A SHORT CONVERSATION WITH MY WIFE

.

So it is Friday night and I am soaking in my jacuzzi, drinking some Sierra Nevada Hoptimum (an incredibly delicious whole-cone Imperial IPA – an indescribable pleasure unique to Northern California ) and reading  John Birmingham’s Weapons of Choice (again) when I hear my wife call out to me from somewhere within my humble home:

“I’m going to take your syringes and pipettes into the living room.”

“Okay,” I yelled back – and then jumped out of the swirling, bubbling hot water to run into my home office to type this.

HEADLINE – Soldiers Disciplined for Korean-Burning

.

This is a really big news story in North and South Koran.

.

HEADLINE – Gov’t focus on nuke crisis angers tsunami victims

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan – As Japan’s prime minister held another in an endless stream of press conferences to describe in great detail the Japanese government’s efforts to fix damaged nuclear reactors, frustrated tsunami victims complained that the government has been too focused on the nuclear crisis that followed the massive wave.

“Hey! Over here! 165,000 people living in cardboard boxes and packing crates! HELLO?? Is anyone home??” 35-year-old Megumi Shimanuki shouted at the Prime Minister from the crowd gathered at the press conference. “Yeah, yeah, highly radioactive water is leaking into the sea. Blah, blah, blah. I need a house,” Shimanuki yelled.

“Go find the corporate executives and their stooge government regulators who willfully and knowingly decided to operate unsafe nuclear reactors right near the ocean, line them up against a wall, and shoot them,” suggested Ken Hashimoto, a fellow tsunami evacuee.

.

.

“Kill them all, then confiscate their multiple homes, expensive automobiles and jewelry they bought with the profits they made cutting safety corners.  Sell that property and use the money to get me some food,” Hashimoto added.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com

HEADLINE – Surgeon General calls for more breastfeeding

X-Men star, Rebecca Romijn

MUNCIE – US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin issued a statement Thursday advocating mothers breast-feed their children.

“I want to see more breasts out there,” Benjamin said. “I want to see them in supermarkets. I want to see them in movie theaters. I want to see them at fast food restaurants.  Wherever I look, I want to see nothing but breasts,” Benjamin concluded.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Ted, some guy walking past on his way to nowhere important.

Ted

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70J4U220110120

HEADLINE – Nun’s Bones Found in Monk’s Bag

MUNCIE – Three monks and one pastor were arrested at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport in Athens, Greece after security personnel discovered the remains of Eleni Vathiadou, a former nun, in their luggage as they tried to board a flight to Cyprus.

The four suspects provided Greek authorities with conflicting explanations.

“I was holding that bag for a friend,” said Father Spiro Papastavros.

“Look man, those bones are intended for my own personal use only,” said Father Gus Poulos. “I wasn’t going to sell them.”

“My sister sent them to me,” claimed Father Nicholas Dimos.

“In my defense, she was delicious,” said Pastor Ted Schultz.

Source:

http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/01/19/monk-caught-with-nuns-skeleton-in-luggage/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl6%7Csec2_lnk1%7C37641

AND THE WINNER IS….

.

.

I lied. There is no winner. At least not yet.  But there are more choices.

I suddenly realized I don’t like any of the prior choices for my new avatar because they are all people.  People really don’t represent who and/or what I am.  So I’ve searched google images and found what I think are some better candidates for my avatar.

Let me know what you think.  I promise I will choose the one that gets the most votes.

,

,

,

,

,

,

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

REMEMBERING THE 2000 COMMERCIAL ACTORS STRIKE, PART 2

In Part One of this series, we encountered “Hello, Meteor!” – a commercial the Discovery Channel  (TDS) made during the 2000 commercial actors strike.  ”Hello, Meteor!” garnered critical and commercial acclaim.  This success encouraged TDS on to assign more of their non-actor office to star in other commercials, including the now classic “Hello, Mosquito!” shown below.

.

.

REMEMBERING THE 2000 SAG COMMERCIAL ACTORS STRIKE

If you are anything like me, then every so often – when the winter wind blows clean and fresh from the north – you are overcome by nolstagia for the halcyon days of the 2000 Screen Actors Guild Commercial Actors Strike.

Ah, those halcyon days! – when men selling things on television had to do without actors because actors who acted in television commercials wanted more money for their labor, but the major studios wouldn’t give them more money.  And so they went on strike.

Commercials got made and were broadcast without professional acting, and sometimes the results were simply wonderful.

The Discovery Channel used accounting and technical employees to act in a series of commercials that have since become legend, the first of which I feature below.

.

.

.

AHHH!!!   THE ATMOSPHERE!!!!  AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

.

WHAT AMERICANS SOUND LIKE

As I’ve often mentioned (purely as a matter of pretense), I often lecture to non American audiences. With minor exception I lecture in English.

The noted internet social analysis and general media maven, Joseph Bleckman, sent me this link that shows what non English speakers hear when they hear Americans speaking.  It isn’t a very loving or kind parody, but it is pretty funny.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Last Saturday my wife and I ate at Ming Tu’s – a restaurant located at 1158 “L” Street in Downtown Sacramento.  Ming Tu’s serves Asian” inspired” food in a casual setting.

Not affiliated with Ming Tu in any way whatsoever.

Many people have eaten at Ming Tu’s.  Some of them have written reviews that can be found at http://www.yelp.com/biz/ming-tus-asian-diner-sacramento.  For example, Karina of Elk Grove writes:

“I’ve been here twice – with coworkers and with friends.  The food is definitely an Americanized version of Chinese food, but far better than Panda Express. Love their Mongolian beef over brown rice.”

Moo N of Sacramento writes:

“I work a couple of blocks from here so I have had opportunity to eat here often.  Each time I have eaten here, I have been quite happy.  The teriyaki chicken with rice is my fave and I love the fried rice too!  I love rice so if you do too you should definitely partake ”

My dining experience was a little different from Katrina’s and Moo’s. My meal was not as good as theirs. So this is going to be a negative restaurant review.

Over the years I’ve written plenty of restaurant reviews, may of them negative, and when I write a negative review I spend a lot of time describing what I ate and how it was served. Then I complain a lot.

I feel this is a special case. The usual descriptions of the food and service and the usual complaining just wouldn’t be enough to properly express how I feel about this dining experience. So I’m not going to describe the food or the service. I’m not going to make fun of the owner’s funny accent. I am not going to mock the handicapped busboy.  Instead, I will simply describe what I did after I left Ming Tu’s.

After I paid the bill and my wife and I left the restaurant, I immediately walked to a nearby church and prayed that God would reach down with His mighty hand and, with a fist of divine fury, smite Ming Tu’s, crushing it down to the bedrock, destroying it utterly.

I know what you are thinking. You think I over reacted.  You are thinking: “Aw, come on, Paul. The meal couldn’t have been so bad that you would call upon the Creator of the Universe to smite those responsible. “

If you are thinking this, you are wrong.  You weren’t there. You didn’t pay good money for really bad Chinese food. It was so bad that I felt, and still feel, within my rights as a God fearing Christian to call upon the power of Almighty God to send down destruction upon Ming Tu’s and punish all those responsible for my mediocre dining experience.

Now you are thinking: “Okay, Paul, let’s assume for the sake of argument that the meal you were served wasn’t very good.  Is that sufficient reason for calling for divine retribution? Isn’t being served a bad meal at a restaurant a trivial reason for calling upon the divine power of God Almighty to smite those who displeased you?”

