Not content with achieving Father of the Year Emeritus status for his unique, outside-the-box parenting skills, Alec Baldwin spent yesterday evening on Twitter to once again offer his nuanced, carefully researched insights into a variety of important topics.  In doing so, he offered a powerful challenge to such innovators as Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and even Hanoi Jane for the coveted title of “Hollywood’s Biggest Idiot.”

In the past, I’ve even taken to these pages to defend Alec as a performer.  But as amusing as he is on screen, the fact is that he is a moral illiterate who refuses to let his manifest ignorance hinder his desire to have himself taken seriously as something more than an actor. 

Alec wants to be just like Ronald Reagan, except he’s handicapped by some challenges the Gipper didn’t face – like being a leftist, a jerk and a fool.

The bloviating buffoon apparently got agitated because Georgia decided to execute a cop killer who had spent 22 years failing to convince any jury or judge that the overwhelming evidence against him was inadequate.  Ironically, the police officer Troy Davis finished off with a bullet to the head was an Army veteran – and judging from Alec’s attitude toward our warriors as manifested in his subsequent tweets, he probably thought that fact supported sparing the killer of Officer Mark MacPhail, Sr.

Here’s a selection of some of his inane tweets from his Twitter timeline.  Let’s see who fails to live up to Alec’s exacting standards!

Well, Michelle Malkin certainly does:

C’mon!! Let’s go all Town Hall on that supreme thinker @michellemalkin. A world class, crypto fascist hater!

Davis is dead Does that make you happier, @michellemalkin?

@macandroo @michellemalkin @michellemalkin… Like Palin, but even mire (sic) of a hater.

The ferocious Malkin doesn’t need any help defending herself from this hack’s semi-coherent ranting – though I did jump in through my Twitter account (feel free to review and follow) during the skirmishing to assist by kicking the trembling, twitching carcass Malkin had left behind. 

On the plus side, Malkin can now say she knows what it’s like to be treated like a movie star.  Unfortunately, that star is Kim Bassinger.

Alec doesn’t limit himself to new outrages either – he spices things up with some classics.  For example, he’s one guy who won’t let us forget the nightmare of the Bu$HitlerCheneyHaliburton regime no matter how many years President Obama has been in office:

When do Cheney and Rumsfeld go on trial for murder? Will that trial be in Texas? Georgia?

That’s a great question!  Their crimes include waging war in Iraq, waging war in Afghanistan, keeping Guantanamo open, and other wars in Somalia, Yemen and Libya!  Oh, wait….

Proving himself totally immune to irony, he also tweeted:

Obama….2012

But it’s not just a few Americans who don’t measure up to Alec’s standards – it’s all of us!

Troy Davis is still dead. The gulf is still contaminated. Fukushima is still radioactive. #wecraveignorancesowecanshoplikeamericans

Wait, I thought that a new day dawned in January 2009 where America was respected and loved again?

US death penalty humiliates us in the eyes of much of the world

Alec leaves unsaid the obvious question – who gives half a damn what the motley collection of corrupt, genocidal losers who make up much of the world think?

And Alec reserved special contempt for our troops:

Right-wingers always hide the shameful policies of their nutbag policies behind “supporting the troops.”

Gee, to the extent that I can decipher what it means to “hide the shameful policies of their nutbag policies,” from my vantage point as someone who did more than play one of the troops, I think right-wingers have been pretty damn supportive.  But why should Alec just limit himself to yapping about things he knows anything about – he must allow his mind to run free so he can provide us with the full benefit of his ignorance!

Then there are these gems:

..soldiers are doing their sacred duty at the direction of maniacs like Cheney. We struggle the longer you won’t face that.

You can support the troops and still face the fact that Cheney and Rumsfeld betrayed their country.

Interesting.  So, by carrying out Cheney and Rumsfeld’s nefarious plots, the troops therefore also “betrayed their country,” right?  Or are the troops too dumb to know what they are doing and therefore get a pass?  Alec, I need to know – are our troops morally bankrupt or just stupid?

—–

Hey, are the ones still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan still betraying their county, or did that change at some point?  Alec, I must have your moral guidance!  I mean, when I need a moral leader with an unerring sense of right and wrong, my first instinct is to seek out the guidance of a Hollywood star like you. 

That, or consult Chet, my talking unicorn.

