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Skillet! The Christian hard rock band my sis-in-law digs is called Skillet. Here's a song that has 488 million listens on Spotify: https://youtu.be/1mjlM_RnsVE

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Fans of Skillet are called "Panheads"!

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I hate that I knew what you were talking about

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Ah Skillet..reminds me of WWJD bracelets, chain wallets and Sun-in.

Feel like there is a great Jesus and Sun-In joke here..

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I remember dating a woman in San Diego circa 2006 whose little brother loved a Christian metal band called Trust.

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I was just listening to this in the car- it is colder than a witches tit in Pittsburgh. I got to the part where we learn we aren't supposed to say "Stupid" anymore. When I heard the substitutions "Boring" and "Not Cool", I started screaming "That's stupid!!" and then heard myself.

It reminded me of one time in Chicago when I was driving behind a really slow car. I yelled ( I only have car-related rage) "Learn how to drive you stupid clown!!!". Then when I sped past him on the left I looked over and there was a clown driving the car.

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Okay, so there was only one clown driving the car, but how many others were packed in?

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I actually made sure to look, and there seemed to be only one. You never know with clowns though.

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It is like, ILLEGALLY cold in NYS for December. What the fuck. I demand a retraction.

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Dear Weather Channel,

While we appreciate your effort to embrace seasonality for the holidays, we're afraid that the recent forecasts you chose to publish for the mid-Atlantic and New England regions were ill-advised. The appropriate forecast would have been, perhaps, 28-32F: just chilly enough for snow. Instead, your irresponsible imposition of single-digit weather for much of the country is causing literal violence and very real, physical harm.

It is currently 9F outside my ice-caked window, and every time I dare to venture outside for *food* and other life-sustaining activities, all of the exposed portions of my body are shot through with terrible, pain. The covered portions don't fare much better after but a few minutes.

We're afraid that it is clear: your excessive enthusiasm has crossed from endearing scorpacciata to a violation of moral, nay, *criminal* law. We demand that you retract this ILLEGALLY cold forecast immediately and apologize for your misconduct. If you have a spare intern lying around who could take the fall (haha, season pun!) for this, it is certain that a ceremonial firing wouldn't go amiss either.

Yours sincerely,

-The Society of Glass-Cutting Nipple Havers (SGCNH)

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I took my dog out for a pee and now he’s traumatized

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Sounds like a pretty stupid clown 🤡

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Some thoughts on the Stanford word police segment (first that whole prison thing, now this!):

I think the word is “straight” because gay guys are so often to be found bent over. (I’m gay, so I am permitted to make this joke. You, however, are not permitted to laugh.)

“The balls rise up” are four words that Matt uttered in some context or other, but can double as something I might say when I hear Moynihan’s Melania impression. (I kid, I kid—the Melania impression is the highlight of every episode it surfaces in.)

“How about fucking a dead horse?” - Missed opportunity for a “love wins,” Kmele.

I agree with dropping “rule of thumb.” Makes ME want to beat my wife, and I’m gay. Words are violence! (But spousal abuse can be speech, if committed in the service of the right political agenda.)

“Cocktail” is offensive, but I guess I can give you guys the benefit of the doubt, as not many people know the word’s homophobic origins. It was first used in 15th century England, where the law codes of the time referred to persons who engaged in anal intercourse as “cocke-tayles.” (You can easily imagine how they devised that term, so I won’t spell it out.) The word mostly fell out of use by the late 18th century, but in 1856 some wag used it (after modernizing the spelling) to name a drink he’d created that, as he wrote, “rendered me so intoxicated that I desired fervently to commit peccatum illud horribile (cf. Lev. 18:22) with my butler, and proceeded so to do on a multitude of occasions.” The name spread in the necessarily underground, but nevertheless vibrant, gay community of the day, and the rest is history. But the important thing is that even though nobody remembers all that history, and even though I just made it up, someone could conceivably hear the word “cocktail” and choose to pretend to be offended. For that reason, it should be avoided.

Merry Christmas, ‏חנוכה שמח, and Happy Kwanzaa, Kmele!

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This is wholesome Christmas content.

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I’m going to start spreading this origin of cocktail. Hell, I’ll even make a Wikipedia entry and publish an article about it in some bogus web site so that I can include citations. We will make this a thing, or I will not engage in any cocke-tayling this year.

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If I see a HuffPo headline in six months about the deeply problematic roots of “cocktail,” and how using it upholds the cishet patriarchy and also like endangers lives maybe, I’ll know I have you to thank.

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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Merry Christmas, lads and Fifdom.

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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Seems fitting that as I load up this episode, a 40-something swirling a glass of wine saunters in from business class and, looking baffled, says “What is this?” to the flight attendant. “Basic economy, sir.”

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Dec 22, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Merry Christmas, lads!

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Matt "Grinch" Welch here claiming Jesus's birth isn't the 25th. What, now you're gonna tell me my parents ate the cookies and milk?!

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On this episode, the moral contrast between the three of you and most of our politicians has never been more clear. I’m so grateful to the three of you.

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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Regarding the argument made by some in the GOP that we ought to be super concerned about fraud and waste in connection with our aid to Ukraine, it ought to be said that there is *always* a lot of waste and fraud in wartime spending. There is waste, because procedural controls are thrown out the door in favor of expediency. There is fraud, because wartime profiteering, which has been an American pastime since the beginning, is ubiquitous. For example, the low estimates for waste and fraud in Afghanistan and Iraq was $60 billion, closer to $100 billion in today's dollar. And we actually have pretty decent internal controls. Point is, the waste-and-fraud objection is not a reason to oppose aid to Ukraine since *it always happens*, unless one objects to all military aid and indeed spending at all times.

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Dec 22, 2022·edited Dec 22, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Sweet Little 6lb 8oz Baby Jesus decided to have one last Christmas miracle this year!

Nah, you gents just hooked it up and I appreciate it. Here's to another year of Never Flying Coach... 🍻🥂

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LATINX standoff. Have you monsters learned *nothing*?

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My 91 year old father always says to me “I watch these news shows and no one talks about the debt.” I appreciate you folx diving into it.

Also my born again Christian brother bought me “To Hell with the Devil” when I was like 10. I used to be so into them till my other brother turned me on to Iron Maiden

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Happy Christmas, Merry Hanukkah, Bûche de Noël;

I’m Riesling-drunk (recommend, it’s very chill and you will almost certainly not be hungover tomorrow), so I’ve decided to subject you to something from my part of the world that made me cry & cry again: 100 years after Armistice, a French couple & a German who married a local gal, with beautiful wineries you can skip between, toasting peace (and how fucking rad it is to be an American)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqDt8BeAbR1/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

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OOOoh btw, speaking of "beating a dead horse" at 1:42:00 a really GREAT double album I had for clearing out a cafe I worked at back in the day was called "TV Terror: Felching a Dead Horse" https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/TV_Terror:_Felching_a_Dead_Horse great collection of totally bizarre covers of famous tv show themes covered by punks and mutants like Kill Switch... Klick and Kevorkian Death Cycle. The Cover of "charles in charge" by The Electric Hellfire Club was always a fan favorite. Merry Xmas!

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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Come on, Welch! NDAA is the authorizing legislation for DoD, it’s not an additional $858 billion.

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I’d love to see the Stanford DEI committee’s collective verbal SAT scores.

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Probably about the same as Kendi’s.

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