Not at all.  And if you think that, then you probably are not a Christian.

Or you might be a Socialist.

A Socialist Atheist, that’s what you are, if you think there is anything wrong with me asking God to smite anyone I don’t like or destroy any business that has provided less than acceptable service.

Every day, ordinary people from all walks of life call upon the power of the Lord to avenge them – often for seemingly trivial reasons. My own Aunt reads the Bible every day and goes to church every Sunday – and every single day she prays to Baby Jesus that her neighbor die of a heart attack.

Her neighbor is a liberal who plays that jazz music much too loud. And he voted for Obama. Who is a secret Muslim.

But I digress.  My point is that it is perfectly okay to call upon the power of God to right any wrong, no matter how trivial the wrong may appear. The Bible shows us that God responds in dramatic ways to correct what seem to be trivial wrongs.

For example, in 2 Kings 23-25, the prophet Elisha, who had a bald head, cast a “curse unto God” at a bunch of young boys who were making fun of Elisha’s bald head.  Now, you non-Christian, socialist liberal secret Muslims will say that what those kids did was no big deal.  Well, God didn’t think so.  In response to Elisha’s curse, God sent two female bears to kill forty-two of those boys.

So Elisha called upon the divine power of the Creator of the Universe to punish a bunch of boys who made fun of him. I am calling upon that same power to smite a restaurant that served me a lousy meal.  I honestly don’t see the difference. I fully expect to see a big hole in the ground where Ming Tu’s used to be when I next drive or walk by that place.

I’ll let you know if it happens.

INSULTS FROM THE LAND DOWN UNDER

I have been flamed (but not defamed, as you will see).  Over at the the Blunt Instrument, one of my favorite blogs, a gentleman who goes by the name of Greybeard said:

Mr Boylan: you Sir, are a vulgarian and a snob.

 

Now, isn’t that the nicest way of calling someone a jerk you have ever seen?  It is beyond cool. The gentility and elegance of that insult lifts it beyond cool to the rarely achieved level of cugat (as in “that is soooo cugat, dude!”).

ANOTHER LOOK AT STARGATE UNIVERSE

First, before I begin, I just want to say that, as I type this, I am listening to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and loving it.

I haven’t decided yet if the images she crafts are parody and/or satire.  However, even if her visual marketing is a bit repulsive, her music is unexpectedly very good.

Second, I want to mention Sarah Palin.

Her mere mention in this blog boosts my traffic tremendously.  Palin is at the heart of many google searches that lead the hapless, and unsuspecting, Internet surfer to this page – second only to searches for smiley faces.

Don’t ask me why, but thousands upon thousands of you out there access this blog using terms like “smiley,” “smiley face,” “smily face,” “evil smiley” and “evil smiley face.” If you are reading this, then the odds are you got here looking for an evil smiley face.

As for you who out there who found my page using google searches centering on Sarah Palin – and there are more of you every day –  please take my word for it that you won’t find any nude pictures of Palin here.

Not "nude" per se.

Nor will you find any photos or discussions or any jokes even remotely related to any of the following apparently popular search terms:

Sarah Palin feet

Sarah Palin feets

Sarah Palin shoes

Sarah Palin Girl Scout

Sarah Palin Girl Scout Hat

Sarah Palin bullet bra

Sarah Palin donkey

Sarah Palin naughty nurse

Sarah Palin dog collar

Sarah Palin smoking

Sarah Palin smoking cigarettes

Sarah Palin cheerleader

Sarah Palin cheer leader

Sarah Palin dominatrix

Sarah Palin dominetrix

Sarah Palin dominutrix

Sarah Palin Navajo sweat lodge

Sarah Palin sweet lodge

Sarah Palin colonoscopy

Sarah Palin nasal passage

Sarah Palin sexy

Sarah Palin sexy cyborg

These are not all of the search terms related to Sarah Palin that have lead people to this blog, but they are some of the most troubling ones.

Who are you people? Do you live anywhere near me? Because if you do, I am moving the hell away.  ”Sarah Palin nasal passage?” “Sarah Palin sexy cyborg?”  What on earth is going on?  Are you out of your piggy little minds?

Look, let’s cut to the chase: if photos of anything even remotely related to any of those search terms existed, then I would have posted them. But there aren’t any – at least not yet.  I fully expect that, once her political star sinks, as it surely will, she will attempt to cash in on her name and reignite her celebrity by “accidentally” posting a sex tape or nude pics the way Carrie Prejean did.

Just jam-packed with irony, both actual and potential.

The lure of easy money is the greatest weakness from which white trash suffers.

Just oozing with greed and white trash hubris.

I am utterly convinced that the continuing revelations about Carrie Prejean’s multiple sex tapes (self-shot) and porno pics are part of a liberal conspiracy to discredit attractive but stupid right wing ultra Christian women who hate homosexuals.

.

.

But I digress.  I am really here to talk about Stargate Universe. I am a new participant on a blog hosted by the Brisbane Times and authored by John Birmingham, author of Without Warning and the Axis of Time series – all of which I enjoyed, have reread and highly recommend.

A really good read.

John’s blog is called The Geek and you can find it by going here. The Geek is devoted to issues designed to appeal to everyone’s inner nerd – i.e., questions centering on computers, technology and, lately, science fiction.  If you want to see what the Geek is all about, just sample the sparkling discussion by clicking here.

John Birmingham and premier tech geek and author, Orin Thomas.

Most recently in the Geek John has expressed his appreciation for Stargate Universe, a new series on the SyFi cable network.  Thus far I’ve based my criticism on the show’s lack of sexy space chicks.

Not appearing on Stargate Universe

.

Also not appearing on Stargate Universe

 

But John’s recent opinion, the comments from some of his regular visitors, and the undeniable fact that the last SG-U episode was really very good, has forced me to get serious and explain why I am critical of the show.  What follows expands on the comment I left at the Geek.

To better explain why I haven’t liked SG-U until this last episode requires a short history of popular science fiction. In the beginning, science fiction was part of “high culture,” written by amazingly proficient writers like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Edwin Abbott Abbott and H.G. Wells (“the Early Masters”).

H.G. Wells. Wrote Sci Fi to meet women.

It wasn’t even called science fiction; it was, instead, referred to as  “scientific romance.” Then, in the late 1920’s in New York City, science fiction crept into pulp magazines and became popularized.  Lots of people read it, but, as literature, it was rubbish and even the best SF writers were, compared with the Early Masters, uneducated amateur hacks. But, like circus geeks who dream of playing Carnegie Hall, these pulp fiction hacks dreamed of critical recognition.

She considered herself an artist.

This desire for critical recognition for science fiction started a slow climb towards legitimacy – which required writers to display proficiency as well as imagination. Harlan Ellison was and still is part of this effort.

Harlan was a pensive young dude.

Unlike most science fiction writers of his time, Ellison began his career writing in the mainstream. In the 1950’s he wrote about youth gangs. In the 1960’s he wrote erotica.  In the 1960’s he began selling scripts for science fiction television programs like Star Trek and The Outer Limits.  These scripts were remarkably well written (Star Trek – The City on the Edge of Forever; The Outer Limits – Demon With the Glass Hand) and stood out as perhaps the best episodes of those series, garnering legitimate critical acclaim.

Ultra cool.

In the 1970’s Ellison became one of the leaders in the movement to legitimize science fiction. His own stories injected more mature themes into the genre – resulting in critical and commercial success.  His short story A Boy and His Dog – culminating with the hero and his pet eating the heroine – was produced as a movie.