Well, apparently our generation’s greatest moral referee has come to his conclusion:

Wonder if the McPhail family will seek death penalty for US leaders who killed thousands of US soldiers and countless innocent Iraqis

Wow.  Bravo, Alec – you’ve managed to simultaneously label our troops killers of “countless innocent Iraqis” while also trashing the murdered cop’s family, all in just 140 characters!   Yeah, I suspect the MacPhail family would have happily stayed out of the limelight, except the murderer you coddled kind of drew them into it by finishing off their husband and father by shooting him in the head

Oh, here’s my personal favorite of his Deep Thoughts:

@admiralwaugh US soldiers r brave n true. Their leadership is, by n large, borderline sociopathic. If u don’t have guts to face that……

Well, Alec, save your public “US soldiers r brave n true” line for the rubes.  At least have the guts to go full-troop hater.  You know you want to.

But you try to evade having to take a position that even your stunted moral sense tells you will expose you to the unbridled contempt of every decent American.  You hedge.  You embrace the classic troop-hater dodge of only despising (at least in public) the troops’ “leadership.”

You punk. I’ve been part of that leadership you slander in war and peace.  The leaders of our military, from the newest corporal to the highest general, day and night struggle to accomplish their missions while taking care of their troops.  They spend years away from home.  Many of them get hurt; some get killed.  But they “have the guts to face” America’s enemies and they don’t back down.

On the other hand, you call little girls “pigs” over the telephone.

Alec, you are unworthy of further discussion.  You’re not a thinker, you’re not scholar, and you’re not a man.  You’re a privileged clown without the common sense or the common decency to shut your pie hole about better men and women than you’ll ever be. 

You are nothing.  You are dismissed.  Get out.

I understand where it comes from. Musicians usually become Rockstars by appealing to the common man. When they become rich and famous, they have to find ways to appeal to the demographic they abandoned. So they take up causes. Sheryl Crow feigns concern about the environment, for example, even though the energy required for just one tour could satisfy the energy needs of a small American city.

When Bruce Springsteen started singing about blue-collar teenage angst, he was an angry blue-collar guy, barely out of his teens. His jeans would fade from hauling amps, just like any other working stiff. A billion dollars later, he has to work hard to remember the old days; and like most Grammy winning musicians, has a Guatemalan sweatshop put holes in his jeans.

Unlike the other European Rockstars of the eighties (who are forgotten, but for their haircuts), U2 frontman Bono has been able to keep himself relevant for a generation with his Saint Bono routine. He is not just a champion of the working class, he is the superhero for the impoverished and oppressed peoples of the world. He has met with presidents and dictators, leaders of every political and religious stripe, and set up programs where you can still be a commercialist with a conscience by buying a Red™ iPod. He successfully petitioned 23 nations to forgive Third World debt; debt that will eventually have to be picked up by the taxpayers of those 23 nations.

But the truth is, he is, deep down still a Rockstar. Like any human, he wants to keep as much of what he earned to himself. So when we learn that Bono is moving his publishing facilities to a friendlier tax haven, the only question should be: why didn’t he leave years ago? (Actually that one is pretty easy to answer: Artists were granted full tax exemptions on royalties in Ireland; until the financial crisis made them reform their tax policies, and they capped the exemption at €250,000 in 2006.)

But for thousands of true believers, who think we can tax our way to social paradise, Saint Bono’s defection has been a rude awakening. Protesters plan to stage demonstrations during an upcoming U2 show Jun 24. Which shouldn’t be a surprise. The only question should be: why didn’t fans protest five years ago? This major Bono disappointment actually predates “Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark” by four years. (Actually that one is pretty easy to answer too: Pot.)

What these protestors do not understand is despite their ragged appearances, U2 is a billion dollar industry. He isn’t the first Rockstar to display such hypocrisy: John Lennon, who once asked the world to “Imagine no possessions,” moved to NYC in 1975 so he could keep a little more of his own; the nation of Lennon’s birth was more than happy to relieve him of excess possessions.  Mick and the boys took Rolling Stones Inc. to France about the same time, to avoid England’s 83% marginal rate. The Rolling Stones now keep their songboooks in the Netherlands, where royalties compound virtually tax free, and will be handed down to their long impatient heirs without a death tax.

