The Uncommon American

The Invisible Life of Poet #89 - Simple Pleasures

2006-04-25T18:03:00.000-05:00

A strip written in mad desperation is still a great strip when I write it. Never before has a cartoon depicting sitting and looking and talking been so dynamic and relevant. I almost had an orgasm thinking about it right now. I can't imagine what will happen when you read it. Perhaps your balls/ovaries will simply explode from the excitement. If so, please send me a snapshot.

Simple Pleasures
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Blame the Children

2006-04-21T07:43:00.000-05:00

When things go sour for Bush and the Republicans, they blame underlings and the downtrodden. They blamed Abu Ghraib on a few bad soldiers. They blamed bad Iraq intelligence on the CIA. The Katrina disaster was blamed on state and local officials. Cheney shot a guy in the face and blamed the victim for getting shot. They're now blaming economic problems on Mexican immigrants.

This turns out to be very effective policy, and has helped prevent the Bush administration from being impeached (although a few of them have been indicted.) It's the political equivalent of blaming the dog for eating your homework. If we hold accountable those who cannot defend themselves, we are released from the bonds of responsibility. Democrats and progressive associates must learn to utilize this strategy if they expect to increase their representation in governmental affairs.

But simply blaming those at the bottom of the chain of command may not be enough. Democrats and progressives must go further - way down to the bottom - and blame the children. No demographic, except for invalids and coma patients, are more defenseless than children. With some clever rhetoric and an open mindset, almost anything can be blamed on children.

Children are illiterate? It's their fault for not studying harder. Ground them.
You can't pay your bills? It's the children's fault for being born. Make them get a job.
A terrorist blew up the Statue of Liberty? Some kid left the door unlocked. Throw his ass in jail.
Iran is enriching uranium and will soon construct a nuclear weapon? My kids ate the treaty. They are traitors. Let's have a Congressional inquiry.
The international diplomatic tendencies of realpolitik are gradually shifting from western democracies to dubious provisional regimes in South America and Asia? Dude, my kids were making too much noise. What was the question? SHUT THE HELL UP YOU LITTLE FUCKERS I'M ON THE PHONE!!!

The Invisible Life of Poet #88 - Rock Awesomeness

2006-04-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

Today I need your help. This week's strip, for the first time ever, contains a special alternate punchline. First read this week's strip, then check out the alternate final frame. To pick your favorite ending, leave me a comment.

[Spoiler alert! Read the strip and the alt ending before you read on]
Many of you will clearly prefer the alternate punchline to the published one. I prefer the alternate as well. My reasoning for chosing the one I did to be printed is threefold: first, and most importantly, I wasn't entirely sure if my publishers would have wanted to print it. Second, teabagging is a very "in" joke right now, and I try not to be too trendy with my humor. The more general "genitals" will still be understandable to everyone twenty years from now. Third, while people aged 15-30 probably mostly know what teabagging is, most other people probably do not. (If you don't know what teabagging is, go here, or rent John Water's Pecker.)

I would like to know how you, the reader, feel about this situation. Is the teabag joke so powerful to the few that it overcomes the confusion and disgust of the rest? Will a college kid in 2026 know what teabagging is? Should I care?

This is your chance to be a part of The Invisible Life of Poet. The comments I receive here will surely determine which punchline goes into my first book (whenever that is.)

The Invisible Life of Poet #88

The Invisible Life of Poet #87 - 20 Years Later

2006-04-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, you can tell I'm a genius. And sometimes, you can tell I'm a supergenius. Today, you get a glimpse of genius nonpareil. Roughly translated, that means supermega-ultragenius. I would SPIT on Stephen Hawking.

I adore this strip. It is the first I have ever done without words and I could not be happier with it. Sometimes good art says everything.

The Invisible Life of Poet

Quote of the Year

2006-04-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency..."

--Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, at a press briefing today.

Pimp My Middle Finger

2006-04-12T08:25:00.000-05:00

Hummers are for pussies. They are driven by guys with massively tiny dicks who think they are pimping.

But if you have a huge cock, I mean tree-trunk huge, you need an International CXT. This is not a Chevy Suburban chasis with a Hum-Vee style body. This company makes actual military vehicles. How would you like to see THIS passing you on the freeway? The CXT comes pre-pimped for guys who do their pimping at a rate of 3.5 miles to the gallon.

Let's get real. We are pimping way too much in this country. We're already pimping our cars and and pimping our bikes and pimping our homes and some of us are pimping our dentures. Soon we'll be pimping buses, pimping snowplows, pimping yachts, pimping 747's, and pimping Canadian provinces. And no one will ever ask the crucial question: is it really possible to pimp Alberta any more than it already is? Given time, Monsanto will start pimping our corn. Starbucks will begin to pimp our coffee and Walmart will start pimping our slaves. We can't sit quietly as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney pimp their nukes. Before long, the manatee and the gray wolf will be pimped to extinction.

And unpimping things is not enough, in spite of Volkswagen's efforts to "unpimp the auto." Once something has been pimped, it's pimpness enters the global consciousness, and you cannot unpimp it. Pimping must be stopped before it starts.

We therefore must stop pimping our worldy possessions and start pimping the things that are really important. It's time to Pimp the Vote!

And most importantly, we need to step back and return pimping to it's humble origins: pimping our whores.

The Invisible Life of Poet #86 - El Rey de Mexico

2006-04-04T18:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to this strip, four years of Spanish and two trips to Central America have not gone to waste. This strip utilizes an old favorite joke of mine ("huevos") and was definitely fun to draw.

[Spoiler Alert!]
Robots, ninjas, pirates, and monkeys are all favorite subjects of contemporary hack humorists. These are the most overused subjects in humor, and while they have given us many great laughs, in general, they are used at the humorist's own peril. The punchline here hits all four in an attempt to end this problem. I'm sure it will not (I still sort of laugh about ninjas, after all.)

The translation:

1. Poet: I am the king of Mexico. I need to buy groceries.
Ben: Do you like eggs? They are very special.
2. Poet: Why are they special?
Ben: Because they are "Donkey Eggs."
3. Poet: Donkey eggs? That's disgusting! Now I will kill you!
Ben: Don't kill me! They are the eggs of Mr. Donkey!
4. Poet: Are they big and tasty?
Ben: Yes. The queen will love them.
5. Poet: May I touch your eggs?
Ben: Pervert! I will shoot your face off!
6. Poet: The famous assassin of the farm! He lives! That's bad!
Ben: Silence! On your knees, son of a whore!
7. Poet: What will happen to the Mexican empire?
Ben: Prepare to die, ugly dog.
8. Poet: HIYA! I am the karate champion!
Ben: Hey! [etc...]

The Invisible Life of Poet

Monday, April 3rd, 2006

2006-04-03T08:40:00.000-05:00

American politicians are getting frustrated with the Iraqi parliament's inability to form a government and select a prime minister - which doesn't really mean much to an American. Nonetheless, the Bush administration is setting up an excellent exit strategy. It's called "We Tried, They Blew It." When the goverment fails to form, and the country explodes into large-scale civil war (as opposed to the small, quiet civil war that's already going on there) Bush can start yanking troops out piecemeal, saying "we tried, they blew it." It's commensurate with the Bush Blame the Victim Doctrine.

An upcoming article in the Waco Tribune-Herald (profiled at Rawstory.com) looks at how Bush's trips to his ranch-mansion in Crawford, Texas, have fallen in frequency. My question is, if we set up enough permanent protests in front of the White House, will Bush stay away from there, too?

God Hates Coral Reefs

2006-03-30T15:37:00.000-05:00

What's the big schmeal about coral reefs? They're just big stupid rocks. Yet crazy environmentalists want to save them, as if they have value to anybody outside a few tax-and-spend tie-dyed coral-hugging scuba divers. Now there's this:

Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death

Who knew stupid rocks could die? Besides, even if coral is "alive," it's not like you can take it home as a pet. It doesn't have big brown tender eyes and soft fur, and it doesn't make cute sounds like "meow meow purr purr" and junk. It just sits there in the cold, wet, filthy ocean doing nothing. BO-RING!

Even worse, coral typically changes its sex several times in it's lifespan! My children are stupid. How am I supposed to explain this to them? What if my son decides to "come out of the coral?" Coral reefs are orgies of sin and debauchery and deserve to go to Hell. Rocks should not be allowed to have sex. Coral does not love Christ (except possibly Coral growing in Baptismal water, but even that's sort of a grey area.) The Bible doesn't say anything about coral, especially transgender coral, and so it is clearly not part of God's plan.

What really matters is microscopic masses of undifferentiated human stem cells. The "ecosystem" depends on every one of them becoming a full-grown, Christ-loving human Christian. Babies are cuter than coral; therefore, they're more valuable to the world. Therefore, we can kill coral and it won't matter. I say good riddance. The less coral, the easier it is for me to force my children into the correct gender roles.

The Invisible Life of Poet #85 - Untitled

2006-03-28T21:47:00.001-05:00

I have nothing to say about this strip. Read it.
The Invisible Life of Poet

Constitutional Violations Are Catching On

2006-03-28T14:03:00.000-05:00

2006 is quickly becoming the year of constitutional violations!

Like pierced tongues and tattoos before them, blatant constitutional violations are gradually entering the political pop culture of this country. The trendy new activity is being driven in large part by a totalitarian President driven mad with power. He's a total badaaaaass gangsta, that guy.

First, back in January, Bush issued a signing statement to an anti-torture bill passed by Congress, claiming he had the right to ignore a law if he deemed it necessary. This blatantly violates Article I, Section 8, which states in part that Congress has the power "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers." The president does not have this power. But Bush thinks he does! RADICAL!

Next, the Bush administration fully admitted to having spied on domestic phone calls without obtaining a court's permission to do so. Not only does this violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law passed by Congress, it also violates the Fourth Amendment in the awesomest of ways: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Dude, that amendment is LA-AME! Bush is SuperCOOL!

Then, Bush signed a Budget bill into law that had not been approved in the same form by the Senate and the House. Evidence indicates that top level aides and advisors knew of the discrepancy, and went ahead with the signing anyway, clearly violating the Presentment Clause (article I, section 7), which is a totally sucky clause! You rock, Mr. Bush!

Then Bush issued another signing statement for the most recent version of the Patriot Act, saying that he was not bound to the meager rules set forth by Congress to protect civil liberties. Totally AWESOME-UM TO THE MAXIMUM!

Meanwhile, two totally square Democratic representatives are trying to bring down the president's kick-assiness, demanding that Bush obey the laws. No way, narcs!

Bush's trendiness is already catching on nationwide, and nothing could beat the hardcore coolness of violating the very first sentence of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." But the Georgia state legislature are clearly as cool as rockstar gangstas. Their new law, passed almost unanimously in both chambers, establishes voluntary Bible classes statewide in public schools. Off the hook, yo!

The next cool thing would be for Bush to bypass Article II, Section 1, and declare himself "Emergency King" due to our unending state of warfare. That shit would be SICK!

If you are an American, take twenty minutes out of your life and READ THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION YOU SWINE!!!! Please click here for a complete hypertext of this crucial document.

How Progressives Can Talk National Security

2006-03-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

Conservatives in power do not care about this nation's security. "Security" to them does not mean saving lives or protecting our homeland. "Security" to them means unnecessary preemptive warfare built on a foundation of lies and deceit. It means no-bid contracts to their corporate buddies for supplying the war effort. It means appointing unqualified or incompetant cronies to positions on which lives depend. It means violating FISA, the Fourth Amendment, and a proud history of civil liberties for an unregulated program of surveillance. "Security" to them means a culture of fear and xenophobia. It means hatred and racism. "Security" to them means torture.

"Security" to progressives, and to the Democratic party, means taking care of our ports and inspecting incoming cargo. It means securing loose nuclear material worldwide. It means obeying the Nuclear Arms Nonproliferation Treaty. It means returning to the power of diplomacy, not senseless acts of war, to secure allies and confront our enemies. It means working with the UN, not against it, to fight world tyranny and poverty. "Security" to us means following the Geneva Conventions, it means being a global leader in human rights, not a consummate offender of human rights. It means a strong, efficient, and economical professional military, not a force sent into war only for the benefit of Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin. "Security" to us means protecting ourselves, and our friends around the world, from death and destruction, and that's all it means.

The United States is the richest and most militarily powerful nation in the world, but we are not the only nation in the world. And in the past six years the Republican administration has shown not a scrap of humility, not a scrap of compassion for our neighbors. In five years they have taken the compassion and spirit given to us by the world after the September 11th attacks, and turned it into hatred. It is a fool who believes that hatred directed at our nation proves the ethical character of our actions.

As an American I no longer want to see my nation walking around the world with its fists raised in preparation for a fight. I want to see my nation walking around shaking hands, securing new friendships and renewing old ones.

In a world where terrorists can roam and hide anywhere, from East to West, from North to South, and all parts in between, it is impossible to truly secure your nation from agression without global help. It is time to stop pounding our military chest in macho displays of anger and warfare and start admitting this nation made a mistake in invading a sovereign nation almost unilaterally, regardless of the ethics and actions of a hated dictator. Humility is on the march. Compassion is on the march. We are the rich older brothers to the world - it's time we stop acting like bullies and start acting like mature adults.

George W. Bush and his Republicans do not care about American lives. American lives could be saved on our highways and in our clinics through preventative medicine. They care only about money and an egotistic belief that their actions are mandated by God Himself. If their God has asked them to subject secret detainees to water boarding, then perhaps they worship a different God then the rest of us.

It is time for real security in this nation. The neoconservative philosophy has been proven not just incorrect, but morally unjustifiable. It is time for a new progressive security.

The Time Has Come for Specious Reasoning

2006-03-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

The raver culture is completely out of control.

Last night in Seattle a raver walked into a party and fired a shotgun into a crowd of fellow ravers, killing six of them, later turning the gun on himself. Some are calling it a random killing, but it is anything but. The raver culture emphasizes freedom of expression, casual sex and drug use, and dancing to music that can only be described as "lustful." This is what happens when freedom of expression is allowed to roam free. Without strict rules of order and morality, innocent people die needlessly.

It is clear that raver culture must be stopped before its practitioners sweep the country raping and murdering and feasting upon the brains of their victims. Their music is designed to send people into a frenzied madness of killing and that is exactly what happened. Someone contact Rick Santorum.

The Invisible Life of Poet #84 - The Endgame

2006-03-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

I believe the script for this strip was written on a short deadline, and thus it still feels undercooked to me, and I have no idea what the message is here. I look at it now and I could have changed the frame order and added some more action. If I had to do it over again I probably would file this away as not quite up to my standards. Yet amazingly, it still manages to be better than all other comic strips currently produced put together, including "Funky Winkerbean."

The Endgame
Life of Poet Mainpage

Osamaphobia

2006-03-14T08:46:00.000-05:00

The attacks of 9/11 caused 2,752 deaths on US soil. Since that day, our government has filled our minds with warnings that al-Qaeda could strike at any moment with dirty bombs, anthrax, and poison gas. The United States has been gripped with fear for almost five years, and we've launched warfare in two unrelated theatres.

