New and Different

I have discovered (courtesy of LGM) two very fine blogs that expose the truth that many daily comics aren't very funny. Comics Curmudgeon seems to launch a pretty-much daily attack on various unfunny comics, and Qomics for Queers has a somewhat narrower, but highly entertaining POV. I'm adding them both to the blogroll and we'll see if I like them for a while.

Self-Indulgence Roundup

Good morning. This is your morning self-indulgence roundup from YAMM. Our special guest this morning, as it is every morning, is a self-indulgence expert. Landru, take your hand off of your wee-wee and say hello to the nice people.

Landru: Fuck each and every one of you, several of you repeatedly.

YAMM: It seems you're always in a foul mood when we do these interviews. Why is that?

Landru: Because every ten days or so, I wake up and realize that three or four hundred posts into this blogging enterprise, I still haven't done anything interesting. And because fuck you, that's why.

YAMM: Care to discuss recent top headlines?

Landru: What's there to say? The right wing is still impossibly fucktarded, some of them to the point where no one can be that stupid and pure, genuine evil becomes their only possible motivation. I mean, people don't go to Oberlin and Berkeley and come out that fucking stupid. It just doesn't happen.

YAMM: Holy shit, you just violated the no-Malkin rule.

Landru: This was too egregious to pass on.

YAMM: But think of the children!

Landru: I do. I was at Databoy's soccer practice yesterday, and one of the kids in his little group is another third-grader who looks for all the world like the offspring of Our Lady of the Concentration Camps. He's a quiet little guy, with this ferocious determination thing happening, and he kicks hell out of the ball and fearlessly wades up to streaking Latino children with soccer balls genetically grafted to their feet and stops them in their tracks. He's a really impressive little kid. Except he looks exactly like you'd expect the offspring of OLCC to look.

YAMM: Zounds! So did you meet his mother?

Landru: Someone who appeared to be his mother picked him up afterward. It wasn't OLCC. But if it was, I'd still show that child all the coaching love in the world. More than I give Databoy, in fact, since Databoy is still mostly into prancing around like My Little Pony. But that's another problem set.

YAMM: What else is on your mind?

Landru: I would like to retract the comment I made several weeks ago about all downcounty Starbucks being operated by sullen lesbian baristas. The one in the middle of the restaurant district of Bethesda is actually operated by moron baristas, and I want to apologize to sullen lesbians everywhere for maligning them by association.

YAMM: Forsooth! That's pretty manful of you.

Landru: Of course it is.

YAMM: Is it true that Your Local State has forsaken the Electoral College?

Landru: Yes. My Local Governor has thus far proven to be a near-complete dipshit. And as I feared, some of the tree-hugging dirt-worshippers elected to our state legislative bodies are equally hopeless. This measure is a waste of fucking time, a possible abrogation of the Constitution, and a witless reaction to My Political Party's inability to cheat as well as the other side. The Electoral College is the law. It is the electoral game--and make no mistake about it, elections are treated, with impunity, as games by those who should know better. On both sides.

I'm edging over into an other-side rant here, but this state has been taken over by Green fucking pussies who need to stop the nannystate bullshit and focus on adequately funding important stuff like education (that's the two most populous counties in the state that My Local Governor, a Baltimoron, got the legislature to fuck over) and transportation priorities (idiots who want to disconnect the Purple Line, effectively the Beltway Loop of the Metro system, from the actual Metro system, are too stupid to be allowed to breathe--in fact, I call on you, my legions of minions, to go out and smother them with feather pillows made with feathers plucked from actual, pissed-off, now-featherless birds. And don't wash the feathers, these dumbasses need to learn that animals don't smell very good.

So these fuckwits want to focus on telling me I can't smoke in the car when my kid is in it, and other nannyshite. They incarnate all of the reasons why Greens are too fucking stupid to govern. They are undergoing an active process of handing our state back to rightwing fucktards. Maryland isn't as blue as people like to think it is. Fuck you, Purple.

YAMM: Aren't you abusing this (purloined) interview format as a platform for launching screeds?

Landru: Of course I am.

YAMM: Well, I feel soiled.

Landru: Fuck you. We went through this already. And you should feel soiled, you're a dirty, dirty bitch.

YAMM: Why do you lash out at Purple? He's a decent enough fellow.

Landru: Because everything is his fault, and he's a serious threat to steal my cult followers.

YAMM: Shouldn't you be loading the children onto their unsafe school buses and heading off to your more-or-less daily beating at the hands of Save the World, Inc., a Not-For-Profit Corporation?

Landru: Yes.

YAMM: Thank you for joining us.

Landru: Fuck you. This format is a pain in the hinder. Go away.

Using the Force: Landru's Tips for Real-Life Jedi (II)

Those glowing tubes in the recesses in the ceiling? They're not light sabres.

This has been another in a continuing series of tips on building your skills as an actual Jedi Knight. Stay tuned for more helpful tips.

Using the Force: Landru's Tips for Real-Life Jedi (I)

If you actually say the words, "These are not the droids you're looking for," out loud, the Force will eff you in the A, every single time.

This has been the first in a continuing series of tips on building your skills as an actual Jedi Knight. Stay tuned for more helpful tips.

Teh Stupid

It's impossible (and not at all desirable) to be funny about the horrible events at Virginia Tech yesterday, so let's just make a point or two.

1. Giving guns to everyone does not prevent events such as those yesterday, you fucktard.

2. If you feel a need to shout that it's a terrorist act every time someone pulls the trigger of a gun in this country, you really need to re-examine your belief structure, you fucktard.

