy.

Of course, Dick Armey - the former House majority leader, lobbyist and denizen of the 501(c)(4) and 527, FeedomWorks; which is primarily responsible for the Tea Party movement - is having none of it.

"Tea party" advocate Dick Armey, chairman of Freedom Works, says that if Republicans take control of Congress in November’s elections, changing policies on social issues like abortion will be on their agenda.

(...)

When asked Monday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters about the possibility of a truce on social issues going into the presidential campaign, Mr. Armey said, “A truce? No. These are issues of the heart. People are not going to turn their hearts and minds away from things that they have so heartfelt.”

Armey, who served as House majority leader, added, “the fact of the matter is there is sort of a question of first things first priorities. If we lose this nation, if it falls into insolvency, then all of these issues pretty well fall by the wayside too, don’t they. So i think there is a setting of priorities.”

He specifically referred to the abortion issue. “Since President Obama has been elected, there has been extraordinarily high levels of funding for international abortions through what is called the Mexico City language. That fight hasn’t been had for a few years. Now that fight will be had with this majority," he said, referring to his stated expectation that Republicans will win control of the House, and perhaps the Senate. He added, “these issues are too important to be left behind and they won’t be left behind.”

For a guy who seems to taking a large majority for granted, Armey doesn't seem to be very serious about winning one. I can't think of another reason why he'd give the Democrats a gift like this, let alone introduce wedge issues within his own movement.

Here's a short history of abortion and the GOP. When Roe v. Wade was decided in February of 1973, the Republican party universally ignored it. I'm not sure that presidents Nixon or Ford mentioned it at all, and Ronald Reagan's 1976 primary challenge focused almost entirely on foreign policy. In fact, as governor of California, Reagan signed America's most liberal abortion law at the time.

Abortion only became a controlling issue in conservative politics in 1980, where it stayed until about 2000. Even during the Reagan and first Bush presidencies and the Republican-era in Congress (1995-2007), there was a great deal of rhetoric about abortion, but virtually no action. This is because the national consensus was on the other side, and everyone but the activist base of the GOP knew it.

After the 2000 election and the Florida recount, abortion largely disappeared as a national issue, having been largely replaced by the growing gay rights movement. Since 2004 conservative support for things like gay marriage and a repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has grown far faster than almost anyone could have predicted.

So why bring back the ghost of the singularly ineffective abortion wars of the 1980s and '90s, and why introduce into an economic populist movement that has heretofore been silent on social issues that can only divide it?

Long story short, Dick Armey doesn't know very much about history or politics. The rap on him in the House was that he was little more than a tool of Tom DeLay's, much like Dennis Hastert was after Newt Gingrich was successfully thrown out of politics in 1999. If you really want an idea of what a loathsome individual and sleazy operator Armey is, I highly recommenced reading the last few chapters of Joe Scarborough's first book, Rome Wasn't Burnt In A Day. Scarborough was one of the only conservatives to speak out against the 2001-'06 Bush spending spree that Armey couldn't wait to vote for. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Mark Levin didn't.

According to his Wikipedia page, Armey had no shortage of problems with James Dobson and Focus on the Family when he was majority leader, with Dobson going so far as to call him "a consultant to the ACLU."

Well, the economic focus of the Tea Party movement frees Armey from Dobson's nonsense. Social conservatives are currently in the weakest position they've been in since 1976. Worse, if Armey gets the Tea Party involved in a socially conservative crusade, it's membership, and therefore it's power, will inevitably shrink, if not fracture entirely.

Part of the Tea Party's charm is that they are outsiders and political amateurs who proved to be remarkably skilled in taking out Republican incumbents in the primaries. But if they think that they're going to be a sustainable force in American politics, they are going to have to separate themselves from the personal political machinations of Dick Armey and the corporate agenda of FreedomWorks.

If they don't, they will ultimately be nothing more than an extension of the Republican era of 2001-'06, which did more to discredit conservatism than any liberal, let alone Barack Obama, ever could.

Lindsay Lohan Fails a Drug Test, Wins My Heart

Lindsay Lohan, as you know, is giant-jugged Jesus and the state of California are the Romans. There's just no end to the persecution that they're putting her through, and I'm just not sure how much more of it I can take. Christ was put on a cross and Lohan was forced to wear a SCRAM bracelet, which is pretty much the same thing, if you ask me.

Just because Lindsay had a couple of misunderstandings with tequila, an SUV and the Beverley Hills police department three years ago, I don't think any of us will ever be allowed to love again. I'm pretty sure that the bible has more than a few things to say about forgiveness, but I'm too hung-over to look them up. Whenever I feel like this, I'm afraid that the bible will burn my fingers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly against things like drunk driving and carjacking. I'm just willing to look at these things from a different perspective if you're really hot. If there were any justice in the world, more people would be like me.

