Toughlove For Israel

Last weekend Ron Paul said the unthinkable: Israel needs to stand up on its own two feet and stop siphoning billions of dollars from American taxpayers. He said: “Why make Israel so dependent? They can't defend their borders without coming to us.”

[gasp] Blasphemy! What in God’s Name??? You can't say that! Israel is sacred. What's he gonna do next, start cutting farts during a church service?

And yet, Ron Paul was just echoing what conservatives have been saying for decades. Think of the pride and dignity Israel will have when it starts to pull its own weight and becomes a productive member of the world community.

Sure, it’s easier to just lie back and keep taking handouts from hardworking taxpayers. But it’s a trap. The Nanny State is seductive but it’s treacherous. Deep down inside, Israel knows it's unhealthy to be so needy and dependent. The Welfare State is a destroyer of incentives; it saps the work ethic.

Israel has been suffering under the Tyranny of Low Expectations. The kindest thing we could do is stop these addictive welfare payments NOW. It wouldn’t be a popular decision but it’s the right thing to do. Someday Israel will thank us.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Swiftboat Veterans Against Jesus

It looks like the rift is growing between Big Business and the Rapture crowd. This has to be one of the wackiest most twisted political coalitions in history — money-grubbing CEOs and Bible-totin’ tent revivalists. Helllooo!?!?!?!?! 2,000 years ago a wandering prophet preached love, compassion and tolerance and drove the money changers from the temple. And 2,000 years later, millions of his followers are still reciting his slogans, but they're voting for the money changers. WTF???

Everyone to the left of Grover Norquist and less hateful than James Dobson has probably been waiting for years — decades —for these two groups to finally split up.

It’s easy to deceive yourself and see what you want to see, but things are looking hopeful. First, the “Family Values” dildos were threatening to splinter off into a third party if Giuliani gets the nomination. It’s probably just a hollow threat, but it’s a beginning; a crack in the wall.

And now the same rightwing millionaires who created Chickenhawk Shitstains Slandering a War Veteran Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are aiming their multi-million dollar hate machine toward Mike Huckabee.

Doesn’t Huckabee F%#$in’ Get It??? Sure, 99% of the Bible is about having compassion and helping people and not judging lest ye be judged and all that drivel. But come on, those are just symbols; code words. Nobody takes that shit seriously. One tenth of one percent of the Bible condemns promiscuity and homosexuality, and THIS is what conservative politicians have been focusing on.

THIS is how tens of millions of struggling working-class voters have been persuaded to keep voting against their own interests. “Yes, my opponent wants to increase your wages and raise your living standards, and I plan on keeping you down there in the gutter with piss-poor job prospects, no health coverage and shitty schools. But the good news is, I hate fags and pregnant sluts just as much as you do. Vote for Me!”

And it’s worked like a charm for almost thirty years. And then along comes this dumb redneck do-gooder who actually believes all that shit in the Bible about caring and helping others yada yada yada. And he has millions of followers. He's ruining the Game Plan! Swiftboat Veterans to the rescue!

Houston homebuilder Bob Perry donated $4.5 million to the Slander Kerry campaign in 2004. This year he's backing Mitt Romney’s campaign and so far he's donated $200,000 to ClubForGrowth.net so they can smear Huckabee. Huckabee calls them the Club For Greed, and now it’s payback time.

Come on wingnuts, tear each other apart. Go for the jugular! Maybe, just maybe, this coalition of sickfucks will collapse. It’s sort of like seeing somebody you hate walk down the street yelling at himself and punching himself in the face.

Racism: Still Alive and Well

A white teenager got in a violent argument with a bunch of black teenagers at a party. He fled the party and ran home. He went inside and bolted the door and told his father about what had just happened. He said he was afraid some of those black guys — in a drunken rage — would come to the house to finish the argument. And they knew where he lived.

To make things even worse, this white family lived in a mostly black neighborhood. There were a lot of racial tensions, and the most trivial argument could easily explode into an ugly tragic incident.

And now the family’s worst fears have just materialized. Those black thugs from the party have arrived. They're at the foot of the driveway. They're in a drunken out-of-control fury and they're shouting out threats to this white family. They aren't gonna go away.

