WHITE HOT HATE - THE MANY FACES OF CONSERVATISM With the occupation of Iraq continuing its downward spiral, domestic debt and trade imbalances reaching critical mass, and Dear Leader's popularity plummeting like Icarus from the Sun, conservative movement bloggers have been experiencing a bumpy ride of late. Whenever this happens, what they usually do is try to find some totally inconsequential molehill to scoop into a mighty mountain around which they can rally, to foster a feeling of togetherness bound up in a spirit of phony outrage. Of course, despite their oft-expressed pretensions to manly self-reliance and stoicism, there has always been a strong current of victimhood underlying most conservative rhetoric. For generations, they have been whining about the so-called "liberal biased media" when all the available evidence shows the exact opposite to be the case. Twenty years ago, we were in the middle of a full blown Culture War, and a desperate George Herbert Walker Bush tried to woo the missing chromosome demographic by proposing a constitutional amendment to criminalize flag-burning. Unable to run against Clinton's eight-year record of peace and prosperity, conservatives chose to make the 2000 presidential elections about restoring "honor and integrity" to an Oval Office besmirched by a few furtive moments of oral pleasure, and the sticky emissions these encounters produced. In recent years, however, with catastrophic conservative policy failures coming ever quicker upon each others' heels, the pace of these delusional distractions has accelerated at an alarming rate. In the last few years alone, we've had the War on Christmas (a.k.a. the conservative war on anybody who chooses to say "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings"), the War on Marriage (a.k.a. the conservative war on gays), the War on Activist Judges (a.k.a. the conservative war on judges who aren't conservative activists), and the War on Christians (a.k.a. the conservative war on non-Christians). Drastic times call for desperate measures, after all, and times don't get much more drastic than they are right now. But, being a regular reader of the Daily Dirt, you already know that. Anyhoo, with the Terry Schiavo Fiasco and the Janet Jackson Nipple-Flash Crisis, yer old pal Jerky was pretty sure we'd seen the deepest depths to which this particular tactic could sink. As it turns out, I was wrong. Early this week, I received an e-mail forwarded to me by an anonymous conservative citizen expressing great outrage and consternation over the fact that anti-war activist and Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan had yet to procure a grave marker for her son Casey, who died in Preznit Dubya's illegal and illegitimate businessman's war-of-first-resort in Iraq. Intrigued, I loaded up Google to search for more information on the topic. What I found astonished me. The search terms "Casey Sheehan headstone" yielded page after page of results, all from right-wing blogs, each disparaging Cindy Sheehan in terms more brutal and degrading than the last. As I scanned these websites, I felt a little bit like Shelly Duvall must have felt in The Shining when she was flipping through hubby Jack's novel-in-progress. Collected here, for your edification and disgusted bemusement, is just a tiny sampling of the invective currently being spewed Cindy Sheehan's way by right-wing bloggers over something that I had previously believed any reasonable human being would consider an unquestionably private matter, regardless of politics. The aptly named Say Anything blog seems to have kicked this meme into high gear by asking, then answering: "You know what is sickening? Globe-trotting anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has collected her son's $250,000 military life insurance policy, collected endless gifts and perks from her far-left liberal friends and bought herself a brand-new VW Beetle convertabile, yet Sheehan hasn't taken the time to put up the funds needed to get Casey, her son, a head stone for his grave." The Moonbattery Blog captions an alleged photograph of Casey's grave with the following: "Here's the plot of grass under which Casey Sheehan spins each time his mother exploits his death to attack our country." On the History Channel's message boards, a poster by the name of Whitehall helpfully suggests that he and his like-minded brethren could establish a fund "to put a stone over the grave of a hero who gave his life for his Country." The SixMeatBuffet blog has started a poll asking: "What has kept Cindy Sheehan from