Thanks to ParrotLover, who found this:

I had to reformat it to make it fit my margins. You can find the original here.

(Attention: If you are reading via an RSS reader, you will need to visit my web site to be able to play the MP3s. Make sure you have a recent Flash plug-in for your browser.)

This is one of those rare off-topic posts. I’m boggled by something that defies all rational comprehension. I guess since this blog deals with the effects of the irrational among us, it is somewhat on-topic.

I was poring over some search engine data, trying to figure out what is luring people to this site. It’s never what I think it is. I write some great articles, and they’re almost completely ignored. Then I write some stupid easy post that takes me five whole minutes and has no real social value, and that’s what everybody comes for.

I might write more later about some of the other weird stuff in that data. Today I’d like to focus on just one weird thing. Over the last month, I have received visits from 16 different people. These are the search terms they used to find my blog:

• hey shirley this is squirrely
• hey shirley this is squirrely lyrics
• hey shirley this is squirrely mp3
• Hey Shirley (This Is Squirrely) mp3
• hey shirley this is squirrely do you have your ears on
• squirrely and shirley cb radio mp3
• cb radio songs hey shirley this is squirrely
• mp3 downloads shirley and squirrely
• Shirley Squirrely and Melvin
• SHIRLEY,SQUIRRELY,AND MELVIN MUSIC TO DOWNLOAD

To those 16 people, and those who follow, I have one question:

Most art can be categorized into one of four groups:

• Good
• Bad
• So bad it’s good
• So bad it’s still bad

Let me give you some examples:

I only titled this post the way I did, because “Fire Maidens from Shirley and Squirrely” doesn’t have the same recognition factor. Most people haven’t seen Fire Maidens from Outer Space. Those who have probably saw it on MST3K. Wimp! Pussy! You have no claim to the title “Have seen the worst movie of all time” until you have seen it the way it was meant to be seen: completely unadorned by funny commentary. You must watch it straight! Only then (if you survive) can you truly understand what bad is. Only then can you comprehend what it must be like to be incarcerated at Gitmo.

But if Fire Maidens isn’t available, you can always listen to Shirley and Squirrely.

The original CB radio song that I featured in earlier posts is So Bad It’s Bad, but even that is not as bad as their “live” album. You could make a case that the CB song has a certain goofy charm that elevates it into the So Bad It’s Good category. I would disagree with you, but I could at least recognize the elements within the song that almost make it listenable. The live album has no such charm.

Nonetheless, It took me a while to find these mp3s. I’m not going to waste all that effort just because they’re worse than I thought. I had to suffer through these things, so you do too. I’ll spare you the worst of it, though. The songs that follow are the actually the “best” ones on the album.

Let’s start with “Blue Suede Shoes”. I’ve heard some bad Elvis impersonators before, and this rivals the worst of them.

Next, let’s cue up “The Gambler”. What’s weird about this one is they bring in a normal guy to sing a mediocre version of the Kenny Rogers song, and the squirrels only provide high-pitched backup and sound effects. Listen for the squirrel guzzling the booze and taking a long drag on a cigarette.

That last song typifies what’s wrong with this album. They seem to have forgotten that they’re making a novelty record. They’ve gotten it into their heads that they’re making real music here. This is the sort of project that jumps the shark as soon as they start taking themselves too seriously.

Now that the squirrels have destroyed Elvis Presley and Kenny Rogers, let’s give them a chance to ruin the Beatles:

Clearly, Mark David Chapman shot the wrong singer.

Let’s finish with “Mercedes Benz”:

Roll, Janis, roll!!

Carnival of the Godless #98 came out exactly one week ago, and I’m just now telling you about it. I’ve been busy. So sue me.

It’s posted over at Letters from a Broad. If you’re broad-minded, you should go over there and check it out. This one seems like more of a mixed bag than usual. Maybe I’m just in a crabby mood.

Anyway, I think the best article of the bunch is from Bing McGhandi. It’s called “Dinesh D’Souza: De Dullest Knife in De Rack”. In it, he smacks Dinesh around quite a bit for being so D’Stupid. Of particular note is that he uses examples from Guns, Germs, and Steel, which, by odd coincidence, I happened to mention in my last post. Go read Bing’s article as a good supplement to my last one.