Which is where Bono went. I really don’t begrudge them that. The Netherlands favorable royalties tax has been attracting musicians for years. (Oh yeah, they also have legal pot.) Burdensome tax policy does more to hurt a nation than to help it. Divided equally among the citizenry, U2s entire net worth would only buy a couple dozen pints per Irishman. Certainly having U2 stay in Ireland is better for the economy. They invest capital into the nation which create jobs rather than welfare programs, refurbishing the rundown Clarence Hotel, among other things.

It is disappointing that Bono did not move his publishing empire to America. We are a nation founded on the rights of property, so it would be a natural fit. Something is drastically wrong that our nation no longer serves as a tax haven for wealthy artistic refugees from Europe and Canada. There is something unfavorable about America, and I really don’t think you can blame George Bush for that.

Now that that’s out of the way, Kanye West has a new album out, and it’s pretty darn good.  Not as good as all the other critics are managing to say once their spit glands dry up, but pretty darn good.  Entitled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, aka “The Kanye album with the naked armless chick,” which everyone will call it in 6 months cuz that title is just truly dumb, West’s latest work is, as always, an ode to himself, his career, and how much his success invalidates the people who hate him.  That’s narcissistic, you may say, and you’re right.  West’s music has always been about the tension between his pride and vulnerability, the brief flickers of soul and morality from his Christian upbringing vs. the pleasures and temptations brought on by his considerable skill.

The latter has caused him a ton of personal trouble, from simultaneously dealing with a broken engagement and seeing his mother die from cosmetic surgery complications to becoming Public Enemy #1 after his VMA rant launched the “I’mma let you finish” meme.  And for how admittedly flawed he is, this latest album further cements how skilled he is, working as both producer and vocalist– quite a rarity in the hip-hop world.  He claims to “do the rap and the track– triple, double, no assist” on “Monster,” but in reality, he often does concede the mic to guests, acting more as an emcee or ringmaster than a spotlight hog.  More contradictions– one of the biggest egos in rap is also one of the most generous collaborators.

The primary theme of the album is the value of expression and the human voice itself, with West fusing together the roles of vocalist and producer.  Opener “Dark Fantasy” prominently features a heavily-layered chorus with strong pitch straightening and octave shifting, and the use of multi-layered and sampled choruses continue through “Power,” “All of the Lights,” the intro and outro of “Monster,” and the penultimate track “Lost in the World,” which gloriously expands a vocal sample from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Vernon describes his collaboration with West, claiming “some of the stuff I was doing with my voice was more weird and instrumental– basically building what would sound like a synth part with vocals.”  That experimentation shows up with West himself, who concludes the ballad “Runaway” with a heavily distorted, auto-tuned vocal track, shattering the distinction between singer and instrument.  It’s obviously nothing incredibly novel, but it’s an affecting expression of his view of his role in the music world.

—–

While his songcraft has progressed well, West also shows he can still rap after singing his way through 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak, cycling through bravado, arrogance, humor, and soulfulness.  The first released track “Power” shows West discussing the ups and downs of his celebrity– an unapologetic ode to his pride that somehow culminates in him contemplating suicide.  In “Monster,” West riffs on his bad reputation, bringing in Jay-Z and song stealer Nicki Minaj, who obviously relish the goofy old-school monster movie imagery they present (the song was first released right before Halloween).  The song builds and builds through the dynamic performances of each guest, bolstered by some no-frills pounding drums to create a song that’s so full of pure fun, you don’t even notice it’s almost 7 minutes long.

However, some songs are still unable to overcome weaknesses in the rap genre.  ”Gorgeous” and “So Appalled” repeat a single ho-hum, mid-tempo loop through their entire runs, which would be fine if their vocal performances were dynamic enough to keep our attention.  The Kanye-to-mumbly-singers-and-back structure of “Gorgeous” turns it into a snoozefest, and unlike “Monster,” we lose interest as more and more guests show up on “So Appalled.”  Take away these songs, and the album loses nothing; it becomes tighter, less unwieldy.  To find a good metaphor for the album as a whole, I only need to look to “Devil in a New Dress:”  a near-perfect exercise in experimental soul gets dragged down by totally unnecessary content (in “Devil”’s case, a mood-crushing guest verse by Rick Ross).  Even the hype magnet “Runaway,” to clinch its cloying sentimentality, is bogged down by an extended instrumental coda that virtually doubles the length of the track.

