G'nite Barn........

Thanks for the laughs, man. We'll miss ya down here.

Bollocks to the Hall of Fame

Now THAT'S punk! Hellena applauds the Sex Pistols for keepin' true to their punk roots. Way to go, blokes!

Apparently Due to a Shortage of Real Terrorists....

...rock musicians have now become a target for security concerns. On January 30, Henry Rollins was approached by an Aussie anti-terrorism worker who informed him that his choice of reading material had prompted an anonymous report to the agency. Henry's account is priceless.

“I was reading a book called Jihad by Ahmed Rashid which is a history of Central Asia. I didn't speak to the man next to me past how do you do. I think Ahmed Rashid is published by Yale University Press. Bush's alma mater. Please tell your government and everyone in your office to go fuck themselves. Tell them twice. If your boss is looking for something to do, you can tell him I suggest he go fuck himself. Baghdad's safer than my hometown and your PM is a sissy. You have a nice night.”

And in this week's news, singer Morrissey was questioned to see if he was a threat to U.S. or British national security. Who's next? Maybe Marilyn Manson for his, ooooooh, dark portrayal of Lewis Carroll's Phantasmagoria? Hey Brian, you might want to make sure you don't use the word "bomb" any where in the production, ya hear?

Why Ann Coulter is a Parody of Herself

Unable to respond civilly to protests at her recent Indiana University speaking engagement, Ann Coulter managed to cross over from humor to bad taste when she addressed one young man as "gay boy." This was immediately defended by the IU College Republican President who stated what the rest of us have known for a long time; Coulter is to be viewed as entertainment material only. The exchange:

During her question-and-answer session, Coulter responded to both fans and protesters. One comment that drew strong audience reactions came from a young man who asked her if she didn't like Democrats, wouldn't it just be better to have a dictatorship? Coulter responded with a jab at the way the student talked.

"You don't want the Republicans in power, does that mean you want a dictatorship, gay boy?" she said.

IU College Republicans President Shane Kennedy defended Coulter's comments by stressing that the speech was for entertainment and attendees should have expected Coulter to say controversial comments.

"I think the guy could have been more respectful to her," he said. "I mean, we already know that she was going to be controversial and she was just saying what people were thinking. If you are going to talk like you are gay, then Ann Coulter is going to call you gay. Of course, she said it in a spiteful tone, but it was expected.",

Ah, that makes Hellena feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Also during the "speech" Coulter raised some controversy when she sputtered the phrase, "brown boys." Since the Rude Pundit already has a delightful dissertation on Coulter's inability to not be a racist cunt.

Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat

From the "You just can't make this shit up" file -

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.
The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

Hellena will let the reading audience come up with their own punch line for this one.

Sometimes Hellena Just Wants to Scream...

In a statement released this afternoon in regards to the Mosque bombing in Iraq, Preznit Chimperor had the following to say:

"The act was an evil act," Bush said. "The destruction of a holy site is a political act intending to create strife. So I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out. And we will continue to work with those voices of reason to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy that unites people and doesn't divide them."

He said the United States was serious in its commitment to help rebuild the Golden Mosque.

"We understand its importance to Iraqi society and we want to stand side by side with the government in making sure that beautiful dome is restored," Bush said.

Well, let's see.... America is completely divided in how we feel about the Bush administration, but we're going to teach another country that has been involved in internal social conflicts for many years how to unite? And on top of that, we're gonna fix their purty mosque while one of our largest cities, and the adjoining areas putrifies and rots from a hurricane that hit 6 months ago? Brilliant, just brilliant.....

Dick Chaney Quail Hunt Game

Watch the birdie!!

Cheney Was Hunting Illegally....

Ya just can't make this shit up...

Neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor the hunting partner he accidentally shot last weekend purchased the $7 hunting stamps required under state law, Texas Parks and Wildlife officials said Monday.
A blast from Mr. Cheney's shotgun wounded Austin lawyer Harry Whittington in the face, neck and chest. The wounds were not life-threatening. In its report, the state agency that oversees hunting and fishing said it found neither Mr. Cheney nor Mr. Whittington had purchased the game bird stamp required to hunt quail in Texas. Both had valid hunting licenses, Mr. Cheney's a non-resident license.

The story just gets better & better.............

Black, Black Like My Soul....

Or a better title might be, "This Should Be Interesting."

