SemiConscious Dot Org

On Friday night, the Special Lady Friend and I decided that we could no longer stand the shame of being the only two people in America who had not yet seen The Dark Knight. I came away from the experience deeply impressed. It’s a brilliant, dark movie, a fascinating psychological drama that explores the frightening ease with which good can be transformed into evil. At some point during the movie, each of the major characters (except, perhaps, for the brilliantly fiendish Joker) experience some sort of epiphany that they are turning into that which they most despise. Much like real life, the movie is complex and often morally ambiguous, which is makes it so compelling.

Unless, of course, you’re a Republican, in which case The Dark Knight is a parable for the war on terror with George Bush playing Batman.

You have to give credit where credit is due. Conservatives may be utterly incapable of creating memorable, challenging art themselves, but they sure are good at latching onto popular works of art, stripping them of all context, and performing Herculean feats of pretzel logic in order to shoehorn them into their stunted, backwards worldview. Hey, if they’re capable of performing the mental backflips necessary to turn The Lord of the Rings into an ideological skirmish in Our Eternal War Against Islamofascists, then The Dark Knight should be a piece of cake, right?

Apparently, any movie in which good guys defeat bad guys is actually a paean to the glories of Dear Leader. I believe there’s a term for this phenomenon…

Best news I’ve heard all week:

Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

The plan, naturally hatched in a bar, would place a vote on the November ballot to provide “an appropriate honor for a truly unique president.”

I think this is a fantastic idea. Every morning constitutional henceforth becomes a majestic tribute to the man most responsible for flushing this country down the crapper.

No doubt, there will be those who squawk that such a tribute is immature and childish. And they do, of course, have a point. However, given the unlikelihood of George W. Bush ever receiving the tribute his actions so obviously warrant – namely, a speedy war crimes trial followed by a painful public execution – naming a shit factory after him will just have to do.

Willie: Yeah, I know what you mean. You know, the other day, I took one o’ them, uh—?

Frankie: Meat thermometers?

Willie: Yeah! And I just shoved it into my ear, you know? As far as it could go, you know? But then I took one o’ them, uh—?

Frankie: Ball-peen hammers?

Willie: Right. And just whacked it a few times right in there, you know.

Frankie: Boy, that must smart.

Willie: I know! I HATE when THAT happens.

With Memorial Day tomorrow, Our President gets it:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Downright Christ-like in his empathy, isn’t he?

So, you want to start swiftboating me before I even win the nomination, George? Okay, asswipe, have some of this.

(link via The Goat)

UPDATE: Lest the context be lost in all this, it would behoove us to remember that the person currently accusing his political opponents of “appeasement” is, um, this guy.

(Originally posted on May 1st, 2006; bumped up and updated with new links.)

O glorious day! We were prepared to mark the illustrious passing of May 1st by wishing all and sundry a happy May Day, Beltane, and/or Walpurgisnacht. However, it has recently come to our attention that this particular day is sacred to many, many others folks besides all the Celts, Druids, Wiccans, Pagans, and Anarcho-syndicalists in the hizz-ouse.

For example, lazy people. Did you know that today is National Phone In Sick Day? If you’re reading this at work, then you obviously didn’t! Sucker!

In addition, today is also a sacred day to those who revere and exalt our very own Dear Leader. For, on a glorious May 1st three four five short years ago, Dear Leader proclaimed not one, but two holidays – Loyalty Day and Mission Accomplished Day! This twin killing billing serves an ingenious purpose: if, at some point during the course of today, you happen to hear some objectively pro-terrorist nogoodnik point out that 2,262 of the 2,399 3,212 of the 3,351 3924 of the 4063 American fatalities in Iraq have occured since Dear Leader’s war ended, merely change the subject and challenge their patriotism by asking them if they know it’s Loyalty Day!

If you happen to live in Maine or Massachusetts, tomorrow is Patriot’s Day. In honor of the holiday, I decided to take a drive down to Kennebunkport and let the President know what I’ve thought of his job performance these past 7+ years:

Yes, I’m fully aware that Dear Leader was not actually home. Had he been, the road for miles around Walker’s Point would have been closed off by the Secret Service in order to prevent various and sundry riff raff like me (otherwise known as “voters”) from showing up and pestering Our President (otherwise known as “our employee.”)