Look at what poor Lindsay has been through, just because she missed a bunch of alcohol awareness classes and a court appearance. First, she was thrown into jail for two weeks, then she was sent to rehab. Her diagnosis from the good folks at UCLA was as follows: "She really likes whisky and blow. No problem." That, my friends, is science talking! Are you just going to ignore science? Well, I'm not - particularly when a young girl with red hair and huge cans is involved. Some things are just too important to look away from.

Anyway, the demonic California judiciary continued Lindsay's probation through November and demands that she take regular drug tests because no one in the California judiciary knows how to have fun. Well, almost no one.

Yesterday news broke about Miss Lohan's most recent drug test. Good news! She passed, testing positive for cocaine! Oh, right. That's a bad thing. I keep forgetting that the world is made entirely of funhouse mirrors that distort reality and make positive things negative. My memory isn't what it should be the morning after drinking a case of Guinness and a couple of bottles of wine and vodka.

In an act of incredible personal courage, Lindsay confirmed the news on her Twitter account late last night, saying that;

Regrettably, I did in fact fail my most recent drug test and if I am asked, I am prepared to appear before judge Fox next week as a result.

Substance abuse is a disease, which unfortunately doesn’t go away over night. I am working hard to overcome it and am taking positive steps. I am testing every single day and doing what I must do to prevent any mishaps in the future.
This was certainly a setback for me but I am taking responsibility for my actions and I’m prepared to face the consequences.

I am so thankful for the support of my fans, loved ones and immediate family, who understand that i am trying hard, but also that I am a work in progress, just as anyone else.

I am keeping my faith, and I am hopeful….Thank you all!!!

There. Happy now?

I just don't know why we all can't overlook what you people insist on calling Lindsay's "setbacks" and concentrate on the important things, like her glorious, glorious rack? Don't you people have any compassion at all? Haven't any of you ever celebrated getting out of court-mandated rehab? It's really starting to seem like I'm the only one who understands what it's like to be a redhead with a gorgeous body.

Besides, it's not like she hit a baby with her car or anything. Oh. Right. She did. But nobody's asking if the baby deserved it, now are they? Those little bastards can be pretty mouthy when they want to be. And who can say that the infant wasn't suicidal and threw itself in front of Lindsay's car. That happens more than anyone wants to admit.

Is anyone giving Lindsay the benefit of the doubt that someone with her truly jaw-dropping cleavage should rightfully expect? Nope, I'm pretty much the only person that is. And it must hurt her as much as it hurts me. If I'm known on the Internet for anything, it's feeling the pain of everyone ... especially if everyone has spectacular hooters and likes cocaine and Chivas Regal.

Why, Oh Lord, why can't we just leave Lindsay to heal in the way that only that she can? Can't you see that she's in pain? Don't you know that cocaine is sometimes used as anesthetic during particularly problematic dental procedures? Hasn't anybody thought that maybe her teeth hurt?

I just hope that we can all join hands and remember Lindsay Lohan from a more innocent time, like last week, when she was photographed smoking topless (link NSFW.) That always makes me smile because I like to smoke naked and have pretty nipples, too. It's like we're soul mates!

Good God, how can anyone so mercilessly persecute with such beautiful jugs? What's become of us as a people?

Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding: A Damned Near Perfect Song

Just listen to this, okay?

Hephzibah Anderson's Big Book of Lies

As a general rule, I'm against book burning. For example, I was strongly against that guy with the cool moustache in Florida burning the Koran last weekend. It turns out that Muslims get super-upset when you do that, so I try to avoid it whenever I can. I'll bet that you had no idea that I was so sensitive, did you?
That's not to say that I'm categorically against all book burning, however. Books represent ideas, and all ideas are not equal. In fact, there are some books and ideas that are so idiotic and repulsive that they deserve nothing less than the hottest flames available.

I'm not speaking of Hitler's Mein Kampf or Benito Mussolini's My Rise And Fall, both of which I own. They're ridiculous and unreadable books, but they're also important historical documentations of the evil that men do, and therefore they should be preserved.

No, I'm here to tell you about a truly evil and horrible book. This is a book that can cause you nothing but misery if you read it and live your life according to its awful precepts.

I'm here to tell you about Hephzibah Anderson's Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex.

Despicable things have always been committed to paper before and there has never been a shortage of amoral publishers willing to market them. That those ideas would ruin and pollute everything that humanity is supposed to isn't their problem, or so they would have us believe. However, there are some books that are so beyond the pale of pointless bitterness thath they actually become crimes against humanity in and of themselves.

From what I've heard - and my sensibilities are far too delicate to bear reading it myself - Chastened is such a tome. We're at war and I believe that this book is a crime, so where is the U.N when I need them?

Chastened is the grotesque memoir of a woman for whom sex without love wasn't enough. Oh no, she needed to try love without sex. Sure, she might jerk off a motherfucker, or find herself wonderfully fingerbanged, but that was as far as her intellectually empty idea of love went for twelve whole months. Didn't George Orwell write a book full of ideas like this

Oh Lord, is there is a worse fate than that? Is there anything more powerfully ugly or solely designed to question Your Heavenly Existence? Of course there isn't. Chastened is the Crown of Thorns brought upon all of our heads. Until I first heard of this malevolent tome, I didn't believe in the idea of Hell. I do now.

