Why Barack Obama just lost my respect

"Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth."

Sounds like something President George W. Bush might say, doesn't it? Actually these are the words of Democratic Illinois Senator Barack Obama as he admonished his fellow democrats for neglecting to pander to the evangelists and the rest of the God-loving people of America.

"Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters"

says Sen. Obama. My question to him is, how is the mention of God even relevant to the duties of a public servant? Why the need to mention God at all? And what determines this overpowering necessity to mention God, is it the religiosity of the public or that of the public servant? If, say, the public servant is an atheist, is it still incumbent upon him to keep bringing up God just to score a point with his voter base?

Obama further says, "millions of Christians, Muslims and Jews have traveled similar religious paths, and that is why we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse." Sure, they all followed similar paths, the similarity lying in their intense common desire to wipe each other off the face of the planet. That and an unwholesome belief in an imaginary Supreme Being, one who is benevolent only towards their own particular faith.

"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square", he further adds. But no one is asking you to leave your religion at the door, Sen. Obama. You may be as feverishly religious as you desire. The only expectation we have from our leaders is not to craft sex toys out of their religious fervor and repeatedly shove them up our butts in a manner popularized by our current president and his Congressional sidekicks. Be religious on your own time, not on taxpayer funded time.

Sadly, I believe that in spite of my dismay with Sen. Obama's statements, this is probably the shrewdest stance he could have assumed within the American political theater. It is sure to catapult him to a prime position for running for President in the near future. However, it is also a very selfish and condescending position to assume because not only does he unilaterally elevate himself above the common garden variety democrat as he floats on a cloud of moral righteousness, he also marginalizes the rest of the Democratic party, whose secular members might find it ethically questionable or just plain stupid to play the religious card in order to garner a few votes.

Measuring tape shortages causing hemline violations to rise in Madhya Pradesh

An acute shortage of measuring tapes in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is causing it to descend into a vortex of criminal activity involving rising hemlines.

Madhya Pradesh, a state which is passing a law restricting women from wearing short skirts in educational institutions, is doing away with traditional police accessories such as guns, batons and handcuffs, instead, providing law enforcement officers with measuring tapes that will help them regulate limb visibility. These measuring tapes will be useful in tracking down and prosecuting female students who are guilty of violating the law by wearing skirts that culminate above their knees.

Sushma Arya, a member of the Madhya Pradesh Women's Commission, elaborated on how the measure would help women by forcibly disallowing them from looking good enough to rape. "One would think that the best way to curb crimes against women would be to arrest the perpetrator of the crime, but one would be wrong", said Ms Arya. "We now know that the root of the crime lies not in the man's sexually deprived mind but in the erotic content of the victim's legs."

In order to make way for this new law, previous laws requiring police to arrest eve-teasers and sexual predators have been scrapped, thereby freeing up manpower that would be better utilized elsewhere, for example, installing roadblocks to carry out random hemline measurements. However, police have complained that even after divesting them of their old equipment, the state government has yet to send them the requisite number of measuring tapes they need to prevent these feminine offenders from getting themselves molested.

"We have been receiving a huge number of tip-offs from people who say they've seen a short skirt here and an exposed calf there", said police constable Ramdas. "Even though most turn out to be false leads, we are still not able to follow up on all of them since we are basically guesstimating the skirt-lengths. God only knows how many bare legs we have mistakenly let loose on society and how many innocent men will be lured to a life of unavoidable crime on being seduced by their buttery charms."

Ms. Sushma Arya has responded to the measuring tape shortage by proposing a temporary alternative solution. "Till such a time as we are able to provide law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to prevent hemline violation crimes, the only permissible garments women will be allowed to wear are full-fitting black robes that would cover their bodies from head to toe," said Ms Arya. "This isn't a religious thing, it is merely a precautionary measure to protect society from these long-legged fiends."

Angry fathers refuse to yield spotlight to refugees on World Refugee Day

Male American parents, fresh from the adulation and appreciation bestowed upon them by a grateful nation on Father's Day, which was celebrated two days ago last sunday, have indicated their reluctance to yield the stage to the refugee community on the occasion of World Refugee Day, which will be observed on tuesday. In a joint statement, irate fathers all over the country complained about their extremely short tenure on the nation's pedestal and proposed that in order to rectify the situation, World Refugee Day be celebrated next week instead of this week.

World Refugee Day, which is intended to force Americans to take some time off from their busy daily schedule and spend an evening watching television anchors discuss the plight of refugees worldwide, has come under fire for prematurely evicting the memory of Father's Day from the nation's collective psyche.

"Even though sunday was the official Father's Day, under normal circumstances, paternal benefits continue to accrue through the rest of the week as long as the father makes sure that he keeps bringing up the topic", said a spokesman for the Union of Disenfranchised Fathers (UDF). "However, this year, due to the wholly unforeseen arrival of World Refugee Day a mere two days after Father's Day, paternal benefits have been cut short, leading to a callous neglect of the nation's sperm-givers. It's an outrage!"

The Global Committee for the Allocation of Special Days has taken the matter under advisement. However, a spokesman for the committee has expressed unhappiness with the UDF's demand. "If World Refugee Day were to be rescheduled, it would wreak havoc on the rest of the year's Special Day schedule", said the spokesman. "World Lactose Intolerance Day would have to be pushed to the week after next, resulting in World Hawaiian Shirt Day having to be cancelled entirely. And that's really my favorite day", he added wistfully.

However, the UDF has adopted a stubborn unyielding position with respect to this issue. An angry father brandishing a shiny new electronic scheduler made his stance clear. "If the refugees refuse to part with their day voluntarily, we will force them to flee and seek refuge in a different section of the calendar".

Monday morning hafta

Vande Mataram, knock knock jokes, big pharma and much much more. When I say much much more, of course it means that's all I got. But you know what to do.

What the fuck is happening to America?

This is the best example of how war fucks up a country's morality. How it destroys a sense of what is decent and what is not. How it completely turns upside down and inside out people's abilities to gauge what is right and what is wrong. How it eats the very soul of a previously compassionate nation, turning it into a bloodthirsty vengeful beast that cares naught as it barrels through the innocent bodies that feed its desire for closure.

Recently a US marine wrote a song and made a video which then circulated on the internet. The song describes a graphic scene involving a marine who uses an Iraqi girl as a human shield and watches her explode into bits with a vindictive satisfaction. The marine claims this song and the video were a joke.

Let me post the lyrics to this song, just so you know what I'm talking about here. (via Malkin(s)watch)

Hadji Girl

I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
And I, well, I didn't know where to go.
And the first think I could see was
Everybody's favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight.
And she said

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I can't understand what you're saying.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I love you anyway.

Then she said that she wanted me to see.
She wanted me to meet her family
But I, well, I couldn't figure out how to say no.
Cause I don't speak Arabic.
So, she took me down an old dirt trail.
And she pulled up to a side shanty
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Cause her brother and her father shouted

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah

So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little fuckers to eternity.
And I said

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They should have known they were fucking with a Marine

Not only is this song obscene beyond belief, it is also racist and is repugnant in its glorification of violence. No doubt, it was written as a joke under the stress of war, as the marine claims he did, and I will not judge a soldier for the manner in which he chooses to release his stress as long as it's in a non-violent way. But for the rest of us who are sitting in our air conditioned offices typing out words, who have no reason to be as cynical and bloodthirsty as the man who wrote it, to find humor in the song is just bizarre. A battle-weary marine to use this medium as a release for his frustrations can be understood on some level. For ordinary people who are not engaged on the frontline to revel in the slaughter of an innocent Iraqi child and find it comical is inhumane.

The rot has set in. God help the American soul.

