You, Again!

You’re my biggest fan, my partner, my best critic.

You let me rant when I need to, but never let me feel sorry for myself.

You give me room to be goofy.

You give great advice, even if I’m being stubborn.

You tolerate my sledgehammer wit.

You gave me two awesome kids, and you are an awesome mom.

You watch my favorite movies with me over and over.

You are a fantastic cook. Even those few dishes that didn’t turn out the way you’d planned were creative and entertaining.

I love waking up next to you in the morning.

15 years is nothing when every day is a new adventure.

It’s you and me against the world.

Let’s attack.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.

State of the Union

I’m not a fan of Unions. I think they were a good idea once upon a time, but I believe that their necessity has passed. All they do now is interfere with the Free Market by jacking costs and obstructing timely progress. People are forced to pay too much for not enough.

My company has a big trade show every year, and for the past few years, I’ve been tapped to go down early to help set up. I got to see how Unions operate up close and personal.

They’re shakedown artists.

Here’s the way it works: You are required to hire at least two Union workers to help construct your booth. Doesn’t matter if the whole thing unfolds from a bag and snaps in place, those two workers will do the unfolding and the snapping for you. You are not allowed to use any sort of hand truck or dolly to move your merchandise in from the loading bays – that’s Union territory. We were even stopped as we were bringing in cases of water for our own consumption to be told that a certain Union had sole concessionary rights to the show. I saw the Union Steward screaming at a man who had brought his own pallet jack, threatening to “shove that jack up your ass!” One of our hired hands even boasted that his brothers and he had completely surrounded a booth that had neglected to obtain their Union workers. They wouldn’t let anyone in or out of the space until the exhibitors filled out the paperwork. I’m sure the two women trapped inside this ring of testosterone cowboys enjoyed that experience.

What assholes.

The thing is, they’ve convinced themselves (or at least the only answer we ever got) is that it’s all for “safety reasons.” Like only the highly-trained Union workers know how to use a drill. In fact, we were oh-so-gently threatened by one obersteward who cruised up in his little golf cart while one of our guys was on a ladder. “Where are your workers?” he demanded. “At lunch.” “Well why don’t you let them take care of that when they get back. We don’t want any (brief pause) accidents.” What a con.

I realize that these people need the work, but you’re screwing with free enterprise, here, boys. Make the talent pool available, and we’ll pick what we need. You have an electrician? That’s great. Me and electricity have an agreement: I don’t mess with it, it doesn’t kill me. I’ll be happy to have him come down and run the splices. But to get in my face because I dared…dared…to use a hand truck to bring in a couple of cases of water? Piss off, Chico.

Our booth was built for us by a company in the UK, and we had a couple of their guys in to put it together for us. They told us that the UK has done away with unions, and the “safety issues” are handled by a number of event inspectors that cruise around and make sure none of the exhibitors are doing stupid things during construction. These inspectors have the power to shut down an exhibitor if necessary. That’s it. No extra expenses, no intimidation tactics, no confusion.

It would be slightly more tolerable if there was just one contact for all of it, but that’s not how it works. You have to see seventeen different stewards for power, concession, construction, loading, carpeting, etc. We even had to stop work at one point because we had two different Union reps arguing about which of them had the sub-clause in our secondary contract to use the left-handed pliers on the upper tier of our auxiliary light post.

I’m only slightly exaggerating, here, but it really was ridiculous. At one point, my coworkers and I were wondering aloud which Union rep we’d have to drag along to the bathroom to hold our dicks for us after drinking all that water. (Not too loudly, understand, since we were surrounded by none-too-bright gorillas sporting prison tats and power tools.) That naturally led to much juvenile, Y-chromosome influenced humor about “heavy lifting” and “pipe wrenches,” which I’ll spare you.

I really enjoyed it when the forklift drivers would get pissed at us because our crates were sticking out into the aisles. “Hmmm,” I would muse. “I wonder who put this 1000-pound crate here? I’m fairly certain it wasn’t one of us, because #1, we’re not allowed to move anything ourselves, and #2, even if we did want to move it, we don’t have a fucking forklift!”

To give credit where credit is due, two of our workers were very good. They did everything we asked, did it quickly, professionally, and well. We enjoyed working with them and talking to them. I understand that they work for the Union because there is no other choice, but I’d like to think that they could have done better in the private markets, where they wouldn’t have to pay dues into the big Ponzi scheme that is the Union hierarchy.

I’m fairly certain that introspection is not big at the glorious worker gatherings, but you have to wonder if any of them have ever contemplated: “If we are having to force people to use our services, perhaps we represent an outdated business paradigm.” Maybe the designated Thinker for the hive mind missed that meeting.

In other news of “Unions Gone Wild,” I notice that every music lover’s favorite wet blanket, the RIAA, is now considering charging radio stations for playing their songs.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-fi-radio21may21,1,1028211.story?coll=la-headlines-business-enter

I love how the RIAA blames collapsing sales entirely on downloading, and not the CDs containing one good song and 11 crappy ones. I stopped buying CDs when I found out that they cost less to make than a cassette, but cost me more than twice as much to purchase. I was making my own CDs and cassettes until I discovered that the Audio Home Recording Act mandated that the price of recorders and blank media include royalties to be paid directly to the record industry. Thank you, George H. W. Bush. You asshole.

Now I eschew the RIAA-controlled sales centers completely, and copy music off the web with some freeware I downloaded. It has a feature that lets me record anything played through my speakers. I can watch a music video online and record the song if I want. If I find a groovy new band, I’ll see them in concert or buy the album directly from their web site. I think most people know that the artists make most of their money by touring rather than through record sales. (Remember records, kids?).

This may be the final push to get radio stations to switch to an all-talk format, and if those public serpents in Congress restore the “Fairness Doctrine,” we’ll have nothing but dead air. But that’s another rant for another day.

I just hope that the radio stations respond to this by charging the RIAA advertising rates for promoting their product. It would be good if those rates equaled the royalty payments. It would be better if they were higher.

For much fun, go here: http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com/

Are Your Papers in Order?

Today is the beginning of the National “Click It or Ticket” campaign, which runs until June 3. Police everywhere will be targeting motorists that fail to wear their seatbelt, especially night drivers.

We’ve all heard the statistics: 2/3 of all traffic fatalities are from not wearing seatbelts; 9,500 lives were saved with seatbelts last year; blah blah blah.

One disclaimer before I begin the rant: Kids should be in car seats. They cannot make their own choice, as they cannot foresee consequences. Parents that don’t secure their kids should lose their car.

Now…


This isn’t about safety. This is about police departments filling their coffers. Don’t think so? Think about this: A motorcyclist wearing only a helmet, but otherwise unconstrained from flying through the air in the event of a collision, is a perfectly legal rider, whereas an unseatbelted driver completely enclosed within a metal cage is illegal. A 200-pound passenger in a vehicle will be breaking the law by not wearing a seatbelt, but a 200-pound mannequin in the passenger seat is not required to be belted.

Look, I always wear my seatbelt, because I enjoy walking upright and breathing unassisted, which may no longer be an option if I go through a windshield. My kids are strapped in to the point of near immobility, mainly so they can’t spill anything on the seats. But I don’t need the nanny-state making laws about it.

For those that argue that traffic injuries raise everyone’s insurance rates, here’s a simple solution: If you get injured in an accident because you were not wearing your seatbelt, you are not entitled to insurance payouts. It’s not a mandatory, nagging law, it’s a simple statement of consequences for personal choice. Rates stay down, people can choose, and Darwin weeds out the losers of the highway crapshoot.

I got into a (very genteel) argument with a trooper that had stopped me for a burnt-out brakelight. (Side rant: Why do they always ask if you know your brakelights are out? Can anyone you know simultaneously depress the brakes and check the lights? It’s not like I carry a masonry block in the car to hold the pedal down while I do a walkabout.) He came up to the window to tell me about it, and mentioned that he would have to add a fine for my not wearing my seatbelt. I told him that I had removed it to get to my wallet and glove compartment to have my papers ready (he didn’t catch that inference, luckily). He adopted an “Oh, yeah?” demeanor, and asked what I would do if I’d been hit while pulled over. I replied that I would happily file a claim with that driver’s insurance company, since it would automatically be their fault, and furthermore, the fact that they’d have to go through the trooper’s car to get to me pretty much put me at ease.

