Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Congress Finally Talks Back

The fbomber is glad to see that Congress has decided to grow a spine, and defy President Bush's wishes. He is, however, scratching his head about the timing.

Authorize the Iraq War without evidence of WMDs or aggressive action against the U.S.? You got it, George.

Pass the Patriot Act without even reading it? Okey-dokey, no problem.

Prevent another Great Depression? Fuck you, asshole.

Friday, September 26, 2008

McCain: Losing It?

As this campaign progresses, the fbomber continues to be more and more impressed by Barrack Obama's composure. Nothing seems to phase the man and ruffle his good natured cool.

Apparently, this is not only a reflection of his natural temperament but a deliberate campaign choice designed to highlight his capacity to function effectively under pressure. The fbomber has heard that his unofficial campaign mantra is "No Drama Obama."

This is in dramatic contrast to McCain, who has adopted the unofficial slogan of "Insane in the Membrane."

The fbomber is actually becoming worried about McCain. He's only seen one other person melt down so dramatically in the public eye.

Much like this other person, McCain has:

1) Abandoned his previous beliefs and morals.
2) Become BFFs with a snotty bitch.
3) Proven erratic and completely undependable about scheduled responsibilities.

Basically, the fbomber fears that McCain is a single head-shaving and beaver-shot away from pulling "a full Britney."

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Fbomber's Social Laws:Part 1

Reading the print and online commentary about the Federal Wall Street Junk Buy-Up/Bailout has made the fbomber realize two hard facts about human beings.

1. The Fbomber's Competency/Certitude Inverse Correlative: The less able an individual is to successfully manage even the smallest aspects of his/her own life, the more sure he/she is of how to manage the biggest issues of the world.

AKA Blogger's Law, Politician's Postulate, Economist's Axiom, and Op-Ed Writer's Fundamental.

2. The Fbomber's Professional Wardrobe/Utility Paradox: The less valuable a service a profession provides, the better that profession dresses.

Brain surgeons save your life wearing pyjamas made out of green bedsheets. Investment bankers push around crap investments wearing $6,000 Brioni suits.

As proof of this law's accuracy, consider that this law predicts that hookers provide the maximum possibility utility to customers, as they perform their job completely naked. QED, homies.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Deepest Condolences?

The fbomber just learned that his weekend a missive went out from Georgetown University (the fbomber's alma mater) to "Greater New York–Area Alumni" impacted by last week's events in the financial sector, i.e. the Wall Street I-bankers who have been giving the school money. James M. Langley, the university's vice-president for "advancement" wrote:

In light of the extraordinary events that have rocked global financial markets this week, I write to express my deepest sympathy and concern for all members of the Georgetown University community impacted by the upheaval.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you as the crisis continues and details of remedial efforts are announced. I intend to spend the coming months learning how our friends have been impacted and provide whatever support the University can.

On behalf of President DeGioia and our entire Georgetown community, I extend my hopes for a swift recovery and a brighter future.


I'm ashamed. For all the old grey stone buildings on campus, this just shows how middle-class, gauche, arriviste and bourgeouis (sp?) Georgetown really is.

The true pimp elite aristocracy schools (do I even need to say the "I-word L-word?") know better than to even talk about money, in good times and --- especially --- in bad. These little economic hiccups are the sort of thing that are taken on the chin with a stiff upper lip and all that... anyway, it's something for the accountant people to worry about.

Not Georgetown, though. We have to say this kind of shit. In public.

Come on, guys. Pull it together. At least act like G-town is more than a glorified trade school to put out efficient white-collar servants for America's hereditary elite. Pretend.

After all, no matter how many earnest knowledge workers we can pump into the worlds of law, finance, medicine and politics we're never going to get the admission to the white-shoe world we crave with every ounce of our being if we keep betraying our Mick & Wop Papist working-class origins with this sort of rookie faux paus. Jesus.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

If Not Apocalypse Now, Apocalypse When?

