Sarah Palin isn't above the FJM treatment

Let's dive right in:

Palin Announces no Second Term
No Lame Duck Session Either

Yeah, so this happened. Damn. I wonder why. Let’s see what the Governor has to say.

Hi Alaska, I appreciate speaking directly to you, the people I serve, as your Governor.

Shit. Should I not be reading this? Actually, probably not. Chances are I end up with a headache. And no answers.

People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing's more important to me than our beloved Alaska. Serving her people is the greatest honor I could imagine.

What she’s not saying here is that Alaska is a distant third. And when she says family, she means herself, because technically she’s in her family. I guess what I’m saying here is that while she’s going to try to portray this as some sort of altruistic move, she’s doing it because she thinks it’s best for her. Tremendously solipsistic.

I want Alaskans to grasp what can be in store for our state. We were purchased as a territory because a member of President Abe Lincoln's cabinet, William Seward, providentially saw in this great land, vast riches, beauty, strategic placement on the globe, and opportunity.

So he knew that we needed some territory close enough to Russia to keep the Tsrarist bastards in check?

He boldly looked "North to the Future". But he endured such ridicule and mocking for his vision for Alaska, remember the adversaries scoffed, calling this "Seward's Folly". Seward withstood such disdain as he chose the uncomfortable, unconventional, but right path to secure Alaska, so Alaska could help secure the United States.

Man, Sarah Palin’s existence is pretty damning evidence that maybe Seward was wrong after all.

Alaska’s mission – to contribute to America. We’re strategic in the world as the air crossroads of the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. Bold visionaries knew this - Alaska would be part of America's great destiny.

Strategic? I guess, in the sense that all our nukes are going to fly over Alaska when we bomb North Korea. Gatekeeper to the continent? I don’t think anyone has entered North America through Alaska since the Bering Strait was walkable.

Our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, and oil and gas. It's energy! God gave us energy.

There are two things that I love about Sarah Palin’s writing that are exhibited in this paragraph. First, look at that first sentence. She clearly thinks that verbs are a tool of the liberal media elite. Second, exclamation points. This is just the first of many. Get excited. I am, however, disappointed that she doesn’t leave the “g” off her gerunds when she writes. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

So to serve the state is a humbling responsibility, because I know in my soul that Alaska is of such import, for America’s security, in our very volatile world. And you know me by now, I promised even four years ago to show my independence… no more conventional “politics as usual”.

“Politics as usual” in this case means actually doing your job, what the people elected you to do.

And we are doing well! My administration's accomplishments speak for themselves. We work tirelessly for Alaskans.

What, exactly, has she accomplished? Also, !!!.

We aggressively and responsibly develop our resources because they were created to be used to better our world... to help people... and we protect the environment and Alaskans (the resource owners) foremost with our policies.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how “responsibly develop our resources” is compatible with “drill baby drill.” Also, just saying you protect the environment doesn’t make it true. The animals she shot from helicopters are part of the environment, maybe we should ask them. But we can’t, because she shot all of them and now they’re dead.

Here’s some of the things we’ve done:

Oh?

We created a petroleum integrity office to oversee safe development. We held the line for Alaskans on Point Thomson – and finally for the first time in decades – they’re drilling for oil and gas.

There’s probably been a reason we weren’t drilling there for decades. Like calamitous environmental effects. That last paragraph seems so far away.

We have AGIA, the gasline project – a massive bi-partisan victory (the vote was 58 to 1!) – also succeeding as intended - protecting Alaskans as our clean natural gas will flow to energize us, and America, through a competitive, pro-private sector project. This is the largest private sector energy project, ever. This is energy independence.

The only thing better than a real governor using exclamation points is when one uses them to brag parenthetically. I think she uses so many dashes because she doesn’t know how semi-colons work.

And ACES – another bipartisan effort – is working as intended and industry is publicly acknowledging its success. Our new oil and gas “clear and equitable formula” is so Alaskans will no longer be taken advantage of. ACES incentivizes new exploration and development and jobs that were previously not going to happen with a monopolized North Slope oil basin.

I love in this paragraph how she’s treating “industry” as some sort of entity, one capable of making public acknowledgments. Also, I read that second paragraph like four times, and I’m pretty sure that Piper wrote it. It’s, um, well, she’s no F. Scott Fitzgerald.

We cleaned up previously accepted unethical actions; we ushered in bi-partisan Ethics Reform.

How many ethics complaints have been filed against her since the beginning of her term? Um, the internet says it’s a lot.

We also slowed the rate of government growth, we worked with the Legislature to save billions of dollars for the future, and I made no lobbyist friends with my hundreds of millions of dollars in budget vetoes... but living beyond our means today is irresponsible for tomorrow.

Is this a good spot to talk about that bridge? Eh, no one wants to hear about that, back to her bullshit.

We took government out of the dairy business and put it back into private-sector hands – where it should be.

Wait, what? What does this even mean? Clearly I don’t know nearly enough about Alaska’s thriving dairy industry, and its conspiratorial tendencies. Seriously, what does this even mean? As of last April there were six dairy farms in Alaska.

We provided unprecedented support for education initiatives, and with the right leadership, finally filled long-vacant public safety positions. We built a sub-Cabinet on Climate Change and took heat from Outside special interests for our biologically-sound wildlife management for abundance.

I love that she capitalizes “Outside” here. What’s going on with that? Xenophobia? I’m going to say yes.

We broke ground on the new prison.

Cool.

And we made common sense conservative choices to eliminate personal luxuries like the jet, the chef, the junkets... the entourage.

Um, she sold the jet for a loss. Say what you will about conservatives, but most of them are damn good at making money. See, she’s not even good at being a conservative.

And the Lt. Governor and I said "no" to our pay raises.

I don’t see why this is seen as a good thing. Honestly, I don’t think I would vote for someone who’s just going to turn down money. There’s something untrustworthy about it.

So much success in this first term – and with this success I am proud to take credit... for hiring the right people! Our goal was to achieve a gasline project, more fair oil and gas valuation, and ethics reform in four years. We did it in two. It’s because of the people… good public servants surrounding the Governor's office, with servants' hearts and astounding work ethic... they are Alaska's success!

Oh man, I love the ellipses-exclamation point combination. This is my favorite paragraph, because she uses it twice. Though something is missing. I dunno, I just feel that type of punctuation only really works when you have Kelso from That ‘70’s Show yelling “Burn!” right after. Also, is she saying that she accomplished everything she needed to already, and that’s why she’s resigning? Because if so, she’s lying. Especially about ethics reform.

We are doing well! I wish you'd hear more from the media of your state's progress and how we tackle Outside interests - daily - special interests that would stymie our state. Even those debt-ridden stimulus dollars that would force the heavy hand of federal government into our communities with an “all-knowing attitude” – I have taken the slings and arrows with that unpopular move to veto because I know being right is better than being popular. Some of those dollars would harm Alaska and harm America – I resisted those dollars because of the obscene national debt we’re forcing our children to pay, because of today’s Big Government spending; it’s immoral and doesn’t even make economic sense!

