As is my wont, I was larking through the Free Republic message boards recently, when I came across the following clip from "satirical" Israeli outfit LatmaTV. They are making fun of how politically correct America has been in the wake of the Fort Hood shooting. Haha. Yes, of course, POLITICALLY CORRECT. Anyway, the clip is painfully unfunny, but worth watching (at the bottom of this post) in a schadenfreude/SNL kind of way. But the real gem here was actually laying in wait for me in the accompanying Freeper thread... check it out after the jump, along with my semiotic breakdown, IF YOU DARE.

Look, I know that everyone is an asshole and thinks they aren't, but I've always thought that car people were the most guilty of this particular self-deception. So please, if you're reading this and you're ever biking through Williamsburg, remember that there are multiple streets with multiple bike lanes going in all kinds of crazy directions... including, I am sure, the direction you are going. So for your own safety, take them.

Also, I AM OLD AND CRANKY. Also.

Yes, it's true, the McDonald's at Guantanamo is now looking for a manager—and don't worry, you won't need security clearance, just a U.S. passport. The best part is that apparently guards will occasionally use Big Macs to coerce info from prisoners (not sure if they're used as bribes or threats... ZING!). The second best part? The job is listed at McVirginia.com, which, awesome.

And don't forget, no shirt, no shoes, no sensory deprivation hood, no service.

This is it, I promise, my last Armistice Day Remembrance Day Veterans Day-related post of the day. This would be The Pogues doing Eric Bogle's wonderful anti-war anthem, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda." (Don't worry, Shane MacGowan actually sings on this one.)

In Canada, we call it Remembrance Day, and school kids get herded into auditoriums across the country for bizarre Max Fischeresque reenactments of the Battle of the Somme. It's weird, but I kind of miss it. You see, we're lucky insofar as we don't really have any recent "mistake" wars to worry about, so we can get all "Greatest Generation/Hitler Was Evil/let's fetishize war in a morally unambiguous way!" And it gets us out of chemistry is kind of moving. Obviously, things aren't so simple here in the land of two current wars and a recent generationally devasting bad war, as can be seen in this new PSA from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It kind of gives me the creeps (particularly the part where the one guy is using a PC in a coffee shop), but mainly it's just sad to think about.

A vote for Reverend Billy might be a protest vote, but that's the point here, to protest. A vote for Billy is to protest Bloomberg's arrogance in seeking a third term; a vote for Billy is to protest the pusillanimous state and city Democrats more concerned with hanging onto power than advocating on behalf of their constituents; a vote for Billy is to protest a New York slowly losing the very thing that has always made it a truly great city, its neighborhoods.

Also, if you haven't yet, read Henry Stewart's great profile of the Rev, here.

Call me dangerously naive, but I think a purging of moderates (god, that phrase has such a... I don't know... Cambodian ring to it) from the Republican Party would be good for America, insofar as would isolate all the extremists in one place, THE BETTER TO SEE THEM. Is that crazy?

If you haven't seen Alex Pareene's great anti-Bloomberg un-dorsement over at Gawker, read it now.

You know those idiots who don't know anything about politics but think it sounds smart to say "I am a social liberal and an economic conservative?" Bloomberg is the candidate for them, if they love a liberal nanny state and a conservative religious fervor for the eternal goodness of private enterprise.

Unlike Pareene, though, we think you should definitely vote for Reverend Billy.

Our Republic stands upon a precipice. Within a very short time we will either restore Constitutional Order or our nation—at least as we know it—will cease to exist.

One could almost believe that the agonies the nation now suffers are the outcomes of deliberate plans crafted by those who wish to destroy our Republic and founding Principles.

The truth, however is that these problems cannot be fixed through the representative electoral process.

If revolution comes to our shores, it will be unique in history. In stead of fighting to create a new constitution, for the first time a people will fight to restore one.

"This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes. Of some incidental interest, perhaps, is the nature of the book they banned. It consists of op-eds written for The New York Times syndicate and distributed by them. The subversive rot must run very deep.''

Zing! The most popular books from the Gitmo Library? Harry Potter.

(The Miami Herald has a swell guide to what can and can't be in the library, here.)

anus (n.)
the opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin, originally ‘a ring.’

Governor Paterson (hey, he's still governor?) has signed a bill that brings the laws governing aggravated sexual abuse into line with those governing criminal sexual abuse. The former used the word "rectum" when discussing penetration with "foreign objects," while the latter had changed it to "anus." Both now read "anus."

"In order to prove the commission of the crime of aggravated sexual abuse, victims, including child victims, have had to give detailed testimony in court as to the depth of penetration; the rectum being more internal. This was not the intent of the law," the bill reads. "Cases have been dismissed and defendants have been found innocent because prosecutors have not been able to prove that a foreign object or finger was inserted, for other than a valid medical purpose, into the rectum because the anus is the place of insertion. By adding the word 'anus' to the statute, the statute will operate as it was intended."

This is obviously a very serious issue—and shouldn't be made the butt of any jokes.

According to vile, manipulative propagandist Republican pollster Frank Luntz, “No one knows how to win better than Roger."

So, is America ready for its own, sexless version of Silvio Berlusconi? Umm, YEAH.

Going Rogue is already an online bestseller, but there is a silver lining: Tina Fey gave us hope in a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar that she might be back at SNL in her Emmy-winning role now that Palin is back in the spotlight. (No word yet on when we can expect Fey’s book on the shelves.)