I do Not Have Graphs, and I Will Not Point at Them

According to Yellow Freight, my metal lathe is on its way to Charlotte, North Carolina. It hasn’t gone very far since leaving Vermont on Monday. They estimate a Friday arrival, but I have my doubts.

I can’t believe it’s almost here. I’m still trying to come up with things to make with it.

You know what occurred to me last night? I should design a garlic press. There are NO good ones. The Good Grips cheap one snaps if you squeeze too hard. The aluminum Zyliss jobs shed grey aluminum oxide into your garlic. The Good Grips expensive ones have handles that eventually slip off. Frustrating. Is tool steel food safe? I should be able to make something that will last forever and pulverize garlic effortlessly. And I think I should make a stainless mallet to use in the kitchen. It would be swell for peeling garlic cloves. I hate reaching into the garlic press to pull out the peels.

I also realized I am not limited to metal. I find myself looking around at round or nearly round objects made from plastic, wondering what warped things I can do to them. I need to get some end cutters and come up with a way to do some milling. I have to make the most of this tool.

I saw something really depressing today. I was changing the birds’ newspapers, and I saw an article about hopeful kids training to do “green” jobs. Can you believe that? None of that nonsense is going anywhere. Sooner or later everyone is going to get out of denial and admit global warming is a fantasy, and the harder times get, the less people care about the environment. Meanwhile these poor deluded children are being trained to be fecal recovery technicians and hygiene discouragement activists. It’s like it’s 1980 and people are choosing to dedicate their lives to disco music. The Environmental Boogie Nights aren’t going to last.

I’ve enjoyed global warming tremendously this winter and spring. Last night it got down to 67 degrees, in late April! That’s magnificent. Summer will be much easier to tolerate this year, because winter and spring were so cool and pleasant. Thanks, Uncle Al. I know a lot of semi-aquatic polar bears–animals which spend half of their lives swimming–have been drowning for my benefit, but I didn’t sweat much this winter, so it was worth it. Keep on drowning, guys. And grow nice and fat so the rugs we make out of you will cover large areas.

I wonder what other semi-aquatic or fully aquatic species will start drowning as things get worse. Penguins, maybe. Walruses. Fish. You may think fish can’t drown, but remember, Uncle Al uses computer animation to make phony videos of animals drowning, so the fact that it never actually happens is no obstacle. I’ll bet he also had his stooges make up a video of him winning the 2000 election. Zaphod Beeblebrox meets World of Warcraft meets Vanilla Sky.

His Nobel Prize win seemed fictional but oddly, wasn’t. His whining about a nonexistent crisis beat out a lady who risked her life saving actual, non-CGI Jewish kids from Hitler. You know what? She should have saved polar bears. That would have been gold. Or maybe Coca-Cola should make warm fuzzy CGI videos of Polish Jews sharing a Coke and a smile on a big iceberg. Then the Nobel Committee might have thought they were cute and therefore worth saving.

Actually, Uncle Al doesn’t make CGI polar bear videos. According to news accounts, he just steals them without authorization and passes them off as his own. If he hadn’t chosen his videos carefully, his audience might have seen polar bears drowning one minute and having a Coke the next.

Coke is a great beverage for polar bears, because it goes great with their favorite meal: raw human being. A polar bear will actually spend a day trying to bash its way into your house to eat you. My guess? They know we cause global warming, so they’re trying to get a square meal and do Mother Gaia a solid, all in one shot.

Here is wisdom for you. Given the choice, avoid green vocational training and learn to drive the big rigs. You’ll be choosing a field which has the benefit of not being based on an imaginary demand.

How to Make Oatmeal Last Half an Hour

I have some great advice for men. Never shop online for underwear while you’re trying to eat.

It turns out that the most amazing underwear in the universe is made by a Colombian company called Mundo Unico. But 98% of their styles are like something Perez Hilton would wear. Horrifying. I don’t know if this stuff is designed expressly for gays or what, but you really wouldn’t believe it. I had to scour the web to find something that looked relatively normal.

Now it’s over. At least I’ll be able to enjoy lunch.