Ellison’s efforts to improve science fiction were inventive.  Way before the rest of the world became aware how language colors perception, Ellison attempted to remove the stigma associated with science fiction by insisting I be referred to only as “speculative fiction.”

Ellison was part of a movement that raised the bar on what to expect from science fiction.  These efforts brought big benefits:  over the years that followed, Sci Fi writers slowly died out and have been replaced by writers who incidentally employ science fiction concepts and constructs.  This is not a trivial change.  Writers today – such as John Birmingham – are writers first, serious about the craft of writing. Science fiction concepts and constructs are devices used to help tell the story.

Before the reform movement described above, it used to be the other way around: science fiction concepts and constructs took precedent over story. For example, more often than not, any given science fiction story focused on space ships, ray guns and, yes, space chicks.

Adolescent geek wish fulfillment realized.

The story itself was incidental to these factors. So now we come to Stargate Universe.  This new program results from the desire to legitimize science fiction and focus on story and not on ray guns or space chicks.

Not within the SG-U frame of reference.

That is SG-U’s strength, but it is also its weakness, because, in their efforts to inject real drama into science fiction, the SG-U writers and producers have forgotten who their audience is.

There is nothing wrong with well-written drama. What I saw last night on SG-U wasn’t melodramatic and wasn’t soap opera.  It was well written, well directed drama.  But those responsible for SG-U have forgotten that guys who grew up thrilled by space chicks and space battles make up SG-U’s audience.

Not a space chick, but she played one on TV.

Even the recent reinvention of Battlestar Galactica sprinkled amazing drama with the occasional amazing space battle – AND it included the occasional space chick.

That’s what kept us watching our television screens while really well written, well acted and well-directed drama took place.

Bertolt Brecht believed that literature and art should educate the viewer.  I believe that SG-U’s writers and producers are trying to educate the fan boys into appreciating drama. Or they have decided that BSG did the educating and now was the time to make the final transition from pop culture back to high culture. Either way, those responsible for SG-U were and are wrong.  The fan boys still want space battles and space chicks.  Drama is fine – especially if it is well written – but please remember who your audience is.  BSG succeeded because it emphasized story but never became dull.  You can do it, too.

Remember your audience.

.

.

DEEP THOUGHTS: UPON MY MORTALITY

As some of you may have noticed, this column has been missing from you local newspaper for the last few months.  Let me tell you why.

I’ve spent my time away trying to put my life in perspective.  I am at that age when the days ahead are fated to be fewer than the days behind.

Younger men don’t worry about time running out.  Boys are always blind to their own mortality and, as a consequence, they rarely think ahead.  Deep down, young men just don’t believe they are ever going to die, and so they live from day to day, moment to moment. They drive fast, live fast, and – like my son – waste huge amounts of time playing video games instead of looking for a job.

But the older a man get, the more he begins to see the world differently.  He tends to begin slowing down when he drives because he knows how easy and suddenly it can all end.  And, more often than not, he begins leaving the turn signal on.

And even if he remembers to turn the turn signal off, he cannot help but realize his time on this earth is limited.  He begins to see himself as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, trapped in the Wicked Witch’s castle as the sands within the big hourglass slowly run out.

Okay, not exactly like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  Older men don’t see themselves as teenage girls.  Some may, but I truly believe that most do not.  I am not saying there is anything wrong with it.  If a guy wants to be a teenage girl from Kansas that’s his business.  But, if so, I certainly hope he keeps it to himself.  Don’t ask, don’t tell. That’s my motto when it comes to such things.

The less said about it the better.

I admit I am being a bit selfish in not wanting to hear about any Dorothy fantasies, but I have enough problems dealing with a sudden sense of encroaching mortality to manage the social awkwardness that would surely follow if any guy I know tells me in confidence that he wishes he was a girl from Kansas who befriended a talking scare crow, a lion and a tin woodsman, whatever that is.  I mean, really, what IS a tin woodsman?  Ever see one?  Not me.

But I digress.  The point is that the older a man gets, the more he sees the days of his life as sands running through an hourglass.  And that is what happened to me.

So as I enter the last phase of my time on this planet, I spent some of that time reevaluating how I spend my time.  After careful reflection, I concluded I use my time poorly – especially the time I spend writing.

Most of what I write is, in all honesty, kind of silly.  For example, just look at my most recent article about homosexuals. Who really cares which homosexuals I favor and which ones I disapprove of – like that awful Rosie O’Donnell?  I mean, seriously, Rosie O’Donnell’s celebrity and resulting wealth is proof that there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe.

Rosie O’Donnell’s mere existence causes me to ask questions I never, ever asked before. Every time I see or hear Rosie O’Donnell I ask myself “what kind of a God would shape reality to include Rosie O’Donnell?  Can a truly loving God do such a thing?  And if so, why?  Why would the Ruler of the Universe say to himself  “I, the Creator of Everything, the Prime Mover, have decided to begin a chain of events that will result in the rise of a really, really annoying lesbian who will, in addition to being fat will also be a slob, and yea, verily, she will have her own talk show.”

I just can’t accept that God would do such a thing. The very concept of Rosie O’Donnell has upset me so much that, out of spiritual desperation, I consulted with my priest, Father Stavros.  I asked him “Father, if God loves us so, why did God send Rosie O’Donnell to live among us?”

Father Stavros is a wise, old man with a long beard and a funny hat.  Well, it looks funny if you aren’t Greek Orthodox.  To us, it looks fine.  But, to those of different faiths, the hats Greek priests wear can look sort of weird and their names can be difficult to pronounce.  I knew a priest named Father Papahartogeorgoudisfylakakopoulos. I felt bad for the guy.

Father Papahartogeorgoudisfylakakopoulos

 

Well, Father Stavros (who’s last name is thankfully easy to pronounce) listened to me and then said “maybe God put Rosie O’Donnell on earth to test the faithful.”

But I digress.  The point I am trying to make is that I have spent the last few months reevaluating my life, and have decided that, if I am going to continue writing this column, I need to concentrate on more important things.  Our world and our nation are facing dark times.  I want to make a difference.

So get ready, People of Earth, for the greatest and most meaningful series of articles you have ever experienced.

I will begin by exploring the hidden wonders and important parables for our times revealed through professional Mexican wrestling.

MISSING BABY FOUND

.

Little Shannon Dedrick’s disappearance caught the world’s attention.

.

7 month old Shannon Dedrick

.

The world breathed a collective sigh of relief when, today, Shannon was found in a box under the bed of her baby sitter – who had apparently abducted the infant.

.

.

I am glad the ordeal is over for Shannon’s parents, but someone has to point out that their child is an alien.

.

That isn't drool.

.

Little Shannon is clearly a human/alien hybrid.  I am the last person on this or any world to so much as imply that there is anything wrong with that.  At one time some stygma might have attached to parents who gave birth to an alien baby, but recent high profile celebrity adoptions have removed much of that stygma.

.

>
As a consequence, caring for an alien baby has become quite fashionable.

,

<

Shannon’s parents must realize that raising a human/alien hybrid is a challenging, but ultimately rewarding endeavor.

.

Every child is a special gift from God.

.

For example, Shannon’s remarkably large head indicates that she will be telepathic.

.

Knows what you are thinking.

.

Telepathic children are unusually challenging because they know when daddy says “no” that he really means “yes” and when mommy says “just wait until your father gets home!” mommy really doesn’t mean it.