But, by my calculation, 9/11 happens every 23 days. In 23 days, approximately 2,700 people are killed in automobile accidents in this country (based on 2004 numbers). Since 9/11, nearly 200,000 Americans have died in their cars and motorcycles, and not a single person has died as a result of a terrorist attack on US soil.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a phobia as "A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it..." I know a thing or two about phobias. I spent 8 years from 1997 to 2005 grounded with a phobia of commercial airlines. A common question I heard from friends and family in those years was "why aren't you paralyzed with fear over driving?"

Americans, and conservatives in particular, are suffering a mad case of Osamaphobia. They fear that at any moment terrorists could strike US soil, killing thousands, and only George Bush, wiretaps, and a policy of unending war in the middle east can stop them. But this fear is completely irrational. You hear over and over again that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and all the rest are advocating policies that save American lives. If they were truly interested in protecting American lives, they'd put those wiretaps in our cars, to root out dangerous drivers.

The "protecting American lives" argument for war and domestic wiretaps is phony. It's smoke and mirrors. Maybe these policies are not, in fact, about American life, but about power, control, and money. Pay no attention to your personal safety. Continue to purchase new automobiles. Continue drinking. Don't worry about your health insurance. It is the TERRORISTS who want to kill you. LET'S GO TO WAR!!!

Do Something In Pursuit of Good

2006-03-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Today Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin introduced a resolution in the Senate to censure President Bush for his warrentless wiretapping program. This resolution is not an impeachment. It is simply an official rebuke from the Senate to President Bush that he is overstepping his power, breaking the law, and possibly violating the Constitution.

The bill is expected to fail, but this is a great opportunity to send a message to your government with a simple email. Spineless Democrats and Partyline Republicans have repeatedly said that they cannot vote for these types of measures because they do not feel that their constituents are interested in such matters. With an email, you can help change their minds.

I have written to my Senators here in Rhode Island to vote in favor of this resolution. I encourage you to do the same, then forward this message on to friends and family. I have attached the email I sent after this message, and you are free to use it. To find your Senator's email or web form, go here.

President Bush has shown that his policies are a matter of life and death and it is possible to influence the actions of your government. Write your Senators immediately. The Senate may be voting on this bill very soon.

Late edit: You can also sign Russ Feingold's petition for this resolution here.

Letter follows:

Mr./Mrs. ______,

Today on the floor of the Senate Russ Feingold introduced a motion to censure President George W. Bush for warrantless wiretapping, in plain violation of FISA and the Fourth Amendment.

As a resident of the state of ______, I support this motion, and ask you to vote in favor of Mr. Feingold's resolution.

I understand the importance of wiretapping in combatting domestic terrorism, but it has been made clear by Mr. Feingold and many others since this program was revealed that a simple process already exists to gain approval of wiretapping within the confines of the law. While I am fearful of the actions of terrorists, I am far more fearful today of an executive branch that is willing to tread upon the Constitution of the United States.

Please vote to pass the resolution to censure President George W. Bush for his illegal actions.

Thank you,

_________

The Invisible Life of Poet #83 - I Heart Stem Cells

2006-03-13T22:28:00.000-05:00

You must have known that eventually Poet would get around to abortion. While this does not solve the abortion issue per se, I am very pleased at how it portrays the "compassion" of radical Christians. If you yourself are a Christian, and feel this comic strip grossly misrepresents your viewpoint, I'd like to hear from you. Just remember that right now, somewhere in this country, people like this are doing things like this, and making a whole lot of noise about it. To atheists like me, they are the face of contemporary American Christianity. But then, you probably hate atheists like me, too.

I Heart Stem Cells
Life of Poet Mainpage

ATTENTION CITIZENS: YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE!!!

2006-03-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press has just released a story that a cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease. Your initial reaction may be one of shock, alarm, fear, and panic. This is the correct response. Although you are many millions of times more likely to die as a result of heart disease, preventable types of cancer, complications from diabetes, auto accidents, and alcohol-related incidents, it is crucial that you ignore these convincing statistics and concentrate on the very-almost-real possibility that mad cow disease will turn into a global pandemic of epidemic proportions. Your family, your children, your friends, but especially your children are all at risk. They may, in fact, already have Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, which is at least as horrible as it sounds, if not more so. And even though only a few hundred people have been infected by the disease since it was discovered, it is critical that we devote all our attention to this story as it develops.

Please ignore the FBI agent climbing your telephone pole. Turn away from your president dropping napalm on innocent Muslims. Pay no mind to the activity of harmless megacorporations. And don't worry that you don't have a job.

The real danger is beef. It may already be in your very own house. The only way to protect yourself is through paralyzing fear.

Not convinced? How about bird flu? Or worse, AVIAN bird flu. The really unlucky ones will get Creutzfeldt-Jacob Bird Flu and die alone, horribly disfigured, in a pool of their own diarrhea. Please lock your doors, stay inside, and tune out the armed stormtroopers goose-stepping down your block.

Americans Won't Accept a Draw, EVER

2006-03-09T16:35:00.000-05:00

When you play a game of chess, there are three possible outcomes: you win, you lose, or you draw. In a tournament of chess, you score one point for a win, zero points for a loss, and half a point for a draw. Savvy players, if sufficiently ahead in points, can opt to play for a draw if caught in a difficult game, and still win the tournament.

Americans, in any game except chess, never play for a draw. To an American, a draw is as bad as a loss. If you don't win, you're considered a loser.

This is part of why Americans do not like professional soccer. It is unbelievably frustrating to us to watch 90+ minutes of guys running only to see the game end with both teams being equal. They might as well have just run onto the field and had a big wet soccer-circle-jerk in center field (football-circle-jerk to you Euros.) The National Hockey League used to have ties as well, but the new rules this season say NO TIES. So games go to a shootout so there is a clear winner, even if just by a lucky shot.

Americans do not believe in competitive egalitarianism, and we loathe compromise. When you're the richest, most militarily powerful nation on the planet by such a wide margin, it's understandable that you expect to always be on top in everything you do. It's egotistical, yes, but no wonder: if things go wrong, we can always buy more stuff to make ourselves feel better. You can be the ugliest loser dork in the country, and you can still pay to fly to the Ukraine and bring home a gorgeous wife.

Americans won't accept a draw, and so it goes with international politics. It's been this way with Bush's mystical "war on terror," in which the United States will never accept anything except complete annihilation of every last living terrorist. Unfortunately for Bush, the only people who are NOT potential terrorists are rich white American fundamentalists. Even I could be a potential terrorist. If the National Republican Socialist Party started goose-stepping around my town, parading tanks around the streets, and overturning desks at Planned Parenthood, I might have to think seriously about blowing something up.

The latest "threat" to international politics is that Iran is seeking to enrich some Uranium. They say it's just for power plants, while Dick Cheney says it's most certainly for blowing up Israel and your baby. Considering the level of credibility with the Bush administration at this point, I tend to lean toward the word of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But that's beside the point here.

There has been a bit of one-upmanship as the US seeks to stop Iran from enriching Uranium, and Iran threatens to break their promise not to, just to show us that they refuse to be strongarmed. It's an understandable response. They just want to be left alone, and maybe flatten Israel. But in this modern world, who DOESN'T want to flatten Israel anymore? Even Quebec is talking about it (that may just be a rumor.)

Iran is maintaining it's diplomatic ties to the outside world. They clearly want to find a compromise. And a draw is possible in this game. But Bush and his chickenhawk friends are black-blooded Americans, and that means NO DRAWS. Judging, too, by the domestic political success of the war in Iraq, at least for the first year after the invasion, I have to believe that military action against Iran is inevitable. Bush's approval ratings are dismally low and his disapproval ratings are reaching recond highs. He needs a war to get people excited about flags again.

This is terrifying. Iran is not the twin brother of Iraq. It's much bigger, much more powerful, and has access to a much wider array of resources. If we start levelling anything we think is a nuclear facility, Americans will become walking targets wherever they go. Invasion of Iran is totally out of the question. To invade might set the stage for the next world war.

As a progressive, I would prefer LESS war, not more. Granted, I have no vested interest in Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin or Halliburton, and certainly the men making these decisions do. Every brown man they kill means one more ivory backscratcher. Nonetheless I think America needs to walk away from this one. Accept a draw and let Iran have their stupid uranium. If we walk away from the fight, we live to blow them up some other day. We know our government is tapping every telephone line in the world at this point, so I have sufficient confidence in our global intelligence network that we're going to know if Iran starts building a nuke. If so, fine, blow it the hell up.

Until then, give our troops a break between stupid wars.

The Invisible Life of Poet #82 - Valentine's Day

2006-03-06T21:24:00.001-05:00

I hate Valentine's Day. I used to be alone, and I hated seeing stupid idiots buying flowers for their superficial idiot girlfriends. Now that I have a girlfriend, I hate Valentine's Day even more because my girlfriend hates it so much. But it is possible to make Valentine's Day fun, as Poet demonstrates in this week's episode. If you're wondering why this strip is a month late, you should move to Dayton, Duluth, Jackson Hole, or Oberlin, to see the latest, freshest strips published in local newsweeklies.

The Invisible Life of Poet #82
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South Dakota Rubber Stamps Rape/Incest

2006-03-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

You've probably already heard the news that Governor Mike Rounds today signed into law a bill passed by the South Dakota legislature banning abortion. What's more, the law makes no exception in the case of rape or incest.

I heard an abortion opponent justify this by saying that while the pregnancy may have been brought about by horrific means, the fetus is itself an innocent victim, and must still be protected by law. In other words "it's not the baby's fault daddy raped you. Get over it!"

Lawmakers are saying, in effect, that while rape and incest are wrong and illegal, the effects of rape and incest are quite okay. They give a tacit nod to rapist and incestists (incestors?), and it's no wonder. Look at who led the charge to pass this law:

SD Representative Roger Hunt, man
SD House Speaker Matthew Michels, man (pictured above)
SD Governor Mike Rounds, man

Men, like myself, cannot truly empathize with women about rape. We want to be raped by dozens of hot girls every day. It's one of our hottest fantasies that a gorgeous 19 year old with long dark hair, pouty lips, and ample cleavage would drag us into their van and fuck us hard for hours. We want to be tied up and gang raped by a classroom of horny college sluts. Even if the girls were a little chunky or kind of ugly, most of us would still be into it a little.

Women do not work this way. It doesn't matter if Brad Pitt and George Clooney went tag-team on them - women do not like to be forced to have sex. It can be someone they know, or a guy they've been crushing on for years, and rape is still a no-go.

But South Dakota men approve of rape because, to them, rape is sexy. And if you look at the photographs of the legislators who passed this law, you'll know why. It may be the only shot they have to procreate.

As for incest, I suppose that's just a midwestern thing.

A Government of Crackheads

2006-03-06T13:01:00.000-05:00

The conservatives running the US government are crackheads. But their crack isn't crack-cocaine, it's bombs and futuristic technologies that kill. And they'll walk over their own grandmother to get more. They need it daily to get high -- on political success -- because Americans love to kick some ass.

At the beginning of Bush's first term as president, I remember Paul Krugman remarking that the secret conservative plan was to cut taxes and run deficits up so high that domestic entitlement programs, and anything else conservatives didn't like, could be cut back to make up the debt. The attacks of 9/11 turned out to be a windfall for these policies, because the public could be terrorized with rhetoric about dirty bombs and ricin attacks in our libraries and waterparks. Simply by keeping the citizenry on edge, the Bush admininstration and associated Congressional cronies were free to spend as much as fiscally possible on the "war on terror," which for some reason includes unmanned swimming spyplanes and cyborg sharks. Bush might say "you can't put a price on homeland security" to justify the ridiculous armed forces and security budgets (now 53.6% of our government's spending, even BEFORE we pay for warfare in Iraq and Afghanastan), and with that in mind, anything else can go out the window. From Pell grants to veteran's benefits to environmental satellites - they're cutting and slashing to bring the deficit down. You can go to the fiscal year 2006 budget for the United States government and see for yourself whose budget is being cut, and whose expanded. Paul Krugman was right.

But the deficit remains at record-levels, and the national debt keeps rising. Turns out that for at least the fourth time in the Bush presidency (it could be more, I can't find a decent article on the subject), the government is breaking through an arbitrary, but legally binding, ceiling for debt, and treasury secretary John Snow (pictured above) is asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling again. But before they get to that point, they've been raiding any stockpiles of cash they can get their hands on, just to keep the government running. As is mentioned in this article they've cut into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, and have already begun eating up investments from the G-fund (Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System). So to ensure the fiscal solvency of the goverment, they've decided to raid the funds that PAY TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT.

What a bunch of crackheads. They steal jewelry and TVs from their own family to pay for their filthy habits. In this case, they steal from their own pension funds to pay for a $24 billion for a fleet of fighter/bombers that have no application in modern warfare.

Bush wants to take away housing for the poor and divert the funds to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. We all know it. This is what happens when you vote a bunch of crackheads into office. And when the crackheads run out of money and resources, that's when things get dangerous. They have to start breaking into other people's homes to steal their electronics to feed their habit. Then people get shot and stabbed. In our case, firebombed and tortured.

Do or Die Time for the Democrats

2006-03-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

The Democrats are standing on top of possibly the largest heap of scandals, corruption, incompetance, and lies in United States political history, and with an election looming this year, they still can't see over the tops of their opponent's swelled heads.

If the Democratic party cannot collect themselves and start showing some teeth against the worst government we've ever had, if they cannot overcome the Republicans' weakening power in the face of so much evil and blindness and win a significant majority of their campaigns this November, then I will quit the Democratic party and become an Independant. I will refuse to vote for any Democrat whose name isn't Obama, or at least acts like their name is Obama.

The latest is that so many Democrats in the Senate voted to renew the Patriot Act, with only minor changes for civil rights protections. Raw Story has a list of how Senators voted. As you can see, nine Democrats, and one independant, voted against the bill. 33 voted for it, including, as always, King Dick-Suck himself, Joe Lieberman. Clinton and Reid followed suit.

I don't claim to know everything about the Patriot Act. There may be some good parts of it, but I do know that the power to search and seize should not be left in the hands of the Bush administration and the Justice Department, not after all we've seen:

Cheney's Energy Taskforcegate
Dieboldgate
WMDgate
Cost of Iraq Wargate
Human Toll in Iraqgate
Talibangate
No Bid Contractgate
Halliburtongate
Plamegate, Niger Forgerygate, and Yellow Cakegate
Torturegate and Abu Ghraibgate
Tom Delaygate
Duke Cunninghamgate
Jack Abramoffgate and K-Streetgate
Coingate
New Hampshire Phone Jamminggate
Guantanomo Prisongate
Jeff Gannongate
Video News Releasegate
Social Securitygate
John Boltongate
Katrinagate, FEMAgate, and Superdomegate
Illegal Domestic Spygate
Irangate
Cheney Shoots His Friend in the Facegate and Then Makes Him Take the Blamegate
Dubai Ports Worldgate
Budget Deficitgate
Unemploymentgate
Medicare Prescriptiongate
Stupidgate, Racistgate, Incompetantgate, and Cronygate, with a hint of Evilgate

And this is just a list of scandals, corruption, and lies that have gotten national attention. The list would be unreadable if we looked at Republican scandals at even state levels, and it's damn near unreadable now.