But the whole point of that story is to illustrate how it’s all about money (fortunately, you can’t be ticketed for being a smartass…yet). Cops stop you on a pretext, then rack up the fines. “Sir, I stopped you because you were doing 68 in a 65 zone. I need to see your license, registration, proof of insurance, emissions test results, the contents of your ashtray, whatever you’ve got in the glove compartment, and that empty bottle in the back seat. I also need you to empty your pockets, walk this line, recite the alphabet backwards, breathe into this tube, let my dog sniff you, and stand with your feet apart. Oh, and you’ll need to pop the trunk, too.”

Ja, mein Kapitän

And to my next door neighbors (both of whom are cops), I’m not talking about you guys; you’re cool. :)

Current Mood: Stabby – OR – The Chippendales Go to War – OR – I’m in ur Phalanx, Killin’ ur Persians

Finally got around to seeing 300, and OMG, how gorgeous is this movie? The lighting, colors, and cinematography were just amazing. The director did a great job in capturing Frank Miller’s artistic style, and the cast was superb.

The structure of the storyline was extremely well-done, with the same narrator bracketing the three key arcs. This is something I think a lot of people missed, especially the idiots in Iran that bitched about it being mere propaganda. The story is told from the point of view of the Spartans, so naturally they would exaggerate the attributes of their enemy. That’s been the prerogative of soldiers ever since the first rock-throwing incident in Olduvai Gorge. Plus, when President Ahmadinnerjacket leaves his Holocaust-denial conference to opine about propaganda, he kind of loses some credibility, you know?

I’m a fan of grotesqueries, so I particularly enjoyed the Persian characters of the giant and the executioner. Mrs. Cat doesn’t get into the freaks as much, but I did have to wipe up the drool during the slow-motion battle scenes. She’s a huge proponent of righteous ass-kickings, so chiseled men in leather loincloths taking a principled stand and dispensing damage with sword and spear pushes her buttons. There are only two prominent female characters in the show, but they’re both beautiful women, so there’s something for the het crowd to ogle, too. I’ve heard the term “warnography” applied to this movie, and that’s a great term. I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know if the author was disparaging the focus on physiques, or the “glorification of war,” but it’s still a cool label. It wasn’t nearly as violent as I expected, and the various blood splatters and decapitations were shot so stylistically, you can’t really say they were graphic. There were worse depictions in Saw and Hostel. Their very realism makes them harder to watch.

I personally don’t see anything wrong with the glorification of war, but within limits. War just for war’s sake is a path to tyranny. Getting satisfaction from your military prowess, and being able to finish whatever fight gets started is a matter of national pride. Call it arrogance if you want, but when the shit hits the fan, you want people that excel in wholesale slaughter fighting for you, rather than against you. That was Sparta’s raison d’être, and it’s one reason we still know the story of the 300 today. Yes, the story was simplified, but it’s a movie based on a comic book, not a historical recreation. People that attack the movie on those grounds are missing the point. PETA may as well complain about the way the digital rhinoceros was treated (and I’m confident that some of those losers have).

I’m going to add Troy and Alexander to my Netflix queue to see why those movies tanked, and 300 and Gladiator did so well.

If you haven’t seen 300 yet, try and catch it on the “big screen.” It’ll lose too much impact on a television screen. One tip: pee first. You won’t want to miss anything.

Just Wondering

Saw a sign that gleefully informed me that 1/20/09 would be Bush’s last day in office. What will happen to the Democrats when the target of their vitriol leaves? Will they turn on each other at that point? Isn’t this the same tension that keeps the Dark Knight and the Joker in lockstep?

A sign on a restaurant told me that they were serving Ice Coffee. It’s Iced Coffee, you morons, same as Iced Tea. The first word is an adjective that modifies the noun behind it. “Ice” is not an adjective. I know that a lot of people say “Ice Water,” but unless you’re serving actual meltwater, that’s incorrect. When did grammar become so difficult?

Speaking of grammatical challenges, a coworker that gets way too much ego gratification from MySpace came up to me recently. “Know who I was talking to last night?” He leaned forward and paused, building the drama. “Nikki. Hilton.” Then he stepped back with this smug “Who’s the man?” look on his face. I asked him what rigorous identification verification procedures he had to endure to create his MySpace account, and was he aware that on my blog, I was personified by a talking cat?

I absolutely despise the current sartorial trend of placing logos and catchphrases on the rear of tight sweatpants sold to young girls. I am a compulsive reader, having been conditioned by evil marketing agents to seek out their messages. I am also of an age and moral character where I do not wish to be seen staring at a 12-year-old’s ass. In this Megan’s Law “for the children” era, where we stop just short of the death penalty for child molesters, and the merest hint of opprobrium can ruin a man’s life forever, who decided that this was a good idea?

Surely I can’t be the first to think of how much more work we could get done if we’d stop having meetings about how much work we’re getting done.

I really don’t ask for much out of life. A healthy, happy family, a small circle of excellent friends, a satisfying career, my own submarine, and an island fortress. That’s not too much, is it?

It’s been said that the lottery is a tax on idiots. Looking at the current crop of Presidential candidates, I’m beginning to suspect that our elections are, too. There are none of them who wouldn’t benefit from a road trip to Emerald City. The dispensation of a few brains, hearts, and some courage would improve the selection immensely.

Compassionate Conservatism is no way to win a war. Particularly the war against Islamic fanaticism. My humble suggestion is to get biblical on the terrorists. In II Samuel, Sheba, a Benjamite that revolted against King David, is holed up in the stronghold city of Abel. Joab, the commander of the king’s army, attacks the city. A woman asks him why he is trying to kill her, and he tells her that he is looking for Sheba. This woman goes and convinces the people to cut off Sheba’s head and throw it over the wall. Joab then calls off the attack. Similarly, we should line up our bombers, missiles, and tanks, and make it clear that unless the terrorists are delivered to us, we’ll turn their cities into dust. We know where these folks are, we just don’t know who they are. If the rest of the inhabitants want to be martyrs about it, we can help them with that, too. If II Samuel isn’t to your liking, how about Samuel L. Jackson? “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger!” It always amuses me that the same people that sit in the theatre going “Yeah! Get him!” recoil in horror when it’s instituted as official Foreign policy.

Why do airline pilots feel compelled to chatter away on the intercom? Do they think that enhances customer service? Don’t you have a button to push, or traffic to monitor or something? I’m trying to read, here. I’ll consider your customer service obligation fulfilled if I get there on time, and can walk away from the plane. I don’t need a guided tour from 30,000 feet.

There’s a guy in our office that enjoys being annoying. You don’t dare ask him to stop doing something, because then he knows that it bothers you, and he does it more. My solution to this is to fuck with his OCD. When he targets me, I just knock his paper clip holder onto the floor. If he keeps it up, I rearrange his desk. He’s learning.

Some phrases just stick with you. Currently, I have the echo of some dialogue from Dark Passage stuck in my head. Bogart asks Bacall “So you like Swing music?” Her answer, “Yes. Legitimate Swing.” intrigues me. Was the market being flooded with cheap foreign imitators? Was there some epic battle in the music industry in the 40s to determine what was going to be labeled as Swing music? I’m sure the answer would add all sorts of nuances to Bacall’s character, but I’ve not been able to track anything down.

10 Days in a Genial Hell

A series of observations, ruminations, and generalizations from Las Vegas

French women have the prettiest clothes. French men also have pretty clothes, and appear to be competing with their women, rather than complementing them.

The homeless man singing along with the aria out front of the Bellagio’s dancing fountains? Yeah…there’s a story there.