.

Nothing but trouble

.

As an alien/human hybrid, little Shannon is likely to develop the skill to levitate.

.

Extra care is required.

.

Like telepathy, the ability to levitate will be a job skill that employers will appreciate, but in the beginning, the parent of an alien/human hybrid must exercise extra care, such as making sure windows are closed at all times.

.

Not good.

So, we are all glad baby Shannon is back, but her parents need to pay attention to her special qualities.

.

HALLOWEEN AT MY PLACE

Culturally speaking, the United States has contributed two things to the world – popular barbecue and Halloween.

Why not both at the same time?

By “popular” I mean widespread.  No people on earth have popularized cooking outdoors over live fire the way we Americans have. For a more serious discussion, please click here. l

Considered good eating in Perth.

By “Halloween” I mean an unabashed annual celebration of the spooky.

Other cultures celebrate death.  They do it in China. They do it in Mexico.  But those celebrations are essentially spiritual and/or religious.  But not Halloween.  Halloween has nothing to do with the spiritual. It has nothing to do with religion.  It has everything to do with fun.

Every year on October 31st – when the wall between the worlds is thinnest and most easily crossed – kids and adults dress up in costumes and, when it gets dark, they go door to door essentially begging for candy – which they receive in large, monstrous handfuls.

This completely non religious festival is becoming part of the international scene.  American style Halloween is now celebrated all over the world.

Halloween in Costa Rica

Halloween in Singapore

My favorite expression of this spread is Sandra’s haunted balcony in Hamburg, Germany.

It makes sense that the Germans in particular would embrace Halloween.

Admirable Teutonic exuberance.

But I digress.  I am here to tell you – to show you – what Halloween is like here in Northern California in the small town where I live.

For me Halloween began with a knock on my door early in the morning.  My neighbor and his son came by to ask is they could install a portal into a dimension of evil in my front yard.  My lawn was destroyed when my home was remodeled, so I figured, heck, when would there be a better time to have a portal into a dimension of evil installed in my front yard?

A hole was dug.

The device was installed.

While my neighbors tinkered with the field densities between the universes, a flock of wild turkeys strolled down my street foraging and decided to spend some time on a roof at the end of the block.

It was a good omen.

I decided to carve a pumpkin, but the pumpkin bin at my local market was somewhat bare with slim pickings left.

Nevertheless, I was able to find a reasonably decent pumpkin and was able to exercise the minimal artistic talent every American is born with and which is useful only for carving faces in pumpkins.

The dirt from the hole that housed the portal into the dimension of evil made a couple of fine impromptu graves.

All we had to do was wait for darkness and some unsuspecting Trick or Treaters.

Actual Trick or Treaters who came to my door.

I went out and bought candy to give away to the little boys and gouls who would come to my door that evening.

In addition to the usual treats, I included in my selection the very finest fake glow in the dark sour worms I could find.

The perfect Halloween treat.

And then it was time to get our collective freak on.

The device in my front yard worked nicely.  I had a switch inside the house that triggered the device whenever someone rang the door bell, causing much shouting and the occasional scream.

It was a most satisfying Halloween.  But I’m beginning to wonder if that portal is going to harm the value of my property.

 

“YOU LIE!”

JOE WILSON AND THE AMERICAN WAY

I want to talk to you about Joe Wilson, the guy who heckled Barak Obama by yelling “you lie!” when the president was addressing a joint session of congress.

.

He looks retarded, but he is more than that.

.

The liberal media has expressed extreme outrage over this incident, accusing Wilson of being everything from a boorish idiot to a racist.

.

Victim of the liberal media

Don’t let that outrage fool you. What Wilson did is no big deal – especially when viewed through the lens of American history.  A congressman yelling “you lie!” at the president during a presentation to congress is not only a trivial event, the event itself fits well within the American traditions of political free speech.

The American Way

To begin with, allow me to remind you what it means to be an American.  More than anything else, being an American means having the constitutional right to speak your mind.  Many Americans take this important freedom for granted.  But those outside our great nation know how special and precious it is. During the great wave of immigration that took place near the beginning of the 20^th Century – the time my Greek ancestors came to this country – immigrants wrote home saying that the streets of American cities were “paved with gold.”

In a literal sense this wasn’t true.  But to people escaping tyranny, oppression and poverty, the freedoms and opportunities that came with merely walking on American soil were priceless.  Where they came from, no matter how hard they worked they could never hope for a better life for their children.  In America, men and women who are willing to work hard can shape their own futures.  In their homelands, these immigrants could be arrested and imprisoned for saying the wrong thing.  But in America they could argue in the streets and express their opinions freely.

.

.

.

What the liberal media wants us to forget is that the right of free speech includes the right to get angry.  When Joe Wilson interrupted the President of the United States by shouting “you lie!” Citizen Joe was merely exercising his rights as an American and was taking part in a tradition that spans our nation’s noble history.

The American Founding Fathers were notoriously cranky, rude, angry men who openly hated each other.  Benjamin Franklin hated Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine hated George Washington. George Washington hated all French intellectuals – who, in a very real sense, gave birth to the American Revolution.

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr hated each other so much they fought a duel – and Burr killed Hamilton with a bullet that pierced Hamilton’s liver.  Thomas Jefferson – the man given credit with drafting the American Declaration of Independence – made loud, unmistakable noises simulating flatulence – often using his hand and armpit – every time he encountered his political rival John Adams.  Adams never hesitated to accuse Jefferson of “preferring the company of young boys” and of stealing the design for the swivel chair from Nathaniel Swivel, a Boston furniture maker and brewer.

Nathaniel Swivel

As our republic grew and matured, so did the salty nature of American political discourse.  Martin Van Buren – our 8^th president – and the first American president born in the United States – won the 1832 election in a landslide.  But the Whig Party (now defunct) despised Van Buren and refused to recognize his legitimacy.  They spread rumors that he was born in Holland and that he was secretly a Quaker.

Quaker

In conjunction with this rumor campaign, the Whigs engaged in a rhetorical attack utilizing misleading vocabulary. For example, Winfield Scott – a Whig Party organizer – gave a speech in Buffalo, New York accusing Van Buren of vague charges that no one understood but everyone believed.  Scott is quoted as saying:

“In addition to the many crimes Martin Van Buren has committed against the American people as a whole – nay humanity – perhaps most disturbing, if not revolting, is the indisputable fact that Van Buren is a notorious masticator.   Reliable sources close to Van Buren – if that is his real name – confirm that he masticates at least three times a day, often in the presence of his wife. As monstrous as this may seem, Van Buren has also been known to vacillate on numerous occasions.  I put it to you that, not only is Van Buren a vacillator AND a masticator, he vacillates WHILE he masticates! The man has practiced vacillation and chronic mastication ever since he was a small child in Holland!”

These Whig tactics worked: the public turned against Van Buren, with many refusing to shake his hand for fear of where it may have been.  Whig congressmen and senators began pelting Van Buren with rotten vegetables whenever he spoke publically. The threat of violence became so pronounced that Van Buren would carry two loaded pistols whenever he addressed congress.

Packing heat

More recently, Republicans unhappy with Franklin Delano Roosevelt – a polio victim confined to a wheel chair – accused Roosevelt of being born in Norway and of secretly being a Free Mason. They would yell “cripple!” and “gimp!” during Roosevelt’s State of the Union addresses, pretending that they were sneezing.

He killed and ate this child.