I’m pretty sure that under Article 666 of the Patriot Act, making fun of Dear Leader constitutes treason. So if I happen to disappear and none of you ever hear from me again, you’ll know why.

If only the good lord had seen fit to strike me stone blind ten minutes ago, I would’ve been spared the trauma of seeing this picture:

The Red Sox met with President George W. Bush at the White House today. Notably missing from the proceedings was Manny Ramirez, whose absence was noted by Bush. “Manny Ramirez isn’t here, I guess his grandmother died again,” Bush joked.

For God’s sake, Tek, don’t shake his hand! You’ll get Loser Karma all over you! Your ACL will pop like a grape in a microwave!

I try to console myself with the knowledge that every World Series winner has a silly photo op on the White House lawn the following spring, and the Sox owners are all big time Democratic contributors, and Curt Schilling was probably the only person who actually enjoyed meeting our stupid cracker Preznit, and the photo op probably drove uber-Republican George Steinbrenner into a fit of apoplectic, jealous rage…

But still, it’s painful to look at. My eyeballs will take days to recover.

Welp, the votes from Maine’s Democratic caucuses are just about all tallied up, and it looks like Obama won by a landslide. I had planned to attend the caucuses, but it snowed all day, so I stayed home. However, so many people braved the bad weather that the official turnout broke state records. These people are obviously all far better human beings than I am.

This, the latest in a string of consecutive wins for Obama, has triggered chaos and shakeups in the Clinton campaign. It should also pull him just about even in total delegates, despite the most Herculean efforts of those scrupulously dedicated professionals at Fox News to convince everybody otherwise:

In other fantastic news for Democrats, John McCain has received the official endorsement of George W. Bush. Amazingly enough, even at this late date, Dear Leader remains so well-insulated from the undeniable fact of his own staggering unpopularity that he doesn’t seem to realize that his endorsement of McCain’s campaign represents the kiss of death:

Regarding attacks on his performance from Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Bush said, “If the Democrat party feels like they can win an election by focusing on me, I think they’ll be making a huge tactical mistake.”

Of Obama, the president said, “I certainly don’t know what he believes in.” In response, an Obama campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, said: “Of course President Bush would attack the one candidate in this race who opposed his disastrous war in Iraq from the start. But Barack Obama doesn’t need any foreign policy advice from the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation.”

Of course, this could all be a ruse. Perhaps Dubya is actually smarter than I give him credit for, and knows full well how disastrous his “endorsement” is for McCain’s chances. Perhaps this is just George’s way of delivering one final kick to the balls of the man he smeared into the ground back in 2000.

Regardless of the reason behind DubYa’s endorsement, the die is cast: he has put his official stamp of approval on John McCain’s campaign, where it will hang like a poisonous millstone for the remainder of this election season. If you think these pictures won’t be showing in every Democratic television ad after the convention, you’re nuts.

   
(Above: candidate, albatross)

Face it, Republicans: this is the final nail in your political coffins. You’re going down like the Hindenburg in November. Granted, your imminent election defeat, while immensely gratifying to those of us who actually want the human race to survive the next four years, is far less punishment than you all deserve for having spent every waking hour of the past eight years doing everything in your collective power to run this country into the ground and turn it into a sick mockery of everything it once stood for.

But it’s a start.

Last night, in his final State of the Union speech, President Bush said…

Um…

I, uh…

Aw, the hell with it.

Why bother, at this late date? What’s the point? I just don’t have the energy for it. Besides, you already know what I think of the man, and if you read this blog regularly, you probably feel the same way about him.

He is George W. Bush. Lying is as natural to him as breathing. That’s all you really need to know, but if you truly hunger to hear what Dubya said and how pointless and wrong it was, check out the Rude Pundit. As usual, the Rude One sums up the STFU SOTU more succinctly and savagely than any of us mere mortals could ever hope to.

Here, look at some nice pictures instead. I took these on Sunday, when I went for a walk in the snow around Portland’s Back Bay.

There, I feel better already.