BERLIN (AFP) - Gothic US rocker Marilyn Manson announced at the Berlin Film Festival that he plans to direct a film based on the diary of Lewis Carroll in which he will play the part of the writer of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".

Manson, his hair jet-black and his face painted a deathly white, said he wanted to show the dark obsessions of the Victorian author rather than make a period film because that would be "boring".

"It is very much about his obsessions, not so much about the Victorian era. There will be sex," he told reporters.

"Dead Eye" Dick Cheney Roundup

Picture from bushandcheneysuck.com/
And the hilarity ensues....
Best Headline goes to WTF Is It Now?: Dick shoots load in man's face
Brad Blog reports Whittington actually in ICU
Bob Cesca on The Huffington Post
The Dependable Renegadewith another Elmer Fudd picture
Atrios reports it was a "canned hunt." Hey, didn't Dick make fun of Kerry for that?
Fire Dog Lake isn't laughing about the "ladies gun"
CorrenteWire is inspired to witing songs
James Wolcott
even Jesus Gerneral

DailyKos Top 10

From the home office, Dick Cheney's Top 10 Excuses for Shooting That Guy:

10. Sure, like you've never seen seen giant game birds wearing day glo orange vests
9. Warrantless domestic spying revealed he was getting phone calls from al Queda
8. If the Vice President does it, its not against the law
7. Hoping to put him in a persistent vegetative state so the GOP could pass a law to keep him alive
6. Thought he was hunting Dan Quayle
5. The love between them could not survive back in Washington
4. Birds, Cows, People-- with my eyesight I'm lucky I hit anything
3. Positive the guy's family will welcome him as a liberator
2. Pheasants? I thought we were hunting peasants
and the number one Cheney excuse for shooting that guy:
1. Open season on liberals started early this year

Another Top 10 from eBobGeiger.com: :

10. Sick and tired of Whittington’s “Hey, I’m having a heart attack” jokes
9. Pushed over edge by Dixie Chicks and Streisand blasting on pick-up truck stereo
8. Ongoing dispute over whether it’s acceptable to torture quail before shooting them
7. Thought he saw Michael Moore on other side of tree line
6. Bombed out of his gourd on Wild Turkey and Lone Star Beer
5. Companion’s ill-advised decision to wear Moveon.org sweatshirt
4. Was trying to impress Jodie Foster
3. Whittington’s repeated ribbing that Bush is actually the “real president”
2. Targeting scope on rifle made by Halliburton

1. Because he’s a wartime vice president, damn it

Secret Prisons? We Don't Have No Secret Prisons

Well, not any more..... According to this report, the U.S. is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for Al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat.

A-Hunting We Will Go, A-Hunting We Will Go

"Shhhhhhhh.... be vewy, vewy, quiet......." While quail hunting yesterday in south Texas, Dick "Elmer" Cheney accidentally shot fellow hunter, attorney Harry Whittington, in an apparent accident when he believed the quail to be under attack from Al Queada. Commenting on the shooting, Sarah Brady replied to reporters, "I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time,now I know I was right to be nervous."

We're all nervous, Sarah, we're ALL nervous.

Misstatement of the Union

As amazing as this must sound, the President left out a few things when surveying the State of the Union:

• He proudly spoke of "writing a new chapter in the story of self-government" in Iraq and Afghanistan and said the number of democracies in the world is growing. He failed to mention that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan yet qualify as democracies according to the very group whose statistics he cited.
• Bush called for Congress to pass a line-item veto, failing to mention that the Supreme Court struck down a line-item veto as unconstitutional in 1998. Bills now in Congress would propose a Constitutional amendment, but none have shown signs of life.
• The President said the economy gained 4.6 million jobs in the past two-and-a-half years, failing to note that it had lost 2.6 million jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office. The net gain since Bush took office is just a little more than 2 million.
• He talked of cutting spending, but only "non-security discretionary spending." Actually, total federal spending has increased 42 percent since Bush took office.
• He spoke of being "on track" to cut the federal deficit in half by 2009. But the deficit is increasing this year, and according to the Congressional Budget Office it will decline by considerably less than half even if Bush's tax cuts are allowed to lapse.
• Bush spoke of a "goal" of cutting dependence on Middle Eastern oil, failing to mention that US dependence on imported oil and petroleum products increased substantially during his first five years in office, reaching 60 per cent of consumption last year.

