I read this article and was like, “Wow, suicide sure is popular in Japan.” Apparently, the popular kids are jumping off cliffs and everyone else is following along. And it’s certainly not a good commentary on your country when people really enjoy suicide. Of course, if you hear of what working in Japan is like and all the overtime they do, it’s not much of a mystery.

Still, it sounds like Japan should do some sort of anti-suicide campaign; I mean they already have a negative population growth. I’m not sure how you’d do an anti-suicide campaign, though, because the usual way you warn people about things like drugs, drunk driving, obesity is to threaten death. You can’t do that with suicide.

“Suicide Kills!” — that’s kind of a tautology. I mean, how do you scare people out of suicide? Now, if I know Japanese culture — and I’ve convinced myself I do — there are a few things they are scared of: Godzilla, giant mecha, ninjas, atomic bombs, dolphin, dishonor, and rogue samurai.

Oh, I know: America can help out. We can threaten to drop another atomic bomb on Japan if they have a certain number of suicides during the year. The Japanese hate — hate — atomic bombs. So maybe someone might think suicide is fun and dandy for himself, but does he really want to be responsible for America dropping another atomic bomb? That will make everyone think twice, and they can go back to a long life of excessive overtime and ultra-violent, porn-filled cartoons.

Do you get worried that they’re going to basically pass the health care bill unseen? No one is sure what’s in it; Pelosi said we’ll find out when it’s passed, but what if we don’t like what we find? For instance, the bill could be passed and we’ll finally read it and be like, “Wait a second; this doesn’t say health ‘care’. It says health ‘bear’. The bill mandates that angry grizzly bears go in every hospital!”

Man, that will sure change a waiting room. No longer a place of annoyance, it will be a place of fear as you have to sit out in the open, exposed to bears. And things will only get worse for those scared of MRIs, and now you have to lie still while bears claw at them and try to get inside.

Call your Congressman and tell him you don’t like bears and you vote.

SarahK and I each won a RiffTrax caption contest (they picked three winners and we were two of them) to win free RiffTrax, so I thought in exchange I should plug them again. Everyone should buy and enjoy RiffTrax. The humor may not be for everyone, though; I hear that pedophiles don’t like them.

New Moon comes out Friday at midnight (guess whose wife will be in line for a copy?) and the RiffTrax for it will be available on Friday. SarahK says it won’t save me because she’s going to make me watch it normal first. Man, I hope our child doesn’t grow up thinking its normal for vampires to sparkle.

A lot of people seem to think we should have a baby naming contest for the upcoming IMAO baby. I think that’s a great idea, but I don’t know if SarahK will consider it binding. Anyway, I’ll at least share with you some of the names I’ve been thinking of:

Rocket Punch Fleming
Dark Vengeance Fleming
Dragon Fleming
Ghost Dog Fleming
Flammable Fleming
Ultimate Fleming
Gene Parmesan Fleming
He Who Shall Not Be Named Fleming

And here are some more names I was thinking of. Sometimes, I’m not sure if they’re boys’ or girls’ names:

Coffee
Magnum
Thor
Awesome
Metallica
Apocalypse
Schnappi
Olaf (no one would mess with a kid named Olaf)

And there were some good suggestions on Twitter:

Mr. T Fleming
El Guapo Fleming
Agent Fleming (that was from Lair)

So that’s to get things started. If you having any other good name I ideas, throw them out and maybe later we can have a vote on the best. I think my favorite so far is “Dark Vengeance Fleming”. I think “Vengeance” sounds like it should be a girl’s name.

UPDATE:

Someone on Twitter mentioned she knew someone who named his sons Drake, Ronin, and Legend.

Ronin. Hmm…

I’m half Irish. The baby will be a quarter Irish. Eventually we’ll get drunken potato eating completely out of our gene pool.

I wish we got video of our little baby jumping around; I want to watch that again. Instead, all I have is 24 on the DVR.

Oh boy, I hope our pregnancy doesn’t have a stupid hillbilly subplot like 24! If it does, it will probably be from my wife’s side.

On St. Patrick’s Day: I’m going to drink until I puke tonight. We only have Walmart brand soda at home, but I think that’ll work. I hope Bible Study doesn’t mind.

Man, I can’t wait to finally have an excuse to watch Spongebob Squarepants. That show looks fun!

My governor’s name is Butch.

Obama to American people: “Shut up! I won, not you!”

So Green Zone, a $130 million movie about how the Iraq war is wrong and a plot by neocons, was a box office flop this past weekend. Who could have predicted that? You’d think the American people would feel they haven’t heard enough arguments against the Iraq war and would be clamoring to pay $10 and hear from Hollywood actors and directors on the subject.

Really, when are actors and such going to figure out they’re the last people we want to hear from on any subject beyond where to score good blow? Just dance for us, monkeys!

Obama is in his final push (final for real this time; we swear!) for his health care bill. Which raises a good question: How much do we laugh at him if he fails?