Explain

I don’t understand what Drudge is saying in his headline right now. Why is Dennis Prager watching us?

Arf

Couple of things.

As expected, the Obamas demonstrated remarkably bad taste in choosing their dog. They chose the Portuguese water dog, which, whatever its positive traits may be, is a remarkably ugly creature. I have never understood people who buy hairy dogs that gather drool, snot, and eye secretions in their face hair, like mops.

The shocking part? They chose a working breed.

If I had to have another dog, I think I’d look for a Shepherd mixed with something else to tone down the inbreeding and avoid the hip problems. And now that I think about it, those are good considerations to keep in mind when choosing a wife.

I don’t know why they bought a dog. Liberals and dogs don’t mix, except in the sense that liberals often have to be pried loose from the jaws of watchdogs and dogs belonging to the police. Liberals are supposed to own cats, who, like the people who vote for liberals, consume wealth and attention and in return, provide nothing but scorn.

Here’s a fact for people who think George Bush is dumb: he was smart enough to choose a dog that bit reporters whenever possible.

Second thing: I notice that a tennis player named Federer has married his “longtime girlfriend.” Ladies who choose to live with single men (every man who is not married is single), let me tell you what it means when your live-in boyfriend proposes after a period of years. It means he gave up and decided you were the best he could do. If he had thought you were a catch, he would have married you sooner, to keep someone else from getting you. Or it could mean he hates being with you less than he hates dating.

Felicitations. You are a reserve parachute. Who says romance is dead? Get down on your knees and thank Gaia no one better showed up.

I Shake my Cane at You

I have an edict, and it goes out to every McDonald’s manager on earth.

Henceforth, five times a week, you are to gather your employees and tell them to STOP INTERRUPTING PEOPLE WHILE THEY ORDER. Of course, you’ll have to tell them seven times, because they’ll interrupt.

“I’ll have two McMuffins, one hash brown…”

“You’ll have two Egg McMuffins?”

“I’ll have two McMuffins, one hash brown…”

“Three Egg McMuffins and eight hash browns?”

“I’ll have two McMuffins, one hash brown…”

“What do you want to drink?”

“I’ll have two McMuffins, one hash brown…”

“Nineteen hash browns and one McGriddle?”

Thanks to the amazing people who man the drive-thru, I have now become the Old Guy Everyone Dreads Waiting On. I ask them when they’re ready to listen. I tell them to quit interrupting. I say, “I already told you that.” Next, I’ll be carrying one of those ridiculous change purses that you squeeze to open, and I’ll pay them in pennies while the people behind me lose their minds, and I’ll demand to know why the manager won’t force the cashiers to honor coupons from other restaurants.

At least I’m not a woman. They’re the worst. “What kind of pesticide do you use on the lettuce?” “Were the tomatoes picked by union workers?” “I need to write a check for my McNuggets.” “Which is better for me? Three salads or one Big Mac?” “Please go find me a nutritional information sheet so I can memorize it to protect my yammering larvae.” “I need you to put the onions in a separate bag, make sure the lettuce is above the tomatoes, see that the amount of pickles is a prime number, and if it’s not too much trouble, I want to come inside and watch so I can make sure you don’t apply too much mustard. And I want to open my sandwich and inspect it before I leave the window.”

Here’s how to run the cash register at McDonald’s. I’ve never done it, but I think I have it figured out. When the customer orders something, you push the button with that item’s picture on it. Then when they order something else, you push that item’s button. When they’re FINISHED, you tell them the total, and you wait for them to look at the video list a foot and a half from the car window, so they can make sure you got it right. And you don’t argue with them about what they ordered. If you think about it, this is a subject they know more about than you do.

If you can’t do this, keep voting for Democrats, because you are eventually going to be considered absolutely unemployable, even with affirmative action, and even if you work for the government. But I repeat myself.