The panic-stricken father probably made the wrong choice — 20/20 hindsight and all. He took his gun and walked down to the foot of the driveway to confront the angry mob. One of the black thugs lunged toward the father and tried to grab his gun. The gun went off and the would-be attacker was killed.

And now the father — who was trying to protect his son from an out-of-control mob — has been convicted of second degree manslaughter. He faces up to fifteen years in prison. Do you think this is right?

Let’s see, I’m just gonna pore over this news article one last time to make sure I — OOPS!! Uhh…well, I got most of the story right; I just had one minor detail wrong. I had their races switched around. Doh! OK, so it was a black family living in a mostly white neighborhood, and it was a gang of out-of-control white teenagers who came to the house in a drunken fury, determined to settle a score.

So anyway, that doesn’t change the story or anything. Right???

cross-posted at Bring It On!

The War on Christmas: A Progress Report

Yes, the War on Christmas is heating up. We’re gaining more underground soldiers and extending our tentacles further and deeper into every facet of American society. By the time the talking heads even know what's about to happen, we’ll already be — well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The other day Mike HuckaHuckaBurnin’Jesus gave his standard speech in Iowa — with a little tailoring for the holidays: “I know this is probably a very controversial thing, but may I say to you, Merry Christmas…What’s wrong with our country, what is wrong with our culture, is that you can’t say the name Jesus Christ without people going completely berserk.”

AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!! There's that word again. $&#$%&!#$#%#&%$#&!!!! And every time I hear somebody gushing on and on about that whiny colicky squealing Baby Jesus, I just SNAP! I want to knock over every crèche I see, and then jump up and down on it until it’s in little pieces and then keep stomping on the pieces until they're smithereens! I want to knock the Christmas packages out of those goony shoppers’ arms and kick them across the store and SMASH them. GGGRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

(By the way, I don’t know if this qualifies as a name freak or not, but Huckabee’s “Family-Values Jesus-Hates-Homasexials” speech was delivered in the town of Dike, Iowa.)

As we all know, our most significant victory of the year was scored by al Qaeda in Brazil a few days ago. Yeahhh!!! You Go Satan! The score so far: Secular Humanists 1, Santa 0.

And this is only the first of many victories we’ll be winning in the coming years. Christmas is like a house infested with termites (that’s us). By the time the damage is visible, it’ll be too late. The house will CRUMBLE. COLLAPSE! Christmas will be deader'n a doornail! BWAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!!!!!

Bellow Riley thinks he's just scoring points with Christians when he rages on and on about the “War on Christmas.” He has no idea who he's fuckin’ with, or of the fact that he hasn’t even started to scratch the surface yet. If he only had the tiniest clue of the extent of this underground network, the coming jihad…

I now have a copy of The Book. I'm IN!!! This book has all the information an anti-Christmas terrorist needs. It has every guerilla/sabotage/jihad tactic ever devised, and a detailed list of underground contacts. I got it for Christmas.

Environmental Protection Agency: “Fuck The Environment”

George W. Bush has probably inspired more references to George Orwell than his last eight or nine predecessors put together. Let’s hand over billions of acres of public wilderness to the timber companies, and we’ll call it — get a load of this! — the Healthy Forests Initiative. Teeheeheeheehee.

Then we’re gonna undo several decades’ worth of regulations against air pollution. And we’re gonna call it — ROFTLMAO — the Clear Skies Initiative.

Oh, and don’t forget our “Justice Department,” whose sole purpose seems to be shielding the country’s most powerful VIPs when the unwashed masses start to ask embarrassing questions.

One of the basic tenets of the Republican philosophy has always been — supposedly at least — states’ rights and local autonomy. Hardworking self-reliant Americans are sick and tired of having One-Size-Fits-All legislation rammed down their throats by the federal government.

Now, are you ready for this? Seventeen states have passed strict greenhouse gas limits for motor vehicles. These limits are stricter than the federal limit. And now the Party of States’ Rights has squelched — squished, trounced, deleted, Ixnay — all seventeen of these state laws.

