'If a teenage girl feels a little prick, she's gonna want to feel a whole lot more’

I'm becoming a Bill Maher fan in spite of myself.

Never too enamored with his stand-up comedy, and merely ambivalent to his various talk shows, I have again and again found myself drawn to the man's writing.

Maher's latest essay is about the controversy attached to the HPV vaccination. You know, the vaccine that's so effective it could completely eliminate this frequent gateway to cervical cancer.

What's the problem? HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, and some prudes seem to think that vaccinating young women against a STD is tantamount to giving them permission to whore it up (like that's a bad thing).

Anyway, Maher makes a number salient points, but his one-liners have rarely been so sharp. I submit:

· If you don't think your daughter getting cancer is worse than your daughter having sex, then you're doing it wrong.

· HPV shots don't cause promiscuity. Tequila shots do.

· If you could use stem cells to prove that life begins at foreplay, the pope would turn the Vatican into a lab.

And about the idea that the vaccine is bad, because the girls "may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex"?

[That] is really a stretch. People don't get the vaccine for typhoid and say, "Great, now I can drink the sewer water in Bombay." It's like saying if you give a kid a tetanus shot she'll want to jab rusty nails in her feet. It's like being against a cure for blindness because it'll encourage masturbation. It's like being for salmonella poisoning in peanut butter because it'll discourage weirdos from spreading it on their ass and calling the dog.

Wait a sec…that makes me a weirdo?

'The infallible pope can say he's sorry, but this recovering alcoholic can't even say he's wrong'

Comedian/talk show host Bill Maher is promoting the upcoming season of his HBO show, and as usual, had some interesting things to say about a few topical issues. Read a full interview here , but if you're short on time, check this out:

On a certain surge:
The people in Iraq don't want this. The people in America don't want this. The Iraq Study Group doesn't recommend it. The Democrats are against it. Most [Republicans] are against it, even though many of them wouldn't say so out loud. But George Bush, he knows better. That is a kind of arrogance that is very hard to swallow at this point, especially when it's costing this many lives. Even the pope -- remember he said something bad about the Muslims a few months ago? The infallible pope came out and said, "Geez, my bad. That came out wrong. I didn't mean that." Yeah, the pope can say he's sorry, but this recovering alcoholic from Midland, Texas, he can't even say he's wrong.

Why are we in Iraq, anyway?
It's so over. The country is ethnically cleansing itself. It's already a partitioned country. What are we fighting for over there? Why are we fighting to keep Iraq together? Iraq has only been a country since what, 1932? That's seven years younger than Paul Newman. Why are these drawn-on-a-map borders worth one more American life? I have no clue. And I don't think [Bush] does, either.

On Hillary, Bill and effective government
The Clintons have a reputation for a number of things that baffles me. Yes, he's got a wandering eye, and yes, he's oversexed or whatever. But really, Bill Clinton is a policy wonk. He's the kind of guy who gets into the details of it, and so is she.

Government -- they used to teach it in college. It's actually something you should study and learn and know how to do. The Republicans always run on the idea that government isn't very effective. Well, not the way you do it. But it can be effective.

Does anyone doubt that if Bill Clinton was president during the Katrina storm that he would have been on top of that? He would have been all over that situation! He would have had the right people. He would not have slept for a week. That's the kind of guy he was.

I'm not saying there wouldn't have been problems -- it was a storm -- but as well as it could have been handled, he'd handle it. These people know how to do government; that is their passion. And it is something that can actually be done effectively.

What we're seeing with the Bush administration is that when you outsource government jobs to private contractors, both here and in Iraq, that's where the trouble is -- those are the people who are greedy and unchecked and corrupt and inefficient.

Bear Down, Chicago Bears

Apparently the NFL staged a game yesterday to give folks watching at home a break between contestants in the Super Bowl of Advertising. Here in Chicago, that left ample time for "Go to hell, Rex!" and "Fuck you, Peyton!" chants. Damn, these people are angry…what happened to Midwestern charm?

I will say this – for all of the much-publicized Black History Month campaigns, the night's best racism conversation was inspired by Bud Light's gorilla commercial and someone making a Joe Biden joke. And yes, that "someone" was me.

According to USA Today , Budweiser's stray dog ad was viewers' #2 favorite (trailing only those cuddly, false-idol worshiping crabs). I love pathetic looking mutts as much as the next guy, but why is no one expressing outrage at Anheuser-Busch's blatant rip-off of a classic Pepé Le Pew bit? I suppose more people would have caught on if the faux-dalmation were to date rape the beauty queen, just like Warner Brothers' skunk would have.

