Obama Threatens to Drop the F-Bomb on Iran

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Obama Threatens to Drop the F-Bomb on Iran

Washington, DC – Iran has failed to meet their deadline to disarm, so President Obama warned how, in the near future, colorful metaphors are likely to descend on the defiant country.  Obama has assailed Iran with an increasingly terse tone—a tone that could escalate to swearing.

When asked if the Obama Administration is prepared to use any of George Carlin’s ‘seven words you can not say on television,’ Obama replied, “No options are off the table at this time.”

If Iran continues to thumb their nose at the global community, Obama threatened an “egregious bout of profanity not seen since the Discord’s last Crank feature.” 

Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, stated the dropping of the F-bomb itself is not a matter of if, but when.

“Plans to do anything meaningful to suspend Iran’s nuclear pursuits have been suspended until operation Mock and Caw takes full effect,” said Panetta.  “We’re even thinking of an outright regime change, so…like, instead of referring to the Iranian regime as the ‘Iranian regime’, we’re going to call it the ‘Iranian leadership’.  See?  We changed the regime with no loss of life.”

“As for the old carrot and the stick analogy,” said Obama,  “we have used the carrot, so now the time has come to use the smaller, less enticing carrot, and, of course, an egregious bout of profanity.”
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Review of the ‘Accu-Check Aviva’ Glucose Monitoring System

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The Crank

Or, as I like to call it, “Ignorance in Design, Futility in Function”. As you can probably glean from the title, this is one beige gorilla who will be looking for another way to test my glucose. Years of Twinkies and ‘hecho en Mexico’ Coke have started to take their toll. Maybe Hostess going under isn’t such a bad thing… Meanwhile, my dear Doctor has told me I must take horsey-pill sized meds to help me stave off the seemingly inevitable fat man’s disease…Twinkities.

The pills, while really big, and really harsh on ones’ digestive system, are not a big problem for me. It’s amazing how big or awful a pill one can tolerate when it is inserted in the gooey hole of a jelly donut. No, the real problem is: I want to monitor my glucose to see just what I can use for emotional comfort food, and what I can no longer successfully digest without marking time off my lifespan calendar.

Enter the Accu-check Aviva system, prescribed by my Doctor. As my wife is in the medical field, she read and informed me of the directions, none of which seemed out of my ability to comprehend and successfully master. Yeah-well, uh, maybe.

So the wife says, “Now tomorrow morning when you get up, before you eat your usual six bowls of Honey Bunches of Fructose Flakes, test yourself and call me at work and let me know what the reading is.”

Flash forward to the next morning. My very own personal fur-laden live alarm clock, my cat Cannoli, lets me know the sun is up as I feel the wonderful sensations of wet sandpaper on my arm. ‘Oh, did I wake you? Oh well, as you are up anyway, would you be a darling and put some kibbles in my bowl, please? I would do it myself, but I DON’T HAVE ANY THUMBS!” he says with a meow.

I get up and dutifully proceed to the kitchen, where said monitoring equipment has set up household by the phone. I am then reminded by kitty of the real reason I exist as a human. It is said that dogs have masters, but cats have staff. Oh so right. Anyway, after the aforementioned bowl filling, I sit down with all the equipment, and re-read all the instructions. “No problem,” I said to myself as I line up the little torture devices in order of use.

First: turn on meter. Done! Second: take test strip out of sealed container and place wide end in opening at bottom of meter. OK, problem. Sealed container is child/gorilla proof. After getting out my hammer and screwdriver, I get the bastard open. ‘Remove one strip.’ Well, I cannot, for the opening of the container is SMALLER THAN MY FINGERS. So, I dump them all out on the table, and get one inserted into the monitor. Hooray  success! Well, not so fast.

Third: get ‘LANCET PEN’ and set for depth of puncture needed to draw blood. One to five, I set three, midrange is probably ok…is what I am thinking. Fourth: insert drum of lancets into end of pen. Here is where the futility of all this rears its ugly gourd.

I have what is called ‘Benign Essential Tremors’, what amounts to a constant slight shaking of my hands, symptoms typically exacerbated by reading any Zano posts. As I try to match the shake of my hand with the pen in it to the shake of the drum hand, I am reminded of that scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where the space station rotates and the incoming shuttle tries to match its rotation for docking. I am now wondering if playing ‘The Blue Danube Waltz” on my stereo would make this any easier.

Click-success!!

Fifth: rotate drum to where pointer is set to number 5. Each time you use the lancet, it will then rotate to the next number down. You cannot re-use any lancets; they will not re-load once used. Problem ; no rotation. Reread instructions. Hold tip of pen down and rotate drum, simultaneously. Yeah right. By now, the words “piece of shit” are rebounding from all the hard surfaces in my kitchen.

After realizing it’s already on # 5, I go into the living room and get my other glasses. When that is done, it says to hold the opening in the bottom of the pen firmly against fingertip and press yellow button. While trying to match shaking-rotations once again, I realize I see no yellow button. Reread. Yellow button is actually a clear button that appears slightly yellow when the pen is correctly set. No yellow. Go through the whole mind-numbing routine again, and lo and behold, I see a faint hint of yellow under the clear button. Re-matching shake-rotations again, with pen firmly held to finger, I go to press the now yellow button, only to realize it is not actually a button. It is a pressure sensitive recess in the side of the pen. A recess one would need fingers like pencils to operate, not, as it were, fat stubby gorilla digits.

