I don’t know who’s off yet; part one of my voting strategy seems to have come off, as Rocco is saved and I’m positive it was my eleven votes that did it. Positive!

Okay, now the important stuff. This is the first time I’ve ever had to a) look at moving footage of Jessica Simpson as opposed to still photos; b) listen to her sing.

She is atrocious. Yes, I realize I’m figuring out what many other people knew several years ago, but this is what comes of being a 33-year-old mom who keeps up rather languidly with pop culture. Okay, fine, I never really kept up with the pop culture that supposedly, to watch the media cover it, enthralls 80 percent of the American population. I watch/listen to what I like and know the basic peripherals about people like Britney. Or ‘N Sync. Or Jessica.

She is atrocious. She sings flat–out of tune, for you nonmusic types. And it seems she’s trying to compensate for that blatant shortcoming by affecting a style that is just as hideous. French-kissing the mike, cracking her voice like the worst possible combination of a country wailer and an alt-pop edgything, and wearing a one-armed bat-gown that, if it doesn’t get fugged, I ought to know the reason why. Try watching a flat singer who is jerking her head and torso in wretchedly unnatural movements while opening her mouth as wide as possible and all the while inwardly shrieking, “Where is your ARM?!” and you’ll have some idea of the crazy that goes on in my TV room after The Bean is asleep.

I wouldn’t have watched at all, only Cheryl and Maks were dancing rumba and Oh-My-God.

So now I’m letting the TiVo buffer accumulate so that I can fast-forward through any more garbage, like the Macy’s Stars of “Dance” performance. Dancing with the Stars amazes me sometimes with the risks it is willing to take for what one would suppose is a family-friendly show. The Macy’s thing tonight was an homage to S&M that would have been so lewd if it weren’t just so tacky. The amazing part is that nobody on the set seems to notice; they suck it in like it’s a football game until I think that I’m watching something different from what the studio audience is watching. Bread and Circuses. I love DwtS, but occasionally they seem to be trying to sanitize some very crappy stuff. Or just showcasing crappy artists. Like the Jonas Brothers. The only thing that made their flat, over-stylized stylings bearable was … it wasn’t, really. Just the dancing. This is what comes of loving a show that caters to that supposed 80 percent.

Time to find out who’s goin’ home … Hallelujah, Kim’s gone. Don’t worry, Mark, your dad won’t be the only Ballas on the floor for long. I hope. Ding-dong, Kim’s gone, we didn’t suffer through The Simpson in vain.

Not that persuasive … to anybody who doesn’t already think you walk on water. Sign that man up to take the lead on all future American crises immediately! Of course, as a “Look over there!” to the question of why he hasn’t been calling the individual members of his own party or why, if he has, they haven’t responded, it’s pretty classic.

I wish I had a category that, when clicked, would play the refrain of South Park’s Mormon shredder: “Dumb dumb dumb dumb duuuumb!”

…by learning that P.J. O’Rourke believes in God. He also has a malignant hemorrhoid, learning of which does not brighten my day. I hope he soon recovers the structural integrity of his nethers.

H/t Anne the Lifepundit.