The Luxor and the Excalibur casinos are apparently reserved for the trailer trash Mullet heads that are tired of Gatlinburg.

Italian women have the most self-assurance. Italian men are friendly, but they’re also too laid back about everything.

Used to be that Vegas was known for cheap food…not so much, anymore. Not only is it expensive, it’s tasteless. On the other hand, it takes real talent to blend the flavors of filet mignon, asparagus tips, sautéed mushrooms, shallots, and red wine so that they completely cancel each other out. That kind of chef doesn’t come cheap, I suppose.

New York New York is a great place to shop, and the walkway between there and the MGM is the best place to take pictures of the strip.

Mexican women seem to go from stunning young nightclub-fantasy chica to squat peasant grandmother without passing through any intermediate stage. Mexican men all strut around like bantam roosters. Even the short ones. Especially the short ones.

I understand that casinos want you to stay as long as possible, but hiding the exits only pisses me off. I’m not interested in your slot machines or your poker rooms; all I want is the most direct route from the monorail platform to your front door. The show I’m going to see is in the hotel across the street. You want me to stay? Maybe you shouldn’t have Carrot Top as your headliner.

The Wynn, the Paris, and the Venetian are all beautiful hotels. Easily my favorites. Good clubs, good shows, good food.

German women are either very cold, or very gregarious. German men are cocky assholes with really bad taste in clothes.

In general, Vegas is a city filled with those desperate to impress, or desperate to be impressed. It amused me that there were cruisers along the strip on Friday and Saturday nights. It doesn’t matter how shiny the rims are on your Eclipse, you’re not going to get noticed. It just won’t happen.

The Sirens show at Treasure Island is the best of the free shows. Pirate chicks and pyrotechnics – life is good.

Oriental women are generally beautiful, but only as long as they’re quiet. For whatever reason, those dialects are incredibly jarring to me. Oriental men usually look lost, verging on overwhelmed.

It tickled me that the Legends show lineup included Bette Midler, Prince, Tom Jones, and Elton John, since all of those actual people are appearing in Vegas.

I saw the Stomp Out Loud show at the Planet Hollywood hotel. As I looked over the audience, there was a lot less sympathetic jamming than I would have expected. Seeing as it takes at least rudimentary rhythm to procreate, how have white people managed to be the majority so long?

Americans may be derided by the rest of the world for our excessiveness, but I didn’t see any ads for the strip clubs and escort services that featured anything but American girls. We may not recycle as much as France thinks we should, but we own the field when it comes to pole dancing. American men tend to be drunk, loud, and obnoxious at the clubs featuring the American women.

I was stunned by the number of people I saw in the casinos with children. Who the hell brings their 8-year-old daughter to Vegas? Is she going to read the free escort guides while you’re gambling away the house payment? Fucking idiots.

The Frontier had a great big marquee out front reading “Free Paris!” Since they are located about two blocks from the Hilton, I thought it was hysterical.

Everyone should go to Las Vegas once. For about four days. Anything longer is excessive and depressing. See a couple of shows, do some shopping, gamble a little if that’s your thing, then get the hell out. But do your homework. If you don’t have at least a general idea of what you want to do when, the town will mug you. It dazzles you with false choices, distracts you with painted smiles, and slowly suffocates you while you’re convinced you’re having fun.

Stuck On You

Have you ever almost gotten into a wreck because the car in front of you had too many bumper stickers, and you got distracted reading them?

I was following some beat-up Datsun home today, and by the time I almost ran over him, I knew just about every aspect of his personal ideologies. Now, my default opinion is that if you can fit your philosophy on a bumper sticker, you probably haven’t given it enough thought, and you’re certainly not providing enough context. (Ironically, my general attitude towards others – Fuck off – fits exceptionally well on a bumper sticker, but I don’t have one, mainly so I don’t have to try and explain it to my daughter.)

Ever notice that you can just about peg someone’s belief structure from a distance just from the colors of their bumper stickers? Green, Yellow, and Rainbows? That’s a Liberal. Red, White, and Blue? Conservative. It’s also amusing to me when folks from both sides leave on the campaign stickers from the races their candidate lost. It’s as if their car is their own little bubble of reality that they drive around in defiance of actual events.

And I absolutely adore the little self-stick icons wars. You just thought about the Fish vs. Darwin squabble, didn’t you? Watching them evolve makes me appreciate the clever wit involved in their creation.

(Okay – I was going to let that go without comment, but if I can’t self-congratulate on my own blog, where else can I? I worked in the key words to both sides of the argument in one sentence. Go me!)

My personal favorite is the Cthulhu fish, because I’m that much of a geek.



I suggested to a buddy once, half-seriously, that we should open up a store that specialized in that sort of thing. We would call it Counter Culture. (Work it out, I’m not going to explain everything.)

Back to the Datsun, then. I’m pretty sure that the car was being held together by the stickers, much as the ideas on them held together this young man’s self-worth. He had the standard declaration “War is not the Answer,” but evidently had not considered that the question might be: “What song is Edwin Starr best known for?” or “What does the Greek god Ares personify?” or even “What’s the best way to stop a murderous dictator hellbent on slaughtering people?” Here’s a fun thing to do, if you’re so inclined: Next time you get the opportunity to talk to someone who has that sticker on their car, ask them if they’re willing to fight for that belief. You can’t lose.

He also had the requisite “Animals are our Friends” sticker. Like we should all take Bruce’s pledge from Finding Nemo: “Fish are friends, not food.” Right. Let’s all swear off eating animals. That won’t upset the natural order of things at all. I seem to recall a popular theory that says something along the lines of “eat or be eaten.” Can’t quite remember which theory that is, though. Ev…evo…something.

There was a short science-fiction story some many moons ago whose protagonist developed super hearing. As he heard more and more expansively, he started to go insane. What drove him over the edge was the long, mournful groan of an oak tree as an axe bit into it. Great story. Makes me want to whip up a video of carrots screaming as they’re being pulled from the earth and post it on YouTube.

Q: How many environmentalists would starve to death after watching it?
A: Who cares?

A friend of mine has a great line. She says that vegetables are what food eats.

“No Blood for Oil.” One of my favorites. Anyone who possesses this sticker on their car obviously hasn’t done even a cursory search about where we get our oil from. Iraq is number six on the list. Our top two suppliers are Canada and Mexico, respectively. In fact, we get more than eight hundred percent more oil from those two countries than we do from Iraq. If we wanted to kill for our oil, we could do it a lot more easily and a hell of a lot closer to home. Canada would fall in a three-day weekend, and since Mexico has already exported their entire population here, we could just stroll over the border and take theirs.

“The Blood of New Orleans is on Republican Hands!” This was a new one on me. I hadn’t realized that Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco had switched parties.

“Earth First.” A classic. Damn right, Earth first. We’ll strip-mine the other planets later.

“Thou Shalt not Kill.” It’s so cute when Liberals try and quote the Bible. If they were really keeping up with theology, they’d’ve heard that the correct translation is “Thou Shalt not Murder.” That is, you shall not take innocent life. This being plastered next to the “Pro-Abortion” sticker was really delicious.

“Another Free Thinker for Peace.” Just like all of the other free thinkers that have that exact same bumper sticker?

“Apathy is Deadly.” So what?

“Celebrate Diversity” and “Stop Hate Radio.” Make up your damn mind.

“Stop Animal Testing.” Jeez. Teach Koko to use sign language, and you get all snippy. It’s not like it was an essay question or anything. Hope you’re not an insulin-dependent diabetic, pal, like the chick that heads up PETA.

He also had something about making proper environmental choices, but it was obscured by the oil residue blowing out of his muffler. That was the one I was trying to make out when he hit the brakes. Luckily, I stopped before I creased his “Forget Bush” sticker to read “For Bush.”

I’m sure it would have killed him.

V for Vindicated

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=aa7796aa-e4a5-4c06-be84-b62dee548fda

“How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.”

Let me be among the first to say: I told you so.