Finally, I had a good laugh listening to Colts owner Jim Irsay accept the Vince Lombardi Trophy for his team's victory. Perhaps overwhelmed by emotion, Irsay displayed a penchant for inventive vocabulary and douche chill-inducing segues (at press time, I have been unable to find an official transcript…but here is my best "I promise this is no exaggeration" recollection):

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Central Florida. We don't want to forget that. And the Indianapolis Colts will work in partnershiping with the…groups…to help with tornado recovery…And the Colts are WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Uh…Jim? That was a bit awkward. Then again, the COLTS ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS! I'm sure your "partnershiping" will go a lot smoother now that you guys have Super Bowl rings.

Laughable Offenses

Hollywood has generated a lot of buzz recently, and believe it or not, some of it does not revolve around a confused Kazakhstani's nude wrestling match. No, it seems that some television hosts have abandoned scare tactics and over-dramatized reports to deliver real news and opinions. Crazy, huh?

We'll start with "comedian" Bill Maher, whose profession goes in quotes for two reasons: 1) his stand-up comedy is not very funny; and 2) his talk show is more honest and newsworthy than a certain new anchor's gushing debut interview. Anyway, Maher gave a refreshing rebuttal to much of the administration's lies when he spoke this week about patriotism:

Amid all the 9/11 anniversary talk about what will keep us safe, let me suggest that in a world turned hostile to America, the smartest message we can send to those beyond our shores is, "We're not with stupid." Therefore, I contend -- with all seriousness -- that ridiculing this president is now the most patriotic thing you can do. Let our allies and our enemies alike know that there's a whole swath of Americans desperate to distance themselves from Bush's foreign policies.

Hear that, douchebags? I'm a patriot…and PatRoW is my "one if by land, two if by sea" opus.

Moving on, let's look at blogosphere hero and sports-turned news-turned sports-turned news personality Keith Olberman. Last week, Olberman verbally raped Donald Rumsfeld (he was asking for it); on Monday night, he reflected on how the president has criminally altered the global political landscape:

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the president in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that. Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that. Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, 'bi-partisanship' meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the vice president's words yesterday, 'validate the strategy of the terrorists.'

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is 'lying by implication.' The impolite phrase is 'impeachable offense.'

Now I'm not saying that we should take Olberman's advice and impeach an American president for abusing the trust of the electorate, lying to Congress and breaking dozens of national and international laws, but hell, we have impeached presidents for less. Blow jobs for everybody!

Prepare to be scared

There's a radio station in Chicago that puts its call letters on large billboards next to the tagline "Liberals Hate Us". And you know what? If I chose to listen to this particular conservative talk station, I would, indeed, hate it. Honestly, I don't have a problem with AM 560's tagline, even if I may have a problem with any douchebag who turns in because he likes the billboard.

Here is what I *do* have a problem with. So many websites/online services look at what and where you surf in order to generate targeted advertisements. As you may guess, I get a fair share of political adverts (and a disproportionate number of links written in Arabic), none of which have ever bothered me…until now. Check this out:

Liberals fear him – www.paulbucher.com – Who scares the liberals in the race for Wisconsin Attorney General?

Hear that sound? It's me, quaking in my liberal loafers. This douchebag had the audacity to claim that people should vote for him because he "scares liberals"? Bucher is so proud of his conservative values that he no doubt embraces everything GOP, right?

Wrong. You know what simple fact is missing from Bucher's travashamockery of a website? His party affiliation. Gee, I wonder why someone who scares liberals would choose to omit that he's a Republican…I mean, do you think that he's scared of being associated with the historically unpopular figurehead who leads the party? That doesn't sound like a guy liberals should fear; it sounds like someone we should mock.

He fears the truth – www.paulbucher.com – Who is scared of you connecting the dots?

Follow-up Frenzy

I stumbled across some follow-up items corresponding to a few old posts, and once I realized that rehashing the past is a lot easier than creating something new, I jumped on board with vim and vigor (is the word "vim" ever used without "vigor"? It's kind of like "ensuing" and "kickoff", right? Please send any examples of vim without vigor to patrow.blog@gmail.com or leave a comment at the bottom of this post).

Anyway, Katherine Harris – she of the hilariously under-attended campaign rally – has a mighty high opinion of herself. In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness (a notoriously impartial and legitimate media outlet), Kat talked about why Floridians should vote her into the US Senate:

…why should people care? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is all right. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take Western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God, and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong.

Hear that, Florida? The fate of western civilization hinges on your vote for Kat. That's no exaggeration…not at all.

