Christmas Wishes Do Come True

Our Lady of Perpetual Butthurt, Sarah Palin, resurfaced the other day shooting word salad all over the airwaves via Fox News, ostensibly because she has a timely new ghost-written book out about how all the nasty liberals killed Christmas by impaling the baby Jesus on a Christmas tree.

Or something.  Frankly, it’s hard to interpret what she says any time words fall out of her mouth, even if you care.  And of course, not only do I not care, I wasn’t even paying attention, because I was too focused in on “what the fuck has Sarah Palin done to her face?”

For several years now, I have wished aloud that Sarah Palin would stay in the public eye just long enough to be tempted into unfortunate plastic surgery.  I had faith that the day would arrive sooner rather than later after her Big Gulp performance last year, in which she was unable to move her upper lip thanks to overdoing the botox; in the photos from that event the paralysis makes her look positively deranged.  Stupid, at the very least.  Take a look at where she is now:

Oh, goody!  I never thought she would go immediately to the drag queen brow lift, but she has!  And she’s paired it with a 70s style wig.

Now, I’ve taken a little heat for pointing out that she’s starting to look really bad thanks to all this ill-advised “work,” particularly from the more sensitive souls who frequent the Balloon Juice blog.  In principle, I agree that commenting on a person’s looks is non productive and unfair.  But that’s because most people haven’t, for the most part, chosen what they look like.  What about someone who looks ridiculous because they chose to have surgery, or because of what they’ve chosen to wear?  Not the same thing, say I.  The entire genesis of my wish regarding Palin was in fact the idea that it would be nice if the outside better reflected what’s on the inside.  She’s accomplished that with this brow lift – it gives her a harsh, mean look.  You can easily picture her as a Disney villainess.  Caribou Cruella, if you will.

But quicker minds than my own have been on the case.  Bob Cesca thought the new and improved face of Sarah Palin looked an awful lot like someone else, and I have to agree:

The difference is, Rob Lowe’s look was achieved with prosthetics and makeup; he’s not stuck with that face.

If she keeps going at the current rate, Sarah Palin will be the next Michael Jackson or Joan Rivers 5 years from now; if she wants to continue grifting gullible middle-aged-to-old white men, she doesn’t have much choice other than to continue to try to look several decades younger than she is.  Because once they stop looking at the packaging, there will be no escaping that there’s nothing of value in the package.

Much like the ancient Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times,” it’s hard to imagine a more karmic, fitting fate for Sarah Palin than the one dictated by the path she chose.

Celebrating April Fool’s, One Day Early

When I posted about the Google doodle controversy yesterday, I missed what was the funniest point:  the rightwingtards were all up in arms in part because many of them thought the doodle was in honor of Hugo Chavez, not Cesar Chavez.  Oh well, what’s the difference?  They’re both brown.  And so Republican Latino outreach continues apace.

I got to wondering though, what with the portability of Easter, has it ever fallen on April 1?  What if the original Easter was just an April Fool’s joke?  If the post from yesterday doesn’t send me to hell, surely this latest musing will.

In the spirit of the day, I offer you this, which has been hanging around in My Pictures for quite some time now:

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Hello, Danny

Found and shared by my wonderful and talented nephew Trevor, who turned 13 yesterday:

The only thing that would make it better would be if there was also an “after” pic, with the ax.

The Asteroid Can’t Come Soon Enough

New TV series, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo,  premieres on TLC (The “Learning” Channel) this week:

One wonders what we’re supposed to be “learning” from this “learning channel” – or as George W. Bush once said, “Is our children learning?”  If they’re watching TLC, apparently they’re learning about rednecks.  Other current offerings on the channel include “I’m Pregnant at the Same Time as My Teen,” and “American Gypsies.”  Not too long ago, TLC was the midgets and fat people channel, now they’re going full-on white trash.  About the only good thing I can find to say about this is:  thank god these people aren’t from Arkansas; the Duggars (another TLC “learning” opportunity) are enough of an embarrassment for one state.  Sad to say, Beth and Lyta, but these fine specimens are your own – they hail from the great state of Georgia.

Don’t you love how the clip says, “you’ve met Honey Boo-Boo; now meet her family!”  Really?  Do we HAVE to?  I think I could have lived out the rest of my days without seeing a bunch of derping rednecks playing with their belly fat for the cameras.

Another thing from the video clip above that is amusing, in a sick sort of way, is the argument they have about whether or not they’re rednecks.  One of the girls claims they’re not because “we have our TEEF don’t we” (protip:  if you call them TEEF, you might be a redneck), but as you can see in the photo below, no, they not only don’t have all their TEEF, they don’t have all their TEETH, either.  Check out dad “Sugar Bear” in the lower right corner – he seems to be missing a few in the front:

From the blessedly limited amount of “research” I’ve done on the topic, apparently “Sugar Bear” is a chalk miner.  I did not know such a profession existed, though I suppose it’s an appropriately Dickensian occupation for the husband of a 400 pound “Coupon Queen” who enters her child into beauty pageants and dopes her up with a mixture of Mountain Dew and Red Bull to give her an energy boost before she goes on stage.

Seriously folks, it’s all over but the crying.  America had a good run and we should just content ourselves with having made it through almost 250 years before the whole thing fell apart.

Goatse: A Retrospective

No one ever forgets their first goatse, though some people (I speak here of my co-bloggers) have had the good fortune to have never been goatse’d in the first place.  And I, to my credit, have been good enough not to tell them what goatse is.  Now, thanks to this piece in Gawker, Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History, everyone has a chance to learn what goatse is without being subjected to the indelible image itself. 