The Official God FAQ

All you ever wanted to know about Him.

(via Gods4Suckers)

Monday morning hafta

Go here. It is up.

Friday Morning Glenn Reynolds hilarity

In this post, Glenn Reynolds points to a post by Ann Althouse about a Gallup poll that shows that what Muslim women find most objectionable about the West is "the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the "Hollywood image" that is regarded as degrading to women". Glenn Reynolds, agrees, saying, "I blame Hollywood", but then, mysteriously, goes off on a pro-war tangent, adding that "No doubt antiwar Hollywood producers and talent will begin self-censorship at once to remedy this problem."

First of all, what the fuck? What does the "anti-war" attitude of Hollywood producers have anything to do with the perception of moral decay and pornography of the Muslim world about the West? Jesus, Glenn, I guess you pushed one crayon too many through your nose. 'Cause, you know that the Jehadists are not really waging a war against the West in order to strip away Sharon Stone's God-given right to uncross her legs without wearing underwear, right? You know that, right? 'Cause we could always ask her to stop doing that, and being the patriot that she is, she would do it too, in the interests of the country.

Oh but wait, this isn't the best part. From the post mentioned above, one would assume Glenn Reynolds would be against the moral decay and pornography rampant in Hollywood, yes?

Well, not quite. Just a few posts earlier, he points to this news story which mentions that Playboy magazine's Indonesian editors recently defied militant Islamists by publishing the second issue of the magazine.

Playboy's publishers said they were producing the magazine to defend democracy and freedom of expression against fear and intolerance.

An editorial called for "the absence of a monopoly set of values and views in our beloved country".

Our boy Glenn applauds those fearless editors. "And rightly so", he exclaims with democratic glee. Now as anyone who's ever been in second grade, did I say second grade, I meant tenth grade, knows, Playboy magazine is pretty much a bastion of Western "moral decay, promiscuity and pornography". But I guess all that good stuff is okay as long as it wasn't manufactured by anti-war Hollywood producers, eh?

So I guess hypocrisy is spelt with a Reynolds. Hypocreynoldsrisy. Nah, that doesn't sound right. Anyways, you know what I mean.

Gay marriage amendment blocked : Homosexuality expected to rampage through US Congress

President Bush has warned Americans to get ready for an outbreak of homosexuality to run unfettered through the halls of Congress this fall just before midterm Congressional elections. In a lunch-hour televised address to the nation intended to capture the attention of restaurant-going Americans who would otherwise have changed the channel if they had been sitting at home, President Bush explained that today's blockage of the anti-gay marriage amendment, which is intended to ban and criminalize same sex marriages in the US, would most likely result in hundreds of Congressmen turning gay before the elections in november.

Election years have traditionally seen an increase in homosexual activity among members of the US Congress. Political experts say that this might be due to inordinately long hours of campaigning carried out away from home and family, along with extended periods of time spent in the company of sweaty, sexy campaign advisors. "Put a sexually repressed Republican senator in a brainstorming session with his all-male staff and lock the door", says Lee Waters, a political consultant, "Nine times out of ten, when the room is reopened, it will be a frothing mass of naked arms, legs and 'Support The Troops' boxer shorts".

Hence, every election year, in spite of critics' claims of this being a transparent ploy to rally his Christian Right voter base, President Bush has made it a point to bring up the anti-gay marriage amendment for consideration in the US Congress in order to protect the US Congress from itself. The last time the issue came up was during the presidential election in 2004 when President Bush, deeply disturbed by his growing attraction towards campaign advisor Karl Rove's combover, frantically tried to bring the amendment to a vote in the House of Representatives.

Many members of Congress such as Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma were disappointed by the results of the Senate vote. Sen. Inhofe, who has proclaimed that he's proud to say that in the recorded history of his family, they've never had any kind of homosexual relationship, now says that the failure of the government to protect him from his inner gay cowboy makes it extremely unlikely that he will continue to be a fan of the naked female form by the time America goes out to vote come november.

White House press secretary Tony Snow, who has an adequate understanding of the dangers involved in working closely with handsome young Republicans from his years with the Fox News Network, said that by blocking the anti-gay marriage amendment, the Senate had failed to uphold the civil rights of heterosexual Congressmen. "Without the threat of getting their asses hauled to jail, the nation's lawmakers would have no incentive not to indulge in some hot Congressman-on-Congressman action culminating in homosexual wedlock", said Mr Snow, "thus jeopardizing their civil right not to be gay".

With the anti-gay marriage amendment not expected to be rammed down American throats anytime soon and all other major issues affecting America and the world already resolved, Congress is now expected to turn its attention to another hotly debated matter of extreme urgency, namely, whether there is a need for a constitutional amendment requiring a minimal dress code for America's Barbie dolls.

Hafta Magazine

Sidin from Domain Maximus has founded a new online magazine called "Hafta" and has kindly asked me to contribute a weekly satirical column. The first issue just went online today. Go, check it out. And here's my column for this week.

Oh, those insane right-wingers

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Microsoft assures virus-building community that new OS will be released soon

In a major attempt to boost its sagging public image among members of the hacker and virus-building communities, Microsoft has issued a public statement saying that the late delivery of its new operating system Windows Vista will be completed on time.

Computer hackers and writers of malicious code damaging to computers running on the Windows operating system account for over 25% of Microsoft's revenues from the sale of its operating systems. However, the hacker and virus-builder communities, most members of which depend on Microsoft for the satisfaction of their anarcho-destructive fantasies, have lately been unhappy with the company's inordinate delay in releasing the latest flavor of Windows, called Vista.

"There's only so many ways in which Windows XP can be taken apart and put back in one piece, and I've gone through them all", said a prominent virus creator, known in the cyber underworld as King Byte. "We have been eagerly awaiting the new operating system which, as Mr Gates has promised us, will contain a number of feature-rich security holes for us to identify and have fun exploiting. The only question is, when will the damn thing be here?"

Many hackers, after waiting for more than a year in frustrated anticipation, have decided to switch to Unix instead. "Even though Unix offers more challenges even for the experienced cyber-terrorist, it is a relatively unexplored terrain, and hence, is sure to have far greater entertainment and educational value. Also, we believe that Microsoft will not take our demand for releasing Windows Vista seriously unless we demonstrate our willingness to switch brand loyalty.

On being asked for a comment, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates quickly penned an email in Outlook 2007 and sent it to reporters, only to be informed that it was infected with the virus BillSuck and could only be cleaned by formatting his hard drive.

The blogospheric whispering game

When I was a little kid, there was this game we used to play called, what could be loosely translated into English as "ear-stories". The premise of the game was as follows : A bunch of kids sat around in a circle. The game would begin with a randomly chosen kid whispering a sentence into the ears of the kid to his left. This kid would, in turn, whisper whatever it was that he had thought he had heard from the previous kid and regurgitate it into the ears of the kid to his left. And so on and so forth, till the game returned back to the kid who had been the original source of the sentence. The huge entertainment value of the game lay in the hilarious metamorphosis the sentence would undergo as it was filtered through several juvenile ears. Usually, the end product was nowhere close to the original sentence that had initiated this daisy-chain of whispers.

The reason I bring this up is because today, with the countless number of blogs, self-appointed commentators and news dispersers, the media has turned into a huge game of "ear-stories" that metamorphoses the facts of the original story into something totally different. Take, for example, this piece of news which details Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plans to incorporate guided propulsion, remote controlled weaponry and unmanned vehicles into army operations using robotic technology. This news was linked to by this blog, where the blogger actually stayed pretty close to the original story but titled his blogpost "Indian PM promises Robot Army" and at the end, attached his own addendum, saying

High tech weapons development to start a 'virtuous circle which benefits all'? Hmmmm. Could there be some unintended consequences of this plan?