Oh man, great paragraph. It’s got her attacking the media, Obama, and the mysteriously-capitalized “Outsiders.” She also portrays herself as a martyr, because, well, I don’t know. She just really likes herself.

Another accomplishment – our Law Department protected states’ rights – two huge U.S. Supreme Court reversals came down against that liberal Ninth Circuit, deciding in our state’s favor over the last two weeks. We’re protectors of our Constitution – federalists protect states’ rights as mandated in 10th amendment.

Ok, this might be the most poorly-constructed paragraph so far. But, um, how is a Supreme Court ruling an accomplishment that she can take credit for? Also, bonus douche-points for bashing the liberal Ninth Circuit. All those damned gays and abortionists in California. Finally, the 10th Amendment doesn’t mandate that anyone should do anything, it says what can’t be done by the Federal government. Come on, this is something you learn in the most basic civics or politics class.

But you don’t hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?

Yeah, fuck those guys.

Some say things changed for me on August 29th last year – the day John McCain tapped me to be his running-mate – I say others changed.

Not just others. Absolutely everyone else. Or her.

Let me speak to that for a minute.

Take as long as you need.

Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions.

Also misusing funds, improperly disclosing information, and breaking election law. They seem pretty serious.

Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We’ve won! But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money not going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn’t cost them a dime so they’re not going to stop draining public resources – spending other peoples’ money in their game.

I counted 18. Whatever. And it’s not like Sarah Palin was wasting Alaskan time and money going all over the country both before and after the election. How did Alaska benefit from having its Governor miss the last couple days of the legislative session speaking at some anti-abortion festival?

It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more “politics as usual,” but this isn’t what anyone had in mind for Alaska.

Yeah, you’re right, you are full of shit when you say you’re a maverick and are dismissive of “politics as usual.” I’m glad we were able to clear this up. On behalf of America, I accept your apology.

If I have learned one thing: life is about choices!

Like choosing to not let people choose to have abortions.

And one chooses how to react to circumstances. You can choose to engage in things that tear down, or build up. I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity. I choose not to tear down and waste precious time; but to build up this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic, free people!

USA! Sorry, I got swept up in all the nice things she was saying about me. But it might be worth asking just what she’s accomplished since August.

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.

This paragraph just seems contradictory. She’s saying you shouldn’t take the quitter’s way out in her resignation statement. Am I taking crazy pills?

Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow".

Yep, she wrote “Nah.” She’s just so damned folksy.

No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time... to build up.

Again, is the ellipsis necessary?

And there is such a need to build up and fight for our state and our country. I choose to fight for it! And I'll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and life... I'll work for and campaign for those proud to be American, and those who are inspired by our ideals and won't deride them.

Ugh, I’m really sick of the whole anti-abortion thing. “Protect life.” Fuck that. It really bothers me that people like priests and the Pope and shit have so much influence over shaping peoples’ lives, when they have such insular existences, with really nothing in common with the people they’re supposed to be leading to salvation.

I will support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the right reasons, and I don't care what party they're in or no party at all. Inside Alaska – or Outside Alaska.

This is a lie. They will all be Republicans. Every single one.

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.

Allahu Akbar.

I've never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference... to help people. So I choose, for my State and my family, more "freedom" to progress, all the way around... so that Alaska may progress... I will not seek re-election as Governor.

I hope she said “I needs” during the press conference. And she’s not doing anything for her state or her family; it’s for herself.

And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks… travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade – as so many politicians do. And then I thought – that’s what’s wrong – many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and “milk it”. I’m not putting Alaska through that – I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! That’s not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old “politics as usual.” I promised that four years ago – and I meant it.

What the hell? Just because she’d be a lame duck doesn’t mean she would have to do any of these things. She could just, well, not.

It’s not what is best for Alaska.

Well, she and I probably agree that her not being governor is best for Alaska.

I am determined to take the right path for Alaska even though it is unconventional and not so comfortable.

Again, yeah, her not being in charge is probably a good thing.

With this announcement that I am not seeking re-election… I’ve determined it’s best to transfer the authority of governor to Lieutenant Governor Parnell; and I am willing to do so, so that this administration – with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future – can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success.

She’s just so cocky and delusional, I love it.

My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.

I can’t be the only person who would pay a decent amount of money to watch Sarah Palin actually hit her head against a wall, can I?

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me – sports… basketball. I use it because you’re naïve if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket… and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.

So she basically has her one go-to metaphor, basketball, and she fucked it up. Keeping you eye on the ball is baseball. I would never vote for someone who so egregiously mixes metaphors. You know what, fuck it. November 6, 2012, let’s not even bother with an election. Palin vs Obama, one on one, game to eleven, winner gets the Oval Office.

I have given my reasons candidly and truthfully… and my last day won’t be for another few weeks so the transition will be very smooth. In fact, we will look to swear Sean in – in Fairbanks at the conclusion of our Governor’s picnics.

Actually, her reasons were given in the least candid and truthful way possible. I still don't think I know what they really are. She’s full of shit.

I do not want to disappoint anyone with my decision; all I can ask is that you trust me with this decision – but it’s no more “politics as usual”.

I’m not disappointed with her decision. I really wish she would completely go away though, fuck these half-measures.

Some Alaskans don’t mind wasting public dollars and state time. I do. I cannot stand here as your Governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of Governor. And my children won’t allow it either.

Ah, the children. One of them is knocked up now. I’d bet anything.

Some will question the timing. Let’s just say, this decision has been in the works for awhile…

I don’t know if I buy this. Obviously she planned to do it right before the Fourth of July, because it’s such a weird thing she didn’t want everyone to talk about it. But if she were smart, and we have months of evidence showing she’s not, she would have announced it on the day that Michael Jackson died. You know, if this has been in the works for a while.

In fact, this decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life - my children (where the count was unanimous... well, in response to asking: "Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children's future from outside the Governor's office?" It was four "yes's" and one "hell yeah!" The "hell yeah" sealed it - and someday I'll talk about the details of that... I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.) Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we all could learn so much from someone like Trig - I know he needs me, but I need him even more... what a child can offer to set priorities right – that time is precious... the world needs more "Trigs", not fewer.

Ok, who was mocking Trig? I don’t think anyone was. But if she says it, it must be true. More importantly though, of her five kids, which one answered “hell yeah?” Was that Trig’s response? Clearly she didn’t ask all five kids. She just lies so casually, it’s appalling.

My decision was also fortified during this most recent trip to Kosovo and Landstuhl, to visit our wounded soldiers overseas, those who sacrifice themselves in war for our freedom and security… we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops… they’re bold, they don’t give up, they take a stand and know that life is short so they choose to not waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than self... and to build up their families, their states, our country. These Troops and their important missions – those are truly the worthy causes in this world and should be the public priority with time and resources and not this local / superficial wasteful political bloodsport.