Here’s another tip. When a customer says “thank you,” it’s not okay to snub him just because you’re furious that you ended up flipping burgers for a living. If you think about it long enough, and you won’t, you may eventually realize your status in life is not entirely the customer’s fault. It’s completely possible that you, yourself, may deserve some of the blame. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

There’s a kid who works the register at the nearest breakfast joint, and he is so professional, I feel like he shows me up as a customer. This kid is going to end up owning the whole strip mall. He looks me in the eye and says, “Thank you for your business, sir. Come back soon.” At this point I usually drop my squeeze change purse and my handful of expired Arby’s coupons, and I shuffle out feeling completely outclassed. Why can’t McDonald’s find people like that? Actually, they did have one. The middle-aged German lady who always smiled and called me sir and ordered me to have a nice day whether I felt like it or not. She’s gone. She probably saved her money and bought a private island. Now I have to deal with her successor, Unpredictable Hypersensitive Interruption Girl.

The breakfast kid is black. I hope the entitlement pimps don’t get ahold of him and corrupt him before he becomes a self-made millionaire and starts sponsoring conservative candidates.

I think I’ll pull my white socks up and go find some kids to glare at.

Except Maybe for Al Franken

Okay, I have a new Glenn Beck theory, and it’s starting to worry me. I hate to think my idol may be a total fraud, but I have to go where the evidence leads me.

1. He started the 912 project.

2. Half of 912 is 456.

3. The number 456 is divisible by 3.

4. If you divide the devil’s number, 666, by 3, you get 222.

5. Room 222 was a popular TV show back in the Seventies.

6. The star of Room 222 was Michael Constantine.

7. Constantine was the leader of the Holy Roman Empire.

8. Roman Polanski is a pedophile.

Don’t shoot the messenger. All I did was connect the dots. Let me know if you can help me with the last leg of the puzzle. I’m trying to connect this to Kevin Bacon.

I really hope Keith Olbermann doesn’t take credit for this.

By the way, I’d appreciate it if someone could identify the lube Olbermann uses to coat his hair, face, and eyeglasses. It looks like it would be great for machine tools.

More

I have an alternate theory.

8a. New York is the Empire State.

9a. The French word for “state” is “etat.”

10a. Louis XIV said, “L’etat, c’est moi.”

11a. In the opening run of Camelot, the song “C’est Moi” was sung by Robert Goulet.

12a. Robert Goulet once locked his wife in a car trunk.

Man, this one gives me chills.

Only for the Chosen

People, this is amazing. I think Glenn Beck is trying to send us secret messages. Using knowledge I learned from hearing Madonna talk to Whoopi Goldberg about kabbalah, I have extracted vital information from a blurb on his webpage! Begin at “START” and read in the direction of the arrows. Just the circled stuff. The spelling is a little off, but he was probably in a hurry.

Start decoding the messages now, before the IMF and Skull and Bones create an artificial aluminum foil shortage so we can’t protect ourselves from Rachel Maddow’s lesbo-fascist mind control beam!

More

Readers say they’re fed up, they just can’t take it any more, they can’t stand any more of the lies, and they’re going to take back my blog, if I don’t blow the photo up and make it easier to read.

For Liberals, it Started in November

Here’s a funny question. Has anyone noticed how American troops stopped dying in Iraq after Obama was elected?

Seriously, when was the last time you read about “mounting death tolls”? When was the last time you saw a journalist quote the latest figure? We know journalists are honest and fair, so the only possible explanation is that Americans aren’t being killed any more.

I’ve also noticed that global warming has slowed down, the planet is no longer running out of oil, and crazy government spending is no longer a bad thing. When Bush spent billions, it was very, very bad! Bush was a bad man! Now Obama spends trillions, and we all realize it just makes life better for kitties and puppies and flowers and baby ducks, which is what government is supposed to do.

Hold it, I have to throw up.

I’m back.

Here’s another question. Has it ever occurred to anyone but me that if Bob Seger had turned his music five degrees in another direction, he’d be in the same genre as Christopher Cross and the Captain and Tennille? Just wondering. Same goes for Jimmy Buffett. Will I get in trouble if I say I think it’s weird that people compare him to Hemingway?

Not that this is a flattering comparison.

