Woo University

Look, I Wasn't Even There

2012-01-24T17:59:00.001-05:00

One's a slimy scum sucking bottom feeder and the other one's an amphibian

David "Not Tim" Gregory - Why you be lobbyin', Newt?

Oh, David, David, David. You poor simple boy. I already explained that I was hired by Fannie Mae as an historian, not a lobbyist. I know 1.6 million dollars may seem like a lot of money for a monograph titled Small Farm Forclosure Rates in the Oklahoma Territories During the Grant Administration but, to be fair, I did spend three years on it. And the request came in an unmarked envelope stuffed with 100 dollar bills so I never really knew until recently exactly who had hired me.

John "Slowpitch" King - blah, blah, blah, second wife.....blah blah blah....open marriage....would you care to respond?

I am outraged that you would lead off a presidential debate by telling everyone what a scumbag I am. I'll have you know these scurrilous attacks are nothing more than the liberally biased media's attack on the one Republican who can bring down that Socialist ~~nig~~...thug occupying the White House. These charges are patently untrue and as for the ones that aren't I've sought forgiveness from my Lord and Savior and I am a totally different person from that other person who didn't really do those things anyway. Ask my wife for permission to fuck around on her? That would be wrong.

Pretty sad when Rachael Maddow's the only one in the press core with a sack.

Back of the Class

2012-01-20T07:09:00.000-05:00

News Flash - we already done lost that war. At least those of us in the Special Ed economic class. Which is, oh, about 95% per cent of us. The advanced placement kids have all the luck. Most of them have cars that their Daddy's bought. Of course at least half of us deserve it, being too stupid to vote in our own self interest. Easily swayed by the politics of fear; some Mexican is going to take my shitty job, Muslims are coming, strange ones with funny hats, the Dems are going to take that little bowl of trickle down I got and give it to some Food Stamper. Politics of envy. Bullshit. How about politics of anger instead? Historically low tax rates for the wealthiest among us while Tea Partiers on Social Security and pimpled Libertarians living in Mom's basement continue to vote in a Congress whose only goal is to shred the social safety net and do away with it altogether. We aren't all going to be able to crowd into that 1%, no matter what we do or how hard we try.

That's the Republican playbook - get you so scared that you are going to lose what you already have, say Social Security and Medicare, that you will vote for people who plan to take it away anyway.

Worse Jobs Than Mine

2012-01-16T19:00:00.001-05:00

Had a bad week. The free (kinda) market system has been cruel to me. One second place after another (and no, second doesn't pay in my line of work). So when I'm feeling like a big fat loser I like to think about how some people have it worse.

Headlice picker

Iranian Nuclear scientist

Mitt Romney's dog.

Michael Jackson's doctor

Suicide bomber

Newt Gingrich's wife

My wife

Head of the SDS chapter at Liberty University

Chicken sexer

Paleontologist at the Creation Museum

Speech therapist at Gallaudet

Human Resources director at Bain Capital

Foot reflexologist at the Home for Crippled Children

David Barton's research assistant

Bob Barker's veterinarian

Caterer for the PETA annual banquet

Uday Hussein’s body double

Rick Perry’s debate coach

A Royal Bain in the Ass

2012-01-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

Campaign tip for the Mitster - spend some of that 200 million you got stashed on braces for those kids of yours. It looked like you were surrounded by a family of beavers. On to the speech (translated for your edification):

Today, we are faced with the disappointing record of a failed President. The last three years have held a lot of change, but they haven’t offered much hope.
Forget the 8 years before that.

And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, “It could be worse.”
It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse?
Elect me and you'll understand

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation. This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision. I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique -- We are One Nation, Under God.
Don't hate me because I had a rich daddy. You wish you had one too. Oh, and Yay Jesus

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense.
Fire at will

President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great.
Kiss your Social Security and Medicare goodbye

He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.
Kiss your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid goodbye

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America.
Kiss your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment benefits goodbye. If I don't need them you don't either.

Internationally, President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy. He believes America’s role as leader in the world is a thing of the past. I believe a strong America must – and will – lead the future.
He apologized to Bin Laden before he had him shot in the face

He doesn’t see the need for overwhelming American military superiority. I will insist on a military so powerful no one would think of challenging it.
Those Viet Cong are gone, aren't they?

He chastises friends like Israel; I’ll stand with our friends.
The rich ones, anyway

He apologizes for America; I will never apologize for the greatest nation in the history of the Earth.
Nor will I apologize for being such a dick

God Hates Indians

2012-01-05T20:31:00.002-05:00

There, I said it. Otherwise why would he kill them all off so we Americans could have a country where we can live free and bring our slaves with us? Now God wants Rick Santorum to be President. A few months ago it was Michelle Bachmann but she was too rabid-rat crazy even for God. Then Herman Caine until God tried the pizza. Then Rick Perry who threw a nice party for God and was tall, Texan and nicely coiffed. Just like God likes 'em. But God forgot to hook up the mouth/brain circuit on Texas Rick so he moved on to Newt, who pissed off God by claiming to be the smartest being in the universe. Now Rick Santorum is God's rep on earth, brought forth to make sure that women are free not to have abortions and gays are free not get married. God's all about the freedom. Rick will be the guy until God figures out how to work the Google. God can't seem to make up his mind. By process of elimination (which has been God's modus operandi for all time - if I weren't a religious person I would almost think that God doesn't care and just lets shit happen) it looks like God will settle for the Mormon guy. At least until he finds out about the whole ruling your own planet and becoming a god thing. That won't go over too well so the Muslim socialist wins again.

Just Like Mother Used to Make

2011-12-29T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sounds like a lab in Holland came up with an airborne strain of H5N1 bird flu through a little selective breeding. Should the specific sequence of events that led to this be classified? Absolutely. Should this experiment have been done. Again - absolutely. I believe the resulting strain took as little as five mutations to become airborne. Although nature doesn't target her results she's got a mighty big lab full of villagers with pigs and chickens and everything and all the time in the world to slice and dice and mix up something nasty. So just like it happened 100 years ago it's bound to happen again. Only that time we Americans were living with pigs and chickens and everything and despite blaming the "Spanish" for the whole thing we ended up knocking out 17 million with our own home brew (or not). So it was good work to determine in advance what an airborne pathogen could look like. Good work boys.

Something about the Time's comment section, particularly regarding science stories, brings out a self selected group of stupid motherfuckers. Maybe stupid is too harsh. How about willfully ignorant? But I stand by the "motherfuckers". A stupid motherfucker is someone who puts your and my kids at risk because they choose to remain willfully ignorant. There were more commenters wanting to kill all the scientists or free the ferrets than got the point of the whole experiment. An unfortunately large contingent thought it would be just dandy for the planet if half of us were killed off by the bird flu. I got kids - I don't share that view. The vast majority thought those naughty scientists should have their slide rules taken away. That, in their sociopathic arrogance, these braniacs with no common sense were meddling with forces with which man was not meant to meddle with. Or doing it to sell vaccines. Not realizing, of course, that scientists are just like you and me, only smarter. Not likely to risk having their kids spike a 107 degree fever and cough up a lung for the hell of it. The idea is to understand the evolutionary mechanisms in order to prevent that. It's not magic, people. It's not even rocket science.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Brainy

2011-12-15T18:29:00.000-05:00

Does my large brain make my head look fat?

The smart guy's Tom Delay. Bursting with ideas. So many ideas it takes a massive ego to corral them all. He's so smart he can even invent people:

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places,” said Newt Gingrich in an interview with the Jewish Channel."

Good ole Newt - been carrying The White Man's Burden (along with 60 pounds of lard) since grad school. You see, there where no Palestinians until the British gave them a name. Same with Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese. Those Brits - always fucking with someone. Until then the Palestinians were just a bunch of Arabs who happened to live in the same spot for 1500 years. Not like the Israelis, who, except for a brief 1900 year hiatus, always lived in the Holy Land. I wonder if we Americans are an invented people? Maybe I'll ask an Indian if I can find one.

Don't Spray Me, Bro!

2011-11-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

a spray on tanning session goes horribly awry

Sometimes I wish I knew what I was talking about. Hard to be the archetype wise old grandfather when you're not sure of anything at all.

(Watching the infamous pepper spray video at UC Davis with my granddaughter)

"That cop should be thrown in jail. Those kids are just sitting there and he's coating them with pepper spray.

What's pepper spray do?

It burns your eyes and skin.

Why didn't the police stop him?

He is the police.

I mean the other police.

I guess they were the only ones there. Looks like a peaceful protest to me.

What were they protesting?

Umm....uh.....I don't know...."

Of course the torture apologists come out of the wood work to defend the police acting with "proper protocol". Bullshit. Proper protocol is dragging them off to the paddy wagon if you feel you have to move them. Off course it looks like Officer Tubbs is too fat to bend over and tie his own shoe let alone drag a bunch of squirmy teenagers off the road. Color me disgusted.

Good Things Come in Threes

2011-11-16T19:46:00.000-05:00

Texican Governor Rick Perry has unleashed his latest plan to make America great again. He will uproot the three branches of government, shake their roots clean of bureaucratic filth and plant them in pure soil nourished by the blood of patriots where they will bring forth a new tree of liberty which we will call Teximerica. Oh yeah, and JOBS.

The Governor explains:

"I'm going to Washington to uproot and overhaul the three branches of government. The Legislative, the Judicial and ...you know... that other one...the one with the President in it... The ARMY!...The Legislative, Judicial and the Army."

The Governor continues:

"Unique to the Republican field, I have never been an establishment fighure, have never served in Congress or part of an administration, have never been a paid lobbyist, have never talked in complete sentences or forgot to comb my hair, have never read a book without pictures and have never gone jogging without packing a sidearm."

Poster from vjack

Perverts to the Left of Me - Perverts to the Right

2011-11-11T21:35:00.000-05:00

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. I've got to be the world's worst judge of character. First it was Anthony - D thanks a lot, my congressional hero, caught sending Weiner-grams and just last week I was telling the wife that even if Penn State is not a national contender at least they run the cleanest program in college ball. Say it ain't so, Joe.

Et tu -Hermanus? Cain didn't recognize his latest accuser. Maybe if he saw the back of her head it would jog his memory. Or possibly he could identify her by touch.

Even if half of what the grand jury heard is true the sick bastard is going away for the rest of his life. I guess being a defensive genius doesn't get you a free pass to anally rape children. Not a lifetime pass, anyway. What a strange bizarre compulsion. Sandusky had to know what he was risking. Disturbing. Even more disturbing is the cover up. A friend said it best - maybe Sandusky couldn't stop himself but there were people around him who could. Putting kids at risk to protect Penn State's reputation. Something is rotten on the inside and it goes far beyond this incident. When the perverse influence of big time college football money runs into actual eye popping perversion everyone acts all shocked. We shouldn't. The money - the militarism - the merchandise -unpaid boys risking injury to bring in the dough. The whole thing stinks. Wonder what the line for the Nebraska game is?

We are all a little stunned here at work, this being big time Penn State territory and all. Too stunned to even joke about it. One guy is so upset at Joe's firing that he won't let his kids go to Penn State. Another thinks Joe should sue for wrongful discharge. And some asshole thinks the circus was in town and Sandusky was actually caught with a midget and we all owe him a big apology. Sandusky, not the little person.

My E Receipt from K MART

2011-11-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

ITEM

QTY

PRICE

04318010937 NIGHTLIGHT

4.29 T

07200079007 TOWEL RING

BG 3.49 T

09072708097 SKELETON

3.99 T

03400036307 X-MAS CANDY

A 19.99 F

Salescheck:

Purchase date: 11/09/11

Tax:

.71

Total:

32.47

You can get a great deal on skeletons right after Halloween.
I was going to crank up the nightlight, munch on some candy
and admire my skeleton but I can't fit the skull through the
towel ring. I guess that's why most people accessorize with the
ceiling fan.

So Ha!

2011-11-08T20:03:00.001-05:00

That's what I get from my granddaughter when I make a minor factual error while I'm correcting her. Something along the lines of -

'Why didn't you clean up the Cheerios you spilled on the floor? -

They're not Cheerios, they're Rice Krispies - So Ha!'

'Didn't I tell you to turn off Big Time Rush and do your homework? -

It's not Big Time Rush it's Zeke and Luther - So ha!'

The 'So ha!' is the triumphant end of all argument. No amount of reason or rational argumentation will sway the 'So Ha!' moment. It is final. It is unassailable. I am defenseless against it. I sputter in impotent rage as she flounces off secure in her 'ah ha -ness'.