Palin capitalizes “Troops” because she just supports them so much. She even got her passport just so she could go visit them.

May we all learn from them!

Ugh, almost through it.

*((Gotta put First Things First))*

I swear to God that I did not change the punctuation here at all. That’s exactly how it appears on Alaska’s website. I’m sure we’re all thinking “what the fuck?”

First things first: as Governor, I love my job and I love Alaska. It hurts to make this choice but I am doing what’s best for Alaska. I’ve explained why… though I think of the saying on my parents’ refrigerator that says “Don’t explain: your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”

I think this makes her the first prominent politician to quote a refrigerator magnet. This just is not politics as usual.

But I have given my reasons… no more “politics as usual” and I am taking my fight for what’s right – for Alaska – in a new direction.

I’m afraid that if I keep rolling my eyes at this they’ll get stuck like that.

Now, despite this, I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this real “climate change” that began in August… no, we need hardworking, average Americans fighting for what’s right! And I will support you because we need you and you can effect change, and I can too on the outside.

God I hope she can’t. That’s not the good kind of change.

We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the bottom up, not move toward this top down big government take-over… but rather, will be protectors of individual rights - who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!

If I were supposed to rewrite this paragraph so that it makes sense, I don’t know where I would even begin. It’s convoluted, poorly punctuated, frighteningly enthusiastic, and I don’t really know that the point she’s trying to make is.

Remember Alaska… America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future. It'll be good. So God bless you, and from me and my family - to all Alaska - you have my heart.

No one is looking towards Alaska. At all. I bet a pretty substantial portion of Americans don’t even think it’s a state.

And we will be in the capable hands of our Lieutenant Governor, Sean Parnell. And Lieutenant General Craig Campbell will assume the role of Lieutenant Governor. And it is my promise to you that I will always be standing by, ready to assist. We have a good, positive agenda for Alaska.

Is that a promise or a threat?

In the words of General MacArthur said, “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”

God I hope she ends up somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

This is great - - give me more!

Hey, how's it goin? Long time no see. Hope you've been doing well since the last time I posted. Oh what's that? There's still only 4 people who read this site? I'll hold off on the pleasantries then.

More news about A-Rod today, and much of it is awesome. Turns out he's covering up his lies with more lies, and every day finds himself buried under a bigger mountain of deceit.

After the report of his alleged steroid use came out, he "confessed" (and I'm forced to use that term lightly now) that he stopped using in 2003, that he was unaware of what he was using, and that he was essentially trying to fit in with all of the cool kids in Texas.

False. (Allegedly).

However, none of the news that came out today was particularly alarming, save perhaps that it's highly likely A-Rod used steroids in high school. If he really did gain 25 lbs of muscle between his sophomore and junior years, I would vote that it's impossible that he didn't use steroids, but we'll say it's possible for now. The only reason we find this surprising is because for most of us, Rodriguez is (still on some level) the wunderkind of recent memory. He was the youngest member of a young and exciting (and very likable) Mariners team that took on the Yankee beast in the 90s. We were prepared from Day 1 to watch his meteoric rise to the top of the all-time record sheet, and our naivete in assuming he could do it without enhancement was spurred on by his young age and youthful visage. I think we're still reeling from that.

Further, when dealing with such an image-obsessed, egomaniacal pro-athlete, we can't really be surprised that he had a harem of women across the country or even that he was tipping off pitches to other players to receive tips in return and pad his stats. Baseball is a numbers business, and a reasonably intelligent man such as A-Rod can draw the straight, logical line between stats and dollars quite easily. I don't find any of this shocking.

Really the surprising news today is more that we're still only hearing about A-Rod. Remember when he was first outed as a steroid user, it was because his name was part of a list of 104 positive tests from other major league players. That was on February 7th. It's two months later and we've gotten precisely 0 other names on that list.

What the hell?! A-Rod becomes less likable with every news story that comes out, but why is he getting railroaded for a generation of steroid users? Why is he being punished for being better than everyone else?

You want this to happen as much as I do. I want to hear about more people getting embarrassing nicknames. I'll see you Bitch Tits for A-Rod, and raise you Silver Dollars, Saucy Nips, Tiny Balls, Backne, Crater Face, Hulk, Ass Cyst, Mega Dome and whatever other off-color nicknames can arise from the physical maladies associated with steroid use.

There are enough players that I love to hate; I really want to have better nicknames for them.

Brief Thoughts

I’m done my brief, 4600 words. I’m pretty sure that my guy is gonna win. Whatever. On to more important things.

The Governor of Texas is in way over his head. Secession? Really? That worked out so well the first time, didn’t it. Honestly, I’m excited about it too, and really hope they go through with it. First of all, I think America would be a better place without the Lone Star State. Too many evangelicals there. Second, and most importantly, if Texas secedes, I’m pretty sure there would be a zombie outbreak. In fact, I’m certain of it. If Texas leaves the Union again, Andrew Jackson will rise from the dead an lead an army of zombies on a rampage all the way to the Rio Grande, not stopping until he hangs or eats the brains of every secessionist down there, starting with Rick Perry.

A couple days ago a statement was made public warning about right wing extremists. This, naturally, made the right wing extremists flip out. But, uh, the more they flip out, the closer they get to doing the things that the government was warning about. Facist-leaning Republicans seem to struggle with irony. And common sense.

Oh, and they don’t really have a sense of humor either. Fox News has a really bitchy article up about how CNN and MSNBC weren’t respectful enough of their contrived tax day protest. Evidently when Sean Hannity and whoever else came up with their idiotic tea party idea, they didn’t consult any high school sophomores, who would have exposed the obvious flaw. So CNN and MSNBC did their duty as proud American institutions and made the obligatory teabagging jokes. I think that some guy named David Shuster wins the prize for most awesome mockery of Fox News and this whole endeavor, saying, "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it, " followed by "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." You think that Fox News would catch on to the mockery, and maybe adapt, but they haven’t. In the middle of the article there is an invitation to join the forums and comment about this whole debacle. The link reads, “Click here to join the discussion on teabagging.” I swear I didn’t make any of this up.

Even Ann Coulter weighed in on this teabagging discussion, acting every bit as sanctimonious as Fox News, but with more jokes about Barney Frank. As an aside, can someone explain to me why I read Ann Coulter’s web site? I thought I was better than that. But even though I read her regularly, I can’t remember I got all the way through one of her postings; it seems every week there’s a paragraph that makes my head hurt so much I need to jump over to youtube and watch Bobby Orr highlights until the pain goes away. This week the line was, “Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect.” What the hell? Was Clinton’s Presidency so devastating? Certainly it wasn’t as bad as Bush’s time in office (pick whichever Bush you prefer, neither was any good). Seriously, how does she get away with making such absurd claims.