The Republicans are scared, and they're having trouble agreeing on a message anymore. If the Democrats cannot take advantage of this, or at least prove that Republicans have been rigging elections (see "Dieboldgate") then I see no reason to support them anymore, at least not with the leadership that is currently in place. I will start voting for third parties and independants whenever possible. If the Republicans want to turn the US into a dictatorship, at least I'll know I voted for people who saw it coming and said something about it.

For the Jewish Confederacy

2006-02-28T09:20:00.000-05:00

Finally, a single flag to unite Southern Israeli secessionists, rebel rabbis, Zionist slave traders, Jewish members of the KKK, and the two Jewish guys who drive pickup trucks.

I have no idea why I made this, but it's sort of fun to desecrate two things at once. Now if you'll excuse me, there's some hooded fellahs at my door.

Previous posts on flags.

The Invisible Life of Poet #81 - Sex-Ed Day

2006-02-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

Those of you who grew up in the northeastern US, or Canada, or Europe, may read this strip and think I am exaggerating what goes on in the classrooms of middle America (and Florida, where I'm from.) In fact, I am exaggerating, but only a tiny bit. Abstinence is taught to be the only way. Condoms fail, and you'll get stuck with pubic lice no matter what you do. I think those ugly nurses mentioned masturbation only once in all my years in grade school, and then it was only to tell us that masturbating doesn't mean you're gay (I'm not joking.)

The Invisible Life of Poet #81
Main Page

Der UnFuhrer Bush

2006-02-24T13:39:00.000-05:00

People get upset when you compare their guy to the 20th century's greatest political monster, Adolf Hitler. Most of them simply don't understand the concept of hyperbole, as illustrated brilliantly in The Invisible Life of Poet.

I compare everything to Hitler: my dry cleaners (Another missing button! Did Hitler clean this shirt?), my pets (Bad kitty! Bad Hitler kitty! No scratch!), my breakfast (This poppy seed bagel is worse than Hitler!), and even the Boston Bruins (Who's coaching this game? Hitler? It's a holocaust out there!) As America's foremost humorist, however, I'm allowed to make these sorts of comparisons because I'm better than you.

Few people or inanimate objects are more deserving of the Hitler Hyperbole than George W. Bush. Bush wants to be a dictator, like Hitler. Not the "kill all Jews" Hitler, but the Iron-Fisted, Supercharisma, take-my-word-for-it-or-I'll-send-you-to-camp-Guantanamo Hitler. He wants to be the Good Hitler, a more caring Hitler. He wants to be the Hitler that loves all God's creatures, and then chains them to a steam vent and tortures them with attack dogs. He doesn't care if you're black or white or Muslim or Jewish, so long as you give generously to the GOP and always agree with everything he says no matter what or I'll kill you.

In fact, he said so himself in 1998:

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier."
(Governing Magazine 7/98)

And again in December 2000:

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
See the CNN transcript here.

Bush believes he has been chosen by God (he said so himself) to liberate Iraq and lead the Middle East out of the dark ages into the paradise of modern Western culture, where everyone drives Lincoln Navigators, Ford Explorers, Chevy Imperialists, and GMC Conquistadors. By all measurements by informed and unbiased journalists and foreign analysts, he led them instead from the dark ages back to the stone ages. But in his tiny alcohol-and-cocaine-weakened mind, he's still winning.

Hitler said the same kind of stuff in Mein Kampf: "...I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." Bush and Hitler worship the same God, although Hitler's was Catholic and Bush's is First United Fake Methodist. They're like evil peas in an even eviler pod. Hitler even probably thought he was still winning World War II when he put a bullet in his head.

It takes a monumental ego to "stay the course" when everything is failing so masterfully, but that's what happens when you take a spoiled drunken scumbag and fill his head with Jesus. I think we'd be better off if he was still an alcoholic.

Many of us on the left see this country gradually slipping into dictatorship, where the news media is operated by the state, elections are controlled, minorities are exploited, and those who speak dissent are labelled as traitorous. America may be headed for dictatorship, but Bush will never be its dictator. The dictator must be both an adept executor and a powerful national symbol. Bush is neither. He's simple-minded, shifty, and weak. He can't even spell "oratory." And I guarantee Hitler knew the difference between "persecute" and "prosecute."

No, America can do better than a Hitler wannabe. We need a new dictator with some fresh new ideas; one who speaks his mind and doesn't take crap from anybody. That's why I'd like to nominate myself as the Democrat's next candidate for the Dictatorship of Earth, er, the United States. Why should you elect me dictator? Because once elected, I will take all that money we're wasting in Iraq and put it toward new contraceptive technology, state-sponsored cosmetic surgery, and STD research. Once everyone in America is busy fucking, they won't be able to cause trouble elsewhere. Now thrust your hands upward so I can smell your fingers, thus proving your loyalty.

HEIL! HEIL!
(sniiiiiff....)
"Nice..."

Let Abortion Be Banned

2006-02-22T13:21:00.000-05:00

The first of what may be many bills outlawing abortion is coming up in the South Dakota legislature, as discussed in this New York Times article. Liberals and progressives should be happy about this, although I suspect they are not. The abortion issue has been the bread, butter, meat, potatoes, and dessert of the Christian conservative movement in this country since the passage of Roe v. Wade 33 years ago. (Prayer in public schools has been the after-dinner mint, while keeping gays from being happy has been the mango-lime salsa appetizer). It is the primary issue that binds all the moral conservatives in this country together. They need it to survive. But without it, they are weak, and their voices cannot be heard in unison. Without it, they cannot mobilize effectively.

So I say we give them their issue right now. I'm not convinced yet that Chief Justice John Roberts will vote to overturn, but I think we should encourage him to. An overturning does not automatically outlaw abortion, but rather give power back to the states to decide. By most estimates somewhere between a quarter and a half of the states would probably be able to outlaw abortion in their legislatures. But think of how the politics would shift in this country if such a thing happened. People on the left, many who never voted before or gave a flying rat's ass about politics would suddenly be furious.

Meanwhile, conservatives, lacking their keystone issue, would falter. On the tails of everything horrible the current Republican powerhold has been doing, in the wake of scandals and failed foreign policy and a hugely unpopular President, the conservative movement would be COMPLETELY CRUSHED by the groundswell of liberal and progressive support. Few national candidates supporting abortion bans would stand a chance. Democrats and even independants would take control of this country within four years. Those same abortion bans would fall, one by one, and the Republican party would be totally humiliated.

There is a cost to this, as unwanted pregnancies would spike in many states. Of course, it could be argued that in many states, such as Mississippi and Alabama, it's already exceedingly difficult to get an abortion, so the change might not even be noticeable. Democrats, liberals, progressives, centrists, all need to get behind the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

By giving a little, we can take the momentum created by such a historical change and use it to crush the opposition handily. By letting it happen, Republicans will suddenly be without legs, arms, or torsoes. They will just be tiny heads trying to shout about the war on terror over the din of the coming progressive wave.

The Invisible Life of Poet #80 - The Hitler Analogy

2006-02-20T22:30:00.001-05:00

This is why I draw comics, even though I hate drawing--it's what makes being a cartoonist so unique. I can draw my lead characters as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and totally get away with it. In fact, I think most people would look at this and be impressed with the attention to detail and intelligence of it all. You will never see Hitler and Himmler jokes on Everybody Loves Raymond. But when I do it, it's artistic genius.

Poet #80 - The Hitler Analogy
The Invisible Website of Poet

110% Slut

2006-02-18T16:12:00.000-05:00

You might on occasion hear women talk about past relationships, perhaps those that fell apart in a short period of time, and follow up with “I’m not a slut.” There are many misconceptions among women about what number of partners makes them a slut. Here is a simple formula to determine, once and for all, if you are a slut or not, in the eyes of men (and jealous women).

Take the number of men you have slept with (s), add the number of men you have fellated but not slept with (f) times 0.8**, and divide the total by your age (a). This is your Slut Coefficient (C).

(s + .8f) / a = C

If you’re normal, your coefficient should fall between 0 and 1. Or, expressed as a percentage, between 0 and 100. If you’re a complete slut, your score will be at least 100%. Here’s how the scores break down.

0% -- Obviously, you’re a virgin. This is okay so long as you’re younger than about 19. After that, it gradually becomes sad. While idiot teenage guys, older gross guys, and some scarier Muslims pine for an unspoilt virgin, most mature men don’t want to be bothered with someone who has never been with a man, and who has no idea how to please him (or herself).

1-10% -- For most guys, this is a pretty good place to be. You’re not completely without experience, but you’re clearly holding back. So long as you’re not arrogant about your temperence, we should be pleased that you would have us.

11-29% --For most men, this is what we tend to expect we’re getting. Experienced, but not over the top. You’ve been with enough guys that you know what you’re doing, but we don’t have to worry too much about finding blood in our urine next month.

30-49% -- The warning zone. If your score falls in this range you are dangerously close to being labeled a slut. Some prudish men would reject you outright, others would only date you begrudgingly. Discuss your past at your own peril.

50-74% -- You’re pretty slutty. In fact, most people probably already suspect as much. Many men probably consider you damaged goods. Your only hope is to hide your seedy past and start wearing baggier clothing to hide your slutty figure.

75-99% -- You have crossed the line into the Republic of Slutistan and you are probably never coming back. There’s little hope of hiding it, either. People already know: you give off slut vibes wherever you turn up. Anyone you date is going to find out sooner or later what a slut you are, and he’s not going to like it at all. Your only suitors may be other sluts.

100-149% -- What type of man would sleep with you unless incredibly drunk? Sex for you is no longer a challenge, and for a man to have sex with you is only one step away from masturbation, except they get herpes for the trouble. You may be a prostitute.

150% and up -- Send me the DVD.

Most of you taking this test likely failed with flying slutty colors. Very few women realize that they are sluts, but numbers never lie. This formula is 100% scientifically accurate. It has been carefully scrutinized on slut-frauen at the Max Plank Institute in Germany.

There is good news, though. You can lower your slut coefficient very simply and get back on the road to being acceptable. Your coefficient declines naturally with time if you refrain from sleeping around. If you are 20 years old and have slept with 10 men, your coefficient is 50%. But go the next ten years with no sexual contact and your coefficient will drop to 33, a very manageable number. By the time you’re 40, your coefficient will be within the acceptable range, and if you manage to make it to 60, you might finally find a decent man willing to sleep with you, although he might not be able to get aroused anymore.

** Men vary on whether they count fellatio as sex or not. Some think it is, some think it is not, some are on the fence. The average of them all puts fellatio at about 80% of intercourse, thus the fixed coefficient 0.8. If you have fellated one man, but had no intercourse, the argument can be made you are still a virgin, but just barely (80% virgin). If you fellate a second man, you have likely made the conscious decision that the first one wasn't so bad. You are on your way to becoming a slut. Congratulations.

Nerve Personals: Rumsfeld

2006-02-17T09:17:00.000-05:00

ChiTownRum
"How many licks does it take?"

74 year old man in Chicago, IL, USA

Occupation: US Secretary of D-Fence
Looking for: my car keys
Ethnicity: Warlock
Education: Georgetown Law Class of 1957 Dropouts
Languages: English, Klingon
Cigarettes: Nicotrol inhaler
Alcohol: Jager & Human Plasma on the rocks
Drugs: Darvon, Darvocet, Librium, Vicodin, Hydrocodone, Demerol, Phenergan, Oxycodone, Percodan, Valium, Morphine, Opium (smoked), Opium (chewed), Opium (injected), Thorazine, Haldol, Welbutrin, prescription PCP, Methadone
Body Art: Undress me and find out!

My Most Humbling Moment: When Dwight Eisenhower called me "smelly."
If I Had a Million Dollars: get my penis de-fossilized
Five Items I Can't Live Without: cluster bombs, napalm, double cluster bombs, additional napalm, shackles, sharp things (woops that was six)
In My Bedroom You Will Find: ice picks I've been meaning to throw in the river, a few ice picks I'm restoring, unfinished novel, Guantanamo Bay Spring Break T-Shirt, like, a million stuffed animals, thumbscrews, torture chair with spikes, "The Pear" device, abattoir nook, ice pick sharpener
Why You Should Get to Know Me: I love life! But only American life. Journalists are always telling me how funny I am and I can be very gentle and romantic once I get to stab you. I love to laugh and I love fun! I can get totally crazy at parties! lmao!
More About What I Am Looking For: I am very adventurous in bed and you should be too. Bondage and domination are very cool (did you see that movie, "Secretary?" That is totally my life!), but I don't want you to cause me pain. However, I would like to cause you pain if possible. You must be 420-friendly and have a fetish for prosthetic vaginas. Bulimia a plus.
Interests: self-mutilation, fighting wars on the cheap, tricking internatinal spies to fall into my shark tank, global domination, regional domination, municipal domination, necrophilia, menage a trois corpses, stabbing

Previous Personals: Hot_Prez46, Dick_inyoface

The Invisible Life of Poet #79 - Spirit Day

2006-02-14T22:10:00.000-05:00

I don't recall whether "Spirit Day" was something that actually happened at my high school, or if I made it up. If it is just a figment of my imagination, it is only because reality was likely much, much worse. I do recall, however, that ribbons and mini pom-poms flowed like wine on the Fridays when our football team was to play. I thought going along with it all would help me assimilate, but as yet I have not successfully bedded a cheerleader, so at this point I'm ready to call it a mistake.

Life of Poet #79
The Invisible Life of Poet mainpage

They Called it Greed

2006-02-13T10:51:00.000-05:00

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach. -Charles Horton Cooley

Greed has been around forever. But in modern America, greed is not only considered acceptable behavior, it is considered mandatory. Those who do not lust after money and riches are looked upon as eccentrics or just lazy. We are so greedy as a people that nobody even mentions greed as a problem anymore. In fact, many believe that the US economy is predicated upon our own greed. If we stop buying, the economy collapses. It might not be far from the truth.

We're very arrogant about our greed, too. We think heated leather seats, a heated steering wheel, heated shift knob, heated washer fluid, and an in-dash rotating dildo are the yardsticks of civilization. We spit on people who ride bikes to work. If your butt is cold, you must be a failure. This is why so much of the world hates us. (Also that we firebombed their daughter's wedding party.)

We don't need all this crap we keep buying, though. And we don't really need bigger homes. Americans are simply addicted to MORE. In terms of financial and physical wealth, we already have more than anyone in the world. But, like all addicts, more isn't enough. We want MORE. After September 11th, we stormed Afghanistan, and totally owned (or "pwned") the Taliban. But Bush 'n Friends, and most Americans it seems, wanted MORE.

And we've got more. More than anybody in the whole world. But abundance always leads to waste and addiction. This is what we learned from the roaring '90's. Everybody was getting rich, our parents, our kids, the government, even some of the poor people. We got addicted to abundance. So addicted, in fact, that now we buy everything on credit. Not just TV's and SUVs, but also armies, navies, marine corps, air forces, and warfare. Bush's tax cuts were bought with credit. Republicans didn't cut the spending of the federal government, in fact they INCREASED it. But they cut taxes anyway by buying everything on credit. In 25 years America has gone from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation (see this article.) America is greedier than ever.

Whose credit is it? The Chinese, mostly. Also Japan. They loan us this money by purchasing T-bills somewhere around $2 billion a day. Here's a great article on the subject, although over a year old. (And just for the sake of argument, a very nice article from the other side of the fence.)