Of particular interest were these VASTLY HYPOCRITICAL quotes from the same article:

“As the activist group Environmental Defense urges us to buy CFLs, it defines mercury on a separate part of its Web site as a ‘highly toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in fetuses and children’ and as ‘one of the most poisonous forms of pollution.’”

and

“Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury-thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the United States, under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.”

The article also asks the rather interesting question about what will happen when millions of these bulbs are being disposed of in landfills.

I've thought for a long time that environmentalists were batshit crazy. They have no real-world skills, so they try to pester the rest of us into tearing down the society we've managed to create, all to save a few snails or some such crap. Honestly, who's going to miss some snails, other than a few birds and the French?

See - the Left in general replaces debate with hysteria. They exaggerate the urgency in any situation because they think that the rest of humanity should be saved from themselves by the State. They want to replace ingenuity and competition with baseline metrics skewed to the lowest common denominator. As I've pointed out before, they champion Evolution in all parts of life except when it comes to people trying to make a living. Then the only solution they can come up with is Socialism. Below is a complete list of every country that ever thrived by implementing Socialism:







Of course, this crop of do-gooders thinks that the only reason it hasn't worked yet is that they weren't in charge. So not only are they assholes, they're hubristic assholes. When you need to buy something, which would you rather have: a plethora of choices offered by competing merchants who only stay in business if they offer the best merchandise, price, or service? Or having to go to one store that will stay in business even if their products fall apart on being exposed to air, cost seven times more than they should, and offer the same attention to customer satisfaction as the average DMV worker?

With the Left being so quick to jump on any hint of hypocrisy from the Right, and demand wildly disproportionate consequences, their smug superciliousness when it comes to their own actions makes me want to take one weekend and go club a few seals and shoot some eagles, then roast the carcasses over a few hundred acres of rainforest that I'd start burning with a napalm strike. Afterwards, because it's important to dispose of your campsite litter properly, I'd strip mine the whole area, and open a fucking Wal-Mart on the scarred, scorched Earth. I'd make sure they stocked both the CFLs and the regular, non-toxic incandescent bulbs, and step back to let the Invisible Hand do its thing. If people want to poison themselves, hey, that's their choice. And if they feel guilty about it, I'm sure that Al Gore sells mercury credits.

Rise and Whine

Apparently, Jessica – the lovely hostess of Daughter of Opinion – has decided that we sharp-tongued observers of life should post pictures of ourselves when we first get up in the morning. I can only assume that it’s so those that we annoy can make themselves feel better by making fun of those little imperfections that we hide through some sort of personal hygiene practices. (My second assumption is that Jessica has a team of early-rising hair and makeup artists that gently swoop in on her about twenty minutes before she awakens.)

I really did not want to do this.

Here’s the thing: I am so much cooler on the Internet. I am unconstrained by societal niceties or having to deal with people face to face. It’s so easy to present only that which you want others to see; to control access to your personality (Ha! Almost used the plural, there.). Those few people that know me personally and read my blog probably just shake their heads and chuckle at my exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies.

This, of course, was Jessica’s point. We should be more open towards the world. Rather than hide behind these carefully constructed personas, we should not be afraid to show our dedicated readers who we really are.

I really did not want to do this.

I am paid to evoke feelings, perceptions, and behaviors in people through my words. No, I’m not a phone-sex operator. It’s worse – I’m in Marketing. Having a long-term love affair with the use of Language, I also belong to a few writing sites, craft limericks, and pun obsessively. I can be pedantic over grammar to the point of obnoxiousness. This is the same reason I blog. I love playing with styles, syntax, dialects, and structure. If I want you to feel a certain way towards me, I’ll craft something that points you in that direction. I don’t want you jumping ahead of me or going off on your own way based on any conclusions you’ve drawn by seeing my picture.

Did I mention that I really did not want to do this?

Thing is, I know that I’m going to. I’ve made the decision already; I just have to agonize over it for a bit. And whine. And pout. Not attractive traits, I know, but there you are. I’m self-absorbed enough to keep a written record of my every wisp of a thought, but I’m enough of an exhibitionist to put it online.

Enough stalling. Time to take my place in the lineup. You’ll notice right away that I am not a morning person. I greet the world with a face that says “I’d hurt you very badly, but that means my coffee would be late.” You’ve been warned.

Oh, and before I forget: Thanks, Jessica. Groovy idea.


Morning Cat:

Stupidity on Parade

Everybody knows/That the world is full of stupid people. Remember Banditos by The Refreshments? Truer words were never sung to a catchy pop tune. Sometimes I wish that we could set up special times of the day for these people to be let out, so the rest of us could get our shit done without having to suffer along with these unfortunates.

Part of it, I know, is that some people just haven’t experienced life. They’re young, or they’ve been sheltered. For instance, there’s a guy at the office who came to us fresh out of school. Poor guy. He gets thrown in with the rest of us hardened, cynical professional types, and has to endure our looks when he asks us to explain ROI. I want to pat him on the head sometimes. Other times, I want to bark at him to settle down. Some of us are tired, dammit.

Or the young kid driving the Jeep that I got behind coming home from work late last night. Just my luck, I get behind the one Jeep owner in the world that doesn’t see merging as a personal challenge. So I’m stuck at a crawl while Studley the Testosterone boy is thumping his block-rocking bass, with his friends doing their impression of Night at the Roxbury. Dude. Owning a vehicle with plastic windows does not automatically impart to you some sort of fierce individualism that the rest of us feel compelled to cower in front of. I can break into your car with a lit cigarette, okay? You’re only one step removed from duct-taping garbage bags to the door frame. Yes, I see the huge mud-shoveling tires and the chrome extras package, and I’m truly sorry about your penis, but for the love of Chrysler would you use the fucking accelerator?

Then there are the people that don’t realize that the rules apply to them, too. These are the assholes parked in the fire lanes or going through the parking lot against the arrows. Or you get behind them in the express line at the grocery store, where they are claiming that 127 cans of cat food and a bag of Doritos count as only two items, and then try to pay for it with a third-party check from North Yemen. Hey numbnuts, take your shekels over to the regular line, and let me ring up my potato wedges and get back to work, hmmm?

Something else that frosts my ass (apart from a three-foot snowcone) is when parents encourage their children to remain stupid. I know a woman that completely indulges her son in his incapacity to do anything for himself. I’ve overheard several panicked calls. “Mooooom. There’s nothing to eeeeeeat.” It makes me want to bitch-slap him. Here he is, 20-odd years old, in college, and he can’t turn on the fucking stove? He works in a restaurant, for God’s sake! If they won’t teach him how to cook, he could at least get some food there, you think? Leave early. Get food. Eat food. Clock in. Work. How hard is that to figure out? What makes me want to beat this woman about the head and shoulders is the fact that she indulges this codependency. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll leave here in time to drive the 40 minutes home and cook you something before you have to go to work.” Makes me want to cut her gas line just so “sweetie” has to develop some fucking domestic skills.

When you think about it, stupidity is the biggest roadblock to progress you can name. So much time is wasted because we have to dumb-down the game for the conceptually-challenged. These are the folks that don’t realize the full potential of what’s in front of them. As an example, I had occasion to visit a new doctor recently. It was fortunate that I got there early, because the registration paperwork was approximately the size of the Yellow Pages, and asked for a family history going back to the “begat” lists in Chapter 5 of Genesis. Did it not occur to anyone in the office that it might save some time if they put their forms online? That way, I could fill them out at home, where I can call grandparents and third cousins, look up old obituary clippings, and go online to try and determine what caused that weird growth on Aunt Josephine’s neck. The thing that really pissed me off was going up to the desk to deliver the stupid document, and seeing their gaggle of Clerk II typists entering the information into the database. How much effort is being duplicated, here? All of it. Add to that the fact that my handwriting looks like it was penned by a ferret on crack, and I know that my rather benign occasional sleep apnea is probably in their records now as acute ebola.

MySpace. ‘Nuff said.

I know that life is hard when you’re stupid, but only to a point. Some people are too dumb even to realize that, and they’re the ones that drag the rest of us down to their level, then beat us with experience.

