The quadrennial election cycle has many predictable events: winter brings the New Hampshire primary, by spring the nominees have been effectively chosen, and in the dog days of summer we sit back and enjoy the Republican smear campaign against whatever Democrat has the effrontery to run for President.

In the summer of 2004, anti-Muslim whack job Jerome Corsi stitched together a few cheesy Internet rumors and lies to sink John Kerry's campaign. Four years later, he emerged from his den to do it again.

Citing himself, various nutzoid website commenters and unsubstantiated (if not falsified) rumors floating around the Bizarro journalism universe of Schlox News, Newsmax, the Sludge Report and drug-addled talk show hosts, he's tried his best to flesh out the Republican talking points on Barack Obama.

Never mind that each of his charges have been refuted on the, uh, merits, as long as there's email, Corsi's smears will do their dirty work.

Noted philosopher Daria Morgendorfer once said: "The truth and a lie are not sort of the same thing." If Morgendorfer's words of wisdom ever gain wide acceptance, what will become of Corsi and his enablers?  

The subject of prostitution always causes a publisher's heart to beat faster. No wonder they snapped up a rigorous analysis of the social conditions and paradigms under which prostitution flourishes by University of Chicago Sociology Professor Gene Simmons  – wait a minute, our Book Review Editor has informed us that the author is not in fact an eminent intellectual with years of careful research and analysis to his credit, but a washed up 70s rock star. Who saw that one coming?

In his work, Simmons grapples with the conundrums of sex work, like why should anyone pay for it when he got it for free on at least 4,800 occasions (according to his ads.)

We can't think of anyone more qualified to empathize with the plight of women forced by a social construct of sexist domination to trade their bodies for sustenance then a coked-out punk rocker who sensitively met the emotional needs of women he encountered for three to five minutes 4,800 times.

We used to think that there was no more degrading way to earn a living than whoring, but now we know better: that honor goes to publishing.

The title sounds like one of those spam blogs you find on the second page of any Google search: strings of apparently unrelated words and phrases strung together for no purpose other than to engage the lazy and credulous.

But no, it's not an Internet scam, it's some sort of book cobbled together from any week's worth of reactionary rants on Schlox News from a source whose credibility is almost as high as Jerome Corsi's.

Ever since Dick Morris lost his job as consigliere in the Clinton family business, he's built a new life purveying reliably wacky right-wing drivel on Schlox News, when of course he's not sucking the toes of Washington call girls.

Come to think of it, if only Dick Morris and Gene Simmons had switched topics, they might have escaped the unreadable list. Gene Simmons is reputed to have surprisingly thoughtful things to say about politics, and when Dick Morris decides to write a book about a subject he knows first foot [Surely, hand? – Book Review Ed.], like hookers, well, that would be worth sinking your teeth into.