.

So, when seen through the lens of history, Joe Wilson’s yelling, “you lie!” at Obama during the the President’s State of the Union Address, or Arizona Governor Jan Brewer jabbing her finger into the President’s face while yelling at him, or even a reporter heckling Obama during a press conference, it really isn’t very important.

.

This never happened when a white president was giving a speech.

.

This would never happen to a white president, and never has.

.

Perhaps they feel free to disrespect him because he isn’t white, so he can’t really be the president, so they don’t owe him any respect.

.

 It is just part of the American way.

.

.

.

.

.

HEADLINE – Ugandan gorillas join Facebook

Endangered Ugandan gorillas join Facebook, MySpace

By Rhappi Khanasta, Ass. Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 10:53 am ET

KAMPALA, Uganda – Around 340 mountain gorillas — nearly half of the 740 remaining worldwide — have joined Facebook, Myspace and Twitter in an attempt to live it up before the end.

“I figured, what the hell?” explains M’bitah, a male silverback weighing 400 pounds (180 kilograms) who lives in Uganda’s lush Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. “Maybe I can hook up with a willing female and have a little fun before I am shot, killed and eaten,” M’bitah said.

Despite their size — a male silverback can reach over 7 feet (2.1 meters) — the gorillas are threatened by poachers who kill them for meat, farmers and charcoal-burners who encroach on their habitat, and the indiscriminate bullets of rebels on the run.

“We Mountain Gorillas will probably be eaten into extinction within a year or two,” said Kampanga, a female adult mountain gorilla. “But I just got friended by five people on Facebook and 28 people responded to my tweet about scratching my stomach,” she said. “How cool is that?”

“We support efforts to include gorillas within internet based social networks,” said N’kita “Ernie” Ruzigandekwa, President and former Treasurer for the Ugandan Bush Meat Advisory Board, a nonprofit, corporate sponsored interest group that promotes eating gorillas. “The Ugandan mountain gorilla is an elusive creature that is much, much easier to sneak up on when concentrating on updating their Facebook profile,” Ruzigandekwa said.

.

.

MY FAVORITE HOMOSEXUALS

Today I couldn’t help but notice homosexuals all over the place.

.

.

I noticed three homosexuals while I watched television as I made coffee for my wife. I saw half a dozen more as I drove my son to school. I saw another two or three in the supermarket where I stopped to buy milk on my way back home. And, when I parked outside my house, I waved to Ted, my gay neighbor, as he was leaving his house to go to work.

.

My gay neighbor, Ted.

We chatted a bit and both agreed that the weather was fabulous for this time of year.

It wasn’t always this way.  At one time, not so long ago, I could go for months without encountering a homosexual or even noticing one on the street. Other than Richard Simmons, you almost never saw one on TV.

.

Richard Simmons. Very gay.

.

But things have changed.  The media today seems jam-packed with homosexuals – both real and imaginary. For example, on the television show Will and Grace, Eric McCormack – a fine, upstanding heterosexual actor – plays the part of a homosexual lawyer.

.

Eric McCormack: not gay.

.

While on the television show How I Met Your Mother Neil Patrick Harris, who is gay, plays the part of Barney, who isn’t.

.

Neil Patrick Harris: totally gay.

.

(Harris also played the part of Doogie Howser, which disturbs me.  Somehow I cannot accept that Doogie is gay.)

.

What the hell?

.

It wasn’t always this way.  In the old days, you could go your whole life without noticing a homosexual.  You could be in the middle of a crowd without realizing you were surrounded by them. Your best friends could have been gay – and probably were – but you would never have known it because they did everything they could to look, sound, dress and live like heterosexuals.  And they were pretty good at it.  Some – like Senator Larry Craig – got married and even had kids just to avoid anyone knowing they were gay. You gotta admire that kind of effort.

.

Republican Senator Larry Craig.   Imagine the effort.

.

But now it seems that more and more homosexuals go out of their way to appear “gay” by embodying gay stereotypes.  I see lesbians every day with short hair, often wearing bandanas on their heads, dressed in flannel shirts, wearing extra-long baggy cargo/plaid/khaki shorts and walking in Doc Martins or Birkenstocks.

.

.

(If you are a woman and I just described what you look like, and you are not gay, I’m sorry, but it isn’t my fault: you look like a lesbian).

Every day I see effeminate, lisping, mincing, fastidious, fashion-forward, musical theater loving guys who “simply adore” Betty Davis, and who go out of their way to demonstrate that they throw like a girl. (“Here! Catch!  Don’t I throw like a girl?”)

But I am not one to judge.  I mean that in a literal sense.  I tried it, and I was a terrible judge.  I couldn’t really accept the whole “innocent until proven guilty” slogan.  I mean, if the accused might be innocent, then why were they in jail?  They must have done something wrong, right?  When I found out judges are supposed to be “impartial” I realized I am not one to judge.

Not as easy as it looks.

.

Neither am I here to debate the issue.  I am not here to say whether the advent of open homosexuality is good or bad.  The last thing I want to do is get involved in a argument over whether homosexuality is a naturally occurring condition – like red hair and freckles – or a mental disease like acute schizophrenia that can be treated with intensive psychotherapy or drugs or even institutionalization.

.

.

As far as I am concerned, both positions have merit, but I don’t want to get involved.

In all honesty, there is a limit to my ability to embrace this brave new world.  I feel I speak for many heterosexuals when I say that there is a certain “ick” factor associated with the concept, if not the practice, of homosexuality.

.

.

We heterosexuals are trying to keep open minds, but we are wired this way and cannot help finding the picture below sort of unsettling on a visceral level.

.

.

And let’s not forget the problems inherent in the persistent argument that the gay lifestyle is an abomination in the eyes of God.  I mean, Leviticus 18:23 really complicates the whole discussion, doesn’t it?

.

Repressed homosexual (the one holding the signs).

.

But I digress.  The point I am trying to make is that there are lots of homosexuals out there and I might as well point out the ones I like.  Here is a quick list of the homosexuals I approve of:

.

Ellen DeGeneres:

Ellen is American’s Gay Sweetheart.

.

.

She is smart.  She is funny.   She replaced Paula Abdul on American Idol.

When you see Ellen it is easy to overlook that she prefers to have sex with women.

.

Karl Rove:

.

Karl is one of my favorite homosexuals because he defeats the gay stereotype that male homosexuals are fastidious, well groomed and fashionable.  He does this by being fat and sloppy.  Snap! You go, Karl!

.

.

And, to give balance to this column, my least favorite homosexuals are….

.

Elton John:

.

Elton hasn’t had a hit for years and that thing on his head is clearly a toupee.  Come on, Elton: spend the money.

.

Rosie O’Donnell:

.

I detest Rosie O’Donnell.  She is a loud-mouthed, annoying, pompous, self-important, corpulent idiot.  She discredits all homosexuals – especially the fat, ugly ones.

Well, that’s it for my thoughts on homosexuality.  I think I’ll have a beer and watch High School Musical. That show is totally gay.

.

.

PALIN’S EXIT AND THE GOP RENAISSANCE – Part 2

Is he a Christian, or just trying to look like one on the beach?

One of my regular readers – who goes only by the name “Celia” – recently wrote:

“Lots of chatter going on around me right now. Are you scared that I have documentation of events from long ago? To the best of my memory, even I have not yet considered that there are two problems here, as I see it. As I recall, many will be interested in knowing that I find it interesting that your column is difficult to follow. You use lots of words.  I further note that, in my experience, an acquaintance told me I’ve heard you and your minions, et al, use words I don’t like in your column. HUH? Does anyone else see a conspiracy here? Parents are devastated. Typical Boylan, in my opinion.  You should be ashamed of yourself for calling yourself a Christian.”

