The Great Retard War of 2010

Down the street from our ancestral home in Eugene, Oregon, once stood a small private institution devoted to the education of what are now called “special needs” children. It was formally known as the Pearl Buck School, named in honor of the Nobel-winning author.

But to us kids, it was simply where the retards went.

We were very, very cruel about that, as only kids and Republicans can be. We didn’t have “shortbus” as shorthand in those days. If you wanted to snap at someone on the playground, you’d accuse them of going to Pearl Buck.

Language works that way. Today’s well-meaning euphemism is tomorrow’s slur. In the defining example of our era, “colored people” was proudly codified by the NAACP, devolved into a vicious taunt for decades, then re-emerged as “people of color”. Even “mental retardation” began as a polite substitute for “idiot” before we kids got hold of it, giving rise to “special needs” as a subsequent replacement.

You really can’t escape it. At best you can acknowledge it — and turn it on its head.

That was the point of last Sunday’s Family Guy episode, one of those high-wire acts that Seth MacFarlane attempts on occasion. Chris becomes infatuated with a Down teenager. There’s a song-and-dance number with Stewie called “Down Syndrome Girl” as he works up his courage to ask her out. Finally he wins her over, but she turns out to be a fucking — bitch. Which is to say, she turns out to be as human as the rest of us. It’s really a nice turn, using high satire to make a deeply humanist point.

Oh, and there’s a Sarah Palin joke in passing.

That of course gave her an opening to wave her baby at the world again, and drag in her abstinence-spokesperson daughter for good measure. Never mind that Palin had blessed Rush for his “satiric” use of the word — faced with an actual, valid, even constructive display of satire, her immediate response was as always: Exploit her children for personal gain.

We bring all this up now, instead of letting it slide with our brief mention earlier this week, because Sarah Silverman has a new routine that apparently managed to shock — really shock, not Casablanca shock — some tightasses at TED, the annual confab of high geekdom.

Silverman, at her self-involved deadpan best, says she’s going to adopt a “retard baby” because that would make her an “awesome person.” Only she’s going to adopt a terminally ill retard baby — because that would make her really awesome. Plus, the kid would conveniently die before he became too much to handle. Everybody wins!

That’s not just satire, it’s downright Swiftian in the amount of unpacking it requires. And as the person who brought this to our attention observes, it really shows that The Great Retard War of 2010 is just getting started.

All because Sarah Palin self-aggrandizingly used her special-needs child to score some political points off Rahm Emanuel, then undermined what passes for her integrity by giving Rush a pass. We don’t doubt that Trig’s a good kid, but as Colbert says, his mother’s a fucking retard.

TED Organizer Trashes Speaker, Fails Social IQ Test [TechCrunch]
50 Comments

One of the most offended was a person called Steve Case. That would be the same Steve Case who orchestrated the most retarded merger in the corporat world, AOL with Time Warner leading to the largest quarterly loss evah (for now) of around $100 Billion. I can understand why he would be offended as Sarah’s insults struck really close to home.

From what I’ve read, most of the people at TED are the same self absorbed, self satisfied, self promoting motherfucking retards who fuck things up because in large part of who they are.

At this moment, I love Sarah Silverman and would like to mate with her to make Korean/Jewish retarded babies.

Pearl Buck was a retard? I did not know that.

I wonder if there is video of the Silverman thing?
searching . . .

at this moment manchu? i LOVE sarah silverman long time.
a fave line, after her sister shaves her enormous pussyfro, the boyfriend goes in the bathroom and says, omg, did a chimp have chemotherapy in here?
she will say ANYthing, she’s my idol. and has been saying fucking retard for years. that’s the LEAST offensive thing she has said.
have you seen her stand-up when she explains catholicism v judaism?
she is so going to hell.

@baked:
I enjoyed her movie “Jeebus is Magic” and catch her show from time to time.

I didn’t get mad when she said “chink” as I understood the context she used it in. When you grow up in the Canada City rural areas, one learns to figure out context of words in a hurry.

Saw some Young Republicans on their way to CPAC on the Metro this morning. Didn’t have the heart to tell them that they were going in the wrong direction.

there is someone for everyone, apparently :

The 48-year-old man was 12 steps away from Biden and began heading toward him in the dignitaries box when the officers noticed that he “didn’t fit in,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Bud Mercer told CTV News.

The man, whom Mercer described as having an “infatuation” with the vice-president, reportedly had made it past several security checkpoints using forged credentials that weren’t of particularly high quality.

@Capt Howdy:
This is the same RCMP security that allowed
1) a mentally disturbed man to enter the PM’s residence and get into the PM’s (then Jean Cretien) bedroom where the PM and his wife fended him off with an Inuit Sculpture.
2) a professional protester to get face to face with then PM Jean Cretien and said PM showed he could handle himself in a fight by grabbing the protester, choking him and threw him to the ground where said protester landed face first and broke a tooth.

@ManchuCandidate:
still
I cant help but like the RCMP because they let me off with a little “we trust you wont do that again” when they intercepted an ounce of pot I had sent to me from the US when I was working in Toronto.

@Capt Howdy:
I take it that this happened before Stevie Harper and his war on everything gang took over. RCMP not so tolerant now.

@mellbell:
It’s not just metaphorical or philosophical then.

@ManchuCandidate:
2003? I think.
it was awful actually. I didnt request it be sent to me. someone thought it would be a “nice christmas surprise”. we found out it had been intercepted the day before christmas. so I had to suffer through christmas, boxing day, newyears and on and on waiting for the knock on my door and the escort to the border.
it never came. then months later in about feb. my doorbell rang and it was the RCMP.
it was an entirely good experience.