3. "Paki" is, in fact, a racial slur, Debbie Schussel, you malignant megafucktard, one you casually tossed about speculatively before anything was known about the shooter beyond that he was "Asian." I try not to even give idiots like you the time of day any more, but really, you're just too fucking stupid to be allowed to communicate. You fucktard.

4. There is nothing suspicious about the police taking their time to publicly release information about the shooter. While an investigation is developing, you, Mister Conspiracy Theorist, do not, in fact, have a right to know squadoosh, you fucktard.

5. Every jingoist Christian word you speak gives comfort and raison d'etre to those who are actually radical Islamists; stop shooting off your idiot mouth, you fucktard.

6. If you used the words "trained," "professional," or "military" in reference to the shooter yesterday, you possess the intelligence of a chunk of driftwood. You fucktard.

That is all.

YAMM Morning News Roundup

Good morning, this is your Monday morning news roundup from YAMM. Our top headline: YAMM's local locality sucks ass. Joining us to comment is local locality expert Landru. Good morning, Landru.

Landru: Fuck you.

YAMM: What's going on in Our Local Locality?

Landru: Air. Gigantic fucking shitloads of air. Moving very fast.

YAMM: Should we be concerned?

Landru: Only if you like going places, doing things, staying dry, and not getting blown off of the sidewalk into the big cats cage at the National Zoo.

YAMM: What's traffic like?

Landru: If there's a road you want to drive on, there's a giant fucking tree and a spaghetti bowl of live wires down across it.

YAMM: We heard about the one at River Road.

Landru: So did I, since that's like my A-Number-One way to get to work without encountering too many douchebags, which is really saying something since River Road's alternative name is Douchebag Boulevard.

YAMM: So what happened?

Landru: You're fucking deaf, right? A giant fucking tree fell on the road and brought down a spaghetti bowl of live wires with it. The county called the phone company to fix it at 2 in the morning, but the phone company says it didn't hear anything until My Local Pack News Up Your Ass Until You Want To Die radio station called them at 8 AM. Now, the phone company is making sure the county knows how to call it. That's how to call the fucking phone company, in case you lost the thread there, and who the fuck could blame you for that?

YAMM: You're making that up, right?

Landru: No. Seriously.

YAMM: Say, isn't it kind of silly that we're interviewing you, since you're writing this?

Landru: Just shut up and play along, would you?

YAMM: Would you mind if we kissed you?

Landru: Okay, for one thing, you just outright stole that from Big Daddy Drew. And for another, think about that for a fucking second, would you?

YAMM: What else is happening as a result of the weather?

Landru: The pussies in Fairfax County are closing schools three hours early because they're worried that their trailer park classrooms are going to blow away. The entire state of West Virginia is under nine feet of water and is going to be innundated when the dam holding back the Mud River goes away. My wife's brand-new Mary Tyler Moore hairdo is gonna look like a JBF, and I'm not going to have had the pleasure of making it look that way.

YAMM: You're making all that up.

Landru: No. No, I'm not. Seriously.

YAMM: Did traffic cause you to miss out on your quad venti mocha this morning?

Landru: I had to go to a different Starbucks.

YAMM: One with hot baristas?

Landru: Fuck no. All the downcounty Starbucks have sullen lesbian baristas.

YAMM: Do you know any Starbucks with hot baristas?

Landru: There's one I'd hit at the Starbucks at my grocery store. If, y'know, Ilse were dumb enough to turn her back for four seconds.

YAMM: And?

Landru: Are you fucking deaf? Ilse turn her back for four seconds? You saying my wife is fucking stupid?

YAMM: No. Please put down that brick. What else did you hear on the radio that annoyed you?

Landru: It's a holiday in DC and they're having a voting rights march.

YAMM: Why would that annoy you? You support DC voting rights.

Landru: Not enough to want thousands of people who have a day off when I don't to fucking block Pennsylvania Avenue long enough for them to mill around Freedom Plaza whining about it.

YAMM: Aren't you usually off Mondays?

Landru: Yes, I'm a fucking consultant, it's not like I'm accustomed to working for a living.

YAMM: So what happened?

Landru: Ilse may not be stupid, but apparently I am.

YAMM: What's the most annoying thing you heard on the radio this morning?

Landru: That would be a dead heat between the story about Paul Wolfowitz and his mannish girlfriend, the story about a wifebeating drug addict wearing number 42 for the Nationals' tribute to Jackie Robinson today, and the word "tofu."

YAMM: How often do you touch yourself?

Landru: Whenever I think about you. Uhm...I mean, what? I told you to quit ripping off BDD.

YAMM: Did you like The Sopranos last night?

Landru: Yes, I love it when they spend an hour humanizing assholes like Johnny Sack. I thought that was very well done.

YAMM: What's the over/under for the death of Christopher Moltisanti next Sunday?

Landru: 21 minutes, but I'm taking the over, at 38 minutes.

YAMM: Any special messages for your friends?

Landru: I fucking told you months ago that the 3-5-2 was stupid and United couldn't play defense to save its mother from loan sharks.

YAMM: Anything else you need to tell us?

Landru: I feel fat. And go home and stay the fuck off of Connecticut Avenue between Bouffant Circle and the Beltway for the rest of the day, you fucking morons.

YAMM: Thank you, Landru. This has been your YAMM Morning News Roundup.

Landru: Whatever. Fuck you.

