If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it - UPDATED

Don’t let anyone fool ya, it is still plenty tough for a woman up in this USA mug.

Sure, we’ve gotten into some pretty high places, but the climb’s still a rough one. Plus, once we get there, it’s as likely as not that there’s going to be some guy there to take our crown away and organize a club around making sure that as few of us as possible get through the next time. Plus, I don’t know if you gals out there know this, but marriage only exists to limit access to our hoo-hahs. Although if that’s true, then I don’t know why two lesbians wouldn’t be okay with all them marriage Nazis, because then you would have twice as much coochie guarding going on, right? Lesbian readers, feel free to chime in with any coochie guarding tips you might have. Being a straight gal, I have no clue how to limit access to my lady parts, and maybe a lot of that went on during my two marriages, but that’s not really what I remember. I mostly remember the fantasy football.

Being female is awesome (although I am still waiting for red flowers to grow in the crotch of my underwear like that film strip in 5^th grade said would happen). Except sometimes, it sucks. For example, in my life, I oversee quite a few construction contractors. Every once in a while, I will call over a male colleague to confer with me in the presence of the contractor on user-specific issues. And you know, it makes no difference that I am the one that called the contractors in, the one that approved the estimate, and the one that oversees their work, issues the change orders, and asks them all the questions – if there is a man standing next to me, they will talk to the man. I ask a question, and the contractor tells the answer to the guy standing next to me. It would be kind of hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.

Ok, perhaps they’re not used to reporting to someone who steps over circular saws in a pencil skirt and adorable 3 inch strappy sandals, but hey, to whom is it not obvious yet that the world is changing every minute, baby? Either get on and strap in, or get the fuck off and shut the fuck up.

And from the GTFO&STFU category, we have the myriad of Sotomayor critics on the right, who are throwing out more red herrings than Gus Van Sant imitating Brian DePalma imitating Alfred Hitchcock. If one were to listen to these right-wingers, and I must warn you beforehand that I am not making any of these things up, we would be enlightened by the following arguments.

Sotomayor:

1.) Is being unreasonable about the pronunciation of her name. Americans want to put the emphasis on the first syllable (SO-to-my-yer) instead of the last, (so-to-my-YOR). So she should let them stress the first syllable and stop insisting on the correct pronunciation, because it’s annoying. After reading this unbelievably juvenile diatribe, I was struck by a couple of things, the first one being that the author’s name is Krikorian, (emphasis second syllable) and he probably would not be too keen on being called “Cry-Korean!”

The second thing is that he also tries to pick a fight with Latino/Latino sticklers, saying that “English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?”

Oh, okay, I’ll try to remember that the next time an actress or a comedienne or an aviatrix or a seamstress or a heroine or a waitress or a chairwoman or a landlady come by, trying to give me shit about where are all my extra letters at, bitch?

2.) Is claiming that her extra special rulings are food-inspired. Yes, again, please to remember that I am not kidding. The incredible stretch of logic goes like this: Sotomayor says that Puerto Rican food is an important part of her heritage. Sotomayor also says that her heritage is an important part of her rulings, ERGO, pig’s feet with beans = illegal Mexican abortionists running wild in the streets. Never mind that W. appointee Justice Alito went on and on and on during his confirmation hearings about his family’s immigrant background and his, ahem, empathy for others in similar immigrant-y type situations.

3.) Is a stupid bitch. In spite of graduating summa cum laude from Princeton and graduating from Yale Law School as an editor of the Yale Law Journal, she is apparently “not that smart” according to an anonymous former clerk whose words have been repeated in perpetuity throughout the dumbiverse. Also, when she is not busy basing rulings on how she feels about things (Duh! She’s a woman! Probably also on her period!), she’s too clinical. Also a bully. Except when she’s too feminine.

Is your head reeling yet? Mine is, but that’s probably because I’m a girl.

Also, just as warning to all my single ladies, I don’t know if you know this, but it turns out that conservatives have a much more highly developed sense of disgust than liberals do. I know! The anal sex obsession/revulsion, the poor-people-living-in-squalor-hating, it all makes so much more sense now, doesn’t it? So, you marriage-minded gals, you know, if you’re looking for someone to help with the diaper changing, or the bathroom cleaning, or the sex-during-that-time-of-the-month having, maybe a Republican spouse is not such a good idea after all. Just sayin.