And aside from the musical missteps, there are some moments of lyrical facepalms.  There’s the dopey assertion that the government intentionally spreads AIDS among blacks.  There’s a sampled monologue where Gil Scott-Heron calls America the result of Freedom raping Africa and giving it VD… or something.  There’s West’s (and virtually all of rap’s) trademark lasciviousness that presents itself in new and even more perverted ways, which further undercuts his professed Christianity (“pussy and religion is all I need,” he crows on “Hell of a Life” while delving into the juvenile fantasy that porn stars really like getting raped all the time and want their marriages exactly like their careers).

George Bush's unlikely defender.

It’s kind of disappointing to see, after the introspection of 808s, West has swung back the other way to a level of prurience he hasn’t indulged in before.  That said, he does conjure some genuinely emotionally compelling moments:  “Lost in the World” responds to malaise with optimism, “All of the Lights” oddly fuses a memorial for Michael Jackson with the career-long pathos West has maintained for the issues working-class people experience, and “Blame Game” takes a filthy Chris Rock comedy monologue and makes it a poignant bookend to a song about the profound pain of a breakup.

I’ve gained a healthy respect for Kanye West as an artist and a person, revisiting his earlier catalog around the time he began releasing weekly tracks from his “Dark Fantasy” sessions.  The man has used his microphone to talk about whatever he thinks is important as honestly and as skillfully as he can.  His “George Bush hates black people” crack wasn’t a poseur move made to get “in” with the establishment media; it was a genuine moment of uninformed, misguided rage (which I’m sure none of us have ever succumbed to… ever).  More importantly, he was able to empathize with Bush, admit he was wrong, and defend the man’s humanity when the majority of West’s audience probably isn’t satisfied unless W. is portrayed with both a Hitler mustache and a noose around his neck.

Between these sorts of in-concert rants and his Twitter feed, West’s quick rebound in public esteem can be chalked up to his PR-bypassing connection with fans, where his self-effacing genuineness charmed us into forgetting “I’mma let you finish.”  I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’ll embrace a disgraced honest screw-up rather than a disgraced fake, calculated goody-goody.

But personal issues aside, West is still on his top game, making great music by taking chances and expanding his musical palette.  Despite falling into the common foibles of rap and leaving in too much filler, he’s doing his best to transcend the genre and make, in his own words, “pop art”– experimental music with universal appeal.  It’s worth a listen, if you don’t believe that rap is a musical genre with no artistic merit.  If you do, how have you made it this far?

Before we go into the nitty gritty, can I just note the delicious irony of a website of repeatedly accused plagiarist like Arianna Huffington – who settled out of court for, what else, plagiarism! – falsely accusing another of plagiarism? Remember this?

Seemingly plagiarizing Larry King transcripts so she could crow about having a Clooney byline. The result was an embarrassing smackdown from an A-list celebrity and loss of credibility.

Her apology:

(Photo article link)

Then there are the repeated charges of plagarism:

Huffington was accused of plagiarism for copying material for her book Maria Callas (1981); the claims were settled out of court in 1981, with Callas biographer Gerald Fitzgerald being paid “in the low five figures.”^[21][22][23]

Lydia Gasman, an art history professor at the University of Virginia, claimed that Huffington’s 1988 biography of Pablo Picasso, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, included themes similar to those in her unpublished four-volume Ph.D. thesis. “What she did was steal twenty years of my work,” Gasman told Maureen Orth in 1994. Gasman did not file suit.^[24]

Maureen Orth also reported that Huffington “borrowed heavily for her 1993 book, The Gods of Greece.”^[25]

Huffpo itself was caught plagiarizing (the term comes from this Time magazine article) by lifting passages from Chicago publications. Huffington blamed it on an “intern.” (So interns write the copy at Huffpo?) The New Republic caught her taking material from someone else without attribution for one of her speeches.

Now Huffington blogger Ryan Grim over at Huffington Post has declared that George W. Bush is guilty of plagiarism. His evidence? Bush lived through events, which have been reported by Bob Woodward and some of his aides. Because Bush recounts the events in a similar fashion, he’s guilty of plagarism! The more simple and straightforward answer, that those previous books accurately recorded events, Grim never considers. Nor does he actually investigate whether the same thing occurred in books published by Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton.

This is nothing more than a nasty attempt to inject “Bush plagiarism” into the blogosphere. It’s actually one of the Post tags on the story. One can only wonder if he considered how his boss Arianna Huffington ever found herself in this situation. Did he ever ask whether she ever recounted a story that has been reported somewhere else in a similar fashion? Does she want to be held to that standard?