Getting back to this whole secession thing, just because it baffles me, and it’s still a big deal, people are now polling Texans about a couple of the issues here. I’m like to interpret these numbers for you. 31% of Texas voters say their state has the right to secede. From this, it stands to reason that 31% of Texas voters are mildly retarded. This figure may be low, however, because I sincerely doubt that most Texans know what the word “secede” means. 18% of Texas voters say that they would vote to leave the Union; these are more likely than not the same people that were trumpeting the phrase “’Merica! Love it or leave it!” over the last eight years. Clearly these Texans don’t love America, which must make them terrorists. You’re either with us or against us.

If Dmitry Medvedev were an American, he would vote Republican, live in Texas, watch Fox News, and probably have a lifesize cutout of Bill O’Reilly in his bedroom. But he’s not, he’s a Russian. And he’s warning NATO not to run any war games in Georgia. So, if I follow his logic, it’s ok to invade Georgia and kill a shit ton of people there, but having a military exercise in the country is way out of line. Weird.

One more Republican I don’t like (can you tell that there aren’t any stories about outer space or dinosaurs) is Norm Coleman, the guy who lost the Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken, but won’t go away. Seriously, this guy, when it seemed like he was winning, said that Franken should concede so Minnesota could be properly represented. (He really did say something like this, I just don’t feel like looking up where; if you don’t believe me look it up for yourself.) Naturally, he’s now losing, has been for months, but won’t concede. He’s pretty much burned up all his state court options, and now he’s gonna introduce a suit in federal court. I don’t think he’ll win, because, quite simply, fewer people voted for him than voted for Franken, but if it gets to the Supreme Court all bets are off; Franken could win by thousands of votes in Minnesota, but when he loses by one in Washington (and he will), he’ll be screwed.

Finally, I’m going to just briefly throw out my two cents on the debate about LeBron James that is raging over at our sister-blog, www.dauerism.wordpress.com. The Yankee hat thing doesn’t bother me, and I don’t care about all this talk about him eventually going to the Knicks. LeBron actually seems like a pretty good guy. But when his career and Dwayne Wade’s career are both over, I really want to be able to look back and say that, yeah, James was a much more talented player, but he’s no Dwayne Wade, and then point to the five NBA championships that Wade has won and the zero that James has. That would just be amusing.

Effing Effingham

This past weekend I drove halfway across the country and back again over the course of about four days. I learned that America is a pretty weird place.

As demonstrated by a mildly retarded man from Texas winning two Presidential elections, most of America is a pretty religious place. Some people demonstrate their religion by helping poor people and stuff like that, things Jesus would have done. Others, however, like the residents of Effingham, Illinois, decided to build the biggest cross in the world. So yeah, there’s a 198 foot tall metal cross along I-70. Truckers are, of course, welcome.

This wasn’t the only cross I saw though, as it was pretty common to see three crosses on hilltops. So here’s what I’m thinking. When Christianity first started, it was really popular with women and slaves, because in Rome their lives sucked, and that whole Heaven thing seemed pretty sweet. This same thing helps explain why it took so long for people like the Vikings to convert: their afterlife is much better than Heaven, they just drink and fight all day, every day, so there’s really no reason to convert. I think that what I’m basically getting at here is that most of the center of this country, like Effingham, really sucks, and the people who live there are already looking ahead. Clinging to their religion (and guns).

Crosses were only the second strangest thing that I saw along the road. First place goes to a series of billboards stretching across Ohio and Indiana, advertising RVs and homes. The name of the RV company, as you may recall if you’ve also been forced to pass through what I’m sure Sarah Palin would describe as the pro-America America, is Tom Raper RVs. How is that someone’s name? If your last name is Raper, just change it.

One of the coolest parts about driving for 14 straight hours is learning all sorts of place names. Driving from Philadelphia to St. Louis is a pretty international experience; I passed London, Lisbon, Brazil, Troy, and Rome. I guess that it’s pretty tough to come up with original place names for an entire country, as demonstrated by Nameless Creek and Arnold City.

Ok, but that’s enough about that journey, I have more important things to talk about. First, science. I’ve made no secret of my desire to see scientists just start doing really cool things, and do them well. I don’t necessarily care what it is, cloning, flying cars, robots, anything like that, I just want to see cool things. Dick knows of this, and the scorn I’ve been heaping on scientists for their failure to keep me properly amused, and sent me this article to show that they’re doing stuff. I’m not impressed. Yeah, it’s cool that they were able to save some guy’s hand. But they used leaches. Come on, doctors have been using leaches for centuries. I’m surprised that they didn’t sacrifice a bull too. And anyway, the guy still doesn’t have feeling in his hand yet. I am not impressed with these scientists.

At least astronomers are still making moves. As this article says, some guys are speculating that there could be tons of earth-like planets scattered throughout our galaxy. That would be pretty cool. If there are alien lifeforms out there, these guys were thinking that most of them would be the kind of things that were on earth hundreds of millions of years ago, not cool things like people or wookies or even dinosaurs, but single cell organisms, and things like that. Which makes me think, how cool would it be if by the time these things get to where we are, evolutionarily speaking, we’ve mastered interstellar travel? We could be the conquering aliens that plucky planet bound movie stars would have to fight off. There could even be an alien President Whitmore. He would give such a good speech, I bet. Europeans are taking the first step here, running an isolation experiment to see if people could handle a trip to Mars. Getting to Mars and back would take over 500 days, so they want to make sure that people could deal with that. Fuck it, I'm sure I could do it. They wouldn't even need to pay me. Just put me in some spaceship on my way to Mars, 18 months in space wouldn't bother me; I don't think anything would. It would be so cool.

So John McCain is on twitter now (here's the story about it, there's probably a link to his twitter page too, but I felt no need to go look at it.) I’m not excited. First of all, fuck twitter. It’s completely unnecessary, who feels the need to put out vapid updates several times a day. Their character limit is going to finish what AIM and texting have started; I cant w8 2 c the first book tat looks liek this. Fuck. Anyway, McCain. What’s his deal? He clearly can’t be considering another Presidential run in 2012; he got his ass kicked this year, he’s going to be even older then, and if he gets in her way, Sarah Palin may shoot him from her helicopter. So why is he trying to stay in the spotlight so much? Doesn’t seem real mavericky.

I just saw a commercial for some show that the Golf Chanel is doing, The Haney Project, where the world’s best swing coach is going to try to fix Charles Barkley’s swing. The commercial said that the show would be uncensored, and I guess to underscore this point they had Barkley saying “shit” after a swing. But they bleeped it.

So it’s looking conceivable that Nadya Suleman won’t be able to take her octuplets home with her. It would suck if the kids have to be put into foster care, but that’s gotta be best for them in the long run. She’s out of her mind crazy, and doesn’t need to spread that crazy around. I’m still really frightened by her. When she has another four kids next year, and she will, someone will hopefully step in then and steal her uterus or something. She’s just terrifying.

I think that’s pretty much it for now. Happy Marty Brodeur Day everyone.