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UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE

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Yesterday on his radio show, the deliciously thick-skulled Republican show poodle G. Gordon Liddy (does EVERYONE on the right get a radio show?) said, regarding SCOTUS nominee Sotomayor, "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating."

I got 3 reactions to this.

1. "Conferences?" Do you mean the oral argument sessions? Who calls them conferences? You'd think someone who's been eaten up and shat out by the legal system would have a little better handle on the terminology.

2. Fucking bring it, assholes. You'll only make it easier for Sotomayor to get through. And for the next one to get through as well. You're only making it easier for people to stop calling themselves Republican. You're only making it easier for me, not more difficult. So flail, motherfuckers, flail. Mmmm...I love it. It smells like fresh, newly-mown victory, deep fried and dipped in a side of cool, creamy vindication, motherfuckers.

3. At 54, Sotomayor is a few years past the average age for the onset of menopause, so the whole "on the rag" joke is just a bit off the mark. Not that I would expect Liddy to know at what age women are likely to be menopausal. In fact, I seem to recall a few similar jokes made by other men on the right regarding Hillary Clinton and even Nancy Pelosi, who are 61 and 69, respectively.

So the question is, if you've got yourself a menopausal-age woman that you want to ridicule, why go for the menses? I mean, it's kind of like teasing a 30-year-old man for having pubes. Why not go for the hot flash joke? It seems like kind of an equivalent slam to me, so why do those types never do it?

The answer is, only women make jokes about hot flashes and menopause. Men don't joke about it because they don't know what it is. They have no idea what menopause even means. Because by the time women have reached the age of menopause, men have long since stopped paying any attention to them. No wonder women like Sotomayor and Pelosi and Clinton confound those old washed-up pants-pissing fear monkeys. Unless they're making them a sandwich or washing their laundry, those old fucks have no idea that women even live past the age of 40.

Well, I can clearly see you're nuts

Hey, you know what’s fun for the holiday weekend?

Making fun of idiots on the right. Right?

So get a load of this chick, sent to me originally by astute reader Marshall. More than one cyberfriend has indicated to me that they have received this from a Republican with the implication that it IS possible to recover from liberalism, ha ha ha.

To which I say physician, heal thyself. It’s not liberalism that’s been proven to be a mental defect, ho ho ho.

Also, the magazine itself is pretty lame. I mean, check out the satire in which some douchebag theorizes that the key to economic recovery is – get this! - to let everyone print their own money! Hilarious!

But so anyway, as usual, here's this jagoff who purports to have been recently “deprogrammed” from her liberal upbringing:

When I was in high school in the early 70's in New York, I wrote impassioned essays on civil rights and on feminism. In college, in the days before universities became indoctrination factories, I searched for politically left classes, and took every one I could find. I spent years in consciousness raising groups lambasting male oppression with other angry feminists, and yelled "Two Four Six Eight, Pornography is Woman Hate," at numerous marches.

Wow. Anti-pornography feminism is hard core feminism. I’ll give her that. When I gave up on Andrea Dworkin and anti-pornography feminism, however, I did so because I believed that her central thesis was flawed, and I came to that conclusion because I used my eyes to see things and my brain to think about them. Something tells me that that is not the method this chick embraced.

Plus, if this chick is half a decade older than me, then I can tell you exactly why she’s “seeing the light” and becoming a conservative. She’s got classic old fucker syndrome. You know, those people that spend their whole lives being Democrats, until they reach a certain age, and then they decide that they’d rather spend the rest of their short time left on earth cowering in fear of Mexicans and hiding their money inside hollowed-out copies of all those Ayn Rand books they’re always talking about but have never read?

Anyway, let’s check back in with Grandma No Fun:

When I was 26, I parked myself in the People's Republic of Berkeley, CA, the epicenter of the far left. I came as a liberal but soon morphed into a leftist as most people here do. In Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and the outlying towns, there is no Republican Party. Literally. There are only Democrats running against other Democrats. I recall years ago going to vote at a time when there were separate lines for Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats' line was a mile long. The Republican's was free and clear. After we all stood there waiting for 45 minutes, a brave young man walked up to the Republican booth and quickly voted. I still recall the cackles and giggles as we pointed and stared at this odd, exotic bird that had come to perch for a brief while.