Though Factcheck.org did not find anything factually incorrect in the President's Jan. 31 State of the Union address to Congress and the nation, they did not some "selective use of statistics," and that "Bush omitted some relevant facts that tended to make the state of the union look less rosy than he presented."

Read the entire report here.

American Civics Lesson Part II

What do you get when you a song titled "Asshole" and string together an array of pictures depicting America as it is today? Genius, pure genius. when you're done watching the film, try typing "miserable failure" into Google.com and hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

From the "Stupid Airline Passenger" Files....

So, imagine you're working the X-ray machine at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, when you see what appears to be a skull in someone's luggage. Thden you realize the incoming flight is from Haiti.

Myrlene Severe, 30, a Haitian-born permanent U.S. resident, was charged Friday with smuggling a human head into the U.S. without proper documentation.

OK, not to mince semantics here, but is there proper documentaion for smuggling a human head?

"It still had teeth, hair and bits of skin and lots of dirt," Gonzalez said.

Severe told authorities she had obtained the package in Haiti for "use as a part of her voodoo beliefs," ICE Special Agent Erick Hernandez wrote in an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint.

"Severe also stated that the purpose of the package was to ward off evil spirits," Hernandez wrote.

Severe, who also was charged with failing to declare the head and transporting hazardous material in air commerce, faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted of all charges, prosecutors said.

So, remember, kids, if you're bringing a recently exhumed human head into the country, fill out your documentation and Customs Declaration forms. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a world of voodoo doodoo.

What a Shock: Iraq Worse Off Now

From The New York Times yesterday as reported by James Glanz:

Iraq Utilities Are Falling Short of Prewar Performance
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Of seven measures of public services performance presented at the committee hearing by the inspector general's office, only one was above preinvasion values.

Those that had slumped below those values were electrical generation capacity, hours of power available in a day in Baghdad, oil and heating oil production and the numbers of Iraqis with drinkable water and sewage service.

Only the hours of power available to Iraqis outside Baghdad had increased over prewar values.

Also published on February 9, and written by James Glanz:

Report Says Number of Attacks by Insurgents in Iraq Increases
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — Sweeping statistics on insurgent violence in Iraq that were declassified for a Senate hearing on Wednesday appear to portray a rebellion whose ability to mount attacks has steadily grown in the nearly three years since the invasion.

The statistics were included in a report written by Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, who testified before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Iraq stabilization and reconstruction.

Read the full version of the first story here, and the second here.

Yup. We're doing some fine work in Iraq. Couple these accounts with Haliburton missing billions of dollars and then please explain to Hellena exactly what the fuck we are doing over there.

Rev. Lowery Responds to Criticism

Thanks to John Amato's Crooks & Liars the web world can watch the interview between Keith Olbermann and the Rev. Joseph Lowery where Rev. Lowery addresses the accusations of improper funeral etiquette from the rightwingnut faction.

Darwin Award Meritorious Live Act Award

OREM, Utah - An man who called police to report the theft of a quarter-pound of marijuana was arrested when police recovered the bag of pot and then invited him to come to the Public Safety Building to identify it.

"You!! Out of the gene pool now!!"

Oy vey. Thanks to The Tao of Cheese for posting this story - Hellena would have missed it otherwise.

Holy Totally Uncomfortable Situations, Batman!!

Hope the Preznit had his 12 hour deodorant on.....

Delusional Fucktard Fundies

(AP Photo/David Kohl)

Being a huge supporter of Freedom of Speech, Hellena finds herself having to temper her temper for this particularly foul group of fundaMENTALists. For years, Fred Phelps & his "church," Westover Baptist, has been picketing the funerals of gay men & women carrying signs with slogans like "God Hates Fags." More recently they have started picketing the funerals of servicemen and women killed in Iraq & Afghanistan because as Phelps attorney daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper says, "the soldiers were struck down by God because they were fighting for a country that harbors homosexuals and adulterers."

Several states are now rushing to enact legislation to ban protests at funerals so loved ones may bury their dead in peace.

In response to that, Phelps-Roper states that lawmakers are "trying to introduce something that will make them feel better about the holes we're punching in the facade they live under. If they pass a law that gets in our way, they will be violating the Constitution, and we will sue them for that."

Um, okay.

Hey you unholy cunt, if there IS a Heaven, Hellena is pretty fucking sure you and your congregation won't ever get close to it.

Let's hope the legislation gets passed, and that other states follow suit before some bereaved friend or relative takes matters into their own hands.