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Creative Commons License by Jutsu.
Dec 19, 2008
Bigfoot Christmas Ornament
Wet is the cryptozoologist. I suspect he will have 10 of these next year.
h/t to The Museum of Hoaxes.
Dec 12, 2008
Dec 10, 2008
Who Started the War on Christmas?
The War on Christmas' started in a white nationalist cabal and spread to conservative media.
What would Christmas be without warnings of the secular crusade to destroy it? Thanks to the fulminations of cable news cranks and evangelical moralists, the War on Christmas has become an annual outrage. The story typically goes as follows: secular elements have intimidated stores into replacing the phrase “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays;” nativity scenes have been removed from public spaces under threat of ACLU lawsuits; a decadent culture is moving ever closer to eradicating Christian morality; and America slouches towards Gomorrah.
Judging from the panicked tone of movement conservatives, this year’s War on Christmas campaign threatens the country’s moral fiber more than ever. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger, the secular Grinch has claimed the economy as its latest casualty. “A nation whose people can't say 'Merry Christmas' is a nation capable of ruining its own economy,” he fumed on November 20. Having laid off 20 percent of its staff the day after Election Day, Christian right mega-ministry Focus on the Family declared “Merry Tossmas” imploring its supporters to toss out holiday season product catalogs that wish shoppers “Happy Holidays.” (The 201 freshly unemployed staffers might have more practical reasons to trash their catalogs.)
On December 2, Utah Republican state senator Chris Buttars sponsored an urgent resolution demanding that stores greet shoppers with the phrase, “Merry Christmas.” “I'm sick of the Christmas wars,” Buttars proclaimed. “We're a Christian nation and ought to use the word.”
The Christmas kulturkampf is a growth industry in a shrinking economy, providing an effective boost for conservative fundraising and a ratings bonanza for right-wing media. So who was the genius that created it? To find the answer, a visit with the ghost of conservatism’s past is in order.
Back during the culture wars of the 1990s, Peter Brimelow, then a Fortune magazine editor, grew incensed with the increasing use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” by retailers like Amazon.com. “I just got real interested in the issue,” Brimelow told The Daily Beast, “because I noticed over the years there was this social shift taking place where people no longer said ‘Merry Christmas.’”
In his 1995 book, Alien Nation, Brimelow argued that the influx of “weird aliens with dubious habits” from developing nations was eroding America’s white Christian “ethnic core,” and in turn, sullying its cultural underpinnings. The War on Christmas was, in his view, a particularly pernicious iteration of the multicultural “struggle to abolish America.”
Brimelow went to his fellow Briton and Tory, John O’Sullivan, then editor of the conservative movement’s flagship publication, National Review, with a big idea. National Review should host “an annual competition for the most egregious attempt to suppress Christmas.” Though O’Sullivan liked Brimelow’s idea, he was replaced as editor on Christmas Eve 1997 by Rich Lowry.
With the exception of a 2001 column in which O’Sullivan blamed “religious minorities” for the War on Christmas, the issue disappeared from the pages of National Review. At the same time, the magazine jettisoned O’Sullivan’s anti-immigration politics in favor of the Big Tent conservatism preferred by younger writers like Jonah Goldberg and Ramesh Ponurru.
The shift at National Review forced Brimelow even further into the political wilderness. Shunned by conservatives there rankled by his unabashed racial resentment—Goldberg belittled him in a 2002 column as a “once respected conservative voice”—Brimelow founded what would become the internet’s leading anti-immigration web journal, VDare.com, named for the first British child born in the Americas. Brimelow’s new venture provided a forum to allies like Jared Taylor, a white supremacist publisher, and Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychology professor who has argued that Jews are genetically equipped to out-compete Gentiles for resources and power. In 2003, four years after VDare’s founding, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified the journal as a “hate group.”
VDare became the staging ground for the War on the War on Christmas. Unlike their more respectable counterparts, Brimelow’s writers dared to name the true anti-Christian Grinch: Jews. The winner of Brimelow’s 2001 War on Christmas competition, a “paleoconservative” writer named Tom Piatak, insisted that those behind the assault on Christmas “evidently prefer” Hanukkah, which he called the “Jewish Kwanzaa,” a “faux-Christmas.” “Teaching children about Hanukkah, rather than the beliefs that actually sustained Jews on their sometimes tragic and tumultuous historical journey,” Piatak fumed, “inculcates negative lessons about Christianity, not positive ones about Judaism.”
