Comedian Steven Crowder interviews himself playing Keith Olbermann on PJTV.

3:49 video

The Republican National Committee has a video warning about a dangerous and underhanded enemy of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (and its British ally James Bond).

1:38 video

David Kahane, at National Review Online, finds fuel for the next box office blockbuster in some recent headline.

[W]e still can’t sell scripts about “Muslim terrorists,” but a celebrity death match between the Central Intelligence Agency and the person who stands second to the vice president in the line of succession to the White House should any, you know, unfortunate accident befall the leader of the free world, is right up our alley. Which is why I was first off the mark last week when Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, the flower of Baltimore and the pride of San Francisco, accidentally pulled the pin on a live hand grenade in front of the fiercely independent Washington press corps and blew herself up.

She wasn’t trying to, of course. She was trying to explain to a bunch of less-than-enchanted media stenographers who would rather be covering Michelle Obama’s workout, or even Bo the dog’s breakfast, that the nasty, un-American CIA has deliberately “misled” her when discussing just precisely how they were going to insert bamboo shoots under the fingernails of a caterpillar that they would then waterboard and introduce into the cell of some totally innocent mujahedin caught up in the lawless Bush-Cheney dragnet during the hysteria that followed the inside job that was 9/11 and . . .

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

In the other corner we have the Central Intelligence Agency, which we in Tinseltown have been depicting for years as just about the most malevolent organization in the world, outside of the Catholic Church, the Club for Growth, and the Cheney family. In movie after movie, the shadowy CIA guy always wound up as the villain in the last reel. So imagine our surprise when, during the Bushitler interregnum, we discovered that the CIA is on our side, and has been for decades! Screwed up the whole Shah of Iran thing and opened the way for the mullahs? Check! Consistently overrated and then failed to forecast the sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union? Check!! Never did quite figure out what Osama bin Laden was up to? Check!!!

To top it all off, along came super-top-secret agent/Vanity Fair babe Valerie Plame and her dashing, Graydon-Carter-tressed hubby, Joe Wilson, running a sting operation against the hapless Bush White House, whipsawing the president and the veep with Joe’s unprovoked New York Times tale of sipping mint tea with Colonel Kurtz up the Congo and all of sudden there’s shouting about the “sixteen words” in Chimpy’s State of the Union address and Valerie is outed by Cheney flunky Scooter Libby — okay, by Colin Powell flunky Dick Armitage, same thing — and then Judy Miller goes to jail and . . .

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

[H]ere’s the script that just made me a cool $1.5 mil plus five monkey points plus two first-class tickets to the premiere: Three Days of the Dodo Bird.

We open in Abu Ghraib prison, post-“Mission Accomplished,” where a SHADOWY CIA AGENT gets the bright idea to strike fear into the hearts of America’s “enemies” by photographing completely innocent prisoners in outrageous situations (piled naked on top of each other, led around on a dog leash by a woman, forced to wear panties on their heads) calculated to offend and inflame the sensibilities of the Religion of Peace. Now, you and I both know that these kinds of things happen every week at the right Hollywood parties, and they’re tons of fun, but for some weird cultural reason the photos are deemed offensive, the super-top-secret psy-war campaign winds up on the front page of the Times every day for a year, and the Shi’ites hit the fan.

Read the whole thing.

The inimitable Frank J. Fleming summarizes the liberal establishment position of moral superiority on coercive interrogation.

If the CIA torture memos tell us anything, it’s that Americans still have a long way to go towards civility. When disenfranchised youths flew planes into buildings, it should have been a time of quiet introspection. Instead, Americans gave into baser emotions and demanded vengeance against our “attackers.” Since we had the barbaric Bush administration in charge, they gave into those demands and soon loosed the sadistic Cheney, who took a break from blasting his friends in the face with a shotgun to turn his violence on foreign minorities. Pretty soon our intelligence agencies had grabbed some random Arab terrorist masterminds off the street and started inconveniencing them, making them uncomfortable, and — dare I say it — torturing them.

And now we are no better than they are. Less better even.

A civilized nation should never torture. Period. Ever, for any reason. No matter how many lives are at stake. It always just reduces us to animals that thirst for the pain of others. We say we want it to stop “terrorists” from killing us, but if in the process we murder our own humanity, what’s the point? And anyway, torture doesn’t work. I don’t care what basic logic or common sense or history tells you. It never works. Ever. That’s what studies say. Scientific ones where, to test the efficacy, they tortured monkeys to see if they could get the monkeys to talk, and none of them ever did. So with that issue settled, for what other reason could we be seeking torture but inhuman sadistic pleasure?

Yes, some are claiming that the torturing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saved thousands of people from a plot to blow up the Library Tower in Los Angeles, but that’s ridiculous. First of all, if they really got useful information, then they obviously didn’t use torture because it’s a well-known fact that torture doesn’t work (remember the studies I mentioned). But they claimed they used waterboarding, which they say is not torture but we all know is totally torture. I mean, they hold someone down and pour water — real water — on his face; try that on a cat and see if it acts like that isn’t torture. Thus, since waterboarding is torture, it obviously didn’t cause KSM to give up information because torture doesn’t work. Thus, he must have given up the information for reasons completely unrelated to the waterboarding.

