Concentrated Essence of Awesome

Bruce Lee playing Ping Pong.

With nunchucks.

Need I say more?



Hat tip to Ain't It Cool News.

Yeah, it's probably CGI. Still.

No Retreat, No Surrender

Latest Newspaper Column:

Well, friends, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I hope you had a fine time and good fellowship with friends and family, and that you had occasion to reflect upon all of the things for which we should be truly thankful.

And I hope you got some rest.

Because, dear readers, we are faced with desperate times. We have a great battle upon us, and I hope you won't think I'm overstating the case when I tell you it's a battle more desperate than the Alamo, the Siege of Khe Sanh, Stalingrad and the stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae combined.

I'm speaking, of course, of the War On Christmas.

You know the one I'm talking about. It's the battle fought every year against the forces of secular socialist progressive liberalism and their fiendish campaign to replace the word "Christmas" with the word "Holiday" in our commercial discourse. Because, as we know, any time someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," a little bit of America dies.

Don't just take my word for it. No less an authority than Wall Street Journal Deputy Editor Daniel Henninger has warned us that the current collapse of the financial sector has its real roots, not in years of failed Bush financial policies, but in the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."

"What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years," Henninger writes, "were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. ... Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of 'Merry Christmas.'"

If Christmas, Henninger cautions, becomes the holiday "that dare not speak its name," then "we are erasing the chalk lines. ... Go ahead. Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max."

Now this might sound like insane gibberish to some, especially if, like me, you've never in your entire life met a single person of any religious persuasion who claims to be offended or insulted by the words "Merry Christmas."

But let's not forget, this man is a deputy editor of one of the nation's most prestigious newspapers. And if he says that the use of "Happy Holidays" is going to lead to the collapse of civilization and leave us all running around in the desert driving souped-up vehicles, wearing leather bondage gear, and fighting to the death over a few drops of gasoline, then perhaps we should listen. I'm betting that it's the forces of secular socialist progressive liberalism (hereinafter referred to as the FOSSPL) that have kept him from being a full editor. Those guys are everywhere.

So, in these dark times, where is our champion? Where is our leader in the fight to save Christmas? Our General Patton, our Lone Ranger, our Gandalf?

Where is Bill O'Reilly?

I did some more research on the Internet (and by "research," I mean "idly wasting time while pretending to be working on this column"), trying to find out what Mr. O'Reilly has been up to in his valiant battle against the anti-Christmas hordes.

My friends, what I saw shocked me. Appalled me. I was aghast. I was agog. It seems that Bill O'Reilly, sworn enemy of the word "holiday" in regard to the Yuletide celebration, had been co-opted by the FOSSPL. There, big as life on the O'Reilly.com Web site, was Bill's -- I
shudder to even say it -- "Holiday" reading list.

Say it ain't so, Bill-o!

And the news gets worse. Focus on the Family, the religious group that's provided such a valuable early-warning system for "Holiday"-based threats to America's Christmas, announced recently it was laying off more than 200 staffers, citing "the faltering economy and a decline in donations."

So is the traditional American Christmas, in which we celebrate the birth of Our Lord with paranoia, a chronic persecution complex, and bullying people over imagined slights, a thing of the past? Is this a world in which fear-mongering is no longer profitable?

I can't believe it. I won't believe it! We are going to carry on the fight. We shall fight them in the malls. We shall fight them in the Walmarts. We shall fight them in the PetSmarts and Best Buys. We shall never surrender. We will bring the true spirit of Christmas back to this country if we have to cram it down the throat of every man, woman and child in it.

God bless us, every one.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, practices law, and celebrates Christmas in Carthage.

They Just Don't Get It

The person selling this bumpersticker over at Cafepress has the following to say about it:

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism - Anti-Obama style! Liberals thought this was a pretty clever slogan during the Bush years. Now let's see how THEY like it!

Actually, you drooling fuckwit, I still like it just fine. In fact, you want to dissent from what President Barack Obama has to say, or bitch about what he's doing, have at it.

The difference is that, while I reserve the right to question your logic, your intelligence or your sanity, I'm not going to use your disagreement over policy to question your love for America or to call you a traitor. You know, the way you wingnuts have been treating everyone who dared to question your Dear Leader for the past eight years.

They just don't get it. They really do think everyone else is just like them: small-minded, piss-scared, mean, and ignorant.

One thing I'm thankful for is that on January 20th, we'll see concrete proof they're wrong.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Reasons to Be Thankful

Ann Coulter's Jaw Wired Shut (New York Post):

...although we didn't think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reaction- ary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut .

Is is possible to break your own jaw by clenching it in insane rage?

I Totally Stole This Idea From John Scalzi

Among my biggest supporters in the past few years have been the great Charlotte independent bookstore Park Road Books and its wonderful owners, Frazer and Sally Dobson.

So....if you go to http://www.parkroadbooks.com/ and mail order BREAKING COVER before Thanksgiving, I'll drop by and sign it, so it'll be sent to you autographed.

You Make the Call

Is George Dubbya Bush the snubber or the snubee in this video?




Either way, our standing in the world is bound to improve when we see the last of a President who's too arrogant to realize that that standing actually matters to our long term security and well-being.

Hopefully, the days of "fuck you, world, we do whatever we want, so suck on this" are gone forever.

It's going to be nice to have grownups in charge.