.

Celia (very single)

.

Celia’s diatribe is more than a textbook example of paranoid schizophrenia: his rant casts a shadow on the past, present and future of the Republican Party.

A few weeks ago, I used this column to talk to conservative Republicans who, like me, reluctantly supported Obama in the last national election. I pointed out that the Republican Party has withered away into what can, at best, be considered a local and regional power.  For example, Northern California is a Republican stronghold.  But while we are strong enough to affect local politics, we’ve lost our voice in the national debate.

To understand how we got here and how we can fix the problem, we need to examine the event that caused the GOP to crash – i.e., John McCain’s decision to nominate Palin as his running mate in the 2008 national election.

At first it seemed like a stroke of genius. Palin looked good. She sounded good. She appealed to social conservatives and, being a woman, she stood a good chance of separating the female voting block from the Democrats.

Going after the female vote.

 

Palin’s acceptance speech was political dynamite. She said all the right things and said them so well.  A good friend of mine began calling McCain “McGenius” for choosing Palin.

But as fast as Sarah jumped onto the national political stage, she began to trip all over it just as quickly.  The bad news started and just kept coming.  Her interviews with Charlie Gibson were a disaster, revealing that she was abysmally ignorant of foreign and domestic policy.  And even though Katie Courick isn’t a journalist by any stretch of the imagination, Sarah’s interview with Courick was even more of a train wreck.

And then came the non-stop parade of surreal weirdness.  Even though Palin supported abstinence-based Sex Ed, her teen daughter was pregnant. Even though Palin championed lack of corruption, her gubernatorial administration was corrupt.  She was revealed to be an unabashed liar, first supporting the “bridge to nowhere” and then denying supporting it.

I can, but won’t, go on and on with example after example from the avalanche of bad news that grew and grew as November 3^rd got closer.  All I will say is that each day it became even clearer than the day before that Sarah Palin was simply unsuited to occupy high office – much less serve as vice president to an elderly president.

"Hey! You kids! Get your dog off my lawn! Lousy punks....

There is no way on earth McCain’s people didn’t know about Sarah Palin’s negatives before they lifted her out of relative obscurity and placed her on the national stage. Every bit of unfavorable news, every single unfortunate fact, was already known prior to Palin’s selection to the GOP’s national ticket.  All of it – and I mean all of it – was and is available on the Internet for anyone to research.

From Sarah's Internet sex tape (posted by an old boyfriend)

So why did McCain and his team of experienced, educated, experienced Republican political advisors pick Palin to stand with McCain and not Joe Lieberman or Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani or even Elizabeth Dole?  Why did McCain agree to pick Sarah Palin over a huge number of men and women who where infinitely better qualified than Palin?

.

.

 

The truth isn’t easy to accept, but, if the Republican Party has any chance of rising up from the ashes it is currently entombed in, the truth must be faced, and faced squarely:  Palin was chosen in order to appeal to people like my constant critics, Celia and Linda– i.e., low-class, minimally intelligent voters obsessed with saran wrap and pantyhose who think they are smarter than they are, think they are Christians when they really aren’t, are against the teaching of evolution and who are identified by pollsters as “social conservatives.”

Knows Penelope, Celia and Linda personally.

Palin was picked to pander to social conservatives like Celia because McCain believed he couldn’t win without them.  So he picked a running mate who looked just like them, sounded just like them and claimed to be one of them.

Trotting out the retarded kid to connect with her base.

It was a gamble that was doomed to fail, bringing the GOP crashing down in the process. However – and this is the point – Sarah Palin’s sudden resignation from her job as Alaskan Governor is the first step in a series of events that will ultimately result in the GOP’s restoration as a national party.

But only if we have the courage to say no to another deal with the devil.

(continued)

.

.

.

.

.

MOST OF THE RUMORS ARE FALSE

By Paul Nicholas Boylan,

Columnist

[Printed with permission of the Sacramento Valley Mirror, whose editor is an alien insect bent on world domination]

**********

One of my regular readers – who goes only by the name “Penelope” – recently wrote:

“I bet your getting a good laff  writing about me in the valley smear laff it up jew boy I heard that the departement of justise is gonna file charges against you for getting fired for lying to elected officials! ha! they are on there way to arrest you right now I heard that you are cheating on your wife with oriental illegal aliens who dont speak english we should send them back where they come from along with all the other illegal aliens who wont speak English and welfare cheats and homisexual liberals I hope your afraid because of the stuff I heard about you from reliable sorses like my neighbors and other reliable sorses like my other neighbors and other people who know things about you that they heard from reliable sorses”

Penelope’s comment highlights a growing problem: what do you do when you hear rumors, especially when you hear them from people you trust, who probably heard them from people they trust, and so on, and so on?

.

.

.

.

As Penelope’s email shows, there isn’t much you can do when confronted by a rumor other than spread the rumor and, if you spend most of your day on the internet, it is pretty easy to spread a rumor farther than ever possible before.  But what is an average individual supposed to do?

.

.

.

.

An ordinary person really can’t do much to verify or disprove a rumor – especially the kind that is either started or spread by anonymous people on the Internet.  I, on the other hand, am not an ordinary person.  In addition to having webbed toes, I am fortunate to be an attorney with the skills and the connections needed to round up answers and get to the bottom of things – which means I can verify rumors.

.

.

.

.

So, as a service to a community that has been very good to me, I investigated some of the more prevalent and persistent rumors currently floating around and have determined whether they are true or not. I want to start with something personal, and then go on to rumors of a more general interest.

Rumor No. 1:  I am Jewish.

.

Superficial similarities.

.

.

This rumor is false.  I really have no idea how it got started or why it continues to spread. People keep sending me emails arguing that the Holocaust was a “Jew plot” to discredit the Nazis. People call me to complain about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Complete strangers walk up to me on the street to ask me when the next Barbara Streisand movie is coming out.

.

.

We all know each other.

.

.

To set the record straight, I am not Jewish: I am Greek Orthodox, a faith that prides itself on being the oldest continuous version of Christianity.  Despite some similarities – e.g., Greeks have big noses, are notoriously cheap, are smarter than goyum (i.e., non-Greeks) and control the media – Judaism and Greek Orthodoxy have very little in common.  And then there are the goat sacrifices – which I would rather not get into right now.

.

.

Hilarious at parties.

.

.

Rumor No. 2:  The words “Butte County” mean something obscene in Latin.

Knows what it means.

.

.

This rumor is false.  “Butte County” has no Latin meaning whatsoever.  The word “butte” is French, meaning “a small hill or mound of earth detached from any mountain range”  Coincidentally, “Butte County” mean “socially embarrassed potato” in Swahili.

The persistent rumor that “Butte County” is a foreign obscenity can be traced to a printing accident that took place shortly after Butte County was founded in 1850.  Butte County’s first Clerk,  the legendary Earnest H. Sockmender, ordered stationery that mistakenly read “Butt County.”  The mistake wasn’t discovered until 1853 when famed actress and exotic dancer Lola Montez was performing at the Yellow Foot Saloon in Biggs.

.

.

Lola Montez

.

.

