A guy's got to have some line he just won't cross.

So I keep hearing from Republicans that the problem is that Joe Biden is a socialist and will completely destroy the wholesomely juicy capitalist goodness of the United States if elected.

Y'know what?

If Joe Biden WAS a socialist and ran on a platform to the left of Leon Trotsky I'd vote for him before I'd vote for Donald Trump. 

 If the Democratic nominee was the ghost of Leon Trotsky who promised to massacre all the wealthy I'd vote for him before I'd vote for Donald Trump.

If the Democratic nominee was a drag queen named Twinkles LaBarr who promised that if elected she would outlaw God, make every American share a single bathroom, and crown herself Dragon Queen I'd vote for her in a heartbeat before I'd fucking vote for Donald Fucking Trump.

Because I believe that a man just has to have some moral standards below which he will not sink.

I am an Oregonian!

It's this kind of guy that makes me a proud Beaver (or Duck, whatever - Oregonian..!)

"...Jim Weaver, who was an Oregon congressman in the 70s and 80s. Weaver, who was the grandson of the 1892 Populist presidential candidate of the same name, was a sort of iconoclastic liberal who was mostly known for being quite pugnacious and even obnoxious to his opponents. Anyway, Weaver and Reagan’s diabolical Secretary of the Interior James Watt hated each other. Weaver would lambaste Watt during hearings, outraging his Republican colleagues. Watt was of course the bête noire of the environmental movement in the 1980s."

Apparently Loomis discovered the gem below in Weaver's papers. You have to enlarge the sheet to read the typed text, but trust me; it's well worth it.

U.S. politics is sadly devoid of the Jim Weavers today, although Donald Trump appears to have all the pugnacity with none of the brains. I regret that I never met Weaver, although I'm proud that he represented my state in the Congress. I suspect that he, in his retirement somewhere in Lane County, surely has a truly memorable take on the present State of the Union.

Operation Whatzit

James Wolcott finds the name of our Wings Over Libya adventure pretty funny:

"Isn't Odyssey Dawn part of the fab Carnival Cruises fleet?" tweets Tom Watson.

To me, Odyssey Dawn suggests the name of a Seventies porn star, one of those spacier ones who made a couple of films until the prospect of working again with Ron Jeremy sent her back into the soap bubble from whence she came, and off she floated.

Yes, I can almost hear it now, the voice of coming attractions announcing: "Odyssey Dawn in Harold Lime's Hot Dog Girls II, starring Leslee Bovee, Desiree Cousteau, and introducing Sandy Melons as the Surfer Chick..."

Other talking heads had other ideas, including "a Carnival cruise ship", "a Yes album", "a stripper", "a Stephenie Meyer novel", "a Tom Clancy novel", "a Philip K Dick novel", (that's a lot of novels!), "a Cabbage Patch kid", "The name of one of Frank Zappa's kids", and "a straight-to-video movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme".

Personally, I kind of like the idea that the name the DoD has tagged this thing with is just two random words. The fakey "code names" that had been ginned up to make the little wars they designated sound cooler and funn-er than they really were, like "Just Cause", "Desert Storm", "Iraqi Freedom" were making me throw up a little in the back of my mouth.

But either way, we've come a long way from the days of "Operation Killer" and "Operation Ripper".

I'm still not sure whether that's good, bad, or just...different.

Take a memo, Astaroth...

Dear Pat Robertson;

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.

I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best,

Satan

(not original, I know, but too funny not to repost. What IS it with this guy? H/T to "Alterdestiny" and the original author, Lily Coyle in the great city of Minneapolis.

11 or better on 1d20 to save for "excessive media exposure"...

If you know or care nothing about Dungeons and Dragons, stop now.

Otherwise, you might want to wander over here and read this little take on Tundra Barbie's "autobiography" (if by "autobiography" you mean "dictated by me to someone who could write"...).

Best graf: "Plus, on every single page she bemoans her 8 INT build and blames her horrible playing on everyone else! It's her fault for putting all her stat points into Charisma!"

Quick read, good funny. Plus, you actually get to see the words "Sarah Palin" without something adjacent to them that that makes you want to throw up a little in the back of your mouth.

U R pwned, noob.

Okay, I don't do online gaming (don't have the time, gah). But even I get the funny here:US Democracy Server: Patch Day
Version 44.0

President
- Leadership: Will now scale properly to national crises. Intelligence was not being properly applied.
- A bug has been fixed that allowed the President to ignore the effects of debuffs applied by the Legislative classes.
- Drain Treasury: There appears to be a bug that allowed loot to be transferred from the treasury to anyone on the President’s friends list, or in the President’s party. We are investigating.
- Messages to and from the President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
- Messages originating from the President were being misclassified as originating from The American People.
- A rendering error that frequently caused the President to appear wrapped in the American Flag texture has been addressed.Vice President
- The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.
- No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.
- The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.
- Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.
Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
- A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President’s visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Read the rest. Thanks, Armchair Generalist.

Increase Your Manhood!

Remember all that ranting I did about the election that seems to have been going on since the Trojan War and finally, FINALLY ends tomorrow?

Well, here's the folks at "JibJab.com" who say sorta the same thing - but great googly moogly are they funny...

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

It has to be my low sense of humor, but what really got me howling was Bill's little joke about "close, but no cigar" at which point Hillary clubs his philandering ass. I think I giggled fairly nonstop through the rest.

Enjoy.

Great big, immense, monstrous hat tip to The Clueless Carolina Girl, without whom I'd still lack the inside story on Two Hundred FUCKING Dollars Worth of Sea World.

Wassuuupp?

Now.

You know me, and you know that I don't buy all this Obamessiah "Change" bullshit. Dude's a politician, the country is vaporlocked with debt and the expected results of twenty years of dumb choices and bloated crony capitalism politics. I don't honestly think that if the D's win next week the next four years will be that much better.

But.

The alternative is SO much worse. And, besides...

...this is flat out fuckin' funny.(h/t to Nancy Nall!)

We Are Amused

Hey...enough of the political gloom. Don't go away mad! Here's a Friday treat to sweeten the dour mood:Check out the "New Adventures of Queen Victoria" both at the linked website and at "goComics.com".

You may loofah my stretchmarks, Albert.