So the Republicans gave us the Reagan and Bush tax cuts coupled with two off the books wars and two unfunded mandates ( No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit) that gave us record deficits and the excuse to gin up a debt controversy to try to force the President to peel back social programs that date back to the New Deal. Of course no tax cuts - no deficit. But that's beside the point. Somehow it was seen as a political victory by the Republicans to force the issue to the super committee. I see it different. By a little political ju jutsu the Prez has got poor Speaker Boehner's head stuck in a corner while he whips his bare ass like a Texas judge. If the super committee fails what gets cut firstest and mostest?- why defense of course. Now Republican Congressmen can go home to their districts over the holidays and explain to all the defense workers (like my wife so you know I'm not exactly thrilled about this scenario) that their bases are going to be shut down because they refused to raise the taxes on millionaires. So Ha!

Shucks

2011-10-25T17:58:00.000-04:00

I was just pokin' a little fun. Don't you people have a sense of humor? Just like all the hoo hah about my huntin' camp being called Niggerhead. That's just what it's called. My daddy called it that, my grand-daddy called it that. Hell, everybody in these parts calls it Niggerhead. Cept maybe the coloreds. Speakin' a funny - how'd you like my new tax plan? I got it from some guy in a bow tie who was sportin' a bad case of acne so it's gotta be good. It's called a flat tax cause you can file it on a postcard and a post card's flat. Get it? And don't worry about paying for Social Security or Medicare cause there won't be none. That's nanny state stuff. Ya haveta excuse me - I gotta go find some more Mexicans in that heathen Romney's back yard.

Bonus Babies

2011-10-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

Charles Krauthammer, doing his best mini-Will impersonation, grumpily dismisses the Occupy Wall Street movement as the tantrums of a bunch of latte sipping English majors with bad credit. Subsequent investigation of the protesters indicate that most of them have jobs, unlike the retired Tea Partiers. Contrast these yahoos with the Tea Party participants. One worried that the implied contract that a college education would guarantee a job making enough money to pay off the college loans and the other worried that, uh, there's a Negro with a funny name in the White House. One angry that a base alignment of frightened bureaucrats and corporate malefactors have enriched themselves at the cost of the poor and middle class and the other angry that, uh, there's a Negro with a funny name in the White House. One just starting or about to start on a working career in an economy where the game is so rigged that hard work doesn't even guarantee a modicum of economic security and the other, at least half of whom depend on the federal government for their Social Security and Medicare, screaming at the government to keep its hands out of their Medicare. One makes their way to the city anyway they can and camps out in protest and the other glides in on Koch fueled buses and goes home to wait for the Social Security check. Wonder which one's bullshit?

A Fat Man for Lean Times

2011-10-06T12:28:00.001-04:00

the governor sweet talks America

I had the slogan all ready. Too bad the big boned guy pulled out of the race. Not that I would voted for him but I could have taken his campaign all the way. For a fee. A job's a job. As a recently fat guy I appreciate someone who is not afraid to speak the truth to Weight Watchers. Someone who could relate to the soft doughy center of America's middle. By the time I was done with Christie's campaign America would embrace its fatitude and man titties would once again become a badge of honor.

Some freebies for the Gov-
Chris Christie - fatitude with attitude
No second helpings - vote Christie
Loosen your belt America - Christie for President

Are You Ready for Some Goofball?!!!

2011-10-05T19:43:00.001-04:00

Who cares what that dumbass faux redneck thinks anyway? Merika do, that who. I'll bet that's one bit of ejaculate ole Hank Sr. wished he coulda took back. If Hank Jr. could sing better he'd put you in mind of a long haul Stars and Bars Alabama truck driver. You would think a self styled real American patriot who fancies himself a musician would learn to sing the national anthem. Steelers play off game some years ago - the absolute worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that I have ever heard. Worse than Roseanne's because he was evidently trying. Bad, spectacularly bad, so bad that the aural memory is seared forever in my neural circuits. So memorably bad that I can tell you what I was driving, what the weather was like, how much gas was in the tank, even how many birds were sitting on the telephone wire. 94 Toyota truck, sunny 70 degrees, 3/4 tank and 5. That's how bad it was..

Don't ask - Don't Make Sense

2011-09-28T12:38:00.000-04:00

I'm not telling and you can't make me

Rick Santorum (R - pugnant) - kicking out the jams debate style:

"I think it's it's - it's - look, what we're doing is playing social experimentation with - with our military right now. And that's tragic."

Experimenting bad. There's a right way and a wrong way. Just ask Mrs. Santorum.

"I would - I would just say that, going forward, we would - we would reinstitute that policy (Don't Ask Don't Tell), if Rick Santorum was president, period."

And if I were Jesus the whole world would have some baked trout, a fresh baguette and a nice bottle of white wine. And if Rick Santorum was president - we would be fucked. Period.

"That policy would be re-instituted. And as far as people who are in - in- I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in - in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was sex is not an issue. It is - it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it - keep it to yourself, whether you're a heterosexual or a homosexual."

If sex wasn't an issue in the good old days why was there a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy? Are soldiers supposed to leave it alone or keep it to themselves? Is Rick pro or anti masturbation? He needs to clarify this policy point. And if members of the military are prohibited from self identifying as heterosexuals or homosexuals you would think that would severely limit the pool of potential bullet stoppers.

Of Fundies and Foodies

2011-09-24T11:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not convinced that this is all that friendly of a planet. Granted, we've been around, on one form or another, for about 3.5 billion years but it seems to me that the whole setup is not here exclusively for our benefit. The world is full of microscopic creatures that view us a nothing more than a big smorgasbord full of protein and carbs. And, if past practice is any indication of future performance, we have maybe a couple of million years before we either fade away or change into something that we wouldn't recognize as us.

I don't get the idea of "natural". I don't see how anything can be "unnatural". And the idea that natural equates to safe is suspect. Most of the stuff that can get you is definitely natural, not the result of reactions to man made toxins. The Foodies, fundies, anti-vaxers, and various New Agers all share the idea of some sort of pristine natural archetype - for the Fundie it's the Garden, for the Foodie it's some mythical American past where we grew our own local organic food and for the Anti-vaxers it is evidently better to develop immunity by actually getting the disease than to prime your immune system with an inoculation There is a reason that Great grandpa could expect to live to be 47 and I can expect to push 70. And it has nothing to do with the natural foods movement and everything to do with mass immunization against childhood diseases and an efficient, safe, regulated supplemented food supply and science based medicine. Kids don't get pellagra, thyroid problems or have their teeth rot out from lack of fluoridation like in the good old days. Will I eat organically grown produce if it is similar in cost to the commercial stuff? Of course. It's not like I spray my salad with Raid before I chow down. I think factory farming for animals (mammals anyway) sucks. Am I frightened of genetically modified food? Not at all. Everything we eat is genetically modified. I don't see where cross breeding instead of genetic manipulation makes it any more safe. Will I get every vaccination that comes down the pike? Absolutely. The numbers don't lie. Statistically, getting the disease fucks you up way more than any potential adverse reaction. Is Big Pharma your friend? Probably not. But unlike Big Supplement the drug companies have to at least prove through clinical trials that their drugs have some sort of effect. I supported the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act when it came out. I was wrong. It's a snake oil scam. Like acupuncture, chiropractic and a whole host of other alternative treatments designed to separate people from their wallets.

But there is no talking to people. No convincing people, anyway. If your kid gets bacteremia from chicken pox, maybe you've learned your lesson. Too bad your kid had to learn it the hard way. The species may be engaged in an arms race with existing bacterial and viral scourges but chances are that you as an individual are just an expendable foot soldier. I had all the common childhood diseases and my mom had polio so I'm more than happy that we humans have found a way to game the system. I have found a lot of born aginer's seem to be into the natural supplement scene. I'm not sure if it's a congenital deformation of the reasoning circuits or maybe Amway. And there is an element of OCD to the whole thing. A search for purity in a decidedly impure world, where you can purify yourself by what you eat and how you live and keep the demons at bay. I know how it is. There is no way to reason your way out of thinking that the world is full of contamination. I may know in my mind that there is no way that doorknob could be dirty enough to infect me but I still feel as though it is.

*Graphic from Kansas Bob

Soul Snorer

2011-09-20T18:58:00.002-04:00

I have two big regrets in my life. One is Family Game Night and the other is Family Movie Night. Both were my ideas. I thought it would be a good idea to get together as a family and do some fun stuff on the weekend. I am an idiot. Not since Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeakquel have I put myself through as much pain as I did with this Saturday's viewing of Soul Surfer. (editorial disclaimer: As I reread this post (yes, I do reread these posts...sometimes) I have come to the conclusion that my comments are somewhat mean spirited. My intent was not to dis Bethany Hamilton - who is a courageous and inspirational young lady - my problem is with the packaging of her story - now back to our irregularly scheduled diatribe)

Every once in awhile I get suckered into one of these inspirational Christian movies, covertly Christian but not radically evangelical enough to piss off the Catholics and Jews. Something about the camera work gives it away - almost like a high def version of the Brady Bunch. I have the same reaction I do when I accidentally rent a movie they previously showed on the SyFy channel - Oh, shit... So young Bethany lives an idyllic life in an island paradise with loving parents and an active spiritual life, surfing and homeschoolin' the days away. She attends a beautiful open air chapel full of beautiful spiritual people. Beautiful white people with no so much as a pimple to be seen. The leper colony must be on the other side of the island. The fat ugly kids evidently have their own church. Probably not with a view of the ocean. Or maybe they don't go to church - that's why they're fat and ugly. A couple of dark colored people show up, mostly in the crowd scenes. There is one weird Hawaiian guy with a pompadour who shows up from time to time, no doubt a survivor of the the measles epidemic. He kills the shark (his people are good at that). He's OK with the haolies even though they stole his island and decimated his people. Why hold a grudge?

Miss Hottie, the youth minister, holds a vacation bible school class. She's hot but deep. Throughout the film she is Bethany's anchor to ...uh...spirituality. She explains through a slideshow and well timed quote from Jeremiah 29.11 -For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Bethany takes this to heart, thinking "I wonder if God is going to send a shark to bite my arm off to make me a more complete person?" And darn if that isn't exactly what happens.

So Jesus needed a hand in heaven and they rush poor Bethany to the hospital after she loses like 98% of her blood but she survives and the Doc proclaims it a miracle. No doc, if she grew the arm back it would be a miracle. But, then again, I set my miracle bar higher than most. But the doc is Craig T. Nelson - so whattya gonna do? Pretty much the rest of the film concerns Bethany’s struggle to adjust to her disability and learn how to surf again. Asking my wife how Bethany shaves her armpit earned me a withering look. Not the first withering look of the film but definitely the most withering. Miss Hottie (Carrie Underwood) the youth minister who runs disaster tours to help the world's downtrodden decides Bethany needs cheering up and takes her on a missionary trip to an area where thousands of people have died in a tsunami. There, Bethany bonds with some kid who is traumatized by the drowning of his entire family and takes him surfing. Dr. Phil would approve. Bethany goes home, loses a surfing contest but wins the hearts of her countrymen and my disabled grand daughter. So, once again, I find myself caught between religion and a hard place. Thank God my wife tends to the kid’s spiritual needs while I get to snipe from the sidelines.

The moral of the story? It’s cool to be Christian.

Reason to see this film? Neat surfing footage

Reason not to see this film? – Dennis Quaid

Cheese rating? - Full wheel

Heroes

2011-09-15T18:03:00.000-04:00

More pep rally morality. The talking heads prod our emotions, nodding gravely at this and that, cheapening not only grief but rendering the word " hero" all but meaningless. Does anyone really believe that those poor souls on United 93 were trying to keep the plane from crashing into the Capitol? They knew what the score was and they knew their only chance at survival was to take control of the plane. That fact doesn't make their attempt any less impressive or any less tragic. But it does make it more real. I caught our President (who I still like, by the way) murmuring something about God during the speachifying. I realize we humans have mental short circuit that how God is on our side even though 3000 people got buried in the rubble but isn't God the reason this whole mess got started? A moment of silence would do. And during that moment of silence our leaders ought to reflect on acting in manner that insures that the cure isn't worse than the disease.