getting her deceased son a headstone all this time?" Among the answers: "Spent all her money on Hardees' Thickburgers. How do you think she's kept up her girlish figure?" The Indepundit's take on this so-called scandal was pretty much par for the course -- he complains about Cindy purchasing a Volkswagen Beetle, accuses her of going through Casey's insurance money "like a drunken sailor on shore leave", etc. -- but the comments section, where the blog's regular readers can leave their mark, contains some doozies. A reader calling himself Sniper Wannabe writes: "She's just not spitting on her son's grave, she's pissing and shitting on it, too", while another speculates: "Anyone wonder if maybe Casey Sheehan joined the Army to get away from his Mom?" Chuck Simmins does the conservative movement proud by declaring: "Media slut Cindy Sheehan has been busy. Very, very busy. Busy spending the $250,000 she received from her dead son's GI insurance." Canadian conservatives are no more capable of minding their own business than their American asshole brethren, as aptly proven by Canuck blogger Steve Janke, here: "Even as Cindy Sheehan poses for the press in front of the boots and the cross with Casey's name and picture, the rest of his family is forced to gather around a bare patch of lawn." The Mad Hatter, an apparently insane Alaskan blogger, took some time off from masturbating over his guns and fantasizing about finishing the job in Vietnam to spew the following bilious blather: "If Casey Sheehan's memorial is any indication, leftists would want to give our returning troops the same reception. His media-frottaging halfwit of a mother gladly prostitutes herself for any leftist prick who will dump her as soon as he's done making her moan for his cause. I predict that she will go the way of former media darling Matthew Shepard once the '08 elections are done, if not sooner." And, finally, The Rogue Jew hits this Cindy-slam out of the park: "With all of the money that Anti-War/Attention Whore/MSM Slut for hire, Cindy Sheehan has made by exploiting the death of her son, United States Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, you would think that this grieving dirt bag of a mom would have had the decency to honor the son she claims to have loved so much a Memorial Marker for his grave...WRONG!!!" There was an almost infinite variety of variations on the sentiments expressed in the above selections, but you get the gist. The first thought that crossed my mind as I clicked through this avalanche of digital diarrhea was: "What could possibly twist a person's soul so badly that they feel entitled to spew this kind of garbage at someone who's paid the ultimate price for the stupidity of The Powers That Be?" My next thought was: "How in Godzilla's name did there get to be so fucking MANY of them?!" The answers to these questions could fill volumes, I'm sure. As for Cindy Sheehan's reasons for not erecting a headstone at her son's grave... Who knows? Considering the desecration-by-pick-up-truck of the memorials erected at the Camp Casey protest site in Crawford, Texas last summer, and considering the fact that some "fine upstanding American" stole her son's boots from yet another memorial, maybe she's worried it might be subject to a non-stop barrage of vandalism. In these sick times, when even gravestones are politicized, maybe she doesn't want some College Republican types to have a ready-made photo-op shrine. Perhaps she's worried a bunch of Skull-and-Boners will pry it out of the ground and sneak it away to their Yale campus compound, to display alongside Geronimo's skull and the rest of their grim trophies. The point is, IT'S NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. In many ways, this necrophilic obsession with Casey Sheehan's grave reminded me of the right-wing reaction to the Wellstone family memorial, and the funeral of Coretta Scott King. These thoughts, in turn, inspired me to create yet another political song parody, which I hereby present to you, forthwith. I hope you enjoy it. THE GRIEF POLICE By Jerky LeBoeuf (Sung to the tune of The Dream Police, by Cheap Trick) The Grief Police! They watch you bury your dead. The Grief Police! They slam you in their op-eds. The Grief Police! Should join the Army and fight, but noooo… You know their words are cheap, All the hate that they spew. But they could not care less, If their lies are untrue… untrue! Pure spew! Because they live for The Lie, They'd kill for The Lie, If they had the balls! They're worse than just plain fools, Those necrophilic ghouls. The