Things I Don't Understand

Sometimes things happen that I am just not capable of understanding. I’m ok with admitting this, because some stories are just absolutely outrageous, I feel like no one could see them coming. This story from outside of Buffalo is one of those. A Muslim man, Muzzammil Hassan turned himself in to police the other day and admitted to killing his wife. Yeah, this really sucks and all, but it’s not the most unheard of situation ever. But, the man in question just happens to be the founder and CEO of Bridges TV. Through Bridges TV Hassan had hoped to portray Muslims in a more positive light. Um, swing and a miss on that one.

Another thing that I don’t get is why people seem to have so much trouble understanding how great a President Andrew Jackson was. Recently C-SPAN polled 65 historians, having them rank all 42 former Presidents in a variety of categories, and then used these rankings to put together an overall ranking of every President since Washington. It seems they do these rankings every time a President leaves office, maybe so they can track how the perception of that President has changed over time. Bush was 36, two spaces behind Hoover. The top was predictably boring, with Lincoln coming in at first overall, followed by Washington, FDR, Teddy, and Harry Truman. Places 6-10 were equally uninspired: JFK, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Wilson, and Reagan. What the hell, how did they leave Jackson out? He came in at #13, just edging out Monroe and Clinton. Seriously, what the hell, where did they go wrong?

The first category was Public Persuasion. Jackson came in 7th; this seems fair; while he had the public pretty much eating out of his hand for all eight years he was in office, there was still that nonsense with the Tarriff, so I couldn’t see him going any higher. Jackson then rated 6th in the next category, crisis management, which again seems fair. Undoubtedly, he would have ranked higher had he actually invaded South Carolina and hanged Calhoun.

Things start getting pretty absurd though, in the next category: economic management. During his Presidency Jackson not only balanced the Federal Budget, but he completely paid off the national debt. No President in history has governed a country without any debt at all. Except Jackon. I was an incredible achievement, as current economic nonsense is emphasizing. Despite this, Jackson is rated only the 29th best President. What the hell? Is every one of the surveyed historians descended from Biddle? Fuck the Bank.

The next category is pretty fucking stupid, and a pretty obvious way for C-SPAN to make up nonsense to benefit people like Lincoln: moral authority. Moral authority, are you fucking kidding me? And as dumb a category as this is Jackson ranks 18th. As much as it pains me to say, because this is a retarded category anyway, but I guess this is fair. People and priests were flipping out at him because of his Secretary of War’s wife (I’m not doing research for this, just take my word for everything), and it was just a crazy religious time back in the 1830s. Also there was that garbage with Rachel. Whatever, people needed to chill the fuck out back then too, I guess. Still, idiotic category.

Next comes international relations, and here Jackson ranks twentieth. Most of what Jackson dealt with was domestic stuff, so I guess I understand where they’re coming from. I just really don’t understand how Lincoln ranked third here. Seriously, I think that people just see the name Lincoln and rank him towards the top, without really even considering what he did or didn’t do. With regard to foreign relations, Lincoln really didn’t do much. Administrative skills are next, and Jackson ranks 18th there. Seriously, what the hell? I looked all over C-SPAN’s site trying to find out anything about why they picked these categories, or what they really meant, but there was nothing. And since there was nothing, there also wasn’t anything to convince me that this wasn’t also an idiotic category. How can administrative skills be as important as economic leadership? Most administrative work isn’t done by the President anyway.

Jackson ranks 14th in relations with Congress, which I guess seems appropriate, considering his feud with Clay and the nullification dipshits. But he was able to forge a consensus to get done pretty much everything that he wanted, receiving support from all over the political spectrum, including Webster, so he could be ranked higher. Also, I would probably have James Monroe ranked higher than 9th, considering that there really wasn’t an opposition party during his term. Vision/Setting an Agenda is the next category, which seems to overlap a lot with Public Persuasion and Administration Skills. It’s dumb. Jackson ranks 9th. This has not been a well done survey.

The next category is Pursued Equal Justice For All. Lincoln is number one, benefitting greatly from the unwritten corollary to this rule “except for people in border states.” Lincoln didn’t free the slaves to be a good guy; he did it to win a war. He wasn’t pursuing equal justice for all; he was trying to win. LBJ not being #1 here strikes me as pretty unfair. Jackson came in at 35, 18 places behind Jefferson, who was fucking his slaves while writing about the equality of men. People seem to still be hung up on this whole Trail of Tears thing. Ugh, every President before Jackson had a plan drawn up for Indian removal too. Also, W ranked 24th, because illegal wiretapping and secret prisons just scream justice.

The last category is Performance with Context of Times. Again, not really sure what this one means. Is it a way to give like extra credit to Presidents who had a lot of shit going on? I don’t know. Jackson ranks 9th. But he had a lot of shit going on, and did a really good job. Should he be rated higher in this category? I don’t know, because I’m not sure how this category works. Gut reaction, though, says he should be higher. So there’s that. Whatever. This whole survey has been terrible. I mean, of the 65 historians, I’ve heard of Robert Dallek, who is a real historian, and Robert Greene, who is more of an asshole than a real historian, and I feel like the name Ken Ackerman is somehow familiar. And then I read about some of theses historians, like William Allen, who writes mostly about the Third Reich, and how Hitler came to power. Clearly, he is best suited to compare Jackson’s economic policies to Clinton’s. This is just a dumb list. At first I was pretty upset by it, by then I realized that it was too fucking stupid to take seriously.

And lastly, here’s one more story that I hope everyone has seen. A Chinese tycoon (the word tycoon really isn’t used enough) felt he needed to cut back on his mistresses because of the economy, so he went about this in the only logical manner: he had them compete in a contest, survivor-style. But, well, it didn’t work out so well; after the first woman was eliminated, she drove a car, in which the guy and his other mistresses were also riding, off a cliff. Yikes. But I guess her plan backfired, as she was the only one who died. The story somehow manages to get weirder, as the guy continued the contest, seeing it through to its conclusion. The winner was able to achieve her lofty status by dominating the final round, a drinking competition. Everything about this is so weird. The tycoon even had to pay the dean woman’s family a couple hundred thousand Yuan in compensation for her death. What the hell, she tried to kill him?!? People are fucked up.

Happy Birthday to y - - Holy Shit! Both of you were born today?!

That was essentially my reaction when Gimpy told me that Darwin beat out Abe Lincoln for the jazzed-up Google logo today, though both of them turn 200 today. I find it pretty remarkable that Darwin beat out Honest Abe for greater notoriety. Darwin did some ground-breaking shit, but by any metric, Lincoln is one of the top 3 Presidents (if not by quality, than certainly by importance).

It would probably be appropriate at this point to admit that I have a huge boner for Lincoln. I've read 2 biographies of him and (I think) every one of his speeches let alone some of his written work. He's an incredible person, and if you don't believe me read Lincoln's Melancholy. It's an incredible look at the life-long depression that that gangly motherfucker faced.