Five B: jam lancet into eyeball. Rotate.

Ten minutes have now gone by. I move my hand so my fingernail is on the fukking button, and press. I hear a click, but feel no pain, see no blood. Reread. Reset pen to deeper setting. Can’t do, it won’t turn. Reread. Cannot reuse lancet, rotate drum, then reset depth.

I reread Zano feature to calm down.

It is at this point I realize there doesn’t exist ON EARTH enough Ritalin for me to do this regularly. Reset to deepest setting, match rotations, hold firmly, fingernail on button, press. FUCKING OUCH MAN. I did not for the life of me think a little hole would hurt that much. Now I have a hole, but alas, no blood. It is now going on twenty minutes, and I am happy to be alone at this point, for if either my wife or doctor were present, I would become intimately acquainted with the State’s civil involuntary commitment laws.

I used ALL FIVE lancets; I have FIVE fucking holes in the tip of ONE finger. I am squeezing the living shit out of my finger now, using words I have never even heard before and I am looking for the hammer to finish the job, when-TAD-DA! Blood appears. I quickly get the monitor and apply the paper strip to the blood. I watch the blood go up onto the paper, and turn the monitor around to look at the face to see what the numbers are. It is then I realize it is off. I turn it on, and it asks me to insert paper strip. THERE IS A FUCKING PAPER STRIP IN YOU, YOU BLOODY EVIL SADISTIC DEVICE FROM HELL!! I Reread the instructions, and some more Zano features, and here is the best part:

“You have exactly three minutes to do all of the above before device automatically shuts off and you will be asked to reset device and start over.”

There is blood on my shaver, on the mirror, on my comb, and all over the steering wheel on the Ram. There is now a pile of hammered plastic debris on the kitchen table, along with a bloody napkin and a note to my wife spelled out, in blood, on the kitchen table. Let’s just say the house will be a little quiet for a while. The whole monitoring thing WAS my Idea after all.

So I will forgo checking my blood sugar but will now need to add a blood pressure medication.

A note to the manufacturer: I know that you must have used thin, young, healthy, intelligent people when testing ease-of-use. Uh, the problem as I see it is that by the time a person is ready to use your product—fifty or so years of stress, fattening foods, and sedentary lifestyle later—you have made your product totally fucking useless to us fat-assed dim-witted shaky, high-blood-sugar types. You know, the ones who will, in all probability, be the ones actually purchasing your lovely little product.

Looks like I get a free pass this morning…Mexican Coke/Rum and Twinkies all around.

Breakfast of Champions!

The Crank
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Radcliffe Admits Constant Pressure of Facing Voldemort Led to Drinking

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Radcliffe Admits Constant Pressure of Facing Voldemort Led to Drinking

Los Angeles, CA—Actor Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame, admitted to the press today his fate to one day face Lord Voldemort was “just too much” and may have contributed to his heavy drinking on the set.

The Potter actor feels his naked escapades with those horses in that Broadway play “didn’t help.” In retrospect, Radcliffe is just happy he managed to turn down that “Katharine the Great meets Trigger” screenplay.

Radcliffe also blames his boozular indiscretions on the eclectic and unpredictable teaching styles of the professors at Hogwarts. “Professor Snape always exuded pressure, not to mention the crazies and the ones who turned out to be werewolves,” said Radcliffe, “and I don’t recommend taking Potions & Herbology three times, if you follow.”

Friend Luna Lovegood has a different angle and “suspects Nargles” as the main reason Potter was always potted.

Championing a different theory, Dr. Hogbein, of the Hogbein Institute of Wizardry, believes J.K. Rowling’s “butterbeer” is a gateway fictional drink.

“I don’t recommend spending your whole childhood drinking something called butterbeer out of a beer mug in some dingy castle pub. It’s a slippery nipple…er, slope. First you start nipping a little butterbeer and the next thing you know you’re chugging Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.”

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Flagstaff’s Brew Ha-Ha Gets the Last Laugh

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Flagstaff Brew-Ha-Ha
Mick Zano

After the Made in the Shade incident, I swore I would never cover another brew festival again. I made this proclamation to my wife the next day, or maybe she told me. Well, the beauty of being me is no longer being burdened with any long or short term memory whatsoever. And, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have gone to that second party afterward.

Yep, I just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. My life is like Groundhog Day, only I don’t remember I relived the same day until the end of said day. My only goal prior to the festivities was to get a good brunch base in me and avoid any and all alcohol. Of course, I got that reversed. As I am finally ordering a breakfast sandwich, I get a call from Stephanie, “Dude, it’s two, where are you?”

Cancel that order…

Mick Zano with Abba

Yes, I did in fact attend the Brew Ha-Ha with the members of ABBA. Actually, in an effort to prepare for every contingency, I took along several pharmacists. It pays to plan ahead. Did you score the perks, Fernando?