So, in essence, we have set up two monuments to really, really bad luck. Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn't make you a hero. Heroes rush into burning buildings, jump on grenades, shit like that. Arlin Williams on Air Florida Flight 90 who kept passing people to safety as he slowly lost his grip in the freezing river and slipped under - man, that makes you proud to be human. Pat Tillman - giving up a life of privilege to join up and get killed accidentally by his own men - he qualifies. I may be part of the last American generation that grew up with fathers who more often than not served in the military. In my neighborhood it was unusual for a male not to have been in the service. And a good percentage of those who did were combat veterans. Silver Stars, Purple Hearts, lots of Bronze Stars but not a lot of bragging. And not a lot of media stroking like you hear now. It was just kind of assumed. They were just guys, fathers and uncles, flawed and human, not the mass manufactured heroic icons the media likes to present. My Dad kept busy - got a degree, made a living. He didn't talk about the war much except a couple times when he was drunk. Mostly he would talk about how random it was – wondering why he made it and others didn't and how his 50 caliber guns could have been made of wood for all the good they did him. There was really nothing that he could control. And I never heard him use the word hero.

The Great Aweakening

2011-08-27T20:43:00.001-04:00

Not weak - never showed pain - not even when waxing

"These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job." - Marco Rubio Tea Pot vunder boi

More hazy reminisces about the foggily perceived "good ole days" from another right wing knothead who doesn't read and evidently doesn't care to. Americans have been whining for the some government or another to make it all better. Waahh - the Indians are bothering me, Waahh - rustlers are stealing my cattle, Waahh - my kid's dying of Yellow Fever. Here's a news flash for you Marco - people are people (and people who need entitlements are the luckiest...) When my grandpa was born people had the good sense to die at an average age of 47 so there was no need for those pesky entitlement programs. And those who were too old to work and had misspent their wages on stuff like food and shelter could always count on the churches and synagogues (hat tip to Marco's South Fla retirement constituents - what - no mosques?) to stack them somewhere. Hey, and if Grannie can knit she sure as fuck can run a stamping press. I don't care how old you are - a free ride is bad for character. Better to cough your last lung out sorting coal than sitting around waiting to die. Pussies - are there no workhouses? Are there no ice flows? Of course back then there was no such thing as Alzheimer, oldsters were only "confused". If they got really confused they were "senile". And if they got really senile Mom didn't work so she was always around to change Grannie's diaper. Life was like Little House on the Prairie only smellier. That was just the tail end of our societal weakening. The pussification of the sturdy American yeoman started much earlier- child labor laws, compulsory education, OSHA, overtime pay, unemployment insurance. All that crap has turned us into the doughy sluglike parasites that are draining the coffers of the job creators. I'd be ashamed of myself but I'm not collecting yet.

Safe From the Zombie Apocalypse*

2011-08-11T10:32:00.004-04:00

no blinkin' lincoln

"I have a spine made of titanium" - Michele Bachmann

And just as flexible. That trumps Obama's spine of steel.

. I guess that's to square the circle and resolve the perceived conflict between being as a good Christian woman subservient to her husband and being her own woman as commander in chief. Alex Wagner on the Mr Irritating Potato Head show thought the Newsweek cover shot unfairly showed her as "blank and confused". In other words her natural state. If her handlers can get her to stop confusing her mascara with Super Glue she may have a shot at the nomination. No wonder she gets migraines. She does have a Palinesque appeal to the legion of Republican dumbasses who aren't rich. That's what the bell curve does for you. Since stupid worked back in 2000 and 2004 I guess the conservative powers that be have decided for laughs to change it up and go with crazy:

"But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

Like them guys in the Bible that lived to be 150 years old. And that whole 3/5ths thing in the Constitution? That was just a fakeout.

*no brain to eat - I know - it's not a joke if you have to explain it. So fuck you.

Man vs Wild - The Sharkening

2011-08-03T07:34:00.001-04:00

Since it's Shark Week - here's a little tale. A tale of a fateful trip...

It's not often that I impress my grandson, jaded as he is by years of video games and movie super heroes. The first was when I explained to him why Ghost Adventures was total bullshit and the other time when I went swimming with a shark. Not exactly on purpose but I did.

The whistle blows and the life guard motions everyone out of the water.

"What's going on"
"Marine activity"
"What kind of marine activity"
"Can't say"
"Can't or won't. Does it have something to do with that fin out there?"
"Can't say"

I guess the word "shark" is verboten for officials of the tourist dependent Dewey Beach. Near as I could tell there were two marine actors working the shallows. A big ray and some sort of shark. I'm not sure what it was but it was about 6 or 8 feet long. Somebody said they saw a thresher shark a little earlier offshore but this thing looked like a big sand shark. So the shark moves up the coast and the life guards let everyone back in. I'm floating on my back about 30 yards out when I see a nice big fin cut across my feet almost close enough to touch. Now I want everyone to know I did not shit myself, not even a little. I may, however, have squirted a little urine into the water. For that I apologize.

My initial reaction was to scream like a little girl, turn on my belly and swim as fast as I could to shore. Then I got the feeling that all that splashing around may draw some unwanted attention. Meanwhile, the lifeguard's blowing his whistle like crazy and waving for me to come in. No shit, sherlock. I think I'll just float around out here hoping I get my ass bit off. So, slowly, slowly, I backstroked elementary style all the way back in. The boy's eyes were big as saucers. That made it all worthwhile.

Man vs Wild - The Groundhoggening

2011-07-20T19:11:00.000-04:00

Looking out the back window while I'm making my coffee I see two of the little bastards helping themselves to my tomatoes so I get the shotgun out of the closet, run in the living room and rifle through the ammo safe for a couple of shells and sneak out the back door. My granddaughter follows me out:

"Are you going to shoot them?"
I'm gonna try.
Will there be blood?
I hope so.
Lot's of blood?
I hope so. Go inside."

She comes out a little while later wearing surgical gloves and carrying a pair for me. Strange kid. She's obsessed with puppies (they're so cute) so I kind of figured she would be upset if she saw me blasting a groundhog. I guess not. I didn't get it anyway. This is the same kid who checks out the reflection of the tv in the wardrobe mirror when she comes in the room to make sure I'm not watching something too scary. How the reflection is different from the real thing, I don't know. But it is.

So this year, it's Scripto -1 Groundhog Nation -1 since I live trapped one this morning and took him out of town on my way to work. Technically, relocating them is illegal. Rabid groundhogs or, more likely, rabid farmers, I suppose. Anyway, I was running late and I couldn't be bothered to gather up pistol and groundhog both. I never have much luck opening the cage and getting a shot off before the varmint runs away so I usually don't bother. In all the excitement I could see shooting myself in the foot. Some things would be hard to live down around here. The only thing worse would be caught fucking a turkey. I think that guy had to move away.

The First Flush of Freedom

2011-07-16T07:45:00.000-04:00

Too bad the Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act of 2011 or whatever it's called died in the House the other day. You would think that if incandescent bulbs were good enough for the Founders they would be good enough us. People bitch about the quality of light in the curly ques but I don't see a lot of difference. But, then again, I'm getting old. I kind of like them - I don't feel too bad about forgetting to turn them off. And they're cheaper to run. That's a good thing. Even for an American.

Senator Rand Paul has his panties in a bunch about the federally mandated low flush toilets and will no doubt propose The Flush of Choice Act. I don't know what he's eating but apparently he's having trouble getting all the paper down. Now, I'll admit I had the same reaction when the law was passed - that if the feds wanted me to change my toilet they would have to come pry my 1960 - 7.5 gallon American Standard super flush off my cold dead ass. But I've gone through a couple of models since then and I have to say that the technology is a lot better than when the low water models first came out. So Senator Randy, just quit yer bitchin' and swap out your commodes - you can afford it. And don't expect the Invisible Hand to magically cure our environmental problems. If it was up to the markets the Cuyahoga would still catch fire and Pittsburgh would still be dark at noon.

Guilty As Charged

2011-07-08T17:50:00.001-04:00

Of what, I'm not sure but I'm not one to miss an opportunity to put my two cents in whether I know anything about it or not. I'm not a lawyer but I have been on a jury in a murder trial which, I believe, puts me one up on the rest of you jaw flapping yahoos out there. Now with Casey Anthony I can see how the jury would acquit her of the first degree murder charge. Not enough evidence and the whole "kill the kid so that she could party" motive seemed pretty suspect to me. Why not leave her with the grandparents or put her up for adoption? But if the jury didn't think the evidence was enough for felony manslaughter of a child, the very least they should have come in with was felony child abuse. The defense, no doubt hoping for at most a manslaughter conviction, opened that can of worms when they put out the claim that she helped to hide the body after an accidental drowning. Who the hell doesn't call 911 when they find their kid at the bottom of the pool? I guess everyone grieves in their own way but acting like a drunken hose bag shouldn't be one of them. And the tearful group hug around Anthony by the defense team after the verdict came in was touching. Hard to believe they actually like that girl. Assholes.

And, speaking of assholes and not being able to tell yours from a hole in the ground, let's talk about the OJ jury. Although statistically improbable, if you run through enough trials over a long enough period of time eventually you are going to get 12 retards together in the same place at the same time. Retards who decide despite a convergent trail of physical evidence, motive and opportunity that led right to Simpson, it is more likely that a conspiracy of cops who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time orchestrate a convoluted plot to frame OJ because...well, because...that's why.

So we're howling because we want justice for that little girl. We want some finality where the guilty are punished, God is in heaven, and all is right with the world. Then we can start to put it out of our minds. I don't think that's how it works. More often than not the guilty die in bed at a ripe old age, murders are unsolved or undiscovered and the universe just grinds on. It's a fucked up situation is what it is.

Not Like TV

2011-07-06T18:27:00.000-04:00

Serving on a jury, I mean. My experience was of a somewhat befuddled system run by somewhat well intentioned people. It was a murder trial involving a guy who shotgunned his step daughter. Unlike a lot of trials there was no doubt on either side who pulled the trigger. Our job as jurors was to determine intent and figure out whether we were dealing with 1st degree murder or a lesser charge of manslaughter. The defense based their case on the supposition that this guy was too intoxicated to mean to kill her and the prosecution based their case on numerous prior threats that this guy had made. There were no BAC readings and both sides trotted out "experts" to explain at what level of intoxication a person no longer knew what they were doing. Of course they completely contradicted each other so of course we pretty much ignored that testimony. The consensus was that the "experts" were a couple of clowns, anyway. So there we were after testimony, locked in a room with graphic pictures of a dead girl, a representation of the room where the killing occurred (if I remember correctly we also took a road trip to the house) and the murder weapon, a monstrous long barreled twelve gauge. There wasn't a lot of drama, just a bunch of well meaning strangers trying to do the right thing. We were instructed on the specifics of the law and we were trying to fit the evidence to the most likely verdict. If you wanted to be a dick about it I suppose you could bollix up the whole thing by ignoring the judge's instructions but like I said, all of us took this seriously, there was dead girl involved.

Maybe we were a particularly relaxed group but that whole dynamic of people splitting into teams or yelling and trying to take over the proceedings didn't occur. We were split about 8 to 4 - 8 for first degree murder and 4 for voluntary manslaughter. I made my position clear - he had threatened her previously and he gunned the poor girl down as she was running for the door. There is no doubt in my mind that he was trying to kill her and if he was drunk out of his mind he couldn't have made that shot. In the end we came in with guilty in the 1st degree. Most of the jury were women and I could see in their eyes that there was no way that they were going to let this motherfucker slide. I found out why later. A whole sad story of continual sexual, psychological and physical abuse. I guess some of us were a little more aware of the dynamics of the situation than others. That stuff never came up in the trial and I sure didn't pick up on it at the time. Wouldn't have changed my mind one way or the other.

Sentencing took all of about 10 seconds. Pennsylvania has mandatory life without parole for first degree murder. I didn’t know it and was a little shocked at how abrupt it was. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. Would it have changed my vote? I don’t think so. The judge thanks the jury and cuts everyone loose so after being sequestered and coddled like little kittens the jury was suddenly dismissed to walk out with the herd consisting of the press and the perp’s and victim’s friends and family (who were sometimes the same people). Weird. For some reason I wanted to talk to the lawyers. But I didn't.