Moving on, it appears that Gil Gutknecht is both a visionary and a trendsetter, because now another GOP congressman has returned from a trip to Iraq and suddenly had a change of heart about American troop involvement. You know, at this rate we convince every Republican by Christmas…2028.

Finally, Joe Scarborough's "Is Bush an idiot?" bit can be seen in its entirety thanks to the good folks at You Tube . Good times.

More Liberal than Lieberman

Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman and current TV talking head, is on the outs with his party because of a reoccurring segment on MSNBC's Scarborough Country entitled "Is Bush an Idiot?" Somehow, he actually gets more than a simple "yes" out of the question.

Anyway, Scarborough gave an interview to Salon in which he did some of the most un-Republican things he could do: admit errors in judgment, credit liberals for their pre-war insights and call the president a lot of synonyms for "dumbass". Here are a few highlights:

Obviously since the things [liberals] were predicting about Iraq have been proven to be accurate, or at least more accurate than what the administration was saying back in 2003, you certainly have to tip your hat to them.

…when [Bob Woodward] asked Bush if he talked to Colin Powell about the invasion of Iraq, and he says, "No, I didn't feel the need to, because I knew how he was going to respond, that he was against the war," which sort of sends a chill up your spine, because those are the people you want the president talking to. You want him asking tough questions of aides who actually disagree with him… The president is a man who's not only politically incurious, but is also a leader who does not like dissent, and I think that's very dangerous.

…I think if the president had asked tougher questions in February of 2003, we wouldn't find ourselves where we are in 2006.

…government spending grew by 3.4 percent annually under Bill Clinton the Marxist. Spending has grown by 10.5 percent under George Bush the fiscal conservative. I always say: Give me that choice, I'll take the Marxist at 3.4 percent any day of the week.

…here we have a Republican administration and a Republican Congress…where staying in power is more important than staying true to the values that put you in power in the first place.

I know this guy was part of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" crew and I have dozens of pages of his less-than-stellar quotes, but folks on both sides of the aisle have to admit – the guy makes a lot of sense. Frankly, if more Republicans were talking like Joe Scarborough this election season, Democrats wouldn't stand a chance of picking up seats in either house of Congress.

Thank God he's on TV.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

You might not know this, but Jews don't get Christmas presents (I blame Joe Lieberman). That's why each year I'm anxious like a kid waiting on Santa for the debut of the new fall season…and that time is now.

Kicked off by the seemingly premature premiere of Prison Break last night (I Tivo'd it, natch), the 2006 season is pocked with the return of some highly anticipated series, the unfortunate cancellation of a some others, and the bizarre existence of too many shows that no one could possibly enjoy.

Salon takes a look at six shows in the latter category, including two shows for which I own a season pass: an action series of which I've seen every episode of its six seasons, yet haven't enjoyed one minute of in the last four years; a teen soap that allegedly jumped the shark in its third season, the first year I watched; two talk/news shows featuring an old guy an gal; a cop show that I originally thought was about who really deserves coffee; and finally, an adult-themed show that somehow makes basic cable lesbianism look unsexy.

That list is a fair start, but it's nowhere near enough. So without further adieu I bring you "PatRoW's First Annual List of Stupid Shows Stupid People Like":

• Law and Order: Criminal Intent – OK, I get it. Vincent D'Onofrio is super cop. He knows EVERYTHING! If that dude explains one more obscure 7 ^th century eastern European reference and uses it to solve a murder, I swear, I'm going to burn my collector's edition DVD of The Cell.
• CSI: Miami – I actually enjoy watching this show…but not for the drama and CERTAINLY not for the acting. CSI: Miami offers primetime's best drinking game. Every time Horatio Caine takes off his sunglasses, you drink; every time he puts on his sunglasses, you drink; every time his dramatic pause lasts more than two seconds, you drink; every sweeping camera shot of Miami's intercoastal waterway, you drink; every time one of the leads gets trapped in a paper bag and can't act his way out, you drink. I promise you'll be drunk by the second commercial break.
• Grey's Anatomy – I put this show here for two reasons: 1) I needed to prove that a show can earn my wrath without being a colon-titled spin-off; and 2) it sucks…hard.
• House – So the premise (doctor's are assholes) is actually a good one, but Dr. House is so much worse than that. Not only is he as unlikable as any character could be, but he's WRONG all the time. It's a good thing that all these patients with nose bleeds somehow find their way in front of the great House, because who else would diagnose them with colon cancer, AIDS, lupus, ALS, Parkinson's and Herpes in the span of sixty minutes? Why does EVERY FUCKING EPISODE have to be the same?
• Any reality show when the contestants tell one another not to get mad because "it's just a game". Is it? Thanks for reminding me, jerkoff.
• Numb3rs – can the FBI solve a case without the help of a college professor mathematician? Why don't they just hire the guy full time already? No show on TV gives me worse heebie-jeebies, both from the atrocious premises and the gratuitous use of chalkboards.