They also had a psychic-reading booth at the festivities. Psychic readings? at a Brewfest?

Now there’s a tough job. Let me take a crack at it:

Today you will partake in a great variety of hops, malts, and barley…oh, and wait, I see a porcelain God in your future!

“But what about our long term future?”

I see liver cancer for you, Mr. Drunk 24/7 T-shirt guy, and pancreatitis for your lovely wife.

There, that wasn’t so hard.

A Brew-Ha-Ha psychic?

For some history, the first Brew Ha-Ha was held in this town in 1887, when Jebediah Flagstaff was the first man to successfully keg surf down the San Francisco Peaks. Okay…Winslow doesn’t pay me enough to do actual research, so Google it. But don’t Google the Jebediah Flagstaff part, or you will only find this post again, which seems counterproductive…in a virtual wormhole kind of way. Anyway, this year a larger brew event was occurring at the same time down in the Valley of the Sun, so it was rookie night here in Flagstaff. I would pony up to the booth and say something like, hey, so where’s this brewery located? And I would get, “Umm, Oregon or Washington, I think.”

That’s nice. And what beers will we be sampling today?

“Umm, there’s a red one and one that isn’t quite as red.”

That’s nice. What about the yellow one in the corner?

“Umm…they just don’t give us any bathroom breaks.”

That’s nice. Geesh.

The breweries also didn’t bring up what they said they were going to: Old World Brewery said they would be bringing a scotch ale and a porter, they had a blonde and a honey wheat; close, real close, fellas. Sierra Nevada said they would bring over a barely wine, they lied. Mother Road said they’d bring over their Black IPA but, apparently, they drank the entire keg during the arduous three block journey from W. Phoenix to the Highland Conference Center…and the list goes on. Leffe didn’t even show at all, the bastards! Oh, and the “Elvis has Leffe the building” joke was omitted by the management (consider yourselves lucky).

Before I discuss the winners, keep in mind, I only sampled the beers that I was relatively unfamiliar with. So there were other great beers in attendance that were old hat for me. Speaking of which, Old Hat Porter was very good, albeit fictional. My medal round winners are as follows:

1st Mogollon’s Mesquite Porter – This local brewery really wowed em.’ Great stuff!

2nd Stone’s Black Double IPA – very nice. Stone rarely disappoints.

3rd Oskar Blues’ Old Chub (a scotch ale) – I’m a sucker for a good scotch ale.

Brad

By the end of the festivities everyone started looking like my friend Brad here, blurry and silly. Later that night we ganged up and destroyed those nasty green glasses of his. The next day we called it a fashion intervention. He’s a good sport and even stopped crying when we promised him ice cream.

To give you a brief Mick Zano itinerary of the day’s events:

2:00-6:00 PM — Brew Ha-Ha

6:00-7:00 PM — Cuvee Wine Bistro (for dinner)

7:00-10:00 PM — Some party or another, where I apparently filled my bead cans from the fest with appetizers (for later). Oh, and I won myself a dozen fresh eggs during a game. But I then lost said eggs before I could even hurl them. Talk about a missed opportunity for mischief.

10:10 PM — Urinating in public

10:12 PM — Listed on Arizona’s sex offender list (land of the bloody free!).

10:59 PM — Threw up in the appetizer filled cans

11:00PM — Forgot and ate said appetizers anyway.

11:00-3:00 AM — After hours party with the pharmacists, which went smoothly until Melinda decided we needed to do shots of something minty. Nothing like drinking for 12-hours straight and then having someone have such a brilliant boozular brainstorm (BBB). During an orange fight that soon ensued, you know……..I think I’m going to end it here. Suffice to say it was a little sillier than the New Years Eve party at the same venue, which ended with a concussion and a broken chair.

3:00 AM — My wife picks me up for the traditional drive home of shame (DHS) with much fear and loathing on Cedar Ave. No, she’s a great sport. She’s just meticulously keeping a journal for the lawyer.

Yeah, for dignity sake I need to stop. Kidding! I don’t have any of that…well, I might have once, but did I mention my memory issues? I’m sure I did…reasonably sure. I will definitely attend the Brew Ha-Ha next year, and would like to cordially invite the whole Havoc gang next year…That should calm things down.  I’m doing this even though I have officially sworn off brew fests in general. Ah, there’s plenty of time for me to forget about those little promises.

Oh, and you can find my coverage of Flagstaff’s Made in the Shade here. That one didn’t end as well. Or at least that’s what it is says on the police report. By the way, I did eventually figure out why things went so horribly wrong during that last event. I remember thinking: you only get twenty 4-oz beer samplers, so what’s the worst that can happen? Never say this. Apparently, I ran out of my allotted samples so I started cutting pieces out of my Daily Discord business cards into little pieces and folded each piece over to vaguely resemble the tickets. Sadly, this worked for the last hour of the event. Never again!! …well, maybe.

So who’s with me?
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Oklahoma Town Baffled by Lack of Tourism

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Oklahoma Town Baffled by Lack of Tourism

Ringling, OK—Located only twenty miles from U.S. Route 35, Ringling residents question why “no one ever stops here.” The local gift shop, travel port, and gas distribution center reports only one item sold during the entire fiscal year.

