McCain sings Streisand! HT: Susan Gertson

Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

First, some context: Madonna (yeah, her) compared McCain to Hitler. Thus this response:

The Obama camp thinks ridiculing John McCain for not being wired enough will win him votes. Hmm.

Consider this, from Jacob Weisberg wrote in Slate in 2000 — eight years ago

Six months ago, no one would have pegged McCain as the most cybersavvy
of this year’s crop of candidates. At 63, he is the oldest of the bunch and because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard.

But McCain’s job as chairman of the Senate commerce committee forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him. Well before he announced his exploratory committee, McCain had assimilated the notion that the Web could be vital to the kind of insurgent, anti-establishment campaign he wanted to run.

…Last night [remember folks, this was 8 years ago] McCain participated in another Web first: the first-ever “cyberfundraiser.” At the event, he boasted about the latest returns from his Web site. In the first eight days following the New Hampshire primary, he raised $2.6 million on the Internet, for a Web total of $4.1 million from 40,000 individual donors. According to Fose, money is still coming in from the candidate’s Web site at the rate of about $100,000 a day. In addition, the Web site has had 10 million hits in the week following New Hampshire. Some 100,000 people have clicked a button asking for volunteers who want to be actively involved with McCain’s campaign. One of them was Andy Grove, the chairman of Intel.

So Obama is throwing rocks at McCain for not using email, while proving his campaign can’t or won’t use Google.

I wondered how long it would take for this to start. From Powerline:

Reader Steven Hess offers a palindrome in honor of Sarah Palin: “Are we not drawn onward to new era?”

And this:

Iowahawk, hilarious as ever:

With new polls showing Barack Obama’s once-commanding lead over John McCain all but evaporated, the Obama campaign announced today it has begun deploying its vast volunteer army of downtown hipster douchebags to help reconnect the presumptive Democratic candidate with middle-American voters.

“Unlike Iraq, this is one surge that is actually going to work,” said Obama campaign manager David Axlerod.

Sources within the campaign say the new strategy was prompted by recent national poll trends indicating McCain pulling even with, and in some instances even overtaking, Obama. More troubling for the campaign were internal tracking polls that show the candidate losing significant ground in key Midwestern, Southern and Western battleground states. As the numbers dropped, some within the campaign were left in stunned disbelief.

“It really didn’t make sense,” said Carly Voorhees, an East Village experimental performance poet, Cooper Union graduate student and member of Obama’s 600-expert foreign policy team. “We knew in theory there were a handful of stump-toothed biblebillies and neocon dead-enders out there, but by all rights we should have had at least a 60%-75% lead. Even after Barack threw that awesome victory rave in Germany, the numbers kept deteriorating.”

“At first we were stumped,” she added. “Then it dawned on us — McSame’s subliminal attack ads were stoking the deep-rooted, latent racism of white middle America. We needed to warn these uneducated simpletons that McSame was exploiting their superstitions and genetic bigotry. The big question was — how?”

A Few Good D-Bags

At first, the Obama team looked into major media buys in key battleground states. But with a campaign budget already strained by price increases in arugula and Hawaiian airfare, the impact was deemed to be minimal. Instead, they turned to a key campaign asset — a dedicated cadre of young urban hipster douchebags willing to take Obama’s message of change to America’s small town streets and rural blacktops. An intensive eVite recruitment campaign on websites like the Daily Kos and Huffington Post yielded over 1,500 volunteers for the potentially dangerous mission.

“I couldn’t be prouder of all of you wonderful young indy rock assholes,” said Axlerod at a swearing-in ceremony at the campaign’s official training center in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “You represent our party’s finest, the best of best — you are our Douchebag Delta Force.”

Highly motivated, and with skills ranging from post-modern gender theory to espresso cafe blackboard chalk art, the volunteers were eager to get to work on the campaign trail. But before deployment Obama officials insisted that all recruits undergo an intensive training regimen to prepare them for the rigors of life in Red Country.

Read it all.

From the HBO series, Flight of the Conchords, this music video is a perfect sendup of liberal socially conscious music.

Ace of Spades:

There is spin, and then there is spin: a CNBC/NYT reporter claims that Joe Biden’s occasional bursts of old-school dumb-but-not-hateful racism are actually “refreshing” and “an asset.”