This is why I own a gun, because as the song goes on to say: Well I got the pistol so I'll keep the pesos/Yeah and that seems fair.

Park a Truck, Save a Child

Law curbs big rig idling; 5 minutes is maximum
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070419-0846-bn19idlingu.html

By Tanya Sierra
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
8:46 a.m. April 19, 2007

NATIONAL CITY – In an effort to reduce pollution in National City, officials passed a law this week that prohibits diesel trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds from idling more than five minutes.

The crackdown is aimed at stopping truck driving schools from practicing maneuvers and idling within 100 feet of a school, but also intends to reduce all truck idling in the city.

A man died in February after his family said exhaust from a Momax Truck Driving School big rig induced an asthma attack. Community members and Kimball Elementary School teachers rallied the City Council to prevent this from happening again.

Environmental Health Coalition activists want the new law named after Javier Jimenez, the man who died.

It goes into effect in 30 days.


And you thought it was just about smoking, didn’t you?

Au contraire, mon frere, this is just the beginning. Anything that you do that could possibly have an ill-effect on others will be regulated, then outlawed.

Notice how it’s dressed up as “preventing pollution” in the first sentence, and even works in the trite “for the children” argument in the second paragraph, but then it reveals the true agenda of “making the world safe for everyone.” Newsflash: the world is dangerous. It’s big, has sharp edges, and is apathetic on a universal scale.

I love how the claims of the family of the man that died are accepted without any question. Sorry that the guy bit it, but how can you be so sure it was the truck exhaust? Unless that rig was in your kitchen, he was outside when it happened. Lots of asthma triggers outside:

• infections, usually those caused by a virus (e.g. colds or flu)
• allergens, most commonly from house dust mites, pets or pollen
• play and exercise, especially in cold weather
• emotions, such as excitement, fear or anger
• smoking
• changes in the weather (e.g. a cold spell)
• food allergens
• certain medications

Hmmm. Two triggers linked to colder weather. This was in February, you say?

“Community members and Kimball Elementary School teachers rallied the City Council to prevent this from happening again.”

I can see the presentation now: a really nice bulletin board with stenciled lettering at the top, a picture drawn by each protester connected by yarn, and those slightly corrugated pastel framing strips surrounding it all. They want to outlaw accidental death. Good luck with that.

Isn’t this the same ideology that insists that evolution is the engine of Life? Why, then, do they get so upset when Darwinism eliminates the weak? Just because he had an asthma attack “from a truck” and wasn’t killed by a badger doesn’t make it any less of a natural selection.

“Environmental Health Coalition activists”

Taken separately, none of those words bother me. Put them together, though, and they make me tic. I didn’t know if these were two or three loudmouthed “doctors” that give out opinions like prescriptions (changing them to fit the situation, if the simile wasn’t clear), or if this was a collection of neo-Luddite grassholes still pining for the Free Love days.

So I looked them up. http://www.environmentalhealth.org/

Environmental Health Coalition is one of the oldest and most effective grassroots organizations in the United States, using social change strategies to achieve environmental justice.

Asking the State to create new laws targeting those whose behavior you don’t agree with is not a social strategy; it’s a Socialist strategy. And what the hell is “environmental justice?” You’re lobbying to make sure the grass is equally green on both sides?

Mission Statement: EHC is dedicated to achieving environmental and social justice. We believe that justice is accomplished by empowered communities acting together to make social change. We organize and advocate to protect public health and the environment threatened by toxic pollution. EHC supports broad efforts that create a just society which foster a healthy and sustainable quality of life.

There you go with the justice thing again. If you’re using it the way I think you’re using it, you want everybody to be treated equally. Except for the truck drivers, of course. You want to “foster a healthy and sustainable quality of life”? What are the economic impacts of your little law, there? Are the drivers going to be able to keep up their quality of life? And “toxic pollution” is redundant, by the way.

EHC is a multi-issue organization, with each campaign united by the following beliefs and values:

• All people have the right to live, play and work in a safe and healthy environment.
No argument, here.

• All people have the right and responsibility to act to correct environmental damage and prevent future degradation.
I’m impressed that you remembered the part about personal responsibility.

• EHC represents the public interest and takes direction from the communities we represent.
No. You represent one particular set of interests. The public is a collection of individuals, all with their own agendas and goals. Some of those are diametrically opposed.

• Communities of color and poor communities are disproportionately affected by toxic materials used in the workplace and discharged into the air, land and water.
Oh yeah – ‘cause the smog in LA only clusters over the poor areas. I notice that you separated the otherwise implied correlation between communities of color, and those that are poor. Can we assume, then, that rich colored folks have the same environmental problems as poor white trash?

• Pollution prevention is the most effective approach to addressing the toxics crisis.
Who’s going to deliver the pollution prevention technology if all the trucks are parked?

• EHC supports the integrity of ecosystems and recognizes human dependence on them.
It’s not as delicate a balance as you want us to believe. Nature is infinitely adaptable. The presence of a rare beetle on some land is only of concern to entomologists, who don’t employ nearly as many people as the assembly plant that will be built there.

That reminds me of a funny story: I was in a shop that sold minerals as gifts, and one of their featured items was certain geodes that had water trapped in the bowl. The clerk was trying to impress us with the fact that the water inside the crystal was “millions of years old.” My buddy held up an ice cube from his drink. “So’s this.”

• EHC promotes community and worker right-to-know about toxic chemicals.
Can I get a couple of Material Safety Data Sheets from you?

• It is the government's duty to enact and enforce laws to safeguard the environment, worker and public health.
Broadly, yes. It does not mean that you have the right to ban anything that may upset your histamine levels.

Groups like this use the word “rights” a lot, but that word has been stretched like so much taffy to encompass a lot of different things. Usually what is meant is: “I want that. I deserve that. And you can’t deny me.” It’s more about greed and selfishness than anything else. These people want the nanny-state to enact laws that reduce our society to the lowest common denominator, so they can feel better about themselves.

Right.

Just Wondering

Which Liberal group is going to get the most press out of this incident at Virginia Tech? The hand-wringing pseudo-psychologists that will blame it all on video games, or the Socialistic Utopians that will try to use it as an excuse to erase the Second Amendment? It’s real simple, people: If video games influenced behavior, I’d be gobbling up glowing dots and running away from ghosts. Similarly, laws do not change behavior, they only regulate it. Making it illegal to own a gun will not stop someone who has already determined that they’re going to break the law. Ever notice how these massacres occur when a person with a gun goes into a gun-free zone such as a school? Why aren’t there ever firefights at a police station or a gun store? If you want to proscribe something to make it harder for this sort of thing to happen again, take a cue from the kid’s notes and outlaw rich kids and their debauchery. That seems to be what made him snap.

If I run over a man wearing camouflage, can I claim I didn’t see him?

I know the cure for an earworm is to listen to the song. Anyone know a good way of getting rid of soundbite-sized memes? I’ve got that stupid “More cowbell!” phrase banging around in my head.

I totally support Don Imus’s right to say whatever the hell he wants to. I also support the market forces that levy the consequences of his exercising that right. His first mistake was insulting the team for no reason; that was just mean-spirited. His second mistake was groveling to Al “Dig my shiny suits” Sharpton. It takes a race-baiter to know one, I guess. Has Big Al come out against gangsta rap lyrics yet? Anyone? Listening to Mr. Tawana Bradley and The Very Reverend Jesse “Shakedown” Jackson talk about racism is like a black fly in your Chardonnay. (Can I say “black”, Al and Jesse?) Keep in mind, Rainbow Coalition anagrams to: RACIAL BOON - I OWN IT.

Scientists have developed a Flu vaccine by genetically-engineering caterpillars rather than infecting millions of hen eggs each year. It’s a safer, slightly-faster process, and is just really freaking cool. I’m curious, though – will PETA shut up now that the hens are being left alone, or are we to feel sorry for the yellow-striped fall army worms, too?