This blogpost, was then, in turn, picked up by this blog, where the author not only named his post "India announces plan to develop robot army", but also added his own 5 cents worth of fictional commentary, saying :

In an announcement that you can probably expect to be repeated by rival Pakistan in the next few days, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has claimed that his South Asian nation will be the latest country to pursue technologies for developing a robotic army.

In addition, this enterprising blogger attached a picture of robots obtained from who knows where, and which are nowhere to be found on the original article.

And finally, this delicious black forest cake of misinformation was topped off with icing today morning on the radio channel WMMR Philadelphia, whose morning show anchors, Preston Elliott and Steve Morrison read this news on-air in their Bizarre Files segment as fact, along with a liberal dose of the customary ridicule that usually accompanies anything that makes it to that segment.

Reading this article, the image one conjures up in one's mind is that of an army of bronze clunky robots battling it out in the icy mountain ranges of the northwest, probably issuing orders to one another in a metallic funny Indian accent, the same one that has achieved quite a bit of popularity in the US comedy circuit. Plus, what could be more ridiculous than a third world country with limited resources opting to spend them on a science fiction project involving fighting robots?

But read the original article closely, and you'll realize not only does it not contain any reference to a robot army, but as a commenter pointed out, the Prime Minister enumerated various proposals for the modernization of the Indian army, a number of which have already been implemented by the American military. And no, I don't think I have seen any robots on television, engaging in hand-to-hand combat in the bloody streets of Iraq, so I'm guessing we won't see any robots fighting in the Himalayas either.

PS : As an aside, notice how the comments in the last blogpost steadily and puzzlingly deteriorate into a debate on reservations. It's actually quite amusing.

From one religious fanatic to another

Dear Muslim Fundamentalist Brother,

Salam Waleikum. Let me get straight to the point. I am disappointed in you, my brother. Truly, truly disappointed. Here I was, sitting at my desk, gazing at the "Divine Eye of God" that brings me news from all over the world, or as these Americans call it for whatever reason, a "computer screen" , I realized that while I've been distracted by things urgently requiring my attention such as protesting the release of Deepa Mehta's "Water" here in the US, you've been forming some unholy alliances on your own. You've been getting together with those Jesus people and forcing the Indian government to ban "The Da Vinci Code" in theaters. I was appalled when I read this piece of news. Do you not realize the folly of your actions? Let me explain.

As you well know, you and I, we have both had our differences. Throughout the ages, we've been inflicting violence and bloodshed on each other because frankly, look, both our communities blame each other for all their problems. Plus, I know for a fact that your despotic set of beliefs do not coincide with those sanctioned by God, and I also know that you've had the same thoughts about mine. And we've both agreed that the best way to resolve this dispute is to eliminate each other from the face of the planet. No believers = no beliefs. Am I right?

So it would have seemed to a casual bystander that fate had decreed us to lead a lifestyle replete with murder, pillage and hounding by each other's communities. But then, when we least expected it, a ray of sunshine broke out through all that gloom. A few months ago, we signed a historic pact. We decided to make peace with each other and that the Hindu crazies and the Muslim loonies would finally unite in a coalition of sorts. And together, we would make life miserable for the rest of India instead. That is why, when we approached you and demanded that you surrender M.F Husain's arms into our custody, you were ready to help us with your machettes and bone-saws. And in return, when you issued a fatwa on the heads of the Danish cartoonists, not only did we show you the exact vertebra in the neck that needed to be severed in order to seperate the infidel skull from the torso, we also supplied you with the polythene bags required to dispose of those skulls in an environmentally-friendly fashion. And when we were not delimbing painters or beheading cartoonists, we were making sure that India was well on its way to becoming a model nation of religious puritans in the mold of our Middle-Eastern brothers. Our joint control over the more moderate populace of the country was turning out to be a huge success.

But then, you had to go and include the Christians in our coalition. You never even asked us, never sought our advice on this issue. I don't know if you've noticed, but Christians make up a mere 2% of the population of our country. While you and I, we constitute about 94%. Now my question to you is this : By allowing the Christians access to the levers that control those in power, the strings that make the puppets in Parliament dance to our tune, are we not setting a dangerous precedent for other parties to follow?

What if tomorrow fundamentalist Buddhists were to protest the violence and gore that is such an integral part of our movies? Would we be adding them to our fold and campaigning on their behalf? Or horror of horrors, what if the goddamn atheist community were to show up on our doorstep and demand that every reference to God be deleted from the silver screen because it offended their Godless sensibilities? Have you even considered that? I didn't think so.

You might say I'm being a pessimist, that I should be savoring our joint victory over the government, that it's a matter of the glass being half full and not half empty. Personally, I couldn't care less if the glass were to be half full or half empty as long as it contained water that would otherwise have slaked an atheist's thirst. But my point is that this might not even be a success, but a defeat for you and me, the rightful owners of this great nation. For by allowing the Christians to bend our government to their will, you have just opened a door that will allow just about every community in India to harness the immense power of religious blackmail, the power that should rightfully only be wielded by you and me. And that is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done now to rectify the situation.

In any case, I hope this letter finds you in the fairest of health and the blindest of faith. Khuda Hafiz my dear friend,

Sincerely,

Your Hindu Fundamentalist Brother.

Inane Instapundit post of the day

Glenn Reynolds keeps pointing to various links that prove gasoline is still cheaper today than it was during its peak price in the 80s. And I can't help wondering why the fuck he keeps doing that. Why should I care about how much gasoline cost in the 80s? I wasn't driving a car in the 80s. I don't fucking care about the 80s. The 80s are dead to me, man. All I care about is that gasoline, and hence, every other fucking thing costs more today than what it cost yesterday and the week before that and the month before that, whereas I'm still making the same money today as I was making yesterday and the week before that and the month before that. Is that so fucking difficult for Reynolds and his band of wise men to understand?

Saying gasoline is cheap today 'cause it cost more in the 80s is like saying life today is so fucking great because no matter what happens, you should always remember that there was a time when we were living in caves and didn't even have refrigerators to store our Coors Light bottles in.

Phone companies to offer free weekend private minutes

Phone companies are taking note of the public outrage over latest revelations regarding the NSA's domestic phone call monitoring program and trying to diffuse the situation by upgrading service plans to include a limited number of private minutes that can be used by customers during the weekend.

The NSA, which is secretly collecting phone numbers of millions of Americans along with details of calls made from those numbers, has been accused by critics of having violated numerous privacy laws during the process. However, along with the NSA, phone companies appear to be culpable as well for having quietly acquiesced to the NSA's demand for sharing call records that were hitherto pronounced confidential under their policy of disclosure.

However, many phone companies are now trying to limit the PR damage caused by these revelations by upgrading customer calling plans to include 120 free private minutes on weekends. These minutes will go into effect at 5:00 a.m saturday and will end at 7:00 am the very same day, giving customers ample time to carry out top-secret telephonic transactions such as spousal-cheating and crank-calling. Records of calls made during this period will not be submitted to the NSA, instead, being maintained in secret lockup till the furor over the scandal subsides and the NSA is free to surreptitiously violate Americans' civil liberties again.

This calling plan upgrade is available to all US citizens who first have to apply for and pass a background check which will determine if the applicant fulfills all the criteria necessary to be deemed a non-terrorist. In addition, the applicant will also have to provide a list of phone numbers he is planning on calling, and the owners of these numbers will then be checked for any possible ties to the Democratic Party before he is allotted the free private minutes.