What, you ask, nothing on those crap-fests on the WB or UPN (now combined to form the CW)? It's kind of like yesterday's post – if a show airs and PatRoW isn't there to watch it, does it really exist?

Quick Hits: Lord I was born a rambling man

After yesterday's grotesque 915-word masturbatory effort, I realize the need to cut back on my verbiage. Folks, days like today were made for Quick Hits.

Cop snares college pals in own Web – The news isn't that the cops used facebook.com to find a public urinator and his justice-obstructing friend, it's that the Chicago Tribune would print somebody saying, "I got bone crushed." I sure do love hard-hitting journalism.

Deuce Bigalow vs. Mel Gibson – In a move guaranteed to shatter the plans of Hollywood's top producers, Rob Schneider took out a full-page ad in Thursday's Variety to pledge he would never work with the "only anti-Semitic when I'm drunk" two-time Oscar winning Mel Gibson:

"Even if Mr. Gibson offered me the lead role in Passion of the Christ 2, I, like Bernie Brillstein, would have to say 'NO!'," the Schneider letter declares.

Brillstein is the longtime Hollywood manager who told the Los Angeles Times that, if asked, he would not represent Gibson. "I don't like bigots," Brillstein said.

Crap. Now who will play the bad guy in 2007's Deuce Bigalow: Space Gigolo?

Breast-feeding reduces anxiety into childhood – I couldn't care less about childhood anxiety, but did Yahoo really have to look to France to get a photo of a woman breast feeding? What – no American babies were hungry yesterday?

Viral Video of the Day

So I'm usually way behind on the latest, greatest video circling the world wide web, blogosphere or information superhighway, but I think I may have gotten in on the ground floor on this one. It seems that Fox 5 New York reporter Jody Applegate was doing a stand-up on how easy it is for bicycle thieves to cut through chains. She had two Jeff Spicoli-like assistants to help demonstrate…and if Jody didn't know these boys were trouble when they said Word One in stoner speak, she deserved to be punked.

Anyway, watch the video and enjoy lines like these:

Oh, this is just tomato ketchup.

It's OK. We were just doing a ruse.

Folks – that's ketchup. Do not be upset. There are children watching!

That's right. Fox – the network that has won more Emmys for violence, vulgarity, lies and deception than all other networks combined – is worried about kids getting scared by a bad prank and fake blood. Luckily, a quick-thinking director cut away from the horrific and emotionally-scarring clip to go to a live feed from Lebanon.

McBillboard

This has nothing to do with douchebags or cunts or any of my other favorite topics, but it seems that McDonalds has recently put up a new billboard in my neighborhood…and it's one of the cooler billboards I've ever seen. Take a look. I don't know if it is enough to make me crave a McGriddle, but at least I will always check out the billboard when I'm passing by.

Big fat heads and little blue pills

I wasn't going to touch on the Rush Limbaugh-Viagra story. Really. I just didn't think it was a big deal…and then the douchebag had to open up his yapper and start joking about it.

On his syndicated radio show Tuesday, Rush spoke about his detainment by customs officials when returning from a two-day jaunt in the Dominican Republic :

Customs officials were incredibly nice to me. They just didn't believe me when I said I got the pills at the Clinton Library.

Give me those ribs…LOL.

Does Rush actually think he has the moral high ground here to diffuse the situation (and yes, detainment by US customs officials is – at best – a "situation") by taking a shot at his favorite target? I know a joke loses its humor when it has to be deconstructed, but what the hell does that line even mean?

"Joking" about what happened in customs only opens up Rush to more criticism about the "get out of jail free card" he received earlier this year, when prosecutors let him off the hook for a painkiller addiction and " illegal deception of multiple doctors to get overlapping painkiller prescriptions". I can believe Limbaugh's lawyer's explanation that the pills had been "labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes." But still, being honest doesn't make your actions legal…or your dumb jokes funny.

Hell, I'd be happy if I never had to think about where Rush stuck his mini-me, or what he has to do to get his member into game shape. And I won't, as some have done, make a bad pun about a "limp" argument (or even "speculate about why Limbaugh might arm himself with a bottle of Viagra for a two-day trip to the Dominican Republic"). Alls I'm saying is this:

When you break a federal law, perhaps it's not best to poke fun at a former President of the United States, who as memory serves, needed no erectile dysfunction aid to get it up for a fatty in a blue dress. Now there was a real man.

