The Blog of Record

The London Wednesday Afternoon Mail reports:

Starting today, you cannot kill yourself in the United Kingdom anymore without breaking the law. Parliament today passed the We Own You Act, a long-expected law that lays out the ways in which a Briton’s life is permitted to end.

Under the Act, lawful reasons of death include old age (88 or older), a list of approved illnesses, a work-related accident, fulfillment of ethnic custom (previously known as honour killing), act of redress for legitimate grievances by an oppressed ethnic minority (previously know as terrorism), and euthanasia.

The act classifies suicide and death of other unlawful reasons, such as an unapproved illness like lung cancer or accident not related to work, as destruction of State property. The offence is punishable by confiscation of the offender’s estate and assets to reimburse the State for the loss of potential revenue from taxes, licenses, rates, fees, fines and penalties paying which for the rest of his life the offender tried to evade by dying.

Those who wish their lives to end and would have chosen suicide before, must now apply for euthanasia. It will be administered upon payment of a new tax called the release tax, which people have already dubbed the “freedom tax”. However, a valid reason must be presented, such as being seriously ill and not wanting to be a burden on the National Health Service. (No questions will be asked of applicants who have reached the State pension age.) Being just bloody sick of living in a nanny state that totally owns you is not a valid reason to obtain euthanasia.

MPs believe that the Act, which has been enacted retroactively to January 1, 2008, will help stabilize Government revenue during the recession and credit crunch, and help fund the NHS and other Government services when the hard times are over.

Reuters reports:

Reuters’ New York office today received a package containing a new video tape with an address by Mr. Osama bin Laden, a prominent freedom fighter who is currently forced to hide in inhuman conditions at [redacted] [redacted] Street, [redacted]bad, [redacted]stan by American invaders. Mr. bin Laden’s speech continues the message he so eloquently presented in his seminal 2007 recording that celebrated his embrace of progressive liberal ideals, which he believes dovetail perfectly with his outlook of world peace and Islamic jihad – a peaceful movement for peace and social harmony in the world. In the 2007 tape, Mr. bin Laden warned against global warming, capitalism and globalization, and praised Noam Chomsky, a liberal icon.

In his new tape, Mr. bin Laden speaks profoundly about his quest for answers to the questions that have always inspired progressive leaders like him in their struggle for a better future for the people of the world: How do we achieve peace at all cost? How do we ensure social justice for all except rich white males? How do we provide unlimited free health care for all, paid for by rich white males?

In other words, how do we win Islamic jihad – a peaceful movement for peace and social harmony in the world?

In the new tape, Mr. bin Laden tells a moving story of how his spiritual and intellectual journey has led him to realize that his recent discovery of progressive liberal ideals put him firmly on the right course, and that the answers he seeks are indeed to be found in the sensitive, compassionate world of liberal progressivism.

As an avid follower of American politics, says Mr. bin Laden, he wanted to do his part in furthering the cause of liberal progressivism in the U.S.A. by granting his endorsement to a presidential candidate whose views on how America should go forward were most in tune with his own. However, the charismatic new leader of the progressive movement, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), while being the perfect fit early in his campaign, later had to tone down his progressive language, as he still needs to clear the last formality standing between him and the presidency to which he so rightly feels entitled – the election.

Happily, Mr. bin Laden didn’t have to think very long about who was second best: Ralph Nader (I). While Mr. Obama is understandably constrained in publicly expressing the full depth of his progressive convictions, Mr. Nader, who doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in the election, can speak his mind.

“I really like what this American imperialist says!” enthuses Mr. bin Laden. And what progressive leader wouldn’t be enthused over Mr. Nader’s positions on the issues? A single-payer national health insurance system. A military budget cut. Impeaching Bush/Cheney. Repealing the Patriot Act. No to nuclear power. A carbon tax. Reversing U.S. policy in the Middle East. Ending the U.S. government’s puppet-like support of Israel’s militaristic regime and its brutalization and slaughter of innocent Palestinians it occupies. Fair trade. Affirmative action. Abolishing the death penalty. A living wage for all workers. Repealing the Taft-Hartley anti-union law. Screwing the evil corporations in any manner that doesn’t contradict the laws of physics. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. No private school vouchers. Guaranteed pre-school education for all children. Lowering the voting age to 16. Driver’s licenses and full rights and benefits for undocumented workers. Amnesty as a form of reparations, as Mexicans escape to the U.S. because the U.S. government and corporations ruined their livelihoods and homes in Mexico.

“This is a progressive platform I can believe in!” exclaims Mr. bin Laden in the new tape. He says he expects Mr. Nader to thank him for his endorsement shortly.

At the end of his inspired speech, Mr. bin Laden explains why he chose Reuters for the release of this and all future tapes instead of Al-Jazeera or a web site devoted to Islamic jihad – a peaceful movement for peace and social harmony in the world:

“I have decided to switch my business to my long-time friends at Reuters as I feel they provide me a more fair and balanced coverage, in addition to an instant world-wide exposure. I was convinced by their tradition of excellence in news reporting since 1851, their laudable policy not to use the non-word “terrorist”, and their prowess with the Adobe Photoshop software.