But the more important thing here is that both Darwin and Lincoln were born on the exact same day! What the fuck?! That is absurd! That's on par with Jefferson and John Adams both dying on the same day within hours of each other. Oh, and that date of their death also happens to be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Look me in the face and tell me those two weren't euthanized, though. You can't. That's how unbelievable that is. But that's a story for another day.)

No single person has had a greater impact on science since Newton than Darwin has; and I'm including Einstein in that. Darwin's theory was so impressive that it touched almost every area of daily life, including how it impacted American social structure for the next 50-odd years. And Darwin's thoughts impact far more people on a daily basis than those of any other scientists and maybe any other thinker of the last two centuries. Think about it.

But Lincoln. Every grammar school kid knows what Lincoln did. Every presidential scholar (or close to it) considers Lincoln to be the best writer of our 43 Presidents (see below if you think that number should be 44). Lincoln was so important that everyone still knows John Wilkes Booth's name.

But I've glossed over the most important revelation here: given that these two titans of history were born on the same day, you have to wonder - - who shares a birthday with me?

And while we're on commercials...

I was not nearly as critical of the commercials as Gimpy is. I genuinely enjoyed the Pepsuber commercial (and the MacGruber skits that mind-birthed it are well worth a half hour on Hulu). The Cash4Gold.com commercial got some play on the DeadSpin live blog. But it deserves so much more than that; there is nothing funnier than people pointing out their failings, and you can't find many people who are swimming in more failings than Ed McMahon and MC Hammer.

You had your nut shots, your animals acting as people, your talking babies, and even a smattering of really awful local advertising out here in St. Louis. All pretty well-worn territory, but still enjoyable if only for one night annually.

But all of this discussion of commercials has inspired me to write a post I've been meaning to tackle for some time: those stupid fucking Burger King retarded whopper family ads.

They started out ok. "I wish I'd never been broiled" made me chuckle. The spare napkin/condom spot was done well enough to make me uncomfortable about similar past conversations. I think there were one or two more that were good enough not to draw my ire and mediocre enough to be largely ignored.

But then they got terrible in one fell swoop. With the house party. And Spicy Chicken.

Knowing that any of you who might be unfortunate enough to stumble upon this blog probably haven't been consumed by this commercial as much as I have, I'll bullet all of the brain-racking fallacies located therein below:

-We learn that Whopper Jr and Spicy have friends. Human friends. This just feels weird to me.

-We also learn that Whopper has a daughter. She's a human girl. This opens up a wealth of dilemmas. Is burger-dome the recessive gene? Is it sex-linked? Is the daughter adopted or is Whopper's wife a human burger-lover? If she's a burger, what adoption agency would allow two sandwiches to adopt a white girl? If she is a woman, how exactly does a Whopper impregnate a woman? You know what, I don't actually want to know the answer to that question. I just know that my girlfriend isn't allowed to eat Whoppers anymore.

-In perhaps the most infuriating move, Whopper discovers that little bastard Spicy putting the moves on his daughter. I would eat him if I were Whopper. Commensurate with that sentiment, Whopper charges at Spicy - - but he can't get through the fuckin door! What humor! A giant sandwich struggling to get through a door! But, wait a minute. This is his fucking house. That's his fucking door. He is the burger lord of his burger domain and he can't build a door that a burger can fit through? What the fuck?

-But then there's something even more wrong with that scene - - Spicy is already in the fucking room! What sort of black magic does a chicken sandwich possess that allows him to move through walls like Nightcrawler that a burger can't summon from the depths of the Underworld?

I don't know the answer to any of these challenges. I just know that I hate that I care so much.

Irony 2, People 0

So this is a pretty sad story, but once again the awfulness is in danger of being eclipsed by the irony. A monster truck show promoter, George Eisenhart, was killed this weekend at one of his shows after he stepped in front of a moving truck, and the driver wasn’t able to stop in time.

Normally this wouldn’t really be worth mentioning, but it comes right on the heels of a kid being killed by flying debris at a different monster truck show a week or so earlier. After this death, Eisenhart was interviewed on local television in Madison, WI, touting the safety of his shows, saying, “we have not had an incident besides a gal slipping in the aisleway.” Yeah, he may have jinxed himself there.

Also, here’s something I’ve been wondering about: was Alanis Morissette being ironic by not having any ironic situations in her song Ironic, or was she just dumb?

Things I passed driving through Illinois this weekend

My sincerest apologies to, well most likely no one, for not posting for sometime and therein not providing you with things to not read what I haven't posted, which thereby failed to pique your interest. I just made myself dizzy.

A quick bulleted list of things I past by, through, and around whilst I romped across the land of Lincoln:

-Speaking of Lincoln, I stopped in Vandalia the home of the former Illinois State Capitol, where I was emancipated from my hunger by one of the more delicious Sonics I've visited

-Mattoon, IL: home to famed writer and Suffering Idiot's hero Will Leitch (I can only assume my existence as a talisman of the New York Giants was compromised by this locale and its saturation in all things Buzzsaw)

-A vanity plate: GSUSNME (it might help you decipher that if you know that the bumper of the accompanying vehicle was peppered with eight biblical bumper stickers)

-Effingham, Illinois. Apparently named after Edward Effingham from England. I think it was named after the first newlywed bride to honeymoon there. "Oh yeah, the honeymoon is going great! I'm crazy about effing him!"

-Effingham also has a giant cross made out of aluminum siding at the intersection of 3 major highways. Read that again. If that doesn't inspire you to be saved while you're trucking across country, then your ass was destined to burn.

-A man. And not like passed a man who was standing on the side of the road, or I passed a giant picture of a car salesman on a billboard. No, I passed a man while I was in the fast lane. And I passed him by less than 3 feet. He was sprinting across the highway and he was not leaving himself much room for error. Guesses as to what the fuck was going on abound.

-I passed (or rather did not pass for 5 fucking miles!) two identical trucks traveling at exactly the same speed directly next to each other on a two lane highway. After I confirmed that I was not in the Matrix, I screamed like a kamikaze pilot until a blood vessel popped and the truck in the "fast" lane finally passed the other.

-And finally my favorite: all along I-57N there are sing-songy rhymes on the side of the road with each of the lines spaced out about 100 feet from the one before and after it. Creates a pretty nice cadence really. The topic of the nursery rhymes? Our beloved 2nd amendment, of course! Unfortunately, their website is down so their rhymes are currently inaccessible, but you can find their latest print issues in .pdf format there. It's soul-shakingly scary.

Check out the lead story in December 2008 detailing how there's a run on gun shops due to a democratic government and the imminent imposition of the government on the rights of good, hard-working Americans to cause accidental and purposeful deaths. Cheers!

Happy Tim Tebow Day!

Just a couple weird, unrelated things I wanted to talk about briefly.

First, we briefly touched on a case in Torts today, Riviello v. Waldron. The casebook describes the facts of the case like this: “ Waldron, employed as a cook at the Pot Belly Pub, a Bronx bar and grill, was talking to a customer and flipping an open knife. This accidentally struck the customer in the eye.” What the hell? How could that possible happen? I’ve thrown all sorts of things in the air, and I’ve never even come close to blinding anyone. And I’m not even especially coordinated. I can’t see how this guy managed to toss a knife into a customer’s eye.