On being asked why customer phone call records are being freely supplied to the NSA in spite of the fine print on existing confidentiality agreements stating that customer information will only be given to the government under the duress of court orders or subpoenas, a company spokesperson said, "Well, you need to read the finer print just below the fine print, which states that we can pretty much do whatever we want with that information, including printing it out on flyers and handing it out in Times Square or simply airdropping it throughout the countryside in pamphlet form."

In other news, President Bush, seen here prematurely declaring victory over the pyramid of Kukulkan along with the president of Mexico and the prime minister of Canada, has come up with a brilliant plan to solve the nation's illegal immigration problem. This plan involves sending thousands of National Guard troops to California, Arizona and New Mexico where they will pick fruit and perform any other menial jobs usually assigned to illegal immigrants. In addition, any illegal immigrants caught trying to sneak across the border will be skinned and their hides sent to Iraq to be worn as body armor by coalition troops.

A Day without Legal Immigrants in the works

Legal immigrants in America, impressed with the unqualified success of the just concluded "Day without Illegal immigrants" protest, have come together in a bid to focus public attention on their plight by organizing a corresponding "Day without Legal Immigrants". Legal immigrants in the US currently on a work visa face a long and arduous journey as they inch towards the goal of permanent residency and citizenship of this country one bureaucratic red tape at a time.

Negotiations are currently underway among the various legal immigrant factions in the country to agree upon a suitable date for this extraordinary event. However, due to the immense professional diversity of this group, it has been difficult to decide on a date that would be convenient for everyone.

"January and February just aren't good for me", said Mandar Joglekar, an engineer from Detroit. "Busiest month of the year for the manufacturing industry and we have huge orders to fill. But any other date will do", he added.

On the other hand, legal immigrants from the medical profession have reportedly declined to ratify any date in June or July since hospitals are quite busy due to an increase in Americans' propensity of driving into each other during the summer months. And finally, the Association of Legal Software Engineers or ASSLES(S) has confirmed that Autumn won't be a good time for them to walk out on their jobs. "We usually have our major software releases scheduled right before Christmas", said Chen Hwa, a project manager from New Jersey. "If I don't come to work, testing will be affected and there will be numerous bugs in the release", he said.

Finally, after an all-night brainstorming session conducted through instant messaging and teleconferencing, it was decided that December 25th would be the only date everyone could agree upon. "I've already run out of vacation days for the year so Christmas day is the only time I can get out of the office", said Rupali Malhotra, a junior software engineer.

"Great job, gang", said a tired Gautam Reddy, leader of the "Day Without Legal Immigrants " project team, as he emerged from the conference room at the break of dawn. "25th December it is. Now go ahead and cancel your trip to India 'cause we have some protesting to do", he added, tearing up his own JFK-London-Mumbai plane ticket as a symbolic gesture, but not before making copies of it just in case the date of the protest were to be changed.

"A Day Without Legal Immigrants" is expected to draw huge crowds of Indians, Chinese and the occasional Canadian in the software parks and industrial complexes of the country. Coverage of the event is expected to be sporadic, confined to cellphone video-messaged clips that will be posted on blogs not read by a single American. However, protesters hope that their message which won't be raucous and spectacular enough to be heard by the government or the mainstream media, will seep through to the government and the mainstream media, the message being, if their request for expedited permanent residency application processes were to be denied, every technology-based company in the US would face a mass exodus of employees every year on Christmas day.

President Bush to entrust brother with safekeeping of country till twins grow up

With both his teenaged daughters declining to assume control of America after their father finishes his second term, President Bush has announced that the stewardship of the country will instead be handed over to his brother Jeb Bush (via RawStory).

The twins Barbara and Jenna, in spite of being next in line to the throne after their father relinquishes his white-knuckled grip over the country's testicles, have opted to stay in college till they gain a working knowledge about the duties and perks of the American presidency. "It's like I really want to be a war chick n stuff, but a girl only gets one coke snorting binge drinking childhood, you know what I mean", said Jenna Bush, also known among presidential historians as "The Hot One".

The president has agreed to his daughters' request, asking Congress to deliver the reigns of power to his brother Jeb after November 2008, when he is done with "all that prezdental crap". Although Jeb Bush, who is currently the governor of Florida, will have full control of the country's illegal wiretaps and torture chambers for the next few years, the president has clarified that he will only be a temporary keeper of America's keys while the twins grow up and are schooled in the traditions and customs of a Bush presidency.

The Bush twins are the youngest scions of the glorious dynasty of American presidents that was established by the current president's father, George H. W. Bush. Once the twins are ready to ascend to the Crawford throne, they will undergo a ritualistic crowning ceremony at the ranch where a tiara made out of the bones of Iraqi children will be placed upon both their heads while Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate minority leader, in a symbolic display of sacrifice, will be stripped naked and gutted, his blood being allowed to flow into a chalice of gold, out of which the twins will then take delicate sips to solemnize their absolute authority over the country and its bodily fluids.

On being asked for a comment, the future tyrants Barbara and Jenna Bush said, "Oh we just can't wait to become president. Uncle Karl is already teaching us how to hire incompetents and leak matters vital to national security."

In order to avoid sibling rivalry and spats, power will be vested equally in each twin and any administrative conflicts that might arise will be resolved through a game of rock, paper, scissors. However, serious disagreements will have to be sorted out through the more brutal medium of pillow fighting.

"I'll do my job and save all the best wars for when they enter the White House", said Jeb Bush, on being asked how he planned to carry out his mission of temporary guardianship of the country while his nieces grow up. "It will be great to stay in the White House for a while and enjoy the peace and quiet. They really have nice soundproof walls over there which do a great job of masking out the wails of the screaming disaffected masses outside".

Crappy Instapundit link of the day

Instapundit points to this inane post by Gateway Pundit where he appears to ask the question, "If a lunatic walked up to you and claimed that the earth is round, would you believe him? Or would you consider his lunacy to be a factor in your decision and refuse to believe him?"

The Gateway Pundit apparently would refuse to believe that the earth is round. This is what happened. Ray McGovern, a retired CIA analyst, recently heckled Donald Rumsfeld, asking him why he had lied that he knew where the WMDs were being stored in Iraq (via C&L).

Rumsfeld: ...it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

McGovern: You said you knew where they were.

Rumsfeld: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and...

McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

Rumsfeld: My words-my words were that-no-no, wait a minute--wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second....

As C&L points out, this is what Rumsfeld had actually said before.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Gateway Pundit, in spite of that fact being common knowledge, flies off on a tangent, calling McGovern a nut, pointing to his anti-Bush opinions and activities, as if doing that somehow erases Rumsfeld's blatant mendacity from the chart. And isn't that the problem with America today? If someone points out or says something that shows the administration in a bad light, just set your dogs on him. And that's what Gateway Pundit does in this bizarre post, linked to approvingly by Big Daddy Glenn Reynolds.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Update : Glenn Greenwald adds that the links provided by Gateway Pundit do not, in any way, attest to McGovern's alleged "nutcasery".

Bless the Lord

Prayer might not be able to save heart patients, but it can cause oil prices to drop.

Today the president led the nation in prayer on the occasion of, yes, you guessed it, the National Day of Prayer, 'cause what could be a better way for the president to underline the importance of the entire country placing blind faith in him and his policies than to set an example himself by publicly placing blind faith in God. But hail to the Almighty, the prayers appeared to work mighty fine, 'cause God, He caused gas prices to drop by 10 cents a gallon (RawStory).

And now, looking back, we now realize that it was all part of a complex Divine plan when God apparently went against all reason and logic by wreaking havoc on the heart valves of 59% of heart patients who were the target of a prayer team's efforts. By causing those people to remain bedridden and without any access to automobiles, God was actually reducing the overall gas consumption of the nation, which consequently caused gas prices to fall.

It's simple, really. God works according to the following rule of thumb : When in doubt, go with the oil.