I'm so sickend by the idea that a book like Chastened even exists that I can't show the cover or even a picture of the author, who actually isn't unattractive. Instead, I'll just show pictures of Rosario Dawson. She's what I turn to when I find myself overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the world, mostly because she's everything that any man could ever hope for in a woman. Moreover, nobody with a body like that could ever deprive herself of sex for a year because of some silly sophmore thesis that it would make a man love her more.

Rosario could never betray me mankind like that. But Hephzibah Anderson did. And no one who believes in love should think of her as nothing less than a criminal for her efforts.

I guess that I can't really explain my hatred of Ms. Anderson, her book and everything that both explain without telling my story. It's painful, but it's a confession that I have to make.

You see, I spent the better part of a decade being in love without sex. And I'm here to tell you that there was nothing "enlightening" about it. It was a disgustining and terrifying way to live, and not something that I would wish on any of you.

I was in love with two women during that time. However, I was painfully unable to have sex with either of them. I can tell you all that it would have been the most beautiful and pleasurable experience of either of their lives, but neither of them wanted to have a goddamned thing to do with me. Something about them already having boyfriends comes to mind.

Don't get me wrong, I fucked other women during that period. Just not the ones that I was in love with. Not having sex with the women I loved was painful, but that pain was mitigated by having sex with women who's names I don't remember today. I think it had something to do with the release of endorphins. Oh, and the massive waves of alcohol didn't exactly hurt, either.

After that long, extended and horribly wrong period, love and sex managed to line up nicely. After all, how could it not? I have a blog! And I was sleeping with them within an hour of meeting them for the first time. Sadly, none of them lf them were Rosario Dawson, but some of them were probably better. However, nearly a third of them were married at the time. It was a great decade, indeed!

Then something devious and wrong happened. I met my current girlfriend and had to wait an entire four dates before plowing her like a farmer's field. Worse still, there was nary a blowjob or a surruptious handjob to be had. And I even took her to a movie where a guy shot up a whole bunch of women at an engineering school! And that was one of my most popular posts ever !

How could I have not been the man of her dreams? I was worried because I really liked this girl. A lot! But there was just no fucking to be had for nearly a month. This is something that I hadn't tolerated in nearly a decade, and I was beginning to worry. Was I becoming less of a man. Was I beginning to look like Paul McCartney's mother, just like Paul McCartney?

Thankfuly, I wasn't. We had a holly, jolly Christmas, and we remain together to this day. But I was almost afraid that she was going to turn out to e one of those Hephzibah Anderson bitches that haunted me all the way through my twenties.

I might get anal yet. Stranger things have happened, right?

You Know What We Should Do? Make Raymi The Best Blogger In Toronto Is What!

I don't think that I've mentioned this, but my template is all fucked up and I can't add new people to my blogroll. I'm sure that I could fix this, but I'm very lazy and drunk a good deal of the time. So if you see that you're not there, please don't think that it's because I don't love you. It's because I'm an inebriated layabout. Honest.

For example, I'd love to link Raymi the Minx. She's really cute, has a beautiful body and posts topless photos of herself pretty regularly. I've been saying for seven and a half years now that there aren't nearly enough bloggers willing to show me their tits. And I say that having slept with my share of bloggers. I've slept with your share, too.

My girlfriend is probably awfully tired about hearing how much I love Raymi and the things that I would sell my soul to do to her. I know this because she's almost relentless in pointing out that I have no soul. But the things that I would do to her must be wrong, if only because they would feel so right.

So I won't go into it. Out of respect for my girlfriend. Because I love her, and stuff.

But I want to help Raymi in any way that I can, mostly because I like seeing really cute girls getting topless. If they get bottomless, I want to help them even more. I know, I'm a saint!

And that's where you come in.

You see, Toronto has a free weekly newspaper called Now. Now is currently running one of those dopey "Best of Toronto" polls, which just happens to include a "Best Blog" category. I'd submit my own idiotic blog, but nobody reads me and I don't look half as fantastic naked as Raymi does. Friggin' penis.

Besides, Raymi really wants to win and I don't. When I get really popular, I get ugly e-mails from the lawyers of lobbyists that describe me as "malicious and hateful" without understanding that those are my most adorable qualities. I'm just not hungry enough to get more of those e-mails.

This is as campaign season. Yesterday I asked the people of Toronto to make Sarah Thomson mayor and I'm pretty sure that she won't get naked for us, or anything. Now I'm asking my international readership to make Raymi the Minx Toronto's best blogger. It might be the most important vote that you ever cast.

Okay, it might be the most important one to me. You see, she's holding an anniversary party, and I'd really like free tickets and perhaps feel her up. That means that you have to make me look good, teenagers. Just don't tell my girlfriend.

What I need you to do is go here, click on the "vote" button in the "Best Blog" category, and type in raymitheminx.com.

Thanks. You're a pal.