As of end of day Friday, the fbomber has heard 24 hours of a panicked chorus of dire, if vague, warnings about what kind of catastrophe awaits our global economic system if the American taxpayer does not pick up the tab for the bad home loan-based debt that appears to be the financial equivalent of the Ebola virus.

Against this frantic, unified squealing, the fbomber would like to send up a countervailing, solitary and equally frantic squeal of his own: "Don't do it!"

Don't allocate money for a bailout. Don't save these financial institutions. Don't prop up the rotten timbers of the global finance structure.

Let it all collapse.

The fbomber does not say this out of a disbelief of the worst case scenarios which have been trotted out for the last news cycle. He says it in a fervent hope and belief that the worst case scenarios are actually conservative, rosy-tinted, dream-wishes compared to the full extent of the inevitable disaster.

In short, the fbomber wishes for a complete descent into violent, senseless anarchy. Pronto.

He can't help it. As a product of the 80's, he was raised on a steady stream of post-apocalyptic narratives in his formative years. As it turned out, movies like Mad Max, Red Dawn, and The Terminator shaped his psychology in a profound way.

He's actually disappointed that it's 2008 and he has not yet once had to wear animal furs to survive, eat human flesh or drive a spike-studded dune buggy across the desert while being chased by a psychotic midget.

That is the violent, chaotic, brutal reality that his upbringing prepared him for --- not this boring business of going to work every day to do the same stupid job. Where's the glamor to that? The adrenaline rush? The opportunity to callously commit satisfyingly vicious acts of violence without fear of retribution? Unless you're working for the LAPD, nowhere.

The fbomber actually looks forward to a life of scrabbling for life's essentials amid the ruins of a once-functioning society.

After all, such a life looks to combine the most enjoyable aspects of camping, hunting, road-racing, mixed martial arts, scavenger hunts and trading food-scraps for sexual favors.

He has exciting plans to create his own society, a tribe which rewards indolence and cynicism with the same respect that our existing society heaps upon industry and competence.

Most of all, he eagerly anticipates being able to travel the 405 during daylight hours at a speed exceeding 5 miles per hour.

So, yeah. Fuck this "New Great Depression" talk. Let's think big here, folks, along the lines of "Next Dark Age" or better yet, "Pre-History 2.0." If he's not wearing a feral-cat loincloth and club-fighting another dude for chieftan status by next week, at the latest, he's going to be pissed.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

CORRECTION: Republicans Even Worse than Previously Stated

CORRECTION
In an earlier, error-riddled post the fbomber predicted that Mitt Romney would be elected President of the United States, which obviously will not come to pass this year.

Even more egregiously, he claimed that Republicans possess three core competencies: Making money. Trolling for anonymous gay sex in public bathrooms. And making Democrats look repulsive.

As it turns out, the fbomber overestimated Republican capabilities. For starters, it appears that Republican men are awful at keeping their feverish lust for public bathroom cock out of the papers.

And saying that the Republicans are good at making money is a statement so vague as to become inaccurate. Because as recent events have shown, it does not contain a descriptor of exactly who the Republicans make money for.

As the last eight years have shown, that list of lucky parties is a very short one, noticeably NOT including the following groups:

The Poor - The Census Bureau reports Americans whose household income was in the lowest 20 percent saw their incomes drop 6 percent since 2000.

The Middle Class - According to an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report, the period 2000-2007 shows the lowest increase in median income (it’s actually a negative $324.00) of any of the four cycles of economic growth over the last four decades.

Stockholders, generally - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,587.60 on the day Bush took office. Today it's at 10,609.66. So it's more or less identical, not even taking inflation into account. So, considering brokerage fees and investment costs --- investors would have been better off burying their money in coffee cans in the back yard than investing in stocks.

Taxpayers, generally - Under George W Bush, we've added $4 trillion to our national debt, thanks to a combination of tax cuts and wars. This debt will generate interest which the taxpayers will have to pay.

Anyone earning, spending or saving U.S. dollars, generally - Between 2000 and 2008, the dollar weakened against the euro by 37 percent.

But not everyone has been a loser the last eight years.