Living on credit is not a bad thing, as long as you handle it responsibly. You are basically wagering that an increase in future income will offset the overspending you're doing now. It's just the time-value of money. Economics 101. But if nothing else, as you get further into debt, it puts you in a dangerous position. If circumstances change you might find you can no longer pay back the debt. That's when you get your legs broken or your thumbs cut off by hired goons. And I don't take solace in America's future income when I look at the ruling party's clear distaste for educating our children, the disregard of minorities and the lower classes, and the "anything but preventative medicine" health care system growing in this country.

The Chinese have an incentive to keep loaning Americans money, because it feeds our hunger for the goods they export to us. But if the Chinese stop buying our debt, we will have LESS forced upon us. And those "assets" you have your money in will soon belong to the banks, which in turn belong to the Chinese. It probably won't happen, but it's worth worrying about.

An addiction this bad is such that if you can't find a way to enforce a strict recovery program, then eventually the addiction grows out of your control, the system crashes, and somebody ELSE has to force you to go cold turkey, IF YOU SURVIVE THE CRASH.

Money isn't crack. We probably won't overdose on it. But it's not marijuana, either. You can smoke pot all the time but it won't kill you, just slow you down. Money addiction is like alcohol: a little bit is good for you, a little more is fun, but get too much of it and you start making bad decisions. Throw a lot of it into a crowd and there's going to be a fight.

But before we have all this MORE taken from us, perhaps we should rethink the way we live. So here's one American looking for LESS.
Don't give me the new '07 Escalade, I'll walk.
Don't give me a $350 cell phone, I'll take the free one that comes with the plan.
Don't give me the 110-foot yacht, I'll go for a swim.
Don't give me another bad $200 million dollar movie, I'll just jerk off.
Don't give me free money, I'll fucking earn it.

No New Posts Until Monday

2006-02-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

...have to fly out for a grieving friend. I have a few good posts ready for release next week. Check out The Invisible Life of Poet while I'm gone, if you haven't already. See you Monday.

Don't Even THINK About Mohammed

2006-02-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

Possibly for the first time ever, a cartoonist was able to piss enough people off to cause massive rioting. I think all of us are most shocked by the fact that it came from Denmark.

The thing that strikes me about these cartoons (see them here) are how some of them are really pathetic-looking. Some seem tastefully drawn, some maybe not so, but none seem to be very funny. As a cartoonist myself, I look at these and say "why bother?" And yet, the Islamic world is going nuts over this. The issue, at least what started all this nonsense, is that extremist Muslims forbid the depiction of Mohammed in artwork of any kind, or even the depiction of any living thing. According to a few articles I've read, the Qur'an says nothing about this, except for a few words on idolatry, but people have interpreted these passages for centuries to mean anyone who draws Mohammed must be beheaded. The issue has snowballed into more powerful questions of Islamo-Western relations and immigration in Europe, but months ago this was just about visual representation.

Representation has been a huge topic in art for many years now. What constitutes a representation? Is a representation as "real" as the real thing? Is the concept of the representation as "real?" Perhaps this is all just semantic nonsense, but to me there is an important question. These angry Muslims feel it is somehow blasphemous to represent Mohammed in pictures. But at what level? Obviously, drawing a Middle-Eastern-looking guy with a beard and labelling him "Mohammed" is pretty clear on what it wants to be. But is a representation of Mohammed a representation just because you say it is? Or does he have to look Middle-Eastern-y?

For example, are all these drawings to be considered a representation of Mohammed just because I say they are?

Do extremist Muslims want to murder me over such awful, awful drawings? The second to last one is just a tiny line. The only reason you would think these terrible drawings are Mohammed is because I labelled them as such. But if that's the case, then I can absolve myself the same way:

What if I had labelled the drawings "moohamed," or "nohammed?" Same drawings, different spelling. What if I labelled them "polecat" but then told you that secretely, they are drawings of Mohammed? If a Muslim can look at these ridiculous "representations," each more ridiculous than the last, and tell me that each one blasphemes Islam, then where does one draw the line? It seems as though the label, not the picture, is blasphemous. So is it then blasphemous to write his name? What if I just read his name? What if I THINK about a picture of Mohammed, or the word "Mohammed?" What if I think of the CONCEPT of Mohammed?

The only place one can draw the line is to not even acknowledge the existence of Mohammed. Anything less is still representation in some way or another. If your real objection is against people insulting your religion, that's up to you. I have no intention in this post to insult Islam anymore than I would insult any other way-out and wrong religion like Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism. It's all mumbo-jumbo to an atheist.

And just to prove that I'm not disproportionately biased against Islam, I'd like to offer my entry to Iranian newspaper Hamshahri for their "Holocaust-denying cartoon" contest. Entry to follow. Please send my prize gold coin to my agent in Tehran.

The Invisible Life of Poet #78 - African-American Dream Sim

2006-02-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

Fans of my comic strip know I frequently use video games to illustrate something poignant about real life, and usually something specifically about American culture. This week I went after contemporary racism and the troubles faced by blacks in America.

I have used this theme in several strips (#4, #17, #37, and now #78) always with excellent results. When I consider doing a "video game" strip, it always feels so familiar, almost to the point of boredom. But looking back on them now, I realize that this is still a very fresh and original idea, and terrifically unique in the world of commentary, humor, and especially comic strips. It is a testament to my heaping piles of genius that I have discovered such a perfect way to hit all points of a touchy subject.

You're welcome to thank me for enlightening you now. Go on. Hit the comment button and tell me how wonderful I am.

The Invisible Life of Poet

Gang / Not Gang

2006-02-02T15:20:00.000-05:00

MySpace and many other online communities are awash with young people whose goal in life seems to be trying to be perceived as cool. This is nothing new, but these days nothing says "cool" like being a gangster. Gangsters are the knights of modern America, through their beliefs in honor, brotherhood, discipline, and redemption. They live fast, die young, and get rich through any means necessary. Gangsters also typically lead a childhood rife with suffering, and suffering equals credibility. Credibility, in turn, means additional coolness.

But the MySpace kids (see previous post) have a perception of the lives of gangsters based entirely around film and music, where gang life has been glorified since the days of NWA and Ice-T. This has led to the misperception that the only life worth leading is that of a gangster. Of course, many many of these kids grow up in relative wealth, in good neighborhoods, with caring parents. Many may even attend private schools or prestigious universities. Education, nurturing childhoods, and attempting to live within the confines of the law is seen as weak, as "gay." To them, in order to still remain credible in the eyes of their peers, they have no choice but to fake their gangsterness. This is unfortunate, because many of them could find lasting credibility in modern America by pursuing intelligence, self-improvement, and even nerdiness. Yet they persist in their poseury, and we get to make fun of them. All the better for me.

Here, for your education and amusement, I present Gang / Not Gang. A tit-for-tat comparison between MySpace gang life, and true gang life. Exhibit to follow.

Gang has prison and gang tattoos clearly marking his identity as a hardened gang member.

Not gang has pretty star tattoos and wears his trucker hat to the side.

Gang has scars all over his body from numerous gunshots, stab wounds, and savage beatings.

Not gang has a tongue piercing and has spent years working up to large guage tunnels in his earlobes.

Gang wears a bandana over his face to protect his identity.

Not gang has his laundry done at drycleaners.

Not gang wears hip clothing purchased from fashionable retailers such as The Gap.

Gang doesn't even wear a shirt.

Gang flashes hand signs to identify who he allies himself with, and who is his sworn enemy.

Not gang is always, ALWAYS from the westside, even when he's from central Connecticut.

Gang goes to funerals.

Not gang goes to homecoming.

Not gang hangs out in a band room that may or may not be a hotbed of gang activity.

Gang gets shot.

Gang gets 25 to life.

Gang gets the death penalty so macho Governors can look more macho.

Gang is the product of a society operated by white shits who don't give a crap about minorities and the underclasses.

Not gang is just a fucking jackass.

20 Years Later, White Lion Fails to Change the World

2006-01-31T15:14:00.000-05:00

Little child you must show the way
to a better day for all the young
cause you were born for all the world to see
that we all can live with love and peace
no more presidents and all the wars will end
one united world under god

When the children cry
let them know we tried
cause when the children sing
then the new world begins

--White Lion, When the Children Cry (1987)

It has been nearly 20 years since the world first heard these mighty words from White Lion's epic When the Children Cry. The song, considered by many to be worthy of inclusion among the greatest sequels to monster ballad collections ever sold on late-night television, still resonates steadily with five or six hair metal fans, despite the end of the cold war, and the complete eradication of poverty and homelessness. The music video, too, contained much grimacing and very very seriously longing stares into the camera, as well as video shots of some children crying.

But has White Lion's softball metal ballad made any real difference in the world? The children for whom they once sang are now adults; have these children grown up to show the way to a better day, as White Lion hoped they would? It is true that poverty and homelessness have been eradicated in wealthy gated communities like mine, but it is still widespread everywhere else. War still rages endlessly, there are still presidents, and millions of children still go hungry every day around the world. We can only assume that this makes them cry. I say "assume" because whenever they show it on television we change the channel to MTV's new reality show, "Pimp My Whores."

It is clear that White Lion's pussyfaced dragfest love-in has failed in its mission to rid the world of its ills, and I believe it is time for the American people to hold them accountable for this gross misrepresentation, just as we hold crack addicts accountable for exaggerating how many days they spent in jail. That means somebody has to die, and I hope it's Joseph Lieberman because I hate that asshole.

James Frey is an American Hero

2006-01-31T08:46:00.000-05:00

That headline is not a typo, nor is it a joke.

James Frey, whose memoir of drug addiction, prison, and suicide, was recently shown to be exaggerated, went on the Oprah Winfrey show and openly admitted in front of a national audience that he had altered the truth in his work. Oprah, upon whose recommendation the book became a bestseller, was livid. She called him a liar to his face several times.

A lot of people are upset with him, it seems. But I think it is incredible that a man could have the balls to sit on national TV and submit to the rim-job he got from Oprah. There probably isn't a government official in all of Washington DC who would sit down like that and admit to being a liar. We know Bush wouldn't, even though it can be proven that he's been lying since before he was elected.

We're living in a rich culture of lies right now, and believe it or not the Bush administration is not at fault for this. They are just riding a huge swell of lying that has been growing for years. Everybody is lying - citizens, corporations, politicians, me. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld just get the attention because their lies have caused the most damage. But the media gets to pick on Frey because he can't fight back. If you call Bush and Cheney out as liars, they'll come get you, or at least out your wife as a CIA agent. Oprah and the media are just bullies - themselves scared of greater powers.

Oprah and the media have no problem outing this man as a liar, whose lies were only created to make a more interesting story and sell more books. His lies didn't send young men to war, kill tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, or implicitly condone torture. His lies didn't cost millions their pensions or cause massive domestic layoffs. The only thing his lies did was earn him more money than he probably should have, and maybe get him laid. And when you get down to the specifics of what he lied about, it seems even sillier.

In one particular video clip on the Oprah show Frey admitted that his girlfriend had not committed suicide by hanging herself, but by slitting her wrists. The audience booed him. BOOED. Is slitting your wrists somehow "better" than hanging? Perhaps they'd have cheered if he said his girlfriend threw herself under a lawnmower. The seedier the story, the more the repressed housewives love it. If I were James Frey I'd have jumped off that couch and punched Oprah right in her smug face, then punched everyone in her audience in the face.

Why doesn't Oprah, who acts so moral when it comes to the lies of nonfiction authors, go after the lies of our government, and of the corporations - the lies that are causing true harm in this nation and this world? I say to you, Oprah, you are the hypocrite. James Frey is a hero and deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor, or at least the Presidential Medal of Freedom. If not, why is it we expect a crack addict to have perfectly sound judgement in the field of ethics? America should expect LESS of its crack addicts, and MORE of its elected officials.

Of course, maybe the media is just getting themselves warmed up before they go after the big guys. Maybe they just needed a practice shot. We'll see.

Late update: Take a look at this horseshit: Oprah's Li'l Liar Sued
Late update 2: Some excellent thoughts on the subject at Alternavision.

The Invisible Life of Poet #77 - Watching the Ball Drop

2006-01-30T22:44:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it's nice to return to the fact that Poet and Ben are just kids, and on occasion do kid stuff, like try to drink milk through their noses. Personally, I love the punchline in this episode, but it may be too subtle for non-supergeniuses like you and your family and everybody you know. For supergeniuses like me, however, this is a very good punchline. But keep in mind that I am a very super supergenius.

It is amazing to me the effect of drawing characters laughing. When you see a cartoon laugh, you want to laugh along. It creates a unique bond between you and the characters, just as when you laugh with friends. That's a tip for you amateur cartoonists out there: draw your characters laughing in every single frame and you'll have a winner guaranteed.

Another free tip for cartoonists: have a solid degree to fall back on, just in case you want to eat.

The Invisible Life of Poet #77 - Watching the Ball Drop

The Invisible Life of Poet mainpage

Family Guy and the Pummeling of Irony

2006-01-30T08:46:00.000-05:00

(See my last article on Family Guy: The Arbiter of Camp)

Last night Family Guy proved that irony is dead and cold in the ground. They dug up the corpse, smacked it around, pissed on it, and took a dump on its face. And it wasn't funny.

Family Guy has for years been successfully dragging out jokes long past their normal lifespan of a single time around (a technique for years a staple of Saturday Night Live.) But twice in last night's episode they took a joke so far as to remove any doubt that irony was alive and well.

First is Peter's perfect rendition of "Shipoopi" from Meredith Willson's broadway musical "The Music Man." The lyrics are here if you didn't see the episode. The song took place at Gillette Stadium, where Peter was playing center for the New England Patriots. After scoring a touchdown, he broke into the song, eventually involving the other players and fans. It was a flawless version of the song, so far as I could tell, and involved much silly dancing and cavorting. After they began the second verse, and I realized that this song was going to go on until the end, it became clear that this was not intended to be appreciated ironically. It was intended to be enjoyed for what it is: a cheeky broadway musical number.

The second scene (which was actually earlier in the show) came when Stewie beat Brian to near death. It was bloody and violent and went on and on. Later in the show, Stewie shot Brian in each leg with a pistol. There was seemingly little comedy in the routine. Nothing was hyperexaggerrated. Brian simply got the crap beaten out of him. He screamed and bled horribly.

Don't get me wrong, it's just a cartoon. And moreover, I love black comedy. I was the only person who laughed all the way through Fight Club by David Fincher. But it was clear that the writers did not design this scene because they wanted to make violence funny. They designed it to make violence itself entertaining.

I have nothing against TV, film, or videogame violence. I've been an GTA addict since GTA III. And I have nothing against broadway musicals (excepting that I hate them because they suck.) But the writers of Family Guy have finally crossed that line between irony and some kind of hyper-irony, which is just reality thinly veiled.

Some humorists out there needed to do this. The envelope needed to be pushed so we could find out where the boundaries of irony lie. They found it, and I wasn't laughing. Now we can only hope that they back away from that boundary, or attempt to find new ways to push the envelope of humor. If not, it isn't just bad comedy, it's bad FOR comedy.

Some might argue that these were simply "out-of-character" gags, but I disagree. Peter often breaks into song and dance, and Family Guy as a whole has certainly shown it's willingness in the past to undergo these second-order tongue-in-cheek musical numbers. Stewie, too, has always been super violent. Even his Hip-Hop-esque street talk while he was beating Brian was not so out of character.