Treason In Defense Of Slavery

It's Confederate Heritage Month, or some such blather, and as is our American way, the war is still being fought. Absolutists of both stripes are having themselves a hoedown. I've commented on this before; because of my unwillingness to commit to an absolute anti-Confederacy stance, I have been accused of racism, fascism, terrorism and, what is worse (to my thinking), being unreconstructed.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money got me thinking about all this; they're running a marvelous series of posts over the course of the month on Treason in Defense of Slavery. I'll be frank; their stance is pretty absolutist for my taste. They are not interested in applying historical filters; to their thinking, treason is treason and racism is racism, regardless of the style of the day. I think that's some pretty harsh shit to lay on our ancestors (your ancestors, actually--as best I can tell, mine were still in Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales, although some of the Germans may have arrived in time for the party), who aren't around to argue the point, or to be confused by the perspective with which decades of progress in gender and race relations have imbued us.

More pertinent is the political flavoring of the modern debate. The TIDOS folks (and please--my position is far closer to theirs than to anything unreconstructed) recognize that this historical discussion isn't about history. It's about now. Their reaction to any defense of the Confederacy--and they label any such defense as "Lost Cause Mythology"--is real similar to my reaction to another blogger's post characterizing someone as using abortions as a substitute for the pill. It is rooted in a conviction that to discuss a thing in anything but one's own terms is to give that thing hope. It is why abortion opponents call themselves "pro-life" and we call them "anti-choice."

I'm not denying the existence of Lost Cause Mythology, and I'm not denying that for many people, there is some equation between the Lost Cause and modern times. It is indulged by people who persist in referring to Chappaquiddick (let's remember that Laura Bush killed someone in a car accident, once upon a long time ago), or in calling Massachusetts (a state that, until the recent election of Deval Patrick, had elected a string of asshole Republican governors, one of whom is now a presidential candidate trying to fight off a ludicrous general inference that his very association with the state has tainted his conservative cred) Taxachusetts, or in belaboring the notion that the media are overwhelmingly liberal.

That is to say, it is indulged by idiots with an agenda. That's why LGM and others who are heavily blogging about TIDOS Month are so very persistent in their own memery. And there is some justice in their position; I don't care who you are or what you're selling, if you're flying the Confederate flag, you're a hater. Period, no question, no mitigation, no absolution.

And that's why I'm a tad bothered by the absolutism of LGM and others. Let's deconstruct the TIDOS label a little bit. I got no quibble with the treason part. Secession was, by any measure, and through any filter, treason. The only reason any debate on this point persists is because there are those who find the Tenth Amendment a convenient vehicle for their blindingly inconsistent assertions about the relative roles of the federal government and the states. These are the same people who see an activist in every judge, and who are incapable of reading the Constitution and understanding that there are three branches of government and that the Executive and Legislative branches cannot, in fact, do Whatever The Fuck They Want.

I've written before about the roots of the Civil War. Let me say first that denying that slavery is one of them is the moral and intellectual equivalent of denying the Holocaust. Arguing that slavery wasn't foremost among the causes is sketchy, at best. But pretending that slavery was the only cause of the Civil War is either pig-ignorant or deliberately deceitful. There were other serious issues, partially laid out in a comment to the referenced post (sale and distribution of western lands, internal improvements, tariffs, and the various National Bank controversies). Some of these--the disposition and statehood of the West, and tariffs--were clearly related to slavery, but remained issues independent of their entwinement with it. My point is that while it's fair (in a legal and historical sense) to characterize secessionists as traitors, it's a stretch to accuse each and every Southron of seceding for the sole purpose of defending slavery.

And that's what the TIDOS language does. It's the same rhetorical tactic that anti-abortionists use when they force us to defend so-called "partial birth abortion." You pick the most extreme and repugnant thing that your opponent's position allows, and you harp on it endlessly, turning it--rather than the more reasonable full range of issues--into the sole topic. It's intellectually dishonest when anti-abortionists do it, and it's even more intellectually dishonest when those who have a passion for and understanding of history do it. (See update, below)

And yet, I have trouble reaching the conclusion that they're absolutely wrong. Their cause is, after all, marked by some justice. There is unequivocally a connection between those who defend many of the ideals of the Confederacy--and let's make no mistake, there's a racist basis for a lot of it--and I believe that, in their hearts, the TIDOSers are reaching out to take that on. Their fervor is a reflection of the other side's fervor. They are perfectly right and principled in their presentation and interpretation of much of the material they're highlighting--see, for example, Old Hickory's very fine and well-reasoned post on the Dred Scott decision (hat tip to LGM for the link). But there is a level of disingenuity here.

LGM characterizes TIDOS month as purely responsive to some states' celebration of Confederate Heritage Month. I am familiar with the rationales that heritage equals hate, and that it does not. Both are extreme. Robert Farley at LGM completes the trip over the top here:

"In all honesty, I look forward to the day when Confederate nostalgia is every bit as respectable as fond remembrance for Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Imperial Japan."

Wow. I don't think I could better sum up historical absolutism. I don't think I could better illustrate what happens when the victors write the history. Is it too kind to recognize that not all Germans from 1933-1945 were evil, that while the human cost of Soviet Russia was unbearable, World War II could not have been won without the sacrifice of the Soviet people, or that while the Imperial Japanese Army perpetrated many grotesque excesses, the confluence of cultural and international political factors and events set in motion when Matthew Perry "opened" Japan may well have been the only way Japan could have matured as a modern nation? I think not, and I don't think that considering the whole balance sheet is pointless, disrespectful , or inappropriate.

You know I'm no moderate. You know I'm no secessionist. It is within the range of rhetorical possibility that I am a racist, but as you may know, it is my feeling that everyone is so permeated with the language and culture of racial distinction that it's impossible to avoid being a racist at some level or in some way--no one in our culture can be absolutely free of that taint. You know that I have nothing but contempt for those who would abuse 19th-century readings of the law to somehow delegitimize modern rulings. And you know that I have strong feelings about many things, American history among them. It all colors my distaste for an absolute view of just about any historical event or trend.