It takes a certain gall for the Huffington Post to run story about plagiarism, given Huffington’s history with the problem.

Even Gawker makes fun of HuffPo, even though they pay the progressive tithing of “he’s [Bush] probably stupid” so they can keep their classy O’Donnell-one-night-stand reputation:

For instance, Bush’s account of his remarks at a meeting in the situation room match up suspiciously, in Grim’s view, with Woodward’s account of the same meeting in Bush at War.

Bush:

At a National Security Council meeting the next morning, I said, ‘just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?’ I went around the table and asked every member of the room.

Woodward:

The next morning, Bush arrived at the White House Situation Room for the NSC meeting…’I just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?’ [Bush] said.

Well, what if that’s what he actually said? How is Bush supposed to communicate the events of that meeting? “As Bob Woodward first reported in Bush at War, I then said….”

[...]

But what’s wrong with that? Again, is Bush supposed to credit someone else for capturing his own words? It seems like small beer.

In their strenuous effort to not write about the Pigford scandal, the DOJ scandal, the Sestak scandal, has HuffPo jumped the shark in their deflections with this Bush tantrum?

P.S. Where was Huffington when Obama regurgitated Deval Patrick’s speech?

—–

Good to know Kanye West is capable of shame. There might be hope for him yet. Who would’ve ever guessed that after eight years of the worst kind of cruelty and vitriol aimed at President Bush that West would be the first to publicly take it back. Knowing the left as we all do, Kanye is likely to be the last.

My wife downloaded “Decision Points” to her Kindle yesterday and I made the mistake last night of thinking a few pages might help me doze off and ended up reading until way past 1am. According to the Kindle gizmo-thingy, I’m 17% in — which is who knows how many pages, but thus far it’s a riveting read and much more of an autobiography than the title implies.

The book’s been pitched as the memoir of a president looking back at how he came to make a certain number of key decisions throughout his personal and political life, but that’s really just the storytelling frame Bush uses to tell the story of a very interesting life, a life that most certainly did not point to him becoming one of the consequential president’s of our time.

The best part of the read is how the President’s voice comes through on every page. Like the man, the prose is direct, humble, frequently funny, and always humane. He’s probably one of the most decent men to ever hold that office and if you think you miss him now wait till you read “Decision Points.”

They’ve got a new flick coming, called “Cobalt Neural 9″ – a name chosen, of course, to create mystery, confusion, and submissive adoration among pseudo-intellects who still analyze lyrics from the Wall.

Have you seen the Wachowski’s lately?

Here’s a picture:

That’s Arianna in the middle.

Apparently, you can judge of a book by its cover.

Anyway – the gist of the flick: it’s cinema-verité, awesomely gay, predictably anti-American, and all about Bush. George Bush. Or rather, killing George Bush.

According to New York Magazine, the plot involves two radicalized men – an American and Iraqi soldier, who fall in love, have lots of sex, then decide to kill then-president of the United States.

Now, I’m sure the fantasy of killing Bush makes everyone in Hollywood feel “edgy.” How daring! How revolutionary! It’s like carrying around a Noam Chomsky book, without having to read it.

I have no idea who’s in the flick, but you can bet actors will line up to audition. After all, what a great opportunity to attain elite renegade status. A movie about killing a man hated by your celeb friends? That’s better than voicing a Pixar dog. Plus, it’ll get you laid at Coachella.

But really: If these jokers had real guts, they’d make movies about real, present threats in the world. But that would be way too dangerous: for it would cost them something bigger than freedom or money: their hipster cred.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homphobic, Allodoxaphobe.

Tonight:

The legend, Pat Caddell!

In studio: Carrie Keagan!

And the delightful comedian, Joe DeRosa!

Save the Castroite Terrorist-Murderer! has become Danny Glover’s latest cause, though he words it a bit differently.  The Cuban convict Gerardo Hernandez, who Glover visited in jail last week, “has been unjustly imprisoned,” asserts Glover. “His sentence is unusually harsh,” bemoans Glover while reciting his Castro-propaganda ministry handout

“His crime was simply acting in self-defense of his sovereign nation, and his family,” anguishes Glover before the cameras, shortly before the “Cut!” and the whoops and high-fives from the Castroite director and film-crew.

