There’s been some rumbling among the cadres that our Unicorn is turning into a Pinhead, and while we tend to be lenient about electoral politics, we’re not immune to deal-breakers. We don’t mind the “flip-flops” we’ve seen in the major media — campaign funding? really? — but the Stinque proles insist that we pay attention to substantive issues. Freaks.

So, let’s have a look.

OMG! Fundies!

You would think the Stupid Fucking Office of Fucking Jesus would be one of the first atrocities to be dispatched under a Unicorn Administration. And you would be wrong. No, he wants to expand it, going all Liberation Theology with social programs and stuff. Of course, any programs would be Closely Monitored for proselytizing. And of course, any money received for Good Works frees up money for Black Ops. Look for some fun scandals starting in 2011.

The iLives of Others

This one has become such an internecine pissing match, we prefer to stand back until the hazmat team mops up the room. The crux of the matter is whether AT&T can be sued for channeling all its Internet traffic through the NSA’s Big Brother machine — oh, and whether the Fourth Amendment has been rendered quaint by current events. Unicorn is promising a “thorough review by the Inspectors General” — strongly worded letters! — but our favorite passages in the Federalist Papers discuss the wisdom of not taking the benevolence of authority for granted.

Grab Your Flintlocks

The Second Amendment is the Third Rail of Stinque Re-education Sessions, and the hazmat team can handle only one mess at a time. Unicorn advises us to “act responsibly”, and we’ll be sure to have a Designated Shooter at our next bar brawl. But let’s be honest:

The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause… Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

And now that we’re forced to agree with Scalia, J., we expect shortly our first sighting of flying pigs.

Yet Another Shill for Corporate America

STFU, Ralph. The Corvair was forty years ago.

Our conclusion? Look at the alternative. We’ve been expecting Unicorn to trim a few sails sooner or later, and while we may yet be obligated to include a signing statement with our November ballot, we’ve had far worse arguments with our in-laws.

Libertarian veep wannabe Wayne Allyn Root is no stranger to failure — he even wrote a book about it. But rather than go for the easy gag about The Joy of Failure, we figured that must be the tip of an iceberg filled with even easier gags.

We were not disappointed.

From Millionaire Republican: Why Rich Republicans Get Rich — and How You Can Too!:

There is a “Red Storm” brewing in America. Currently, the GOP controls the United States presidency, Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, and majority of governorships and statehouses. That will not change.

Publication date: 2005.

So, how does a guy who has been “rejected from law school, failed at real estate, lost an election, became an entertainment agent and was fired six months later, lost several jobs, and failed at numerous businesses in several different industries” finally succeed?

Gambling!

That’s right — all you need to do is start your own Vegas handicapping business, and soon you’ll be enjoying fame, fortune, palatial estates, trophy wives, and that black hole where your soul used to be.

But not to worry, Root remains a friend to failure. He’s the vice-presidential candidate because he lost the top spot to Bob Barr.

Milliionaire Republican [Amazon]

Vegas’ White House hope [Vegas Sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCljFYn3zTY

The George Carlin we grew up with — and deeply internalized — was not the Carlin of comedy albums and HBO specials, but the Carlin of Tonight Show appearances, a forum in which he had to work clean. Our Carlin was the Carlin of language, whose take on “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence” proved you could never take people at their word — or if you did, you’d best pay close attention.

The other Carlins we certainly admired once we discovered them, but they’re not the Carlin of our youth, the Carlin who to this day informs everything we say and write, the Carlin who taught us the delights of language itself. That Carlin we despaired of honoring online, until Harry Shearer found a clip that sums it up for us.

The best news this week is that Harry Shearer‘s impression of the marble-mouthed NBC patriarch has been given new life. If you want to play the home version, try speaking without consonants.

Meet the Press: Brokaw pulls a Brinkley, to go progressively senile during the 2008 campaign.

Face the Nation: Joe Lieberman (I-Eeyore) melts under the hot studio lights.

This Week: Honest to god, there’s a link that says “Curious About George?” Nominations are open for The Man With The Yellow Hat.

Late Edition: Accomplished exorcist, distinguished child abuser, testicle gourmand and Alfred E. Neuman impersonator Bobby Jindal strains our ability to maintain running gags.

Fox News Sunday: Bob Barr! Bob Barr! Bob Barr!

Guests and topics subject to change. Oh, we kid — it’s the same crap every week.

MTP, FTN, This Week, Late Edition, Barrtardia

After staring at it all day, we finally achieved nirvana.

While it’s hard to top talking urinal cakes as a proper homage to 43, we have a soft spot in our hard heart for what we used to call “participatory satire”, but to be geek hip we’ll now call “citizen satire”.

And what better place to be geek hip than San Francisco?

a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Now that’s the Frisco we love, not the self-righteous cesspool of recent vintage. And if the City’s voters fulfill their civic duty this November, next January 20 we may have two historic events to celebrate in this great nation.

An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace [NYT]

Presidential Memorial Commission [SF]

So we’ve been studying this survey of casual sex, which claims that women have yet to take the Walk of Shame as gingerly as men, and wondering whether in “evolutionary terms” it’s a bit soon to declare that chicks haven’t “adapted” to the Sexual Revolution — our limited understanding of Darwinism suggests that the jury will be out for a hundred thousand years or so.

And we’ve been wondering what clever things we can say about it, given that we could say a great deal, but prefer to boil down the weekly Porn Post to its essential nugget of naughtiness.

And, well, we’ve failed.

So… Ladies and Gentlemen: Verne Troyer.