Grief Police! They serve the Powers That Be. The Grief Police! They think they're wolves but they're sheep. The Grief Police! Should maybe show some respect, but noooo… Well they steal Mom's tears, While she kneels by the grave. Then claim they don't taste salt, So she must be a fake. Big flake! She-snake! Because they live for The Lie, They'd kill for The Lie, If they had the balls! They're worse than just plain fools, Those necrophilic ghouls. They don't agree with Cindy so they won't leave her alone. Launch slander missiles from the safety of their comfy homes. Pretend to give a shit about some useless slab of stone. Can't win a fair fight so they stoop to gnawing Casey's bones. Because they live for The Lie, They'd kill for The Lie, If they had the balls! They're worse than just plain fools, Those necrophilic ghouls. The Grief Police! They did it to the Wellstones. The Grief Police! They left the Reagans alone. The Grief Police! Should trade their keyboards for M-16s… Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com

ON THIS DAY March 28 On this day in 1945, German V-1 buzz bombs rain down on London for the last time before the end of the war. Read Thomas Pynchon's excellent, mind-bending novel Gravity's Rainbow for a well-rounded view of the philosophical/metaphysical implications/consequencesof the technological slippery-slope that led directly from these fascinating and deadly creations. On this day in 1979, the 3 Mile Island nuclear power plant comes thisclose to full-on, Chernobyl-style MELTDOWN in Middletown, Pennsylvania. Kinda gives a lot more satirical heft to Homer's safety-ignoring power-plant antics in The Simpsons, when you think about it. On this day in 1994, fans, friends and family of John Lennon and Elvis Presley all feel a little weight lifting from their shoulders as reviled "biographer" Albert Goldman shuffles off this mortal coil at the tender age of 66 from a debilitating, painful "mystery disease."

THEY SAID IT! "To do a show from Iraq means to talk to the Iraqi military, to go out with the Iraqi military, to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies about the latest IEDs going off. ... I think the media obviously has an element underneath it that really despises Bush and, uh, it's blinding them." - Looks like nobody told telegenic conservative movement spokes-bimbo Laura Ingraham that more journalists have died in the three years since the Iraq invasion and occupation than during the entire Vietnam War. Check out MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's note-perfect response to Ingraham's lunacy. Unforgivable, desperate and stupid. *** **** *** "Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them? You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack." - CBS journalist (and major hottie) Laura Rogan responds to right-wing critics who are accusing the liberal biased media of ignoring all the "good news" stories about the Iraq occupation. Michael Massing has a great suggestion for all those arm-chair media critics complaining about the reporting coming out of Iraq... send them over there. Embed them with the embeds and let THEM go sniff out all those invisible "good news" stories. Bill O'Reilly, I'm looking at you.

JOKES! Today's first joke was sent in by Javaid! Bella was terribly upset. Her fiance, Marvin, had been to a clinical psychologist, and the results were not entirely consoling. She said to her mother, "I’m not sure the marriage would be happy, Ma. The psychologist says Marvin tests out to have a pronounced Oedipus complex." Her mother shrugged and said, "Don’t listen to that fancy talk. I’ve watched Marvin and I tell you he’s all right. Just look how much he loves his mother." *** *** *** Thanks to our old pal Jim Eby for sending in today's second joke. Officer: "Soldier, do you have change for a dollar?" Soldier: "Sure, buddy." Officer:! "That's no way to address an officer! Now let's try it again! Do you have change for a dollar?" Soldier: "No, SIR!" WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Today's groaner was sent in by Damascus... An indian goes into to town and his dog goes with him. He goes to a bar, ties the dog up in a shady spot outside and gives him a piece of bread. So the indian is in the bar drinking beer when a cop comes in. "Who's dog is that outside?" "My dog." "Well, hey man, that dogs in heat!" "No, the dog's in shade." "I mean she wants to get bred." "No, I gave her bread." "Damn it, I'm telling you that dogs trying to get fucked!" "Well, fuck her yourself then! I always wanted a police dog."