The Vacation - Part One

2011-07-04T16:18:00.001-04:00

Two days in and Grampy realizes that he's spent the entire week's budget

Unanticipated stayover at Kent Narrows - $185

Gas and tolls to retrieve workable car - $95

Repair of family truckster - $482

Replacement boogie board and skimboard - $85

Food, boardwalk, stuff - $565

Spending a week with the grandchildren - pricey

Anthony, Anthony, Anthony

2011-06-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

I can take a few character flaws in my heroes but feet of clay and an exposed willy is a little much. It has taken me this long to weigh in on Weinergate because I am devastated. My hero - caught with his pants down. The loudest, most effective voice for single payer and Medicare for all hoisted by his own twit-tard. What am I supposed to say when people come up to me and ask me about my Medicare for All bumper sticker? "Here's an compelling argument from Anthony Weiner - you know, Anthony Weiner - the penis guy. " No wonder Nancy dropped a stitch and Debbie's just fucking pissed. They both want him to resign. I guess I still don't. But I would like him to stop sending penis pictures over the internet. Kind of reckless, if you ask me.

Now their have been times in my life when I have been very lonely. Adrift and abandoned, desirous of the slightest human touch, a hint of a smile, a kind word, a warm hand on my ~~weiner~~ shoulder... But the thought of sending pictures of my willy over the internet to perfect strangers never really occurred to me. Not even with the digital zoom. I may be overreacting but I find the whole thing kind of peculiar.

So what we are dealing with here is a reckless and obsessive character flaw, refreshingly untainted by hypocrisy. At least he didn't drag his wife with him to the press conference. She's off gallivanting around the world with Hillary. I bet they have a lot to talk about. "You know Huma it could be worse...." When Vitter got caught in the DC Madame affair he dragged his poor wife to the obligatory I've Been a Naughty Boy and I'm Sorry press conference. "C'mon hon, put on something nice and stand next to me while I humiliate both of us in public." I don't feel bad for a family values hypocrite like Vitter. I did feel bad for his wife, though. She looked beyond upset. Vitter was running a nice little K-Street fund raiser under the radar while Weiner was at the gate. These C Street clowns all have a King David complex. They consider themselves extraordinary men entitled to extraordinary vices. Fucking chimps.

Sarah Palin's America

2011-06-06T07:26:00.001-04:00

"I know my American History."

You betcha - the real story, not the gotcha one told by the lamestream media:

Paul Revere - American Hero

Paul Revere's Whistle

Paul Revere's Bell

British Troops Await Paul Revere

Paul Revere Warns British that the Americans are Coming

British Surrender - Wolverines!!

Glen Beck Launches New Book Imprint

2011-06-01T19:12:00.002-04:00

First release will be a young adult novel about a boy with Tourette’s syndrome – and superpowers.

The boy's name is Glenn and his superpower is that he can't shut the fuck up.

The Trouble With My New Blackberry Torch

2011-05-25T12:19:00.000-04:00

All porn is midget porn

Don't Do This

2011-05-17T18:04:00.001-04:00

I work in a windowless cloth covered box separated from the other cloth covered boxes by a door. Actually I work in a box inside another box that is off a little hallway inside a bigger box. I also spend the day staring into a box hooked to another box that is showing drawings of big boxes to park cars in. And the ones I dare not name keep our department separated from the general population because of our Tourette's like use of inappropriate obscenities and suspect hygiene.

So my buddy walks out the door and about ten minutes later, when oddly enough I am actually working, pouring over drawings with my back to the door, the door opens and I shout out "What's up bitch!". Instead of the customary "Fuck you" I am met with dead silence. I turn around, and there, standing in the doorway, looking right at me, is the Exectutive Assistant to the President of the Company. What do you say? I thought you were the bitch I work with? I was mortified and spent the rest of the day mumbling apologies, pretty much to anyone who would listen. Didn't help that the assholes I work with couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, I didn't get fired. Yet.

First Communion

2011-05-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

"We had practice today for First Communion."

"So, how'd it go?"

"Fine, we got to taste the wafer since they didn't make it Jesus yet. We got to taste it twice."

"I always liked it. Did it taste OK?"

"I liked it! But I think when they make it Jesus it will be more crunchy."

More Thoughts on the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T07:29:00.000-04:00

Gayer then Elton John's

Thoughts on the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T06:38:00.001-04:00

She could do better

I Had Big Plans

2011-04-22T14:19:00.001-04:00

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

I Wonder

2011-04-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

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?

Foodies

2011-04-12T21:10:00.001-04:00

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.

A Few Modest Proposals

2011-04-07T18:22:00.000-04:00

"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

It's Assholes All the Way Down

2011-04-05T18:19:00.000-04:00

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.

Odorless, Colorless... but Something Still Stinks

2011-04-04T18:38:00.001-04:00

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.

Marriage - It's More Serious Than We Thought

2011-03-22T21:54:00.000-04:00

Recuse this, bitch!

From a piece in the New York Times Magazine, a profile of Robby George (D.Phil, Oxford University; JD, Harvard University; AB, Swarthmore College), America's foremost homophobic deep thinker. Of course the following analysis by yours truly (Mt. Lebanon High School '71) is based on what some guy said about what another guy thinks. That's hardly fair to Guy #2. But, then again, I'm hardly a researcher:

"He admits the argument for marriage between a man and a woman can require “somewhat technical philosophical analysis.”

Go for it.

It is a two-step case that starts with marriage and works its way back to sex.

I think he's got it backward.

First, he contends that marriage is a uniquely “comprehensive” union, meaning that it is shared at several different levels at once — emotional, spiritual and bodily. “And the really interesting evidence that it is comprehensive is that it is anchored in bodily sharing,” he says.

Like a tapeworm.

“Ordinary friendships wouldn’t be friendships anymore if they involved bodily sharing,” he explained to me.

No, they would be conjoined twins.

“If I, despite being a married man, had this female friend of mine and I said, ‘Well, gosh, why don’t we do some bodily sharing,’

Gee willikers, can I bone you?

and we had straightforward sexual intercourse, well, that wouldn’t be friendship or marriage

How about if it was straightbackward sexual intercourse?

." It is bodily, O.K...."

"...but it is not part of a comprehensive sharing of life."

"My comprehensive sharing of life is with my wife, which I just now violated.”

OK, you're a pig. So what?

"But just as friendships with sex are not friendships, marriage without sex is not marriage."

I'm free!

" Sex, George said, is the key to this 'comprehensive unity.'He then imagined himself as a man with no interest in sex who proposed to seal a romance by committing to play tennis only with his beloved. Breaking that promise, he said, would not be adultery."

Tennis anyone?

"The second step is more complicated, and more graphic."

Now you caught my interest

"George argues that only vaginal intercourse — “procreative-type” sex acts, as George puts it — can consummate this “multilevel” mind-body union."

Yay for the va jay jays.

" Only in reproduction, unlike digestion, circulation, respiration or any other bodily function, do two individuals perform a single function and thus become, in effect, 'one organism.'

Um, I think that would be 3 organisms in one orgasm. One - three, whats the dif? It's a Trinitarian view of the "Act".

Each opposite-sex partner is incomplete for the task; yet together they create a “one-flesh union,” in the language of Scripture. “Their bodies become one (they are biologically united, and do not merely rub together) in coitus (and only in coitus), similarly to the way in which one’s heart, lungs and other organs form a unity by coordinating for the biological good of the whole,” George writes in a draft of his latest essay on the subject.

I'm sorry, but this porn does not work for me. Neither does the analogy. I wonder how long he keeps Mrs. George waiting while he thinks this whole thing through?

" Unloving sex between married partners does not perform the same multilevel function, he argues, nor does oral or anal sex — even between loving spouses."

Maybe not multilevel but definitely multitasking.

Infertile couples, too, are performing this uniquely shared reproductive function, George says, even if they know their sperm and ovum cannot complete it. Marriage is designed in part for procreation in the way a baseball team is designed for winning games, he says, but “people who can practice baseball can be teammates without victories on the field.”

Kind of like the Pirates. Well, I know he's trying to dumb it down for guys like me with the baseball analogy but he fucking well lost me. Sex is "designed" for procreation. Marriage is about property rights.

"George argues that reason alone shows that heterosexual sodomy and homosexual sex are morally wrong, just as the Catholic Church, classical philosophers and other religious traditions have historically taught."

But not practiced.

"Unlike marital union in his special sense, he contends, such acts treat the body as an instrument of the mind’s pleasure."

Invasion of the meat robots.

" As both a practical and a philosophical matter, he argues, the law should not necessarily police such things."

I agree.

" But the need for the state to establish a proper definition of marriage is a different matter, he says, because the law has always regulated it in the interest of parenthood and community. “Marriage in principle is a public institution,” he said. “I don’t think it can be like bar mitzvahs or baptisms or the Elks Club.”"

And there is no evidence at all that allowing gays to marry injures children or communities. And if there is a nugget of a premise buried under that big pile of bullshit, I certainly can't find it. Strange that all the countries that have legalized gay marriage have not collapsed in utter social disarray and that people in those countries are still having babies. Another big picture guy so worried about who's sticking what where that he feels compelled to leave behind this little worm casing of reason. And he hangs with Scalia - that's probably all you need to know.

What I Don't Know Won't Help Me

2011-03-16T17:45:00.001-04:00

It was right after If You Give a Pig a Party (which is along the same lines of If You Take a Mouse to the Movies - mice and pigs are both very needy) and I was tired and trying to delay reading Mr. Peabody's Apples for the 500th time (the child requires at least two books at night). So I asked her how her day went and she told me that her teacher got the incubator and an egg for everyone and that they were going to hatch some chicks.

How long does that take - 21 days?

No, Miss Hockensmith said April.

Oh, did you know that chickens are dinosaurs?

Chickens aren't dinosaurs. That's silly.

Yes, some people think that the dinosaurs never died out and one type evolved into birds - there were feathered dinosaurs, you know.

Oh, were there puppies then, too? (to Jasmine puppies are not only cute, they are eternal)

No, I think dogs have only been around about 10,000 years. They came from wolves.

No, I said puppies, not wolves. Was that before God walked the Earth?

(Uh, oh) You mean Jesus, yeah, I think so. Some wolves hung around where people lived and they got used to people and people got used to them and after a while they became dogs.

And had puppies?

Yeah, they also warned people when there were dangerous animals around. (Not to mention the fact that puppies were probably handy for snacking on - but I didn't say that). You know life has been around for a long, long time, like 3 and a half billion years and first there was bacteria, then something like worms, and fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals.

And puppies? What are bacteria?

Well, ahem...ah... well they're tiny little bugs too small to see all around us and they live in us and help digest our food and live on our skin and....

Fortunately she nodded off before I went on to embarrass myself further. Nothing tests the limits of what you think you know better than having to explain it to an 8 year old. I would give my right nutball for a certain clarity of thought. One good thing - even my second grade granddaughter is too smart to ask "If we came from bacteria, how come there are still bacteria?"

Dim Bulbs

2011-03-12T08:38:00.002-05:00

This shall not stand. Reps. Bachmann and Barton (R-combined IQ 74) have sponsored bills to repeal the mandated federal standards for allowable light bulb wattage. Barton, if you will remember, is the Congressman who felt the need to apologize to BP for the Obama Administration forcing them to put up the money to clean up their own mess and Bachmann is the Congresswoman who is terminally, irretrievably batshit crazy. These regulations are just another example of federal overreach leading to socialist enslavement. Why have any kind of standards? The Founders would be aghast at the world we live in, full of federally mandated energy efficiency standards. Far better to split a couple of atoms or shave the top off a mountain or kill a few brown people than to rob us of our God given choice to be stupidly energy inefficient. Sen. Paul (R - Kenfucky) agrees. Not only do the light bulbs piss him off but he's been having problems with his toilet. Evidently it doesn't flush well enough to dispose of his "business". After seeing John Steward gently deconstruct Paul's inane political philosophy I get the feeling the problem is not with the toilet.

Here Come De Judge

2011-03-09T18:34:00.000-05:00

Attempts by the Church and its apologists to make sense of human sexuality reminds me of a great scene in Pillars of the Earth. The witchy woman consort of one protagonist and mother of another is captured, bound and brought before the evil Bishop and his toadies. Not only has the Bishop betrayed her trust as her confessor and tortured and killed the father of her son but he continues to persecute her current lover and her son. Well, she's had it. She cuts her bonds with a hidden knife and the monks shrink back, murmuring of witchcraft. She strides along a long table toward the Bishop, seated at the end of the table, and when she reaches him she hikes up her skirt launches a stream of piss right at him. The clerics shrink back in horror as she contemptuously turns and stalks out of the dining hall.