Convenience store proprietor, Fran Mullins said, “The T-shirt we sold read: What happens in Ringling …No Really, What Happens in Ringling? It’s not really a joke so much as a cry for help.”

Despite the abysmal sales, the town continues to look forward from their porch chairs. “We’re not looking back,” said Mayor Johnson. “Nothing back there anyways. We think a mural on the side of Morley’s Hardware store might help—maybe of a bustling town. It’s a ‘paint it and they will come’ kind of philosophy. We are also thinking of a traffic light, so they have to stop. We just need to pave some type of cross street, I suppose.”

Warren Morley, of Morley’s Hardware added, “There’s talk of a Panda Express opening next year. This is solely for the purpose of improving tourism, because, frankly, there’s not much demand for panda meat among locals.”

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You Show Me Your Birth Certificate If You Want to See Mine

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The Librarian

When is the stupidity ever going to end? No, not the Daily Discord; they just renewed their hosting. I just can’t understand why anyone would continue to support the ignorance of way too many members of the Republican Party! I know that democracy is composed of many differing factions. I believed that responsible people could disagree on issues and resolve them. Oops, I said responsible people. Can you edit that part out?

I had come to the point of considering abandoning my beliefs or accepting that many Republicans are way too ignorant, self-serving, delusional, or a combination of all of the above, to be responsible.

Now I stand firmly on my belief in myself! On my most crazy and delusional day, I could never reach the level of idiocy of even the most off-the-track idiocy of the Republican Party during any given news cycle!

A while back, four Republicans in the New Hampshire State House supported a hearing requested by a group of “birthers” who want President Obama officially removed from the state’s primary ballot. Apparently, they believe that integrity, intelligence, ability to control one’s response to irrational and reactionary people making personal attacks, and the skills needed to maintain extraordinary international relations while managing a country in a clear state of deterioration, are un-American characteristics. I will admit, I don’t see people with President Obama’s skills very often, even in the halls of Congress and State Legislatures.

If that New Hampshire group wasn’t crazy enough, one group in Arizona has even demanded that the President “release the microfiche” of his birth certificate. I’m not even certain that microfiche would last 50 years. Where do these people come from? Under rocks? Out of the ooze? A Zano family reunion? Sorry. Of course, the conspiracy theorists are a fringe group teetering on the edge – hopefully of oblivion – but the fringe is becoming more dense. And what is wrong with the elected officials that they are pandering to the lunatic fringe? Actually, these people give the mentally ill a bad name. In the past, I worked in the psychiatric unit of a hospital. No one in our unit was even close to “lunatic fringe” crazy! Or that ignorant or nasty. This group is to politics what the Ghetto Shaman is to enlightenment.

It seems to me, that if these people are so concerned about President Obama’s birth certificate, an informed government and electorate should be even more concerned about theirs. There must be some reason this non-issue is such a major issue for them. My guess is that they don’t have birth certificates. Perhaps no one should be allowed to vote in any future election unless he or she can show the original notarized copy of her/his birth certificate. Or would that be government infringing on personal rights? WELL, WOULD IT, NUTS???

The Librarian
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Job Creator, Zeus, Angered with Obamacare Mandates

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Job Creator, Zeus, Angered with Obamacare Mandates

Mt. Olympus—The Greek God, Zeus, is highly displeased with the Obama Administration’s arrogance. “How dare he force my hand on this, especially considering the sheer number of lightning bolts I’m typically palming at any given moment.”

Zeus feels some of the Obamacare mandates are in direct contradiction to his own belief system.

“You can’t expect me to pay for operations that defy Greek mythological principles,” said Zeus. His chief complaint involves Obamacare forcing him to buy insurance that includes amputation procedures. Zeus believes such amputations would forever disqualify the dead from crossing the River Styx into Hades. “If a person is missing a body part, Charon, the Ferryman, will throw them right out of the boat!” said Zeus. “Is it better to save an arm and spend eternity in limbo or Tartarus? Mortal fools! Obama is forcing this down my throat and I happen to know a thing or two about that. Just ask my father, Cronus.”

Zeus employs over 17,000 mortals but maintains he is only sleeping with the female ones. Zeus is now threatening to burn the White House to the ground unless an amicable compromise can be reached. When asked if he is jumping on the recent Christian bandwagon against Obamacare, Zeus replied, “Don’t conflate issues. Those people hold some strange beliefs.”

In related news, Zeus claimed the life of another golfer in California. “I f*&^ing hate golf,” said Zeus.
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The Liz Cheney Interview: Brought to You by the Makers of Nexium

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Mick Zano

I live in a very red state. The move was quite volitional, kind of like when I pick at a scab, or order nuclear wings, or luge naked. Yes, I’m a luger, baby, like that song. It may just be a coincidence, but I can’t get MSNBC on the telly anymore. Lately my remote skips from CNN to Fox News. True story. I’m sure this has not been orchestrated by my Governor, Jan Brewer, as I have seen both my cable company and Mrs. Brewer in action, first hand, and neither of them could pull off something this sophisticated.