Stephen Colbert bitchslaps the high priest of inadvertant comedy

Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report performed at the White House correspondent's dinner. He absolutely manhandled the president, his policies, the press and everything in between. Compare his brilliant act to that of the president who tried to do a comedic bit (a deliberate one, as opposed to one of his inadvertant free-falls). Bush stood at the podium with an impersonator (Steve Bridges) by his side, the impersonator apparently saying aloud things the president was supposed to be thinking at the moment. The prerequisite assumption here being, of course, that there actually is thinking going on inside that head. Anyways, a few examples of his "punchlines" :

President Bush : I'm absolutely delighted to be here, as is Laura.
Impersonator : She's hot.

ha ha.

President Bush : Ladies and gentlemen, I feel chipper tonight. I survived the White House shake-up.

That was so funny it made me cry because it was true.

Impersonator : How come I can't have dinner with the 36 percent of the people who like me?

Answer : Because there's no room in trailer parks to accomodate Presidential security details.

You get the picture. Michelle Malkin, of course, thought it was bloody hilarious. But then, everything the president says or does gets her moist.

And then, Colbert began his routine roasting the president. And all signs pointed to the fact that Bush wasn't pleased about it. At least he stopped smiling. Which is great, because it shows that he understood the jokes. Read the entire thing, although I will post the greatest bits for the chronically lazy among you.

"By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail."

As an aside, the WaPo screws up its analysis of this one. Teresa Wiltz says,"We're not sure if Valerie Plame laughed, though. Or Karl Rove." What the fuck do Plame or Rove have to do with this? This was a dig at the NSA's illegal spying on American citizens. Obviously Teresa Wiltz was out of the loop.

"I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit."

"I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

"And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

"This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"

" Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire!"

"Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center."

Headlines

Relief from the agony over high gas prices finally arrived with completion of a high-capacity pipeline between the White House and the Fox News Channel. This pipeline is expected to aid the President in coping with public outrage against rising gas prices in the country by removing all obstructions in the smooth flow of propaganda from production facilities in the White House to consumers all over the country, in the process, bypassing the middleman.

Recognizing the hardship average Americans have had to suffer for the past few weeks due to $3.00 gallon gas prices, senators are lobbying for a bill which proposes that $100 checks be handed over to oil companies on behalf of every taxpayer in the country.

Over in the Middle-East, the Pentagon is planning to cut American troop strength in Iraq by 30,000 within the next few months. These troops will take the shortest route home through neighbouring Iran in order to take in the sights, sounds and machine-gun fire of the country.

Weapons of Mass Destruction were finally spotted in Iraq flying overhead as they made their way from North Korea to Iran (via fark).

Pepsi's new condom-flavored soda bombed in the Indian soft-drink market. The soda-guzzling public expressed unhappiness with the company's perceived intrusion into the government's population control initiative (via RawStory).

And finally, The Heavenly Times reports that our God, the God of Gods and Lord of Lords has informed his tour manager Pope Benedict XVI that He has changed his mind about the use of condoms by his favored species, the humans. In a press conference, God said that after realizing that creating the AIDS virus had been a dumb idea right from the start, He would now be relaxing his rules against contraception in order to allow couples from infecting each other with the disease. God also promised that going forward, He would try not to create any new lifeforms while under the influence of Jack n' coke.

Airbus to return to its roots as a transporter of the masses

Airbus Industrie, after a long and glorious career of transporting passengers in relative luxury and comfort through the air, is planning on returning back to its roots as a purveyor of the masses (via RawStory).

The company, which was founded in 1970 by Pierre Francois, a Paris bus driver who, after having had enough of the city's notorious traffic congestion caused by jaywalking American tourists, decided to invent an alternative mode of transport for his clientelle. The first airbus was literally a bus with plastic wings attached to its windows that enabled it to fly through traffic signals and jams. Soon the fledgeling company grew into a multinational conglomerate, ceasing production of its older winged buses, instead, applying modern aerospace technology to develop sleek new planes capable of seating passengers in comfortably upholstered chairs instead of requiring them to stand near the driver-pilot chatting about the weather.

Now, with most of the world mired in economic turmoil and recession, Airbus is planning on making air travel again accessible to the masses. With passengers being required to stand in the aisle throughout the duration of the flight, enjoying the sweaty aroma emanating from each other's armpits, this new business model is sure to attract a lot of attention from commuters in cities like New York and Chicago who are already acclimatized to these conditions on their subway systems and actually kind of miss those strange hands groping their privates on a normal plane flight.

Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert says he has many more innovative ideas to propel the company forward especially in high-growth markets such as Asia and Africa. Apart from saving space by making people stand on the plane, the new Airbus business model also involves plans to have a two-tier pricing system where coach-class passengers will be bent into the shape of a chair so as to allow business-class passengers to recline on them. Future proposals to reduce operating costs also include the design of hybrid planes where coach-class passengers will be required to collectively blow into mouthpieces attached to dual human-powered jet engines while they are being urged on by business class passengers sporting whips and paintball guns.

Headlines

Aishwarya Rai expressed regret about accepting bicycling lessons from President Bush following their recent tryst during his visit to India.

Back in Washington DC, President Bush apologized for any discomfort that visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao might have had to endure due to Americans' indecorous abuse of the First Amendment by protesting his presence in the US. He assured Jintao that for his next visit, the US military would take pre-emptive anti-protest measures by patrolling the streets of DC in armored tanks.

President Bush and President Hu Jintao made significant progress in their talks regarding the human rights record of both countries. Jintao issued an official promise that imprisoned Chinese blogger Hao Wu would be allowed access to legal representation and due process in return for President Bush providing illegally incarcerated Guantanamo Bay prisoners with access to blogging.

Instapundit made tremendous headway towards his ultimate goal of achieving blogosphere irrelevance by linking to a post that claims, without any factual basis, that Morgan Spurlock's documentary on unhealthy McDonald's fast food may have contributed to the recent skyrocketing of its business.

Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II began serving a new term in office today by celebrating her 80th birthday. According to reports, the queen said that she was looking forward to commencing work on her primary project during this term, which would be to stay alive.

Ex-Press Secretary's wife glad husband won't be bringing work home anymore

After learning that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan had resigned from his post, his wife Jill said that she was very happy to hear about it and that the best part of the whole deal was that he wouldn't be bringing his work home anymore.

Mr McClellan, whose duties for the White House in the capacity of spokesperson routinely involved the fabrication of statements that had little or no basis in reality, always made it a practice of bringing his work home, according to his wife. In a press conference attended solely by her marriage counsellor, Mrs McClellan said that the couple had been having some domestic problems due to Scott's refusal to shed his press secretary persona even after leaving the White House briefing room.

"People have a work-life and then they have a family-life", said Mrs McClellan. "Scott, however, due to his tremendous dedication to his work, continued to be a press secretary, lying and making things up even after he returned home. For example, the other day when I asked him if he had taken out the trash, he said yes, but when I found out that he had not, in fact, taken out the trash and requested an explanation, he claimed that we had already gone over this matter yesterday and that I should publicly apologize on the air for misrepresenting his position on trash disposal."

According to Mrs. McClellan, Scott continued to diligently perform his lying duties right upto the moment of his resignation. "Yesterday I asked him about his work, and he claimed that he was about to be promoted to Vice President", sobbed Mrs. McClellan tearfully. "Luckily for me, he was just in press-secretary mode and talking through his ass."

President Bush thanked McClellan for his service to the country while accepting his resignation. "It's going to be hard to replace someone endowed with a gift such as he", he said, referring to Mr McClellan's talent for mendacity. "Although I taught him most of what he knows about dodging incisive questions from the press and throwing them back at the reporter in a way calculated to besmirch his patriotism, it is now clear that he is currently the best in the profession, surpassing even me in bullshittery."