Oil Companies, Defense Contractors and The Top 1 Percent of the wealthiest Americans seem to have made out okay. That last group, for instance, has seen its income increase by 50 percent since 2001.

Some might say that this failure in both absolute wealth creation and equitable wealth distribution proves the error of the "trickle down" theory of economics first propounded by Ronald Reagan's economic handlers nearly 30 years ago. Then again, the Republicans never specifically said what they intended to trickle down on the poor people, in the same way that R. Kelly never specifically mentioned what liquid he would be serving his 15-year-old girlfriends when he invited them up for "a drink."

Thursday, September 11, 2008

OsamaWatch:2555 Days and Counting

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, one that killed almost 3,000 Americans.

Though the fbomber knows how many distractions this nation has right now --- Look! A Presidential candidate with really curly hair! Wow! A chick Vice-Presidential candidate with sexy rimless glasses! --- he wonders if anyone, anywhere, in any official U.S. Government capacity is actively trying to catch the motherfucker who reportedly planned and directed that attack.

Here’s a refresher: His name is Osama Bin Laden. It’s understandable if you’ve forgotten the name, since the only time you hear the word “Osama” anymore is when Republicans deliberately mispronounce Barrack Obama’s name to make some childish, retarded, bullshit point that only childish, retarded, bullshit people can even understand.

Osama --- the real Osama --- is a Saudi national. He’s about 6 foot 5 inches, with a long stringy beard, livery-looking lips and big, soulful, puppy-dog eyes --- kind of like Paul McCartney’s if Paul McCartney were a fanatical killer motivated by a perverted interpretation of an already violent religion.

U.S. forces last spotted him in the hills of Tora Bora back in December of 2001 --- way back when we were actually winning the war in Afghanistan --- but he somehow slipped away. Various reports have him in the mountainous, wild, lawless Waziristan region of Pakistan* or maybe even dead.

I think it’s outrageous that it’s 2008 and we don’t even know for sure if he’s still breathing or not. And what’s more, nobody seems to care. Networks haven't broken into our regularly scheduled programming to tell us about the latest Osama sighting since I don't know when. The CIA unit tasked with finding him was disbanded in 2005.

Oddly, America --- a nation which remains fascinated beyond all reason with sluts and drug addicts who peaked a half-century ago ---seems to have lost interest completely in this mass murderer after only seven years.

Why are we letting this killer off the hook? Were his victims not blond or pretty enough to merit continued interest?

Shouldn’t the War on Terror include at least a couple of shots at those who actually commit acts of terror against us? If nothing else, those legitimate uses of force could at least act as a sort of fig leaf to cover whatever other bloody, expensive, misguided, illegal side-projects this nation chooses to lump into that category as well.

Don’t we want revenge? This is --- after all --- the nation which gave the world “Death Wish,” “Kill Bill” and, er, “Kill Bill II.” Don’t we want some payback? What's holding us back?

We certainly have no compunction about indulging in all our other baser instincts of lust, greed, jealousy, rage and violence --- usually in a single hour of FOX prime time programming --- so why are we drawing the line at a desire for retribution?

Personally, I don’t care if it’s seven years, seventeen or seventy. I want Osama caught. If he’s alive, I want him in an orange jumpsuit in Rikers Island, being sodomized in the showers. If he’s dead, I want him dug up and brought here for a ritual corpse defilement, also consisting of sodomization in a shower.

Finally, weren’t we --- as an angry and grieving nation --- promised that this asshole would be brought to justice? Shortly after the attacks, I seem to remember our President solemnly intoning on national television that Osama would be captured, “dead or alive.”**

Though Bush failed to keep most of his other promises --- especially his vow to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” --- I always kind of hoped that he would meet this one. After all, it didn’t really require any thought or work on his part. Just an order for one person to kill another person, his specialty.***

It looks like it’s not going to happen though. Bush has already been quoted as saying that “he doesn’t think about” Bin Laden.**** That’s too bad. Because after seven years of Bush not thinking about Bin Laden, the trail has grown colder than the underground crypt Dick Cheney goes into to hide from sunlight.