As I mentioned in my last post on Family Guy, I don't say these things because I don't think Family Guy is funny, or because I find it offensive, but because I think the writers are holding back on us. The Family Guy writers (and even the American Dad writers) show occasional moments of pure comedic brilliance, and so it saddens me that they rely so heavily on cheap gags and embarrassingly to-be-dated humor. If I want bad jokes I can turn on "The War at Home" or whatever piece of garbage they've squeezed between The Simpsons and Family guy this week. I only wish the writers would take better advantage of the degree of liberty they are given with these shows, and stop pandering to the obvious.

More Nerve Personals

2006-01-26T15:01:00.000-05:00

Dick_inyoface
"I never met a dollar I didn't own"

65 year old man in Jackson Hole, WY, United States

Occupation: Vice President of the United States
Looking for: Gullible presidential hopefuls
Ethnicity: Non-negro
Education: Casper Community College class of 1963
Languages: English, Cowpoke, Georgebushian
Cigarettes: MAAAARLBORO COUNTRY!!! Also Newports.
Alcohol: Coors on top of Coors Light (Tan & Tanner)
Drugs: Botox, Secret-Service Grade Viagra, Aspirin
Body Art: Big fuckin' hat niggaaa!

My Most Humbling Moment: Running out of gas in front of the CIA building. I swear I almost peed myself it was so embarrassing. All the spies were laughing at me.
If I Had a Million Dollars: 100% Ivory Escalade.
Five Items I Can't Live Without: cell phone, VISA Black, Halliburton stipend, my inhuman ability to deny all verifiable fact, pacemaker
In My Bedroom You Will Find: big pile of money, hooded detainees, Presidential Medal of Freedom, old baseball glove, strategic oil reserve (I jerk off a LOT)
Why You Should Get to Know Me: I'm a confident guy who knows what he wants and am capable of disappearing for months when things go wrong. I love to travel (I even went to Jupiter once - don't tell anybody it's a secret). But mostly I like to stay at home on my ranch and fuck my wife. She recently had a new pussy installed - fresh from a "willing" Afghan donor. The skin color was a little off but we usually fuck in the dark anyway because Lynn's worried about her big fat ass.
More About What I Am Looking For: I'd like to meet nice girls who own a few record-shattering petroleum and natural gas fields, who know how to cook and swing dance. Must be okay with torturing people.
Interests: Anything that ends in "National Wildlife Refuge."

Nerve Personals

2006-01-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

Hot_Prez46
"i alwaze uze the nuculer option"

59 year old man in Washington D.C., United States

Occupation: President of the United States
Looking for: Other Presidents of the United States
Ethnicity: Caucasian-American
Education: MBA, Harvard University
Languages: None
Cigarettes: Never
Alcohol: Officially, never.
Drugs: COKE! COKE! DELICIOUS COCAINE!!! Also crystal meth.
Body Art: Kingpin

My Most Humbling Moment: Trying to remember my oath of office
If I Had a Million Dollars: I already have, like, a gajillion dollars. If i only had a million I'd have to go on welfare or something.
Five Items I Can't Live Without: Pharmesootical kickbacks, Jesus Christ's forgiveness, the abortion issue, satin sheets, Karl Rove
In My Bedroom You Will Find: a bed, a Texas Rangers ballcap, an unused bottle of astroglide, my frigid wife, five Iraqi slave girls, totally awesome skull pile
Why You Should Get to Know Me: god I never know what to write in these things. So basically I'm the president, so I get to kill anybody I want. My friends think I'm really funny, though. I'm very honest and caring as long as your white and give regularly to the GOP. I'm just a normal, fun-loving guy who knows how to relax and attempt to take over the world. I also like to just stay at home, rent a movie, and feast on the blood and flesh of living terrorist detainees.
More About What I Am Looking For: Dick Cheney's brains in Condi's body, except with bigger tits, and not black. I'd also like a girl who can explain what the geneva conventions are.
Interests: not answering any more questions, a Christian republic in the middle east, ownership societies, killing all brown people, pretending I'm a rancher, wiretapping without a court order, American Idol, bondage/domination, suckering the military into doing really stupid shit (lol), appointing incompetant cronies, torture, murder, sleeping in late

The Invisible Life of Poet #76 - Marissa Loves Poet III

2006-01-23T19:24:00.000-05:00

Today, the conclusion of the Marissa Trilogy. As trilogies go, I would rate this below The Matrix, and just above Star Wars, with Lord of the Rings in the toilet. That's all I have to say this week. Just read it and laugh.

www.lifeofpoet.com

You Know Your President is a Lunatic When...

2006-01-19T13:32:00.000-05:00

...Osama Bin Laden starts to sound sane and reasonable.

Aljazeera today ran new video of Bin Laden offering a truce between his people and the American people. The guts of his speech:

"We know that the majority of your people want this war to end and opinion polls show the Americans don't want to fight the Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their (US) land...But Bush does not want this and claims that it's better to fight his enemies on their land rather than on American land...We are getting increasingly stronger while your situation is getting from bad to worse...we do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to...There is no problem in this solution [a truce], but it will prevent hundreds of billions [of dollars] from going to influential people and warlords in America - those who supported Bush's electoral campaign - and from this, we can understand Bush and his gang's insistence on continuing the war."

He says things Bush would never fess up to, but everyone already knows, except the 5% of crazy neo conservatives, and he's offering peace (sort of.) I don't know if Osama Bin Laden can be trusted, but after five straight years of Bush's lies and conspiracy, I'm almost willing to give him a try.

Bin Laden's only real offense is killing thousands of Americans and blowing up some embassies, and there are probably billions of people around the world who would kill Americans if they thought they could get away with it. Everybody hates Americans, it's part and parcel of not being an American. We've got Paris Hilton, after all. She's the modern Marie Antoinette, except dumber, less refined, and even less caring. She represents so much that is wrong with America, and that's what people see in all Americans, Paris Hilton.

Don't get me wrong, though. Radical Islam can eat shit. We might be able to get along peacefully, but as soon as you try to put a burqa on my mom and my sister, things are going to get ugly fast.

I think Bush should accept the truce, duck out of Iraq and draw down in Afghanistan, and take his chances. But Bush would never allow a truce. Warfare is the only thing keeping his polls from sinking to record lows. He's a cowboy, a soldier, a patriot, and these colors don't run, etc. He promised the American people that Bin Laden would be brought to justice, and even though he got sidetracked invading Iraq and wrecking the whole planet, he can't back down now or everybody will call him a pussy, especially me.

Late update: To nobody's surprise, Cheney came forward immediately to denounce Bin Laden's "truce" offering. He continues to claim it possible to kill all enemy combatants of the United States. Even if he did manage to kill the two or three or four billion people who now hate America, he would piss off all the rest in the process. If he kept at it, the only person left alive would be Dick Cheney. Then all that rich chocolatey oil could finally be his!

More Dream-Based Fiction

2006-01-18T10:08:00.000-05:00

I tumbled over the waterfall and splashed helplessly into a shallow creek choked by thick roots and brush. Swimming downstream was nearly impossible as I clamored over the exposed roots. I knew that lurking below the water were mysterious creatures waiting to attack. So I hurried to find an exit.

As I broke free of the cold water and on to the marshy shore I realized the stream, which by the way was some sort of magical stream, had imbued me with an unstoppable power over beautiful women. As I stepped inland through the bushes I came across a large, glamorous home in the style of a Spanish villa - clearly the inhabitants were wealthy. I stepped inside and could sense the woman nearby who I was about to seduce. I followed corridors and stepped diagonally through rooms from door to door in search of her. I began to have visions of the stunning beauty writhing in pleasure in her bed as she sensed my approaching power.

As I crept from room to room the visions became stronger, and her arousal deeper. Children milled about the house in costumes but seemed unfazed by my presence. Finally, stepping through a den I turned the corner to see the bedroom I was seeking. I rushed inside and closed the door. She had covered herself in blankets, perhaps in fear of my overpowering sexual aura.

I quietly pulled the covers away from her quivering body, ready to pounce. She laid still before me, in all her unmerciful ugliness. Moreover, she had poured Log Cabin maple syrup over her genitalia as lubricant. I looked at her face and grimmaced in repulsion. Pig nose, short colorless hair, lifeless eyes and thin lips, surrounded by a head far too round to be normal. Her eyes were surrounded in wrinkles - not from age, but from pure ugliness.

In obligation, I mounted her, noticing only then her remarkably unenticing breasts - small, limp, with hard nipples like oversized red thimbles. I dared not touch them. I attempted to correct her face by firmly pushing inward on her temples, but to no avail. I tried to rub away the wrinkles, but could only drag her loosened skin back and forth.

Giving in, I penetrated her sticky oriface, oozing with cheap stinking syrup. She was instantly sent into ecstacy. I could only watch her squirms and screams as she felt me thrusting deeper and faster. I tried valiantly to finish off myself, but despite my efforts I could not do so, and removed myself from her.

She protested that I had not finished the act. I slapped her. I slapped her for being so fucking ugly it made me sick. Then I slapped her again. It felt good, slapping an ugly girl who had lied to me like that.

Is Crack Still Funny?

2006-01-17T11:11:00.000-05:00

In 9th grade, a friend and I began to gang up on a girl who sat behind me in World History class. Tracy was a mutual acquaintance with a great sense of humor, so we tried to joke every single day about how she smoked crack. We would take any opportunity to remark about her crack rocks, her crack pipes, her house full of crack babies, and her remarkable ability to smoke dumptrucks of crack and not die. She was always the first to laugh at our crack jokes, and later went on to a fast-track career at Hooters.

That was 1993 - I was 14 years old at the time. Thirteen years later humorists are still making jokes about crack - take Dave Chappelle as an example.

Drug culture has long been a source for jokes, but crack is and has always been predominantly a problem of the urban poor. Powerless as they are, this makes crack an easy target and so the jokes have never been earmarked as politically incorrect, even though they technically are. Crackheads, crack rocks, crack pipes, crack whores, crack babies have all had their place in American pop culture. And now crack jokes are near ubiquitous. Any idiot with no background in humor can call somebody a crackhead and get a laugh. Type "crackhead" into technorati.com (which searches millions of blogs) and you get 11,853 posts that use the term.

Even though crack is not the problem in urban America it once was, it still affects millions of lives. Crack still represents the gold standard of depravity - there is nobody lower in the world to an American than a woman who sucks dick for a crackrock (except a man who sucks twenty dicks for a crackrock.)

But America in the last decade has come to embrace its own depravity more than ever. We celebrate it in all strata of society - through alcoholism, porn addiction, corporate and political corruption, backward foreign policymaking, and unabashed greed. Sin is in.

Satirizing a society that has leaned so far over the pit of depravity is easy. American society has already created a caricature of itself. To poke fun at it now is just childish and repetitive - the stuff of Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno. Searching for satire will lead you, no doubt, into very sticky territory, where the Yang in Wilsonian Parody Dualism must be hyperexaggerated. At some point you cross the line between edgy humor and plain shock value - stuff that offends without eliciting laughter. For example, imagine a crackhead scientist who builds a car that runs on crackrocks - and the exhaust is fed up a pipe into the mouth of the driver. Or I could joke about a desperate crack whore smoking her ossified crack baby. These examples run from predictable and barely funny to shocking and not funny. That may be the best you can expect of crack jokes today. A good crack joke will take some real work.

If nothing else, crack jokes have lost their edge. But they have clearly been planted firmly in the national lexicon and may so continue for generations. And while I don't think crack jokes are over, supergenius humorists like myself should be expected to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Crack clearly still has a place in the humorist toolbox, but should only be used in unique situations. We must resist the powerful addictive force of crack jokes. Otherwise, we're no better than 9th graders who call their friends crackwhores.

The Invisible Life of Poet #75 - Marissa Loves Poet II

2006-01-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

This week's strip was not drawn directly from personal experience. No single woman has ever willingly taken it upon herself to derobe in front of me. I am more accustomed to harems of women - usually in groups of five or more - derobing in front of me en masse. And before you go all apeshit on me for drawing such a young girl getting naked, just know that Marissa is at LEAST 14 years old, maybe 15.

I'd also like to note that this is Poet #75, and that I'm friggin' awesome.

The Invisible Life of Poet Homepage

The Funniest Country on Earth

2006-01-12T13:32:00.000-05:00

As a humorist, you may occasionally come across a situation where you need a "funny country" to finish a joke. But if you are not an experienced supergenius like me, or if you are merely an amateur supergenius, you might not be entirely sure which countries are still on the cutting edge of what is funny and which have passed their time in the spotlight.

When I was a kid in the 1980's there were a lot of jokes about Poland and dumb Polacks. But nobody makes jokes about Europe anymore - they seem to have gotten their act together (except Italy.) At least half of the pornography that Americans consume must now come from the former Eastern Bloc nations. Hot lesbian action is almost never funny.

Canada and Mexico are easy targets for Americans because of their proximity, and you will probably still see a lot of jokes made at their expense, but in my opinion it's all been done. You can't joke about America's number one trading partner and number one supplier of cleaning ladies and fruit pickers. You can't joke about Mexico, either. Even if you try it's pretty damn insulting, as I just demonstrated.

The nations of Africa are right out, of course. They've got enough rotten shit to deal with without us picking on them. Western Africa, it turns out, is turning into a nice collection of suburbs. Libya might be worth a yuck or two, but I doubt most young people can remember why we started making fun of them in the first place. (I doubt anyone younger than 25 can even spell "Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi.")

The Middle East seems to suffer from the same problems as Africa, not to mention that a lot of them want to kill us, and we as Americans have done our part to make life there a lot worse. You can't laugh so much about something you're scared of.

Asia continues to "emerge" as a world power. Our grandparents picked on Japan a lot, but they sure taught America a thing or two about quality electronics, compact and mid-size cars, and cartoon tentacle sex. Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia have been pretty quiet lately. And the boat has sailed on Khmer Rouge Cambodia jokes as far as I can tell. Anyone old enough to know what that is will be too old to laugh.

Australia jokes went the way of Paul Hogan's career. And everybody loves New Zealand now, for some reason, even though in reality it's a big shithole from coast to coast.

That just leaves south and central America. Here there remain a few gems. Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama -- these countries are all cool. Guatemala and Nicaragua are still probably fucked up, but they've been out of our minds for so long it's hard to remember what makes them funny. Haiti would be a good joke, but there are enough of them living in the US now that you might get cut up. Peru has Mayan ruins and nobody knows what goes on in those three little colony/countries north of Brazil. That leaves Bolivia, Uraguay, and Paraguay.

I did some research. Bolivia, while being very coup-happy in it's nearly 200 year history, recently legalized cocaine. They have their first indigenous president in their history. So Bolivia jokes are in a holding pattern to see what happens next. Uraguay, it turns out, has both beach resorts and gauchos, so you might actually consider vacationing there.

Paraguay, on the other hand, is landlocked. It was also home to many Nazi expats, including Dr. Mengele. But I still wasn't sure until I saw this at Infoplease.com:

After World War II, politics became particularly unstable. Alfredo Stroessner was dictator from 1954 until 1989, during which he was accused of the torture and murder of thousands of political opponents. Despite Paraguay's human rights record, the U.S. continuously supported Stroessner.