Mr McClellan, who was asked for a comment on his resignation, said, "The media is deliberately playing up negative stories from Iraq such as the one about my resignation, which, by the way, is not true to my best recollection. I never said I was resigning and even if I did, it would only be true if I admitted it, which I won't. Anyone who continues to insist otherwise is displaying a pre-9/11 mentality. Next question."

Why you should care about Gitmo

You say you don't care about those ragheads picked up from Iraq and Afghanistan who are now locked up in Gitmo? You feel that even though they've been stowed away from the public eye for God knows how long with no access to legal representation and who aren't even accused of anything yet, that it ain't the end of the world? You say you don't give a flying fuck even if they are tortured or sodomized or fed their own feces? You say they deserved it just 'cause they are from one of those Middle-Eastern countries with all those terrorists who do not allow us the luxury of picking and choosing who we incarcerate so hell, lets just throw 'em all into our cellars and swallow the keys?

Well, fuck you then. 'Cause it could be you in there. Especially if you have brown skin. Or if you have an accent. Or if you think the Iraq war was a sham. Or if you hold the firm belief that George W. Bush is a joke perpetuated by the ghost of Karl Marx on all mankind. Or if you don't have a sense of fashion, who the fuck knows. So if not merely for the inhumanity of it all, at least give half a rat's ass for your own skin. 'Cause it could be you in there tomorrow, rotting away in a prison cell watching your flesh atrophy along with the rest of the huddled bunch. And it will be then that you begin to wonder at the apathy of your fellow citizens to your plight and try to identify the exact moment during which the world shat in its collective pants, succumbing to the dying wishes of a few crazed lunatics who flew into a couple of buildings praying that their actions would destroy the fabric of Western civilization.

Give a fuck. For your own sake.

Bizarre co-existence of war hawks

Lately, I've been thinking about all these war hawks who support the Iraqi invasion. The great thing about these guys which I have mentioned before and which works to their advantage, is that they have so many different justifications for the war. Like if, say, you ask someone, hey man, where are all those WMDs you guys were talkin' about, and he'll say fuck you, I supported the war not to find weapons, but 'cause I had a nagging itch in my prostate for freeing the Iraqi masses from Saddam's tyranny and giving 'em a taste of good old-fashioned Western democracy. Then you ask someone else, my friend, if you're such a democracy freak, how do you feel about handing the country over to a fundamentalist Islamic regime that's gonna be as supportive of human rights as your wife's gonna be of you having an affair? And he'll say, oh, but Iraqi democracy never had a place in my war manifesto, I supported the Iraqi invasion so that we could fight terrorists over there instead of here. And so on and so forth.

What no one appears to have noticed till now is how all these various pro-war justifications are fundamentally incompatible with each other. For example, consider the farmer in Asscrack, Mississippi who wants to fight terrorists in Iraq 'cause that will keep 'em too occupied to fly planes into his barn. And contrast him with the stockbroker from Westchester, New York, who is pro-war because of his passion for bestowing a peaceful democratic Iraq unto its residents. If you think about this for a minute, you'll recognize that there's just no way for a scenario to exist where the objectives of both these gentlemen could be achieved simultaneously.

In order to create a so-called "flypaper zone" for terrorists to get sucked into, it follows that this would entail keeping Iraq in a perpetual state of destabilization and war, allowing its borders to be porous enough to soak in terrorists from Syria and Iran and all those other axes of evil in order to occupy their attentions there, thus keeping the rest of the world safe from their machinations. On the other hand, if a peaceful Iraq were to be ultimately established, couldn't that be construed to be a failure of the "fight them over there instead of over here" objective? 'Cause if you want to keep those bastards occupied, wouldn't you want the war in Iraq to continue unmitigated, year after year after year, the insurgency to carry on as it is, or exacerbate? Wouldn't every car bombing, every beheaded corpse denote success in the war?

And after realizing this, shouldn't Westchester stockbroker guy, who's such a sucker for Iraqi progress, step up to the plate and say, hey man, what the fuck, your dream of a never-ending war in Iraq is in direct conflict with my goal of a peaceful democracy in that country. But do you see anyone saying that? Heck, no. In reality, we see both these warmonkeys making sweet love on the same bed even though one of them wants to have babies and raise a family, while the other is trying to remember who the fuck he's gonna be sleeping with tomorrow.

Next, consider the justification for the war which involves turning Iraq into a democracy. And contrast that with the goal of making Iraq a terrorist-free zone. Looks like Iraq might actually soon be a democracy, although it will be ruled by a fundamentalist Islamic government at the center. So can this goal of democracy co-exist with that of making Iraq terrorism-free? Not really, if you look at how the fundamentalist Taliban government led to the rise of Al Qaida in Afghanistan. See what I mean? Again, two mutually exclusive goals.

Which is why it amazes me when George W. Bush calmly uses a number of these different justifications for the Iraq war in the same breath, which are quite obviously incompatible with each other, and then expects everyone to believe in the honesty of his mission. That he can say he wants to fight terrorists over there instead of over here, and then, at the same time, explain that the war is all about bringing peace and stability and democracy to the Middle-East. This is just ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. And I am even more astonished that no one has called him on this nonsense yet.

Taking a moment to stop and ponder

So nothing's really been happening in the news lately. Except of course, the small factoid that's come to light recently regarding the president lying about finding WMDs in Iraq. Even after the team of experts sent by the Pentagon informed him that what he was calling trailers used to manufacture biological weapons were actually hot dog stands or something akin, he still went ahead and lied that coalition troops had actually stumbled upon WMD production facilities in Iraq. And when the Washington Post reported on this presidential mendacity, White House spokesman Scott McClellan ,who, seriously man, has balls of titanium, requested the media to apologize for having had the temerity to report the truth.

Then there's Ruth Malhotra, a female student from Georgia Tech, part Indian, part fundamentalist Christian, who is currently trying to get the university to pass a law allowing homophobic hate speech on campus by citing her right to religious expression (via HuffPo). I am not so sure if she would be similarly supportive of the white supremacist group that is sure to follow in her trailblazing footsteps, citing their right to racist expression in demanding a similar relaxation of university policy that currently forbids them from calling her a fucking half-breed brown currymuncher.

As great a fan as I am of the ACLU, I think sometimes they can be a trifle overzealous. Like when they protest on behalf of female tennis players against Missouri State University for cutting the women's tennis program (via Fark). The ACLU, in its defense, is citing a rule that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funds. The question is, how can it be called sex discrimination when the university is cutting male athletics programs as well? In fact, wouldn't it be sex discrimination against men if the university were to cut male programs exclusively while leaving female sports untouched? Sorry, ACLU, I can't support you on this one.

Maharashtra government proposes self-destructing garments for fashion shows

The ruling Congress-NCP coalition of Maharashtra State, in a joint effort with the BJP-Shiv Sena opposition, has proposed a new regulation which requires that all catwalking models on the Indian fashion scene would hereby have to exclusively wear garments manufactured out of a unique self-exploding fabric. If these garments, that have been successfully tested by suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan, were to get detached from the model's body due to a wardrobe malfunction, they would explode instantaneously, thereby incinerating the model before her naked flesh were to have an opportunity of making a public appearance and outraging the morality of the leering audience.

These high-end designer clothes, most of which would be used to cover the upper torso of the female model, require her to undergo a mastectomy in order to make space for the wads of highly explosive fabric they would be composed of. This, however, shouldn't be a problem, according to Shiv Sena leader Pramod Navalkar, since "female breasts do not have a place in civilized society anyways."