I object to the politicization of what should remain a purely historical debate. Nobody's winning any converts with this.

All that said, I do much prefer the TIDOS label to the usual War of Northern Aggression meme.

UPDATE 2 PM 4/13/2007: On unprompted (as yet) reflection, it occurs to me that "intellectually dishonest" is a harsh charge to level at people of good faith like Robert Farley of LGM and Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny (and other people who are participating in TIDOS month), and the way I wrote what I wrote above certainly and unequivocally shotguns both of them with that slur. For that, I very much apologize. I'm not going to pretend I didn't write it, because I did.

What I'm complaining about is here is a monolithic approach: "Since the underpinnings of what you are espousing are repellent, it is okay for me to adopt a rhetorically absolute position to combat your malignant pretense of good faith, regardless of the likely shadings of fact." In the context of the TIDOS posts--which, I repeat, are outstanding, entertaining, generally informative, and generally accurate--it's overharsh to characterize that approach as "intellectually dishonest." I'd prefer a milder epithet, and I'm truly sorry that I didn't take the time to think of one before committing my thoughts to electrons.

Foma

I can't really talk about this.

This man had more sense than any two or three thousand of the rest of us put together. Idiots spew about Great Americans. People who know what Great Americans are will remember Kurt Vonnegut.

I shouldn't be sad. The man spent 62 years suiciding. Why should I begrudge him that supreme effort--dishonor it, really--by weeping my day away?

But I cannot come close to articulating how much this man influenced my entire system of belief, how he saturated my thought process. I am caught off balance by this (though I should not be), forced to examine my own life. I will not report to you on what I find.

It is worth remembering, on this day, that all namecalling can be reduced to this: there are those who truly believe that we have, or will, become Bokonon's heirs; and there are those who do not.

And now, if you will pardon me, I must go smoke a cigarette.

"The dilettantes ask for Pell-Mells."

Suffering Fools Gladly

Those of you who know me well understand that I'm an extremely tolerant person. I am open to all manner of opinions, no matter how mind-numbingly stupid they may be when they spew forth from My Local Newsmaster Radio Station, a beacon of Liberal Media Bias owned and operated by Mormons.

For instance, today, when bloviating jackass Cal Thomas tried to tell me that the Supreme Court's recent "atrocious" decision relating to the "Secular Religion" of global warming was a blessing in disguise because it will somehow (in a way understood only by Cal Thomas, I think, because no one with a functioning brain could understand his reasoning) help to fight terrorists, I just smiled and drove my SUV into a fully loaded gasoline tanker, flicking my lit cigarette into the resulting 8,000-gallon puddle of high-test. Wasn't that tolerant of me?

In recent days, as self-loathing fascist whore Michelle Malkin has banged the drum for her newly formed I Am Adolf Doe campaign, encouraging all of us to rat out anyone a few shades darker than ourselves for, uhm, being a few shades darker than ourselves, in the interest of fighting imaginary terrorists (there's that very odd word again--I must contemplate the possibility of a connection!), I just brought her a fruit basket and hauled her garbage can full of soiled Depends out to the porch for her, because I'm a tolerant good neighbor that way. Of course, it was a shame when the lit cigarette I flicked into the can set off a huge toxic cloud of burning Malkin shit, but I just knocked on the door to let her know it was on fire, and went about my altruistic routine. Wasn't that tolerant of me?

And when some of the same Republicans who jetted off to Syria to suck Hafez Assad's dick started shitting on Nancy Pelosi for doing exactly the same thing, I just smiled and mowed them down with the WWII surplus MG42 I keep in My Local Bell Tower. Wasn't that tolerant of me?

When My Local President tried to tell me that my side was irresponsible for trying to end a fruitless and costly war that he lied to initiate, I just smiled drank a big old cup of Starbucks coffee and let me tell you, I really enjoyed the dump I took shortly thereafter. Coffee just does that to me, y'know? And I can't think of any better way to show my tolerance for My Local President than by taking a gigantic dump.

See why I just don't have time to blog politics any more? I'm just way too busy promoting tolerance. Have a blissful day. Me? I'm off to Starbucks.

A Smoking Pair of Boots

That's all that's left of Minions' bracket. It became apparent by the end of the first round that this was no ordinary tournament; a pair of true upsets and an 8-9 game or two were the only deviations from the chalk. The day thereafter, Minions officially lost interest when Maryland played so badly against a pretty crappy mid-major that its only hope of victory lay in decent officiating; good luck with that. And the day after that, Minions was declared legally dead when Texas, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin all bit the big one in ridiculous displays of ineptitude.

Dignity and some other things* require that Minions stick by its unfortunate prediction that the Fuckeyes of the Official Land Grant University of the State of Ohio will win the tournament. Even if that happens and Minions is, technically, vindicated (in some tiny and mostly technical way), Minions' wife is going to kick its ass, because she also has OSU to win.

But it is not to be. Florida is smokin' hot, dood. I hate them and I'm pretty sure God does to, but what the fuck is to love about this Final Four? The successful title defense is there, waiting to happen, compounded by the football-basketball Florida-OSU thing, and the impending departure of Greasy Billy Donovan for Lexington, Kentucky--another news item sure to drive Our Friend Goth one step closer to a rope in the garage.

Hence, Minions' silence. Only now, after the dearth of anything to like in the Final Four, can I finally simmer down and write about the smoking rubble that has been the last two weeks of basketball.