And that’s not all. These seventeen states were trampled by a federal agency that calls itself — be sure you're sitting down for this — the “Environmental Protection Agency.” WTF??? Seventeen states took the extra initiative to combat greenhouse gas emissions, and they were thwarted by the “Environmental Protection Agency.”

You can't make this shit up. If somebody tried to write an “Orwellian” novel describing the George J.W. Bush Administration, everybody would say it was too farfetched; too sensational.

The auto industry’s favorite prostitute EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said: “The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution — not a confusing patchwork of state rules. I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone.”

“A confusing patchwork of state rules.” [pause] Uhh, I have a question. It’s probably a dumb question, but like schoolteachers are always saying, the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. (And they always meant it, right?) So:

What's the difference between “States’ Rights!” and “a confusing patchwork of state rules”?

Kevin Martin: Douchebag of the Year

We knew exactly how it was going to happen, and it happened exactly that way. The FCC — oblivious to millions of letters, phone calls and e-mails begging them not to — has gone ahead and voted in favor of greater media consolidation. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin thinks there's been too much diversity in the media. His solution is to have just two or three megalomaniacs controlling everything we read and listen to. (I thought they already did.)

Kevin Martin you're a flaming douchebag. You're a motherfucking son of a whore who should have been shot at birth. Eat shit and choke on it. Hope you get an AIDS needle in your Christmas stocking.

As you’ve probably guessed, Heartattackfuck and his dopey sockpuppet are standing firmly behind Kevin Martin’s plan to strangle the media.

Twenty-six senators — Republicans and Democrats — had already written to Martin, warning that they would "immediately move legislation that will revoke and nullify the proposed rule." These twenty-six senators include several powerful Republicans and all four Democratic presidential contenders. This issue needs to be front and center in the 2008 election. If you listen to the radio, watch TV or follow the news, this FCC action affects YOU.

This is a bipartisan issue. Several rightwing Christian organizations and the National Rifle Association, plus a lot of liberal and non-political groups, are bitterly opposed to the FCC’s attempts to strangle competition and diversity.

Bush has already threatened to veto any bill that attempts to override the FCC’s decision. Congress must be willing to attach this FCC override as an amendment to every — EVERY — bill they send to Bush.

And now, a public service message: Beware of Child Molesters!

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Congressional Democrats: Do Something or Get the F#$&#$#! Out

E.J. Dionne has a blunt message for our Democratic “leaders” in Congress. He also has some sympathy for their self-created dilemma. Yes, it’s hell to be a spineless boneless jellyfish.

As he puts it: “Republicans chortle as they block Democratic initiatives — and accuse the majority of being unable to govern. Rank-and-filers are furious their leaders can't end the Iraq war.”

The Democrats can't pass any legislation because Republicans keep stalling their bills with one parliamentary move after another. This fact by itself should be a PR advantage for the Democrats. But as usual, they just lie back and let the Republican Spin Machine paint them into a corner. “Tax and spend,” “they don’t support our troops,” “nanny state,” yada yada yada.

Republicans seem to know zillions of obscure parliamentary rules that can be invoked on every possible occasion. “It’s Tuesday and we haven’t had lunch yet. Section 37D Paragraph 24 clearly states…”

So why can't the Democrats do this? Congressional Republicans had Clinton practically paralyzed during the last six years of his presidency. What do they know that the Democrats don’t know? Or maybe they have spines and the Democrats don’t.

Dionne says: “In an ideal world, Democrats would pass a lot of legislation that Bush would either have to sign or veto. The president would have to take responsibility for his choices.”

Fortunately for Dumbya, his Congressional drones are protecting him from any personal responsibility. Since they keep most legislation from even getting to his desk, he can just sit there spilling whiskey and learning songs about Condi. (Bonus Question: Name the Tom Waits song alluded to in the previous sentence.)

And the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate isn't helped when Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama are too busy running for president to be bothered with their mundane jobs in the Senate.

No wonder people are fed up with the two party system. Oh, there're some differences between the two. On the right we have a bunch of stormtroopers marching in lockstep. On the left, a bunch of spineless blobs call out “how high sir?” whenever the stormtroopers say “Jump!” And jumping without a spine ain't easy.