Rumor No. 3  Glenn County was founded by an insane polygamist wheat farmer who used a private militia to force the Colusa County Council, at gunpoint, to “let go of” the land that eventually became Glenn County.

.

The Battle for Glenn County.

.

\.

This rumor is false.  Dr. Hugh J. Glenn – the prominent California wheat farmer and amateur dentist that Glenn County is named after – was not insane.

.

.

Rumor No. 4:  Glenn County Superintendent of Schools, Arturo Barrera, is really a woman.

.

.

Arturo Barrera

.

.

Despite my very best research and investigative efforts, I can neither confirm nor deny this allegation.  Barrera’s bodyguards – who seem to be with him 24 hours a day – make it impossible to get close enough to perform the examination necessary to either confirm or disprove the rumor. However, I’ve eaten with Arturo, and I can tell you from first hand experience that no woman can devour a bucket of fried chicken that fast or that vigorously.

.

.

.

.

The next few rumors are relatively recent, and seem to be part of an attempt to explain why the Glenn County Superior Court decided to remodel a courtroom scheduled to be closed, and then spent more money in attorney’s fees than the remodeling cost trying to keep the remodeling details secret.

.

Rumor No. 5:  Retired Glenn County Judge St. Evans killed a guy and hid his body in a “man-sized safe” for a time period longer than the one recommended by the Judicial Counsel. The “remodeling” was a cover story created to explain efforts to remove the evidence.

.

Chambers of Mystery.

.

.

This rumor is false and, frankly, it offends me that anyone would repeat it.  It is simply unbelievable that any judge would kill anyone (except for those two judges in Los Angeles) and violate the Judicial Council’s standards for body storage/disposal (again, except for those same two judges in Los Angeles).   Also, hiding evidence of judicial misconduct doesn’t explain the decision to install high-tech infrared remote controlled automatic window shades.

.

.

Rumor 6: The Orland judge’s chambers remodeling project cost so much money because they are building a trans-dimensional portal that will be used by evil insectoid aliens to invade the earth and use people for food.

.

It would look a lot like this.

.

This rumor is seductive, lulling the listener into believe it because it explains so much.  People wonder why such a large amount of money was spent to remodel a room so tiny, but a trans-dimensional portal could easily fit in that tiny space with room to spare.  The large amounts of money spent trying to keep the project details secret is also explained by the need to prevent humans from finding out about the plan before it is too late to stop it.  Even the high tech electronic automatic window shades are explainable because it is well known that insectoid alien monsters – hungry for human flesh – are notoriously light sensitive.

.

.

Dislikes direct sunlight.

.

.

However, no matter how tempting it is to believe this rumor, I cannot confirm it, and it is my firm opinion that it is probably untrue.

In closing,  I want to say that I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords and would like to take this opportunity to remind them that, as an attorney and lobbyist, I can be helpful in rounding up others to serve as a food source during their stay on our world – and I am willing to do it at a very low hourly rate.

.

.

Such a deal, eh?

.

.

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF INTERNET “NEWS”

The author (front) and his brother, Dave (back).

y Paul Nicholas Boylan,

Columnis

People of Earth, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that very soon virtually everyone on earth will be able to easily and cheaply access the Internet.

Even really, really poor people.

It is happening so fast no one can keep up or predict where or how it will end.  Computers and telephones with wireless connections to the World Wide Web are spreading even through the poorest parts of Africa – even though there is no electrical infrastructure there. The people who live in those retched places are using solar energy to power their small, inexpensive internet devices.  And that means people from Port-au-Prince to Benghazi can watch television reruns on Hulu, watch weird videos on YouTube and look down upon their huts and refugee camps using the satellite images from Google Earth.

.

.

Now for the bad news. Even though we are entering a brave new world promising incredible access to information, a lot of the information available is absolute junk.  This true especially for the news.

.

.

The problem is found in the system itself.  Every major newspaper and every major Internet service provider offers a news page where anyone can browse the headlines for free.  Google has a news page.  Yahoo has a news page.  Microsoft has a news page.

.

.

But there just isn’t enough news to fill those pages.  Our opportunities to find news on the Internet are growing faster than the news itself.  There just isn’t enough happening that is newsworthy to post on the Internet for you and me to read.

In the past, during the golden age of journalism, great newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Weekly World News pledged to report “all of the news that is fit to print.”  Please read that promise carefully:  all of the news that is fit to print.  That implies that not all news is suitable to be put in a newspaper.  Some stories are just too trivial or too stupid to make it past an editor.  Traditionally, only the most interesting, most helpful and/or most topical stories made it into print.  In other words, quality mattered.

.

.

It isn’t that way any more.  In this new age of fast information access, quality has lost its meaning and importance. Now quantity is king.  Electronic space, millions of times larger than all of the newspapers that have ever been printed, needs to be filled with something.

.

Think about it.

The results are simply bizarre, and – truth be told – a little frightening.  When the quality of information loses its importance, the quality of thought and reason suffers.

For example, just yesterday I read the following headline on the Google News website:

“NAVAJOS LARGELY UNSCATHED BY RECESSION”

I want you to think about this headline.  It basically reports that the group of Native Americans more commonly called Navajos – who are perhaps one of the poorest people in the United States, suffering from lack of education, lack of health care and double digit unemployment – are not really being affected by the recent economic down turn.  And why? Because they are already dirt poor, that’s why.

 

The news article quoted some idiot who explained why the Great Recession isn’t really being noticed on Navajo reservations:

“Most Navajos own their own homes, tend not to invest in the stock market and have long had difficulties borrowing money, distinguishing them from millions of other Americans who’ve suffered from rising mortgage payments, sinking 401(k) retirement accounts and stricter terms from lenders.”

If you are not totally amazed at the abject stupidity of this “news” then perhaps I can help you understand by suggesting a headline that would be equally stupid for exactly the same reasons:

“RECENT STUDY SHOWS DEAD PEOPLE HAVE FEWER HEALTH PROBLEMS”

Navajos are not affected by the Great Recession for the exact same reason why dead people don’t get sick: because they are already in such bad shape that it just doesn’t matter.  Swine flu isn’t a problem for people who have died for the same reason unemployment isn’t a problem for people who already don’t have a job.  

You know what else impoverished Navajos aren’t affected by? The increase in swimming pool maintenance fees and the rising price of caviar.

.

Lucky Navajos!

.

The fact that our banks won’t lend any money doesn’t matter to people who could never get a loan anyway. Reporting this kind of stuff as “news” is like reporting thathpigs are born small but grow big.lIt isn’t news. It is an observation dressed up and presented to look like news.

.

.

It gets worse.  Not only are stupid things reported, but also stupid people are actually allowed to make the news itself.  For example, yesterday I also read the following headline:

“STEELERS LINEBACKER HARRISON WON’T VISIT WHITE HOUSE”

Here is what happened: President Obama invited Super Bowl champions Pittsburgh Steelers to the White House.  Linebacker James Harrison refused to go because Obama “would probably have invited Arizona if they had won.”

.

Harrison is the one in the air.

.

Excuse me? Is he kidding? No, he is not kidding, and that is exactly what is wrong with this “news” article.  He is one serious intellectually challenged American style football player. I mean, what the f**k.  Seriously, what the f**k? Is there anything inside his cranium at all?

Mr. Harrison – if I may address you personally – please try to understand that being angry with the President because Obama would have invited the other team if they had won is just as stupid as a man divorcing his wife because, if she had not agreed to marry him, she would probably have married someone else.