Please Suddenlink Cable, I need my liberal shelter from this imbecilic storm! OK, I don’t like MSNBC much either, but I tend to only groan now and again at the television as opposed to Fox, which triggers my Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). Oh wait, I get Fox News on multiple channels now. That’s helpful. Not! My IQ is dropping five points a week! I’m starting to grow an inexplicable appreciation for Bill O’Reilly and I can even make it all the way to the first commercial break on Hannity without the vomit bag. Mostly.

Have you been following the Republican debates? This particular Super PAC propagandic extravaganza makes the last days of Rome seem like The Garden Reiki Wellness Center (where the Ghetto Shaman and I spend our weekends hitting on enlightened chicks). To summarize events, Mitt Romney has not sipped sufficiently from the Cup of Stupid. Apparently, you must alienate everyone with a clue as well as every independent voter in the country to get “the nod.” It’s a nice vetting process, for those who wish to remain the minority.

The misinformed masses just won’t settle for someone who might secretly have a brain, so Enter the Santorum. The then PA Senator voted with George W. Bush on every issue. I lived in PA under his watch. I realize this period of time has been stripped from the memory banks of about 40% of our population. Should you be a Foxeteer, please ignore this last point and repeat the words: Obama is a socialist. Thank you.

For the rest of us, let’s review what George, and by proxy Rick, got right between 2001 to 2006:

  1. Well, W’s first pitch at that ball game wasn’t bad, but we can’t really give any credit to Rick for that one.
  2. Please see number one.

So….ZERO! Let’s do the recount…ZERO! Not sure what Santorum’s Senatorial record was like pre-2001, but it’s a safe assumption it involved sweater vests and important sweater-vest-related legislation.

I wasn’t feeling well the other day, so I abandoned my post at work and crawled into my favorite Archie Bunker chair. I can only claim this valuable piece of real estate when no one else is home, mind you, because as Dylan tells us The Times They Are a Changin’. If my boss happens to be reading this, I can assure you, my illness had absolutely nothing to do with Flagstaff’s recent Brew-Ha-Ha. Honest. I did not even attend that unsavory event, so please ignore my related post on the subject. Really, it’s just another strange coincidence, like that time when my monthly reports had that paper shredder mishap.

So, completely devoid of my Hannity-proof-harborage, I hesitantly turned on Fox News. This can’t really happen much in the evening anymore. When my daughter is home, she makes me turn it off by reminding me, “Dad, I’ve only ever heard you curse when you’re driving or watching Fox News.”

Even if the house is empty, like today, I can only watch Fox News until my heart monitor starts erratically beeping, then I need to switch to something more calming, like those Saw movies.

So for one hour, and one hour only, I turned on Herr Murdoch’s channel. This was the result:

Code blue: Zano’s living room…

No, it wasn’t that bad. I have learned a series of breathing techniques that allow me to lower my blood pressure between bouts of profanity. Wouldn’t you know it, Megyn Kelly is interviewing Liz Sith-Apprentice Cheney. Oh boy, returning to work was starting to sound pretty good. I reached for my Tums as a preemptive measure.

Here’s some of that magical Liz Cheney interview with my thoughts in parenthesis:

Liz on the State of the Union:

“To see a president stand up at a SOTU and act as though our prestige is at an all time high (yeah, your father made that impossible, didn’t he?). It’s not the first time he’s made such mistakes (to assume the Bush years are easily reversible is very insightful, if you’re a strain of bacteria). When you see that naivety combined with arrogance it’s really concerning (BIN LADEN, BITCH! Al-Qaeda dogs finally in their kennel!).”

Sorry, that was uncalled for. My apologies to Al-Qaeda.

Liz on the Arab Spring:

“They’ve (The Obama-Nation) had absolutely no strategy across the Arab World. Our response has been inadequate (what we really could use is just a couple more land wars in Asia to help your father’s Halliburton stocks, right?).

Come to think of it, if only Dick had been as smart as that fictional character Vizzini from The Princess Bride, this never would have happened.

Liz on Syria:

“This administration doesn’t have enough prestige to put together even a bare minimum coalition to condemn what’s happening in Syria (because of your father).”

This is kind of like burning down the only bar in town during a drunken blackout and then going to the press the next day and asking, “Why can’t our neighborhood even sustain an acceptable drinking establishment?”

You see, Liz, I remember waaay back in 2002 all those coercive tactics your father used to build a coalition to invade the wrong country under false premises. You don’t think that impacts our ability to coalition-build a mere few years later? Really? I know he’s your father, but the chances of him killing the Emperor to save Luke Skywalker is remote at best. And, lady, if you cared about the rule of law, at all, you would march your father to an airport and pick some civilized country as a destination, preferably one that would arrest him on the tarmac.

Then Megyn Kelly finishes her show with a completely erroneous summation of the situation in Iran. Well, it’s the same thing echoed in every other Fox show, so it remains a true story to those residing squarely in the neococoon. Basically to sum up Megyn’s “journalistic” segment, Obama’s doing nothing about Iran…and we are all in danger…and he’s weak…and we’re not going to back Israel because Obama’s is a Muslim, living in a madrassa, plotting the downfall of America through socialism. The usual.