Happy Birthday, you malicious killer!

In honor of AIDS's silver anniversary of death and scaring girls in my high school into forced celibacy, the Boston Globe has unveiled its Top 10 Steps Africans can take to curb the AIDS Epidemic .

I hate to be Oscar Obvious here, but shouldn't #1 be to stop having unprotected sex? Despite the obvious slight, I've reprinted the list below, and though AIDS is no laughing matter, I've given it my best shot. It was, after all, the unfunniest Top 10 List since, well, last Thursday on Letterman.

1) Make HIV testing part of regular health checkups – you know, because the free clinics are inundated with supplies and the required funds to run a safe and accurate test on the tens of thousands of refugees they see each month

2) Test Couples Together – the Globe actually suggests AIDS testing as a first date activity. And they say romance is dead…

3) Promote male circumcision – besides, chicks don't dig Peelers

4) Focus the public health message – the "solution" sounds a lot like what is currently being done…make condoms readily available, teach abstinence and monogamy. And how exactly is this any more of a "focused message"?

5) Make Africa a sports mecca – an actual quote: "Young people have time on their hands. They need something besides sex that is free and fun."

6) Enforce drinking laws –

During weekend nights in Livingstone, one bar stays open until 3 a.m. and another until 5 a.m. Bartenders serve beer to children as young as 10. And yet the law calls for shutting down bars at 11 p.m. and no sale of alcohol to minors. ``Young boys who never used to drink or smoke are out playing eight-ball pool and drinking and smoking," said Chris Lubasi, 24, who runs youth programs in Livingstone. Drinking to excess clouds judgment, increasing the risk of unprotected sex.

Are there a lot of 10-year-olds getting drunk, fucking random women and contracting the AIDS, or are we losing focus?

7) Protect the babies – Won't somebody think of the children?

8) Encourage men to communicate – next thing you know, they're going to try to tell us that if we stop and ask for directions we won't get AIDS. I say NEVER!

9) Build networks of hospice workers – uh, that actually makes a lot of sense. Paying these people, however, would take money directly out of coffers reserved for medicine.

10) Support local journalists covering the problem – so American journalists (and bloggers) don't have to waste any more time pretending to understand the problem and offer ridiculous solutions.

April's Fools

Now I love a good practical joke as much as anybody…but I also despise a bad one. Today I am breaking down the fourth wall on an early April Fool's Day joke so new, no online source has yet to pick up the story.

The anchors of NBC 5's "Today in Chicago" morning show were buzzing about rumors that Midwest furniture retailer Walter E. Smithe was purchasing naming rights of Wrigley Field for $5 million a year. Just before the show ended, representatives from Smithe came on the air to confirm the rumor and showed an artist's rendering of the renamed stadium's marquee.

Do they really think we're that stupid? Well, since people in my local coffee shop (Caribou, not Starbucks) this morning were already up in arms about the prospect, I guess we are. God, people are such rubes…

A Douchebag at Fox? What are the Odds?

I have no particular affinity for Teri Hatcher, nor bias against her (though back in the day, her breasts were both real and spectacular). The news of her childhood sexual molestation was disturbing…as is the news of any child abuse. Surely, she made a bold and brave decision to testify against her uncle and help put him behind bars. Surely, hers was a story that needed to be told – if for no other reason, than to show that such horrible acts can happen to anyone and that victims are not powerless. No one can fault her for speaking up, right? No one can accuse her of ulterior motives, right? Wrong.

Enter Fox News.

Somehow, douchebag Mike Straka manages to turn Hatcher's revelation into a diatribe against America's celebrity-centric culture. Sure, it's more than a little phony when a star launches a new relationship in the tabloids just as he or she begins to promote a new project, but Straka has the audacity to compare Hatcher's story with Lindsay Lohan's bulimia…you know, because rape and incest are the same as a rich girl who parties too hard.

Straka argues that Hatcher's story should be told, but only in another time and place:

…the fact that this story comes out in a cover story for Vanity Fair after its best-selling Oscar issue ever, featuring nude photos of Scarlet Johansson and Keira Knightley, is a bit disingenuous, to say the least.

OK, so because Vanity Fair ran a few photos in its last issue, Hatcher can't tell her story in the current one? I don't see the connection here. That would be like the Vice President being involved in a scandal but not talking to any media outlets that had ever run negative coverage about him. Wait a minute…

The truth is that Teri Hatcher has no agenda other than coming clean…and Fox News has no agenda other than spreading douchebagianism around the world. Good work, sirs. Earth is a douchier place because of you.