Need I remind anyone that for months the left has been DaVinci Codebreaking every John McCain advertisement for so-called “coded racism.” And they were not praising such “coded racism” as “refreshing” or charming in the least.

Rather the opposite.

But when Joe Biden is genuinely, pleasantly surprised that an African-American manages to wash himself on occasion, it’s a good thing! It just shows, I guess, that he’s “relatable” to all those Racist Older White voters. I guess the idea is that Joe Biden can make the case, “Hey, I’m as surprised as you all are to be running with a darkie. But I have to tell you — he’s one of the ‘good ones,’ like Cosby or Byron Allen. He’s like the new, family-friendly Ice Cube, not the old, angry Ice Cube that your daughter would date to get back at you for not buying her that Mini Cooper she wanted.”

Brilliant.

Allah thinks he’s figured out the highly nuanced distinction: clumsy, retrograde soft-racism that sounds like Archie Bunker getting into it with Meathead is good because it’s right out there out in the open, charming and disarming, whereas McCain’s “racist” ads are coded.

McCain’s “stealth racism” appeals to our lizard brains, while Joe Biden’s open racism appeals to our higher selves.

So there’s McCain’s opportunity, I guess. Start dropping jokes he heard from old Friar Club roasts and/or Rat Pack Vegas shows.

“Hey, I’m glad that Obama is here on stage with me at this debate… now I don’t have to worry about my hub-caps… ”

(audience laughs)

“Hey, Obama, what are you doing out here at the podium? My hotel room’s not clean yet.”

(audience laughs, applauds)

“No, but seriously folks, a lot of people have a problem that Obama’s half-black. Let’s be positive about this. He’s half-white, too.”

(great burst of laughter; as applause dies down, one woman can be heard saying “That’s true, it’s funny because it’s true”)

Ahhh… can’t wait.

(Joke credits: 1, from Amazon Women on the Moon, said of “Slappy” White during the roast/funeral service; 2, Don Rickles, speaking of his opening act Patti LaBelle; 3, Sarah Silverman. “It’s funny because it’s true” — The Simpsons.)

From Exurban League

From the Nose on Your Face, a takeoff from the Life of Brian.

VIDEO HERE 

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

More parodies here.

…imagine what this satirical video might do.

Don Surber has a new, Obamafied version of My Country Tis of Thee:

Thy country,’ tis of me,
Sweet land that gave you me
Of me I sing;
Land that my father tried,
Went home to Kenyan bride,
From every mountainside
My praises ring! 

My native country, me,
Home of the Ivy League,
My name I love.
ANWR we must not drill,
To me a temple build,
Up Matthews leg a thrill,
I am above.

Praise my humility,
That’s hard when you are me,
I’m never wrong.
Let mortal tongues be still,
Let me eat my waffle,
Their drabby lives I fill.
Look at the throng.

Al Gore and John Kerry,
Had not my dignity,
To me, they sing.
Change and hope and progress,
Did nothing in Congress,
All I have’s arrogance:
I’ll be your king.

A counter campaign poster here.

iPets perhaps?

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

From Mary K. Ham. Even the credits have a couple of laughs in them.

Watch here.

Gotta love the slogan : pack less, weigh less, pay less.

Welcome to Derrie-Air, the world’s only carbon-neutral luxury airline, where you don’t have to choose between living the high life and saving the planet. Nine out of ten scientists agree—we need to reduce our carbon emissions or perish from the face of the earth. Air travel is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions and global warming. Derrie-Air will be the only airline that plants trees to offset every pound of carbon that our planes release into the atmosphere.

But not only will we do our part to protect the environment, we will expect you, our passengers, to do your part as well. The magic comes from our one of a kind “Sliding Scale”—the more you weigh, the more you’ll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B. So we will charge passengers based on how much mass they add to the plane. The heavier you and your luggage are, the more trees we’ll plant to make up for the trouble of flying you from place to place.

McCain-Clinton and Obama-Obama.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
– The Sacred Book of Beatles

You’d love to see the plan? Okay, here’s mine. And, yes, I am a “sooper-genius” for coming up with it. If you think about it you’ll know it’s not only right, but that — with a little of that all-American hope for change — Americans will all say,”Yes, we can!”

Look, we all know where this campaign is going and it’s not good. It hasn’t been good for a long, long time and it gets worse by the day. But with a little creativity among the surviving candidates we can still snatch victory from the jaws of wingnuts and moonbats.