Hilarious. Moreover, Paraguay meets the requirement that Americans not be able to name their capital nor locate them reliably on a map. But somehow we still know that it's a troubled country. This is sufficient to make fun of it. That is why I call Paraguay the 2006 Funniest Country on Earth.

However, and just to be serious for a moment, I think that the boat has sailed on jokes about foreign nations and foreigners. Racism and bigotry have been ushered out while acceptance and multi-culturalism has been ushered in. It is my opinion that you probably shouldn't make jokes about countries at all. It's been done. Right here.

MySpace: America's Fuckup Army

2006-01-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

If you were an Iraqi, or any impoverished non-American, and were somehow able to poke around MySpace for a few minutes, you might be overwhelmed with hatred for Americans, and would happily kill every one of them for a single cup of Yaprakh. You might see FOX News and laugh at America's stupidity, but if you see MySpace, on goes the pipebomb vest.

MySpace is overrun with the largest collection of petty, self-absorbed and superficial white losers the world has ever seen. They pout their lips and dye their hair as they tread through a dangerous life of rock concerts, clubbing, and fashion. From what I can tell, most of them think being alcoholic is funny. Through suspiciously-well overexposed photographs, you might make out how everyone has hair in their face, ample cleavage, and tattoos that demonstrate their hardcoreness. And hardcoreness equals credibility. I have yet to understand why they need all this credibility.

But I want some, too. So for my MySpace page, I plan to put up a single photograph of me putting a shower of bullets through my face with a rigged Tec-9. Surely that will show them all that I am the most hardcore. When you first log in to my page, the first thing you'll hear is the recording of an atom bomb explosion followed by the sounds of a man being eaten by a bear. My weblog will be about how I drank twenty beer balls and then filled up ten other beerballs with vomit. It is, of course, all ironic. It's supposed to be funny.

There was a time not long ago when the internet seemed to be the fabled nerd homeworld. Now it is the home of stupid douchebag posers. These kids are so far gone that they'd actually BENEFIT from Christianity. And I say "kid" even though I'm only 26, because in spite of their ages, they are just a bunch of children. Of course, not everyone on MySpace is this way, but it's enough that I can make broad categorical statements about them all for your entertainment.

And why is it that every time I click from friends to friends I wind up on web model Tila Nguyen's page? Is she Jesus or something and nobody has told me? You can't ALL be her friend, and stroking your chub to pictures of her doesn't count as friendship where I come from (apparently in LA it does.)

When I look through MySpace profiles I see an entire generation with nothing to do. Communism is dying, gays are finally (if slowly) gaining the civil rights they deserve, and Republicans have predictably self-destructed. Our parents and grandparents always had some place to put their emotions, their anger, and their unreasonable hatred. But we do not, so we put it in ourselves. And instead of doing good for the world with all our education and wealth, instead of living lives of simple pleasures, we spend all our time trying our damnedest to look as cool as possible, trying to be the next rockstar, in some faint hope that somebody out there will pay attention to us. It's a life of loud desperation; we're that desperately lonely.

I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.
--Fight Club

When the MySpace kids start taking over the country, look out. Some crazy shit is going to happen, and if you think Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and all their friends have fucked things up, you're about to learn a lesson in crazy shit. Because the MySpace people are America's Fuckup Army. Here they come.

Too Late, You Stupid Ho

2006-01-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Sen. Hillary Clinton is continuing her slow transformation into the anti-war Senator, as is noted at length in this story at ABC News in the aftermath of the revelation that better body armour might have saved hundreds of US Marines their lives.

"I've been one of the leading critics pointing out all the failures, the incompetencies," Clinton said.

She must think that those of us who have opposed this war from the start have very short attention spans, and don't remember how she supported the war for so long, even when the shit started hitting the fan. Of course, she still doesn't actually OPPOSE the war, just how it was handled.

I swear to God and the Baby Jesus and Santa Maria and Santa Claus that I will never vote for this woman for president, unless, as I said before, the only other option is Dick Cheney.

She acts like she wants to be tough on terrorism, but instead she just looks soft on illegal war. What a political ho-ma.

If you are a registered Democrat, please do not let this lady win the presidential primary. It would make baby Jesus cry.

Dear Women: You ARE Fat!

2006-01-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

According to this story in The Independant, 51% of women in the UK selected a "slimmer waist" as more important to them than a genius IQ, financial security, or a date with the celebrity of their choice. The story goes on to mention that 1 in 3 women is overweight, while 1 in 5 is obese.

As always, pundits come out to blame society, and I don't entirely disagree. Here's a typical quote:

Barbara Wilson, head of nutrition at tescodiets.com, said: "Women's role models tend to be models and actresses, so there is more emphasis than ever placed upon physical perfection...These statistics reveal just how much pressure women feel there is to be slim in today's society."

I agree that this whole study is disturbing. Women would rather be stupid than fat, which shows that we're not raising our girls properly.

But how is it that we can say out of one side of our mouths "society puts too much pressure on women to be thin" and out of the other side say "1 in 3 women are overweight." In the United States, the pressure is greater, yet the statistics are probably worse. To me, this says that society is not putting enough pressure on women to be thin. Society is failing to fully raise up the coke-addicted supermodels, which create the adequate psychological disturbances that lead to sound physical health.

I know what the response to all this will be. Women are fat BECAUSE society puts so much pressure on them.

Maybe.

Or maybe women are fat because they eat too much goddamned chocolate and have never been told to PUT THE FUCKING FORK DOWN!!!

So, in conclusion, I propose that we legalize cocaine so that women in all socio-economic strata can have access to the same quality coke that Kate Moss does, without living in fear of being arrested or deported, like Kate Moss does.

Wow, Go Ted Kennedy

2006-01-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Most you are probably not paying attention, but the internet broadcast of the Alito hearings is spellbinding. Ted Kennedy is kicking ass and Alito is clearly nervous.

Kennedy gave a great speech about how great supreme court justices took a strong stand against executive abuse of power, but how Alito has repeatedly shown deference to the power of the executive branch, and therefore would make a weak judge. If I can find a transcript I will post it here because it was a great speech.

The Invisible Life of Poet #74 - Marissa Loves Poet

2006-01-09T22:25:00.000-05:00

Say hello once again to Marissa, star of the already world famous "Born Again" strip. As you can see, there is more to Marissa than meets the eye. I would also like to point out what a good job I did drawing a character crying, even though it was my first time. If you look closely, I'm sure you'll catch my genius workmanship in action. You can thank me when you yourself start crying for the beauty of it all.

Tom Delay Tried to Kill Me With an Outboard

2006-01-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

Tom Delay and I sat far offshore in a small dinghy. He brazenly displayed an impressive mane of chest hair which sparkled in the mid-day sun, while working the outboard engine back and forth. Suddenly, my friend, who was also onboard, attacked Delay with an M-60, but failed to overpower him. The two decided to turn against me instead, and I was knocked overboard. They fired the machine gun into the water but were unable to score a hit, and my friend fell into the water. As we grappled with one another beneath the surface, Tom Delay tried to run me down with the outboard propeller, but missed and hit my friend on the top of his head. I grabbed the M-60 and shot my friend to pieces. That's all I remember.

When I was a kid I wondered if the people you were dreaming about were concurrently dreaming about you. Now I am convinced. This dream I had proves the certain evil of Tom Delay. I ask to be called as a witness to the grand jury that will try to send him to buttfuck prison.

For those of you who do not live in the US, or who live in the US but don't read, or who live in the US and read but only read stop signs, Tom Delay was, until a few days ago, the leader of the Republican party in the House of Representatives (the equivalent of your Parliament, Assembly, or Council of the Valleys if you're in Angola). He has spent his career there successfully stealing from the poor to give to the rich, like a reverse Robin Hood or Errol Flynn with no penis instead of a giant penis. But he got busted and it makes me happy. Here's to a gigantic black penis exploding in your ass, Tom. And here's another one in your eye for trying to kill me.

Caricature and the Yang Surplus - A Case Study

2006-01-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

Most political cartoonist are far too lenient on George W. Bush. They typically depict a man with big ears and a pointy upper lip who, while dressed in a suit and tie, is alternately stupid, incompetant, or just silly. For a man who is responsible for these levels of suffering, whose actions have increased terrorism worldwide, who has sold out the solvency of the government, who has repeatedly ignored and raped the poor for the benefit of corporate money, no caricature can be awful enough.

Ted Rall understands Wilsonian Parody Duality, even though he's never heard of it because I made it up two days ago, and creates brutal, horrific caricatures of George W. Bush. His depiction is a Bush whose dark soul is revealed through his outer makeup. He dresses as a banana republic dictator and is drawn nearly as ugly as a man can be drawn. Rall uses yang surplus and yin deficit masterfully to depict a brutal, completely uncaring and fascistic ruler - a true caricature of everything that is Bush.

Yang Surplus: Here and here.
Yin Deficit: Here and here.

Occasionally, Rall switches to yang deficit and even yin surplus to round out the caricature, such as this strip. He also applies these same techniques to other figures, such as Cheney and America in general.

The real Bush may not be quite as evil as Generalissimo el Busho, but any good caricature (and by caricature, I mean the WHOLE character, not just the visual design) must underscore the particular components of the subject that are noticeably evil or wrong. Great caricature blows the notable features, evil or otherwise, out of all proportion to make a statement with balls. Cartoonists, TV comics, and associated satirists need to learn from Ted Rall, and start caricaturing the horrendous leadership of this nation in a much more hostile way, and stop pussyfooting around the truth.

What to Do With 5,736 Iraqi Corpses

2006-01-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

According to this story from Reuters:

Nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians, police and troops were killed in violence last year...Of the 5,736 dead, 4,020 were civilians, 1,241 police officers, and 475 were Iraqi soldiers...

In defense of the US, most of those people were probably killed by other Iraqis or miscellaneous zealots, not that it alters the blame for the whole situation much...but that's for another discussion. This is a HAPPY POST, DAMNIT!!!

Dick Cheney's old cronies at Halliburton (and subsidiaries) handle a lot of the logistics over there, and must be scratching their heads over what to do with all these corpses they have piling up. Here are a few ideas:

Use chunkier torsos to plug holes in oil pipelines hit by terrorists.
Bury them for a million years until they become petroleum. Use the oil to run a Hummer H-5003 for six seconds.
Chop the corpses into 300 million pieces and mail them to Americans as a tax refund.
New roof for the Superdome. Go Saints!
Use them to dam the Tigris river to create Wet 'N Wild Over Baghdad Waterpark. Attractions include the Burqa-Only Wave Pool, the Saddaminator, and Typhoon Plummet With Explosions.
Iraqischnitzel!
Preserve using plastination and use as seat fillers at speeches given by Bush, since nobody shows up anymore unless forced by their military superiors.
Dog food.
Sell them in Texas as hood ornaments. Use the proceeds to hurt animals in some way.
Clone all 5,736 for the biggest bi-sexual harem ever created. Have sex with them but pretend you're not gay.
Pack into world's largest coffee maker. Press switch to "ON." Allow to run until percolation stops. Mix with cream, milk, or sugar to taste. Serve. Barf. Repeat.

Have an idea? Submit it under "Comments." I'll be sure to send it along to Halliburton. They could use the help since they don't have anyone as competent and trustworthy as Dick Cheney working there anymore.

Author's Note: I am fully aware of how disgusting and insensitive this post is. It's called parody. See my post yesterday on The Tao of Parody. If you are Iraqi, however, you're probably right to want to kill me.

(PS: does it strike anyone as weird that you only get 64 hits when you type "iraq" and "corpse" into Google image search? Shouldn't there be a whole lot more?)

Joke Theory: The Tao of Parody

2006-01-03T16:17:00.000-05:00

The yin yang is central to Taoism, just as it is to humor, as I noted in my post yesterday. But the yin yang is not only central to the Wilsonian Theory of Complementary Essence, but also to another concept which I invented and named after myself: Wilsonian Parody Duality (or Wilsonian Parody Parity).

In Wilsonian Parody Duality, parody is confined to two dimensions, like the yin and yang. The yang represents darkness and evil while the yin represents light and good. However, it is important to note that the yin and yang are not always in perfect balance. While the universe seeks to attain a perfect balance, it is not only possible but probable that at any given time the two will be out of balance. This can occur in four different ways (think: two dimensions):

Yang surplus
Yang deficit
Yin surplus
Yin deficit

In comedy, this is how parody is created, by alternately raising or lowering the "force" of the two complementary essences. Sticking with the theme from yesterday, this is how Wilsonian Parody Duality applies to 50 Cent:

Yang Surlus: 50 Cent is the craziest sucka in the universe. He carries 400 loaded pistols at all times, shoots anyone that makes eye contact with him right in the balls, and spends all his money on a Cadillac Escalade made of a single 20-ton diamond. He might eat human flesh. His Yang is the size of a tree trunk.

Yang Deficit: In reality, 50 Cent is a wimp and a nerd. He is scared of knives and reads Ayn Rand in his spare time. He is allergic to milk, wheat, and peanuts. He has no idea how to please a woman. He cannot decide who is his favorite Star Trek character.

Yin Surplus: 50 Cent cries whenever he thinks of his momma. He subsists on love, and shoots rainbows from his vagina. His tum tum is full of flowers.

Yin Deficit: 50 Cent is absent of any semblance of love, caring, peace, or temperence. He smokes a room full of crack, hunts children for sport, and raps so hard your face explodes.

An interesting point to note here is the similarity of the Yang Surplus and Yin Deficit. I believe this is because this represents reality most accurately. As I mentioned yesterday, 50 Cent is already a walking caricature of black America. He clearly has a Yang Surplus and a Yin Deficit.

As humorists, we can use these four types of parody to help the world understand where there is imbalance, so that people might correct it, say, by sending 50 Cent a My Little Pony Collectible China Gift Set, or by shooting him some more.

Tomorrow: Combining the essences

The Invisible Life of Poet #73 - The Weight Room

2006-01-02T18:50:00.000-05:00

This week's strip is pretty much how I remember the weight room in high school, except with more fear and bullying. If Poet can hang in there, he might grow up big like me, and one day be able to bench press his own harem, like me.

www.lifeofpoet.com

Joke Theory: Complementary Essence

2006-01-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

In physics it is Newton's Third Law. In philosophy it is the Hegelian dialectic. In religion it is the yin-yang. And henceforth, because I invented it and am a genius, in comedy it will be referred to as the Wilsonian Theory of Complementary Essence.

The theory:

For every entity or force in the universe, there exists at least one complementary entity or force whose essence is everything the other is not, which thereby maintains balance and unity.

As mankind's foremost thinker in the realm of humor and everything else, this theory first revealed itself when I was searching for some clever way to counter 50 Cent. The rap artist and film star is currently one of the most powerful forces in the American pop cultural landscape, and is himself a walking caricature of black America. I sought to find a brief idea that somehow revealed how 50 Cent fits into the universe without also destroying it. My first idea was:

50 Cent Wearing Women's Clothing

While the idea of 50 Cent in women's clothing might be amusing to my homophobic, racist grandmother, it in no way holds the power to turn 50 Cent into a real joke. He is still 50 Cent. My second idea:

50 Cent Has a Vagina

This is closer to the truth, as it strips 50 Cent of one of his fundamentals, his masculinity. Still, however, the essence of 50 Cent survives. Even with a vagina, he can remain a powerful force in the universe. That is, until my third idea:

50 Cent Shoots Rainbows Out of His Vagina

In this case, the vagina is merely the conduit between 50 Cent and rainbows. The concept of rainbows is, I believe, a powerful enough thing to balance out the concept of 50 Cent. It is the Yin to 50 Cent's Yang.