I saw where two teens with balls of steel broke into Ted Nugent’s house. Will Shemane title her next book To Serve Man?

If you have a Mustang, please do not drive fifteen miles under the speed limit. I could easily make a case for justifiable homicide.

Ever just wake up in a mood where you spend all day at the office fantasizing about stapling your coworkers’s lips to the wall? I did today. I’d watch them try to pry themselves loose with one of those steel-fanged staple removers, and when they finally pulled free, I’d laugh and buy them a snack cake.

Happy tax day, everyone!

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s entirely reasonable – considering that 20% of my paycheck is already withheld for Federal, State, and Local taxes before I even see it; there are property taxes on top of that; there’s currently about a 30% tax on gasoline; I pay a 6% sales tax on everything else I buy – to take my 1040 and, rather than carefully filling it out, scrawling in big Sharpie .44 Magnum bold bad black: NO SOLICITORS.

Only the government can get away with making you do all of the work of tracking receipts, calculating bizarre percentages of disparate lines on separate pages, isolating target numbers in several pages of small-print charts, comparing those numbers to certain utopian ideals, doing it all over again on individual forms for special deductions, and then tell you that by subtracting line 39b(i), subclause 3, paragraph 29-E from line 2 means that they didn’t steal enough from you already, and you owe them even more.

You know how it works in Russia? You remember Russia – the “evil empire” famed for its Socialist ideologies? Here’s how it works in Russia:

Step 1: How much did you earn this year?
Step 2: What’s 13% of that?
Step 3: Mail that in, please.

That’s only slightly more complicated than:

Step 1: Steal underpants.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit.

The beauty of the flat tax system is that it’s entirely fair. Everyone pays the same percentage. There’s no griping about tax cuts only benefiting the rich, a fallacy that tickles me every time I hear it. If you don’t understand how our current tax system works, look up “Ten Men Went to Dinner.” You’ll see the difference between comparing percentages and comparing actual numbers.

I digressed a bit, and I’ve totally ignored the work that would go into making it a reality, but I really do support a flat tax. The public serpents that represent me in Congress know that I do. I don’t really expect them to act on it, but I’ve participated, so at least I can bitch. Same reason I vote, really.

Next year, the .44 Magnum won’t be a pen.

Better Living Through Technology

It's such a small thing. One wouldn't even think it would have that much of an impact. But it does.

It's probably the thing that has led to the most strife in the domestic bliss that is my marriage.

It's the thermostat.

They say that opposites attract, and that was certainly the case when she and I got together. Apparently, my wife's normal core temperature is equivalent to one of your smaller nuclear explosions, while I am basically a sleastack (a humanoid reptile for you non-Kroft fans). So a comfortable room temperature is the subject of much lively debate.

We've accepted the fact that neither one of us is going to convince the other by reasoned argument, so we've taken to waging a very passive-aggressive war. We conduct circumspect raids on the lever that regulates our environment, and just wait for the other to notice. At some point during the day, usually while she's crouching naked in the chest freezer, it will occur to her to check the thermostat. I, on the other hand, am usually oblivious until I can no longer blog because I have to scrape the frost off of the monitor, and my mittens make it impossible to type.

It makes for a fun day. She's hanging meat in the closet, and I'm raising orchids in the bathroom.

As you can imagine, it gets even better on long car trips. Hell, it's even fun on short drives. If we argue over the correct temperature for the palatial Cat estate (Bad Manors), it gets exponentially more strident when we're sharing 18 square feet. The running joke is that if she's driving when we leave the grocery store, we don't have to rush to get the frozen foods home, whereas if I'm at the wheel, our dinner will be cooked by the time we get back.

Our children are somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to getting dressed in the mornings. We'll usually find them wearing shorts over their thermal underwear, or a bathing suit and earmuffs. It's kind of cute, actually.

At night, you'll find me buried under two blankets and a quilt, while Mrs. Cat is lagbolting a surplus wind-tunnel turbine over the hole she's chopped in the wall. Invariably, she'll snuggle up to me for a few seconds, then push away in disgust with a "Yuck! You're sweating on me!" At least, I think that's what she says. It's hard to hear over the turbine.

We were looking at new cars the other day, and while most people would ask about gas mileage, horsepower, or expected maintenance, our sole consideration was whether it had split temperature controls. One did, so I think we're going to go with the van.

We may have to sleep in it.

57 Channels and Nothin’ On

I stopped watching television about two years ago, and I have to say, I haven’t missed it. There are a few shows I’ve caught on DVD, so I’m not completely out of the loop, but I’m not one to anxiously await the finale of American Idol or the season premiere of Lost. I just don’t care.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when we moved into our new office building, and installed a 36” flat-screen in the break room. Now I get to hear Bob Barker, Judge Judy, and about 14 million car commercials drifting down the hallway. Bliss.

Even better, when I’m trying to eat lunch in peace, someone will regularly come in and say “Let’s see what’s happening in the world.” They then proceed to grab the remote, and unleash the steaming pile of broadcast dreck that is the local news show.

There’s got to be some manual that every local news station follows, because they’re all exactly alike. Problem is, it’s a bad manual, because they’re all execrable.

The futuristic station logo fades in, framing some montage shots of “Your! Action! News! Team!” racing around downtown with serious looks on their faces. These shots are usually tilted, and invariably show the news van zipping by, ostensibly to cover some Thing that’s Happening Now! Impressive-voiced Announcer Guy introduces the crew as their pictures appear. Even those images are all the same. You could turn on the local news in some town you’ve never been in before, and just by looking at the poses and faces of the team, know who holds what position. Dark suit and tie/arms crossed/penetrating gaze/avuncular smile? Anchor. Pastel blouse/holding a pen/slightly lost look/warm smile? Co-anchor/eye candy. Neutral suit and no tie/intense delivery? Weatherman. Too small suit jacket/bad haircut/perpetually-surprised look? Sports. And the whole hackneyed presentation is underscored by the same gripping-yet-upbeat music, sounding suspiciously like the “Try Me!” preset on some of the nicer Casio keyboards.

One of my biggest complaints about these shows is that they take themselves way too seriously. They know that except for the odd four-alarm fire downtown, or if they’re really lucky, a serial killer taking up residence in their coverage area, most of what they report on doesn’t matter. It’s boring, and changes nothing. They make up for this by imparting the same degree of gravitas to every story.

Have you ever noticed that everything they mention is an “ordeal?”

Traffic jam on the local thoroughfare? It’s an ordeal for the commuters.
Someone’s suing City Hall? It’s an ordeal for the Assemblymen.
New zoning laws? It’s an ordeal for the local developers.
Plagues of locusts and rivers turning to blood? It’s an ordeal for the local fish hatcheries.

Maybe you missed that day in Journalism 101, but when you use the same word to describe everything, it loses impact. Get a fucking thesaurus.

Another suggestion: don’t tease the viewers. Don’t put off the big story until the end, and make us sit through 25 minutes of filler. “Today, the President announced a new budget initiative that will dramatically affect your paycheck starting next week. But first, is your goldfish psychic? We’ll hear from a local woman that says she knows the answer.”

The answer’s “no,” you imbecile. All sane people know that the answer is “no.” The woman is obviously off her meds, and you should be forced to share in her course of psychotropics just for encouraging her.

Something else: provide context where needed, and don’t manufacture local links to national stories. If there’s a riot going on in Cheyenne, Wyoming, we don’t need the opinion of some local shitkicker whose third cousin knew a guy in prison that was an extra in the background of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That kind of context is pointless. The bitch of it is, I know that you know it’s pointless. Why do you do it? If your professional pride has fallen that low, just eat a bullet during your time slot. It’d be a hell of a lot more entertaining.

A good example of relevant context is during your weather segment. Show us what’s happening within the scope of your radar, then pull back to the national map so we can see how it all fits together. I hate seeing that miniscule sliver of light green over my ZIP code on your screen (“Just a little drizzle, folks.”), then going online to find that it’s the advance scout for several dozen F6 tornadoes, and that everything west of the Rockies no longer appears on the map. Conversely, don’t show me all the intimidating reds and oranges of the supercell thunderstorm currently pounding us without also showing how it’s moving at 90 miles per hour, and will be in the neighboring county before your weather guy has finished hyperventilating about emergency rations and batteries for the flashlight.