Kudos to Georgetown; I hate the Hoyas so much that I was very nearly hoping that UNC would beat them. I was more hoping for a random act of terrorism by a vengeful and angry Old Testament God, but I understand the limits of reason, and I concluded that, if a gun were held to my head in demand of a preference, ACC loyalty would win out. But l'chaim** to the Hoyas; coming back from 11 down and holding the Heels scoreless for 80 percent of an overtime is Pure Comedy Gold.

Kudos to UCLA; I hate them very, very much, after a 50-point second-round drubbing of the Terrapins some years ago. But goddam are their cheerleaders hot. Those little blue shifts? The basketball jerseys and not much else? Mwah!

There are many who will call this the most boring NCAA tournament evahr. I'm with them. Matters are not helped by the Terrapin women choking on a Mississippi team (and grats to them--they've a shot at the Final Four tonight) that they absolutely firebombed just four months ago.

I'm sure that energy will overcome me at some point, and I'll manage to post something less self-indulgent. Or not. See you then.

*Mostly a desire to fuel the crazed paranoia of Our Friend Goth.
**And t'voyu mat.

Cher Does Coach K

You might think all this hatin' unseemly. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.

In other stories, Rahm Emanuel is a megafucktard. Seems he told new Dem congresscritters to stay away from the Colbert show. Because he's afraid Colbert will make them look bad.

I have no words for this kind of asshattery, really. We just might want to reconsider that whole putting-Rahm-Emanuel-in-charge-of-getting-people-elected thing, though, if he's going to be all fascist about it. What a dipshit.

Enjoy part two of the holiday. Minions record so far? An acceptable, respectable, but unspectacular 12-4. We'll see what sorts of apple carts get upset today.

Not Worth Waiting For

(Updated! Scroll down. Or read the post, then scroll down.)

But I made you wait anyway. It's the first of two consecutive national holidays--on my planet, anyway--my two favorite days of the year, when I pretend that guessing the outcomes of more than 50 percent of a collection of basketball games is a good thing. Welcome to Minions' NCAA tournament preview.

We're talking the men, of course. For the women, just take my Terps, shut up, and make sure that there is a clear path to your kidneys so that you do not waste any of Miss Christie Tolliver's valuable time.

East Region

This region belongs by rights to either Texas or the Fuckheels. Georgetown is sparklingly overrated (but likely to reach the regional final by virtue of weak opposition). Washington State is about as good a long-shot first-round upset bet as there is, as painful as it is to write "Oral Roberts" on your bracket sheet. The rest? Do not sparkle.

Early Upsets: Arkansas, Oral Roberts, Texas Tech

Can't Die Quickly Enough For Me: Michigan State, USC, George Washington, BC, Georgetown

Secret Minions East Region Fetish: Vanderbilt. I want Texas to win the region, but the notion of Vandy competing in the SEC just cracks me way the fuck up.

Winner: Texas. Tyler Hansborough is a big donkey pussy.

South Region

A wild region that the Fuckeyes of Ohio State cannot fail to win. When you write them down on your sheet, chant the following: "We love Fuckeyes, isn't that odd? We love Fuckeyes, we're taunting God."

Then doff your cap in the direction of Cincinnati, where Chief Fuckeye Gothmog is cursing my name.

O-ver-Ray-ted: Virginia.

Early Upsets: Xavier (technically), and maybe Long Beach State, although that's a hard one to feel great about.

Don't Discount: Louisville--Rick Pitino is a dirty bitch. Also, while I despise the Aggies to the very core of my being, I must admit that they are a dangerous team.

Can't Die Quickly Enough For Me: Texas A&M, OSU, Virginia, Louisville, Stanford

Secret Minions South Region Fetish: Penn. But let's be realistic here.

Winner: OSU, although the regional final against John Calipari's Memphis Tigers might be good for some fireworks. Especially if it's against the Aggies instead.

West Region

What a skankho of a region. I'm looking for Kansas to bite the big one pretty early, the first 1-seed to tank, quite possibly in the second round against Villanova or UK. This may actually be the most interesting region, despite the presence of UCLA.

O-ver-Ray-ted: Pitt. Way the fucking fuck overrated. Also: Saluki.

Early Upsets: Holy Cross over the Salukis. Nova over UK, but only as a technicality. And finally, the upset that dare not speak its name, because so many other fuckers are speaking it that it's jinxed to hell and gone. Don't say it! Seriously, shut the fuck up!

Don't Discount: VTech, as much as I hate to say it.

Can't Die Quickly Enough For Me: VTech. I mean, duh. Also: UCLA, Pitt, Puke, SIU, Illinois, and Kansas.

Secret Minions West Region Fetish: A quick obligatory wank in the direction of VCU, which is the one of Ilse's 946 almas mater from which she actually obtained a degree.

Winner: Tough one. I'm taking VTech--again, painful but something that strikes me as abundantly plausible in the ebb and flow of the universe.

Midwest Region

Sure smells like Florida's region, doesn't it? Sadly, I must recuse myself from this one. Personal interest, refusal to taunt God, you understand. But here:

O-ver-Ray-ted: Butler. Also, Oregon, but that's way overshadowed by the moronic mid-major love that Butler's sucking up like a dry sponge. And finally, sadly: The University of Maryland. That ACC tournament loss to Miami put me right back squarely in the position of not really trusting my Terps all that much. I expect the Sweet Sixteen, but only because their subregion is soft.

Early Upsets: Not the one all you Terp-hating assholes are picking. ODU (the one of Ilse's 946 almas mater that she did not attend) over Butler. Tech over UNLV.