Yesterday I was bummed out because my lathe tools arrived, and the plastic case was mashed. But the guy gave me a partial refund, and now I’ve realized I have an excuse to make a box for them out of my garbage-pile mahogany. You’re supposed to season wood for a year before you use it, at least, but I think you can bend the rules when you’re making a crappy box to hold tools in your garage.

I’d appreciate it if everyone would shut up about Joe Biden lying. Yes, he lied. But it’s not a big deal. First of all, he’s a Democrat, and Democrats think morality is stupid, so in a way, he’s actually being consistent with the ideals he preaches. Second, we already knew he lied all the time. He had to bail out of a Presidential bid because he stole Neil Kinnock’s patronizing, maudlin ramblings about coal miners playing football. Hello? Earth to electorate: this is not news.

Finally, Glenn Beckside has posted an important update. Read it before “Them” sabotages the server!

Short

Today someone whose English is not completely up to speed informed me that there was a turkey in my yard.

Here’s what I saw when I looked:

I wondered if it would poop on the beautiful sheet of painted 3/4″ plywood I recovered from my dad’s abandoned warehouse. I had left it lying out there after moving it to get to a different sheet.

See if you can guess the answer.

When my dad and I went to breakfast today, this was parked next to us. I accidentally cropped the corner of the car off.

This phone takes pretty bad photos.

That’s one of my all-time favorite cars. You have to love a car that has a 500-plus cubic-inch engine and only two doors. It’s the perfect thing for offending liberals.

Synthetic Pillow Works

It looks like the foam pillow experiment was a howling success. I used it last night. I not only feel rested; I feel somewhat wired. I suspect that my sleep was seriously inadequate before I got rid of the down. I hoped I would feel better after beating the congestion that made me snore and woke me up, but I didn’t expect to feel this good.

For years I’ve had congestion at night, and I got up most days and coughed up fairly interesting things throughout the morning. I thought the second problem was normal for me. But last night, I was able to breathe, and today all the tubes seem clear.

I’m not sure who makes this thing, but I’ll review it. It’s the only ordinary-looking memory foam pillow they sell at the local Costco.

The pillow is heavy, almost as though it were damp inside. When I took it out of the box, it had what appeared to be small oil spots on the cover. I ran the cover through the washer, and they disappeared. The box said the pillow would smell at first, and that the smell would go away after one or two days. I put the pillow under a ceiling fan without the cover. When I went to bed, it still smelled sort of like house paint.

By my standards, this pillow is pretty firm. You can’t scrunch it up much or fold it. It keeps your head fairly high off the mattress, but not quite high enough to strain your neck. It’s not as comfortable as a feather or down pillow when you first put your head on it, but I found that it didn’t get less comfortable with time. When I use traditional pillows, I have to change position once in a while because the filling compresses and the pillows become less comfortable. With the memory foam job, that doesn’t happen. You can lie in one position for a very long time. You just don’t feel like moving.

The box said the pillow would not warm up like a down pillow, and that is true. It stayed at a comfortable temperature. It didn’t heat up and make me sweat, which is a pleasant change. Nothing bums me out more than waking up and finding that one side of my pillow is wet. And I’m sure that contributes to allergies by encouraging things to grow on and in the pillow.

Because the pillow is hard, I’m going to run over to the mall and see what else is available. There is probably some sort of non-feather pillow that is easier to mash. I figure I can combine the foam pillow with something else–maybe buckwheat hulls–and get a system that works.

I wonder if this is going to improve my life. Poor sleep makes you fat, raises your blood pressure, and wrecks your memory and concentration. I had to quit playing the piano because I couldn’t remember pieces from one month to the next, and it was a very unpleasant disappointment. Maybe I can give it another whack now.

This morning I felt sharp as a tack. I had my usual Tuesday breakfast with my father, and in conversation, I felt like I was right on top of things. I didn’t hunt for words, and in my mind, I stayed ahead of the discussion. Maybe my brain isn’t turning into Jell-O after all.

We’ll see what happens. I’ll miss my down pillows, but I missed my brain more.

Why Waste Time?

Way oil.