Papua New Guinea brings us this next piece of absurdity: a group of vigilante assholes burned a woman at the stake for, among other crimes, sorcery. Apparently this isn’t even a one time occurrence, but is gaining prevalence in the area. And, like this case, most of these witch-hunts are incited by AIDS. Why do third world countries struggle with this so much? Stop having sex with monkees!

And then, of course, there’s this asshole who didn’t put Rickey Henderson on his Hall of Fame Ballot. I absolutely hate that some people refuse to vote for certain first-ballot HOFers just because people like Hank Aaron or Willy Mays weren’t inducted unanimously. That’s not their responsibility; this self-appointed guardianship is crap. And to make it even worse, this same dumbass voted for Jim Rice. And Matt Williams! He did vote for Tim Raines, who does deserve to be in, but I don’t understand how you can vote for Raines and not Henderson. And seriously, Matt Williams? He’s the only guy so far to vote for him. What the hell?

Old campaign stunts never die, or even fade away

I don’t know why I still go to Drudge Report; Newswer is more fun, and has more dinosaur stories. It seems every time I’m there I find a story that pisses me off. Since Ann Coulter has a new book out, he’s been linking to a whole lot of shit. Well, today was no different, as Drudge linked to seven infuriating sentences.

Seriously, Joe the Plumber is going to be a war correspondent? On one hand, I suppose this is good for him, as maybe he’ll get around to paying his back taxes. But other than that, I don’t see how anyone is going to benefit from this.

Joe says that he wants to let “Israel’s Average Joe’s share their story.” I can only presume that he said Average Joe rather than Joe Six-Pack because he’s unsure of how many bottle of manishewitz come in a case.

But seriously, what possible qualifications could this guy have to serve as a war correspondent? I understand that he’s a staunch supporter of Israel, but that doesn’t mean he knows, well, anything. Is he going to tie this conflict to the Six Day War, or how the Oslo Accords have pretty much let Israel isolate the Gaza Strip?

It’s clearly not ok that Hamas just lobs rockets into Israel whenever they feel like it, and refuse to acknowledge that Israel even has a right to exist. And by sending tanks into civilian areas Israel is clearly blowing past all possible chance of keeping its response proportionate. There’s so much going on here, and there has been for years, that I think the public deserves a better war correspondent than Joe the Plumber, one who is able to decipher some of the subtleties of the situation and not merely spout right-wing hate rhetoric.

Jimmy Buffet would be rolling in his hammock right now...

Doesn't this seem to go against everything Jimmy Buffet's music stands for?

The fact that a bar fight broke out over a juke box selection is ridiculous enough. However, the fact that Jimmy Buffet, the King of beach and lounge music incited five men to brawl is deliciously ironic.

The only unsurprising thing: that the men who are irate enough at the mere thought of Jimmy Buffet to start brawling unmercilessly beat on the guys who have a penchant for margaritas, warm weather locales, and cheeseburgers.

What is this terrible feeling? Is that...sympathy?

As much as I would like to claim that the Phillies must have cheated on their path to the World Series (for, you see, every other explanation ends with the blame being placed squarely on my beloved Mets and their habit of shitting the bed) today's verdict by the MLB seems a little inexplicable.

Phillies reliever J.C. Romero was officially suspended Tuesday for the first 50 games of next season after testing positive for a banned substance.

Right. Fucking cheaters!

The suspension will cost Romero $1.25 million in salary, Gammons reported.

Sweet rapture! Justice wield thy righteous sword!

A source familiar with the hearings told ESPN's T.J. Quinn that Romero tested positive after taking 6-oxo, a diet supplement created by Patrick Arnold, the chemist who designed THG.

Supplements bad. Public humiliation of Phillies good.

It is advertised as a legal testosterone-booster, and Romero argued that he was not aware there was anything in the supplement that could cause a positive test.

Well to be honest, that doesn't sound that bad. I have trouble growing facial hair. Maybe I need a little more testosterone come to think of it.

Well, at least they have a neat appeal process set up for baseball players.

Neither Romero nor the Players Association plans to appeal the case further. "That process has played itself out completely," said Phillies assistant general manager Scott Proefrock.

Oh. Ouch.

"The union respects the arbitration process and treats the decision as final," Weiner said. " In our view, though, the resulting discipline imposed upon...Romero is unfair. [This player] should not be suspended. [Romero's] unknowing actions plainly are distinguishable from those of a person who intentionally used an illegal performance-enhancing substance.

Although Romero's grievance hearing was held in Tampa around the time the World Series began, Amaro said he and other Phillies personnel had no knowledge at the time that the hearing was taking place or that Romero had tested positive.

The secret military tribunal and council of elders also announced during that session that the release of the results of the Kennedy autopsy have been pushed back until they say so.

According to Romero, he bought a supplement at the GNC store in Cherry Hil, N.J. He said he had it checked by his personal nutritionist, who said there was nothing in the supplement that was illegal.

Well fuck! Why aren't he and Utley shopping buddies then?

Mr. Gerber's Wild Ride

Here's a description of some of the people I had the esteemed privilege of seeing on my romp across the country for the holidays:

The woman in front of me at Airport security
She chose to wear knee-high boots with a zipper down the calf from top to heel. I know that these new-fangled security guidelines are capable of shattering anyone’s routine, and that having everyone take off their shoes really slows down the security line. But September 11th was over 7 years ago. Now, you’re just another fucking moron and not merely living with St. Christopher’s absence.

The guy directly behind me in the Southwest boarding line
For those of you who haven’t flown in the “no hidden charges zone” Southwest still has you pick your own seat. In order to do this, you are assigned a check-in number and you have to get yourselves in line when the time is called like you’re headed to recess. This conversation ensued:

Me: (standing in line minding my own business)
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Well looks like you’re A15, and since I’m A16 I guess I’m right here.
Yep. That’s how number fucking order works.
My disinterested nod shook him off of me, but my ears could not be saved. After all, A15 must stay in front of A16. We just covered this.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: (to no one in particular) So…headed to Baltimore, huh?
Crickets: Chirp chirp.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Don’t know what the big deal is with this weather! Back where I’m from in Syracuse this is like flurries. We got 18’ of snow in December 3 Christmases ago.
Right. Which is yet another reason why I don’t live in Syracuse.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: All they need to do is prep the streets with salt and get the rotation going. And where do you get your salt from? Salt City, USA. (dramatic pause) SYRACUSE!
What are you, a Syracusan real estate agent? And if you are, you suck at your job. So far your major selling points have been 1) we’ve got salt 2) we’ve got God-wrath amounts of snow and 3) your sorry ass. You can’t pay me to live there.