50 Cent (Yang): Aggressivenes, Attitude, Stupidity, Violence, Raging homophobia, In-Yo-Face-Ism
Rainbows (Yin): Passiveness, Introspection, Enlightenment, Peace, Homos

(I may have my rainbows mixed up, however. The yin to 50 Cent's yang might be this rainbow.)

The complementary essence, I believe, exists in all things, and everything may have multiple complementary essences. It does not hold the power to destroy, like a positron to an electron, but the power to counterbalance and harmonize, like a proton to an electron. It is left to us, the supergenius humorists (only me), to discover the complementary essences in all things, and one day map the sum total essence of all the universe. (In theory, all essences offset to zero, except for me, because I'm so awesome.)

Tomorrow: The Tao of Parody

The Invisible Life of Poet #72 - Poet v. Gus IV

2005-12-27T16:37:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, Chappy Chanukah, etc. to all my fans. Thanks for making Poet the #1 best and most popular comic strip in the country. It is thanks to your continued support that I spent last night sleeping in a flooded mineshaft and ate truck tires for breakfast. If I was any more successful, I might have to start eating people. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to Home Depot for some weather stripping to keep the poison fumes out of my kitchen/rat colony.

www.lifeofpoet.com

The State of Humor - Comic Strips

2005-12-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

Comic strips today are bad. Abhorrent. Stroke-inducingly, groin-choppingly, spine-manglingly, bowel-explodingly, stomach-cancer-causingly bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. (Red Meat, pictured right, used to be good, but it has overstayed it's welcome, and is now bad).

For a long time people blamed the syndicates and publishers. These twin evils seemingly conspired to shrink the size, complexity, and intellectual guts of comic strips in the interest of merchandizing and untold corporate profit.

But nobody got the memo: the internet gives you free reign to produce comic strips however you like. Yet you would not know this looking at the comics at our disposal today, either in print or online. Most artists continue to squeeze lifeless characters and unfunny one-liners into tiny 3 and 4 frame strips (which I will address in a later post on Frame Theory).

We (by which I mean YOU) as cartoon artists are squandering all this precious liberty.

For your interest and education, I present to you the twelve dimensions of great comic strips, in relative order of importance.

Conflict. If your comic strip has no conflict, why are you drawing it? Think back to high school English. Is it Man vs. Man, Man vs. Himself, Man vs. Nature, or some combination of these? Without conflict, your strip is meaningless.
New Ideas. Without new ideas, your comic strip is just people talking. New ideas can be visual or verbal, but without them, I take nothing away from reading your strip.
Gravitas. Do you mean what you say in your comic strip? Do your characters mean it? Not everything that comes out of your character’s mouths can be cynical, even if that’s all that comes out of your own mouth. Punch up your text, and use visuals to deepen the effect.
Emotional Range. People are emotional creatures, and we relate best to other creatures that show emotion (dogs, anyone?). Your characters must show a spectrum of emotion, even robot characters.
Verbal Economy. If the frames of your comic strip are more than half text, you need to tighten up. This is not a hard rule, but in general is true. Take a writing class if necessary, but cut out all that is not absolutely necessary. If I wanted to read all day I’d buy a novel.
Opinions. Your characters must have them. If you seek to offend no one, you will quickly find that you impress no one.
Punchlines. While every episode of your strip doesn’t need a killer punchline, you should seek out good punchlines whenever possible. A good punchline takes hard work to write. Remember: it can always be funnier.
Complex Humor. Your friends might think you are funny, but that doesn’t mean you’re funny on paper. Being a good humorist takes years of studying. Study great humor of our time. Memorize it. Like a guitarist, learn some riffs, then reproduce them at the right time.
Visual Variety. Chances are you draw talking heads. This is because you are lazy. Get some practice, learn to draw, and give your audience a reason to check out the next frame.
Action. Even television lawyer dramas have action. Draw some.
Longevity. If your strips are about iPods and TV shows like Survivor, beware: your strip will be unreadable in ten years, if it’s even readable now. Seek more general ideas and jokes that people will be able to understand for generations.
Consistency. While some comic strips, such as The Far Side and The Perry Bible Fellowship, are able to be different every week, your strip must, at the very least, be worth reading every single time you draw it. If your idea is bad, or the joke is bad, don’t draw it. Stay up late and make something better.

Related posts: The State of Humor: Unfunny Animals

NEWS ALERT: SUDOKU NOT ACTUALLY MATH

2005-12-20T13:44:00.000-05:00

Apparently many in the United States still believe sudoku are math, when in fact, they are not. Sudoku are actually just puzzles using 9 objects. The objects can be ANYTHING. To illustrate this point, I have created a sudoku I call "Great Patriots." Click the image to see how it looks. This sudoku is actually solvable, so print it out and give it a try and stop acting so stupid! Our government does all the stupid we need around here.

(Click here if you've been living underground for a few years and don't know what sudoku are)

[Late update: A very very annoying nerd wrote the following to me:

"Sudoku is actually math - just not math in the form that most people
know (ie, algebra - one *small* branch of what I consider math).Sudoku is a set of constraints and a search space in which there is a single solution that satisfies the constraints...As such, it is a constraint satisfaction problem. Numerous articles on various aspects of constraint satisfaction have been written in premier math journals."

I have contacted VP Dick Cheney, a personal friend and fellow nerd-hater, who has arranged illegal wiretaps on this nerd's telephone. He assured me she will be on her way to a secret nerd prison in north Africa within 48 hours, to be forced to listen to Eminem and Clay Aiken until deemed cool enough to return to American (or Canadian) society.]

Bad Humor Watch: Drudge Report

2005-12-20T09:49:00.000-05:00

Bad journalistic practices and rightward-slanted headlines notwithstanding, the Drudge Report has it's place, and you can't argue that Matt Drudge was a pioneer in internet news reporting. But they need to stay the hell away from humor, because the Drudgettes and Drudge readers clearly are, if you'll excuse my languange, fucking idiots.

I give you exhibit A, where readers were asked to "caption the photo" of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. It is not funny. I DARE you to laugh.

www.drudgereport.com/plame.htm [Dead link: they must have read this post]

Reader-submitted "caption the photo" contests are designed by idiots for idiots.

Matt Drudge, stay away from humor and I'll stay away from misleading rightist news reporting.

The Invisible Life of Poet #71 - Poet v. Gus III

2005-12-19T19:21:00.000-05:00

Remember Joshua Grossman? Of course you don't. I doubt any readers beyond my family and friends can recall episode #26, in which Joshua, the big Jewish kid, made his debut.

I don't hold it against you even though you are a poser. You might say, "but I liked Life of Poet before it was unpopular - back when it was hugely unpopular!" A TRUE fan would have liked Poet before it was even PUBLISHED, before it was even DRAWN!!! So basically, I have no real fans. And that's what makes me great (also being a supergenius and all.)

www.lifeofpoet.com

Family Guy: Arbiter of Camp

2005-12-19T09:55:00.000-05:00

or: Comedic Pornography

FOX brought Family Guy back after it proved successful on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network) and in DVD sales. I am a unbridled fan of Futurama, so I'm more than a little bitter. It raised the bar for both comedy and animation, in my opinion. Futurama tried to reverse the course of stupid, shock, and camp entertainment with something that was truly original and smart. It was a far more intelligent, well-written, satirical, and visually stunning show. Family Guy is rarely any of these anymore, if it ever was, but what it remains is a fantastic study in American pop culture. Unfortunately, these days, that is a sad sad thing.

Pop culture today is 100% retro and 100% campy - entirely backward-looking. Family Guy plays both follower and leader in this regard. It seeks to get laughs by ribbing anything created more than ten years ago. It fully admits to the world that the great majority of American culture has come through our televisions, going back to the 1960's. Family Guy seems dead set simply on making fun of our parents and older siblings, and what they liked to watch on television.

One thing Family Guy is not, however, is good comedy. If you set out only to make fun of every show produced between 1970 and 1995, you've got a lot to draw from. But the writing is lazy and the original jokes are few and far between. When Family Guy writers want to, they can be very very funny. One such moment came in last night's show, when Stewie, sick and dying in his mothers arms, squeeked out with his last breath, "don't...take me...to a black doctor." Awesome - clever, unexpected, and good satire. But all I remember beyond that were jokes about Happy Days, Quantum Leap, and Kirk Cameron.

There's nothing wrong with camp. But if campy is all you can be, your comedy becomes unhinged, and you lose touch with reality. The result is a very small timeframe in which your campiness can be appreciated. People ten years younger than me likely did not grow up watching reruns of Happy Days and the A-Team. In twenty years, Family Guy will be completely forgotten because none of the young viewers will be able to make sense of the many references to television, film, and scattered current events. And that is sad, because from season one the writers showed a lot of talent and promise. But gradually they got sucked into the pornography of campiness and "ironic-ness" that fills American culture today. That's not comedy, that's fashion. They have nearly a blank slate to produce any comedy they want, and they've chosen what is essentially nostalgia.

I can get that on VH-1 at all hours. Stop holding back, Family Guy!

Sometimes, the System Works

2005-12-16T13:50:00.000-05:00

The Patriot act got hammered due to some nice work by Senate Democrats. A few great quotes from the AP story:

"I don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care," said Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001.
"It is time to have some checks and balances in this country," shouted Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "We are more American for doing that."

Thank god for some sanity around here. See how your senator voted. Then send them an email to thank/ridicule them.

The Yard is a Trapezoid?

2005-12-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

Because I am smarter and funnier than almost everyone else in the entire world, it is rare for me to have any reason to send people away from my weblog to read someone else's posts. But I have found an exception - a short piece I really enjoyed.

Of course, if I had written this it would have been even better, and possibly won me all the Nobel Prizes, but this version at Monkeycube is pretty good anyway.

The Yard is a Trapezoid? I'll pass.

According to Americans...

2005-12-14T21:06:00.000-05:00

These colors don't run:

But these colors do:

?????

State of Humor Citizen Alert- The "I'm Okay" Joke

2005-12-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

You may have heard it in a television commercial or seen it in a bad comedy film, but it's ubiquitous: the "I'm okay" joke. It has been used as a crutch for lazy script and ad copy writers for damn near a generation.

The basic premise goes as follows: somebody hurts themselves. It looks bad. Perhaps they run into a pane glass door or fall on their face. Then, either having stood up, or still lying on the ground, they say, "I'm okay."

That's it: that's the entire joke, and if I ever find the guy that invented this joke I can't be held accountable if I cannibalize him. This joke is everywhere, and it's not funny anymore, if it ever was. We need to get rid of it in order to create better humor for this world. If not, the terrorists have won.

Unfortunately, I can only specifically remember three instances where this joke was used, but hopefully you, the reader, can remember a few others. If so, drop a comment to this post, and I will add them to the list along with your name and link. Then, with the list in hand, we can track down the ad agencies and film studios who are serial offenders and murder their families for wasting our time. It's in the Constitution.

Together, we can build a funnier world together.

The "I'm Okay" Offender List:

For: Volkswagen Jetta - Agency: DDB - Guy violently tackles shopping cart about to hit his Jetta. Says "I'm okay."

For: Some computer company (IBM?) - Agency: Unknown - Fat guy knocks over water cooler, injuring self. Gets up, says, "I'm okay."

For: Capital One - Agency: DDB - Family goes skiing during the summer. Father, predictably, goes careening down the hill. Get's up, says, "I'm okay." Is bowled over by careening wife.

For: Allstate - Agency: Leo Burnett? - Middle age couple skates late at night on outdoor ice rink to disco music. Man skates backward into a shack, stumbling over. Says "I'm okay." Ice falls off roof of shack onto parked car.

Serial "I'm Okay" Offenders:

DDB, ad agency

Zionism: Sucky Idea Anyway

2005-12-14T13:45:00.000-05:00

Iran President and People Magazine Despotic Hunk of the Year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been telling people the Holocaust didn't happen, or at least, that it was greatly exaggerated, which understandably pisses a lot of Jewish people off. (Interesting fact: there are many Jewish people living comfortably in the world today. Take that, Hitler!)

I'm not going to debate the details surrounding the Holocaust, although I'm fairly convinced it was not a systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, but an unfortunately named polecat jamboree that coincidentally took the lives of 6 million Jews.

But reading these stories about Mahmoud has gotten me thinking - maybe Zionism was a sucky idea. But before I explain this controversial stance, a pathetically short history of Zionism:

Jewish people, perhaps because they couldn't think of anything better to pray about, had been talking about getting back to Palestine since they were hammered by the Romans and totally punk'd by Hadrian. Before Israel came to be, there had been proposals to give the Jewish people a nation of their own in Argentina or Uganda/Kenya and even in eastern Russia. But the Zionists were greedy. They wanted Israel or nothing. (Just to balance the argument: Muslims are also greedy for wanting so many different holy lands -- you can't have ALL the holy lands).

So Jewish people emigrated for decades into Palestine, and eventually the British basically gave the Jewish people what they wanted on the heels of WWII. It was not just a religious or moral move, but also a political one. The establishment of Israel gave Britian and other western nations a powerful ally in the middle east, to the detriment (I assume) of anyone who wanted to put together another Ottoman Empire. One can certainly argue whether this has done more good than harm for the west - it's hard to say.**

Americans cannot fathom the hatred Muslims feel over this - in spite of the fact that liberals hate conservatives, and poor black people hate rich white people, and artists hate graphic designers, and hybrid car owners hate SUV drivers, and Ohio State fans hate UMich fans. We don't kill people over this hatred (very often anymore), and we certainly wouldn't risk our own lives to stop other people from living their lives (unless they lived very far away and had brown skin). We're cowards, most of us. There's no one to blame for this but ourselves. We live in vast opulence in a land full of overpriced health care and we eat whatever crap we want and we spend all day at our computers and televisions. There's no danger in living your life as an American, and the stakes, for most of us, are low. We wouldn't give our lives for ANYTHING anymore.

But I guarantee there are MILLIONS of Muslims around the world who would happily give their own lives and the lives of everyone they know to oust the Jews in Isreal. And that's why the United States can never truly achieve "victory" in Iraq, nor end the animosity and violence targetted at Israel. Americans just don't care enough about Israel to risk their lives en masse to protect it, and the same could probably be said of most modern societies, as well as many Jewish people themselves.

The fact is, the Jewish people got their asses handed to them by the Romans. But LOTS of people got their asses handed to them by the Romans - it doesn't make you special. And in turn, the Romans had their asses handed to THEM by the 47 Ronin (do I have my history correct here?) The point is, the Jewish people lost. But many people have lost throughout history: the Neanderthals lost Europe, the Mexicans lost Texas, the French lost Canada and Ohio, the Native Americans lost the entire western hemisphere. It's not necessarily their fault, it just happened. That's history. A lot of bad shit went down but now it's over and we can get on with our lives (unless you live outside of the United States and Canada).