Iowahawk, with more hilarious relationship advice from Dear Barry.

Dear Barry:

I try to get along with the people in my neighborhood, but sometimes it can be difficult. Take for example my neighbor “Mahmoud.” Last weekend while I was seeding my lawn, he drove back and forth slowly in front of my house “flipping the bird” from his minivan, which is painted with pictures of bloody corpses and mushroom clouds and “welcome 12th Imam.”  Normally I wouldn’t have given it a second thought (I get “fingered” by a lot of the neighbors), but lately I’ve noticed he has been working on some kind of secret project in his garage with really stinky chemicals. Also, I’ve been getting these constant annoying 3 AM phone calls threatening to kill my kids.

Frankly, I’m sort of worried about the situation, but even the neighbors I get along with tell me I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, and not to make a big deal of it. I don’t want to make waves, but I also don’t want to end up like the Goldbergs who had their house burned down last week. Am I being too much of a “worry wart”? Please help!

Concerned in Northbrook

Dear Concerned:

Misunderstanding and mistrust is a two-way street, and it’s important to ask yourself: what did I do to create this situation? Without thinking, sometimes the things we do can understandably trigger homicidal rage in our friends and neighbors. Put the shoe on the other foot — how would you like it if you had a neighbor who was always showing you up with his big gas-guzzling SUV and manicured hedges?

Before things escalate further, you should take the initiative and invite Mahmoud over for coffee and chit chat.  No preconditions, and maybe you could bring a pie from Bakers Square. While he is enjoying a delicious slice of Boston Cream, let Mahmoud know that you understand his feelings, and you will do whatever it takes to repair your tattered reputation in the neighborhood. As a show of good faith, why not offer him a few bags of fertilizer and fuel for his lawn mower?

Read on.

Scrappleface:

2008-04-19) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the terror group Hamas, in a joint news conference today, announced they had successfully completed the third round of one-party talks aimed at bringing peace to the Jewish territories that border on the Palestinian state.

In a moment reminiscent of the famous 1978 handshake at Camp David among Mr. Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Saadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Mr. Carter today embraced exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal then each man kissed the tomb of former Palestinian Leader Yassir Arafat.

While no one would reveal the details of the intramural peace settlement, Mr. Carter noted that the deal is so comprehensive that it’s “likely to meet the approval of nearly every legitimate nation in the Middle East.”

Chris Weinkopf writes about Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled:

…a searing satire whose critics have largely failed to recognize it for what it is. Instead, they fume over what they perceive as Stein’s unfair treatment of them.

They resent, for example, that Stein’s movie repeatedly associates the unequivocally godless with images of the Berlin Wall, the USSR and even Josef Stalin. They protest the suggestion that evolutionary absolutism poses a dire threat to America’s most-cherished rights. And they decry Stein’s charge that Darwinist thinking led - and naturally leads - to evils like eugenics and Nazism.

Which is to say, they miss the point.

Stein’s film is part parody of, part rebuttal to, the crusading atheists who have risen to prominence in recent years - such as Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. And it employs the same nasty tactics they have perfected.Is it unfair to liken all Darwinists to communists? Of course, but no less so than likening all believers to al-Qaida and the Taliban - a popular trope among the New Atheists.

Is it a stretch to argue that academia’s hostility toward skepticism about the Gospel of Darwin imminently imperils freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom itself? Certainly. So is the claim that scientists who detect hints of design in their research are “anti-science,” and that those who resent the teaching of atheist dogma as fact in public schools are attempting to impose a “theocracy” on us all.

And yes, it’s a cheap shot to pin the wickedness of Adolf Hitler on Charles Darwin’s writings from a century earlier. But, then, so is blaming every abuse committed in the name of God on religion itself.

For 90 minutes, “Expelled” puts its targets in the same uncomfortable, unfair position in which believers have long found themselves in academia and the media. In turning the tables this way, the movie reveals, cleverly and amusingly, that you don’t need to believe in God to be a zealot.

And zealots of any stripe cannot tolerate mockery, nor do they understand when they’re being satirized. 

Sippican Cottage:

I’m going to hang my arse out in the breeze a bit, and start predicting things.