Do the Democrats stand a chance in 2008? According to Dionne, this is what they have to do:

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should ...use the Christmas break to come up with a joint program for 2008. They could start with the best ideas from their presidential candidates in areas such as health care, education, cures for the ailing economy and poverty-reduction. Agree to bring the same bills to a vote in both houses. Try one more time to change the direction of Iraq policy. If Bush and the Republicans block their efforts, bring all these issues into the campaign. Let the voters break the gridlock.”

cross-posted at Bring It On!

The New Hip Military Recruiter: “Dude! Yo, ‘Sup?”

Military Recruiter must be the most thankless job in the country right now. If you don’t meet certain recruitment quotas you go back to the front lines. But who in the F#$%&!#! would want to enlist now? Even those ever-reliable minorities are staying away in droves.

They keep raising the age limit and lowering their recruitment standards, but that ship has sailed. By now, every 42-year-old drug-addicted couch potato with a police record who might want to enlist probably already has.

The recruiters’ newest tactic is to try connecting with Generation Y by getting familiar with their music and memorizing their current slang. Oooookay. Good luck with that one.

Anybody remember the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? The author, Gilbert Shelton, continued writing into the 1990s but their popularity peaked in the early ‘70s. One of the strip’s funniest characters was Notorious Norbert the Narc. He’d put on a wig and a psychedelic T-shirt and try to infiltrate groups of hippies so he could bust them. But no matter how he tried to disguise himself or how much hippie slang he could recite, he still had NARC stamped all over him. “Wow man, I need a hit of acid man, anybody know where I can score some shit man?”

Needless to say, he never made a bust, and I’m guessing these text messaging Green Day-listening recruiters won't be doing much better.

Last spring some recruiters attended a slide show called “The Road to a 2025 Total Force: Talkin’ ‘bout Their Generation.” Quiet now, no laughing.

The person presenting the slide show referred to Generation Y (aka “Millennials”) as “narcissistic praise junkies” and “an alien life force.” In order to help them communicate with this newfangled younger generation, recruiters were given a pop quiz where they had to identify members of Green Day and the Black Eyed Peas and demonstrate knowledge of emoticons and text messaging.

During the slide show a voiceover says: “Teach them. Guide them. Mentor them. Bullshit them, and they will just walk away.”

Like so.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Good Clean Fun at the Slaughterhouse

If you aren't a vegetarian (I’m not either), this grossout story might change your mind. Please put away all food and beverages before reading on.

We’re going to visit Quality Pork Processors Inc. in Austin, Minnesota. They have a work area called the Head Table. This is where workers cut the pigs’ heads open (hopefully AFTER the pig has already been slaughtered). Then they shoot compressed air into the skulls to get the brain matter out.

Severed pigs’ heads are processed at the Head Table at the rate of 1,100 per hour. Workers slice off the cheek and the snout and then insert a nozzle into the skull. The compressed air causes the brain matter to come blasting out of the base of the skull.

In addition to being gross, this process is a health hazard. Eleven workers from this plant — and all of them were employed at the Head Table — have developed severe numbness and other neurological symptoms. Five of these workers have been diagnosed with a rare immune disorder — Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) — which attacks the nerves. It produces numbness, tingling and weakness in the arms and legs. And the damage is often permanent.

Two neurologists from the Mayo Clinic think these illnesses were caused by inhaling airborne brain matter.

Mmmmmm… Yummy yummmm. Big steaming plate of ham, anyone?

Ahh, Pig Brain Mist — l’essence de L’Oreal.

Quality Pork Processors Inc. supplies their products to Hormel Foods Inc.

Minnesota health officials are saying the public is not at risk. And the Titanic is unsinkable.

On a related note: California might have a 2008 ballot initiative that would ban some of the most inhumane Factory Farm practices. The organization has until this February to collect enough signatures to qualify for the November 2008 ballot. There's nothing treehugging or touchy-feely about this initiative. Basically it would require that farm animals in cages have enough room to stand and turn around.