My feeling about goatse is, well, it’s gross of course, but in a very very sick and twisted way, much much funnier than a Rickroll.  Goatse was the original Rickroll, and though it has now faded in popularity, remains one of those things that is so horrible to behold that it must be shared, so that others can share in the pain.

Gawker has covered the ground here quite well, so I’ll leave it at that, except I’ll share this image I found quite a while back but never had reason to post.  My thought was that if Animal House was remade and set in the 2000’s, that cake float would instead look something like this:

H/t, or blame, goes to Halloween Jack in comments at alicublog, for bringing the Gawker link to my attention.

Glitterbomb prototype: Our 4th Weird Stepbrother steps up to the plate

It’s long, but stick with it. It gets worse and worse, I promise.

Thanks, Perry. At least the tune doesn’t stick with me like that Worst Music Video EVER.

Romney Newtered In South Carolina

Even his name is vaguely Dickensian

So the results are in from the primary voting for America’s Most Racist Party™ in America’s Most Racist State™, and not surprisingly, the candidate making the most openly racist appeals won.

I got into quite the online discussion last night with someone insisting that we should fear Gingrich more than Romney.  I disagree; while Romney really isn’t liked by most everyone, he’s not loathed the way Gingrich is in most places.  I noted that I wouldn’t be surprised if turnout was up yesterday in South Carolina, given what was offered on the menu – appeals to states’ rights (Paul), appeals to stick-up-the-ass faux religiosity (Santorum), and not-even-veiled appeals to racial bigotry (Gingrich).  You’d expect such a smorgasbord to really draw them out of the woodwork in the most reactionary state in the country, and it turns out this is exactly what happened – turnout was around 602,000, compared with 445,000 in 2008.  But let’s look where those “extra” votes went – Romney improved his 2008 showing by about 100,000 votes, which still put him far back into second place.  Gingrich bested him by about 70,000.  Both scored more votes than winner John McCain did in 2008. 

So what does it all mean?  Well, I don’t think it’s all that complicated, really.  I think what it means is that in the most reactionary state in the country, a lot of voters are motivated not by who they think is most likely to win a head-to-head matchup with the president, but by who they think is most likely to call him “ni**er” to his face, and Newt won that contest walking away.  I’m sure the magic underwear didn’t help Romney any with the snake-handling crowd, either.

Should we be worried about this?  Not particularly, I think.  Turnouts in both Iowa and New Hampshire were about even with the apathetic turnout in 2008, probably because the concentration of crazy in those states simply isn’t nearly as high as in South Carolina.  Sure, Newt may race-bait his way to further victories in primaries in the states of the old Confederacy, but that shit doesn’t play elsewhere.  Add to it the man’s history of shooting himself in the foot at the worst possible moment, and this is definitely the guy we’d prefer to go up against in the general election.  Because while Romney isn’t really liked, he’s not overtly offensive to many in the mushy middle.  Gingrich, on the other hand, seems to think it’s his life mission to be as offensive as possible to as many as possible.  And can you imagine evangelicals turning out in droves to support this guy in the general election?  I mean, we know from experience that they will be instructed from the pulpit to “fall in line” once the nominee is chosen, no matter how unpalatable to the brethren that choice may be.  But I can imagine quite a few of those folks just deciding to quietly sit at home on election day rather than going to the effort to show up and pull the lever for a serial adulterer whose fidelity to any particular church has been no better than his fidelity to his multiple spouses. 

So, while it’s true that the crazy isn’t confined to the south, what’s needed to harness it varies a great deal around the country.  God-botherers in the Midwest aren’t going to be motivated by code phrases like “food stamp president” in the way southern wingnuts will be, and Newt doesn’t have the religious fundamentalist chops to appeal to those folks the way he appeals to the bufords in South Carolina.

Go Newt!  Whether you win the nomination or not, your continuing presence in the race can only help in delivering victory to Obama in November.

Someone Alert The Ole Perfesser

If we can get an advance copy of this into Glenn Reynolds’ hands, he may just put it on an endless loop and NEVER BLOG AGAIN:

Actually, this is a documentary short about a guy who’s making a stop-action robot porno.  The full-length feature film won’t be available for some years to come, if ever.  But as one reviewer noted, “A robot horse getting buttf*cked?  That’s relevant to ALL MY INTERESTS!” 

There’s plenty of teh funneh in just the little clip above, too – particularly when he pauses for a moment after picking up one of his creations, then just bluntly states its purpose.

Collaborative Effort

Most of you have probably already seen the terrifying photo of Newt with his current trophy wife, Callista, that has been showing up all over the internets.  Tbogg in particular has a thing for this picture, and there have been a lot of theories advanced as to what it most resembles.  I had noted the other day that I was reminded of a bird of prey, then went further and said that if you clapped a felt hat on her head and put her in a pair of lederhosen, you’d have the new poster child for re-launching the “give a hoot, don’t pollute” campaign. 

But last night it hit me; this is what that picture of Callista really brings to mind:

Full credit goes to the mad photoshop skillz of Mr. Jeffraham Prestonian; I had the idea and found the images and even got them sized correctly, but lacked the ability/tools to do freeform cut and pasting.  Kudos to JP for stepping up and doing this thing which really had to be done.

It just wouldn’t be Christmast…

…without a little Gunther.