READER'S SOAPBOX! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF MY CHURCH IS BEING STOLEN! care of: E.B. Hey MOPJ, wanted to let you know that Eric Blumrich has put out a call to activists everywhere to help out this Sexy MILF. She had her son unjustly taken away because of a S.O.B. judge who is religious nut. Anyhoo, I can’t explain this any better than Eric did so please pardon my plagiarism and read the below taken from Eric’s site. Recently, Rachel Bevilacqua, a fellow member of the Church of the Subgenius, was denied custody of her 10-year-old child, because of her faith, and ritual activities that took place during our church's X-Day Drill. You can read the full story here. Okay, okay... Rachel and I both happen to believe that we're descendents of the Yeti of western/Tibetan folklore, and that our church is locked in eternal struggle with a conspiracy of Pinks controlled by Nazi Hell Creatures that reside within the earth's core. Yeah, we hold as an article of faith that on July 5, 1998, all paid-in-full members of our Church will be rescued ("Ruptured") by Xist-beings (summoned by the radio broadcasts of Amos and Andy), before they lay waste to/enslave/disregard this misbegotten planet of clocks. But does that mean Rachel or I would make worse parents than the Hiltons? Let's take into consideration the parents of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears: What's more dangerous: a parent that belongs to a wacky, mocking religion? Or a parent that allows their sub-teen daughter to get breast implants? Considering we live in a nation in which a half-dozen states are trying to criminalize gay/lesbian/bisexual parenting, this is just another step down the wrong fork in the road. Rachel needs your help. You can check out her site, and contribute money to her cause, here. - E.B. FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE / ASK JERKY! Jerky, I think I've figured out why I cannot, despite all attempts, be a Liberal. I was in Calabassas County, California (Right by Los Angeles) the other day and someone told me that smoking is illegal outdoors. I am a non-smoker (tobacco anyways) but was still outraged by this. It is the same as the Conservative gang trying to impart their beliefs on the public by making them laws. Anyone reading this will disagree with me, their stance depending on where they stand on the political spectrum but from a devout moderate, it is exactly the same. Liberals, because I am more anti-Conservative in ideology that anti-Liberal, I urge you to avoid making these laws that make you equal to Conservatives, only then can the left become stronger than the right. YOP Sherm P.S. Remember, ultra-conservativism works, its called fascism, it is bad for the majority of people but it works. Communism in its true form, never works. [Seeing as the Soviet Union outlasted Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany by half a century, and seeing as the Communists took Russia from a society of serfs to outer space in three generations, and seeing as Cuba is still kicking -- with better health and literacy rates than all its "free" neighbor nations -- you're going to have to define "works". But yeah, those anti-smoking laws are stupid. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky; Howard Stern did that Chinese restaurant phone prank about a year b4 he left for Sirius... I heard it. Then they played that British version about 2 weeks later... they (the UK radio show) completely stole it from Stern... verbatim. Spiderman [I stand corrected. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky; Ward Sutton hits the nail once again. Jack Frost [Yes indeed. - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky; There is one degree of separation between the Bush family and the Devil. Is it really so hard to figure out? Dave H [For some people, apparently. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Dude... Thanks for the hook-up on the Pink stuff on YouTube! I Especially like the early Syd Barrett stuff and the solo works and (only half) rendition of Dogs by Waters. I'll take what I can get and be thankful for it. You're the best, Dude! McTubers [You're welcome, dude! - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky... Long time no speak-um. I hate to be "that guy"... but my nerdiness compels me. Julia Louis Dreyfus to Kevin Spacey in A Bug's Life to Kevin Spacey to Sean Penn in Hurly Burly to Sean Penn to Kevin Bacon in Mystic River. Three Steps. Julia Louis Dreyfus to Demi Moore in Deconstructing Harry to Demi Moore to Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men. OH SNAP. Two Steps! Also for the record, I can absolutely confirm your Oscar predictions were posted WELL before the actual ceremony, as I check every year to see what you think's gonna happen. Keep up the good work brother. Thommy from Canada [Thanks, and you're welcome! - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky, We have to start a wave of thinking; so what everyone needs to do is to keep the White House, a.k.a. the administration, talking about something else. Why not focus on something like this or this? Anything but what the man wants you to focus on. Think, People... Think! That is all I got to say. Dave K [So you want to get the White House to talk about things they don't want to talk about? Maybe you should re-think that. - Jerky]

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com