I’m done. I’m shutting this shit off in favor of C-Span’s coverage of the latest Labor Relation Act for the vertically challenged. The unemployed are really falling short on this one.

Megyn, Megyn, Megyn. Admittedly, I don’t know what Obama is up to, but we will likely find out at some point how he outsmarted Iran, again, just like he outsmarts the Foxeteers each and every news cycle. Do I know how this will end? No. Is there a clear potential for something terrible to happen? Yep. And it was just as critical when Bush left office, but, luckily, Obama has an understanding of people, foreign policy, and nuance. Through a series of chemical and neural impulses firing within his frontal lobes, he can make something called informed decisions. This has been a problem with you and your candidates for a long, long time. Each election cycle the right is opting for people with less and less of these aforementioned chemical and neural messengers. Enter the Santorum!

Obama’s skills have thus far been light-years ahead of Incurious George’s, placing him well within the mediocre realms—a place the Foxeteers hope to reach someday with just the right amount of spin and Zyprexa.

A small dose of reality:

How we handle this Iranian scenario is absolutely critical. This is a monstrously delicate situation. In other words, let’s elect Gingrich! Obama is trying to avoid, for the moment, regime change and a full blown American Depression. He already sent a computer virus that pushed Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities back at least a year or two (by even the most conservative estimates). And, Iran is undergoing the most sustained and painful sanctions ever put into place, which is why they are currently threatening to block shipping lanes. Our own foreign affairs minister and many other sources claim these sanctions are very coordinated and are having a greater impact than any previous attempt. Sooo, you just happened to leave those parts of the equation out, Megyn? That’s crap, like most things that come out of your mouth.

Fox News information is based on either lies, false assumptions, or my favorite, lies of omission. This is why reality never plays out quite the way the Foxeteer predicts. Their endless patriotic march from surprise to surprise to surprise must be very vexing. And then they have to work feverishly to create a whole slew of other false assumptions to explain their last round of false assumptions. They’ve done this so much and so effectively, they might be the first group to actually reach Zen through their own rectums. I believe the Ghetto Shaman refers to this phenomenon as a self-Nirvanaloscopy.

I need transcripts for Fox’s shows. It’s comical. I know, I know…you love America so much you want to crush it into a small congealed ball of stupid, but I just don’t want any part of it. The closest conservatives have come to being right about anything in recent years is our exploding deficit. They are so close to nailing this issue, they can smell it—except the whole being nearly dead wrong part. They didn’t care about deficits, at all, until every reputable economist in the country said, umm, if we don’t keep printing lots of funny money we’ll sink into a depression. So at that very moment when we couldn’t stop, is the same moment when they had this bright idea that deficits matter and to stop. Now on other issues…ummm, they haven’t fared quite as well.

I have been on this story for years, but recently Andrew Sullivan has picked up the torch. And he has an audience about million times mine. I know, I know, we should get a room, but he’s married.

“The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their mainfold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP’s own ‘news’ channel, Fox. They have never quite reconciled themselves to Romney since he represents a gray blur in a stark Manichean universe they have created for more than a decade now. In this universe, there is only black and white. There is only them and us. Anyone who diverges an iota from this schematic is speaking without a microphone in front of a revving airplane engine.”

—Andrew Sullivan

I usually give him all the credit, but this time I think he’s actually channeling me. Hey Fox News, you really want to humiliate Obama? Take a page from the Daily Discord:

Obama Humiliated by "Singing Frog" Sensation
Obama Humiliated by "Singing Frog" Sensation
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Newt Gingrich Concedes Race and Endorses Younger Newt Gingrich

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Newt Gingrich Concedes Race and Endorses Younger Newt Gingrich

Cincinnati, OH—GOP nominee hopeful, Newt Gingrich, told reporters today he is conceding the race and will stand behind a younger less baggage-heavy version of himself. Gingrich’s handlers claim the move came after he started flinging his own feces at a group of Romney supporters yesterday while on the campaign trail in Cincinnati.

“Not only do we need a base on the moon,” said Gingrich, “we need time machines that can access temporal wormholes for the sole purpose of allowing politicians, like me, to step back in time and avoid the pitfalls they would later regret.”

The older Gingrich plans to drop out of the race and spend more time with some of his families. Meanwhile, the younger version promises to resume the fight with new vigor “right up until the convention!”

Gingrich believes no one with any character can pass the scrutiny presidential hopefuls all face. “This is not about me. This is about getting the best presidential candidate in place to beat Barack Obama next year. I am that candidate, or I will be that candidate through some heavily funded temporal trickery.”

Gingrich also explained how the “construction of this fantastic machine will create real jobs for real Americans.” He finished his speech by calling himself the Once and Future Ging and then compared himself to Mother Teresa, Ronald Reagan, and that guy from Stargate…before he started flinging more feces at some nearby Romney supporters.  
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Alex Bone: Arizona’s New Homelessness Advocate

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Cokie McGrath

Outside the Collapsing Shack, AZ—In a freakish turn of events not seen since that last Crank feature, Alex Bone has sworn off all societal ‘responsibilities’ and ‘obligations.’ Inspired by the Discord’s own ‘Occupy Space’ movement, Bone Man has not only joined the ranks of the homeless, but is working diligently on a statewide movement for others to join him in his crusade against rent, mortgages, and roofs in general.