That is the latest thing I have become aware that I am required to own, in order to sit in my garage ruining lathe projects. Thank goodness. I was almost afraid I had spent enough money.

A metal lathe has a thing at one end that turns the thing you work on, and then it has rails that point away from the turning thing, and then it has a thing that sits on the rails and holds the tool that cuts the turning thing. The rails are called “ways.” Which requires no explanation.

I think it’s great how I’m mastering all these mechanical terms.

The ways of a lathe have to be really smooth and straight, or else, well, I’m not sure what. I have been told two conflicting things. 1. If the ways are worn out (from the motion of the sliding thing that holds the tool), it will be impossible to make anything good on the lathe. 2. If the ways are worn out, it will not matter, because a real machinist would just excrete a giant burst of testosterone and “work around” the wear and still make parts fit for use in critical areas of the Hubbell telescope.

This appears to be a common issue with all types of machine tools. I keep hearing that they have to be in new condition to work OR that a good machinist can manufacture a Swiss watch using a pair of dull scissors and a Globe meat slicer.

I’m not sure whether any of this is relevant to me, since, in the effort to make crude and defective parts, I will probably be able to overcome the high quality and inherent precision of any machine tool made by man.

To keep your ways happy (not that it matters if you’re a real machinist with swarf in his colon, one glass eye, and nine fingers), you have to oil them, and of course, you can’t just use any old oil that doesn’t cost ninety dollars a gallon and have to be ordered from Singapore. You have to use way oil.

It gets better. There are three grades of way oil, and I have no idea which one is right. The book I’m reading says to get “medium,” with no justification whatsoever. It’s obvious to me that the author has no idea, either, and that he decided to go down the middle and see what happened.

Here’s the thing that makes me suspicious. The book also says I have to degrease the machine, weekly. Isn’t oil greasy? Won’t I be removing all that precious way oil?

I think this guy owns a way oil distributorship, and he needs to come clean. Or at least be degreased.

Wait, I’m wrong. Imagine that. It says to avoid removing the oil when you degrease.

The lathe I’m buying came from a prison. Of all the things that may have been spilled on it, grease worries me the least. I’m considering hosing it down with veterinary penicillin. Or I could take the easy route and just smear it with ground beef. My sister tells me not to eat beef because it’s full of antibiotics and steroids. Explain the logic. If I eat this stuff, I’ll be a) healthy and b) ripped. What’s not to like?

I’ll bet I know who sells way oil. Enco. How do I know this? I know it because I just received an email saying my first Enco order had shipped. That means I can’t include way oil in the same package. So this would be the perfect time for fate to humiliate me by revealing that Enco is currently having a massive way oil blowout.

Maybe Obama just banned way oil because it’s made by competent people who don’t need bailouts, and, like certain types of ammunition, it will now be impossible to find.

I love that Obama. And his wife, too. Did you see where she fist-bumped Queen Elizabeth? Something like that. It was pretty rad. They used to put your head on a pole for things like that.

MICHELLE OBAMA: HIGH FIVE!

QUEEN: ?

MICHELLE OBAMA: Don’t leave me hangin’, girl.

I shudder to think what may be on that Ipod they gave her. But it can’t be any worse than John McCain’s favorite band. Abba. On the other hand, her majesty is probably already a fan of “Dancin’ Queen.”

Giving Britain’s elderly Queen an Ipod is like giving an older relative an entertainment center that requires two remotes. It’s almost cruel. Wars start over things like this.

I think there should be a law against giving another person’s older relative any type of electronic gadget without prior notarized consent from the other person.

In addition to way oil, I’m fairly sure I have to order telescoping gauges, center drills, and a second fire extinguisher. The lathe is going to be right next to the garage door, though. Wouldn’t it make more sense to run outside and rely on homeowner’s insurance?

I put a fire extinguisher on the wall when I got my welder, but nothing I couldn’t afford to replace has caught fire yet. Seems like a waste of money to me.

I wonder if that extinguisher still works. Might be a good idea to check once every five years or so.