I’ve marked a scary trend, too. The broadcasts keep multiplying. Turn on the 6 AM news, and you’ll see ads for their 7 o’clock show. At 7, they give you snippets of their noon program. At lunch, they’ll inform you what stories their 5 o’clock crew will report on. When 5 rolls around, you’re told that the exact same stories will be repeated at 6. And at 6 o’clock, you’ll get hints about their day’s wrap-up at 11. Good lord, people. I don’t listen to my wife that much, and I love her (hi, honey!). I know news programs are the cheapest to produce, but come on! Even with the fact that you’re on my screen six hours each day, by the time you’ve noticed a potential news item, have sent the interns ferreting out some facts, shot some film, written some pithy comments, and sat your piles of clothing in front of the TelePrompTer, I’ve gone online and gotten the whole story, the background, the opinions of a multitude of informed people about the ramifications, as well as commentary from passers-by. You are no longer relevant, and your multiple appearances throughout the day don’t change that. Have the balls to announce:

“Instead of repeating ourselves ad nauseum all day, we’ll tell you in the morning if anything noteworthy happened while you were asleep, we’ll touch base at noon for a few minutes just to catch you up on some headlines, and then we’ll leave it to the professionals until 11, when we’ll give you an overview of the day’s events, followed by the weather forecast and a few ball scores. Otherwise, feel free to channel surf.”

I actually kind of feel sorry for these would-be Woodwards. I’d like to think that they had higher aspirations than being a three neighborhood celebrity making personal appearances at Church socials, Chamber of Commerce meetings, and sad parades, their rictus grins troweled on each evening like the pancake makeup that hides the broken veins and mottled skin from the hothouse klieg lights in the studio, the way the nice suits and power ties try to hide the broken soul and mottled morals, the all-too-human failings and compromises greedily seized upon and exploited by the geometrically-perfect…unblinking…unforgiving lens.

Then I remember how much they annoy me, and I feel compelled to ridicule them.

Just Wondering

If men who drive fancy, expensive, high-performance cars are generally believed to be compensating for a small penis, how come men in crappy, cheap, barely-functioning vehicles aren’t given the opposite consideration?

A little S&M never hurt anyone. Think about it.

Speaking of consistency, why do environmentalists tell us to believe the scientific community when it comes to global warming, but not when it comes to irradiated or genetically-modified food?

Remember, you can’t spell “Hillary” without “liar.”

Ever notice that whenever the Left has a rally, there are always about a dozen different causes being fronted, no matter the stated intent of the march? Makes you wonder how many people would actually be out there annoying the passers-by if we made a “one cause per protest” rule. Perhaps their support isn’t as large as they want you to believe.

ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR all grouse that FOX has an agenda. If they’re all saying the same thing, what’s theirs?

Didn’t Alanis Morissette already cover “My Humps?” I thought it was called “You Oughtta Know.”

If you’re curious as to what life would be like with a Democratic President, Democratic Congress, and a Democratic-appointed Supreme Court, take California during Gray Davis’s reign and multiply it by the other 49 states. Or just use the current governor, if that’s easier.

If Bush wants to play high-stakes poker with Congress, shouldn’t he at least have a pair?

ICANN has again rejected the petition to create a .xxx domain specifically for pornography, claiming that “its creation could set ICANN up as a potential regulator of content on the Internet, which is not in its mandate.” This didn’t stop them from organizing .com, .biz, .org, .gov, or .edu. Perhaps they should change their name to ICANT.

I see that Congress may soon be voting on whether to outlaw our favorite icon of inspiration - the lowly incandescent bulb - in favor of the sexy new CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps). Quick question: if your toddler knocks over the lamp, would you rather just have a little bit of broken glass and a wire, or an EPA HAZMAT Class 8 mercury spill? I think I’d prefer using a broom and dustpan than to have my living room declared a superfund site.

I visit a good half-dozen news aggregate sites each day. This increases the chance that some actual information slips through the BritneyAngelinaParisAnnaNicoleLindsey coverage.

Seems that some of the post-literate My Space crew have started a website called Writers Mafia. (I was impressed despite myself; I only found three grammatical mistakes in a cursory glance.) They’re gonna TXT you an offer you w0nt undr5t4nd. Leave the gun. Take the ellipsis.

The Time to Act is Now!

There is no more important cause than the call to action to save our planet. This is a movement about change, as individuals, as a country, and as a global community. We are all contributors to this phenomenon, and we all need to be part of the solution. Join our supporters, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce Continental Drift now.

If you’re not already convinced that Continental Drift is an issue that you need to care about, consider this:

200 million years ago, all land area on the planet was concentrated into one massive continent called Pangaea, surrounded by a pristine ocean named Panthalassa. There was no hunger, no want, no human rights violations, no domestic violence, no hate crimes, no pollution, no animal cruelty. No wars were fought by greedy and oppressive governments. Hypocrisy, spin, and junk science didn’t exist.

Over the next 190 million years, this Edenic land slowly broke apart into individual continents, eventually assuming their current positions, with all their concomitant problems and strife. Our selfish short-sightedness has generally assumed that these are stationary positions, but Continental Drift is still ongoing today.

100% of the scientific community agrees, Continental Drift is a fact. Even those whose disciplines and specialties have nothing to do with geophysical forces, and wouldn’t know a karst characterization if it bit them on the ass, eagerly parrot the party line, if only to preserve their grant funding. I’d remove this part before posting. Editor

If the opinions of people with letters after their names don’t sway you, take a look at the following illustrations. They are every bit as convincing as cherry-picked data displayed on graphs engineered to exacerbate y-axis disparity.

Let’s look at that last image a little more closely:



As you can see, if Continental Drift were to be allowed to continue, the Westernmost tip of Alaska will crash into the Easternmost edge of Russia. The momentum of the collision will push the prevailing mass of the continental plate around in a clockwise fashion, until Mexico meets China. You think the US has a problem keeping a lousy 20 million Mexicans out of their country, wait until they have to try and stop a billion Chinese. Japan will end up being a suburb of Los Angeles, and North Korea will be close enough to North America that even its crappy little missiles will constitute a threat.

Canada will find itself in a temperate zone once again, and will sue for the return of their topsoil, crashing the US agricultural industry and judicial system at the same time.

Cambodia will see its economy explode as it imports drugs from Colombia and whores from Thailand. Shortly after, it will be obliterated by armed pimps from Las Vegas, who don’t like competition.

Australia will be scooped up by the lacrosse-stick pocket that is Argentina, and lateraled up to be wedged between Peru and Madagascar, impaled by India’s southern tip. Kangaroos will be integrated into the Hindu system, and koala bears will migrate into Brazil, destroying the coffee crops.

These are just a random sampling of the catastrophic effects that will occur if we continue to ignore this problem.

Simple steps you can take to help:

Change your driving habits
If you are traveling West on the North or South American continents, take great care not to brake too hard; this adds momentum to Drift. Similarly, those traveling East should drive faster and brake harder, offsetting the Western thrust. Opposite directions apply to those traveling across Eurasia.

Lose Weight
The classic formula P=mv means that momentum (P) is a function of mass (m) times velocity (v). Every pound you lose dramatically decreases the total momentum of Drift.

Purchase Drift Offsets
If you are unable (or unwilling) to significantly decrease your own personal consumption, you need not feel guilty. For a small fee, you can arrange for an equivalent mass of biomatter to be destroyed. It may be one old-growth tree in the rainforest, or several children starving to death in Africa, but however it works out, you can sleep soundly, knowing that you did your part, and are safe from charges of being hypocritical.