Leave Gerardo ALONE! wails Danny Glover, in a manner to shame Chris Crocker himself.  Glover also echoes his Cuban case-officers in accusing U.S. jailers of visiting horrific torture upon Hernandez.

Below please find a few items that somehow didn’t make the final cut of Danny Glover’s Castroite videos and press releases:

On September 14, 1998, the FBI uncovered a Castro spy ring in Miami and arrested ten of them. Four others managed to scoot back to Cuba. These became known as the “Wasp Network,” or “The Cuban Five” in Castroite parlance. According to the FBI’s affidavit, the convicted Castro-agent who Danny Glover champions was engaged in, among other acts:

• Gathering intelligence against the Boca Chica Air Naval Station in Key West, the McDill Air Force Base in Tampa and the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Homestead, Fla.
• Compiling the names, home addresses and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command’s top officers, along with those of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica.
• Infiltrating the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command.
• Sending letter bombs to Cuban-Americans.
• Spying on McDill Air Force Base, the U.S. armed forces’ worldwide headquarters for fighting “low-intensity” conflicts.
• Locating entry points into Florida for smuggling explosives.

Danny Glover’s poster-boy also infiltrated the Cuban-exile group Brothers to the Rescue, who flew unarmed planes to rescue Cuban rafters in the Florida straits, also known as “the cemetery without crosses.” The estimates of the number of Cubans dying horribly in the “cemetery without crosses,” run from 50-85,000. Brothers to The Rescue risked their lives almost daily, flying over the straits, alerting and guiding the Coast Guard to any balseros, and saving thousands of these desperate people from joining that terrible tally. (Prior to the Glorious Revolution, by the way, Cuba took in more immigrants per-capita than the U.S., including the Ellis Island years.)

By February of 1996 Brothers to The Rescue had flown 1,800 of these humanitarian missions and helped rescue 4,200 men, women and children. That month Danny Glover’s current cause célèbre’ passed to Castro the flight plan for one of the Brothers’ humanitarian flights over the Cemetery Without Crosses.

With this info in hand, Stalinist Cuba’s Top Guns, saluted and sprang to action. They jumped into their MIGs, took off and valiantly blasted apart (in international air space) the lumbering and utterly defenseless Cessnas. Four members of the humanitarian flights were thus murdered in cold blood.

Three of these men were U.S. citizens, the other a legal U.S. resident.  Among the murdered was Armando Alejandre Jr., who came to the U.S. at age ten in 1960.  His first order of business upon reaching the age of 18 was fulfilling his dream of becoming a U.S. citizen. His next was joining the United States Marine Corps volunteering for service in Vietnam. He returned with several decorations. As a member of Brothers to the Rescue Alejandre often dropped flowers over the sea, in memory of the thousands they’d been unable to rescue in time. A man with a weapon or with both hands free to fight has always palsied Castro with fright. The notion of Fidel Castro facing a U.S. Marine in combat mode is simply laughable, in a pathetic sort of way. So Castro waited for Armando Alejandre Jr and his Brothers to be carrying flowers–and made his move, murdering them in cold blood. MIGs against Cessnas, cannon and rockets against flowers.

This is a Castro specialty. In high school Fidel got into an argument over a debt (he was always a deadbeat) with a schoolmate named Ramon Mestre, who pounded him like a gong. Fidel cried uncle and slunk away whimpering that he’d go fetch the money he owed Ramon.

Instead he came back with a cocked pistol, hoping to surprise and murder the unarmed Mestre, who’d already gone home. There’s your gen-you-wine Fidel in all his macho splendor. He does have a long memory however. Six months after he grabbed power, Castro had his goons grab Senor Mestre, who then suffered 20 years in Castro’s dungeons and torture chambers. 

The premeditated atrocity against Alejandre and his brothers is what added the “manslaughter” and “conspiracy to commit murder” charges (on top of the ones listed above, 26 charges total) against Danny Glover’s most recent propaganda assignment from Fidel Castro.

Regarding prison-related tortures, here’s Ariel Sigler Amaya, a Cuban journalist just released from Castro’s dungeons. Please note what Mr Sigler looked like upon his arrest in 2003. This arrest, by the way,  was for attempting to write things about Fidel Castro in Cuba similar to what Danny Glover says about George Bush in the U.S.

As President Obama says, let’s be clear: that comical Copenhagen conference wasn’t about science, it was about wealth transfer. The gist: because of America’s “hyper-industrialization,” we need to pay off poor countries for all the harm we’ve caused in the world. That’s the real green in the green movement: It’s cash, not grass.

