69. Now, there's only one person, and I mean ONE, who could possibly achieve a number sixty-nine ranking (and you know what I'm saying, right? Like, as in the sexual position, eh? 69? 69'ing? Like what pervs do, eh?) Anyway, #69 (think dirty) is definitely Josh Marshall. 

And right about now, IMHO, that guy should be sixty-nining a honey wagon (no offense intended to aforementioned wagon.)

I mean, just because some dude that blogged here ALLEGEDLY does something psycho and then the Right-Wing hate sites deliberately misinterpret this to besmirsch TPM, what does MR "I STAND FOR TRUTH AND CLARITY AND JUSTICE IN THE FACE OF TEH CRAZY RIGHT-WING, I BEING JOSH MARSHALL" decide to do? Why, he takes his little basket here, and throws it into the Nile - li'l baby Readers and all. Glug glug glug. Someone shoulda warned him, "Josh. Don't throw out the bathwater, into the Nile." Where I'm from, that's a common saying. 

And so sure, all of us here are CAPABLE of acts of violence, and moreso, many of us are probably considered "at risk"- or "high risk" if you will, especially with the soft-brimmed hats and the aging Egg-O T-shirts - it's a bit of a standard militant's uniform, I know - but still, there's no evidence... yet... that we did or are gonna do the kind of shit Josh worries that we might do. Like egging Boehner. Or boning Egger.

And thus, no harm to the TPM brand.

Am I right?

But then he comes on and says it's about the money *coughcough* *bullshit!bullshit!*, because of the huuuuuuuge costs associated with keeping 200,000 bloggers registered and archived - even though it was US READERS what told him the new system was retarxxx (sorry), and why preserve a separate blog for every loser that comes on here - including the frigging spammers! Why not just hire someone at like $1/hour to keep things clean here in the back of a hen house, like a lawyer or somesuch? Say... like one named...

57. Spam! Spam the lawyer! Or as I call him, Fack 'n Spam, 'cause he doesn't like swearing and thinks it "lowers the tone." When in point of fact (two can use that kinda talk, eh lawyer boy!), when, to reiterate, in point of fact, the problem is that Spam is like somebody choogling along real slow, driving a total beater, or an eco-car, or maybe some really lame-o bike, and surly about it, so when smarter people fly by in their space cars (like me), and we make better, smarter, arguments, then what Spam hears - as the better arguments get downshifted into his more Earthly medium and translated into his more primitive thinking apparatus - is like a Doppler effect (sometimes dubbed the Dopeler Effect) which changes our high-level, nuanced and learned arguments into simple swears, where none were ever said. By us. Ever.

e.g. (for example), when I make some Nietzsche joke about eternal recurrence, what Spam hears is "suck my knobbo." This "Dopeler Effect" is perhaps also doubly powerful when the afflicted is also short, say, 5' 2",like Spam. So maybe if Spam wore heels and had a better car, he'd be smarter, and wouldn't be exposed to so many swears, but I suspect he'll reject my advice, and continue to be #57 on the prick list, and not even realize that I tried to help. Too bad, so sad.

19. Dick Day. A complete bastard. Did you all know that one Winter, Dick Day shot and ate his dog, Sparklette? (A she-dog named Sparklette. Who was 19 years old, which is old, and is why I listed Dick as the #19 prick on this site, hoping it would trigger his memory, and maybe some regrets, or perhaps stimulate some residual sense of shame he might possess. Though I doubt it.

Admit it - you all we fooled by his shenanigans, weren't you? Well, I wasn't. Go on, ask him yourself! ASK ABOUT SPARKLETTE! AND THE AMAZING TASTY MEAT!

#18, #17 and #16. All the Black people here at TPM. All 3 of you. You know who you are. 

And no, nothing racist intended, it's just that you all, as individuals, totally separate from any questions of skin colour, happen to be complete and total pricks. I mean that personally though, nothing to do with race, ok? 

And YES, I KNOW who won the Civil War, and Slavery is bad, and so is PREJUDICE!!!! 

And no, none of my best friends are black. 

But that's not because of any race hatred I might possess, but more because of how every time I meet a black person, our personalities clash. Probably because they're envious about my sexy build. Or fashion-sense. But still, haters is haters, and there's no excuse. 

People get so sensitive about this one issue, and I work so hard toward understanding, but I can just SEE the potential misunderstandings and distortions here, ready to pounce on the unwary or hard-of-thinking. 

So, just to be clear, I do respect some black people, the quality ones. Like the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, and the Reverend Al Green and Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames who passed the puck to Sydney Crosby who then scored the winning goal at the Olympics - for CANADA - which would be the GOLD medal - for CANADA. And I respect these gentlemen because all 3 no longer seem to feel the need to go on and on and on about oppression and poverty and injustice and all that stuff. Bygones.

#13. Genghis. Not only did he also fail to produce any eggs, the guy's gotta be gay, right? Which would probably be ok if he had stayed in Philly, like, with the brotherly love and all -- but in New York City? They won't tolerate it there. 

I know, I know - he's got a girlfriend or a wife or something, but they all do that. I think they call their fakey wives "partners" or something. Anyway, I figured him out from the way he writes. And argues. "Sources," he says, like that means something. Well, f*ck sources, Mr Fey. You want a source, I'll give you a source - namely, Dr Me, PhD. How about them sources, eh? Meantime, bottomline on this guy is, "All Gay, No Eggs, Writes Books." 'Nuff said.

