Because (Real And Unreal)

 

 ICYMI 

   

 "The last time there was an impressive American [Middle East] policy, it was a Republican administration, and it was undone by the hero of every liberal in this room." 

   

 "I feel better after my yoga class" 

   

 "We couldn't be prouder of both of you." 

  

Life As A Joke (These Are Jokes)

In the real world, a Woman who was raised in the British branch of the Children of God cult as a 'soldier for the Armageddon' and banned from speaking or making eye contact for a YEAR warns there could be a religious sect 'on your doorstep', while - in The Onion - a Cult Leader Warns Followers Things Need To Get Way More Deranged To Be Made Into HBO Documentary Series. 

Both are true - and it's funny.

 

When Rand Paul Is The Best You Got: Give It Up, Guys

Actual blacks, listening to an actual Rand Paul speech, and actually not being inspired

Evidence, the folks over at Hot Air - the #1 conservative news analysis site - must be considering morphing it into The Onion:

"[Rand] Paul has fought hard to establish himself as the Republican candidate most concerned with and capable of reaching out to the minority community,..."

Folks, when you're willing to even consider - as your side's "most,...capable of reaching out" - a guy who has the same credibility as KKK highway clean-up, you need to re-ask if (at this point) it ain't the movement, itself, that's got a problem,...

I Don't Have A Life So You Don't Have To: I'll Take Yours

Leave it to The Onion to address one of my main beefs with the world - the idea I live, literally and figuratively, with intellectual cowards. I thought I'd get online and meet all these stimulating minds, but what's here? Ann Althouse and her public nervous breakdowns - but no apologies - when challenged? Glenn Reynolds and his insistence on quackery, and let's-try-to-walk-the-line, race-based tomfoolery? Other famous feminists? Other famous libertarians? (Does anybody even care libertarians don't win elections?) NewAgers? Anybody, who can't stand the idea of society nailing down anything, but Jesus to a cross? They're all in this piece:

Courage requires us to remain steadfast in our beliefs. It asks that we stand by the convictions we express and never give an inch, no matter what the cost. However off base, wrongheaded, or patently false a position we’ve staked out may be, courage nonetheless demands that we blindly pound home our stupid fucking point, never letting up.

True valor is the moment in a conversation when you realize that what you’re saying is completely and utterly wrong, but you continue to say it over and over again anyway, only louder.

Suppose you’re discussing current events with a group of friends, one of whom politely challenges an assertion you’ve made about a particular issue. In such congenial gatherings, it can be tempting to back down, especially when someone has just put forth evidence that soundly debunks everything you’ve been saying. The courageous path takes more discipline. It means looking that friend in the eye and—though you know full well that you are totally wrong—saying, “No, I’m right.”

The same dilemma applies when you’re arguing with someone who obviously has far more information about a subject than you do. Basically, you have two choices: You can admit that you are out of your depth and that your lack of knowledge led you to the incorrect conclusion. Or you can dig in your heels, grit your teeth, and defend your misguided, uninformed opinion with every fiber of your being—even to the point of hysteria.

What is the measure of bravery? I think part of it has to do with how firmly we stand our ground when we have absolutely no fucking clue what we’re talking about.

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of their lives:

And, considering the weight these fools bring to bear on those below them, we should reconsider the worth of that whole stockade-in-the-public-square thing.

College campuses are perfect,...

 

The Onion's Butler: Significant, Historic, And Important

2013: When Miley Bombed And The Onion Became News

Study Hard (Because It May Be The One Thing You Do)

The Onion has a piece called How Can I Use Feminism To My Advantage? that reads like it's from a young Ann Althouse:

I wanted to cash in on the centuries-long subjugation of my gender, too! 

Many modern women are afraid to call themselves feminists. I often remind these weak, confused women of the words of Gloria Steinem: "In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: Either she's a feminist or a masochist." When I first read Steinem, she awoke ambitions I never knew I had. I wanted to be just like her—powerful, famous, and financially well off. 

Since my awakening, I've memorized quotations from feminists of all stripes, from Betty Friedan to Susan Faludi. Decades of activists have left persuasive arguments in support of my campus group's private study lounge in the student union. Hey, whatever works. Take that, International Students Club! Have fun studying in the library, with all the other losers who don't have a dedicated study lounge. 

Not all feminists have this attitude, and I'm relieved. If they did, feminism wouldn't work half as well as it does. Most of the women in the network are fully committed to eradicating harmful gender stereotypes and redefining sexual archetypes. I am, too, whenever it places me in a favorable social position.

Yep, that's our girl - exploitive to the end. Here's her Wikipedia page. See if you can grasp her larger significance, because I can't. No lives saved. No ground broken (except for herself, as The Onion jokes). No true challenges to anything - not even "the patriarchy". No reason to ever think she's anything other than superficially "smart" and unworthy of admiration. Not a single contribution, or concern, for the country or mankind. 

Here's, ultimately, what I found:

Althouse has a degree in fine art from the University of Michigan, B.F.A. 1973, and graduated first in her class from New York University School of Law, J.D. 1981.