@Capt Howdy:
Makes sense. At that time any small quantities were ignored or you just got a ticket if you were really stupid (considered a non felony.) It would have to be much bigger quantities to get nailed for trafficking.

@Capt Howdy:

Yeesh. Everybody knows you send drugs by Fedex Overnight. What is wrong with people?

@Tommmcatt Say Relax:
well
the moron who sent it didnt even take the most basic precautions.
I had just received some exactly that way without a hitch a few days before.

@Benedick: That is the funniest thing I’ve read all week.

@ManchuCandidate: I like that in a Prime Minister (Cretien taking down the fucking retard).

@Dodgerblue: Not to mention that he used an Inuit sculpture to do it, which is a lovely touch.

Serious Domestic Terrorism TJ:

From the Department of Oh Shit, Hope It’s Not OKC Redux:

Internal Revenue Service has offices in the building in Austin that was hit by the small plane from Waco. Witnesses said that the plane did not appear to be in distress and aimed directly for the building.

@SanFranLefty: Proving once again that nothing good ever came out of Waco.

/too soon

@SanFranLefty: Also, the building is called the “Echelon business complex.”


Echalon.

ADD: from austin tv station WWLP

The plane, a Cherokee 140, hit the Echelon Building on Mopac and U.S. 183 around 10 a.m.

Two people have been rushed to a nearby hospital with unspecified injuries. There still has been no official word on who the pilot is, or if he has been located in the wreckage.

Officials are investigating a possible connection between the plane crash and the explosive fire around 9 a.m. in the house of a Georgetown pilot who has not been located.

Witnesses at the scene say that a single engine plane that appeared to be a Cherokee 140 did not appear to be having any trouble, but hit the building at an angle. No smoke or any sign of trouble was visible.

Said one witness, a former pilot: “It was a really speedy dive. It (hit) between the first and second floors in Echelon I. A gigantic fireballl came out about 50 feet wide, the windows blew out. It was a whoosh, a roar and a boom.”

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Local teevee station KXAN is now saying he’s from Georgetown, not quite Waco….and that the dude set his house on fire AND the plane was stolen.

Oh, but “no criminal link” per Homeland Security? WTF….

ADD: Dude’s wife and 12 year old kid were in the house when he set it on fire, neighbors rescued them. CNN says at least two dead at the scene of the crash.

@SanFranLefty: How long you think it will take for Beckbaugh to start shrieking the guy had to do it because he was overwhelmed by the monstrous horror of living in a dystopian police state run by a kenyan marxist cannibal, etc ?

@redmanlaw: That little plane did a hell of a lot of damage to the building, judging from the images.

@FlyingChainSaw: An hour? What time do their shows go on?

@SanFranLefty: Rush went on at 10 MDT/9 PDT. Do the math, rest of stinque nation.

@redmanlaw: With at least 1 hr 30 min of bloviation, it is safe to assume that the army of Beckbaugh tards have been activated and they are frothing at the mouth at the rate of 100 barrels per minute.

BTW, it was great meeting Nojo and Pedo here at Stinque world HQ. Now, it’s off to hear more about dolphins, diabetes, nucular weapons and hippie wagons.

Oh, shit, I leave for a meeting and come back to this.

What’s the over/under on the guy being a christofascist?

Looks like the Austin fishwrap found the dude’s anti-tax tirade/suicide note

And he’s a teabagger! Shocker.

@SanFranLefty: The federal courts here are full of people who claim that the income tax is unconstitutional, paper money not backed by silver is illegal, you can declare yourself a “free citizen” not bound by US laws etc. Not usually violent, though.

@Dodgerblue: South Crackolina Legislature is apparently full of them too.

@SanFranLefty:
Why do these self centered pricks have to turn their gotterdamnerung into a spectacle?

@SanFranLefty: Commenters on infowars.com are claiming it was a “false flag operation” , while others bemoan that it was a white man embroiled in a tax dispute with IRS. “Marshall law” popped up quite a bit.

ADD: “Soldiers launch coup against Niger president: sources | Raw Story”

/ waiting for clever RW nut jobs to call for coup against “our Niger president.”

@redmanlaw: You wonder why the good people of Niger haven’t changed the name of the country to something else, i.e. not a French word. I would suggest they avoid “Schwartze.”

@redmanlaw:

So, basically, Obama set this man’s house on fire and forced him to fly into a building. Sickening.

This is the first act of teabag terrorism, is what it is.

@Capt Howdy: Parallels to the Unabomber: articulate in a way, long-winded, thinks he’s smarter than the average bear, being oppressed by an evil government conspiracy . . .

@Dodgerblue:
reading that made want to punch someone.

@Capt Howdy: He was a tad wittier than your average right-wing conspiracy nut. What impressed me most was that the Statesman posted it unredacted (at least at the time I read it). What if the chillins read “fuck” and “shit” on a family newspaper’s website?

I have to admit this line gave me pause and I had to reread it a few times:

But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle.

A piano?

ADD: Close-up photos of damage

@SanFranLefty: His poor widow. I hope they’re not publishing her name.

@Dodgerblue:

So, wait, I don’t get what he’s upset about though. That he had to pay taxes?

@mellbell: I read a report saying that he set fire to their house with her inside, along with their kid.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: Here is the ADL’s take on the tax protest movement: http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/TPM.asp?xpicked=4&item=21. They may need to update this now.

@Dodgerblue: I saw that as well. Regardless of how she may feel about him now, it’s an awful situation to be in.

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