In conclusion, here is something irrelevant:

Resourcefulness is Fodder for Ridicule

Today Drudgebart links to a story about a guy in Detroit who sells raccoon meat. In a photo, he holds a sign reading “Fresh Coons,” and it has his phone number on it, with a “4” turned backwards. Drudge and the Detroit News didn’t even bother blurring the phone number. I would hate to be this man today.

Detroit is a hellhole, by all recent accounts. For the last 20 years or so, it has been described as a doughnut. A middle containing nothing, surrounded by suburbs. Life in urban Detroit got so bad, everyone who could manage to go, left.

I remember reading a story about it in The New York Times Magazine. Detroit contains a lot of Arabs, and one group is referred to as “the Chaldeans.” They come from Iraq. It may not be correct to call them Arabs, because they generally belong to the Roman Catholic church, and they speak Aramaic. According to the story, the Chaldeans were hated in Detroit because they opened businesses in the inner city and made money, while the people around them went to seed.

The story told of a family of Chaldeans who owned a store. When they needed to make bank deposits, they would take assault rifles and, essentially, undertake a short armed mission to reach the car right behind their business. They had no choice.

The story about the raccoon hunter says Detroit is down to 900,000 people, from 2,000,000, and that with the people gone, animals have moved in. So “Coon Man” Glemie Beasley is able to supplement his income hunting animals within the city limits. He also hunts rabbits and other animals.

I don’t know what to make of this story. This guy is doing something smart and productive. He’s killing pests and turning them into food and profit, and the story is sure to subject him to ridicule. I have to wonder what his black neighbors are saying to him today, after the newspaper ran his photo and identified him as “Coon Man.”

The story isn’t too bad, but the accompanying video seems patronizing. Charlie Duff, the young columnist who wrote the story, watches and acts up while Beasley butchers a dead coon. It seems pretty clear that he thinks it’s incredibly funny that anyone would eat a raccoon.

My dad used to hunt coons. He didn’t eat them, though. He said he put a bite in his mouth once, and by the time he finished chewing it, it was as big as a lampshade. My mom’s parents ate possums and coons and groundhogs, when they felt like it. They didn’t have to, but there was no reason not to, either.

As I understand it, you’re not supposed to shoot a possum. You catch it alive. It will roll up and play dead, and then you–I guess–put it in a sack. Then you pen it up and feed it corn meal until you think the carrion has passed out of its system. And when you cook it, about half of it is grease.

I haven’t eaten any possums. I couldn’t tell you how much of this is true.

I think what Beasley is doing is fine and dandy, and it’s a little weird that we’re expected to laugh at it. I’m not sure why shooting a coon is funnier than popping a cow in the forehead with an electric bolt. I’ve often thought that if Obama succeeds in screwing up the country to the point where the food supply is messed up, I’d want to get good at killing the unsuspecting squirrels that plague this suburb. Squirrels are very tasty, and they serve no purpose except to destroy fruit and electrical transformers.

I guess if we had had Youtube during the Depression, people in the country–who lived well on farm animals and game–might have put up hilarious videos of sophisticated New Yorkers lining up to eat watery soup and bread made from sawdust.

Topped

Gwen Buck has posted a new Stephen Colbert video which demonstrates exactly why Glenn Beck is a disaster for conservatives.

Beck has done the unthinkable. He has made Al Franken seem sincere and dignified.

I cried a little while I wrote this.

IPOD???

Words fail me. Obama gave the Queen of England an IPOD? What is this moron going to do next? Friend her on Facebook?

The people who said Obama would be Carter II may not realize how generous that prediction was.

Please tell me this is an April Fool’s joke.

Blogger Pays Price for Insulting Lachrymose, Fiber-Starved Cult Leader

It looks like Moxie has shaken the flying monkey cage. She invented a Glenn Beck drinking game. You drink when Beck does any part of his trademarked shtick: becoming hysterical, crying, or describing his highly publicized hemorrhoids as “terminal.” His fans have launched a bizarre campaign of persecution in her blog comments. It’s truly insane. Maybe it’s a Mormon thing; if I were her, I’d check my stats for Utah IPs. People who have lived in Utah claim Mormons actively conspire to promote each other and suffocate everyone else who tries to do business there. I don’t know if that’s what’s happening to Moxie, or if it’s just the embarrassing nuts who hang out at Freak Republik.