Indian fashion designers have protested this governmental intrusion on their art. "This fabric is not that easy to work with", said Arjun Khanna, a prominent practitioner of the trade. "It smells of gunpowder and has to be handled carefully. Plus, we are running out of models to try it on."

Critics of the proposal have argued that these garments, although a huge improvement over the previous non-exploding ones, might not be entirely morally safe. They claim that the small time interval between the garment's disengagement and the model's explosion would still allow eagle-eyed audience members with fast-action cameras to capture a shot of her bare skin just before it vaporizes along with the rest of her body.

However, Bombay Dying, the company that manufactures this fabric, has issued a public assurance that a newer and upgraded version of this incendiary material will soon be available and market-ready. This technologically advanced fabric would additionally discharge a toxic gas upon explosion that is designed to blind enterprising camera-ready members of the audience and thus, further improve its moral safety factor.

Iranian president asks Bush to disregard his own approval ratings

In a gesture of friendship and empathy, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran today called up American President George W. Bush and asked him to disregard the latest drop in his approval numbers as something that is "just a part of every dictator's life". White House insiders report that while the president was gratified by this support from unexpected quarters, the proposed military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities are still very much on the table.

The Iranian president comforted President Bush by saying that even if most Americans are unhappy with his job performance, George W.Bush would still be Iran's favorite infidel commander-in-chief. Mr Ahmedinejad also advised the president that when his approval ratings go down, punching a pillow or having the pillow accompany Vice President Dick Cheney on a hunting expedition would be a better outlet for releasing his pent-up frustrations than the invasion of a sovereign nation, such as, say, Iran.

New immigration bill to put legal immigrants on fast track to citizenship

The new guest worker program proposed by President George W. Bush is expected to help a number of legal immigrants attain American citizenship through illegal immigration.

Many legal immigrants, most of whom are of Indian or Chinese origin, will be benefited by this new bill which the president is requesting Congress to pass just in time for the Christmas holiday cross-border rush. These legal immigrants, many of whom work in the US on an H1B visa, have been languishing in a permanently uncertain status due to huge backlogs of green card applications, most of which take more than 6 years to be approved. After that, it is another 10 years before these people can apply for American citizenship.

Now, with this new guest worker program in the works, legal immigrants will now be able to jump on the fast-track to citizenship by first turning into illegal immigrants. Once this is done, they will be able to shed their highly paid software developer and consultant positions, instead, seeking employment as fruit pickers, hotelroom maids and toilet cleaners, working their way up the citizenship ladder till they are able to attain permanent residency. This will then allow them to become US citizens in a much shorter time period than it would have taken them, had they pursued it through normal legal channels.

Many Republican senators have expressed their support for this guest worker program, saying that it was high time that these highly educated and hardworking legal immigrants were put to work on jobs average Americans didn't want, instead of being employed in professions Americans want but aren't qualified to perform. Moreover, these legal immigrants, unlike their illegal counterparts, contribute nothing to the country except hefty infusions of cash into the social security trust fund and the economy, especially during Christmastime when most of them visit their home country, taking along with them more than half the goods produced in the US during the year.

The passage of this bill will be a huge victory for legal immigrants, who have been lobbying for it for a long time, using highly visible methods for garnering public attention such as hushed inter-cubicle whisperings and frustrated table thumpings during dinner time. Their problems have been compounded by the fact that even though their large numbers presented a substantial vote bank for any beltway politician who would be willing to fight for their cause, they would still, through force of habit, continue to vote for a Gandhi family member for election to the US Congress.

Inane Instapundit post of the day

Glenn Reynold's points to this post by Confederate Yankee, an apparently confused right-wing simpleton, who, in a very cute wide-eyed manner asks,

"DEAR NEW YORK TIMES: When the largest single fatality-causing event for your (well, our) soldiers in recent months is a single vehicle wreck, isn't it officially time to retire the theme that we're losing the war?"

Dear Confederate Yankee, it really depends on what you mean by the phrase "win the war". If winning the war for you merely means less American soldiers dying in battle, then yeah, America is probably winning the war. But if that were to be the only criterion of victory, what's stopping the US from pulling out of Iraq entirely? Wouldn't that be the ultimate victory in the war? No troops in Iraq, no troops getting killed?

Now on the other hand, if you weren't as much of a simpleton as you appear to be if one were to judge you by the contents of your blog, and actually stopped to think about what the fuck it is that you are asking, you would realize that even your beloved president believes that winning the war is about more than just American soldiers not being killed. Winning the war involves stabilizing Iraq politically, kickstarting the Iraqi economy, improving the standard of living of its residents to such an extent that they wouldn't look back at life under Saddam as having been the lesser of two evils. Winning the war also involves reducing Iraqi casualties due to terrorist attacks. Right? Right? 'Cause isn't that what this war is about, isn't it all about the poor downtrodden Iraqis who've suffered so much under the tyrant Saddam, isn't it about forcing democracy down their grateful parched throats? Isn't it about giving them a better life? And has America won that war? Nah, I didn't think so either.

But wait, didn't you guys say that winning the war is about making Iraq a terrorist base so that we can fight them there and not here. Or was winning the war about successfully not finding WMDs? Fuck man, you lost me now. See, that's why you shouldn't keep redefining the purpose of the war. 'Cause when you do that, whatever point it is that you were making ceases to hold any meaning. And then there's really no standard of victory that you can point to and claim that we've achieved it. Which is why I thought it was pretty simplistic of you to ask the NY Times such a naive question.

And Glenn Reynolds, Jesus man, do you even read the posts you link to? Do you even spend a single moment pondering over what the post says or means? Maybe you should. Or maybe it's me who's being naive now. One thing's for sure, though. The righties are panicking. They are falling over each other's feet, trying to come up with newer and more implausible justifications for why their community of lunatics is right and the rest of the world is wrong, trying to desperately look for silver linings where none exist.

Why I stopped doing fake news

Because it keeps turning into reality.

Here's what I satirized last month :

Clerics from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have ordered all Muslim women in India to undergo a sex-change operation once they have fulfilled their duties of womanhood (via RawStory). This command came in the wake of many young Muslim women discarding the traditional Hijab in favor of Western dresses, which they then proceeded to shamefully flaunt in public shopping malls, where members of the opposite sex could get an eyeful unfettered.
.
.
.
The sex-change operation would have numerous benefits for Muslim women. After their sexual transformation, women would be able to live their lives as productive members of society, which their old gender would otherwise have not permitted them to.

And here's what's really happening in Saudi Arabia today : (via God is for suckers)

Tired of playing second fiddle to men in conservative Saudi Arabia, five women decided if you can't beat them, join them.

Al Watan newspaper said the five women underwent sex change surgery abroad over the past 12 months after they developed a "psychological complex" due to male domination.

Women in Saudi Arabia, which adopts an austere interpretation of Islam, are not allowed to drive or even go to public places unaccompanied by a male relative.

It's hard out here for a prophet.

Stupid Mr Kaloogian

Here we go again. We return back to this weeklong conservative whining about the lack of "good news" from Iraq. One future congressman took it to the next level. Howard Kaloogian, a Republican from California, published on his website a photo of Baghdad, showing a calm, peaceful, almost idyllic city, saying "We took this photo of downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq. Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be."

But Mr Kaloogian had a problem. The Truth Nazis at DailyKos had already swung into action, and based on investigation, common sense and a healthy mistrust of anything that ever came out of a Republican's mouth, discovered that the idyllic picture Mr Kaloogian had purportedly snapped was not really Baghdad, but Istanbul, Turkey. Ah, that explains the hand-holding woman in the picture, you say? Correct.