And so it is with the Church, looking too hard into the mystery of our beginnings and ending up with a face full of piss. Using a blinded interpretation of natural processes to underpin scriptural precepts and make sense of the chaotic complications of human sexuality. The idea that all right thinking cultures will come to the same basic concepts of good and evil because they all share a sense of the moral order built in to the framework of the universe. The idea being that certain behaviors are intrinsically wrong because they are unnatural. Behaviors such as homosexuality, abortion, contraception, pre-marital and extra -marital sex, polygamy, etc all contravene some sort of Natural Law, that they are counter to our god given natures. How this squares with the Christian idea that we are born fatally flawed, I do not know but all Catholic theology seems based on ignoring the contradictions. Even a cursory examination of nature and human history proves the Natural Law argument bullshit. Your dog humps your leg, Jacob had 4 wives, the new king of the pride kills his predecessor's cubs, nobody was too anxious to tell Alexander that he couldn't have a boyfriend...Jeez, just a look at our plumbing gives the lie to some sort of natural monogamy in the human species. I suppose Natural Inclinations sounds a little too weak on which to build a whole moral code. But there is no such thing as Natural Law, not even a Law of Replication. Natural Inclinations, maybe. Well, there is one Natural Law - Everything Dies. I don't need a Cathedral to remind me of that.

Criticism for the Common Man

2011-03-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

Ah, Oscar night. Another award show I did not care to watch full of films I do not care to see. The King's Whatever was the big winner. Another period drama for those who have periods. Like I'm supposed to give a shit about some royal twit's stuttering problem? And why the American obsession with English royalty? Do we really need to concern ourselves with the romantic entanglements of a marginalized group of inbred dweebs? Next years Oscar contender -

The King's Enema
Can an impudent Page of the Back Stairs ease His Majesty's impaction before the annual royal fox hunt on St. Swithen's Day?

"Is the water too cold, your majesty?"

"Do you dare to sit on the King's Throne!"

Now I'm sure the King's Whatever was quite inspiring and I'm sure the costumes were correct down to the last button and the accents were spot on but this stuff is really not my cup of tea. It's not even about the interesting King George. I probably won't bother with it unless forced into it by my life partner. Inception was pretty good and I'll definitely catch True Grit but a film about fighting brothers and their over bearing mother. Nah. I know all about that. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. Toy Story 3 made me cry. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. And it wasn't just because of Randy Newman's music.

Wherein Scripto Feels the Need to Explain the Joke

2011-03-03T18:47:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel as though my attempts at whimsy fall on deaf eyes. The following exchange was posted in the comment section of Ironicus Maximus:

"Good question your Pradaness, but here's a better one: If all humanity wasn't present to clamor for appletinis when Eve ate the apple, how come we all have to pay for original sin?

scripto said:
All humanity was present. All both of them. Read your Bible you apostate.

6:19 PM
Anonymous said...
"All both".....priceless!
7:55 PM

Now you may not be able to tell by my literary efforts that my mother was an English teacher so I am well aware that the elites consider "all both" to be bad form. Now, in my defense, I did give that comment careful thought and boiled it down to two questions:

1. Did I think Ironicus would get the joke?

and

2. Did I care if I looked stupid?

My answers were yes and no. Now it is possible Anonymous did get the joke and thought that my comment was priceless in a brilliantly humorous way. In that case I look even more stupid. And yes, that is possible. And no, I still don't care.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie

2011-03-01T12:37:00.001-05:00

Party like a rock star

Poor Charley

"Tiger blood and Adonis DNA"

More like Narcissus DNA. But Adonis or Narcissus, both stories ended badly. Normally the doings or mis-doings of celebrities don't interest me much but I couldn't stop watching Sheen's train wreck interview with Jeff Rossen. It struck a chord with me as I have some experience being on both sides of the addiction divide and while my misadventures were only "epic" on a seedier scale, I certainly can relate to trying to convince the world around me that I wasn't an alcoholic and that things weren't spiraling out of control. At one time I was even going to go to court to prove I wasn't an alcoholic. And if self obsession translated into self awareness Sheen and I would both be Buddhas. The "drug tests don't lie" mantra repeated during the questions about whether or not he has stopped using rings a little hollow. Besides he didn't really answer the question. And he didn't look all that healthy. If he didn't have the bucks to buy the good stuff I'd almost peg him as a low rent meth and booze hound. A really fun combination, by the way, and despite my hippie libertarian leanings, one that I believe should remain illegal in the interest of domestic tranquility. Especially in a country where it's easier to buy a gun than a beer.

The one honest thing he said was that he took drugs because they "worked". It appears that they have stopped working, at least in the way he wants them to. After a while you feel good for a shorter period of time and stay sicker for a longer and longer period of time. Common to guys like us is the feeling that we are in control even when we realize we are out of control, the sneering condescension for those who have gone before and died with their boot on. The feeling that increased tolerance translates into increased knowledge and you can tip toe around death because you know what you are doing. The bone yards are full of experts.

And Sheen sure has a curious hard-on for AA, characterizing it as an ineffectual program written by a plagiarizing loser. Well, it saved my life. My guess is that someone hit a nerve with poor ole Charlie, someone called him on his bullshit and he knows it. Now the defenses are back up and he's cured himself through the power of his own mind. Sure he did. But I think Charlie is about ready to start to get better.

So You Can Tea Bag Through the Phone

2011-02-26T16:20:00.000-05:00

"Murphy: Right, right. We’ll back you any way we can. But what we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.
Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that — because we thought about that. The problem with — my only gut reaction to that would be, right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this. The teacher’s union did some polling and focus groups I think and found out that the public turned on them the minute they closed school down on them for a couple of days."

So spake Gov. Droopy Dog Walker as he tele-fellatio-ed some blogger who he mistook for David Koch. The Gov took the call right away, no doubt well aware which side of his ass Koch was buttering. And the Koch brothers have spread enough butter around in the last election to grease multiple state and federal portals for future easy access. But it is not about the horror of having to pay a decent living wage to the people who teach our children or plow our roads. It is ultimately not about budgets but it is about money. Money buys access and if the pesky left leaning public unions are weakened enough to become minor players in any future election cycle, it will be a lot easier for the Republicans and their corporate masters to maintain control. Without the counterbalance of union money to worry about, Gov. Walker only has to concern himself with blowing his two or three major corporate donors. That's only fair, he's a busy man. He's got a lot on his plate.

You Know What Your Problem Is...?

2011-02-21T18:08:00.000-05:00

"No, Dad, what?" Of course I did know what my problem was, he told me often enough. "Your problem is you never finish anything. You quit everything you start; bowling, trumpet, Little League, wrestling, Boy Scouts...you never stick with anything." For some reason quitting the bowling league really stuck in his craw, although I can barely remember being in a league, let alone my reasons for quitting it. Maybe he bought me a bowling ball or something. Now, in my defense, most of this stuff I really didn't want to do anyway. My parents, particularly my mother, were really into the idea of the well rounded child - you know- music, athletics, academics -m a strong mind in a healthy body. All I really wanted to do in my spare time was sit around reading science fiction and eating Honeycomb cereal. There were problems with all of my chosen-for-me "activities"; Boy Scouts - no Honeycomb cereal or flush toilets at camp; Little League - I was a pretty good ball player but I got scared of taking one to the cranium so that was out; Wrestling - I could easily beat anyone in the school who was in my weight class (all two of them) but incipient OCD and wrestling snotty, sweaty boys was a bad combination. For some reason I decided to join the marching band, I guess I felt lonely for the company of other nerds. Unfortunately, not playing for 2 years didn't do much to improve my embouchure, I still sucked. So I ended up 4th trumpet, last chair. Embarrassing. Then a treble clef baritone spot opened up and since I was the only one who signed up, I ended up 1st treble clef baritone, 1st chair, bitches. Best of all the bass clef baritone could really play so I'd just march along beside him faking it. We were awesome. My specialty was Windy. She had stormy eyes. Baa pa pa paaa. But I got tired of that, too.

So I went on to quit the Church, college, a marriage, a dozen jobs, drugs and alcohol. Dad was right. I just can't stick with anything. I guess I'm just not a joiner.

A Narrow Escape

2011-02-12T10:49:00.001-05:00

Like these clowns could catch me

From Scientology, that is. Or, more precisely, from a certain aggressive and extremely engaged Scientology recruiter. My brother and I were wandering around downtown Boston sometime in the early seventies when an Earnest Young Man came up and asked us if we would like to learn about Scientology. Being the polite fellow that I am, I said sure and we started following this guy towards some sort of storefront recruiting center. Then the thought occurred to me that this was kind of weird and I was kind of hungry and I could give two shits about Scientology anyway so I did the first thing that popped into my mind, which was to turn around and start running full tilt back the way we had come, leaving my poor brother standing there with the bewildered EYM. Now my brother takes off after me and damned if the Scientology guy didn't take off after him. In those days I was fast and I doubt that there was a Moonie, Hare Krishna or Tom Cruise on Earth (or Teegeeack) that could outrun me. I was even faster than my brother who was a college athlete and who, although stronger and uglier than me, didn't have those afterburners. Unfortunately I ran myself into a blind alley, followed closely by my brother and that track star Scientologist. My brother catches up to me, punches me in the stomach and while I'm hunched over gasping for breath explains to the EYM that I'm having bowel issues. The guy gives us a puzzled look and splits. No one wants a recruit with dirty drawers, not Scientology or even the Army. I don't believe my brother was too happy with me. In retrospect, a simple "No thanks" would have saved a lot of running. But I feel as though I did save my brother from the clutches of this particular cult (I haven't even gotten a thank you yet), I just can't do anything about the one he was born into. Of course, I still have those Thetan clusters harshing my mellow, but what are you gonna do? I just don't have the dough to get clear.

Here We Blow

2011-02-08T19:42:00.001-05:00

That refrain greeting me at work first thing this morning, happily sung by a disgruntled Eagle's fan to the tune of Here We Go. All Eagle's fans are disgruntled. They are not happy drunks. How would you like to be terminally prick teased with playoff after playoff appearance, never able to pull off the Big One? The Steelers tore my heart out again. Although to be truthful, I was surprised they got that far. Still, once we get there, we are not accustomed to losing a Super Bowl. Ah well, The Fudge Packers deserved it. They took the long road there and played well. And Doug Legursky deserves some sort of award for keeping that fat 700 pound Raji fucker off the quarterback. Well done, Doug. Still, I'm sad, very, very sad.
But Scripto, you say, "May we ask why, with Michele Bachmann running for President, Congress ready to make everyone work into their eighties, Sarah still on the loose, and all the problems in Egypt and such, why are you so upset about a stupid football game? Why are you sad? Why are you bitter? What is wrong with you? You are far too sophisticated to be so emotionally involved in a mere football game."

Well, may I ask why you all just don't shut the fuck up and let me grieve?

I'm Pretty

2011-02-01T18:31:00.001-05:00

A woman stopped me in Ollies the other day and shouted out "You're pretty!". She was kind of elderly, maybe a little slow (OK, she was retarded), one eye didn't track quite right and she had restraints that kept her in her chair. The woman pushing her in the wheelchair looked at me and laughed. But it still counts - right?

When the Founders Liberated Iwo Jima

2011-01-26T20:53:00.001-05:00

Or ended slavery or invented the automobile or something. Aside from Glenn Beck's schizophrenic paradolia you can't get further from actual history (or math or science) than Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party History for Dummies:

Bachman, speaking at an Iowans for Tax Relief event, recounted the early “remarkable” America, a nation where “it didn’t matter the color of their skin, it didn’t matter their language, it didn’t matter their economic status.”
“Once you got here,” she added, “we were all the same.”

Read more: http://www.thirdage.com/news/bachmann-slavery-watch-anderson-cooper-blast-bachmann-rewriting-history_1-26-2011#ixzz1CCCcTGzc

Yep. And no Indians were hurt in the making of this nation. At least her handlers got ole' crazy eyes to blink once in awhile. My guess is that command was telepromptered every thirty seconds on the button. You can lead a Bachmann to blinking but you can't get her thinking.

