With enemies like these, who needs gnats?

Another nugget of Zen wisdom from DemocraticUnderground:

Note to James Taranto: If both Tom Marsh and Kieth Olbermann are gunning for you, it's probably time to hightail it out of Dodge for a while.

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That's an interesting theory, considering James Taranto probably gets more hits on his blog than both Marsh and Olbermann combined, and he doesn't even have a TV show (if you can call Olbermann's O'reilly obsessed "60-minutes hate" a show.)

I've never even heard of Tom Marsh, and couldn't care less about the beige-wallpaper Olbermann until he started his unsportsman-like, attention-getting tactic of bashing the admittedly less-than-desirable O'Reailly (who habitually trounces him in the ratings by a factor of around 4-1, by the way.)

I think most people in the blogosphere have heard of Taranto, on the other hand, whether they agree or disagree with him.

Interesting line of reasoning

Here's a real gem from DemocraticUnderground:

Just when you think it's you and not an acute attack of ACMD, Red Tractor USA points out the obvious:

Case closed.

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Setting aside the fact that several of those pictured are either commentators or political anylists (for example, Allen Colmes and Greta Van Sustren, big conservatives, those two), let's see if we can't turn this around just as easily.

Since we're in the mood for setting up straw men, how about this:

Can you spot the white (or black) conservative reporter at CNN? CBS? NBC? ABC? The New York Times, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum?

So does Red Tractor propose some sort of affirmative action for white liberal journalists, black liberal journalists, or, more justifiably, black conservative journalists?

I still fail to see how race enters into any of this.

Yes, it would seem The Case, whatever The Case may be, is closed.

Track of the Day at GarageBand.com

One of my songs, Everything's Gone Wrong, is doing pretty well in the review process over at GarageBand.com, and is the featured track-of-the-day on the Indie Rock page for July 28th. Of course, it's already the 29th, but better late than never to pat myself on the back in front of an audience of disinterested internet strangers.

Hurray for me!

In more self-masturbatory news, this song has also been awarded with "Best Melody", "Best Male Vocals" and "Best Feel-Good-Track" by their crack team of random intenet reviewers. Thanks people I've never met!

And now for the acceptance speech

Ahem.

First of all, I'd like to thank GOD, as so many are wont to do. That's right, the Big Man. Thanks for the musical chops. Aside from coming up with snide quips for my blog, that's pretty much my only other discernable talent.

Next I'd like to thank my parents, for letting me convince them to buy me hundreds of dollars worth of audio equipment instead of saving for my (non-existent) college education. Smooth move, guys! Another few years working at Sonic and I just might have a car.

And lastly I'd like to thank, um...uh...remember the fat guy from that show "Head of the Class?"

Oh come on, give me a break, I really don't know all that many people anyway.

Till later,
See-ay-I-ay-ooohh!

Oops. What I meant to say was
Ciao.

An excuse to mention my 133 IQ.

Well folks, in the fine tradition of other self-involved bloggers, I thought I'd post this link to an online IQ test (which you could have easily found on your own with a simple google search) so I would have a thinly-veiled excuse to publically advertise my 133 IQ:

http://www.iqtest.com

They even sent me a neat little reply congratulating me on my greatness:

Dear ARS,

Thank you for your interest in the test at IQTest.com.

Your general IQ score is: 133

Regards,
The Team at IQTest.com

(And yes, those are my real intitials. Actually, to be more specific, I'm Arse Junior, or, as I like to say, Crappy the Younger.)

Okay, so they actually said "regards", not "congratulations." But still, to think, some automated reply system somewhere thinks I'm better than somebody else. Yay! (Did I mention I have a 133 IQ? Oh, I did? Well, uh, carry on then.)

Ofcourse there is bad news. See, when I was 14 or so I tested at around 146. Now don't forget, these things are graded on an age-based curve, so a score of 146 for a 14 y.o. is probably the same as a score of 133 for a 23 y.o. Which means I haven't gotten any smarter since I was a damn teenager!

But then, I'd say that's a pretty good description of how I feel. I don't really feel any smarter than when I was 12 y.o., actually. I just know more big words and can kick a wider demographic of ass. I wonder if the intelligence of most child-geniuses tops out like that at an early age?

I'm sure the baby's not so found of you either...

Some poorly thought out dreck from Feministing
(By-the-by, doesn't that blog-name not sound like some sort of new, bizzare lesbian sexual practice? I swear, do they come up with names like this just so we can make dirty jokes about them? You know, so then they'll have an excuse to act offended?) :

Amnesty International recently decided to extend its mandate to support abortion access in cases of sexual violence. Of course, the freepers are unhappy about this. Because *god forbid* if something should happen to you, against your will, you should be allowed to control the consequences.