Translation: 

The woman with some of the worst taste in art imaginable can still memorize like a motherfucker (landing her smack dab in the "artists who can't - teach" category).

Other than her nephew being a famous golfer, there's not much else. First in her class, and she's famous for riding the feminist-with-a-mouth train, and nothing more.

Her "career" is being Al Sharpton in a dress.

Seriously, there's nothing else there. She's just another insane middle class cipher (look at that photo) taking up valuable space, the amazing memory failing her when updating her biography. 

Wikipedia does mention her famous never-again-mentioned statement on the Obama cult - that he used "trickery" to get the dummy's vote - but, for instance, there's not a single word about her repeated public breakdowns (whether on Wikipedia or her blog) which I find all-around-dishonest. Her one-sided and ignorant broadsides against the Catholic church, in defense of her gay son, don't get mentioned either (She supposedly "teaches" on religion and the Constitution, which must be fun to hear,...). And her goofy racial obsessions - she once saw racism in an innocent smiling statue - get nothing. 

That should tell you how Ann, and biographies on Wikipedia, "work". Just leave out the shit everybody needs to know and viola! You've got Ann Althouse: Rule Breaker, or something else immature she can imagine herself, drunkenly, from a cafe'. (There's no "wine box" mentions on Wikipedia either - a total whitewash.)

Are you starting to get the picture of how Ann's "succeeded"?

No mention the crazy lady is crazy. The crazy lady keeps her trap quiet, too - while calling men out because, she thinks, no one will ever discover she's nuts. And she's riding that shit to the bank, laughing with her "feminist husband" (she's got two) on getting one over on the unsuspecting public. 

In other words, in a decent world - or if she was a man - she'd be a user, a loser, and a pig.

She's definitely been a bad example to her push-over of a kid - and decent bloggers everywhere,...

 

It Really Oughta Be A Crime,...

This Is Totally Going To Fuck Up The New Tone

Incomprehensible Shouting Named Official U.S. Language

Just Like You And Me (Except We're Not Crazy)

Why do women worship Oprah so? Other than they have to? Other than the fact they watch TV and are simply compelled to? Other than the fact - don't deny it, we have eyes - their lives are so damned empty (and they are so damned gullible) that they'll believe in almost anything?

Why - other than all that - it's got to be because Oprah's just brought so much good in the world, and they're determined to be a part of it:

In terms of promoting woo and quackery, there is one person who stands head and shoulders above all the rest. True, she doesn't just promote woo and quackery, but she does have a long list of dubious achievements in that realm, including but not limited to unleashing Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccine crusade plus Suzanne Somers and her "bioidentical hormone" and cancer quackeries on an unsuspecting American public. She's also subjected us to both Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz to the point of actually launching them on their own shows, promoting the mystcial mumbo-jumbo wish fulfillment that is The Secret, and basically providing the most influential daytime TV platform for all manner of pseudoscience on a regular basis. Indeed, she's been running a veritable war on medical science. There's no New Age woo too woo-ey or quackery too quacky for Oprah.

And that's truly a beautiful thing.

Just like her girlfriend, Gayle.

Why Is The Onion Smarter Than Other Media?

Do Glass Pipes, Incense Prove Teens Are Practicing Shamanism?

We're Not Doomed (We're Dumb)

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

Finally: "The Audacity Of Hope" Explained

Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire

It's About Time

Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

Even I Get In The Mood For Just Horsing Around

Evander Holyfield To Box Horse For Heavyweight Title
Evander Holyfield, boxing with a horse? A man caught on camera having sex with a horse? Can't you stupid people leave the little horsies alone?

Don't you know they were made to run free?

Obama Should Have Ran On "Hope FOR Change"

[Click to enlarge: It's really big]

So the U.S. Dept. of Labor has just released this handy graph, above, showing how Americans spend their annual paycheck; and I was struck by the fact my fellow citizens spend $2, 698.00 on entertainment - but only $118.00 on reading - and that reading isn't considered part of the average American's entertainment budget.

Don't get me wrong - I get that:

Reading actually involves using your brain, so - clearly - there can't be any fun involved in it.

But just think what might happen (don't strain yourself!) if those two monetary figures were switched, and we spent $2, 698.00 on books and only $118.00 on whatever passes for "entertainment" these days. (I know, I know: that's "crazy talk" but still,...) Why, for starters, The Onion probably wouldn't be able to run any more pieces like the one below, which would surely be a blow to our national image:


Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs

Or, Rather, It's What Makes Women Women

"That's what makes us us."

-- "Kimberly Pruitt", telling some chump how "it would be terrible if we let sex destroy this great friendship we have where I get everything I want and you get nothing you want", in (of course: the only "newspaper" to regularly take on topics like this) The Onion.

Just A Big Ass Let-Down All The Way Around

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

The Onion: Better Than Real Life

The U.N.: Leave It To The Onion To Get It Right

Ambassador Stages Coup At UN, Issues Long List of Non-Binding Resolutions