There’s no Republican party in Berkeley??? That’s about as shocking as their being no Democratic party in the ignorant bumfuck backwater where I grew up. And if you were to compare the two places, intelligence-wise, I wonder how my hometown would stand up against the greater San Francisco area? Hint: not well. Also, boo-hoo, the Democrats sneered over their lattes at the Republican who had the audacity to vote. How would you like to have been a liberal growing up in the town I grew up in? Hint: you wouldn’t. Because I guarantee you, when I was growing up, I would have been thrilled to have only been sneered at.

So maybe you get now how hard it was, how disorienting and destabilizing and crazy making it was, when I realized about 1 1/2 years ago that I no longer believed in liberalism. I walked around in a confused state for weeks. Being a Democrat, a liberal, a far left radical from Berkeley was a big part of my identity. So who the heck was I if I weren't a leftist?

Holy cow, I give up. Who were you? A pirate? A ballerina? A fireman?

And what in the world would I do, given that my husband, all my friends, and all my psychotherapist clients…

Whoa. Hold on. This chick is a psychotherapist?? Are you fucking kidding me?

…and all my psychotherapist clients were liberal and I would be public enemy #1 if I told anyone? Converting from Islam to Judaism, yet still hanging out in front of the old mosque in Kabul, probably would have been easier.

You know, readers, a portrait of the author of this piece is slowly assembling itself before our eyes. Notice the tendency she has to regard herself as a victim of the forces of her life, instead of an actor. Notice that despite having a husband, and friends, and a standing in the community, she feels that her new political beliefs will completely alienate her from others. Ask yourself now why would that be?

After weeks of shuffling around like a zombie, it was time to do something about it. The first step, I decided, was deprogramming myself from decades of liberal propaganda. Out went books by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, and various 9/11 conspiracy books.

Bingo. Got it.

“Various 9/11 conspiracy books.”

Readers, come on, can I smell a pathology, or can’t I?

In came Mark Levin, Ben Stein, Ron Paul, and Ayn Rand.

Told ya.

Plus, geez, could she at least pick an intelligent conservative, like…um…

I heard something vaguely about Talk Radio, so I scanned my AM dial, and found Michael Savage. I was shocked and offended by his diatribes -- but also oddly intrigued. I found many others: Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Boortz, Medved, all of whom became my "sponsors" in recovery this last year. I found wonderfully insightful websites like American Thinker.

Hey, it never hurts to kiss the publisher’s ass. And that website’s just moronic enough to be thrilled to be in that kind of company.

To my disbelief, the more I listened and read, the more these folks made sense. For instance, at first I couldn't understand why so many conservatives expressed concern about morality issues, like gay marriage. Berkeley is Lesbian Central, and I know many good hearted gay people.

Does anyone smell a big but coming?

But the more I learned, the more I started getting the larger picture; that conservatives were not necessarily impugning the character of gay people, but they were alarmed at the breakdown of traditional values.

Nice! Classic conservative double-speak! We’re not talking smack about gays…but they are immoral, you know.

If the basic structure of society goes, e.g., traditional marriage, religion, patriotism, common language, what remains? If everything becomes fluid, what is there to hold onto? Without any moral structure and traditions, a society descends into anarchy and mob rule, as it is clearly doing today.

So, not only are there kids on her lawn, but they’re speaking Spanish!

As I educated myself, I started thinking and rethinking. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden realization that deeply held beliefs made no sense.

Jesus Christ, this woman is frightening.

Take the anti war stance of the left. Noble and sanctimonious and all that.

Yes, yes, I think it was Jesus who said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sanctimonious pricks.”

But how easy it is to sit back and preach peace when you have an army defending you;…

Right, and how easy is it to preach “thou shalt not kill,” when you have a police force to arrest people when they do it?

…to rail against the U.S. when you are protected by free speech laws;

Which….I believe you are doing right this minute, granny.

to demonize Israel, when you've never lived through the murderous pogroms of Tsarist Russia or the Holocaust.

Or the Left Bank. Or the Gaza Strip.