What a shame. I just wish that the Republicans had showed as much energy chasing Osama as they did the blue dress Bill Clinton jizzed on.

---

* The fbomber finds it comical --- in a choking, sickening way --- that this country’s multi-billion dollar surveillance satellites, predator drones, communications-interceptions networks, information-processing hardware and intelligence agencies are apparently rendered useless by caves. Caves. How much more low-tech can you get than that? That’s like having your F-16 shot down by a flint-tipped spear.

** Perhaps when Bush said that, he had already decided on “dead” and chosen the world’s top assassin --- old age --- to carry out the hit.

*** Texas: 154 Executed while Governor
Iraq: 4155 U.S. Dead, 150,000 to 1 million Iraqi dead.
Afghanistan: 586 U.S. Dead, up to 14,000 Afghanis dead.

**** Luckily, he stopped there. If he had given a complete list of all the things that he does not think about, he would probably still be talking now, and I am --- frankly --- sick of his voice.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

The fbomber Told You So, Part I

In this article, "5 Myths About Those Civic-Minded, Deeply Informed Voters", Washington Post writer Rick Shenkman confirms many of the fbomber's theories about American voters*, but without resorting to overbroad generalizations, scatological analogies, scurrilous accusations, gratuitous insults, misogynistic rantings, a gross distortion of facts or a graph drawn on the back of an index card.

Yeah, I know. Bor-ing!

To summarize (and chime in):

1. American voters are Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. (Where's Iraq? Who's Karl Marx? What war was the Battle of Bunker Hill fought in? Don't ask Americans. Ask wikipedians**)
2. Conservative voters are not necessarily more dumb than liberal voters. (The study did not measure Meanness levels.)
3. Even if you give American voters the facts, they will still draw the wrong conclusions. (This should come as no surprise, in a country where half the population still believes in Creationism, despite being forcibly exposed to Evolution countless times during their journey through the educational system)
4. Voters are as Dumb as ever, and maybe even Dumber, despite rising educational levels. (A cursory viewing of the "Girls Gone Wild: Spring Break" documentary series should explain why a college degree need not automatically result in higher intellectual achievements.)
5. Young people don't follow the news, really, at all. (Facebook Status Updates, apparently, do not count.)

So what? So --- the fbomber repeats --- attempts to reach American voters through their heads are going to fail to engage the broader electorate. If Darwinism can't penetrate our thick skulls after 100 years, do you think that Obamanomics has a chance in 7 weeks?

Democrats have got to generate stronger emotions from American guts.

And not just the positive, happy, warm, hopeful emotions I watched being created in Denver either. Those emotions are nice, but fbomber has far too often watched them get beat up and hand their lunch money over to the uglier emotions of greed, fear and hate inside the election booth.

The McCain strategy coalesced late and is disjointed, but it is very powerful. I'll call it the High-Low-Fear approach.

At the High end, McCain's biography and history makes a convincing case to Sweet and Dumb Swing voters that he won't do ALL the stupid things Bush did. That he's a Maverick. That he's Competent. That he's a Reformer. That he's a Lifelong Public Servant, and Oh Yeah, One More Thing, A War Hero.

At the Low end, McCain's concessions to the Hard Right on war and taxes--- plus his pick of Hockey Mom*** Sarah Palin --- energize the Mean half of the voting spectrum, both Smart and Dumb.

Underneath it all, like a steady, throbbing bass beat, the Fear message --- Obama is young, he is inexperienced, we don't know him, he's kind of different from most of us, he doesn't kick ass, he's naive, he's not ready, he can't execute, he can't protect us --- will depress and demotivate support for Obama across the board.

Democrats have got to generate some fear themselves. Fear that McCain is too Old, too Crazy, to Angry, and too Unhealthy for the job. Fear that he'll continue the Worst and Stupidest of the Republican policies. Fear that Sarah Palin might wind up in the Oval Office, and make us nostalgic for the last eight years when we only had someone pretending to be a redneck in the White House.

