Welcome to this week's Quote the Ravin', quotes from the period August 23-29, 2010. This week marks 11 weeks that I've been unemployed. I'm blogging to you from an aged Ford Pinto with blacked out windows, I'm surfing from a modified McCool 2 typewriter hooked up to the car's cigarette lighter that is attached to a car battery powered by a huge solar array of vintage Swanson TV dinner trays glued to the roof. I'm using a Pringles can for Wi-Fi (and down to my last two Pringles), I've cracked the window to hear rumors amplified by a home-made hearing aid (an Altoid microwaved for two days in bacon grease at the Kwik-E-Mart), and my finger is on the pulse of the average American. Admittedly, it's on the pulse of the guy who owns the Pinto and is sleeping in the driver's seat, but hopefully he doesn't wake up before I finish this.
Let's get typing.
When I shed my mortal coil and shuffle off to the great open bar full of funny cartoonists and loose women in the sky, whenever that happens, I beg you to do me one last favor: say that I suck. Or, better yet, don’t mention me at all.
—Cartoonist Ted Rall, who is currently in Afghanistan and doesn't want glowing eulogies in the press from papers that didn't carry his cartoons.
This election is now between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers.
—Congressional candidate Jon Hulburd (D, AZ) , making fun of Ben Quayle's alleged Boogie Nights pseudonym for a rate-the-club-chick website he admits contributing to.
You don't stand up there for four years for hate. That's not hate. That's love.
—Debi Durr, who has protested a strip club in Warsaw, Ohio for four years. With hate. The strip club decided to protest the church last week right back, wearing bikinis and carrying signs with positive scripture.
Wait we have to restore the Lincoln Memorial's honor? Has he been banging the Statue of Liberty again?
—Jon Stewart, on Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally.
That’s where we really part. I’m a big fan of social justice.
—XM host Joe Madison, in response to Glenn Beck on his radio show when Beck said he wasn't a fan of social justice.
No civilization, no society, has survived if it's people came to believe they knew enough, and needed to know nothing more.
—Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer, on stem cell research.
Any 8th grader with a 4th Of July Madlibs book could have written today's script.
—Blogger and Kossack Averagebro, who went to Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally.
I'm not Martin Luther King.
—Glenn Beck, on Fox News Sunday. No fucking kidding.
We do not take sides in primaries, and here's why: The Republicans in Alaska have a right and should pick their nominee.
—Gov. Haley Barbour (R, MS). Sure. Sure.
What's the difference between selling out your party's values and the oldest profession?
—Senate candidate Joe Miller (R, AK), from a tweet supposedly directed towards the Libertarian party for considering to allow opponent Lisa Murkowski to run as a Libertarian in the general election. Many took it as a shot at Murkowski.
He’s the last person I’d vote for for President of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president.
—Sen. Tom Coburn (R, OK) on Newt Gingrich. I think the same thing about Tom Coburn.
And there’s a huge, I think, lack of support throughout the country for Islam to build that mosque there, but that should not make a difference if they decide to do it. I’d be the first to stand up for their rights.
—Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, UT).
I must have missed something in the news — can anybody tell me when a bunch of kook, Mormon-hating, tacky, gay-baiting, send-me-your-money televangelist wackos murdered 3,000 people in downtown Manhattan? How did I miss that one?
—Kevin Williamson on National Review's Corner, on the news that a pastor is starting the "911 Christian Center" at Ground Zero. I can't tell you that, Kev. I can tell you that all the Muslims who flew the planes into the buildings all died. FYI.
And to these two selfish haves, politics is a show and a game and something to do to 'make your mark' between vacations in sunny Italy. Fuckwads.
—Blogger bluegal on Arianna Huffington's palling around with Newt Gingrich in Italy despite a perceived commitment to their respective political agendas.
This coming election day, let's teach at least one of those Senate millionaires what it's like to be unemployed.
—Senate candidate Alvin Greene (D, SC), in an op-ed to...The Guardian? Agreed, but it will probably not be you.
Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned?
—Christopher Hitchens. Amen.