Then, Mr Kaloogian, who, by the way, has now been informed by Fox News that they have a news anchor position waiting for him in that organization just in case he decides to leave Congress, replaced the fake Baghdad photo on his website with a (purportedly) real one taken from a hilltop which might as well have been taken from Mars.

But this is what puzzles me. On his website, Mr Kaloogian says, "I just returned from a 10-day trip to Iraq to talk to our soldiers and Marines about their experiences in the war against terrorism." So are we to believe that even after travelling to Iraq with a camera, a crate of Dasanis, an all-consuming mistrust of the American media and a fanatical eagerness to take pictures of a calm and stable Iraq, all he could come up with was the snapshot of an Istanbul neighbourhood? What does this say about his claim of media bias then?

If Howard Kaloogian, an extremely biased pro-war Republican wannabe congressman, wasn't able to capture a single scene of calmness and stability in Iraq during the course of his travels within that country, instead, having to bolster his argument of Iraqi progress by presenting a fake photo as evidence, doesn't it basically tell us that there is no discernible progress in Iraq? That his entire argument is false? That the media isn't being biased and that its reporting accurately depicts the violence occurring over there?

Either that or Mr Kaloogian accidentally flew to Turkey instead of Iraq, took pictures of Istanbul thinking it was Baghdad, and now he cannot admit it because it would make him look like a fool. Take your pick.

Jury still out on whether praying helps gunshot victims

The results of a new study were released whose purpose was to determine whether praying for heart patients aided in their convalescence. The answer, unfortunately, turned out to be "What are you, an idiot?" In fact, a greater proportion of patients who were aware of the praying efforts being undertaken on their behalf had further medical complications. These complications were reportedly caused due to hospital staff leaving their posts in order to join the prayer team in singing devotional hymns in the lobby.

Researchers were adamant that this study was not meant to prove or disprove the existence of God. As the lead researcher emphasized, "That's a question for another time and another fake research project to delve into."

This project was funded by the Templeton Foundation, an institute whose mission involves identifying the best methods for injecting religion and superstition into science without actually appearing to do so. In that, it follows in the pioneering footsteps of the Discovery Institute which is currently engaged in the admirable task of attempting to discredit the theory of evolution by asking pertinent questions such as "if mankind did actually descend from apes, how come men don't enjoy flinging their own faeces at others as much as they used to?" The Templeton Institute has also previously allocated funding for scientific projects such as "Does reading the Bible four times a week inhibit tooth decay" and "Can conversion to Christianity be an effective tool to be abused by a daughter-beating Afghani asshole in order to obtain political asylum in a developed country governed by a fundamentalist Christian moron."

Although the research project might appear to have been a failure due to 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developing a complication, versus 52 percent of those who didn't, the Foundation is calling the exercize a success since it does not conclusively disprove the role of prayer in helping to heal gunshot victims. In order to carry out further research on that issue, the foundation has applied for additional grants from the American nutjob community.

Freedom on our terms

Bush on Iraqi freedom :

"History will prove whether I'm right. I think I'll be right because do believe freedom is universal."

Bush on the duly elected Iraqi Prime Minister :

Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.

Bush on Iraqi freedom :

"I remember it wasn't all that long ago that 11 million Iraqi's went to the polls in the face of terrorist threats... and said, we want to be free... That sentiment still exists in Iraq."

Bush on the duly elected Iraqi Prime Minister :

Ambassador Khalilzad said that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari to be the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc.

Fucking hypocrite. And finally,

"How can they do this?" Mr. Ubady, a spokesman for Mr Jaafari said. "An ambassador telling a sovereign country what to do is unacceptable."

"The perception is very strong among certain Shia parties that the U.S., led by Khalilzad, is trying to unseat Jaafari," he added.

You know what, lets just send Jeb Bush over to Iraq. Looks like he'll be the only person America will be happy to hand over a democratic Iraq to.

How to win the war in Iraq Bush-style

President Bush is miffed at the American media. And rightly so too. The evil conglomerate of American newspapers, television networks and online news outlets is turning out to be the shadowy figure behind the scenes responsible for the rapid descent of Iraq into a civil war. The reasoning behind this is so flawless, only someone who is not the president of the US or one of his conservative minions could fail to grasp the beauty of its logic. The president's treatise is that the war in Iraq has already been won by coalition troops. Iraq is blossoming into a prosperous and healthy democracy. However, it is the American media who is guilty of an irresponsible and abject failure in heralding this great American victory and communicating it to an anxious citizenry back home.

The president spent all of last week vociferously elaborating this point through news conferences and press releases. Ironic, considering that he was relaying his message about the untrustworthiness and incompetence of the media, through the media. But his point was that the real reason behind the American public's disenchantment with the Iraq war has less to do with America's performance in that war and more to do with the public's perception of that performance. Now, many people have been placing the blame for the Iraqi debacle squarely on insufficient troop numbers on the ground in Iraq. And since military recruitment numbers have been going down, the only way this problem could have been solved was by reinstating the mandatory military draft. You know, that hallowed American practice of the 60's where they used to grab babies from their cribs and place them in foxholes. But now we know it's not really the troop level we need to be worried about. It's the reporter level in Iraq that is the problem. Insufficient journalists on the ground to cover all the good news that is not making it's way across the Atlantic, is what's behind the cherrypicked bad press coverage of the recent spurt of violence in Iraq. Due to a lack of manpower, reporters will only publish the interesting stories. Stories of violence and gore. Not stories of humanity and kindness and progress. At least, that's the treatise.

As the president informed us, the US is lacking journalists who will venture into terrorist infested neighbourhoods outside the Baghdad green zone in order to relay back all the cute happy cuddly news that cannot, in the words of conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, be effectively ascertained merely by standing on a hotel balcony and peering through binoculars. Far too much good news that is trying to make its way through the swirling smoke hovering above Iraqi streets after an IED explosion, has been lost due to uncooperative and cowardly reporters who will merely give it a passing glance as they hungrily snap pictures of smoldering cars and charred bodies. In fact, it is only a select few of that profession who will bother to look past all the charnel-house scenes prevalent in big cities such as Baghdad, Fallujah and Najaf and engage in some good old-fashioned field-journalism in the smaller villages and towns where Iraqis in possession of their heads still outnumber those who don't.

So this is my recommendation to President Bush. Forget about increasing troop levels. Hell, send all the troops back home. 'Cause they've already accomplished what they set out to do. Saddam Hussain is gone and Iraq has been handed over to the bloodthirsty religious militia. Which was the plan in the first place. Now it's time to put the press to work and institute a mandatory draft for journalists. It is time for the media to step in and finish off the mission by feeding the American people lies and half-truths, by painting a picture of Iraqi Valhalla where smiling Sunni insurgents lay down their weapons and lovingly place flowers in the hair of their Shia brethren as they sit together on a grassy meadow with a picnic basket, holding hands and watching the sun set in the west. We need more reporters in Iraq who will selectively sift through all the useless chaff of explosions, beheadings and lootings in order to find the hard-to-obtain grains of happiness. We need someone who, when faced with an image of bodies rotting in a gutter, will actually look past all that grimness and pessimism and capture the innocent delight of little children as they play with those corpses, exuding a joy that can only be attributed to living in a Saddam-free Iraq.

And having a mandatory journalist draft would also allow those conservative columnists who, uptil now, had been shackled in their whoring for the White House by concerns for their own life. Concerns that disallowed them from being any more proactive than watching CNN and screaming at the lack of good news on it. These people would now be able to take matters into their own hands and be footsoldiers in the war against bad truthful press by marching to the battlefront and engaging in some patriotic misreporting. And that's what America needs right now, not more soldiers in Iraq who would actually keep the peace, but more American media outlets that would broadcast an illusion of peace.