THE RULES

2011-01-20T18:34:00.002-05:00

We're watching lil' Estella for the week while her Mom is checking out optimal living situations in Fresno. A losing proposition, I fear. Optimal conditions in Fresno, I mean, not the baby sitting. We were giving a set a rules in the hopes we wouldn't undo in five days all the precise child rearing that Dragon Mom has done with this tot. I hate to break it to her but it won't take that long. Usually when we do long term kindercare for the other grandkids we are given just one rule, well, more a suggestion than a rule - please return the children undamaged. Generally we comply. But this time we got a different set of instructions-

Daily routine:
8:00 - wake up
8:01 - potty time
8:02 - breakfast (organic mango juice, granola, egg white omelet from free range organically fed chickens)
8:03 - 9:00- Rosetta Stone - Mandarin
9:00 - 10:00- Rosetta Stone Cantonese
10:00 - 12:00 - Practice ballet - please work on her battlement glisse
Lunch - organic free range carrots and fair trade raisins with hand ground peanut butter (please- no Jif!)
And so on...

And then there's the rules:

Wash hands
No potty mouth
No McDonald's
No more than 1 hour of TV per day
And so on...(if there is something fun for a kid to do she isn't supposed to do it)

One hour of TV? What am I? Mary Fucking Poppins? That's why they had nannies in the old days. Nannies, TV, same thing. Potty mouth may have something to do with the kid's sense of humor. The little darling spent the whole ride back from Rockville trying out her jokes on me. They all had something to do with poop. Which is OK with me since most of my jokes aren't any more sophisticated. What cracked her up the most was telling me that when her Mom got up in the morning she put poop on her shoulder. Then she asked me why I wasn't laughing and I had to tell her that her mother wouldn't approve. Then we both started laughing. I mean, if you knew her mom, her putting poop on her shoulder is kind of funny. Potty mouth, indeed. I don't know what Mother expects when the kid is being reared in an environment where people are putting poop on their shoulders.

The Final Solution

2011-01-14T02:42:00.001-05:00

Makes sense. Rep Gohmert (R-Tarded)* has decided that the easiest way to keep high capacity semi automatic firearms out of the hands of crazy people is to arm more crazy people. Like the ones in Congress. Good idea. It is clear that DC suffers from an appalling lack of firearms. Even the NRA agrees that the clinically insane should be limited to single shot 22's and derringers. So Reps Shuler and Gohmert are going to make us feel more secure because they have the ability to trade rounds with their constituents at the next town hall meeting. I don't care how many pistols you're packing or how many Dirty Harry fantasies you got tucked in your cranium from reading multiple copies of the Armed Citizen, chances are you're going to be hugging the ground with the rest of us. The only ones standing may be a small percentage of cops, combat infantry veterans and Columbia Heights gangbangers and 2/3'rds of those aren't going to open up on a crowd of people anyway. Sweet Jesus, the one armed citizen who was there in Tuscon admitted he came close to shooting the wrong guy and how about Rep Franks (R-stupid)? - "I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that's all I have to say," How about saying something that addresses the problem of crazy people with guns, you dumb motherfucker, instead of being an NRA parrot? That's bullshit and the NRA is bullshit. That's why I quit it - the redneck politics were bad enough but the sheer stupidity babbling from the mouths of duly elected NRA hand puppets is too much to bear. Why is the dialog about hate speech instead of keeping assault weapons out of the hands of crazies?

*hat tip to Ironicus

Well, She Didn't Mean "That"

2011-01-09T15:49:00.001-05:00

Apparently even the Palin people are able to distinguish between a United States representative and a caribou or even a Muslim. The screen shot shows representatives in the cross-hairs targeted for their votes on the affordable health care bill. It was removed from the web site shortly after the tragic shooting of Representative Giffords. I'm sure the whole crosshairs and targeted thing was purely symbolic. Kind of like the symbolic brick through Giffords district office window after the health care vote. I'm also sure this will be dismissed as the action of a lone disturbed lunatic. Now I don't know what this guy's political leanings are or even if he has any, but, aside from Muslim terrorists, it sure seems like the majority of disturbed, heavily armed lunatics are coming from the right wing. If Homeland Security isn't keeping an eye on these people they aren't doing their job.

Welcome to Sharon Angle's Second Amendment Remedy for America where any deranged loon with a semi automatic weapon can effect policy. It's a great country - get a couple dozen irrationally fearful racist loons with AK's together and you got a militia. Get a few thousand together and you got yourself a Tea Party.

No, That Wasn't a New Episode of the Walking Dead...

2011-01-01T10:43:00.001-05:00

that you stumbled upon. That was Dick Clark's New Years Rockin Eve starring Ryan Seacrest, some C list celebrities, a scary chick with blue lips, some convenience store workers and, down in the crowd, Typhoid Jenny. Ryan passed it off to Dick to ring in the New Year just as he's done for the last 97 years. Now I'm all for someone working through their disability and carrying on like a real trooper but, c'mon, you're scaring the kids. We generally try to shield the Kid from disturbing images and the wife and I kept looking to each other and the Kid, wondering if we should change the channel, but we were too far into the countdown and rode that creepy, barely flesh covered marionette into 2011. At least the strings didn't show. The Kid looked more puzzled than freaked anyway. Ah, youth. I only hope that when time runs a garbage truck over my head I have enough sense to retire.

And as for Jenny McCarthy. I hope she catches the flu.

Step Away From the Flack

2010-12-23T15:57:00.001-05:00

Stay frosty bitches, Red Frosty

"Look, I can see it in your eyes. You're starting to get all worked up. Every year we do the same thing. Buy people a bunch of shit they don't need. It is not my fault - I did not invent Christmas - so back off and don't give me a lot of flack"

"Yeah, well, Flack You!"

So with that little confab the wife and I started planning for the holiday season. Right now I'm watching the kids while She is out bankrupting us. Doesn't she know that the last election was precisely about this kind of out of control spending? Does she want us to end up like Ireland or Greece? Someone needs to stand up and say "Enough! -Stop this madness!". I mean someone, not necessarily me. I won't step in front of a runaway truck either. I do like decorating, though. Check out this year's award winning entry above. Repeal and replacing Frosty's guts was not easy.

O Captain, My Captain

2010-12-18T15:33:00.001-05:00

Don Van Vliet (1/15/41-12/17/10)

Aquarius Tavern - Seattle Washington - Nineteen Seventy Somethingorother- Greatest concert in the history of the Multiverse.

Not Even Close

2010-12-13T18:55:00.002-05:00

Got a letter from my brother yesterday. Yes, a letter. Weird. He sends them to me when he has something to say. Which is not often. His missives are elegantly constructed and obviously from the heart. Unfortunately his handwriting renders them virtually illegible. My responses, on the other hand, are incomprehensible fragments of word salad rendered electronically. But you can read them. I'm mean you can't read them, they're private. But he can. I'm sure that when he gets more technologically comfortable he'll upgrade to a speedier mode. I expect this next year:

Greetings STOP Have a Merry Christmas STOP Happy New Year STOP Hope all is well STOP We are fine STOP

Anyway, in this letter I mentioned he makes the absurd claim that the Great Garloo (pronounced Gay-loo) could take Robot Commando (pronounced awesome) in a full on family room death match Silly, I know. I blame myself. Must been all the times I bounced a rock off his cranium or shot him in the face with an arrow. Normally I would let this pass, Robot Commando has nothing to prove to anyone. But this shall not stand. Contrast the two clips above and judge for yourself. To summarize:

Robot Commando - throws bombs with either hand - shoots missiles - has whirly eyes
Great Garloo - nothing under the kilt - claps his hands - plays with dolls

If I had a $1000 to spare I'd buy a couple and prove to the world what I already know. Robot Commando would whirl those arms so fast he'd bitch slap that stupid grin right off Garloo's face. Good thing Garloo can bend over cause when RC is done with him that's the position he's gonna be in. Crying for his mommy.

This Could Have Ended Badly

2010-12-10T18:32:00.001-05:00

While my wife and I were talking on the phone about what we were planning to have for dinner, she overheard one of my retarded coworkers shout out "tuna tacos". When I got home from work she asked me if we really liked to eat those. Now I don't often get fed such a perfect straight line but I played it square and explained the concept to her. I was afraid she was going to wander into Taco Bell and ask whether they served tuna tacos. That would have ended very, very badly for me.

Now I have to explain smoked hoagie before our next trip to Subway.

It's a Disappointing Life

2010-12-07T18:23:00.002-05:00

The Easter Bunny was the first to go. That whole idea didn't make much sense. Even to a 4 year old. Followed closely by the Tooth Fairy - even then we knew where the money came from and then Santa and a few years later the Virgin Birth and Jesus rising from the dead became too counter to actual experience to be real. God the Father faded away, followed by the dissipation of the hallucinogen aided Spirit of Everything. Now I'm knocking on the door to the Hall of Eternity and no one's answering. Maybe only a little of my own echo. Me? Depressed this Holiday Season? No way, man. Fa la fuckin la - la la la laaaa.

But having Santa wrenched out of my life was bad, worst junior year ever. Every year mom and I would ride the train into Philly to go Christmas shopping at the big department stores downtown - Gimbels, Wanamakers, Strawbridge and Clothier - the works. And then we'd have a fancy lunch somewhere. Just me and her.

The train had barely pulled from the station when she dropped the S Bomb on me. Apparently the parents weren't able to come up with a Robot Commando and mom felt it was time to disabuse me of the notion that Christmas would ever be fun again. Ever. You see, my brother and I had it all planned out - we were going to have awesome battles between The Great Garloo , a green wheeled monster with a punk hairdo that could bend over and pick up stuff in his claws, and Robot Commando, who could throw stuff and fire missiles to boot. Of course, come Christmas morn, the little fucker had his Great Garloo and I had a stupid robot tiger named Bengali who would walk 2 steps, roar and fall over. I kind of had my suspicions about Santa but finding out like this made if far worse. Not only was I not going to get everything I wanted in life I found out that sometimes I was going to get what I didn't want.

To top it off, I wasn't allowed to tell my brother because that would "ruin" the "magic" of the season. Why spoil Christmas for an innocent little boy? Why indeed? So I told him.

Shown actual size

Happy Thanksgiving America and Quit Yer Whining

2010-11-25T18:55:00.002-05:00

Memo to Mr. and Mrs. America: I know you'd rather waterboard a thousand brown people than spend one extra minute in an airport security line but really, get over yourselves. No TSA screener is going to get excited over a scan of your flabby private parts or your shrunken scrotums, fupas, and saggy asses. Unless, of course, you're hiding a pipe bomb somewhere in those saggy folds of disgusting ass fat. Oh, and John Tyner, nobody's that enthusiastic about touching your precious junk. That's why they're wearing rubber gloves, you dumb motherfucker. This stunt may not turn you into a lucrative commercial property. Remember "Don't tase me bro"? No? Neither does anyone else. Not that all of this scanning and groping will be particularly helpful. That horse fled the barn a while ago. In hindsight, secure cockpit doors and isolating pilots from the passenger cabin would have saved a few thousand lives and a few hundred billion dollars. Scream for ethnic profiling all you want but all it takes is one blond, blue eyed convert with a fannypack of C-4 and we're right back where we started.

The World's Worst Catholic™ Explains the Pope...Sort of

2010-11-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

You know what they say about big hats

How many angels can fit in the tip of a condom? Listen to Father Fessio's nuanced attempt to explain the inexplicable. Evidently wearing a condom if you have something like leprosy of the dick shows "the beginning of a moral awakening" or some such nonsense. Father Fessio goes on to compare condom use for the HIV positive to muggers wrapping their steel pipe (oh, the irony) weapons in padding so as to stun, rather than permanently injure, their victims. I'm not even going to try to figure out how he makes the comparison between sex and violence. Maybe he was scared by a big stiff pipe at Seminary. And this staement by the Pope doesn't represent a sliding scale of morality. Oh, no, no no. No such thing. Nothing is relative. The Pope says so. And he's infallible. And he's got the biggest hat. Father Fessio gets a little testy when the reporter suggests that the Pope's statement may be muddying the water a little. He's probably a little frustrated that maybe 1 out of 10 western Catholics pays any attention the Church's position on birth control. Now I figured a guy wearing a dress would be just the perfect spokesman for public health measures to help halt the spread of HIV. Sadly this is not the case. In fact, he might just be the worst.

I Think I'll Get the Other One

2010-11-20T17:23:00.002-05:00

Some guys just shouldn't get a choice. I'd be a natural shopper if I lived someplace like Cuba where you get your choice of beans or rice. But I spent all morning obsessively compulserating over which humidifier to buy. Ultrasonic? Evaporative? Medium room? Large Room? Whole house? Filtered? Filterless? Tower? Floor model? Maybe I should check it out on the internet first. I had one all picked out in Lowes but the box was kinda squashed so I'd probably be inheriting someones else's problem. So I went over to Walmart, picked out one at half the price but they didn't have any of the check- yourself -out thingers open so I said fuck it I'm not going to wait in line to spend good American dollars on some Chinese shit I probably don't even want. Why oh why can I not make a decision? So I went home, did my research (which more often than not turns out to be useless) and bought one from Amazon. I like getting packages. And I like my super saver shipping.