Blame America
Despite not having the largest population, or land area, or natural resources, America still has the most money of any other country in the world. Saving the planet isn’t going to be cheap, and by blaming America, you can use the resulting guilt as a lever into its collective checkbook. Insisting that America take the lead in crippling its economy to try and fix a naturally-occurring process, while not producing any measurable effect on the nominative issue, will at least take it down a few pegs, and be good for some laughs.

No Kids Allowed

There’s a restaurant in Chicago that has taken a bold stand, and I fully support their position. I hope to see it spread nationwide.

Dan McCauley, the owner of a local café, A Taste of Heaven, caught two kids literally climbing the restaurant walls while the parents just sat nearby doing nothing. He told the family that they were no longer welcome to dine there. The next morning, he posted a sign in the window reading “Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven."

The sign has provoked many reactions, both for and against his position. Some parental groups have even called for a boycott of the café.

As I stated, I support Mr. McCauley’s decision, but I don’t think it’s enough. Consider:

- Children are noisy. I hate going into a restaurant and being subjected to their shrieks and cries. There is also some real concern that extended exposure to the high-pitched decibels can lead to serious health risks like tinnitus.
- Children are messy. The sight of their food-covered faces puts me off of my meal.
- One of my friends was hit by a fork thrown by a child, and had to have stitches. Clearly, children pose a physical danger to other patrons.
- As a parent, it shows a frightful lack of personal responsibility to allow your children to negatively impact others’ dining experience.
- Children’s Advocacy Groups are merely pushing their own opinions on the rest of us, without considering the societal impact of their recommendations.

It’s obvious, isn’t it? We should ban children completely from restaurants. I imagine that we could even expand the ban to all public places. How much damage is caused by children in grocery stores and malls? Anything that is broken is lost revenue, and employees have to spend more time picking up after the kids, which impacts efficiency. All of this is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

Don’t even get me started on kids in cars. They are a dangerous distraction to the drivers. Their demands for attention, spills, and yelling can lead to accidents, driving up both insurance and health care costs. We should no longer allow children in cars.

Places where children gather together in large groups, such as day care centers, schools, summer camps, and parks, should be closed down immediately. They are nothing more than disease reservoirs. If one child gets sick, they all get sick, and spread the illness to their families, who pass it on to coworkers, etc. The children are creating hazardous conditions for any patron, but especially for the employees, who have a higher exposure rate.

Children are expensive, too. In fact, the top three governmental expenditures every year are: #1, Social Security; #2, various family support programs such as Welfare; and #3, the Department of Education. By way of comparison, the Department of Defense ranks #4 in spending. Obviously, families with children cost society more money than those without. We should eliminate the tax credits for kids, and instead impose a tax penalty, to recoup some of that money. It’s only fair to ask them to shoulder the burden of paying for the system they are driving to the breaking point. In addition, individual families should be sued, with the money going to bolster Planned Parenthood programs to help people break the habit of live births.

Obviously, some families will insist that they have the right to take their kids with them anywhere they go. They’ll whine about “free markets”, “property-owner rights” and “individual choice.” It is equally obvious that these people are selfish, and have no concern for others. Therefore, I will be petitioning my city council to turn these suggestions into laws.

After all: It’s because of the children.

Amber Alert: George Bush's Balls

With Madame Speaker willfully violating the Logan Act, will the President have the cajones to charge her when she returns from Syria? Yeah, right.

You can disagree with the man's politics all you want, but there are still rules, people. Of course, silly me; Congress makes the laws just for we little people.

If the POTUS isn't willing to build a wall on the Mexican border, can we at least get one around D.C.? Y'all can play politics all day and the rest of us will go on with our lives in the Lollipop Guild.

I'm going to take this opportunity to start an Internet rumor:

[rumor]A buddy of mine was talking to his friend, and his friend told him that he read a blog from someone who works in the cafeteria of one of the offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. This person overheard two Border Patrol Agents talking about how Pelosi was an undercover agent, and was pursuing a drug-running coyote from Mexico that had Middle Eastern sources. [/rumor]

If past performance is any indication, George should have her jailed as soon as her plane touches down, with no pardon forthcoming.

I am so tired of the Bush family. They all talk a good game, but none of them have shown that they can multitask. I support the goals of the Iraq War, but I would've dusted off the Dresden strategy a long time ago. Any chance we can get General Pace on the ticket for '08?

And if Karl Rove is such a political genius, why hasn't he done anything to address the open treason from Congress, arranged responses to the trumped-up criticisms and non-scandals, or at the very least gone on FOX news once a week to present the Administration's side of things? What a putz.

Tony Blair is no better. I expect any day now that the Brits will offer to exchange him for the 15. This will be after the U.K. upgrades its response to Iran from "curt" to "terse."

Seems the only leader in the Anglosphere with any backbone is Australia's John Howard. I would support an Amendment to Article II, Section I, Clause 5 if we could get Howard as President, but I'm afraid we'd end up with that Austrian moron out in California, that Republican-of-Convenience, that Kennedy-programmed Terminator.

Okay, Pubbies - prove me wrong. I triple-dog dare ya.

Don'cha Know

So I’m heading in to McDonald’s, already salivating at the thought of a hot, peppery chicken breast on a flaky, buttery biscuit (great – now I’m hungry), and I find myself in line behind some Midwestern morons. How do I know they’re Midwestern? They all have that Frances McDormand Marge Gunderson “Oh do ya, now?” accent. How do I know they’re morons? Heh.

First of all, they’re dressed identically. Grampy and Grammy, Dad, Mom, and Junior are all wearing maroon nylon jogging suits. Just appearing in public like that makes me automatically knock several standard deviations off your acuity gauge. Now, I understand that some people like to coordinate outfits if they’re going to some large tourist attraction, so as to more easily spot their families in the crush, but McDonald’s just ain’t that crowded, folks. If you’re losing track of each other inside that 35-foot land zeppelin you disembarked from, maybe you shouldn’t be out on our scenic highways and byways, hmmm?

Clue #2 that these people are dragging their knuckles along on the left side of the Bell curve is the fact that they have to ponder the menu. It’s McDonald’s, idiots. It’s the same menu here as it is in Minot. That’s sort of the whole point of franchising; they want you to be able to get your favorite artery-clogging comestibles wherever you go. It’s a security thing, dig? To paraphrase Neal Stephenson, “No surprises” is the unofficial motto of every franchise, so it shouldn’t be that difficult a transaction. Oh, and don’t wait ‘til the till pops open, and then try to change your order. The automaton behind the register doesn’t have the freedom to fix it solomente. He’s going to have to flag down the manager, who is signing for deliveries, fixing the time clock, and doing inventory. All this in addition to shouldering the load of the two people that failed to show. That means that the whole system crashes to a halt because you suddenly realized that iced coffee was available as an option. One would’ve thought that the big banners outside, the centerpiece on the menu board, and the signs affixed to each register would’ve clued you in before now. I’m guessing that your contributions to the total mental capacity of society are past their expiration date. Appreciate it, but feel free to wait for the wolves on the hill as the industrial collective drives on.

Third sign is that after they place their order, they stay planted. All five of them hogging the prime real estate in front of the cashier. Break it up, people. This isn’t some rugby scrum, and nobody’s gonna make off with your hash browns and senior coffees. Leave Dad to handle the transport issues with the tray, let Mom acquire the creamers, napkins, and other gustatory accoutrements, and send the elders off with Junior to secure seating. If you really are headed to some merriment Mecca, you aren’t going to last fifteen minutes. You need to be able to exhibit the same situational awareness and tactical adaptability as your average SEAL team making a daylight incursion behind enemy lines to blow a bridge. Otherwise, the only thing those snazzy outfits are good for is to help the coroner figure out who belongs together. This is America, and we take our leisure activities very seriously. You create a bottleneck at the entrance to Whitewater Canyon because you can’t decide whether to go left to Boring History Lodge or right to Plastic People Marketing Overkill Village, and you will be ground into the pavement so hard, the forensics team won’t be able to differentiate between your molars and the antique pearls on Grammy’s necklace.

Otherwise, enjoy your trip.