What’s this have to do with Christmas? Well, I think the world has forgotten that the biggest gift to this planet is America’s industry – and it’s time to remind them where they would be without it.

1. Whenever a horrible disaster hits, they would be dead. Be it an earthquake, a tsunami or a Madonna tour – we’re usually the first and biggest responders – saving the injured, and helping to rebuild. It is because of our tremendous capability to mobilize quickly that makes us a nation of superheroes. It also takes planes, trucks and tractors to do that stuff. Imagine that carbon footprint.

2. If they ever get sick, they would be dead. It’s true. While critical cretins like Chavez and Mugabe actually harm their own people, we save millions of strangers’ lives. Even that bozo called Bono admits it was George Bush who helped prevent the death of millions of Africans from AIDS. Yeah – I know what our critics will say: it’s easy for America to do this stuff. Well, it’s even easier not to do it.

3. If their family is hungry, they would be dead. Let’s not forget Norman Borlaug, who invented disease resistant wheat, saving hundreds of millions of lives in India and Pakistan. You can only do that if you’re of an industrial mind – thinking about people, not polar bears.

4. If they’re under the thumb of fascism, they would be dead. We possess the greatest military technology in the world, and we’ve used it to end horrible wars. Our industry of annihilation gave new life to many countries.

In sum, the very people complaining about America would not be alive, if it weren’t for America. Which is why, I say to them: Merry Christmas.

It sure beats a pair of socks.

Tonight we have the lovely Remi Spencer, the delightful Mike Baker, the witty Steven Crowder, and the always awesome Dr. Michael Baden.

Back in February, my Big Hollywood colleague and super-funny-dude Tim Slagle wrote a series of posts on the Broadway musical “Avenue Q”.  The show was going through a mini-crisis/publicity stunt because one of the big punch lines to the song “For Now” was no longer valid:

A song called “For Now” has the puppets reassure each other that most things in life are temporary, like hair and sex. Until recently, one of those temporary things was “George Bush.” Knowing that Obama was to be shortly inaugurated, the producers and writers were perplexed for a replacement. I know it should be obvious to everyone else, but Broadway producers don’t think like you and I. So they threw a contest to decide a better verse.

Two weeks later, Slagle followed up with the big announcement of the new lyric:

So what did they decide to use? The winning lyric is: ”George Bush WAS only for now.”  Brilliant. I guess like “South Pacific” and “Bye-Bye Birdie,” some vintage musical theater is better when presented in the time frame that it was originally written. “Avenue Q” will now be forever remembered as a Bush-era production, although the impact has noticeably waned. ”We now know that although George Bush’s presidency was only for now,” show creator, Robert Lopez noted, ”the comic potential of ‘George Bush’ seems like it may last forever.”

Not so fast. This week, “Avenue Q” did something that Broadway shows rarely do.  They closed their production and re-located to an Off-Broadway house.  During the process of re-opening the show in a smaller venue, the writers took the time to really give some thought to the “George Bush WAS for now” lyric and they have finally found their perfect replacement.

It seems that the real purpose of this line is not to get a huge laugh.  No, it seems that the real purpose is to find the worst possible, evil, racist, homo-phobic, war-mongering, lying, right-wing boogie man and insert their name into the lyric to ridicule and diminish them.  Circa 2004 that person was President Bush. Today, the only person that fits that description is, well, not really a person at all.  You see, the writers of “Avenue Q” have apparently been paying very close attention to the White House’s latest full-court press against… the press!  The new lyric is:

“Fox News is only for now.”

I’m waiting for you to stop the hysterical laughter and applause at this brilliant, Sondheim-like lyric.

Fox News, the highest rated news outlet for over a decade.  Fox News, the network whose 3 AM show out-ranks CNN’s prime time fare.   Fox News is only “for now.” But “Avenue Q” is forever.  Uh, huh.  I expect that Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly will be reporting on the tenth anniversary of “Avenue Q”’s closing.

Let’s face it folks, after having to close its Tony Award-winning production on Broadway, revamping the financial structure of the show, begging the actors’ union to allow them to reduce the performers’ salaries (which the spineless union allowed) and moving to a theatre half the size of the tiny little Golden which housed the show for the last five years, I think it is clear that “Avenue Q” is only for now…. BARELY!