OMG PALIN SCANDAL!

Give me a break.

This whole nonsense with her dismissing the Director of Public Safety is old news, and by admission of the Democrat moron in charge of the investigation into the supposed "abuse of power", she's been entirely forthcoming and cooperating, so that no subpoenas have been needed - but, of course, we need to treat it like it's something humongous and new. GO MEDIA!

Her husband got a DUI 22 years ago. This has what to do with her? So, he was a fuckup 22 years ago, and should have had the shit beat out of him, and lost his license forever. It didn't happen, it doesn't happen to current offenders, it's old news.

Her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Bonus. Her daughter is kinda cute, and obviously ready for some freakin' - and who the fuck cares? What 17 year old these days ISN'T fucking? Her daughter being a sloot has no bearing on her abiliy to be the Veep. Hell, if her next younger daughter (the one with braces) gets freaky in a few years when she's legal, all the more reason to vote for Palin.

Find something that matters, fucktards.

Gustav?

So, here we are, once again, freaked out about a hurricane and New Orleans.

Is it time yet to say "fuck that town" and abandon it? Once the hurricane crap is over, send in the Army Corps of Engineers, plow it under, bust the levees, and turn it into the giant swamp that it wants to be.

If nothing else, it gets Ray Nagin out of office...

The McCain/D&D Fiasco...

So, perhaps I'm making a big deal out of this whole deal, but I can't help but be a little pissed at the comments of a McCain staffer last week - and it seems I'm not alone.

McCain has been telling a story for several years, about his time in a Vietnamese POW camp, where a guard showed him some small amount of mercy and drew a Christian cross in the ground, showing that they both shared the same faith - an incident that renewed McCain's faith and will while being held prisoner.

The story holds some similarities with that of one told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago.

Recently, the libtards have jumped on this similarity, and are bludgeoning it to death, since they have nothing better to do, and no original thoughts of their own (the similarities were pointed out by users on a conservative website back in 2005).

Markos Moulitsas and the rest of the mouthbreathers at Daily Kos can go fuck themselves, but an entry there does make a valid point:

fully believe that Solzhenitsyn didn't make this story up to sell a few more books and make a few more Rubles. But, I do question if John McCain had read this story, seeing as McCain thinks Solzhenitsyn "was a writer with unusual gifts, utterly devoted to his art, brilliant and exacting, producing work that would stun not just literary worlds but the entire Cold War political world." And I do question if John McCain has, in a mix up of perception or clarity, claimed this story as his own.

If you had had this extraordinary experience. And a famous writer, a writer that you have written about your admiration for, had a very similar experience. Wouldn't you publicize it? Wouldn't you write about it? And wouldn't you have talked about it last night at the faith forum when you we're relaying the story?

You and Alexander Solzhefrickingnitsyn have this incredible shared experience of being imprisoned , having someone draw a cross in the dirt, it inspires you and you don't publicize it? You don't talk about it? You don't write about it even as you write specifically about Solzhenitsyn and your admiration of him.

(Original Source

A McCain staffer, Michael Goldfarb, decided to respond, via McCain's website:

Smears the Left Can Fight For

In the least credible and most vicious corner of the internet, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos are accusing John McCain of plagiarizing from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The story Solzhenitsyn told was of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet Gulag. McCain's story is of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons of those two Communist countries the only crosses to be found were etched in the dirt, as easily disappeared as the Christians who drew them.

But those desperate to discredit Senator McCain's record will have to impugn his fellow prisoners as well. Orson Swindle, who was held as a prisoner of war along with McCain, tells the McCain Report that he heard this particular story from McCain "when we first moved in together." That was in the summer of 1971, Swindle said, though "time blurred" and he couldn't be sure. He said it was some time around then that the Vietnamese moved all "36 troublemakers" into the same quarters, where they "talked about everything under the sun."

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain's books). But as Swindle said, this is a "desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing."

(Original Source)

As you can imagine, gamers, from both the left and the right are kinda pissy about the comment, but I'd imagine that right-wing gamers are more so.