Now look at what we (and by we, I mean you, because I’m not a part of this) have become. Torturers. And what did we gain? Information on a terror plot that was probably never going to happen in the first place. And even if it was going to happen, it’s not like thousands of people don’t die in LA every year anyway. Plus, “Library Tower” isn’t actually a library. So we gained nothing, and we debased ourselves by becoming nothing more than common Cheneys. Just because someone masterminded a plot that killed thousands doesn’t make it right to pour water on him.

So I hope your bloodthirst has been quenched, you mindless barbarians. You may say Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is “evil,” but then I ask, “Who is holding whom hostage and pouring water on his face?” No wonder the rest of the world looks at us and sees who the real terrorists are. This is what our torture has done to us. And I weep.

Read the whole thing.

Jon at Exurban League has the President’s remarks.

Since the pirates are still holding the captain, I have sent FBI negotiators to facilitate his safe and speedy release. I assure his friends and family that I will not stop until this man-made disaster is resolved in a peaceful, tolerant and ecologically-sound manner.

Obviously, this incident has raised many concerns among Americans. There have been calls for justice and even violence against the misguided perpetrators. But such an emotional reaction has led to the disparagement of entire groups with which we are unfamiliar. We have seen this throughout history.

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entreprenuerial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Some of us wonder if our current Overseas Contingency Operation would even be needed had the last administration not been so quick to label Pirates as “thieves,” “terrorists” and worse. Such swashbucklaphobia can lead to tragic results, as we have seen this week.

To address this issue, I have instructed Vice President Joe Biden to create a cabinet-level Czar of Pirate Outreach and Buccaneer Interrelation. In addition, June 1-7 has been designated as Pirate Awareness Week, during which all federal buildings will fly the Jolly Roger and sponsor sensitivity training. Thankfully, my American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fund free grog and hard tack for all attendees.

Finally, to all pirates listening to international broadcasts, shortwave services and ship-to-shore radio, let me say this:

Ahoy, me regret arr relationship has set sail in a scurvy manner. Arr people share many mutual ‘alues and concerns on t’ raging main. Perchance, could ye handsomely release the cap’n o’ the ship and I assure that no harm will come t’ ye or ye hearties. Let us smite t’ reset button and launch our seabond on a new pegleg. Savvy? Godspeed t’ ye and t’ ye beauties. Aye, me parrot concurs.

A musical tribute to the Teleprompter of the United States.

3:36 video

Hat tip to Henry Bernatonis.

Digital Anarchy imagines the Community-Organizer-in-Chief bringing fairness to the NFL.

Hat tip to Scott Drum.

South Park explains the federal decision making process used by both the Bush and Obama Administrations for dealing with the current economic downturn.

1:03 video

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Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

There’s an earlier one, also by Nose on Your Face, but this one is better.

2:19 video

The Onion reports from Arkham, Massachusetts:

Arguing that students should return to the fundamentals taught in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon in order to develop the skills they need to be driven to the very edge of sanity, Arkham school board member Charles West continued to advance his pro-madness agenda at the district’s monthly meeting Tuesday.

“Fools!” said West, his clenched fist striking the lectern before him. “We must prepare today’s youth for a world whose terrors are etched upon ancient clay tablets recounting the fever-dreams of the other gods—not fill their heads with such trivia as math and English. Our graduates need to know about those who lie beneath the earth, waiting until the stars align so they can return to their rightful place as our masters and wage war against the Elder Things and the shoggoths!”

The controversial school board member reportedly interrupted a heated discussion about adding fresh fruit to school lunches in order to bring his motion to the table. With the aid of a flip chart, West laid out his six-point plan for increased madness, which included field trips to the medieval metaphysics department at Miskatonic University, instruction in the incantations of Yog-Sothoth, and a walkathon sponsored by local businesses to raise money for the freshman basketball program. “Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits,” West said. “Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond.”

West has served on the school board since 1997, when he defeated 89-year-old incumbent Doris Pesce by promising to enforce dress codes and refer repeat disciplinary cases to the three-lobed burning eye. He has run unopposed ever since.

“Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum,” fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. “I’m not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular.”

“I must admit, he’s very convincing,” Kolker added.

West’s previous failed proposals include requiring the high school band to perform the tuneless flute songs of the blind idiot god Azathoth and offering art students instruction in the carving of morbid and obscene fetishes from otherworldly media.

Several parents attending the meeting were not impressed by West’s outburst.

“Last month, he wanted us to change the high school’s motto from ‘Many Kinds of Excellence’ to ‘Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,'” PTA member Cathy Perry said. “I asked if it was Latin, and he said that it was the eldritch tongue of Shub- Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. I don’t know from eldritch tongues, but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“We already changed the name of the school from Abraham Lincoln High to Nyalrothotep Academy,” Perry added. “What more does he want?”

Immediately before the vote on his motion, which was defeated eight to one, West gave his final remarks, arguing that the children are our future and that it’s the school board’s obligation to make sure they are fully versed in the unspeakable horrors still to come.

Iowahawk‘s latest hilarious satire.

1 Whan in Februar, withe hise global warmynge

26 “Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin’

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.