How hypocritical to lambast Big Business while you are making money from their stocks in your mutual fund portfolio (that is, until Obama took over).

Someone buy this woman a calendar.

And this love affair with Radical Islam -- what's up with that?

Yes, by all means, be sure to paint liberals as “in love” with radical Islam. Because liberals are known worshipers of oppressive patriarchal conservative religions.

I had previously thought of Islam as a quaint, folksy religion.

Wha – seriously? This woman is killing me. Killing!

I had been oblivious of the horrendous treatment of women: the honor killings, beheadings, genital mutilation.

So…this should be a treatise not against being liberal, but against being willfully fucking ignorant.

It now seemed like the height of naivety, if not masochism, to embrace with open arms people who want to kill you.

You know, Grandma Scaredypants, I’d say that is the most sensible thing you’ve written in this whole long tedious-ass essay. The only problem is, no one is saying otherwise, you stupid twat.

God, you bore me.

While as a liberal I was socialized to believe everyone was good, all cultures were the same, and We Are The World, We Are The Children, I began to understand that evil exists…

Alright, I’m cutting this chick off. She’s had more than enough column space here. Suffice it to say that while attempting to hammer her point about liberalism being an immature point of view, she only succeeds in further convincing the reader that she is herself an appallingly immature person, motivated primarily – big fucking surprise - by fear of the unknown.

Plus, can I just say how super wrong it is that anyone who is a practicing psychotherapist is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist? That horrifies me. I’m not expecting every therapist to be Sigmund Freud in a skirt (although that would be fun), but holy smokes, when you let your own infantile compulsions overcome your critical thinking…should you really be in charge of opening up anyone else’s brain and rooting around?

So, whee, it’s been fun in that tiresome can-you-believe-how-fucking-stupid-someone-can-be kind of way. Have a good weekend, my precious readers. I’ll be back next week.

Yeah, this one's not making me any friends.

Remember when Barack Obama almost sank his political career by aligning himself with Reverend Wright, a clergyman whose opinions were shockingly radical and hateful towards certain sectors of American society?

Well, he’s done it again.

Obama recently endorsed by his presence and by his praise a church whose leadership is just as radical as Rev. Wright. A church led by a minister who has enabled the denial of the Holocaust, and who has made statements impugning the beliefs of our most important Middle Eastern ally. This church has also accused the president of the United States of immorality, has commanded that the minority overtake the majority by force, and has recommended that our citizens engage in activities that would put our lives at risk. And like Wright before him, this church that Obama is courting for pure political gain accuses the citizens of the United States of being to blame for the recent evils that have been visited upon us, and warns us that our country is damned by God.

Yes, by appearing to speak at Notre Dame University, Obama has endorsed with his presence the Catholic Church, the Pope, and all its leadership. And just as the media hounded him to repudiate Wright, they should now hound him to disavow himself and the office he holds from the terrible and hateful positions of this radical church.

That might seem like an unlikely event, but we must not give in to the soft bigotry of low expectations. We must insist that it be done.

Shrill, baby, shrill.

Have you guys seen this thing that keeps washing up on beaches on the East Coast? There has been a lot of speculation about its origin, but given the location and the timing, I think it’s pretty plain what this bloated white thing is.

It’s the remains of the Republican Party. And frankly, it’s a lot more attractive than I expected it to be.

Poor Republican Party. Recently, they tried to equate Obama’s preference for fancy mustard to anti-Americanism, or socialism, or being just generally all Frenchified, like that America-hating Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, who must have breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he was, after all, primarily funded by mustard’s more patriotic rival, ketchup. Nevertheless, Dijongate was mocked by the liberal main-stream media and most people with IQs over forty, worldwide. Too bad, because I heard that Republicans had planned on a second wave of media blitzing, during which they would point out that Martin Luther King Jr. himself endorsed their character-assessment methodology…and then someone in the party actually read the speech and figured out that King was referring to the “content” of people’s characters, not the “condiment.”

Then they tried to slam Obama by saying that he laughed at some jokes that were made by – get this – a comedian! Yes! Outrageous! A comedian, making jokes at a comedy dinner that did not take place at the White House and was not organized by the president’s staff or anything, but still, he was there, laughing at comedy jokes made at the expense of a person who has done nothing to him - except mock him and his supporters rather viciously, and say that he would like for all of Obama’s efforts to save our economy and keep our citizens safe to fail - that’s all! And for that this person was mocked! By a comedian! In front of a comedy audience!

