Picture of today

A brief introduction to chuckling

In what passes for an exciting development for poor chuckling, a new reader emailed me with some questions about chuckling on-line magazine.

...just looking through your blog: here are things I'd love to hear from you...)

First, you must understand that chuckling on-line magazine is not a blog. It is an on-line magazine. And a fictional one at that. Chuckling is a fictional character and anything he writes is, like, totally deniable.

What is the difference? Well, chuckling on-line magazine pays for content. I can’t pay much, but good writers like yourself deserve money for your work and I’ll pay what I can afford, which, alas, is nothing but a token at this point. As part of the fictional premise of the magazine, everyone who has written for chuckling on-line magazine so far has written under the “chuckling” byline. It is a good premise, I think, but ultimately unworkable. If you want to write for chuckling, either as chuckling or under your own name, please feel encouraged to contact me.

Anyway, I kind of assume everyone that drops by knows me from Alicublog. Roy is the patron saint of chuckling on-line magazine, though he is not a patron in the financial sense of the word and probably not a saint in any sense. So it surprises me when someone asks about my political beliefs. I’ve written extensively in Alicublog comments and regular readers no doubt roll their eyes when I start to explain, again, my take on the current situation. I guess that’s why I don’t write so much about politics here. I just assume everyone knows what I think.

Nevertheless, for the uninitiated (regular readers can roll their eyes now and go look at the pretty pictures), here’s an introduction:

McCain: What do you think?

McCain is a fascinating individual. I have a lot of respect for the complexity of his faults. He is so profoundly damaged that I can’t help liking him.

He’s like a dog that’s been severely beaten over and over again for years, yet continues to wag its tail when the master approaches. I guess the Vietnamese softened him up. Then Bush, Rove, and Cheney fist-fucked him until he liked it. The American people would be insane to elect or allow him to be appointed chief executive. But with Hillary on the ropes, we might as well get used to calling him Mr. President.

Where do you fall on the Dem<---->Rep continuum?

I don’t believe in the two party system. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t think it would be a good thing to have multiple parties. I don’t believe in the American two party system in the same way I don’t believe in Santa Claus or Jesus. Because it’s at least 99 percent mythical. The Republican party is the only party. In basketball terms, the Democrats are the Washington Generals to the Republicans’ Harlem Globetrotters. They’ll appear to put up a fight but they always fold in the end. That’s what they’re paid for.

Is Hilary the Devil or just misunderstood?

She’s a Republican. I don't believe in the devil any more than I believe in Jesus or the chupacabra.

Is Hilary the most powerful thing to ever happen?

No.

Would you vote for her?

No, but I rarely vote for anybody. It’s a waste of time and effort and gives the whole "American democracy" charade a patina of legitimacy. That, plus where I live people are sometimes jailed for voting and I can't take that chance. All that, plus she is a Republican and even if I voted, I would never vote for a Republican.

Hope that helps. Tune in next week for the fascinating story of chuckling's birth in an old-fashioned newsgroup and adolescence smacking around proto-winguts before smacking around wingnuts was cool.

Morning, noon and night

Slideshow here.

Photo of today

Housa bout a little change of pace? What? I can do portraits.