SemiConscious Dot Org

We feel this picture sums up Dear Leader’s War even more succinctly than do The General’s Victory Photos, but we admit to a certain amount of writer’s block when attempting to come up with a suitable caption for it. If our followers would be so good as to assist us in this Godly endeavor, we’d be ever so grateful. (Those who may find their pens struck mute by the sheer, awe-inspiring magnificence of this photo may want to refer to Dear Leader’s own words on this event for inspiration.)

Warbloggers, to the front lines! (ie, your mom’s basement.) May your cheeto-stained fingers fly fast and free in tribute to your Dear Leader. Glory!

Pyrrhic victory
noun. A victory that is offset by staggering losses.

Man whose penile implant malfunctioned wins $400,000 in lawsuit!

He did it. Again. That makes twice in two games.

David Ortiz has now won 13 games in three seasons with walkoff, game-ending hits – eight of them home runs.

He is the most clutch player in baseball. He has come through with so many clutch hits in so many pressure-packed situations that we are beginning to expect them.

He is the Anti A-Rod.

So, on behalf of Red Sox Nation, I would like to thank my good friend BCK. If her beloved Minnesota Twins hadn’t given us David Ortiz, for free, three years ago, the Sox never would’ve won their first World Series in 86 years.

Of course, if I were you, Brenda, I would be asking myself: has my team, by giving away the most clutch player in baseball, started its own “Curse of Papi?”

The dastardly forces of Liberal Mind Control are on the march, and the world is powerless to resist. Just as all bloggers now take their marching orders from Daily Kos, so to is all American politics dominated by the colossus that is former President Al Gore! After watching this video, you will be a helpless slave to the insidious charms of envirofascism, motivated by an irrestible urge to hug trees, munch granola, and destroy American capitalism! Eek!

(link via that commie Bob Harris )

Researchers announce that ingredient in beer may prevent prostate cancer!

Well, it appears that this putative “Library Blog” is well on its way to becoming a “What Music is Aaron Listening to Today, as if Anyone Cares Blog.” Truth be told, I haven’t been paying much attention to library issues recently, but a post on BCK’s blog brought to my attention new developments regarding our old friend, the USA Patriot Act. (Specifically, the provision of said act most pertinent to libraries, Section 215.)

Section 215 allows law enforcement officials to view a library patron’s book borrowing and internet browsing records by issuing something called a National Security Letter (NSL), a type of warrant that requires no judicial oversight. Moreover, the NSL comes with a built-in gag order, so that library staff who’ve been issued one can’t reveal to anybody that the cops have ever been snooping around the library.

Recently, some librarians have decided to fight back. A group in Connecticut that was issued a NSL for library records filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the built-in gag order, since it ironically prevented those same librarians from having any part in the then-ongoing debate in Congress over whether to reauthorize the Patriot Act. A judge lifted the gag order, but the government fought it in court. By the time the government finally relented and allowed the gag order to be lifted, debate in Congress on the USAPA was already over, a fact the librarians complained about bitterly:

“Free public libraries exist in this country to promote democracy by allowing the public to inform itself on the issues of the day. The idea that the government can secretly investigate what the public is informing itself about is chilling.”

Christian noted with irony that the gag order was lifted only after Congress voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

“The fact that I can speak now is a little like being permitted to call the fire department only after a building has burned to the ground,” he said.

In other Patriot Act-related news, the librarians in my current environs of Seattle have passed a resolution calling for the resignation or impeachment of DubYa over the USAPA and a host of other issues. (We all know this happy event has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening while his own party controls all three branches of government, but hey, a boy can dream.) And the number of anti-Patriot Act resolutions passed nationally has recently topped 400, including five statewide resolutions.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration’s fans in the right-wing chattering classes have pounced on librarians and the ALA over the flap. To the people who equate any criticism of DubYa or his policies as traitors to America, the entire library profession now constitutes a veritable Fifth Column of America-haters.

Back in 2003, when this issue first made national headlines, it was the National Review’s Rich Lowry who lead the smear campaign, excoriating librarians over their opposition to Section 215 (and also throwing in a few other conservative myths, such as the idea that librarians have intentionally turned libraries into de facto homeless shelters and porno stores. He also joked that we should all be killed.) This year, the administration’s main water carrier on this issue is internment camp apologist Michelle Malkin, who refers to ALA opponents of Bush policies as “moonbats” and “Bush-deranged bigots” and suggests that we’ve been “breathing too much photocopier fluid.”

Who would’ve thought that little ol’ librarians could engender so much vitriol from flame-throwing reactionary pundits? In my opinion, it’s a badge of honor. I eagerly await the Ann Coulter column lamenting the fact that Timothy McVeigh didn’t set off his bombs at the ALA convention.

Back in the spring, I was rocking out to new releases by Soledad Brothers, Motorpsycho, Wolfmother, Boris and the Strokes. I have since lost interest in the Strokes, but the other four are still in heavy rotation, especially Wolfmother. When I listen to their cd, it pins me down spread-eagled on the floor and screams “RESPECT THE ROCK, BEEATCH!” into my face at full volume. Um, in a good way.

More new stuff I’ve been digging recently:

Apologies for the recent silence on this blog. We know you, our loyal followers, hang on our every word and depend on our guidance in every aspect of your lives. We have not abandoned you; nay, we’ve merely been stunned into awestruck silence by the glorious revival of fortunes of our own Dear Leader. Between the extreme deadening of Zarqawi and the news that Saint Rove is as pure as the driven snow, Dear Leader’s poll ratings have received a colossal boost, and are once again soaring majestically towards 40%. Huzzah!

Granted, there will be the usual whining about the war from the usual suspects in the Nattering Nabob Objectively Pro-Terrorist media; lots of defeatist jibber jabber about how Baghdad is supposedly turning into an “ethnic slaughterhouse” and descending into “anarchy,” about how the bodies are “stacked vertically” because they pile up so fast and Iraqi workers at the American embassy “fear for their lives.” The press can bleat all they want, but we know the truth; The General, as usual, tells the real story with his weekly collection of Victory Photos.

Nor do we even care much that the prisoners in Dear Leader’s Not-Gulag at Gitmo have escalated their war against us, waging attacks on our Freedom™ via the despicable tactic of killing themselves in their cells. Nope, nothing can bring us down at this point, for Dear Leader has regained his manly swagger. The Codpiece has returned, and we are reduced to giggling like a schoolgirl at his magnificence. Were we not a conservative Christian and thus absolutely certain that homosexuality is a Mortal Sin practiced only by Very Naughty Icky People, we might even admit to a slight man-crush on Dear Leader.

And as for those members of the press who resist Dear Leader’s manly charms and insist on reporting bad news: as we’ve said many times before, wars are not lost by leaders making colossally stupid military decisions; wars are lost by the media reporting that leaders are making colossally stupid military decisions.

(UPDATE: Visit our Interfaith Outreach site and cast your vote in the exclusive Dear Leader Codpiece Poll. )

Now more than ever, let us give fervent thanks for the presence of our own Dear Leader. It is he, and only he, who stands firm in his stalwart resolve to stem the tide of naughty ferr’ners who sneak into our country to steal highly prized jobs as dishwashers, migrant farm laborers, and yard care technicians out from under the noses of those millions of ‘Murricans who clamor to fill them.

As Dear Leader expounds on his plan to secure our borders, one can almost hear the terror spreading in the hearts of these invaders. Indeed, in this video, one can see that his stirring rhetoric is already having a palpable effect!

Praise be to Dear Leader, the font from which all goodness springs. Glory!

Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man, we love you so.