Friday, April 29, 2011

Friday, April 22, 2011

I Had Big Plans


When I started this blog. Woo University was going to be a clearinghouse dedicated to the mockery of anti-science, particularly of the creationist and Intelligent Design variety. The students would be idiots and the staff even bigger idiots. My first post would feature Dr.Dr. Bill Dembski as the football coach. Invariably Woo University would lose every football game and at the following meeting Bill would cover the whiteboard with a complicated series of precise probability calculations and applications of Information Theory to prove that Woo University couldn't possibly have gotten their asses kicked the previous Saturday. Mathematically, it was impossible - hah!hah!Hah! hah!Hah!. Man, it was going to be great. I was going to sell T shirts and everything. I even had a mascot - The Wed Wooster of Woo University. I would be admired and loved across the whole wide web.

Then halfway thourgh the first post as the fundamental disconnect between my brain and my fingers started to assert itself, I began to realize that the whole concept was kind of a one trick pony. A lame one at that and that the joke was an inside one. So far inside that it was barely perceptible as humor, even to me. So I began to regret the choice of Woo University almost right off the bat and if I didn't think it would throw my readers (Thanks, hon) off I would change the title to something like this:

The True Unbeliever
Almost There
Hey - Over Here!
Random Access
Surely Uncertain
Sit Down and Shut Up
In No Way Shape or Form
Somewhat Intelligible
Almost English

Sunday, April 17, 2011

I Wonder


Passing through Gettysburg after picking up one of the grandkids :

"That's the town Grampy Scrip used to live in"

"He died"

"Yeah, I showed you where he was buried a little bit ago."

"He's with God, in Outer Space."

"Uh, yeah, I guess so"

That's the problem with bringing up your kids in the "Shit, I Don't Know School of Theology - you never know where anyone stands these days. Used to be we all grew up with one or the other consistently absurd explanations for why we are and what we will be. I have no idea what to say - I get in enough trouble with The Mother over snacks and fucking up the kid's hair. I was playing with Estella and hiding one of her Burger King...uh... toys. She told me that if I didn't give her back her Egg Snapper, God would surely kill me. In a dream. (Hah, I'd like to see him try - although my Uncle Jack did go that way. In his sleep, anyway). We got all sorts of grandkids but this is the only one that seems to live in some sort of weird dream time and the only one that seems to think about God. I'm gonna miss lil' Estella when she moves to California.

"We went Outer Spacing in school and we found God."

"That's nice."

"We also saw the moon - there's poop on the moon!"

"Don't be silly. There's no poop on the moon."

But...I wonder. There were people on the moon. And where there are people poop cannot be far behind. Did we just leave a flag, some footprints and a golf ball behind? Or did someone leave a little something something to mark some territory and to show future spacefarers that, yes, WE WERE HERE?


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Foodies




On the ride back after picking up one of the grandkids -(italics are, of course, sub-vocal) :

"My Mommy is a vegetarian."
"Really?"
"I'm a vegetarian, too."
"That's nice"
"I'm hungry"
"Wanna stop at McDonalds?"
"I'm not allowed to eat at McDonalds. Mommy won't let me."
(oh, Christ ) "Well, what do you want to eat?"
"I want a hot dog."
(what the hell? do they even make vegetarian hot dogs? If they do I bet they suck)
"I don't think any of these places have hot dogs. How about a sandwich from Quiznos?"
(from my co pilot and lovely wife) "She won't find anything in there that she likes"
(Hey, I'd like you to be quiet )
"Mommy lets me eat at Wendy's"
(Jesus fucking Christ - that's where I was headed in the first place and really, what's the difference? I suppose the snack bar at Target was totally out of the question)
"Okey-dokey, Wendy's it is"

I've since discovered that, once she dispensed with the obligatory initial protestations, this kid will eat anything that remotely resembles food. Now, I've raised enough kids to know that I don't really know anything about anything and I won't presume to tell The Mom how to raise her kid but I can't remember making a big deal about diet with any of the kids and none of them turned out to be sickly fatties. Nothing wrong with moderating sugar and fat to a point but when you get right down to it a calorie is a calorie. And kids are kids. And the more you tell them they can't have it, the more they'll go looking for it.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

A Few Modest Proposals


"Over the last two years since President Obama has taken office, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs and if some of those jobs are lost in this, so be it,"
                                                                                             John Boehner (R-I hate my job)
We need to slash government spending (i.e. Government jobs) and put people out of work and on unemployment now so that at some time, somehow, somewhere the "job creators" will create jobs because....uh.....THE MARKET!. It's not the lack of demand that is holding our "job creators" back it's the...uh... UNCERTAINTY! Mainly the uncertainty of having to pay people a living wage.


"If we act now, we can avoid disruptions for current seniors while advancing patient-centered reforms so Medicare will be strengthened for future beneficiaries. The alternative is the European-style death spiral of the welfare state: kick the can down the road as our debt explodes. Under an ever-expansive, all-consuming central government, costs will be contained with Washington's heavy hand imposing price controls, slashing benefits and arbitrarily rationing seniors' care. "
                                                                                  Paul Ryan (R-full of shit)

The Destroy the Village to Save the Village Bill to save Medicare. We can't afford it. Grandma can just as easily die in the street as in a nursing home and it's cheaper. If it weren't for Medicare spoiling everything the insurance industry would be lining up to offer old sick people affordable health insurance at reasonable rates. Not only that but by enriching these insurers who provide no actual health care we would ultimately lower health care costs for everyone because...uh...COMPETITION!.

" We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls people to lives of complacenc
­ies and dependenci­es, into a permanent condition where they never get on their feet,"
                                                                                        Paul Ryan (R-still full of shit)
The Really, Ricketts Weren't So Bad bill to save Medicaid. Block grants to the states. Really, the states are best able to determine minimum standards of care just like they are best able to determine minimum wages. You can vote with your feet - it's simple - if you need a transplant don't live in Arizona. If your baby gets hookworm, just put some shoes on her and walk her out of Mississippi. If a tsunami hits Malibu, wipes out the water supply and our stars and starlets come down with the bloody flux, well, too bad. When the money for toilet paper and Immodium runs out...uh...STATE'S RIGHTS! 

Ryan's Express to Dystopia

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

It's Assholes All the Way Down


So some asshole burns  a book and, in turn, another group of assholes incites a third larger group of assholes to kill 12 people who more than likely weren't assholes. All this publicized by our home grown media assholes. Wait a second...you don't think posting this makes me an asshole, do you? There really is no hope.

Monday, April 04, 2011

Odorless, Colorless... but Something Still Stinks


Charles Zogby, Corbett's budget Secretary was shilling for the new Republican budget proposals on Radio Smart Talk. Evidently we have to tighten our belts, cut state spending to get this budget shortfall under control in order to get this economy moving and put Pennsylvanians back to work. But first we have to put a lot of people out of work. You know, teachers, police, firefighters, EPA inspectors, those sorts of people. It's not like they're really working anyway.
      Some guy calls in and says - "Say, instead of laying off teachers and cutting state funding to education why don't we tax the companies extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation like every other state does." This elicits the response that the Governor intends to make Pennsylvania the "Texas of Natural Gas Production" (and the Mississippi of education). After all, if the gas companies aren't able to tear up the roads, pollute the water, overload the water treatment plants, take the gas, make a bunch of money and leave, without the inconvenience of taxes or adequate inspections,  they might just go drill somewhere else. Where are they gonna go? Some no tax state where there isn't any gas? I suppose we are idiots. We voted those clowns in.