Don't Discount: Tech. They're mighty solid, and Paul Hewitt is a seriously sneaky fuck.

Can't Die Quickly Enough For Me: Florida, Arizona, Purdue, Butler, Notre Dame, Oregon, UNLV, and Tech.

Secret Minions Midwest Region Fetish: I don't think we can characterize this one as a secret.

Winner: Those wacky Badgers, in a regional final matchup that you are not expecting.

Final Four

We love Fuckeyes, isn't that odd? We love Fuckeyes, we're taunting God.

In a marvelously boring rerun of the Big Ten tournament final, OSU gobsmacks those wacky, but slightly out of their element Badgers, once again. Or maybe they do it to VTech, in the mother of all meteor games.

This concludes another Triumph of Emotion Over Science in Basketball Writing. Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Update Update Update: One quarter of the way through the first round, Minions stands at Oh For Three on upset picks, primarily because there have been no upsets (!) as yet. I can make an argument for One For Four, because I was right that Davidson wouldn't upset Maryland; but it's a pretty shitty argument. It's 6:09 PM Eastern, GWU is going down hard (My Local Locality Basketball Principle Number One: Teams Named George Suck Turkish Sailors' Bottoms for Nickels and Like It), and Minions will manfully take its 5-3 record for the first set and settle in to scrounge through leftovers and watch whatever My Local CBS Affiliate dishes up.

Oh, and thanks, commenter Purple, for letting us know, here, on the fucking Internets, that your parents had sex in Blacksburg and that you may or may not have been the result. We will look forward to the next installment in your ongoing series, "Places Where My Parents Have Shagged." Dood, I don't even know your parents and I'm devastatingly creeped out by the thought of them bumping uglies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go Photoshop some fake porn of the She-Nurse of the SS and John the Daftist and post it on your fucking Web site.

Gone Daddy Gone

bDr's reminder that Country Dick Montana should be memorialized in every town square in America got me to thinking about times gone by. We really have a luxury skate here in the 21st century, if we can remember that the current administration is an ephemeral thing (bit by bit, if necessary, as bDr indirectly reminds). Warning: the next paragraph might should be followed by "You damn kids get off my yard!"

In the 1980s, long gone, we had a real and well-founded fear of death. Daily. It was the tail end of the Cold War, baby, although we didn't know it yet. All we knew was that we had one seriously crazy motherfucker of a President, and he was gonna get us all killed before heading off to the Great Ranch in the Sky to chop wood and command vengeful American submariners through an irradiated eternity full of dead Commies.

Previous generations had their Vietnams and their love-ins and their far-higher-quality acid. What we had was crappy jobs, plentiful and easily available drugs, and the ability to get massively jacked, go out, and slam into each other to punk, neopunk, postpunk, pomopunk, punkabilly, and metapunk bands. There was no point to life. Our jobs were disposable, our bodies were anything but temples, and the music was all there was. Well, there was sex, too.

But that's another rant involving velociraptors, chest-deep snow uphill both ways, and Ilse having lived a life never having seen the Slickee Boys. Hats off to Country Dick. I don't wish it were still the 80s, but I can sure miss them just fine.

We Now Return to Good Old Soft Bigotry

Beloved commenter Doctor Death is sweet to be concerned, but need not fear for my neighbors in the wake of Maryland's stunningly crapalicious choke on Miami in the ACC tournament. Not even for Malkin, who may or may not be a neighbor. I've already committed to a strategy for dealing with her, no matter what the weather.

I'm manful enough to belly up and admit when I've made a mistake, and I made one of the oldest in preparing myself mentally for this year's ACC tournament. Simply put, I forgot what works: The soft bigotry of low expectations never disappoints. Shame on me for losing sight of that.

Hats off to Miami, and especially to their coach, Frank Haith, who has yet to lose a basketball game to Gary Williams. Haith's game plan slowed the game to a crawl, and his big boys crashed the boards hard on offense, racking up 23 second-chance points. No matter that half of those were the result of thuggery; if you're getting away with it, what are you gonna do, say no?

And the Terps showed what they're made of on a day when DJ Strawberry leaves his A game in some coed's vagina; they're made of gawky elbows, arrogance, and freshman panic. DJ recovered enough of his mojo in the second half to help spark a comeback, and the Terps were within a point with a minute or so left. But after one bad possession, they were down three, and couldn't manage to score in the final possession. They got off a decent shot that missed, and grabbed the rebound. But then, unwarrantedly cocky freshman Grievous Vasquez cranked up a panicky, windmilling, awkward 3 from the corner with about 5 seconds left, rather than attempting one more pass (as he should have done, since he was double-teamed by people bigger than he). He was fouled, and blatantly so, while shooting it, but machts nichts. He didn't deserve to go to the line for that shit, and I don't think I'd have called the foul, either.

So I will quietly do other things for the weekend, while Ilse and her mother watch what remains of the ACC tournament. I will stoke myself with a complete lack of confidence in my team. I will remind myself that they are mortal. And I will hope that this leads to a nice 2- or 3-game run in the NCAA tournament, which is really more than anyone with a spark of reason or sanity could have hoped for these boys in the first place.

Notes on Current Events

-I don't give a flying fuck about Scooter Libby, who was dumb enough to perjure himself to cover his boss's attempt to have a covert CIA operative killed out of political spite. I note only this: if you dare to compare Libby's perjury about acts of treason with Bill Clinton's untruths about getting blowjobs, you are, quite simply, an asshole who forfeits the right to be taken seriously--in fact, it's really a shame that you probably have the right to vote, because you're not bright enough to exercise it responsibly and the rest of us will have to put serious thought and time into countering the effects of your coinflipping limbic system.