I also find it ironic that Americans so vehemently oppose fundamentalist states centered around Islam, yet have no problem supporting a state that does the same thing: creates a national character for what is only, and always has been, a religious belief. Fundamentalist Christians in the US, of course, support Israel because their "bible" tells them that this is where the human incarnation of Satan will be born, and where the rapture will begin - they want to hasten the apocolypse so they can get into to heaven to the exclusion of all black people and Jewish people (surprise! many black people are Christians, sucker! and they're gonna move into the cloud right next to you ahahahahahaha!)

I have several friends who have visited Israel and told me how great it was to be surrounded by Jews. None of them commented on the fact that they were happy to be walking in the holy land, just that they liked being with their own kind. It's understandable. But maybe they'd be just as happy anywhere - like West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

So I say we cut our losses and find a new home for the Jewish people. Might I suggest Quebec? That would kill two birds with one stone.

A good history of Zionism at Wikipedia.

**All that said, anti-semitism as a movement in the West has certainly not been the same since Israel was founded, so maybe I'm full of crap and Israel was a great idea - it pissed off the Muslims who in turn direct their hatred at all Western democracies - in effect exporting all the anti-semitism from Westerners to Muslims. And as a stupid, overfed white American, I support offshoring. So forget I said anything. Go Israel Gamecocks! Beat those Palestinian Wildcats!

The Invisible Life of Poet #70 - Poet vs. Gus II

2005-12-13T21:33:00.000-05:00

Do you hate Gus yet? Because I love him. He is as evil and demented as little middle school kids can get. Of course he'd wear a Yale sweatshirt, and of course he plays lacrosse - it's only natural.

Bible Bitch Marissa makes her first appearance here since #42 when she offered Poet a flower after Ben had told him to eat a bag of dicks. Heads up to Marissa fanbloggers and associated perverts: you will be seeing more of her in coming weeks, a lot more.

Stay tuned for next week's installment - where you will learn something very interesting about Gus.

www.lifeofpoet.com

The State of Humor - Unfunny Animals

2005-12-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

As America's top supergenius and foremost humorist, it is my duty to report to my unfunny readers on what is and is not funny.

Today I look at animals. Animals are often used to create quick, inexpensive, passing jokes. Unfortunately, amateur humorists (and sadly, many professionals) continue to utilize outdated and overused animal types in their work, believing them still to be funny. Emus, wombats, and yaks top the list of animals that long ago stopped being funny.

But no animal can compete with the king of the "funny" animals, the monkey. No animal in history, save for perhaps the yellow-bellied sapsucker, has been so overplayed in popular culture. While their similarity and relationship to humans make them an easy target, the result of this overexposure is that monkeys are now not only unfunny, they are as depressing as yaks, and in the case of many varieties of monkey, are near extinction, like the yellow-bellied sapsucker.

To combat this, I have prepared three lists: the first contains animals that once were, but no longer are, funny; the second contains animals that are almost NEVER funny; the third contains animals that, based on my superior intellect, I deem to be currently funny. Henceforth please use animals from the third list, not the first two, when trying to be clever and amusing, otherwise you'll look like a stupid goat.

Not Funny	Never Funny	Funny
alpacas amoeba anteaters antelopes beavers condors cows dingos donkeys duckbill platypus emus gazelles goats gorillas hippopotamus llamas mongooses monkeys moose penguins sea monkeys wombats yaks yellow-bellied sapsuckers	bats bears cheetahs deer elephants giraffes horses lions rabbits rats tigers whales wolves zebras	alligators bison flounders hagfish hedgehogs kangaroos lobsters manatees mules opossums polecats puffins sea slugs shrews sloths tuna voles walruses weasels wolverines

[Late update: upon further review, goats have been removed from the "funny" list and moved to the "not funny" list]
[Late update 2: "Sea monkeys" added to unfunny list]

Charles Manson Downloads All of World's Pornography

2005-12-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

Internet proprietor Charles Manson* has succeeded in his dream of downloading all internet pornography - which altogether take up approximately 2-3 PETABYTES of space. Manson has apparently devised a media storage device that runs on magic dust and olive oil. When asked in a phone interview what his plans are now, he replied, "I've got a lot of masturbating to do."

* The Charles Manson featured in this story is not the Charles Manson of Manson Family infamy. The name is simply a coincidence, although our Charles Manson is currently serving multiple life sentences for the murder of several people and conspiracy to commit murder against one woman who coincidentally was also named Sharon Tate. The picture above is of a Charles Manson impersonator who is also coincidentally in prison for murder.

Brokeback Mountain: There Have Been Gayer Films

2005-12-09T15:35:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, Americans just need a little perspective, and that's all.

A Modern US Torture Policy

2005-12-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

The use of torture by US military, para-military, and other forces abroad has been a hot subject ever since the Abu Ghraib photos were unleashed on the world. The argument is very multi-faceted. One side says the US never tortures (George W. Bush, Condi Rice); one side wants to make absolutely sure torture is outlawed (Sen. John McCain); one side says we don't torture, but it's okay if others do (Donald Rumsfeld); one side says torturing is okay for certain branches of the government (Dick Cheney); one side thinks only US soldiers should be allowed to torture, but nobody else (US military personnel); one side isn't paying much attention (US citizens); and one side claims the US tortures as a matter of policy (everybody else in the world).

Yet solving this complicated problem is remarkably simple, but not in a way you might think. It can be solved merely by changing the language used. The Geneva Conventions are clear about torture, but they say very little about BDSM. The switch is subtle, but the effects would be great. Torture is, of course, an abomination upon mankind; but BDSM, on the other hand, is kinky.

With BDSM, burning prisoners...er...submissives with cigarettes and attaching their genitals to car batteries would not be abusive and painful, but a turn-on.

What may surprise you even more is that there is already an infrastructure in place in this country and abroad to support such a change. The "torture" devices are already mass-produced and sold by respected government contracters, such as Extreme Restraints of Huntington Beach, California.

Spanking Benches, Floggers, Electrosex Plugs, Electrosex Penis Bands, Ball Stretchers, and Cock and Ball Pillories could all be employed to retrieve sensitive intelligence from captured terrorists and combatants without violating the Geneva Conventions. Erotic spankings, erotic bondage, erotic nipple clamping, and erotic ball-crushing can all be used within the confines of the law, so long as they are erotic. Regulation of military and para-military BDSM practices can be achieved by an oversight committee composed entirely of Republican members of Congress, who can view video of the practices privately in their own chambers. This is, of course, what they wanted anyway.

(WARNING: SOME LINKS IN THIS POST MAY HAVE BEEN GRAPHIC)

I Challenge Joe Lieberman to a Fight

2005-12-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Lieberman,

Put down the dick for a second and read these words carefully.

I challenge you to a fight. No weapons, no tricks, just straight fist-on-fist action. This time, however, you might be surprised to find the fist in your face, not your ass. I want to feel the tactile sensation of crushing your cum-saturated esophagus so you can never again talk about your undying love for your gay fuck-buddy, George W. Bush.

The winner of the fight will gain sole possession of your senate seat, in accordance with the US Constitution (Appendix F - for Fuck You!!!)

If you agree, meet at the parking lot behind the Wendy's in Seattle. We're going to settle this forever. Or are you a pussy???

Daily Suck - Joe Lieberman

2005-12-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

Could Joe Lieberman be the biggest pussy to ever walk the halls of Congress? This guy regularly speaks out IN FAVOR of the war in Iraq, and he's a democrat. Somebody seriously needs to kick him in the face, he's such a coward.

“It’s time for us to set aside arguments about how we got involved in Iraq,”

No it's not, you faux-liberal fag! Why don't you eat some dick???

“The lives of 160,000 Americans in uniform are on the line there every day, and it is urgent … to put the national goals we hold in common ahead of partisan goals,”

Who are you? King dick-suck? Shut the fuck up!

“There is broad, bipartisan agreement on the goals,”

Oh my god somebody give this guy a fat republican dick to suck!

"The question is no longer why we got in, but how we win in Iraq,"

Maybe if you suck enough terrorist dick we can win in Iraq.

"It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

Seriously - this guy is up for reelection next year. Voters of Connecticut, you know what to do.

A decent write-up from Stars and Stripes for some reason.

Also look at this bullshit: Lieberman Rejects White House Overtures. According to this story, Bush has asked King Dick Suck to be Director of Homeland Security. Imagine putting the biggest pussy in the country in charge of security. We'd all be sucking dick in a matter of days. If Bush wants Lieberman on his cabinet, he should start a Department of Dick Sucking.

The Invisible Life of Poet #69 - Poet v. Gus I

2005-12-06T21:51:00.000-05:00

#69 Uploaded - Finally, a chance to delve into the precarious relationship between Poet and his arch-nemesis, Gus. This is one of the few strips where Poet actually has the upper hand. It certainly continues to showcase the breadth of my genius that I do not pigeonhole characters into predictable, flat stereotypes. This strip is organic - always evolving and heading in new directions. You can thank me for warming you with my enlightening presence.

www.lifeofpoet.com

French Lesbians Totally Doing It at Belgian Fertility Clinics

2005-12-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the guys at Breitbart.com for attaching such an illustrative but inappropriate photograph to this otherwise mundane story about old French lesbians. I almost donated all over my desk.

Full story here

King Kong is the Worst Movie of All Time

2005-12-06T11:08:00.000-05:00

Genuine Peter Jackson fans know that he has made some exciting and clever movies in the past, (Dead Alive, Meet the Feebles) but his talent has been declining as he's gotten fatter and hairier. Everyone knows that The Lord of the Rings trilogy was just Star Wars for perverts, and Star Wars was already a movie about transexual aliens.

I'm fairly convinced that King Kong will be completely unwatchable and will make no money, and I say that having not seen it yet. It is supposedly about a guy who lives in Alaska and talks to bears, but then to everyone's surprise (I mean, only to his surprise) he gets eaten by a bear (aptly named King Kong after this guy) along with his girlfriend, who probably followed him there for a piece of his King Kong.

Seriously, why Peter Jackson would choose to remake such an unnacceptably terrible movie like this one is totally outside my realm of thinking, and I say that as a certified supergenius.

Airedale Terrier - The Cat of Dogs

2005-12-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

People call them the king of the terriers, but Airedales should be called the king of the assholes. There is simply no worse dog on earth. And they really are the cat of dogs - they hate you, and will be forthcoming about their hatred. They will hate you right to your face and they will totally ignore you at the worst possible time and you'll want to hit them so badly.

If you already own an Airedale Terrier, I strongly suggest you commit suicide right now. If you do, however, make sure you kill your dog first.

Okay that was a joke. Don't kill your dog, even if it is the worst dog in the world. But do kill yourself for being so stupid as to shell out hundreds of dollars for a pure-bred pile of shit. Next time go to the local shelter - it's cheaper and you can get a sweet adult dog who will love you for the rest of its life. Seriously, and I have gobs of experience so you can trust me on this, mixed-breed shelter dogs are much better companions on average than purebreeds from a kennel. They've been through some bad times, and that builds character - just as it does in humans. Kennel dogs are raised to think they're champions, so they act like pricks. I'm totally serious when I say this. Plus, by getting a shelter dog, you might just be saving a life.

ASPCA.org

Daily Suck - Condoleezza Rice

2005-12-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

C-Rice is on her way to tell EU members to cram it over U.S. use of secret prisons to detain suspected terrorists. Feel free to read the speech she gave today at Andrews AFB. Basically she said the US should be able to do pretty much whatever it wants to save a few lives. A few quotes:

We must track down the terrorists who seek refuge in areas where governments cannot take effective action, including where the terrorists cannot in practice be reached by the ordinary processes of law.

This is idiotspeak for "we think we should be above the laws of all other nations."

The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which where designed for different needs. We have to adapt.

By "terrorists of the 21st century," she must mean they have bionic arms and communicate telepathically, because as far as I can tell, terrorists are the same now as they always have been - they blow crap up by any means necessary.

Seriously --

This is exactly how fascist societies get going. They find ways to justify brutal behavior within the confines of law and morality in order to "protect" somebody. Condi justifies the rendition of suspects by citing examples of terrorists in the past who were caught and were quickly sentenced through a process of rendition (which, BTW, is a stupid word). But these were KNOWN terrorists. The people currently being rendited...er, renditioned...EXPORTED FOR SUMMARY BEATINGS...are not terrorists, they are SUSPECTED terrorists. But I guarantee that those who are not actually terrorists will be once they get out of those secret prisons, assuming they ever get out.

So if you're brown, and you live in any nation where the average temperature is 140F, and the typical occupation is "camel surgeon," watch out, because Condi is coming for you. She may or may not be a vampire - we'll let you know. (Wear some garlic just in case).

Automakers Further Dream to Make All Cars Identical

2005-12-05T14:29:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it's mean of me to pick on designers of full-size standard and luxury sedans, but what a bunch of uncreative loser wannabees. If I were a total douche, how could I choose which of these fag-mobiles suits my lifestyle of after-school soccer meets, 50-something swinger's parties, and Republican Fundraising Gangbangs?

These designers should learn how to design a car with a beautiful collaboration of style and function, such as this one:

The Radar Truck

The Weekly Forecast

2005-12-05T08:55:00.000-05:00

Your guide to what will almost certainly happen this week.

World: Saddam Hussein will be acquitted on all charges of crimes against humanity and will retire to play golf and "look for the real fascist dictator."

Business: AOL, facing crushing 4th-quarter predictions, will lay off all but one of its employees - a guy named Rich who will maintain the AOL brand as a blog about living with his parents while trying to compete on the world speed poetry circuit.

Entertainment: Katie Holmes will announce her pregnancy was not caused by Tom Cruise, who is, in fact, a woman, but by a 4-foot-tall green slime troll who lives on human fear and skin. Journalists and the general public will struggle to see the difference.

Politics: Hillary Clinton, seeking the crucial Piss/Puke/Scat vote in the upcoming 2006 Senate race, will piss in a bucket, snort it through her nose, spray liquid shit all over a press junket, then vomit a rotten turd she ate earlier and spread it all over her gaping vagina while Bill takes a dump on her face. It will improve her standings in the polls marginally.

The Invisible Life of Poet is So Awesome it Sucks

2005-12-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

The Invisible Life of Poet may be the single greatest comic strip ever created. If you haven't seen it yet, prepare to piss all over yourself with laughter.

Rapists and child molesters do not like this comic strip. Are you a rapist or child molester?

www.lifeofpoet.com

[Full Disclosure: I am the creator of The Invisible Life of Poet]

Hillary Clinton is the Republican of Democrats

2005-12-02T16:45:00.000-05:00

Alternate Title: Hillary Clinton is the Anus of the Democratic Party

I am a registered Democrat, but if Hillary runs for prez in '08, I will vote for anybody else. I might vote for her if the alternative were Dick Cheney.

Two reasons:

She supports the war in Iraq
She spends way too much time worrying about violence in videogames
She's a total douchette ho-ma bitch
She sucks

Three reasons, er four reasons.

Seriously
If Hillary is nominated for president, the Democrats can kiss the presidency goodbye once again. Republicans hate her the way God hates shrimp (so I'm told.) They will do anything to stop her getting elected. Moreover, she has zero charisma, and you need charisma to win the highest office in the US. A few more good points at TPM Cafe.