Democrats have to generate enough fear to make the Smartest and Nicest of the Dumb & Mean people doubt their allegiance to McCain, and stay home on Election Day. And to make the Sweet & Dumb Swing Voters of America so afraid of a McCain/Palin victory that they go vote for Obama. Or, at the very least, don't go vote for McCain. Or at the very, very least NOT go to vote against Obama.

---

* The fbomber is not one of these self-hating Americans who believes that Americans are inherently stupider, greedier, meaner, lazier and more fearful than other nations. He is a self-hating American who believes that these elements are distributed more or less evenly throughout the entire human race. He does note, however, that American culture tends to glorify and actually revel in these characteristics more than any other nation he has seen. And that Americans, in fact, appear to willfully confuse these faults with virtues.

** Some might quibble that this characterization was based on measuring what someone knows, not their capability to learn and perform. So more accurately measures interests, not intelligence. A person uninterested in politics might score very low on this test, but be extremely informed and capable in other matters more relevant to daily life.

To which the fbomber responds: Nice try, dummy. Kicking ass in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City does not count as having "street smarts."

*** Living in Southern California, the fbomber is unfamiliar with this taxonomic classification and hasn't yet had it clearly defined for him yet. As best he can tell, it's just like a soccer mom, but a complete cunt.

Friday, September 05, 2008

GOPVPT&A2: The Update

No matter how cynical the fbomber gets, he can’t keep up with reality.

The fbomber knew that the Palin appointment would rouse the Mean and Stupid elements of the GOP, but had no idea that this one woman would be the spark that would re-ignite the capital C, capital W, Culture War. The War that has raged --- as best as he can tell --- since the dirty hippies had the nerve to suggest that America would be a cooler place if we didn’t subjugate Negroes, oppress women, legislate an Old Testament Judeo-Christian morality on everyone, kill innocent foreigners without reason and dress up in a dark gray suit every time we left the house.

Those filthy, bra-burning Commies somehow succeeded in corrupting our nation’s morals, causing America to fall from the Edenic peace and purity that existed in this Godly, Righteous nation before oral sex, the electric guitar and incense ruined everything.*

Stoked with the kind of rage that only comes from having freedom, fairness and scientific facts forced onto a mind that has no use for those things, America’s Meanest & Dumbest have burned with an unrelenting, unthinking, resentful fury for the last four decades.

Ever on the alert for a new power source, the Smart and Mean Republicans latched onto this rage early, riding and directing the Dumb & Mean crowd like that twisted dwarf Master rode the huge retard Blaster in “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”

An interesting thing almost happened this election. Up until Wednesday, it looked like this year’s Smart and Mean twisted dwarf, John McCain, would be fighting in the Thunderdome solo. Despite a recent conversion to craven, servile televangelist bum-nuzzling,** McCain’s antipathy for the snake-handling set has always been obvious and reciprocated. Without someone that the Guns, God, Babies, Creationism and Hate-Faggots set could get excited about, McCain’s campaign looked ready to expire with the same sad, weak whimper McCain himself makes when he is unable to reach his bedpan in time.

Enter Sarah “Barracuda” Palin.

There was only one small hitch. Before the Republicans could present their model of Family Values and Good Old Fashioned Morality to the nation, they had to dispose of an inconvenient set of embarrassing facts called Her Life, all in a single toilet flush of a press release.

And what a deliciously white-trash set of facts it was, too. A pregnant teenage daughter.*** A drunk-driving husband.**** A power-abuse scandal involving a wife-beating state trooper brother-in-law.***** Close ties to an organization agitating for secession from the United States******. *******.

The only thing missing was clarification on whether the Alaska Governor’s mansion is a single or double-wide.

Despite these little foibles --- any one of which would have caused FOX News to launch a separate, outraged, channel if Obama had done them******** --- she has been received rapturously by her target audience.

Never so rapturously as when she delivered her speech Wednesday, a speech which reminded the fbomber of some bitchy, quarterback-fucking high school cheerleader putting the earnest valedictorian in his social place by reminding everyone how totally lame it is to be smart and care about learning and people and stuff. And that really cool people kick ass and shit. Also drill for oil and cut taxes, because, like, fuck you, nerd, you suck.