Other than that, Fitzmas just isn't doing much for me, and the notion that fascist jerkoffs are assholes isn't really news anyway.

And just because it's becoming my traditional political signoff: Fuck you, Purple.

-Yes, Mme. Malkin and Mlle. Coulter are bad people. My suggestion is this: if you run into Mlle. Coulter, just cover your asscheeks and walk away quickly, because that bitch has a 10-inch cock and she wants it enveloped in your asspussy. As for Mme. Malkin, I think the best way to handle a personal encounter is to smile benignly and say, not too loudly, "BOO!" If she's lucky, she'll be wearing her Depends. If not? Pure comedy gold for you.

-I am settling in for some basketball. Little else matters: work, sleep, food, child care are all simply things that must be done to enable watching my various Terpses stumble toward whatever fate holds for them over the next few weeks. I am in Turtle Warrior mode.

I've been more in love with the boys, since they beat the University of the Color of the Sky and ran the table for their last seven games, but the mystery and deep-seated fear remain; if they win the ACC tournament, they will die a horrible and early death in the NCAAs. If they are humbled by Miami on Thursday or BC on Friday, it's too early; if they are humbled by Virginia on Sunday, it will be equally devastating, because how can you claim to have a penis if you lose to Virginia three times in one season? No, this is a must-lose-on-Saturday proposition, and the likely opponent that day? The University of the Color of the Sky, of course, which is looking eminently beatable, what with Tyler Hansborough in a tizz about his busted-up face.

The women? Ah, the women. A semifinal loss in the ACC tournament to the brazen harlot pirate hooker thugs from the University of the Color of the Sky, of course. But we saw that movie last year, and that turned out to be a damned good movie with a damned good ending, and for this year? The game that counts remains. Anything less than the Final Four will be a disaster for the girls, although a loss in the Eight will be no horrible surprise; these things tend toward a certain entropy, after all. I will sit and hope for Miss Christie Tolliver's upcoming date with Miss Ivory Latta's kidneys. Those girls just plain don't like each other, hoss.

Mission Accomplished

Landrustan smart. Landrustan strong.

Yes, an attack through Canada was expected, although in their last, desperate gasp, the otherwise wily Egoslavs used an attack profile that was surprisingly asymetrical. Nonetheless, we can safely declare victory and pledge foreign aid to the Egoslavs, who have always been our friends. We have never been at war with Egoslavia.

While the Egoslavians maintain that the muddied origins of today's events rooted in a complimentary post about the musical taste of Our Leader, Landrustanians protested in droves, believing that the Knez had ridiculed Our Leader for owning no music recorded after 1982.

All that is irrelevant. The Egoslavs have always been our friends. We have never been at war with Egoslavia.

Join now in the National Anthem of Landrustan:

Landrustan is now looking for other blogocentric national groupings on which to declare meaningless wars in the interest of securing meaningless victories. Successful candidates will share an embarrassing insidery past with Landrustan and possess a detailed knowledge of trivia popular in Landrustan.

Take Cover, There's Gonna Be Collateral Damage

Fools! We have overcome our childhood fear of the Katebush with superior mind control imagery:





Now suffer the wrath of Susanna Hoffs!



Belinda Carlisle is warming up in the bullpen. We have WMDs and we're not afraid to use them.

Surrender Egoslavs

You have the stones to throw down in Minions' comments section? Screw you. You want a war, fight it in your blog like a normal person, damn you!

We will fight you on the beaches!



We will fight you in the cities!



We will enslav you in our fields, where you'll work harder with a gun in your back for a bowl of rice a day!



Of course, we'll not forget to skewer your heads on a stake.

And we'll come for your uncool niece.



And if slavery isn't enough, we'll do experiments on your minds.



No, we really mean it.



We've got a search engine and an indomitable will. On your Knez, Egoslavs.

A Diplomatic Mission to Egoslavia

Dear Knez,



Be careful with that time machine.

Dilemmariffic!

(UPDATED: See below)

With Leather, which I have linked to and, I have decided after much turbulent thought, will continue to link to, is a fun little place. Matthew Ufford, aka Captain Caveman, aka yet another hot young writer in New York waiting for a breakthrough he probably more-or-less deserves, is a funny guy, with a great eye for guy-funny stuff like football and chicks you'd probably like to fuck. He's demonstrated this time and again at KSK (the most important blog in the world) and at Leather, his very own blog, which someone is apparently paying him to write. Great work if you can get it and stand it, and all the love in the world to him. You go, booyee.

Sometimes Ufford and the other guys at KSK skate over collections of points that some people might consider lines (Will Leitch, at Deadspin, doesn't, because he's a paid employee of Gawker and would sure hate to have to go get a job because he stood up and screamed "I Am Spartacus!" and it's hard to hold that against him). I am of the opinion that this shouldn't be a problem. In fact, until today, every time that they've done so, I've laughed my ass off at people in their comments sections who have, in my view, taken things a bit too seriously. And truly? The stuff perceived as over the line has been so ephemeral I don't even remember it, although I think some people got sticks up their butts over a Challenger joke. I mean, I'll punch out any of my friends who makes a Len Bias joke, but coming from strangers? Internet strangers without candy? Meh. Fuck it. I can accept the premise that this might be funny to people in the world at large with senses of humor philosophically similar to mine, who don't happen to carry around giant throbbing boners for the University of Maryland.