So, yeah, Sykesgate doesn’t appear to have legs, either.

Alas, what’s a poor Republican Party to do? They already tried, you, know, listening to people. That did not turn out so good, mostly because one of the guys doing the listening tried to point out that their current re-election strategy of nostalgia for a dead guy who left office twenty years ago was not exactly a working political platform. Especially since no one could really say why they think the dude was any good in the first place (hint: he wasn’t). And then remember that guy who got made fun of by the comedian? He said that listening is for losers, and everyone in the party was forced to say “sir, yes sir!” and scrub out his private jet with their toothbrushes or something.

So I guess it’s no wonder that no one wants to admit that they know them. And hopefully soon, everyone will fully wake up from their idiocy-induced comas and realize that the Republicans fell for one of the most badly executed bits of redirection, from one of the most amateur and transparent political magicians, ever, and allowed him to dupe this country into a death-steeped quagmire so big that when you look up “quagmire” in the dictionary, it says “How about Iraq, ya fucking idiot?”

Meanwhile, Cheney continues on his Chicken Little press junket, and glass teat boobs like Scarborough grab onto his tailfeathers, claiming that the second after Justice Roberts fumbled the last word of Obama’s oath of office, we became “less safe.” Well, claiming we are less safe is like voting against the stimulus package: it has no down side. It will never be proven to be wrong unless the worst happens, and then it will become the base from which to launch a campaign of faux-patriotic crimes against the future of humanity so big, it will make the aftermath of 9/11 seem like Hug an Arab Day at the U.N.

Perhaps someday the Republicans will collectively heave themselves, like Senator Specter has, off of their runaway train of irrelevance, get up, dust themselves off, and fashion a message that makes sense for this country. After all, there will always be those who are willing to shortchange the poor and working class in order to line their own pockets. But until they do, I have to admit that I’m all too willing to watch them hurtling towards extinction.

In fact, if I could cut their brake line, I would.

I am, and always will be, your friend.

I can’t stop thinking about Zachary Quinto.

Watching him play Spock last night (yes, I went to the opening night, and I am apparently not afraid to admit it) was like watching Nimoy on TV when I was kid.

Watching Nimoy play Spock in the movies doesn’t do the same thing to me. He’s still great at it, but Spock as a senior citizen has too much gravitas, too much surety, too much warmth for me. Give me Spock as the awkward colt, all angles and undiscovered grace. Give him to me hiding his pain under a thousand layers of reason. Give him to me as the eager know-it-all who will never, ever, ever understand how deeply unattractive it all is.

And yeah, that was me, of course. Of course that was me.

Extra points for those who have figured out that if I was a skinny young Spock, face in a book, hiding from the bullies whose scorn I did not understand, then who was my sister? My sister, running, hitting balls, driving cars fast, taking chances I would never have taken? Who could she have been?

That’s right. Isn’t it funny that we both grew up admiring one half of that famous duo, and then, in a way, grew up to be those same people?

There are more similarities in the relationship than propriety will allow me to express. We both went through a period in our youth when we could barely tolerate each other, when we each believed ourselves to be so profoundly right, that we could not stand to see the other act differently than us, and yet feel the same. We still could hardly be more different considering that we grew up alongside one another. And it's not as if we could fall back upon a familial resemblance, I mean, it used to be a family joke that strangers would look at us and not believe that we were related, much less sisters.

Suffice it to say that now, we are like war buddies. We travel well together. She asks me what I think about things when I can tell she is gathering information for a decision. She values what I think. She is too much her own person to be truly swayed by anyone, but she gives it weight, I can tell.

And she pushes me to do things I would not otherwise choose to do. She pushes me forward, and forces me to step through the invisible web of caution and reason that I weave around me. Within the comfort of our familiarity, I find that I can do extraordinary things. Surprising things. I need that. Man, I will always need that.