1. I predict I’ll be way off

See, this is going badly already. It’s starting to remind me of my first To-Do lists:

1. Make list
2. Check list
3. Check off “Make list”
4. Check off “Check List”
5. Lunch

So I acknowledge no one knows nuffin’, and I’m as no one as anyone. But the writing is on the wall for all these, if not in my lifetime, than at least my childrens’. Let’s read it:

1. Practically no one will commute to work. Almost no work will be of a physical nature involving drudgery.
2. Large scale farming will shift to a sort of factory setting. Farm animals will no longer be necessary, as flesh for eating will be generated without growing animals. Continent-sized swathes of the Earth will return to wilderness. Populations will again move toward cities, when the only reason they ever left is conquered: Government corruption.
3. We will never run out of anything important.
4. The world can, and will, support many more people than it already does, as long as they are relatively well off. They will be
5. Things like surgery will become obsolete. Common colds and other humdrum maladies will be eradicated. Life spans will be greatly lengthened

From Stuff White People Like:

One of the more popular white person activities of the past fifteen years is attempting to educate others on the evils of multi-national corporations. White people love nothing more than explaining to you how Wal*Mart, McDonalds, Microsoft, Halliburton are destroying the Earth’s culture and resources.

While the growth of multi-national corporations can be attributed to a number of complex social, economic and political factors, many white people prefer to take the word of two trusted sources: No Logo and AdBusters.

Published in 2000, No Logo has been responsible for more white person “enlightenment” than any book since the burning of the library at Alexandria. By reading this one magic book, white people are able to get a full grasp on the evils of multi-national corporations and then regurgitate it to friends and family.

Advanced white people will supplement No Logo with a subscription to AdBusters, where they will learn how to subvert corporate culture and return it to the masses. Specifically, this means taking ads and redoing them to give a negative message about a product. Apparently the belief is that when other people see this ad, they will be hit with an epiphany that their entire existence has been a Matrix-style manufactured universe.

Fark has a collection of suggested flags for the Nanny State. See them all here.

Jonah Goldberg and Frank J. Fleming:

Ever have someone comment on your job who has absolutely no experience whatsoever at it? It’s quite annoying. Now imagine millions of similarly unknowledgeable rubes constantly heckling you, but now they actually have a say on how you do things and could have you fired for disagreeing with them. If you can begin to fathom how unfair — downright mean — that would feel, then you’ll have some understanding for the plight of the politician at the hands of voters.

A politician’s job is as complex as it is important. Without politicians, the U.S. would be thrown into chaos. They run government, and government is the thin line separating us from animals. Were politicians to fail, our entire nation could collapse. Imagine where you’d be if — for just the briefest of moments — Dennis Kucinich weren’t watching out for you like a hawk.

With so much riding on their shoulders, you’d think we’d want to do everything we could to make sure they’re not disturbed and can give their full attention to their work. Instead, politicians’ jobs are constantly interrupted by callous, fickle voters mewling for attention.

How can you tell when a voter is lying? Easy — see whether his mouth is moving. Voters claim they want smaller government while demanding handouts. They say they hate negative campaigns while their blood lust is conspicuous. They’re basically violent schizophrenics. Is it any wonder some politicians are driven to prostitutes just to experience some basic humanity? Given the constant sniping of the American public, is it any wonder that Hillary Clinton thinks she was under sniper fire?

Even when voters do honestly ask for what they want, as surely as the sun rises they will later punish the politician for doing exactly what “we” asked them to do. One day voters will say, “That country is bad! Let’s go to war with them! Do as we demand, or be punished!” Then the next day, they’ll shout, “This is too hard! It was a horrible idea, and it’s all your fault, politicians! You will be punished for this!” This is the sort of behavior we’ve come to expect from spoiled princes and 3-year-olds.

Scrappleface:

New York Gov. David Paterson, who replaced disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer this month, today added to his previous revelations of marital infidelity, and marijuana and cocaine use, by claiming that he has also sniffed glue, tagged subway cars with graffiti, bet on dog fights, driven with his seatbelt unbuckled while talking on a cell phone and fired several shots from the grassy knoll on Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

At his regular daily confessional news conference, Gov. Paterson played down the significance of his past indiscretions, noting that he’s like many New Yorkers who have experimented with everything from “huffing freon to plotting an assassination at the age of nine.”

“I haven’t tried any of that stuff since the 1970s,” said Gov. Paterson, “with the exception of violating my marriage covenant, of course. But the glue, the dogs, the graffiti, the risky driving, the lying-in-wait for the motorcade…that’s all behind me now.”