Wizards of the Coast excites me about as much as McCain does, these days, but they've issued an excellent statement:

D&D fans,

Many players have written us about recent disparaging D&D references by a John McCain staffer, Michael Goldfarb. I want you to know that everyone at Wizards is offended and baffled by the ignorance. Obviously, this person harbors some retro prejudices and has no idea what D&D is about or who the fans really are. I thought you should know that my colleagues at Hasbro also take offense and sent a letter to Michael Goldfarb (copied below). Wizards will continue to promote D&D as the great heroic fantasy game that it is and we thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

Greg Leeds
President
Wizards of the Coast

August 28th, 2008

Michael Goldfarb
1235 S. Clark St, Suite M
Arlington, VA 22202

Dear Mr. Goldfarb,

I was disappointed to read the disparaging intent of your comments regarding Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fans, both in your response to New York Times editors, and on the John McCain campaign website.

Dungeons & Dragons is a global game with millions of consumers in the U.S. and abroad. The brand is owned by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.

For fans, the game is essentially about heroism and therefore it is not surprising to us that thousands of military personnel play and enjoy the game. Hasbro, in turn, supports the U.S. Armed Forces by sending multiple crates of game products, including Dungeons & Dragons, to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recently a soldier who saw your comments online said, “Wizards of the Coast (the makers of D&D) has sent care packages to the troops on many occasions, providing free gaming supplies in support of our men and women serving the country overseas to help them decompress after hours. McCain's people should really check their facts before they spout off. Does John McCain have no idea how many GIs play D&D?”

We would very much appreciate you not making any more condescending comments about D&D -- as it is a great game enjoyed by millions of people around the world. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Wayne Charness
Senior Vice President
Hasbro, Inc.

(Original Source)

Goldfarb has issued an apology, if you can call it that:

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American. --Michael Goldfarb (Original Source)

I can't help but think that someone may have drafted that for him, in a failed attempt to be funny and hope that he can schmooze his way back into some gamer's good graces.

Like many people, I'm not amused, and would like to see this idiot shitcanned.

It's really sad that there's not a good third-party candidate that would actually have a chance of winning. This whole little debacle pisses me off to no end.

There's no way I'm voting for Obama, but situations like this make voting for McCain an even more bitter pill to swallow.

UPDATE: I've since discovered that Goldfarb has disparaged D&D prior to this:

NYTimes Editors: Leave Obama Alone!

If the shareholders of the New York Times ever wonder why the paper's ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper's editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate. This campaign has never engaged in 'racially tinged attacks,' and the Obama campaign conceded as much yesterday in a statement clarifying that "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue."

That the Times made this allegation in a blog post rather than running it on the editorial page indicates that they either knew the charge was bogus or they didn't have the nerve to make their case in full view of the public. But in their new role as bloggers, the paper's editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons. They also have about as much care for the facts--the "board" has already been forced to append a correction.

(Original Source)

Multiple instances makes his forced apology rather hard to believe. This guy needs to get his ass fired out of the campaign jet at 40,000 feet.

FURTHER UPDATE: It appears the oh-so-sincere apology was made on August 1st, after the original slam on D&D, and then on the 18th, Goldfarb went on again to slam D&D.

What a piece of shit.

I'm not dead.

I just have nothing to say, for once.

Individual Rights Is Affirmed!

Fuck yeah, baby!

In a 5-4 decision (which the Brady Campaign whiny bitches are calling "the narrowest of margins" as if that matters somehow), the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that 2nd Amendment secures, not grants, an INDIVIDUAL right of the people to keep and bear arms, overturning the Murder Capitol of the United States' unconstitutional ban on handguns, as well as their unconstitutional requirement for disassembled firearms and trigger locks.

(Wikipedia has a good write-up on stuff.)

Most excellent- and itt only took us 74 years.

Of course, the corrupt Brady Campaign has wasted no time begging for more money to attempt to subvert this decision...

It's quite telling, though. Idiots like the Brady Bunch and their ilk continually complain that a decision like this would be horrible for the country.

Then Paul Helmke states:

[blockquote]“After the Heller ruling, as before, approximately 80 Americans will continue to die from guns every day. Our weak or non-existent gun laws contribute to the thousands of senseless gun deaths and injuries in this country that occur each year. We must continue to fight for sensible gun laws to help protect our families and our communities.”[/blockquote]

So, what he's saying is, there will be no change?

Two-faced pigfucker.