I say we put aside a whole week to mock what a failure he is, going to any public even he’s at to point and laugh at him. He’ll eventually yell, “You guys are mean!” and run away crying to the White House and hide in there and refuse to come out. That will be a nice break for all involved.

Sounds a little cruel, but that’s how you play politics. How much do you plan to laugh at him?

The Pentagon revealed that they often get e-mailed plans like parachuting bears into the Middle East the hunt down Osama bin Laden. So yeah, I e-mail the Pentagon my ideas in my spare time. Here are some other plans I’ve come up with:

CREATIVE WAR PLANS

* Send terrorists boxes labeled “guns” and “bomb making supplies.” What’s actually inside? All our nation’s squirrels!

* Create giant robots that eat people.

* Make our own flying saucer and land it in the Middle East so terrorists think they’re being visited by aliens. When the “aliens” come out of the UFO, the terrorists will rush to greet them and find out too late that they’re actually angry rottweilers in robes.

* Make a satellite that can throw rocks at people from space. Then terrorists will get hit in head with rocks and be like, “Where the hell did that come from?!” They’ll be totally freaked out!

* To hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden, send the Land Shark.

* Send the terrorists shipments of free sunglasses. Unbeknown to them, the sunglasses have no actual UV protection.

* Build next to the Pentagon a decoy Hexagon. You’ll have to carefully count the sides to make sure which one is the right one.

* Create a virus that turns people to zombies and release it in a terrorists stronghold. Just make sure it stays isolated to there as that’s where the trouble starts.

* Distribute free candy to children. The terrorists, being evil, will then steal the candy from the children. But the joke is on them because the candy is poison!

* Replace Osama with Obama to make all the terrorists plans ineffective.

What are your creative ideas you’ve sent the Pentagon?

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, the day we celebrate how we chased all the drunken, subhuman Irish out of America by throwing potatoes at them. No one knows what happened to them, but rumors say the Irish hide in burrows underground and sneak in our houses through our basements or crawl spaces to raid our liquor cabinets. That’s why we celebrate today by trying to drink all our liquor before the Irish get to it.

If you thought I got less funny when I got married, just wait until I’m a dad.

When I first came up with my IMAO T-Shirt Babe contest scam to see if I had any attractive readers, who knew it would pay such dividends. I’m such a genius.

Due date is October 8th.

BTW, for those of you who think Twitter is gay, they were first to find out the results of my non-gayness, so there.

The time for (any of you Bible and/or gun clinging rubes who can’t understand a simple several thousand page bill to have the audacity to hope to) talk is over. – Present Barack Obama

A poll shows that U.S. residents are losing faith in the American Dream. That’s horrible. The American Dream is what motivates us to do better and keep our country awesome.

Now, people tend to have different ideas of what the American Dream is, but there are usually a lot of similar themes. Here’s what the American Dream is to me:

I live in a giant house made of plastic and titanium and own a hovercraft. Patrolling the streets are tyrannosaurus rexes who are genetically engineered to be courteous and eat criminals. Hippies have long been extinct, and it’s illegal to talk about them. I have a basement full of guns and robot parts. We have world peace since we’ve destroyed or conquered all other countries. We’ve made contact with our first alien species and become friends with them: The Thundercats. There is no more shouting about politics on TV because all disputes are settled with a kung fu fight at dawn. Racism is a thing of the past, since we’ve all been dyed purple (except for me since I already wasn’t racist). After a long day at work patrolling space for rogue asteroids, I can relax with my wife and cyborg children and watch ape boxing. And there is true freedom for all… except when people do something I don’t like, since I’m emperor.

So what’s the American Dream to you?

$130 million movie on how the Iraq War is bad? How was that not a good investment?

With all the debate on Iraq, I guess people aren’t really clamoring to pay for more input from movie actors and directors.

Did punk kids in the fifties wear their fedoras sideways?

I’m sure Green Zone will make up the money in merchandising, like the McDonald’s Happy Meals tie-ins.

Live free or die. If you don’t want to live free, do everyone a favor and please die.

I am just so sick and tired of hearing about health care reform. It seems like we’ve been having the exact same headlines for about a year now. Democrats are always on the verge of having enough votes and Obama is always making his final push for it. It’s like we’re stuck in some Star Trek-type anomaly. I’m actually looking forward to them pushing amnesty just to have something new to complain about.

I can’t take it anymore! Just pass it or don’t pass it! But for all that’s good and holy, STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!

John Hawkins has an interview with Karl Rove at Right Wing News. Read to find out what Karl Rove does with all the souls he collects, how Obama was actually his idea and how things are going perfectly to his master plan, and how he will soon have so much dark power that he will be unstoppable.

American Digest picked up on a quote I said in response to a commenter:

Conservatives tend to treat as hobbies what liberals treat as occupations.

They seemed to take this as a warning, as if conservatives don’t take politics seriously enough, but that wasn’t my point.

When society is just starting out, you don’t usually have career musicians or artists or actors. These are things people may do in their spare time after their actual work but aren’t careers. As society develops, people can actually do these things as full time jobs, but the people who tend to do that seem to be liberals.

