It's not everyday that someone like me finds a new cultural hero.

[GliderGuider]

[arcane1]

1. Funny, I discovered him recently too, while watching that very episode of News Wipe! :)

Charlie Brooker, the host of that show, has an excellent 6-part series called "How TV Ruined Your Life" that I watch at least once a year. Highly recommended

[brer cat]

2. Oh, GliderGuider

what a find!

[sue4e3]

3. well in my opinion ,

he's going to hell , but I guess I'll rent the bus and drive because I agree with him and yes I'm a christian

[GliderGuider]

4. +1

[hunter]

5. Especially "affluent" babies.

Some random family of ten living in a Cairo slum is probably doing less damage to earth's environment than any affluent U.S. family with two kids and two nice cars and a nice house in the suburbs.

My wife and I do not have nice cars, but the math is still scary.

My good Catholic heretic parents, and my wife's good Catholic parents, all one-percenters by world standards, had a bunch of one-percenter kids before they discovered birth control. And now they have boatloads of one-percenter (by world standard) grandkids.

My parents are a few years on with one-percenter great grandkids too. The sorts of kids who have ridden in airliners.

My great grandparents used negligible amounts of fossil fuel in their lives, even considering their very rare coal-fired steam engine railroad trips. (Most of my ancestors sailed across the Atlantic from Europe, sometimes just ahead of the hangman or draft board.)

Their progeny, including me perhaps especially, have used much, much more than our fair share of this earth.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Well, perhaps - don't mistake the misanthropy for a genuine position on the environment

By the early noughties he was the name on every edgy comedian's tip list, and gained a further cult following through his cameos on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, although any Guardian readers who liked his spots on there might still be advised to approach with caution. When I put it to him that, like Brooker, there's a liberal heart beating behind the misanthropic exterior (he's fiercely pro-choice and pro-drugs), he disagrees. Later that night, onstage at Leicester Square Theatre, he'll go on a dubious rightwing rant before ending with, 'Fuck you, Guardian, for calling me a liberal.'"

So what are Stanhope's politics? He maintains he's never been all that political, but can that really be true? One of the thrilling things about Stanhope's material is that, when it really works, it offers a refreshingly honest take on life, often exposing our own double standards. Even when he talks about anal porn he spins it into a message about how they should teach it in schools as a way of controlling Earth's rapidly rising population. These are often inherently political points he's making. Besides, if Stanhope really didn't care for politics why did he run for president in 2008?

"It seemed like a funny thing to do!" he says. "I thought we could maybe get on the ticket of the Libertarian Party. But people were either amused or horrified at the idea of me representing their party."

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/sep/10/doug-stanhope-interview-tim-jonze

http://www.examiner.com/article/comedian-doug-stanhope-endorses-libertarian-presidential-candidate

[GliderGuider]

7. Similarly, one should not mistake genuine positions on the environment for misanthropy.

I don't give a fuck what Stanhope's politics "really" are. The view he expressed in this video is 100% accurate as far as I'm concerned.

"Don't fuck in the front hole" is my new catchphrase.
Along with my own: "A vasectomy is a lot greener than a solar panel."