Then, moments later, douchebag in the aisle holding up the whole flight.
I know for a fact that you’re only allowed to bring one carry-on bag. They tell you fucking anywhere you look in an airport. This fact is incontrovertible. But somehow, this guy gets onto the plane with 3 fucking bags! He’s pushing a rolling bag in front of him, pulling one behind him, and has a massive backpack strapped to his back. But it wasn’t the number of his bags nor was it the fact that it took him 10 minutes to realize that he couldn’t fit 3 great big bags into an already crowded overhead compartment that told me I wasn’t going to like him. No, I knew I wasn’t going to like him from the moment I saw that the straps of his backpack were clipped together three inches below his chin like he was ready to go absailing in a fucking canyon. That was enough.

Dickhead shuttle bus driver
After this debacle, I had to grab a train to get to my final destination. I had roughly 30 minutes to catch the shuttle to the train station, pick up my ticket, and get on board. When I got to the curb to grab the shuttle, there was already a mass of people waiting there. One guy was yelling as loud as he could as if that was the signal to get a shuttle driver to show up. I did not hate that idea.
I noticed about 100 feet away three shuttles were idling instead of, you know, shuttling. I walked ahead of the pack and waved to try and flag one down. In response, the shuttle driver in the front turned his lights off, presumably to prevent me from seeing the giant white bus parked under row upon row of artificial light. Or maybe just to be a dick. I would be less offended if the latter was his motivation.

There were many other fine travelers out today, but I’ve been en route for over 6 hours now and that much travel combined with all this anger has really worn me out.

Amen I say to you...

I’m starting to think that maybe some people may have missed the point of what Jesus was all about. This article is a pretty clear case of that. Apparently this divorced woman, Rebecca Hancock, is dating another guy, and her church, the Grace Community Church, isn’t too happy about it. So they’re going to do what any responsible, tax-exempt organization would do: publicly shame the woman because Jesus wants them to.

Unless this woman ends her relationship with whoever this guy is, her sins will be announced to the congregation. Evidently, this happens fairly frequently. The church is defending its actions by saying they are merely doing what Jesus instructed them, cherry-picking a bible verse, Matthew 18:17, which says, in part, “tell it unto the church.” (KJV)

I looked up Matthew 18:17, because, well, it seemed inconsistent with Jesus’ whole message. My understanding of Jesus’ teachings is essentially “don’t be an asshole, even if you think you can get away with it.” This church has gotten something else out of it all. Well, judging by the rest of Matthew 18, not to mention the rest of the Gospels, I’m pretty sure my reading comprehension skills are better than theirs.

Matthew 18 is a pretty long chapter, and has a lot of moral commands in it. It opens with Jesus answering the question of who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. The answer, as I’m sure most of you remember from CCD, is he who humbles himself like a child. Jesus goes on to say that whoever accepts the child accepts him, and that those who offend a child would be better off drowning. Now, this might be a stretch, but when I read this I interpret child to be representative of anyone who can’t really defend herself, like Ms. Hancock. Jesus is basically saying here, and throughout the Bible, that by looking out for those who cannot look out for themselves you are doing His work, and if you’re not doing this you’re fucked.

Eventually Matthew writes the line that this church is basing their assholery on. But if you read it in context, you can see that they’re really manipulating Jesus’ words. Matthew 18:15 says, “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault…” It then goes on to say to talk to him with two or three witnesses, and if that doesn’t work to “tell it unto the church.” I think the key part of this is “against thee.” This woman has done nothing against the church, they’re just a bunch of self-righteous dickbags. I think that the more appropriate verse for the church to base its actions off is John 8:7, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Seriously people, if you want to be an asshole, fine, I’m not going to try to stop you. Just don’t use the words of people that are better than you to rationalize it.

This just in...

Sometimes you can tell that CNN is trying really hard to be original. And sometimes, that search for originality leads them to report shit that is neither news nor particularly surprising.

Take, for instance, a headline from the frontpage of CNN.com today:

No good way to tell kids they have cancer

Well you don't say!

I had to open it up. And much like curiosity killed the proverbial cat, it also obliterated some of my bygone brain cells by seering them on frustration the frying pan in a nice you-can't-be-fucking-serious bisque.

The article centers on the Pasley family who two years ago had to tell their 9 year-old daughter Gigi she had cancer. Says Elizabeth Cohen, the sage who wrote this article:

The Pasleys learned that day there's no good way to tell your child she has cancer.

Well skin my ass and cook me up some bacon! It sucks telling someone who hasn't yet reached double digits in age that they have cancer? I had no idea!

Can't we quickly file this under the "shit I could have figured out without having to experience it" section and call it a day? I mean, I don't have kids (and never have had kids, I might add - - in case writing a douchy article about juvenile cancer might lead you to believe otherwise) and I've never told anyone they have been diagnosed with cancer, but just knowing a little bit about cancer I think I could have come up with that assessment even with absolutely no hands-on experience.

And wouldn't it be pretty disturbing if it was easy for you to tell a 9 year-old she had cancer? Wouldn't that be a pretty bad sign?

And again, not to pick on a little girl with cancer, but this story gets more unbelievable.

Not only did it take the Pasleys actually telling their daughter that she had cancer to know that telling their daughter she had cancer would be tough, but this wasn't the first time they had to tell her!

Unfortunately (yet fortunately in the end), Gigi had fought (and beaten) leukemia 3 times before age 9 when she was diagnosed with a new bone cancer.

But it was "that day" when she was 9 that the Pasleys learned that lesson? It didn't cross your mind the first few times you told your daughter she had cancer that that experienced sucked for everyone in earshot?

So the fourth time's the unlucky charm with childhood cancer? Good to know.

Do as I say...

Every once in a while a story so hilariously ironic surfaces that it’s almost impossible to believe. CNN.com recently reported one such story. Last week in Mexico an American, Felix Batista, was kidnapped. This really isn’t funny, and unfortunately, if Man On Fire is to be believed, not especially uncommon. I hope everything works out alright for this guy.

But I can’t help but laugh. The man who was kidnapped wasn’t in Mexico on vacation, or anything like that, he was there on business. He works as an anti-kidnapping expert. He teaches people how to not get kidnapped! Come on, how is this happening?

I hope this guy gets released, and is able to start on a new career. This one clearly isn’t going so well for him. (Thanks to Jon, again, for pointing this out.)

Get to know me!

I often laugh with my students, like when this conversation about white music took place:

Tracee: "Coldplay is definitely white music! Watch. Hey Ty'shandra, what's Coldplay?"
Ty'shandra: "Is that some kind of dessert?"

But often I laugh at them. Most times in my head, but I've been known to laugh audibly, too. I couldn't help myself today.

I was grading the quizzes from one class while a later class took the quiz. In perhaps my craziest moment yet in a classroom, I straight up cackled in front of a quiet room. This is what I had read:

When prompted to describe how you could tell two different types of objects apart while blindfolded (to paraphrase, describe the texture of these two objects) one of my high schoolers wrote:

"You can see them like pictures in your head. Sort of like little worms."

Often, I laugh so that I don't cry.