The thing is, people need jobs. We just can’t be mentally well without something useful to do. Now, it’s possible to treat art type stuff as a job, but many see it more as a calling than an occupation. And thus a lot of the activism to feel useful and the odd sights like Sean Penn, who is basically a dancing monkey, getting some big ego and thinking he’s better than the useful people he pretends to be in his movies.

Also, the idea of art is to express some truth, but what truths do career artists know other than things to do with being an artist? I wonder if art suffers in a way by not being something people with regular lives do.

My new Pajamas Media column is up.

Cross-Posted at America is an Obamanation!

Zombie at Pajamas Media looks at all the other type elemental footprints we have besides carbon. It’s hard to reduce your footprints, so I want mine to be as big as possible. Thousands of years from now, I want archeologists to say, “Wow. You can sure tell Frank was here.” That would make me feel good.

So is the Democrats taking over health care ever going to end? It’s like Jason; we think we kill it and it just keeps coming back. But guess what comes after health care?

Amnesty!

Basically, we have a gauntlet of crap legislation. It’s like they’re just trying to wear us down on outrage before the midterm election. Still, we just have to get to November, elect enough Republicans, and put a stake in the heart of all the silliness Obama is trying to do once and for all.

If we do get a Republican majority, what’s that going to be like with Obama as president? Here’s my recommendation:

OBAMA: I have this new idea–

REPUBLICANS: No.

OBAMA: You didn’t even hear it! It’s–

REPUBLICANS: No.

OBAMA: But I really think–

REPUBLICANS: No.

OBAMA: You’re just a party of “no”!

REPUBLICANS: Why do you say that?

OBAMA: You say no to everything I say.

REPUBLICANS: We say no to stupid things. You only say stupid things. So, yeah, I guess that follows.

OBAMA: Can you at least allocate federal funds to get me an iPad?

REPUBLICANS: No.

OBAMA: YOU’RE THE MEANEST CONGRESS EVER!!! WAAAAAH!!!

There’s a new movie, Green Zone, about how America made up the intelligence about WMDs in Iraq and tried to murder and what not to cover it up. And it stars Matt Damon! Sounds like a movie to avoid, and it has 51% at Rotten Tomatoes right now. Still, Roger Ebert gave it four stars and much of his review was dim-witted political spiel. I love this part, though:

Its message is that Iraq’s fabled “weapons of mass destruction” did not exist, and that neocons within the administration fabricated them, lied about them and were ready to kill to cover up their deception.

Is this true? I’m not here to say.

I like that. If you want to throw out insane conspiracy charges and then back away from them — but are tired of the phrase “I’m just asking questions” — then add “I’m not here to say” to the end of your crazy.

“Did Ebert actually murder Siskel out of jealousy? I’m not here to say.”

“Is Barack Obama a Muslim sleeper agent sent to destroy our economy? I’m not here to say.”

“Does Pelosi drink the blood of babies as an anti-aging scheme? I’m not here to say.”

So is Ebert now a Truther, or does that just apply to specific conspiracy theories about the Bush administration?

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has his top 40 conservative blogs list, and IMAO is ranked number 9. What are your favorite blogs?

Best answer: “My number one blog is IMAO!”

Bester answer: “My number one blog is IMAO, and I leave the number 2 blog slot blank to give more separation between IMAO and the rest of the riffraff.”

Here’s an intervention Red Eye did for Bill Maher for his lame partisan humor with some helpful joke suggestions from the Red Eye robots:

So what are the geniuses at Kos up to?

Well, Markos Moulitsas is vowing to put an opponent against Kucinich in the primary if Kucinich doesn’t vote for the health care reform. Kucinich won’t support Obamacare because it isn’t single-payer, doesn’t cover unicorns, doesn’t give everyone free candy, and don’t ban mind-controlling space lasers. So Kucinich has no basis in reality, but Kos’s more realistic solution when Democrats are gearing up for an epic slaughter in November is to take on safe Democrat seats? BTW, the filing deadline for a candidate in Ohio was February 19th.

Political genius.

Is there anything these guys do that doesn’t amount to the political equivalent of a monkey shaking its cage and screeching?

Still, the Democrats like to have them on their side, so Harry Reid promised them that next Congress he’ll reform the filibuster. Now, that’s already the hollow promise of hollow promises, but since Reid most likely won’t even be a part of next Congress, he might as well promise to bench press 500 pounds while he’s at. Still, the Kos Kids are all like, “dis weel show de rethuglicans!!11!” even though the timing will perhaps be to benefit a Republican majority. But you can’t expect Kos Kids to have a long view of things.

Yeah, I know I should just ignore these guys for all the clout they actually have, but they’re just so fascinating in a morbid way.

Obama said that half the 40,000 letters he gets each day call him an idiot. So what do the other half call him? Here’s a sampling:

* Moron

* Naive

* Socialist

* Communist

* Kenyan

* Elitist

* Aloof

* Man-child

* Muslim

* Bush