And I’m glad I saw that movie last night, because without all the embarrassing bloat of age and bad rugs and fallen faces, the Star Trek world became nimble again, became possible again, in a way. Look, I’m not the first one who has compared our president to the world’s most famous Vulcan, and it’s not surprising that Obama himself is a fan; a fan who gave Nimoy, when he met him face-to-face, the Vulcan salute.

I just want to believe that we can save ourselves and this world we inhabit. I just want us to think, uh, logically about things, and stop letting our revulsion at something that’s different from us stop us from doing what’s right for all us. After all, the needs of the many…they outweigh the needs of the few, right?

It’s encouraging that young people are becoming less religious. I think it’s a good sign. Not that they’re less spiritual, or even less truly religious, but that they’re giving up the church. The church has overstayed its welcome and abused its privileges. Time for the church to go, and for reason to take the day. I hope it’s not too late.

Live long and prosper, readers.

Is it safe?

So I’m sitting here trying to figure out who is the bigger tool.

There’s this guy, who is clearly so invested in believing that his psychologist colleagues who coached the military on how to torture people more effectively are not a disgrace to their Hippocratic oaths, that he has perverted that same oath beyond recognition. “First, do no harm” no longer means that your primary goal is to not harm your patient. Because your patient is really the United States of America, and if the person sitting in front of you might be thinking of harming one of us, then, well, fucking have at him I guess. Or, in his own words: "America is my client; Americans are who I care about. I have no fondness for the enemy, and I don't feel like I need to take care of their mental health needs."

Not to call forth one of those tired-ass Nazi comparisons, but, y’know…yikes. Where'd this guy learn medicine, from watching Laurence Olivier work on Dustin Hoffman's teeth?

Or there’s this “professor of law” bitch, who not only equates caterers being able to turn down a gay wedding with “religious freedom,” she doesn’t know what the phrase “flip side” means. She proposes that the “flip side” of enabling gays to marry is protecting those who object to the gays on “religious” grounds from being forced to provide them with tacky wedding cakes, and rubbery chicken dinners, and from taking poorly lit and boringly staged pictures of their ceremonies.

Yeah. And if you think that line of reasoning is circling the drain, check out the following argument, and while you do, remember that this chick is a professor of law:

What they should not do is what New Hampshire's Senate did last week: pay lip-service to religious freedom while enacting meaningless protections. New Hampshire's bill provides that "members of the clergy ... shall not be obligated ... to officiate at any particular civil marriage or religious rite of marriage in violation of their right to free exercise of religion." But this is a hollow guarantee: The 1st Amendment already provides such protection.

“The 1^st Amendment already provides such protection.”

Hm. Maybe because not having to perform religious marriage services for those who don’t adhere to your bullshit religion is the only fucking issue here! And wonder of wonders, it’s already provided for in our Constitution? Who’d a thunk it?

Oh, only everyone, you stupid fucking idiot professor of law.

Because making a wedding cake for gay people is not a violation of your religion, you only want it to be. What it is a violation of, is your sense of douchebag entitlement. Well, guess what, professor of law genius person? If I made cakes, I wouldn’t want to make them for Christian couples. Because I wouldn’t want them procreating and making more fucking pain in my ass Christians. But I would not be allowed by the government to discriminate against Christians in my little cake-baking business, because if I did, I would be in violation of the law. I would also be an asshole. You know, kind of like the assholes who used to not let Jews into country clubs, and the fairer sex into college, and colored people onto the front of the bus. See, the government has an understandable interest in making sure that everyone in the secular world is treated fairly. And cake-baking, catering, photography? All secular pursuits.

Still confused? Okay, let’s look at it this way. Is your cake-baking business untaxed because it is a religious institution? No? So you have to pay taxes to the government, and you have to have one of those business license thingies? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

What you got yourself there is a business. A business. Not a religion, but a business. And if you want to be an American business, and operate within the good ole US of A, and enjoy separating Americans from their hard-earned dollars, then you have to conform to the rules of doing business here. One of the most important rules of doing business here is that you can’t arbitrarily choose which Americans you will and will not serve. In short, gay people get to sit at your lunch counter now, and thanks to our kick-ass Constitution, soon there will not be one damn thing you can do about it.

Get it, ya fancy dumbass professor of law?

Okay, readers, who's the bigger tool? Dr. Mengele, or the nutty professor?