It continues:

The religious folks believe that supporting abortion (in the case of SEXUAL VIOLENCE) is out of sync with Amnesty's mission of supporting human rights. Uh, I am not getting that one.

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Well, let me see if I can come up with an analogy to explain the logic of this position to you:

Say you're standing around on the street minding your own business, maybe giving men dirty looks as they walk by, passing out NOW literature, whatever it is you do with your free time.

Okay, you're minding your own business, and suddenly some crazy person pops out of the crowd, handcuffs you to another stranger (god-forbid it's a member of the "patriarchy"...Dunt-Dunt Duhnhhh!), and runs off in a fit of mad laughter. So now you're stuck here with this unwanted guy attached to your body.

You didn't ask for this. So, by your logic, clearly you should be allowed to kill this guy that's attached to you. Or at least cut off his hand. I mean, he is inconviencing you, right?

Let me point out two important points in this situation:

A) The stranger did not ask to be attached to you either. They're as much a victim of the mad handcuff caperer as you are.

And
B) You do not have the right to saw off the stranger's hand simply because you don't want to be attached to him. Clearly any logical person would frown on this line of reasoning. And think: That wouldn't even kill the guy! Might make him a little angry with you, though.

It's kind of like that movie "Fled" (although I'm not sure who's playing the mother and who's the unborn baby in this crack-headed extrapolation of my anaolgy, Stephen Baldwin or Laurence Fishburn. I guess it's easier to imagine Fishburn plunging a pair of forceps into Stephen Baldwin's head than the other way around. Especially seeing as Stevie's a christian now.)

Any reasonable person would be expected to find some way of seperating themselves from their new cuff-mate that didn't invlove ireperable bodily harm and/or death.

Just because you had some sort of tramatic experience happen to you does not suddenly give you license to start killing strangers because they are causing you an inconvenience through no fault of their own. Even if being raped is more traumatic than being the victim of some piss-poor practical joke.

Like the stranger in our analogy, the baby didn't ask to be attached to you, either. (And really, given the choice, what baby would?)

Sigh. If only this fabled "evolution" thing had provided innocent babies some means to fight back against the crazy bitches that want to kill them simply for existing. You know, like little miniature, baby-sized shoulder-fired rockets or something like that.

I find it odd that if evolution is all about self-preservation, it hasn't provided baby's with any such defense mechanism.

His hand to God...

From Times Community News:

"In a surreal scene, police said a man purposely cut off one of his hands in a Springfield butcher shop Saturday evening...Vikas Sinsunwal said he was outside his parents store, Niralla Sweets, when the man, announcing "I did this for Allah," approached his parents' shop lifting his bloody left arm into the air. "I could actually see bone in his wrist," he said." ...Local NBC 4 News reported the man, while waiting on his order of goat meat, walked behind the butcher shop's counter and sliced off his hand presumably with an electric meat cutter. His teenage son was with him at the time."

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Hmm, seeing as this guy is a Muslim, it isn't too much of a stretch to presume he was punishing him self for some kind of vice. You know, like getting your hand chopped off for stealing or what-have-you, only in this case he seems to have done the honorable thing and cast off the offending part on his own.

Well at least we know he's serious about his faith. How many lascivious Christian men do you know who would be willing to cast of their "you-know-what's" (i.e. hairy cock-and-balls - Ed.) for a chance at better stadium seating in the after-life?

I can't help thinking of that movie with the possesed severed hand that kills people. Only in this case we have a severed hand that presumably likes to finger little muslim boys, or something like that.

Fatimas, lock up your Ahmeds.

Oops, did I just say all that out loud?

On the Road With Me and Tad: High Time at the Park (Before you ask, yes, I am on crack.)

It was high time at the park. Tad and I had just arrived from making Perry Ellis eat gold-rings and then some. Junior samples bought some time at the mic, and we thought he would bring the long log-jam all the way home, but it turned that French Stuart had thrown out some baked beans, so we didn't have to look far for a garbage can.

The famous Ma Contin was out there hawking autographed pictures of herself out of a a filthy blue garbage bin. It was full to the brim with old-timey snapshot photo-augers and regular-augers. She chucked them at us once or twice; me, Tad and the balloon; but she failed to get a rise out of us and soon moved on.

My, if she didn’t haul that garbage can everywhere!

The legendary John Biondi on Maxwell’s 11-stringed guitars taught us all how to laugh, and Mayor George Clinton got high on a peppermint love, leaving us all to complain, though he took a few with him.

“Moved out west to the second row,” said the Mayor. “bought a new hamper and settled down. Tried milking durobdurates for a while. No luck there. Heading out to larger towns. Still testing the feasibility of these two plans. Mayeorger out!”

And then the convention ended as suddenly as it began, as George Clooney appeared with a shotgun and escorted us all out of his backyard.

What a dick.