12. Rutabaga. (I'm just putting his name up here, so he knows he's on my Total Prick list, but then I'm withholding my written description of what makes him prickish, because that'll irritate him.)

#11. My Followers. Looking back, I think my failure is perhaps best put down to the low class of my followers. If I'd had a better class of follower, who knows? Maybe this whole Readers Blog site closure thing wouldn't have happened. Maybe better followers would've challenged me more, and I'd have produced better blogs, or if they'd suggested better music than the usual tripe they brought along, then Josh would've brought more of my blogs up the front page, where it would have motivated the Democratic masses, and changed Rahm's thinking over, and led to a Safer, Greener, more Prosperous America. 

Maybe even avoided a War.

But, given your poor performance as Followers, that never happened, did it? So people will die.

Something to think about. 

#10. Clearthinker. I mean, holy f*ck, what a prick, right? 

#9. All The Women. One thing old CT did get right though, was that I wrote - primarily - for the chicks. And sure, I can admit now... because of the sex. He was right to be jealous, because - frankly - it was INCREDIBLE. As the French say, you TPM chicks are IN-CROY-ABLE. 

Especially the ones I didn't have to stalk (that'd be you, with the cute cat avatar.) 

Anyway, to all of you who got lucky, my "Ladies" as I like to call you, don't worry, you're not on my prick list. Heck no. Just the opposite. (Well, not opposite, but you know what I mean.) 

Nope, the ones I'm referring to as pricks are the rest of you. The ones I can truthfully thank... for nothing. Anyway, think of it THIS way, Mighta-Been-On-My-Ladies-List-But-Clearly-Too-Stuck-Up-And/Or-Frigid-Chicks-Of-TPM. Think of it this way --- Someday, when a Nuclear Armageddon comes, things could work out where only two men survive. Just two:

1- Me. 2- And............................... Clearthinker. 

Guess you'll wish you'd chosen me then, eh? Well, too late. You'll be stuck with no way to get off other than through incredibly hot lashings of sweat-sodden, leather-clad, lung-burstingly satisfying lesbian sex. (Which sounds great 'til you remember that Clearthinker's around, and probably watching, 'cause he is a PERV with a capital PERV.)

#8. Al Shaw. I have relatives named "Shaw," so for a long time there, I cut this guy slack. Wrong. 'Cause he went and stabbed us in the back. 

Then the front. 

Then sortof in the side - near the ribs, but a bit more toward the kidneys.

Nothing personal Al, but if you can't handle 6,411 e-mails (to date) calling you a fxcking xxtard, then get out of the kitchen.

6. Another secret prick on my list is - Obey. I mean, I used to just plain hate on him, but I hid it. Til he went SWISS. After that, why bother? It was like he was dead to me. Dead, but then coated in chocolate. Delicious Swiss chocolate. Then encased in gold. Real gold. Stolen Nazis gold. So what we have in total is Obey, dead and buried, coated in chocolate, delicious Swiss chocolate, then covered in rich golden Nazis lies. 

But not sharing any of the gold. 

Which is the main thing I'm getting at. Fuckin' Obey. 

5. Seaton. Like what I need most right now is some f*cking foreigner mouthing off about what's wrong with MY country. Spanish bastard. Spain's got the World Cup, and that guy that plays tennis, and in Seaton's world, that probably equals total sports domination (as opposed to domination of sports-nobody-gives-a-shit-about), so why not just go clutch your feathered trophies and your extensive social welfare safety net and your yellow-coloured national team uniforms and just STFU for a while? 

We get it - you've read Karl Marks. Big whoop. We got schools too.

3. Larry H and Zipperupus and Sleepin' Jeezus and Miguelito and Wendy Davis and the rest of you marines. Serving this great nation. Proudly overseas. Under God. Sacrificing. With flags we pledge to. On uniforms. etc.

Though the use of your code words likely kept most of the readers here from detecting that you lot were marines, unsurprisingly, I saw through it, and I'd just like to take a moment and dedicate this here Slot #3 on the All-Time TPM Pricks List to you, selflessly serving in the armed services. I know, I know, most people think "prick" is a term only used to insult someone, but you all know better - it can be a term of endearment, or even a very accurate descriptor. You decide. 

Anyway, in my books, even though you guys are all - each manjack of you - heavily-armoured, depleted uranium-encased, heat-seeking, flamingly obvious participants in the don't-ask-don't-tell charade, you're still... in the services.  Under God. Near the flag. But overseas. While uniformed.

And thus, we're proud of you, and pricks just like you everywhere. So while confusion may surround your gender, that is as nothing to the confusion around your political allegiances, your whereabouts, why your hand is down your pants, and who taught you to read.

2. TPM's Advertisers. Thanks for nothing, fackwits. We put up with you for months, and turns out, you're paying Josh (#69) sweet fanny adams, not even enough to cover the cost of hosting the facking spammers. (Welcome to Capitalism, and f*ck you very much.) 

In closing, may I just say I hope your gas pedals stick and your anti-bacterial ingredients mutate into a totally new form of crotch-rot, one that escapes Northco's factory outlet and eventually infests your pants, feeding slowly and painfully on the tiny bits of unpleasantly twisted flesh which remain after your botched trip to Dr Soon-Make-You-Boy in Bangkok.

1. And all together now... TPM's #1 Prick, this year as with so many years previous, can only be... Oh why even bother? We all know who it is. The Prick.

Next Week --- Our 11 Favourite People Here. That is, the 11 people we can pretty much honestly say we like. Maybe "tolerate" is a better word. Ok. The 11 Most Tolerated People Here.