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.

Thumbs 3: Because 2/3 of a thumb is better than no thumb at all (or what I learned from playing with fireworks)*

Thumbs Up: Facebook. Last week they changed their design, and people have been bitching about it. Well, people bitch every time that Facebook makes even the slightest change. Those people need to calm down a little bit. I appreciate that Facebook continually tries to make itself better, even knowing that, at minimum, a vocal minority of its users are going to whine about it before even giving it a chance.

Thumbs Down: Matt Drudge. I realized recently that I would pay close to four hundred dollars for the opportunity to punch Matt Drudge in the face. He’s an asshole, and if anyone deserves to be hit, it’s him. Seriously, he lost his show on Fox News because that network was uncomfortable with how he was manipulating facts to support his anti-abortion agenda. Yeah, he was too disingenuous for Fox News. He’s an ass.

Thumbs Up – Suffering Idiots writers who write their Thumbs contribution on time. Thumbs, for those of you who may not know, is a collaborative effort among myself, Gimpy, and Dick. We collectively dropped the ball last week, but we’re limping along at two thirds strength this time around. Hey, last time I checked a tricycle that was missing a wheel was called a bicycle and that was good enough for our ancestors back in the Old Country, damnit!*

Thumbs Down – Ringback tones. Yeah, I didn’t think people still had them either, but they do. At my job, I probably make between 25 and 50 calls a week and a frighteningly high ratio of those calls involve Beyonce or Lil Wayne blaring in my ear. This is by no means a Thumbs Down to those artists; however, the ringback tones that feature them are often of poor quality and inappropriate volume. I would much rather hear a simple ring to let me know my phone is working than T.I. telling me that the person I’m calling is having so much fun chilling with him that s/he might not be as quick to answer as they would normally.

Thumbs Up: Sunshine. Apologies for this obvious thumbs up, but let'snot underestimate how terrific it is to be out of the winter woods.It's finally getting dark after 7pm. As a teacher who's in school by7am every day and out no earlier than 3, I was down to a measly 2 hoursof sunshine per day for a solid 2.5 months there.

Thumbs down: Chalk. I love March Madness, but I hate when the top seedswin. For the first time in the history of the tournament, all of the 1,2, and 3 seeds from every region made the Sweet 16. Beyond that, therehaven't even been that many exciting games overall. Some of the gameshave been close, but by and large the team that should have won has won. Where's the fun in that?

*At the time of this posts initial publication, Dick Gerber had not yet submitted his Thumbs. Although he did sneak them in this afternoon, let's make sure to shame him anyway.