One of the reasons the boys at KSK (and Leitch, if he weren't a pussy) get away with this is that they generally don't do politics. I admire their restraint. What I think I actually admire is their focus; I'm incapable of anything but putting everything in a shaker and working it over until memes and jokes and rage just splice and collide and pour out nice and cold into a little glass of sophomoric bile or pee or, maybe sometimes, whoopee cushions, depending on what direction the meds are taking me today. Not so Ufford and the others at KSK. They stay on point. Usually.

I can't imagine that's easy; they're all bright guys and have opinions like everyone else. Ufford, as I understand it, is an ex-Marine, a recent one, who did time in Iraq. That's got to lead to a point of view, especially for someone as articulate as he is. But I've read a lot of words that Matthew Ufford has written, and I haven't a fucking clue what point of view he holds on that issue, which issue I think we can all agree is pretty fucking compelling and tends to lead people to a certain willingness to express themselves. That, friends, is focus. And restraint, a quality sometimes urged upon this blog even by the very closest of its friends (fuck you, Purple).

So I've never once (seriously) chided anyone from this band of writers for anything they've written, and I have jumped in to chide others for taking them to task for jokes that weren't funny to everybody. And that's why I'm not taking on this one in the comments section of Leather, which today tells me that Amani Toomer's soon-to-be ex-wife is a bad person because Toomer alleges that she's had some number of abortions. I am presuming that Matthew Ufford wrote this, because it's not tagged with anything to indicate that it was penned by his assistant editor, some guy from Chicago whose name escapes me at the moment (and which I cheerfully admit that I'm too lazy to look up).

It's a little difficult to know where to begin, so I guess I'd best fall back on full disclosure: As you know, I fucking hate the New York Giants. As you know, unless you're my friend TJ, Amani Toomer is a fucking douchebag. And as you know, I am a strong supporter of reproductive freedom, and an opponent of the war on fucking.

Here's the factual place we might should start: the source for the story is Page Six. The chance that there is anything factual in this story beyond the correct spelling of Toomer's name, the general location of the story as a product of the New York metropolitan area and, possibly, the name of Toomer's wife, is slim. At best. It is possible that this could act to mitigate my anger at Ufford for running with this item the way he has; he likely knows damn well that the story is likely fairly sloppy, and he may well be poking fun at the story from that perspective--and that I'm not willing to credit that so much because he's cracking wise about this woman who may or may not have had some number of abortions.

The meat of the story seems pretty ritualistic; Toomer, a douchebag, complains that his wife, a blonde, reneged on a pact to bear him many children, and that she carried out that renegation by terminating four pregnancies, and that she wouldn't cook or clean or take his name, and that she wouldn't take meds for her depression, and that she "disrespected [his] integrity and manhood."

The blonde, a chiropractor and law student, contends that Toomer was a douchebag, with various embedded legal contentions, including that he pissed on her clothes and tossed her Blackberry into the Hudson, while stifling her career ambitions and pestering her for sex.

Like I said, pretty ritualistic, yes? Clearly, these kids don't like each other. Standard divorce fare. Toomer's accusations sound moody and testosterone-poisoned; hers sound stereotypically shrill. All of which is undoubtedly skewed by the filters of their lawyers, as further filtered by Page Six.

So why am I pissed? Let's go to the videotape:

"Of course she doesn't cook or clean. She doesn't have the time with all the trips to Planned Parenthood. She's done more abortions than a closet full of wire hangers in the 1950s. Pol Pot killed fewer babies."

Aw, dood. You didn't. No, really, you didn't. After staying clean on politics for so long, you decide to smear Planned Parenthood on a blog read largely by guys? You equate abortion with babykilling? With fucking Pol Pot?

Okay, okay. I've defended your right to edgy humor before, I'll do it again. We're done here, right?

Uhm...no.

"Yeah, Toomer is such a bad guy, says the woman who uses the abortion clinic instead of the Pill. But she's right about one thing -- a BlackBerry is way more important than a fetus. It's true. You ever tried to play Tetris on a baby bulge? Fucking impossible."

Dood. Dood. DOOD. The abortion clinic instead of the pill? For one thing, that's Amani's allegation, run through Page Six. For another, you do understand that the pill has a limited success rate, right? I mean, you don't take it totally for granted; shit happens. For another, you've not only ignored, you have pissed on the equal possibility that Amani Toomer may have actually abused this broad. Equal, I say, because we have roughly equal evidence to the effect that he's a douchebag and she's a golddigger (which is, after all, what this is about)--and all of that evidence came from PAGE FUCKING SIX.

I thought long and hard, and I'm not cutting With Leather from my daily reading, or from the Sausage to your right. I'm not going to take Ufford to task on his home turf, because while some folk over there will get it, a lot won't, and I don't need the aggravation, and I don't want to become PNG in a place where I occasionally find a need to drop a witty comment. I am going to write to him privately and ask that he read this post, and offer him an opportunity to correct any egregious factual wrongs I'm doing him here.

And I'm damn sure not suggesting that you go take this up yourself. I'm really not. What I am doing is this: you're on notice, Mister Ufford. While it is perfectly reasonable that my respect and affection may be trivial to you--and in fact, there's no reason why they should be anything but trivial--you have trifled with them today, Sir. Seriously. Please maintain your laser-like focus on what the fuck it is you're supposed to be doing. Thank you.

UPDATE: Matt Ufford updated the post in question, to note that he does not, in fact, take seriously anything he reads on Page Six. He reminds that "nothing -- nothing -- on this site is serious unless I make it an explicit point to 'take off my With Leather hat.' You fucking nancies."

I'll take his point and be done with this. My sacred cow ain't your sacred cow.