Obama doesn't mention Santa Claus in latest speech

Canadian police file picture, arrested for DUI in 2007

In a speech given to adults concerning the importance of family during the holiday months, President Obama forgot to mention Santa Claus.

"As a reminder, with the economy still struggling, it is best to remember how important family is during these troublesome times," Obama said during a recorded speech to families in need.  "Always donate your time and goodwill to not only your family, but to those who may not be as fortunate as you.  Everyone have a happy holiday season!" 

Immediately reporters seized on the lack of mentioning Santa Claus.

"It's reprehensible that President Hussein Obama would forget to mention the holy man himself, Santa Claus," Rush Limbaugh warbled during his own radio show. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that Obama doesn't believe in Santa Claus!  We can't have a black...I mean, a President who doesn't believe in Santa Claus!"

Glenn Beck provided his own theory during his radio show.  "Obama killed Santa Claus," Beck said between bouts of crying.  "He killed Santa Claus when he killed the free market with his health care plan!"

Despite the faux-controversy, most people did not seem worried about the omission in the speech.

"I'm fine with it," Alex Kingston, a 29-year old from Austin, TX told an ABC reporter.  "Santa never got me anything I wanted anyways.  Always damn socks."

Others were not so sure.

"I can't support a President who doesn't believe in Santa," Jerry Hauganuss said during a survey.  "I mean, what's next?  Not believing in a bicameral legislature and a judicial branch of government?"

When contacted for questions concerning the controversy, Santa Claus himself had a short and explicit answer.

"I don't give two flying fucks what President Obama believes," Mr. Claus said, annoyed by the whole issue.  "I've got shit to do, and the last thing I need are some damn stupid people making an issue out of nothing and wasting my time with annoying phone calls.  Now, goodbye!"

Also of note, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich also failed to mention Santa Claus in speeches given during the holiday season.

Oh Newt.. the gift that keeps on giving

"Hey, poor kid!  Clean your own damn school toilets!"

So I'm sneezing out my sinuses and coughing up my lungs tonight, so for shits and giggles I made my way to CNN. 

I came across this gem: 

Newt calls child labor laws "truly stupid."

If you read the whole article, you'll see that Newt believes poor children under the age of 16 in poor neighborhoods should be helping clean their schools.  Get rid of the janitors (and their unions, of course) and put kids in situations dealing with nasty chemicals and fishing whatever kids flush down the toilet. 

Now, I can't claim to be a genius, but this is pretty stupid. 

A couple reasons:

1.  The janitors working in those poor neighborhood have families to feed, too.  You would put them out of work so a child can learn the great skill of scrubbing toilets?

2.  Rather than improving schools in poor neighborhoods, or helping kids with athletics/educational after-school activities, you would rather show them the importance of never rising above the life of a janitor. 

3.  Child labor laws have existed so that children could not be used by anyone to do labor that would put the children in danger, or work when they should be learning.  

I think I understand it now.  Republicans want to drag down any progressive movement in society and take us back to a Golden Age where capitalism ran amok, and children were hired to be "grease monkeys," who would crawl into tight spaces in big machinery to fix the machines (and sadly, many children died in those machines). 

That's right.  Newt wants us to go back to the Industrial Revolution. 

I am starting to wonder if the Republicans are just trolling the American people.  They have to be.  No one could be this stupid.

Oh, wait.  According to my brother (whose blog is www.brettcottrell.blogspot.com by the way), they are. 

Gus

I love the taste of double standards! Tastes like squirrel!

Double standards are fun.  An example:

Someone makes a satirical joke about your religion.  Your automatic response is to be offended at this, because "how dare someone make fun of my beliefs!"

Then to prove your hypocritical standards, you go watch South Park and laugh at the stereotypical Jewish parents of Kyle, or the satirical idea that the Christian God is nothing more than a gigantic Spider Queen.

That is a double standard.  You can be just fine having other religions mocked or made fun of, but the idea that your religion should be free of such satire is hypocritical.

I honestly don't give a rat's ass what people believe, though that doesn't mean I won't point out inherent flaws in their beliefs that deny people basic human rights and equality.  My brother and I both use sarcasm, irony and satire to make the point that religions believe some pretty remarkably wacky things (shameless plug, my brother's blog is www.brettcottrell.blogspot.com).

You can't have it both ways.  If you consider your religion above satire and sardonic wit, you need to do one of two things:

1.  You need to be offended across the board for ALL religions
OR
2.  You can accept the fact that not everyone believes what you believe, and people will use humor to provoke thought, or use sarcasm simply because they can.  Accept the fact that your religion is not perfect, and work towards creating a more fair and just religion for ALL humans. 

Even if you take option 1, that doesn't mean my brother and I are going to stop, nor are the billions who don't believe as you do.

So please, choose option 2.  It will make the world a better place.  Who doesn't want that?

Rant over.

Facts, Fictions, Prophecies!

I've come to accept a couple pretty reliable facts/philosophies in life, along with some prophecies I've stumbled onto.   I've decided to share them with you, the audience, in list form.  Everyone loves lists!

If there is a God, it doesn't give a shit anymore about its creation.

Religion gives you values, morals, and an in some rare cases, a superiority complex.  Also Herpes. 

Speaking of herpes, STD's aren't funny, unless you believe that the planet Mercury is full of the Clap instead of metal.

Music is paramount to human happiness.

George Lucas always sucked ass at writing, and got lucky with the first movies. 

YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

500 channels of television is 500 channels of utter crap.

The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and nature shows are about all that are worth watching.

Risk is still the greatest board game out there.

Dogs, though fun, still have nothing on cats and wombats.

Heh, chinchilla...hehe.

Bacon is tasty.

So are artichokes.

And good coffee.

Sleep is a necessary evil, despite my best efforts to make it not so necessary.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, unless someone stole your eyes and replaced them with coal.  Then everything is horrible.

The world needs people who promote humor.  Humor drives humanity to its finest social moments.

Fight Club is one of the greatest movies for men of my generation.

Just because you wrote a big-ass book centuries ago doesn't mean you are a great writer.

Zombies are funny.  They won't be so funny when become real.  (Note: I fully expect the breakouts to occur at Walmart.  You heard it here first).

Tool will retire after their next album is released. 

This list ends here.