VDare’s 2005 War on Christmas winner, Steve Sailer, a Eugenics enthusiast and author of the new biography of Barack Obama, America’s Half-Blood Prince, picked up where Piatak left off. “American Jews,” Sailer wrote, “those exemplars of successful assimilation now seem to be de-assimilating emotionally, becoming increasingly resentful, at this late date, of their fellow Americans for celebrating Christmas.” Sailer went on to quote at length from a column by the purportedly Jewish writer, Bert Prelutsky, called “The Jewish Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”
Brimelow was ambivalent when I asked him about Sailer’s theory on Jewish de-assimilation. “It’s an argument,” was all he would say.
Following the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush’s re-election, and the Republican sweep of Congress, Brimelow said conservative movement elites could no longer ignore the right-wing populism sweeping the nation. Suddenly the War on Christmas was gaining traction. “This issue became very popular in the conservative grassroots, so conservative media had to pay concession to it,” he said.
By 2005, Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson were dedicating entire shows to the War on Christmas. While their rants were directed at “secular progressives,” they echoed the arguments of Brimelow’s allies. “It’s all part of the secular progressive agenda,” O’Reilly grumbled. “If you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs, like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage.” National Review’s website jumped back on the bandwagon, beginning with editor Kathryn Jean Lopez’s promotion of Gibson’s bestselling 2005 polemic, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.
Of the conservatives who once dismissed his Christmas crusade, Brimelow remarked with a self-satisfied chuckle, “They went over to the dark side.”
From its origins in Brimelow’s website and fevered imagination to its popularization by the conservative media, the War on Christmas has become an institution. And the rest is holiday cheer.
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and writing fellow at The Nation Institute, whose book, Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books), is forthcoming in Spring 2009. Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Dec 4, 2008
Wet Fur's Conservative Propoganda
Wet has lost his password, so here is his propaganda about Christmas. I guess he buys into the whole "War on Christmas" idea that the right is trying to create.
As an employee of one of the most liberal companies in the city, I have never had a problem with Christmas parties.
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Subject: And A Merry Christmas To All!
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 01, 2008
RE: Christmas Party
I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a small band playing traditional carols...feel free to sing along. And don't be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00 pm. Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's pockets. This gathering is only for employees! Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Patty
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 02, 2008
RE: Holiday Party
In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on we're calling it our 'Holiday Party.' The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians or those still celebrating Reconciliation Day. There will be no Christmas tree present. No Christmas carols sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.
Happy now?
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Patty
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 03, 2008
RE: Holiday Party
Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table ... you didn't sign your name. I'm happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, 'AA Only'; you wouldn't be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?
Somebody?
Forget about the gifts exchange, no gifts exchange are allowed since the union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and executives believe $10.00 is a little chintzy.
NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: October 04, 2008
RE: Holiday Party
What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees' beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party- or else package everything for you to take it home in little foil doggy baggy. Will that work? Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to the restrooms. Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men's table. To the person asking per mission to cross dress, no cross-dressing allowed though. We will have booster seats for short people. Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food we suggest for those people with high blood pressure to taste first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics, the restaurant cannot supply 'No Sugar' desserts. Sorry!
Did I miss anything?!?!?
Patty
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 05, 2008
RE: The F ------ Holiday Party
Vegetarian p .. cks I've had it with you people!!! We're going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the 'grill of death,' as you so quaintly put it, and you'll get your f### ing salad bar, including organic tomatoes. But you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They scream when you slice them. I've heard them s cream. I'm hearing them scream right NOW! I hope you all have a rotten holiday! Drive drunk and die,
The B .. ch from HELL!!!!!!!!
FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
DATE: October 06, 2003
RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party
I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery and I'll continue to forward your cards to her. In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.
Happy Holidays!
Dec 2, 2008
Player of the Year
Well, the Red Devils continue their dominance on the world football stage. Cristiano Ronaldo won the Ballon D'Or for the World Football Player of the Year, and it wasn't even close! The closest Arsenal or Chelsea player doesn't show up until 12th, and in fact, you have 2 ManU players before you find the first Chelsea player. Here are the official results:
Just a continuation of the eventual world domination. We will end up in our rightful spot by the end of the season, 1st place once again! Remember, resistance is futile.
Photo courtesy of cristianoronaldo.soccerstar.org
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