For the loyal Dumb & Mean Dog-mericans salivating at her every word, the message could not have been clearer: Attack.

It’s on. That's right, motherfuckers, it's on.*********

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* Oddly --- despite hearing repeated intimations that a prelapsarian bliss suffused America before these morals were corrupted --- the fbomber has never seen an old newspaper headline proclaiming “Everything Just Dandy!” Not even from the 1950’s.

** McCain’s reversals leave the fbomber unable to believe anything the man says. This is a far cry from his previous honesty, when McCain was “The Straight Talk Express.” As a matter of fact, the only straight talk the fbomber has heard from McCain recently is when he called his own wife a cunt.

That I do believe. She even looks scary. Like if JonBenet Ramsey caught that aging disease.

*** The fbomber loves the sense of outrage that Palin’s spokespeople generated about the Internet rumors that pegged the five-month-old Trig as her daughter’s. “How dare you,” they screamed “suggest anything so sordid as that Trig is the 17-year-old Bristol’s secret illegitimate love-child? Bristol’s secret illegitimate love child is ANOTHER BABY ALTOGETHER, one who hasn’t even been born yet, thank you very much. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

The fbomber is also gratified to see how classy Barrack Obama was, sternly telling his campaign that Palin’s family was “off-limits.”

The fbomber agrees with the move, but would have phrased it differently, something along the lines of “The fact that Governor Palin’s preachy, holier-than-though, abstinence-only-education, Traditional-Values, in-your-face, puritanical morality did not prevent her own daughter from being a raving, cock-hungry slut moaning in ecstasy as a horny hockey jock jammed his throbbing fuckstick balls-deep into her quivering, downy-haired, 16-year-old, unmarried cooter without any form of birth control is most definitely ‘off limits.’”

But hey, po-tay-toh, po-tah-to.

**** Dude is a professional snow-mobiler. Who has twice won a 2,000 mile snow-mobile race. 2,000 miles. The fbomber has to salute the pure American-ness of a soul who sees two thousand miles of pristine Arctic Wilderness, unspoiled by man, and thinks to himself that it looks like a great place for him and a hundred other rednecks to drive their snow-Harleys across at top speed.

Best of all, combined with his two other professions of commercial fisherman and oil-field worker, this means that this guy spends literally EVERY WAKING HOUR of his life despoiling the environment and basically raping Mother Nature in some way or the other. You have to respect that commitment.

***** Imagine the shock a family experiences when they learn that a rural cop turns out to be a violent bully. That would be nearly as surprising as marrying a stripper and discovering that she has cocaine and daddy issues.

****** Last I heard, ultra-nationalist elements in Russia were reconsidering the sale of Alaska to the U.S.. The Alaska Independence Party might want to look at some footage of Tblisi getting leveled by mortar fire before they strike off on their own. Or, on second thought, maybe not. Let them just go for it.

******* Adding all these things together, it’s clear that Alaska isn’t the Last Frontier anymore. It’s the New Confederacy.

******** Having grown up in a town of 400 souls, in the Deep Red state of Oklahoma, the fbomber is intimately familiar with how the deeply conflicted Fundamentalist Christian mind works. This mind --- consisting of its unstable mixture of natural, unsophisticated, vulgar impulses and indoctrinated, all-pervasive shame and guilt about those impulses --- is willing to overlook and forgive just about any perverse act, just so long as the person didn’t actually enjoy it.

In this way, both liberals and conservatives live by the motto of “If it feels good, Do It.” The conservatives simply add the extra steps of “Fight It, Hide It, Deny It, Regret It and Persecute It.”

********* Having long ago deserted the Culture Wars frontline to hide out in the safe fortress of Los Angeles, the fbomber remains ready to offer terms of a truce. We Godless, arrogant abortionists get New York, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. You ignorant, hypocritical pigfuckers can have everything else. In other words, the status quo. Let's go ahead and make it official.