My inbox has been graced with a special message from Gary North. North is a nut-job fundie with a PhD from a legitimate school (UC Riverside), which proves that you can misuse a real education as easily as a fake one. North’s degree is in economic history, which (of course) qualifies him to talk about something called “Darwinism”. I’m not sure what this “Darwinism” is. I checked the course catalogs of many schools, but I couldn’t find such a subject.

North seems to be the poster child of the pro-theocracy, pro-hate pressure group American Vision. North’s email to me is titled “Special Report: The key to winning back our country”. This report can’t be that special; I was unable to find a copy of it on their web site. But don’t feel left out! I’ll reprint the best parts of his email right here, so you, too, can bathe in the glow of his wisdom.

He starts out with:

Every college student is required to take four years of Darwinism. What have you done to immunize your child?

Nothing. Religious nuts like you are opposed to immunizations.

Darwin’s book…was published in 1859.

Oh! He means Charles Darwin! What a dimwit! Schools haven’t taught “Darwinism” in over a hundred years. They do teach biology, though. This includes a much-revamped and updated theory of evolution, which is based, in part, on Darwin’s groundbreaking work.

That was the beginning. Within two decades, Darwin’s theory of evolution through random natural selection…

Wow! That economics degree sure served you well, “Dr.” North! You might want to learn a subject before forming an opinion of it. Evolution is not random! What a putz!

…had captured the thinking of the intellectuals of the Western world. Every academic field was rewritten in terms of Darwinism: law, history, political science, economics—all of them.

Well if that is indeed true, that is the fault of those other disciplines. You can’t directly apply a theory about the natural world to the social sciences. But I strongly suspect that Dr. North is not completely accurate here.

Most Bible-believing Christians are aware of this with respect to biology and geology. They are not aware of it in the social sciences and the humanities. Yet it is here that Darwinism rules with an iron grip.

The one who needs to get a grip is North.

Let me give an example. Anthropologists speak of primitive societies.

Uh… Not the last time I checked, they didn’t. The only people still using that term are the Christians, to justify their culture-destroying missionary work around the world.

In fact, let’s quote Wikipedia on the matter:

…describing a culture as primitive is often considered factually incorrect and offensive today.

Now let’s get back to Dr. North’s factually incorrect and offensive email:

But such societies still exist in jungle tribes. Why? Anthropologists do not point to the tribes’ rejection of biblical religion (after Noah) as the cause of their backwardness.

Considering that Noah never existed and the flood never happened, I’d say that’s a good move on their part.

They search for other explanations. They look to the tribes’ environment. This is pure Darwinism: man’s social evolution as the result of expanding population in the face of a hostile environment.

No. This is pure science. Look at the facts and see where they point. (In fact, if you’re interested in this subject, there’s a fascinating book that explores these questions: Guns, Germs, and Steel.)

Historians teach that civilization appeared first in Mesopotamia. Men learned agriculture. But didn’t Cain offer an agricultural sacrifice?

OK. Now I’m lost. I think he’s saying that those nasty historians are crediting the invention of agriculture to those offensive “primitive societies”, when everybody knows that God taught Cain how to plant crops.

Providentially, the scientific creation movement came into existence in the 1950s.…We have many books and magazines on six-day creation in the natural sciences.
…
We do not have even one book on creationism in the humanities and the social sciences.…We have yet to see a single textbook in history or government that is explicitly six-day creationist. [emphasis added]

You read it here first, folks! Gary North is suggesting that the radically-repressed now expand their assault on education to the social sciences! That’s one reason it was so important to stop their anti-education agenda at evolution. But like an overflowing toilet, it doesn’t matter how many towels you throw down. They still overwhelm your best efforts. They’ve made it out of the bathroom now, and they’re headed for the carpet!

Because we on the left are too easily fooled. Look who I almost voted for!

I generally don’t like internet slang, but there is no better word to describe this American Vision video that totally decimates atheism!

(YouTube page is here)

Sarah found this video response to the above.

(YouTube page is here)

Don’t stay out too late at the dance club tonight. You know you have to get up early for church tomorrow!

(YouTube page is here)

This is pretty funny. Go over to Holy Taco for the whole enchilada.