Not Sure How I Feel About This

2010-11-15T19:37:00.000-05:00

We haven't eaten Jesus yet... but we will real soon!

So saith my granddaughter explaining the finer points of Transubstantiation. She seems rather blithe about something that totally freaked me out when I was her age. Sister Mary Joseph was very clear on the fact that the host became the actual body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ amen. Symbolic representation was for the heathen protestants. Don't take the host if you haven't confessed. Or you're going to hell. Don't ever, ever chew it or touch it with your hands. Or you're going to hell. So not only were we told, prior to our First Communion at the age of 7 (it's 8 nowadays), that we were about to engage in an real cannibalistic ritual, we were also told that any misstep during the ritual would result in horrible and permanent damage to our immortal souls and would surely result in eternal damnation. Now it sure didn't taste like blood and raw meat to me so I was sure I must have been doing something wrong. And you wonder why I'm a little jumpy.

Veteran's Day

2010-11-10T18:05:00.002-05:00

"Connie’s crew thought it would be a “milk run,” an easy mission. A B-17 in one of the 3-plane formations ahead of them developed engine trouble. It left the group and headed back to England. Connie moved up to take the place vacated. In turn, a B-17 moved up to take the place vacated by Connie.

            As the group approached the target and started their bomb run, a red flare suddenly appeared in the sky and all hell broke loose. German jets* were above the American planes and they suddenly swooped down past the formation, and then reversed their direction climbing rapidly in order to fire into the bomber’s bellies. The plane which had taken Connie’s place in the formation was hit, and plunged toward the ground. From his ball turret Scrip saw the plane explode on impact. There were no parachutes.** The crew of the plane was flying its 34th mission. Only one more and they could have been on their way home." - Lee Kolankiewicz

All those guys are gone now. My dad was the last of the flight crew and he died about a year ago. We grew up in a new suburb filled with newly minted GI bill, GI loan middle class. Almost all the neighborhood men were the same age and had been in the service, many of them combat veterans. We never heard much about the war. Most of them were certainly cynical about any kind of power structure and guys like my dad attributed their survival to dumb luck and the actions of their immediate crew. Some seemed to let it go more easily than others. My pal Jimmy's dad loved to shoot off his 45 into the bank behind his house. We thought that was so cool. We got to keep the brass and dig the bullets out of the bank. Great Uncle Frank was with Patton and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Mom told us not ask him how many Jerries he killed. Uncle Pat was a mate on an LST in the Pacific and was kind of a mean SOB. Mom didn't think it was the war, he was that way before he went in. At any rate, we weren't allowed to ask him how many Japs he killed. Uncle Vince on the Texas, Uncle Joe in the Dirigible Corps, Great Uncle Frenchy developed electronic marine mine detection equipment, Pete and Don in stateside support roles. Jack got in right after the war and served in occupied Germany. His stories were about beer and girls. My favorite uncle. So here's to all my fading neighbors who fought in the Big One and all those who fought and are fighting in all the little ones.

* Dad said the jets moved too fast to track with his turret, that by the time he spotted them they were through the squadron.. He thought they knocked one down but it was more a matter of the jet running into the bullet stream rather than the gunners being able to target them. The archives claim 3 enemy planes downed.
**According to the archives 4 chutes were spotted. Out of a crew of 9- 1 MIA, 3 KIA and 5 POW.

Greatest Health Care System in the World?

2010-11-06T09:52:00.001-04:00

Maybe for John Boehner. But he's well covered (and not just with Ban de Soleil Mega Tan) by the federal government. But what about the rest of us? Those of us who are too lazy or stupid to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and become congressmen. I suppose that if number one means the freedom to go bankrupt because of medical bills, we fit that bill. USA! USA! But, really, by what metric are we number one? How do we compare with the rest of the western democracies? For the sake of clarity I'll limit the comparison to prosperous western democracies, the ones that supply health care to all their citizens.Unless you live in Texas or Mississippi it is hardly fair to compare our circumstances with the Republic of Congo. Lets take a tour -

Average life expectancy (from our friends at the CIA) :

Monaco

89.78

2010 est.


2	Macau	84.38	2010 est.


3	San Marino	82.95	2010 est.


4	Andorra	82.36	2010 est.


5	Japan	82.17	2010 est.


6	Guernsey	82.08	2010 est.


7	Singapore	82.06	2010 est.


8	Hong Kong	81.96	2010 est.


9	Australia	81.72	2010 est.


10	Canada	81.29	2010 est.


11	Jersey	81.28	2010 est.


12	France	81.09	2010 est.


13	Spain	81.07	2010 est.


14	Sweden	80.97	2010 est.


15	Switzerland	80.97	2010 est.


16	Israel	80.86	2010 est.


17	Iceland	80.79	2010 est.


18	Anguilla	80.77	2010 est.


19	Bermuda	80.60	2010 est.


20	Cayman Islands	80.57	2010 est.


21	Isle of Man	80.53	2010 est.


22	New Zealand	80.48	2010 est.


23	Italy	80.33	2010 est.


24	Liechtenstein	80.19	2010 est.


25	Norway	80.08	2010 est.


26	Ireland	80.07	2010 est.


27	Jordan	79.92	2010 est.


28	United Kingdom	79.92	2010 est.


29	Greece	79.80	2010 est.


30	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	79.74	2010 est.


31	Austria	79.65	2010 est.


32	Malta	79.59	2010 est.


33	Faroe Islands	79.58	2010 est.


34	Netherlands	79.55	2010 est.


35	Luxembourg	79.48	2010 est.


36	Germany	79.41	2010 est.


37	Belgium	79.37	2010 est.


38	Virgin Islands	79.19	2010 est.


39	Finland	79.13	2010 est.


40	Wallis and Futuna	78.83	2010 est.


41	European Union	78.82	2010 est.


42	Korea, South	78.81	2010 est.


43	Puerto Rico	78.77	2010 est.


44	Bosnia and Herzegovina	78.66	2010 est.


45	Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha	78.60	2010 est.


46	Gibraltar	78.53	2010 est.


47	Denmark	78.47	2010 est.


48	Portugal	78.38	2010 est.


49	United States	78.24	2010 est.


50	Taiwan	78.15	2010 est.

OK. Top 50 isn't too bad. At least we beat Taiwan. And there is no indication that this is healthcare related, even though those countries that beat us have some version of Obamacare - only better. It may well be lifestyle. Compare a bunch of fish eaters to us Twinkie soaked Americans? - no fair!

If by best Speaker Boehner means most expensive he may well have a point-

Per Capita health expenditures in US dollars:
Iceland - $3294
Australia- $3123
Canada- $3173
France - $3040
United Kingdom -$2560
Japan - $2293
United States - $6096

Yay! Numero Uno! We get to spend twice as much as those countries listed above and still manage to rank below them in average life expectancy. Maybe Boehner meant something else. Maybe he meant that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we think we have the best health care system in the world. Let's see - (from Fox news, no less)

Here's someone who's already laid it all out (I could have saved myself the trouble):
Percent of people who believe their health care system needs fundamental change:

United States   60%
Sweden          58
United Kingdom  52
Japan           47
Netherlands     46
France          42
Canada          38

We won again. To recap - the United States has the best health care system if you are a wealthy Republican congressman. Or an Insurance executive. Or maybe a plastic surgeon. Basically Boehner is full of shit. But you knew that already. Boehner is afraid, and rightly so, that once the American people find out the benefits of the incremental changes in the admittedly flawed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act they will come to view universal health care as a fundamental right in a prosperous and civilized society. Boehner and the Republican party has never gotten over the fact that Social Security and Medicare are popular and irreversible accomplishments of American progressives. Just like Boehner can't get over the tan tax.

He Promised He'd Never Hurt Me Again

2010-11-03T06:18:00.002-04:00

Battered wife America has lifted the PFA against the Republican Party and agreed to a 2 year trial reconciliation. "He promised that he has changed" she said "And will never leave me broke and destitute and will never again touch the kids ( Defense, Social Security and Medicare), and never ever flirt with that skank Discretionary Spending."

John Boehner, wearing an understated pale umber skin tone for the occasion, mentioned frequently that he has learned his lesson and will now work diligently to implement the Will of the American People. Not the american people of two or four years ago but the real American People. The half of the half of the people who agree with him, anyway. He outlined a specific plan for revenue enhancements and spending cuts to control the burgeoning deficit. (Hah! Got ya! Just kidding) After warning the President to play ball or he'll umm...uh... be sorry, Boehner choked up at the thought that a poor orange boy with plastic hair could rise from humble beginnings to become the Speaker of the house. Either that or he was stifling a chuckle at the fact that, in this economic climate, even a guy running on a family values platform who shows up wearing a diaper and flanked by a hooker can get reelected as long as he has an R next to his name.

None Dare Call It Sleazin'

2010-10-28T18:31:00.000-04:00

Do you ever get that "not so fresh" feeling?

Poor Ann Coulter. She's been kind of marginalized since the wingnuts have found fruitier loops in the box. Far fruitier. Even though the new breed, Palin, O'Donnell and Bachman have trouble generating a tweet between them and can't answer a direct question on any topic without resorting to Constitution, freedom or momma-somethings, they seem to have reduced Ann to a vague web presence and syndication in two bit small town newspapers (which counts for balance in these parts - point and counterpoint with Eugene Robinson - god help us). Even though Ann has managed (I assume on her own) to write whole books full of incoherencies and an actual column with real words and everything. Sad, really. Her desperate aging fame-whoredom reminds me of an aging hooker strutting around in her muffintop hot pants trying to get a reaction out of someone, anyone. At best Coulter's attempts at vitriol elicit the same confused and vaguely nauseated reaction as Wolf Blitzer and Chris Coons had during the debate.. Liberals? Yeah, I've heard of them. Kind of like the Whigs or something, right? But she gamely keeps applying the face paint and pressing on, hoping for some sort of reaction. Here's one, more out of pity than anything else:

In all of life's tribulations, there is nothing so aggravating as being condescended to by an idiot. In last week's CNN debate in the Delaware Senate race between the astonishingly well-spoken Christine O'Donnell and the unfortunate-looking Chris Coons, O'Donnell had to put up with it from Coons for 90 minutes.
O'Donnell wiped the floor with Coons, moderators Wolf Blitzer and Nancy Karibjanian, and the idiotic University of Delaware students asking questions – all of whom were against her.

Wiped the floor with Coons? Well, O'Donnell didn't throw up and no monkeys flew out of her ass so I suppose that counts as a victory of sorts. Astonishing is right. And I really think a woman with a bad dye job and an adam's apple shouldn't characterize anyone as "unfortunate looking". Stupid students, anyway. Always with the questions.

And the Problem Is...?

2010-10-24T19:02:00.002-04:00

Yo! I'm talking to you

"The social transformations we have seen over recent decades have complex causes, the roots of which are distant in time and have profoundly modified our perception of the world. ... If, on the one hand, humanity has seen undeniable benefits from these transformations and the Church received further stimuli to give reasons for the hope she carries, on the other, we have seen a worrying loss of the sense of the sacred, even going so far as to call into discussion apparently unquestionable foundations, such as faith in the God of creation and providence; the revelation of Jesus Christ our only Saviour, the shared understating of man's fundamental experiences like birth, death and family life, and the reference to natural moral law".

From the apostolic letter Ubicumque et Sempter (Everywhere and Always) issued Moto pro prio (because I can) to announce the founding of a new Vatican Agency tasked with evangelizing the backsliders. Issued originally only in Latin and Italian. I suppose the Popester wanted to see how it played with the home team and Classics scholars before disseminating it in a language someone actually speaks. Sure there's the grudging admission that 400 years of post Enlightenment scientific and social progress in the Western European democracies has increased the standard of living beyond what 2000 years of Christian statehood could even dream of but don't these poor souls know that while their bellies are full, their souls are wandering thirstily in a spiritual desert. And even if these Europeans know, they don't appear to care. Funny how the least religious countries are the ones that you would most like to live in. Excepting the good ole USA, I guess. We appear to be a special case where evidence based knowledge and superstitious dumbassery uneasily coexist, often in the same person.