“Plus, I can just mail a tape to them with my return address on the package and never have to worry that they’ll tell it to the C.I.A. even if they’re waterboarded. Best deal I could find, hands down!” (Awwwww, you’re making us blush, Big O! Thanks! – Editor.)

Reuters is looking forward to new inspiring messages from Mr. Osama bin Laden, a rising progressive icon and peaceful leader of Islamic jihad – a peaceful movement for peace and social harmony in the world.

What is politics all about? Getting your party elected.

So, is there a way to make sure your party always gets elected, no matter what? Yes.

How do you do that? You make 51% of the voters indebted to your party. You give them money.

Where do you get the money? You take it from the other 49%. You don’t need their votes, so you can screw them any way you want.

Nothing new so far; just basic politics. But how do you go about doing it in practice?

First, you’ll need cover. If you are a Republican, forget it. If you are a Democrat, you have nothing to worry about – the press has your back.

Second, you can’t just tell people you are going to take money away from one half of them and give it to the other half. The first half will try to make it difficult for you.

So what do you do? You make the first half as small as possible. You say you are going to give money to 95% of the people.

And third, you can’t really tell people you are going to give them money. People don’t like feeling like they are being bought. Just ask George McGovern.

What do you do, then? You present it as tax cuts.

That’s why it is important to be a Democrat. If you are a Republican, the press will call your bluff. But if you are a Democrat, it will run a free PR campaign for you.

So, as a Democrat, you simply wait and let the press do its job. When it’s over, you roll into the White House, and your party doesn’t have to worry about elections for a while because the people will want their tax cut checks to keep coming.

And now comes the best part: Soon, the 5% get tired of working so hard for the 95% to keep getting their tax cuts in the mail. They start slacking off.

Before long, people start getting agitated about their tax cut checks being late. The markets are falling, there are shortages of commodities and consumer goods and growing social unrest.

You wait for the unrest to build up steam and for the press to give it enough coverage, and then you make your next move: you tell the people the 5% don’t want to keep their part of the deal and to pay their fair share. You use the word “sabotage”.

The press rolls out another PR campaign. It tells the people that if they want to keep their tax cuts, they must take the country back from the mega-rich 5% who don’t care about the country in their pursuit of profits. The networks call for emergency powers for you to implement a sweeping program of progressive social, ecomonic and political transformation. They call it the Program of Change, so that people can see you are delivering on your campaign promise. They run daily polls showing overwhelming popular support of the idea.

With a clear mandate from 95% of the people, you assume emergency powers and implement the Program of Change. The people reward you with 98-99% of the votes in the next five or six presidential elections.

With a little understanding of politics, beating FDR’s record isn’t such a difficult task.

I gave it a lot of thought and it took me eight beers, but I think I’ve cracked the Republicans’ clever strategy. Here’s what they have up their sleeve for the unsuspecting Americans: if McCain beats the Negro, he’ll run the White House for a few short months, and then – when his approval ratings are still not too low – develop some health problems and step down, leaving that Sarah Palin girl in the top job. That’s been the plan all along – and boy, is it a clever plan!

Makes perfect sense, if you think about it. The GOP badly needs do to something to stay relevant. They need someone to take them way, way back to their limited-government foundations, if they can still find them. I mean they want to win back grassroots support, right? But who’s there for the grassroots to take root around? No one, that’s who.

So they put some men in a smoke-filled back room, and they ran a quick Google search and found this authentic conservative girl. She’s running a state with more moose than people, somewhere out there, they weren’t sure exactly where at first, gun in one hand, Holy Bible in the other. She’s good and popular at home and is not afraid of the Negro, so there’s loads of potential.

There’s just one small problem with the girl: no one’s ever heard of her in the other 56 states. You can’t just haul her in from across Canada in the back of a snowmobile and put her at the top of a national ticket, no matter how hard they thought about it.

And that’s when the men with the fat cigars had a stroke of evil genius! They found an old, wrinkly guy whose image as kinda sorta a Republican but certainly not that scary thing called “a conservative” gave him an honest shot in the general. They made sure he got the nomination, and then they made him a host organism programmed to bring the girl in to the White House as his vice president, and then quietly step aside. (And/or die – he’s old, you know. Plausible deniability – hey, they are learning!)

Really, ain’t it a beautiful trick – landing someone with a much greater potential in the Oval Office, sneaked in neatly through the back door? Someone who’s likely to be a more popular president than the wrinkly old guy, with better re-election chances when the Clinton woman gets serious in 2012.

And as a nice added bonus, they become the party that gave America her first girl president. Which pretty much eliminates the whole point of another Clinton run.

The only thing they got wrong is picking a white girl, the racists that they are. Were she black, and the Dems stupid enough to run their Negro again next time, what would be the point for anybody to vote for him? But there are still things they just can’t force themselves to do, I guess.

Overall, though, I have to admit it – they’re good! But if they want to be really good, they’ll have to learn to hold their noses and do whatever is necessary, ’cause them’s the rules, folks!