Once again, I have to say that I am mystified by the Beck phenomenon. It is not a good thing. Beck is many things a conservative should not be. Whiny. Melodramatic. Paranoid. He seems to be very well informed, and he’s not stupid, but he projects an image not unlike that of Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. He is a silly man, and usually, it’s not intentional.

As I have grown to know him, I have come to find his TV shows hard to watch, so I haven’t seen enough of him to be a Beck expert. But he’s usually on the radio on Tuesday mornings, when my father and I drive to our weekly breakfast. Beck’s whining is incredible. I can’t believe people can stand to listen to it. How can a grown man act like that?

Man, I wish I could still hear Phil Hendrie once in a while. I miss Hendrie, I don’t mind Laura Ingraham and Hannity, and I can put up with Rush because he’s smart. And I love Cigar Dave, although he’s not primarily political. That’s about all I can take.

I see the world in terms of blessings and curses, and the state of the GOP–America’s only political hope–shrieks “curse” to me. We can’t do anything right. We brought the world Pajamas Media and The Half-Hour News Hour. Fox News is turning into a freak show. We picked a poorly vetted Vice Presidential candidate and gave her about half an hour to prepare for a series of difficult debates and interviews. We chose a Presidential candidate who is known for his bad temper, liberalism, and persistent use of the term “gook.” Nothing seems to go right for us. Now we appear to think Glenn Beck has the face we want to project to the world. Why stop there? Can’t we get Art Bell?

Maybe he’s dead.

I used to complain a lot about the right eating its own young. The Zero Sum Gang keeps new talent down, so we are stuck with a few well-known conservative media figures, no matter how incompetent or embarrassing they become. They’re a lot like the Big Three. They know they can do anything they want, so they feel free to indulge their worst faults. So, to choose an example, now we have Ann Coulter using a slang term for “vagina” in her books, to describe liberal politicians. That’s the kind of thing we promote as our public image.

I infuriated a lot of people when I started criticizing Coulter. They thought she was “tough” and had lots of “guts.” I don’t think calling Al Gore “a total fag” on camera indicates bravery per se. I think it indicates that you have some kind of problem, and that people shouldn’t be encouraging and enabling you. At a minimum, they should possess the tiny quantum of brains required to avoid choosing you as a figurehead.

People who aren’t real bright say we should reflexively support any conservative who makes it big. My response is that reflexes are for creatures like worms and frogs. Human beings think before they act. Here’s a nutty question: what if we only supported media figures who are good for the party and good for America?

No, that’s too far-out. That’s limp-wristed fairy talk. Only total liberal fags think like that. Let’s OFFEND. Because the best defense is a best offense. Or something.

We can do better than Beck and Coulter, but we never will. Maybe it’s because conservatism used to be largely about God, and now it’s about excluding God in order to have a “big tent.” The code phrase is “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” To me, that has always sounded like, “I like smoking dope and sleeping around and having abortions, but my saving virtue is that I am also selfish.”

The GOP used to be God’s party, sort of. Now it seems like he doesn’t have a party. I suppose conservativism is still considerably closer to Christian values, but these days, that seems incidental.

I don’t think Glenn Beck is sincere. Maybe I give him too much credit, but I can’t believe he’s serious about his wacky theories and his free-flowing tears and his maudlin manipulations. His job isn’t to move America to the right. His job is to attract an audience. So he does what works. That’s my opinion. Give Rush credit; he is apparently a somewhat unsavory person, but he seems to mean what he says. He’s pretty good about maintaining his dignity on the air. Beck is more like Norma Desmond. Unfortunately, unlike Norma, he’s getting his closeup.

I hate to see conservative males personified by a weepy Chicken Little who needs to go take a handful of ‘Pirin. I have criticized Ted Nugent for his gross remark about what Hillary Clinton should do with a rifle barrel, but I’d be much happier if he and not Beck had been chosen as our new secular icon.

But I promised myself I wouldn’t cry about it.