The Wee Pedant Has Landed

The wee one herself:

The lovely and (obviously) talented Mrs. Pedant spent about 15 hours in labor, most of it spent NOT swearing like a longshoreman. I leave the balance of the time to your no doubt fertile imaginations.

So You Say This Is (War On) Christmas...

Let's start with this. As an Ex-military guy, if you say "War On..." I feel that I need to see bodies. If you can't show me the bodies, you can't call it a war. The "War on Drugs" at least qualifies due in no small part to trigger happy cops. The "War On Christmas"...unless there has been a rash of drive-bys on Mall Santas that has gone mysteriously unreported...not so much.

So, as Rogers points on in the excellent post I Saw You Looking At Agnosticism's Ass, Christianity and Christians have been acting awfully needy lately. Co-dependant clingy needy. "Girlfriend you're really starting to think about dumping, if only because of all the neediness," needy.

Now, and work with me here, EVERY major candidate for President and the vast, vast majority of the MINOR ones...the ones who can say whatever the fuck pops into their pointy little heads because it just doesn't matter (I'm looking at you, Ron "Fiat Money" Paul)...spend a considerable amount of time dry humping an altar somewhere hoping that a photographer will come by and take a picture of them fellating the Jesus on a Cross so that they can establish their "Good Christian" bona fides. Somehow, I just don't think your average Atlanta-area Megachurch-goer is in all that much danger of having the place raided by preatorians and getting their asses thrown into the gladiatorial pits.

So why "War On Christmas"? Well, we can start with the rise of Faux News, who needed to fill 24 hours a day with conservative friendly drool. Telling people that they're wonderful because they hate taxes only lasts so long. A producer looking to hand red meat to the right wings can't help but notice that, first, despite the power they wield they LOVE to feel sorry for themselves, and second, a shitload of them self-identify as good Christian Churchgoers.

So once again, I have to sit here and listen to this self-righteous drivel from folks who reply to "Happy Holidays" with a pointed "Merry Christmas". Hey, asshole, if you wanted to SAY "Fuck You" at least have the balls to actually say it. I say Happy Holidays interchangeably with Merry Christmas (more on that later) for one reason ONLY. I am a LAZY asshole. "Happy Holidays" is just easier than "Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Happy New Year and a very festive crapload of minor holidays centered around the Winter Solstice for some suspicious reason."

Which leads me to why I, a notorious agnostic (what can I say, it's a really cute ass), have no problem with Merry Christmas. You want "war on christmas"? Here it comes. As far as I'm concerned "Christmas" is just the latest name for the Solstice Holiday, and any excuse to get together with family and eat myself round is a Good Thing (cf., Thanksgiving), but the lewt is bonus. Plus it's nice to be reminded that while there is two more months of snow and sleet and all other manner of white shit followed by a month of freaking mud and dirty slush, there will in fact be another summer (which is loaded with mosquitoes and insane humidity...I can be a little discontented...really I like Autumn, give me a good Harvest Festival any day of the week). You've gotten your crappy religion all over my tasty solstice celebration.

Everyone is kinda certain that Christmas is simply the heir of the Saturnalia and various other pagan festivals. Let me suggest something FAR MORE subversive:
Easter and Passover have their roots in pagan rebirth and renewal legends and celebrations. Christ is Dead, Christ Is Risen? The sparing of the Jews from Matt Damon...I mean the Angel of death? Pretty standard really. Judaism isn't even unique in it's insistence that there is only one god.

You want war? The central tenets of your faith are eminently predictable sequalae of preceding cultural beliefs.

Happy Holidays.

Huck YOU!

Via Kevin Drum I see that it turns out that the Deciderderator was using the Constitution for toilet paper MUCH earlier than previously thought. 9/11 wasn't the initiator of warrantless wiretapping so much as a wonderful post hoc pretext.

Ya know, I really should feel more betrayed by this this. But the Bush Administration has never failed to live down to my worst expectations and then some. If I didn't know better, I'd think it's all a vast performance art piece entitled, "You get the government your ignorant, logic hating ass deserves."

In fact, in the last few days I've been reading about increasing levels of, chagrin is too mild a word, let us say "pants wetting paroxysms" concerning Mike Huckabee. My personal favorite comes from John Cole's Balloon Juice, a right wing blog that has become a left wing blog because it turns out that a)Mr. Cole has some level of intellectual integrity and b)the Man really is out to fuck you up. He links to Andrew Sullivan, Ace of Spades (!) (the link is to Sullivan's link...I have SOME standards about how I pollute my eyeballs, thank you very much), Dan Riehl, Captain Ed, and of all people Peggy "Extreme Unctuousness" Noonan.

My favorite two bits:

I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called “anti-Christian” or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics.

Enjoy your new GOP, folks. And here is something else to think about- are the evangelicals going to support Romney or Giuliani if you do manage to trash Huckabee enough to secure the nomination for them? Will the eye for an eye crowd learn to forgive and forget? Have fun!

and:

Can schadenfreude be fatal?

God I hope not. Otherwise, I am SCREWED. Seriously, as others have said before me, THIS is what the Repubs have said they want for 30 fucking years. Whether they REALLY wanted it, or just claimed to want it so that they could continue to loot assets like Eva Peron really doesn't matter. They've made their bed. Their choice is to continue to date the two bag, coyote morning skank they've cultivated or pull their heads out of their asses and vote Dem.

Just To Set The Professor Off..

Because it's amusing when it happens. And because I'm an asshole.

Oh, NO, You Didn't Just SAY That

According to a Mitt Romney (you remember him, the Christian hating fanatical cultist, right?) spokesperson, "[Romney] continues to believe that this campaign should not be about questioning a candidate's faith. While it is fair to criticize an opponent's record or policy positions, it is out of bounds for one candidate to question another's personal faith."

Unless the candidate is a Democrat. In which case, his (or her) atheist, gay marriage, abortion permitting ass is fair game. After all, "Freedom Requires Faith."

And Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

All Your Dreams Come True

From "Nobody Scores"

NIE, NIE, NIE, I Can't Heeeaaaarr You!!!

As pointed out by Josh Marshall at TPM, it turns out that if you're a winger who gets his news from Fox, you might be forgiven for not knowing about the National Intelligence Estimate two days later.

As Fox has been doing a bang up job of burying something the Bushies find embarrassing. Since they've been strongly implying that the next thing that Iran would do to us was nuke a city or two, you might think they'd ease off talking about it. You know, I'm not really expecting a "We screwed up," but I didn't expect this.

Shorter Bush: Fuck reality, I'm not changing my mind no matter what.

Seriously. Fox is BURYING a story that directly contradicts what Darth Cheney has been telling us for months. How the hell did they even COVER that travesty of a press conference without promoting that news that the Bushies have been, ya'know, LYING to us, because they want to get their war on?

And now the wingnuttosphere is denying the entire premise of the NIE. Basically, it's all a CIA plot to discredit Bush, because they want Iran to take over America. Why exactly the CIA hates America is not really clear. Maybe because they accept reality. Who the fuck knows?

The reason your co-worker is acting like Iraq has always been going well, that Saddam had WMDs, that the US takes care of the troops and Iran is working on "newk-you-lar" weapons? They watch Fox.

Do you suppose Fox'll be as deferential to the next President?