So good luck, Papa Bene. You're gonna need it. One question: If there is such a thing as Natural Moral Law why do we need religion at all?

Fox Hires Guy Named Juan

2010-10-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

How about that. They are fair and balanced. NPR dumps Williams and he surfaces with a 2 million dollar contract from Fox News. Tragic. I know how Williams feels - guys in camo make me nervous.

Goo goo G'joob

2010-10-08T17:42:00.002-04:00

Far out - if she is me than who am I or is I am you as you are he as we are all together? Freak me out - I think she is a witch

"I'm nothing like you've heard"
Are you anything like what you've said?

"I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do"
Visit the Hall of Human Origins? I doubt that.

You're At That Age...

2010-10-06T18:58:00.002-04:00

When you can't get it up and you've forgotten everything you ever knew about cars. Seen that Viagra commercial with that "self reliant" can do guy driving through the desert in his primered '69 Camaro? He looks relaxed but more likely is depressed. Not only can't he get it up or afford to paint his car but everything is in black and white and he doesn't have so much as a bridge abutment to run into to end it all. Anyway, the car overheats and this guy rolls into a two bit service station, gets a liter of chilled water and pours it in the radiator and cruises on down the road. How he popped the radiator cap without suffering second degree burns and poured the ice cold water into radiator without cracking the block I do not know. My experience in cars of that era involved heavy towels, fountains of rusty scalding coolant and a lot of running around screaming "Oh, shit!". Maybe Mr. Self Reliant is at that age where he spent 3 hours trying to piss and everything cooled down by the time he got back to the car.

So he cruises back into town and pulls in next to the wifey's minivan. The implication being that she can't wait for her Mr. Softee to get home. Hope he remembered the boner pills or, at least, is good with his hands..

I Still Ain't Got It

2010-10-05T18:56:00.001-04:00

You know how some people say "I'm not getting older, I'm getting better"? Well, those people can go fuck themselves because it ain't true. Nothing like 5 minutes on the soccer field to disabuse one of the notion that "young at heart" makes up for "old in body". It was during the weekly Giants vs. Trolls pickup game at soccer practice that I found out that my current limit of full tilt running is less than 5 seconds at a clip, followed by a ten minute recovery time. And I used to play club soccer in high school. Faster than most with no left foot (to clarify, I have a left foot but I just can't kick with it), I loved to race down the sideline and arc the ball towards the goal where those team mates more temperamentally suited to pain would take the shots. It didn't even matter who it went to, I just loved that arc. Now I just dribble down my shirt. My brother was one of the inside guys due to a rather unique genetic mutation. Picture Schwarzenegger legs on a Pee Wee Herman torso (with a Grizzly Adams forehead) and you got yourself a striker.

What made my performance even more embarrassing was that every time I turned around one of the 57 little buggers was practicing his (or her) slide tackle and planting me on my ass. Real funny, pick on the old guy. In my defense they were 3rd graders. Mostly.

Not a Winner

2010-09-28T18:59:00.000-04:00

Well, it was 1.24 miles. That's a long way for an old guy. We'll do better next year if we don't get diverted again by George Washington or do a Rocky on the Art museum steps.

The Parkway Run/Walk was the wife's idea.She enjoys being part of a community fund raising effort. She likes people. Even around her. Strange. Me? I'd rather write a check. I don't travel well. But Brenda and Jas do. Especially Jas, being a hotel and hospital kid from all the operations, cancer treatments and doctor's visits. We stayed at the Hotel Windsor which I highly recommend. Clean and way cheaper than the Four Seasons. Efficiency, centrally located, nice restaurant down below and heated rooftop pool. I floated on my back and looked at the glass walled Comcast building towering above. Just like being in a commercial for the good life. Valet parking so these Jamaican guys disappear your car when you get there and if you need something out of it you have to get them to bring it back and disappear it again. I'm not sure I like that. I like having at least three vehicles and their contents wilthin easy reach. I guess you're supposed to tip them. Hell, I don't know - I did - every trip. Why I should care if a couple of Jamaican guys think that I am a clueless rube I do not know. But I do.

Philly makes me a little uneasy, although it seems cleaner and safer than when I was a kid. Part of the unease resulted from my wife's boy howdy attitude towards everyone she met as she dragged us to every fucking fountain in the city. I guess when you're from the suburbs of a cow pasture any conversational encounter is a good one. She is so nice that she will stop to give directions to total strangers even when we're lost. In my humble opinion, that's a little too nice.

Better class of bum than in the old days, too. More mellow. Not like the wild eyed obscene agressive juicers of my youth. Maybe they're dispensing Prozac down at the shelter. Here's where I get deep: You have to wonder what brought these men to this sorry state and how close any of us are to having our function switches turned off. I suspect any accidental turn of the screw could sit any one of us down at any time. I'm sure some of these guys had families. And some of them had stuff. I can almost see how it happens.

Don't Touch That Wiener!

2010-09-15T20:21:00.002-04:00

Oh goody. Bachman, Palin, Angle - I guess the crazy just wasn't deep enough for the new Know Nothing Party. Of course, that was back in the 90's (the 1890's) before it was discovered that masturbation was good for you. After all, if Jesus didn't want you to masturbate he wouldn't have invented porn. Here's another tidbit from the Republican nominee for one of the Delaware Senate seats:

CHRISTINE O’DONNELL: Now, he said that it’s based on fact. I just want to point out a couple things. First of all, they use carbon dating, as an example, to prove that something was millions of years old. Well, we have the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens and the carbon dating test that they used then would have to then prove that these were hundreds of millions of years younger, when what happened was they had the exact same results on the fossils and canyons that they did the tests on that were supposedly 100 millions of years old. And it’s the kind of inconsistent tests like this that they’re basing their ‘facts’ on.

This is so unbelievably wrong on so many levels and there are so many logical fallacies embedded in that one statement that it is almost impossible to parse out what she is trying to say. The anti-intellectual fruits sprung from the poison seed of Rushdoony . We're a country half full of half educated dumb asses. Let's send one to the Senate.

Not Exactly Don Draper

2010-09-14T12:27:00.000-04:00

Well, this is a little embarassing. I stopped in the company president's office this morning for a little chat and to brag about my mad estimating skills and about how I am the man. I was just getting into what percentage of total sales was the result of my bidding efforts when he looked at me and asked me if my shirt was on inside out. Shit. It was. I just walked out. God, I hope some of these jobs make some money.

More Invasion of the Species

2010-09-03T19:34:00.002-04:00

My entire back yard was graded down to the clay when they built the highline next to the house. That was in 1913 and the soil has yet to recover. Shaded by a row of decaying rock maples, the flat spots can grow only dirt and the occasional clump of quack grass and the railroad bank and fence line grow everything else, mostly a feeble vegetable garden and my collection of invasive plants. I do have some native plants - poison ivy and pokeberry. Yay.

Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) - inherited this. The parent vine seems to have died but runners are popping up all over. No blooms this year, though.

Morning Glory (Ipomoea nil) - my fault. Can't say I wasn't warned. I managed to infest my father's place with these things and I heard about it until the day he died. They looked nice on his trellis, though. Supposedly the seeds have hallucinogenic properties if you eat hundreds of them. Blecch. Oddly enough I don't know if this is true. I also have a wild variety embedded in my garden that seems to propagate by runner instead of seed. I'll never get rid of it. It's the hydra of morning glories.

Garden of Invasive Species

2010-08-30T22:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently, I am very, very good at growing invasive species. Invasive Species gardening is easy - they practically grow themselves! So easy you can do it, too. But if the DCNR gets wind of what's infesting my quarter acre estate they will order a napalm strike on my back yard. Here are some ecology destroying plants that I either inherited or planted myself because I'm not all that bright :

Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) - Jumped the railroad tracks about 30 years ago. Heaven must stink if it's full of these dirty, smelly useless punkwood bastards. Easy to uproot but they just keep coming back - prime candidate for chemical warfare.

Golden Bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) - grabbed a couple of clumps as a screen for the railroad from an old homestead when I moved to town. It spread pretty well just north and south alone the high line bank although over the last year or so a couple of shoots have escaped down into the yard. So what. What's it gonna do - disturb the dog shit? It would have to get by the chemical barrier my neighbor's massive English walnut puts up to escape west. There's a bridge north, the chemical wasteland of the double track east so all it can do is go south. At the rate it's spreading it will be 50 years before it crosses the property line and I'll be dead or way beyond caring. Besides it has to get by some other successful invaders to go any further. Stay tuned...

Who Said What?

2010-08-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

Can you separate the psychopath from the sociopath? Which of the below quotes comes from baby killing mass murderer Timothy McVeigh and which is from confused loon Sharron Angle, the Nevada Republican nominee for the US Senate?

a."The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control."

b."What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock," she said. "That tells me the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? "That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

c."If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies..."

d."Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. [...] Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."

e."Half of the country is working to produce and pay the taxes and pay the bills, the other half is living off the taxpayers -- they’re living off the other 51 percent."

Tough, isn't it? McVeigh - a.,d. Angle b.,c.,e.

Freak Me Out

2010-08-18T15:18:00.002-04:00

Time to pack up. It is amazing how time zips by. Household chores today. Every thing is ok here. See you soon.

Love to all - Dad

Don't use my laptop much except while on vacation. Found it in my email under the header Too Fast. Dad died last November so I'm thinking that time has stopped zipping by for him. But "see you soon"? I don't think I like that at all.

(and yes, my loyal reader - more catharsis. I'm full of catharsis - I'm the most catharsisarean guy you'll ever meet. And don't make me look up any more words)

The World's Worst Catholic™ Explains Why God Allows Requires Pain and Suffering

2010-08-13T19:07:00.006-04:00

Our grandaughter was born with a sacrococcogeal teratoma which necessitated a helicopter ride to a surgery center for removal of the tumor and, as there was a germ cell malignancy found in the liver, she had to undergo chemotherapy for the first 9 months of her life. This left her bald, sick and continually in the hospital to deal with urinary tract infections and pneumonia resulting from her compromised immune system. She has been in remission for 6 years but the surgery has left her incontinent, without muscle mass around her sphincter and nerve damage to her bladder. The tumor displaced her hip so surgery and a spica cast were required to realign her hip. So each day is a continual round of medications to bolster her kidney function and laxitives and immodium to try to time her bowel movements so that she is more or less (mostly less) socially continent. She has also developed mild epileptic seizures that require medication and a regimen of high calorie foods to maintain her weight. But, all in all, she's a happy, well adjusted kid. Things have stabilized to the point where we only have to drive the 150 miles to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia a few times a year. Once a year we have a followup for the cancer survivors program in the oncology wing. It's a tough trip.

"In a recent Angelus message Pope Benedict XVI hit on the very core of the Church's belief that, there is, in fact a great value and worhiness to be found in human agony. To be sure, the Church's understanding of human suffering lies at the very heart of salvation itself."

Thanks, Pope, I feel much better now. Next time I see a bald, sick unto death, bewildered four year old with a port in his chest in the oncology wing I'll remember that human suffering is all part of God's love for us. Without it we would face eternal suffering. Or when I see a 20 year old athlete with an inoperable brain tumor barely able to move from the combined effects of radiation and chemo I'll tell her, " Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? Yet not one will fall to the ground apart from you Father's will." A little transcription error here, a stray neutino there, a modest mutation in a regulatory sequence. All part of the Big Guy's master plan. Doomed to a short agonizing life with an incurable birth defect because your parents follow the Church teaching that a merciful abortion is a mortal sin? Well, that's all God's will.
If I weren't such a spiritual fellow, and having seen children in all stages of disease and disability, I would almost think that there really isn't any purpose to this pain and suffering. That a transcription error is just a transcription error, a stray neutrino is just a stray neutrino, the sparrow just gets sick and dies and shit just happens. If I weren't such a spiritual person I would almost think that a person's time would be better spent volunteering at the local hospital than praying and contributing weekly to Doctors Without Borders or the Ronald McDonald House than dumping those bucks in the collection plate. If I weren't such a spiritual person I'd almost think Benedict and the Church are full of shit and lionizing suffering is a weak argument designed to give meaning to something that has none and to perpetuate a superstition who's only rationale is its own existence. If I weren't such a spiritual person I would almost think that, if there is a God, he's asleep, dead or just doesn't care and all we really have are each other. If I weren't such a spiritual person, that is.