The Discord caught up to Alex, where he was hiding from the police behind a dead tree in the woods just south of town. There, our own Cokie McGrath asked why he had chosen the road less cozy.

“It wasn’t just because I didn’t have the money to pay my rent,” said Bone. “There is waaaay more to it than that. These days they expect you to pay for your home, pay for your utilities, pay for your food, and even pay for your sex!”

Cokie asked him to elongate…er, to elaborate on that last part:

“Yeah sex, the only reason you need a place is because chicks dig beds and heating and all that other sissy stuff. From now on I’m only going to go out with women who dig me for me…sure I’m wet when it rains and I freeze when it’s cold and I’m forced to eat rotting food from dumpsters, but…what was the question? And another thing, paying bills is stupid. The Native Americans didn’t have bills. Land of the free, my ass, how about land of the bills?! I’m not quitting my job, so don’t call me a bum, I’m just spending money on what I choose to. I’ve been at it for a while now and I already have an extra two thousand dollars in my bank account. Suck on that Arizona Power Service! Now if only the bank would let me in so I could withdraw some of it. So what if I smell a little? It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

Mr. Bone is now trying to convince others to adopt his carefree lifestyle and has released a seven-CD set entitled: Shirk Your Way to Prosperity. When we asked how he was able to keep his job without bathing and such, Alex Bone said, “I have enough money now to buy a new shirt every day if need be.” He then took a sniff of his armpit. “And, by Yig’s scaly beard, need be…but I prefer to wash my clothes in the company’s bathroom sink, while washing my feet in the toilet. They’re always encouraging us to multi-task, right? I’m starting to get a few weird looks, but it’s worth it. I have so much money now I treated myself to two twelve packs last night. That’s almost a case using the metric system, woo hoo!”

When Cokie asked him about his Anti-Home Movement, Bone said, “The Sacred AHM is all about taking your freedom back and using it the way God intended, on barcrawls. Screw wasting money each month just to have a place to rest. I can rest just fine under a bridge and I have so much money now I can use my wallet as a pillow, bitches! I used to just work my ass off to have a place to drink my crummy beer. So I just cut out the middle man. Heck, if I drink enough, I don’t even notice how cold it gets. In your face UNS Gas!”

In closing Bone added, “I’m finally free. The man doesn’t own me anymore. I can even stay at City Hall some nights as part of the main Occupy Movement. Oh, and if you get a bus pass, you can just circle town and stay warm for hours. They drop you right off at the shelter and the mall, where I spend a lot of time buying lot’s of very small things that fit in my backpack. It’s almost full so I’m going to have to sell shit on Ebay so I can buy more shit. Hey, where are you guys going? If you let me take a shower at your place, I won’t smell so bad. You can’t argue with that logic. Maybe I could crash there too. I need to charge my laptop. Oh come on, I’ll buy the beer. I can afford fancy imported beer now. Did I mention that homelessness is the new rich?”
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Nothing Golden Can Stay: Farewell Hostess with the Mostess

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Nothing Golden Can Stay: Farewell Hostess with the Mostess

Long before there was Spongbob Squarepants, there was Spongecake Cream Members. But 1/10/2012 marked the beginning of the end. No, it isn’t cataclysmic storms, or giant grasshoppers like that similarly named Peter Graves’ movie. It’s not tsunamis or earthquakes or Mayan Gods either. It’s not even Ahmanutjob flexing his nuclear muscle, nor is it Kim Jong Jr. testing his authoritah. I’m afraid, it’s much, much worse.

I cannot get much more depressed and still function. Today, sniff-sniff, Hostess Bakery filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. Yes, I know, I know…how will we ever function without the Sacred Twinkie? I don’t know…but somehow we must soldier on. If not for us, for the sake of the children. Yes, for the children. But how can a child grow into a fully functional adult without first knowing of the magic ‘T’? It’s like a rite of passage. The mighty sponge member, Exglucosebur, passed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, for countless generations. The Once and Future Ring Ding.

When one reaches a certain age, the parent sits you down and hands you your first one. You are told just how to slowly and methodically open the package without damaging them. You are then told to take a bite, albeit a small one. We never know just how the little ones will react to the flood of flavor, the tsunami of sugar, the cacophony of cake, the symphony of spongy goodness.

Oh, I still remember my first time: I was behind the candy rack in my parent’s deli, hiding, ashamed, yet curiously attracted to them. Mom said they weren’t good for me, especially seeing as how I was already adept at finding the right end of the fork, so to speak. Yes, ahead of my age was I—a fact directly related to having access to free food 24-7. I took one bite and it was the first time I heard the music. The first time I saw the light. After I engulfed the little yellow wonders, almost swallowing them whole, I felt a sudden flood of warmth, a kind of epiphany—an epiphany only superseded by my first encounter with Coca-Cola. I grew up fast in those years, always managing to keep my little diabetic dalliances a secret from the parents.