There's no online petition to click on, but if you're a California resident or would like to forward this information to anyone you know in California, here's their website.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Property Rights vs. Keeping Them Icky Brown People Out

Cognitive Dissonance is that uneasy feeling you get when you have two deeply-held beliefs that conflict with each other.

Tens of millions of Americans will reflexively yell out “Property Rights!” whenever an endangered species needs to be protected or a business owner has to comply with safety regulations. And a lot of these same people also think illegal immigration is the root of all of America’s problems, and the government needs to do whatever it takes to keep THEM out. Mass searches and deportations, building a huge fence along the U.S.-Mexican border — whatever it takes to keep those slimy ethnic creatures out of our country — do it!

Here comes the cognitive dissonance. This could be a wedge that splits conservatives into two bitterly divided camps.

The Homeland Security Department wants to complete 370 miles of border fencing by the end of 2008. A lot of property owners in Texas and Arizona don’t want this fence running through their property. And Homeland Security is threatening to confiscate the property of any landowner who doesn’t cooperate.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said "vee can do ziss zee easy vay or zee hard vay The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk.”

Juan Salinas, the county judge of Hidalgo County, Texas, said: "I tell you, on this one issue, the Farm Bureau, the United Farm Workers, Democrats and Republicans, white, black, brown, everybody is against the border fence. It just doesn't make sense. We've been trying to talk to them about using other ways. It's a disappointment that, again, the Department of Homeland Security is not listening to local taxpayers.”

Local people are opposed to the fence for cultural, economic and environmental reasons. The Rio Grande is the only source of fresh water for a lot of ranchers and this fence would cut off their access to it. And the local economies depend on cross-border traffic. It doesn’t just flow one way — many Americans do volunteer work south of the border and lots of extended families live on both sides of the border. Twenty years ago we were urging the Soviet Union to tear down the Berlin Wall; now we’re planning to build one.

OK, Righties — which is it? Which side are you on — the KGB Homeland Security Department, or the “property rights” and “local autonomy” that you’re always screaming about? Well???

cross-posted at Bring It On!

The Incredible Shrinking Coalition of the Willing

Now now, we shouldn’t be making fun of George W. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing that keeps on shrinking and shrinking. It was in the pool!

At its peak in 2004, the Coalition of the Willing consisted of 25,000 troops from 32 countries. Now it’s shrunk down to 11,000 troops from 26 countries. As Mark Russell once quipped, “and Bulgaria baked a casserole.”

Britain has 5,000 troops in Iraq, but that number will be reduced to 2,500 this spring. Sixteen nations in the “coalition” have fewer than 100 troops in Iraq. Latvia has 3; Slovakia 2; Singapore one.

The numbers don’t even tell the whole story. Most of the non-American troops in Iraq are in the southern part of the country — controlled by Shiites — which has had much less violence than Baghdad and the Sunni regions of western Iraq.

And a lot of the remaining foreign armies are playing a diminishing role. Kazakhstan has 29 soldiers in Iraq, but none of them have even left their base in nearly 3 years. Their main mission is to dispose of explosives. But when the first — and last — Kazakh soldier was killed by an explosive 3 years ago, the Kazakh government ordered their soldiers to remain on the base.

How about that — the dictator of a “primitive” country is trying to keep his soldiers out of harm’s way. Get a clue, Dumbya.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

In America, the Sun Revolves Around the Earth

We ain't much good at that there booklarnin’ but that don’t matter none. Any other country disses us, we just kick their ass. Anybody got a problem with that?

When it comes to teenagers’ literacy in science, the United States ranks 29th worldwide. Oh well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. What do we need science for anyway?

The Bible tells us everything we need to know. God created the world 5,000 years ago (or was it 6,000?). We don’t need a bunch of “scientists” to keep confusing us with wacky stories about “fossils” that are millions of years old. That’s not science; that’s Satan!

The 28 countries who outrank us in scientific literacy include Finland, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Lichtenstein. Well La-De-Fuckin’-Da! How many state-of-the-art weapons systems do those countries have? How many foreign countries are they invading and occupying? Huh? Huh???

cross-posted at Bring It On!

CEOs’ Salaries Subsidized by Taxpayers

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simultaneously 1) narrow the financial gap between CEOs and their lowest-paid employees, and 2) reduce your own tax burden. Well, now you CAN.

