Scientists isolate world's biggest wanker!

Leave it to the former stunt coordinator for "Star Trek: the Next Generation" to have come up with a perfect 3-minute video encapsulating only the most bile-churning qualities of the United States:

Nostalgia, jingoism, religious fundamentalism, mullets, a fascistic definition of national identity, melodrama, poor production value, militarism, children's symbolic representation of all that is "innocent" and "pure", ersatz guitar solos, the gratuitous use of orchestral instruments to inflate a song's bombast, and a perplexing & total estrangement from irony.

How thin is the line between satire and reality these days. Consider the wildly different reaction the video would generate if it had been directed by, say, Spike Jonze instead of Rob Bowman. Though perhaps this is one of the strategies employed by Neocons to capture the *ahem* hearts & minds of Middle America: by earnestly delivering their message via tripe such as this video, we cappuccino-sipping urban sophisticate liberals can fathom no reaction beyond laughing our asses off - meanwhile, our guard is down and the new omnibus bill gets passed with nary an objection.

The left have a monopoly on irony today, which leaves the humourless right with nothing but blind faith & ambition. The end result is that (Yeats still said it best) “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”