Welcome to Awards Edition Plus, your one-stop snark shop, filling in for Cheers and Jeers. While Bill in Portland Maine takes the day off to have his monthly Brazilian wax, AEP will keep the pool open. Today we'll examine some tortured writing in the Puritanical Tortured Writing Department, Lenin Cat has an editorial on assault weapons, plus the usual suspects: News of Dubious Veracity Department, Awards Edition Plus Cartoon Department and of course, the Golden Douchenozzle Award.
So follow me over the orange cloud of doom for a romp in the cesspool of snark. All I ask is if you eat too much paste and feel like you need to vomit, please don't do it in the Lexus. Bill will be pissed if you do.
Awards Edition Plus Editorial
by Lenin Cat
Everyone is talking about the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado, but what I want to talk about is how a private citizen comes to possess the arsenal which was used to commit this heinous act. Tear gas? High-velocity bullets? Oversized clips? Why, I wonder, does any private citizen need to be able to obtain such things? What would you use this stuff for? Is there a weapons-related sport in which you fire off tear gas canisters? If there is, I've never heard of it. Armor-piercing bullets? I don't know about you, but I have never seen a deer in a bullet proof vest.
I have hunted. I have enjoyed target shooting and am even a pretty good shot, which comes in handy if you're a communist revolutionary. I have my mother's old long-barreled .22 pistol in the top drawer of the dresser. It's very old, it's in good shape, it's a great target pistol, and it has a trigger lock on it--which is simply responsible gun ownership. The Supreme Court has decided that I have the right to personally own guns. That's how it has interpreted the Second Amendment.
The Supreme Court, over the years, has also determined that there can be reasonable limits on our rights. Free speech has limits. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire, for instance. Well, I think we shouldn't be able to open fire in a crowded theatre either and we certainly should not be able to do it with "assault" weapons. Returning to the ban on assault weapons which lapsed in 2004 is a good idea. It's a reasonable limit to our Second Amendment rights. Just like some drugs are illegal based on their having no therapeutic value, weapons which do not have reasonable value for sport or hunting ought to be illegal, too.
The alleged shooter now in custody may have committed these shootings with other weapons, it's true, but the hundreds of rounds of ammunition he bought on line, the tear gas he used, these are things we just shouldn't have on the open market. It's reasonable to restrict access to these things. Congress, are you listening?
--Lenin Cat
Puritanical Tortured Writing Department
I think it was in High School English class that I learned that when you report on a subject, it's a good idea to name it. Not so in this Associated Press article published in the Portland Press Herald this past Saturday. Writing about the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot charged with "hooliganism" for an anti-Putin stunt staged in a Moscow church, the 16-paragraph article manages to avoid printing the name of the band in a particularly tortured example of journalistic puritanism. Way to go, Associated Press!
So here we go--a pussy riot:
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News of Dubious Veracity Department
via the Minneapolis Fair Dealer:
Larry Craig Rest Room Discovered in Marcus Bachmann's Pool Cabana
Minneapolis, MN. The airport rest room in which Larry Craig once took a "wide stance" was renovated the other year but until yesterday airport officials were unable to account for the old fixtures, which went missing shortly after they were put into storage. According to the airport's maintenance department, the bathroom fixtures were sold on eBay and have been traced to Marcus Bachmann, who purchased the infamous tearoom and installed it in his pool cabana at the Bachmann residence. When reached for comment, Mr. Bachmann said "Michele and I thought it would be great to have a piece of history. Our pool boy loves using it, and so do I".
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Speaking of restrooms:
Awards Edition Plus Cartoon Department
by AEP Cartoon Editor Ericlewis0
and now, without further ado, it's:
The Golden Douchenozzle Award
The GDN Award is given periodically to politicians and public figures for rank hypocrisy and general asshattery. Today's nominees are:
Mitt Romney is still dancing around the issue of his tax returns while managing to continue to distort the President's record and whine about how hard it is to run for President. For a man who collected a salary from Bain Capital for years after he "retired" just for doing nothing, I can imagine running for President is hard. But Mitt is right about one thing: he's creating jobs. For comedians.
Ann Romney has lots of class, all of it very, very low. "You people"? Really, Mrs. Romney. Can you only imagine how she talks to the undocumented workers who cut her grass?
Michele Bachmann is back on the Muslim-bashing jag accusing Rep. Keith Ellison--congress' only Muslim member--of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a political party in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East. On the eve of Ramadan. To borrow a phrase from BiPM: One...two...three: classy.
George Will shills for assault weapons manufacturers on the Sunday shows. Yesterday on Meet the Press he did the most delightful "there's nothing to see here, move along" song and dance assisted by the vomitous and perpetually constipated Cokie Roberts. He came dangerously close to saying, of the shooting, "it's the price of freedom". What a douchenozzle.
Russell Pearce is back, and has a great suggestion for folks to stay safe: bring your gun to the movies. Need I say more?
Who gets the award? Vote in the poll for the biggest douchenozzle of the week, or nominate someone in the comments!
Thanks for reading. What are you cheering and jeering about today? Pool's open and the water is just right...