The Income Equity Act of 2007 would amend the Internal Revenue Code so that corporations will no longer get tax deductions when they pay “excessive compensation” to their top executives. If any employee is paid more than 25 times what the lowest-paid employee makes, the money beyond that 2500% mark would not be tax deductible.

So if a company’s lowest-paid worker makes $20,000 a year, and any other employee makes more than $500,000 a year, all of that person’s income beyond the $500,000 mark will NOT be tax deductible.

Fair enough? This bill is sure to bring out the usual conservative blubberings about “bootstraps” and “government meddling.” But there really isn't any government interference involved here. If corporations want to pay their CEOs nine hundred quatrabazillion dollars a year, they still can. They just won't be getting subsidized by YOUR tax dollars any more.

Conservatives should be in favor of a law like this, since they're always blathering about “welfare” and “government giveaways.” But it’s become all too obvious in the past few years: Conservatives have nothing against government handouts. They only object when the money goes to needy people.

And besides, companies could continue to pay huge salaries to their top executives and still keep their tax deductions. All they'd have to do is — let’s go waaay out on a limb here — raise the pay of their lowest-paid workers. Riiight, that'll happen.

If you'd like to start putting the brakes on our downward spiral into Third World status — where two percent of the population has most of the wealth — please click here. Ask your Representative to support the Income Equity Act (H.R. 3876).

George W. Bush: “Terrorists? What Terrorists??”

It’s so weird, almost scary, when a person just snaps. When you see someone’s entire personality do a Big 180, it really stops you cold.

Imagine the double take you'd be doing if the most uptight, sanctimonious person you ever met was standing there with a big fat joint in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other, and yelling out “Heeyyy, if it feels good, DO IT! Yeeeaahhh!!!!”

Or picture some simpleminded loudmouth who drinks beer by the case and only talks about football and getting parts for his truck. Only here he is, sipping white wine and speaking softly about the differences between Emmanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Well folks, the President of the United States has just snapped. Seriously, he has SNAPPED!!!

For over six years, the sign of our times has been FEAR. Paranoia! The Enemy! Terrorists! Spy on your neighbors and report any suspicious activity. Keep an eye on that swarthy person over there. If we don’t fight them over there they’ll follow us over here!

But now — everything you know is wrong. Left is right and up is down. Our Wartime President isn't worried about terrorists any more. Nevermind.

Oh, don’t misunderstand. We’re still planning to attack Iran (and Syria and Venezuela if they don’t watch out) and we’ll still be in Iraq when our great-grandchildren have died of old age. The Patriot Act is bigger and better than ever. Habeas Corpus is still dead. We still need to torture prisoners because, well, you know the drill — there might be a ticking time bomb and yada yada yada. And we still want to know what books you're reading and every website you’ve ever visited and who that e-mail was from.

But: Bush wants to slash counterterrorism funding for police departments, firefighters and rescue departments across the country. He wants the funding reduced by more than half. Heellllooo!?!?!?!?!!! Earth to Dumbya!!

Homeland Security wants to provide $3.2 billion to states and cities for protection against terrorism. Bush wants to reduce that amount to $1.4 billion. Programs for port security and transit security are being eliminated completely. WTF??? Chimpy’s drinking problem must be getting worse.

Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said “This budget proposal is dead on arrival. This administration runs around the country scaring people and then when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is, they say ’sorry, the bank is closed.’ California’s ports carry over 47 percent of all goods imported into the United States. A terrorist attack at any of California’s ports could shut down our nation’s port system and result in a mind-boggling loss for our nation’s economy.”

Charles Schumer (D-NY) said: “To zero out essential Homeland Security programs which have more to do with protecting Americans and fighting the war on terror than much of the money spent in Iraq shows how warped and out of touch this administration’s priorities are.”

Peter King (R-NY) said Bush’s plan “goes totally in the wrong direction. This would be a very grave mistake, and I will do all I can to stop it.”

And even Bush’s Bitch said he would “urge the administration to reconsider this wrong-headed strategy.”


cross-posted at Bring It On!