I was finally caught on day, the plastic wrap and the little cardboard in my shirt pocket, face full of yellow cake, and the telltale spent white filling still in my hand. I was humiliated, eyes downcast, waiting for my father to fulfill his fatherly duties and wup my ass. What happened that day surprised me… one day you realize, the dad you had was not the dad you thought you knew.

No, that one warm June day in my seventh year, he sat me down and opened up another pack. He then went to the dairy case and grabbed a can of ReddiWhip. As he was telling me to keep my mouth shut about this, he covered each of the Twinkies with a delicate ribbon of whipped cream and handed me one. He then reached into the soda case and grabbed two Cokes—you know, the little 6 oz ones from years past. As he handed me the Coke, he had this little crooked smile. “Now this is our little secret, OK?”

I know why he had to keep it a secret. He, like me, had learned all too well the wonders of food. But unlike, yours truly, he was unable to remain just a ‘social eater’. He was a habitual user, Dad was. Hard stuff, too. One time, right after returning from WWII, he downed 13 bowls of Minestrone soup. He survived the war but had to have his stomach pumped that night. Eventually such indulgences came back to bite him in the ass.

Mom didn’t understand; she wasn’t like ‘us.’ She had never seen the light, nor heard the siren’s song—at least not until the day Dad took her to see Englebert Humperdink. She sure saw something that day. Came home all wobbly and glassy-eyed with the same crooked little smile… I never understood her addiction.

But will the little ones even remember the Twinkie? What great poems or sonnets will be written about the Ring Dings? the Choc-o-diles? the Devil Dogs? Oh, the humanity of it all. We need to act and act now. I say we do a fundraising telethon thing. Instead of ‘Jerry’s Kids,’ we can get a bunch of fat kids crying and staring into their empty Twinkie boxes.

“Why, mommy. Why?!”

That should do the trick. Think of it, Twinkies are the go-to for all occasions. Just lost your girlfriend? Get over that pair with another golden pair. Won the lottery? Twinkies. Hormones going wild? Twinkies. Pregnant? Twinkies. Postpartum? Prepartum? Post-prepartum? You always had a friend in Twinkies. For some of us, sadly, they were our only true friend.

We also need to think about the coming achococlypse. If we are to survive the coming onslaught of Global Problem Du Jour: pollution, radiation, droughts, liberals and famines, we will need the chemical properties of our favorite little ‘Soylent Yellow’ to help us endure and persevere. After all, they may just keep us alive. Twinkies are forever, too. Have you ever seen one go bad? Think of it. Well-armed Mad Max type vehicles will scour the countryside in search of them. Future history buffs will no doubt read of the Great Twinkie Wars.

“The Shroud of the Ring Ding has fallen. Begun the Twinkie War has!”

—Yoda

They have a half-life of about 400 years and are on the periodic table of the elements too, right next to uranium under Ts. And didn’t we find yellow cake in Iraq? Iran is trying to enrich Twinkies, but we can’t let them succeed!

I will now go to my local convenience store and start a memorial outside, complete with little crosses made of Twinkies, flowers, notes, the whole thing. I have even started knitting a patchwork quilt. Their stories must be told! It just seems wrong, so so wrong…

The Crank
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Punxsutawney Pete Predicts Six-More-Weeks of Slow Economic Growth

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Punxsutawney Pete Predicts Six-More-Weeks of Slow Economic Growth

Punxsutawney, PA—Those who remain in Punxsutawney after Groundhog Day are now treated to a little talked about event. Punxsutawney Pete, the famous Pennsylvanian opossum prognosticator, predicted Six-more-weeks of slow economic growth and implied Obama’s policies are to blame.

The town of Punxsutawney has seen a steady decline in interest in Groundhog Day over the years. The town responded by adding this opossumy pundit to their busy groundhogian mix.

For the last three years, Pete has emerged from his hole and offered several predictions regarding our state of the union. Thus far he’s accurately foreseen the onset of the mortgage crisis, the end to the Iraq War, and the crushing defeat of Sanjaya on American Idol.

“We needed to keep the tourists around another night,” said Mayor Yokel. “We tried blocking the road out of town with a mock accident, but you can only get away with that shit so many times.”

The Mayor came under considerable scrutiny for the rumor that swarms of radioactively enlarged insects had surrounded the town in February of 2007.

“Even the Easter Bunny thinks Phil is a bad opening act,” said Yokel. The Mayor blames the slump in tourism on two major factors: “It’s so rare the little bastard sees an early spring in our future and, second, that damnable movie Groundhog Day! Folks are scared would-be-attendees might become trapped in a temporal loop and never leave this piss ant little town again. If Bill Murray was here right now I’d punch him in his raccoon face.”

Punxsutcoony Paul was unavailable for comment.

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Ask The Ghetto Shaman

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Ask The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

My wife just left me for another man; I hate my boss and my landlord. Everything sucks. I could use some of your wise counsel.

Will-EEE

Dear Will-EEE,

Why do you shirk from these things? Why do you avoid them? Misfortune can catapult us to spiritual awareness. You need to reread my book Turn that Frown Upside Tao: Embracing Life’s Suckage.

The Ghetto Shaman

P.S. If it’s any consolation, I plan to just use and abuse your wife and then dump her ass.

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