Is it Francis or Francis the 1st?

What's this "Francis the First" business? I mean, we don't know for a fact that's there's gonna be any other Francii, right? He could turn out to be a crappy pope, or maybe he never even has any sons, or he has a son and doesn't name the kid after himself, but gives the kid a normal name like Fred or Tivo. So the next Pope would be Pope Tivo, not Pope Francis the 2nd. Right? It's not like they call the first pope Peter the 1st. It's just Peter, or "The Rock" as Jesus called him, cause Jesus could totally smell what was cooking.

as a present to you, here's an animated gif that might look better on a slow load

Mimes are unstable

They start off like this....





But then they end up like this...

It gets confusing for Americans when the German Commies denounce "Social Democracy"

Anyone confused enough to fall for the BS that Naziism was leftist because it was "national socialism" isn't going to get the nuances of Weimer Republic extremism, let alone have the patience to sit through three whole minutes of silent newsreel footage.

If you wanna blow up the minds of dittoheads, point them over to the Nazis' 1938 German Weapons Act. The Nazis, far from wanting to round up the guns in society, were actually strongly in favor of gun ownership by ordinary citizens. The Nazis loosened gun laws, ended registration of long-barreled firearms, stopped the regulation of ammunition, and even allowed private citizens to own machine guns.

Sound familiar? It's the NRA's agenda. Not that the NRA are Nazis, just that their talk about Hitler rounding up the guns in Germany is bullshit. Now, I'm sure Hitler did round up guns in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France -- non-German nations that he invaded. But he never took over his own people by denying them gun rights. Rather, he demagogued the firearms regulation issue in order to manipulate the public over to his side.

Now, he did deny gun rights to people he vilified as non-German: Jews, Roma, Communists... Again, this is a rightwing tactic. How many times have you heard Republicans & conservatives snark that liberals aren't real Americans or argue that "McCain would've been starting his second term by now, if Obama hadn't gotten all those minority votes."

But this is more about keeping the bedazzled majority neurotically militarized, rather than wanting to avoid shooting it out with a "well-armed citizenry". Fantasies about apocalyptic shoot-outs with the evil elements of society are hallmarks of extremists--left and right. It happened in real life in Germany in 1919. The Marxist Spartan League and the rightwing predecessors of the Nazis actually did shoot it out in the streets of Berlin (which serves the Germans right for having unleashed Lenin & Leninism on Russia two years earlier). But the only people talking about taking arms against fellow citizens or against the government we have all elected are the people on the Right. The Alex Joneses and Wayne LaPierres and Ted Nugents of the world love talking about taking up guns against an oppressive government--which in reality would mean getting into firefights with the BATF, the FBI, and (I suppose) park rangers at Yosemite. The only arms us lefties fantasize about are the ones we'd like to hug our trees with.

Nope, when the wingnuts start comparing liberalism to fascism, it's the same old "Clint Eastwood vs. the chair" dynamic. Unable to sustain an honest argument, the super-conservatives have resorted once again to inventing a make-belief supervillain that they can feel comfortable about vanquishing, even if only in the privacy of their own imaginations.

Musical intelligence is different than intellectual intelligence.

Many people are music smart, or math smart, or athletic smart, or art smart, or politics smart but life stupid, or physics smart but emotionally stupid. This can explain the Republicans who are compassion smart but economics stupid and so we end up with uncles from Albuquerque who volunteer at the annual clothing drive but vote for candidates who promise to cut welfare programs. My take on Zappa (and this is just me) is that he was musically genius, but only verbally clever, and had a mean streak of socially dumb in him that green lit every impulse he had to climb up on his preaching to the "dumbwashed" masses.

Like many geniuses in the arts, he encouraged in his fans a self-defeating contempt for any of his critics. This leads to polarizing sentiments like "My favorite artist X is a goddamn genius, genius I tell you, even if none of you bozos are hep enough to 'get it'." Kinda like how I am about Lady Gaga.

This is how much I love you

the best and worst of skeet shootin' Obama photoshops

Get the bullshit over with first - mostly wingnuts parroting old Dick Cheney cartoons



and there's inevitably the old racist approach. Here's one with an original twist: He's not Kenyan; he's Mexican.

wtf?

Okay, that's enough to see what doesn't work, political humor wise.

Of course, I'm able to laugh at some liberal stereotypes, like our usual circular firing squad approach to intra-party debates



This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Republicans never form circular shooting squads; they're too busy stabbing each other in the back.

Personally, I'm a fan of shock value humor



<== I did this one myself! FU,MM!!

or pure awesome!

Yeeeee-hawwwwww!!!!



Some day the mountain might get 'im, but the law never will.

Of course, as with all internet memes, the cat freaks have to come along and ruin it for everybody

My God... the truth is worst than the meanest dittohead's nightmare

Oh, Google, however can I plunge the depths of your mysteries?

It's like that old Sesame Street skit: can you tell which one of these search suggestions is not like the other?

actual search suggestion.

This is what my dad just sent me.