Oh hell. I sincerely hope Harrison doesn’t read this, because if he does, he is going to agree and divorce his wife. I do not want to be responsible for that or anything like it.  I am sure they are a happy couple. I mean, I bet Harrison’s wife takes advantage of his lack of mental acuity to do just about anything she wants.

“Hey, honey, who is that in our bed making love to you?”

“No one, sweety. You are dreaming.

“I am?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Okay!”

.

Harrison thinking.

.

But I digress.  The point I originally wanted to make is that his stupid reason for not visiting the White House is just a stupid reason. It isn’t newsworthy.  Yet it has engulfed enormous space on the internet.

Navajos that are “lucky” because they are condemned to hopeless poverty and stupid football players aren’t newsworthy.  At best that is information devoid of usefulness or meaningful content.

Welcome to the Information Age.

.

********************

ZippyT.Pinhead writes:

” ‘Welcome to the Information Age?’ That is a terribly weak last line for an essay that is marginal at best.”

Zippy, I am forced by self-honesty to agree with your opinion that I ended the essay poorly. However, as for your assessment that the essay itself was somehow not up to scratch, I offer the following in rebuttal:

.

.

>

HEADLINE – POLICE APPREHEND BIGGEST SERIAL KILLER

By Rhappi Kanasta, Ass. Press Writer – Thu Apr 30, 9:59 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Police believe a 72-year-old insurance claims adjuster arrested earlier this month is the biggest serial killer in the city’s history.

“This guy is huge,” Capt. Denis Cremins said. “When we say we caught him laying around the house, we mean “around” the house.”

The suspect weighs over a metric ton and is so large that his arrest required two specially trained SWAT units just to put him in improvised handcuffs originally used to restrain emotionally unstable, bipolar hippos at the Los Angeles Zoo.

“We trained in Iraq, so my men are familiar with morbidly obese perpetrators,” Denis said. “But this is way beyond my experience.  How could he let that happen to him? He should be ashamed of himself.”

Serial killers often over-eat, said FBI profiler, David Carr. “It really is a big problem and it can lead to clinical depression. Without counseling and medical intervention, a serial killer’s uncontrollable appetite for fast food eventually interferes with their predatory activities, and when that happens suicidal thoughts are not uncommon” Carr explained.

.

Source for headline:  
http://largest-ever-serial-killer-captured.html

THERE IS IRONY HERE, IF YOU LOOK DEEP ENOUGH

Let’s talk about funny.

I won’t bore you describing the tiny tragedies of my beginnings.  We’ve all suffered, and, when viewed in proper perspective, all suffering is trivial.  When the self-indulgent drama is brushed aside, I best remember laughter.  Through it all, the darkness was split and punctuated by laughter.

Samuel Clemens is famously misquoted as saying “man is the only animal that laughs, or needs to.”  The first time I heard that quote I understood it thoroughly.  Humanity was born the moment a cold, hungry, shivering animal looked around at the noise, waste and horror – and laughed – because there was nothing else to do about it but laugh.

I vaguely remember pain and dread.  Then something happened, something I still struggle to understand.  I concluded it was good and right to encourage others to laugh.

At first it was my immediate family, in particular my mother.  Her laughter was special.  But so was my older brother and younger sister’s.  It was a simple thing that cost nothing, but made so much difference for those brief moments in time.  Light in the darkness.  Trembling, tentative order forced out of chaos by the simple act of willing it to be so.  For a brief moment, the Power of Creation, the shadow of what it must feel like to be a god.

Funnier than thou

.

And so it continued, it was and it has always been.  When all is said and done, the truest, strongest, most meaningful bond I share with my wife is laughter.  Slowly, time robs us of everything that brought us together, but shared laughter holds us close.

.

And our son – our only child.   I am a proud father.  My son is shaping up to be a good man – a better man than his father.  I am proud that his mind is sharp. I am grateful that, unlike his old man, he is truly kind and caring. But I am most proud of his fine and complex sense of humor.  It is the one gift I hoped to give him, valued above intellect and heart because the mind and the spirit are subsumed by it.   One cannot be truly funny unless one is smart and sensitive.

.

God doesn’t laugh.  I’m not kidding: look it up.  God laughs exactly twice in the Old Testament and not at all in the New – and both times in the Old He laughs “in derision.”

.

.

Humans laugh.  Only we humans.  And that is absolute proof that God loves us.  Animals are too busy living from moment to moment to laugh.  Angels are too perfect to so much as crack a smile.  But we beautifully flawed humans not only laugh, we are inspired to make – to help – to encourage – others to laugh too.  It is a kindness only we know.  It is a blessing only we can bestow.  It is a light only we can spark.

I love to make people laugh.  It is my connection to the infinite.   It is the absurdity that makes total sense.

And that is enough.

That and money.  Lots of money.  And sex.  Kinky sex – not the “man on top, get it over with quick” kind of sex.  And champagne – the good French stuff, not cheap California swill. And double-jointed women – two, whenever possible.

Fiat lux, oh my brothers and sisters.

.

A DREAM DEFERRED

.

My house was recently remodeled, and I am disappointed. To make matters worse, my disappointment is causing me to question my goals and dreams.

.

Me, standing in the wreckage of my dreams...

.

My disappointment has nothing to do with the work that was done.  The construction company that did the work – North State Residential Development – did a great job.

.

.

Rob - God of Electricity and other stuff

.

The work was performed on time and on budget.  North State more or less built me a new home in five months.  No one in my neighborhood believed it was possible.  But these guys worked on weekends, in the dark and even in the rain to get the job done.

.

.

The men responsible for my bitter disappointment.

.

But every time I look at my new home I cannot put behind me the hopes I had when I originally decided to remodel my home. You see, I am an evil genius, and that means I have always wanted a secret lair. Allow me to explain.

There are lots of evil geniuses in the world – but they are not all created equal.Sure, there are high profile evil geniuses sitting around in big chairs, stroking persian cats and using their genius to plan and execute diabolical plans to threaten the world with the goal of getting rich.

.

My role model - Ernst Stavro Blofeld

.

Despite these few “stars” most evil geniuses live very humble lives. We have families. We go to church on Sundays.

Secretly evil.

.

But we live secret lives where we dream of threatening humanity with extinction in order to become enormously wealthy.

.

.

I am that kind of evil genius.  My extreme evil and my uncanny genius are well established.  How else do you explain my otherwise unexplainable success?  I’ve spent my life crafting a respectable persona that hides my secret evil identity – Professor Iniquitous.  Over the years I have hatched countless ingenious plans for taking over the world – none of which I have been able to execute.

.

.

.

There is one primary reason why I haven’t taken over the world yet.  It isn’t the lack of sufficient evil.  If the editors over at Merriam Webster knew about me,  the word “evil” in their dictionary would have my picture next to it.  And I do not lack for genius.  I am always the smartest guy in the room and I know all of the answers to questions asked on television quiz shows.  Nevertheless, I lack the one thing that all successful evil geniuses possess:  membership in the Amalgamation of Evil Geniuses (AEG).

.

.

.

The AEG is an international labor union that more or less controls all evil genius activity on this planet.  You can’t really be an evil genius without belonging to AEG.  And to join AEG you must have a secret lair – a private place to conduct your evil experiments and hatch your evil plans.

.

.

.

So when my wife and I talked about remodeling our home, I was very excited about the possibilities of including a secret lair in the project.With a secret lair, I finally had a chance of joining AEG – and after that happened, it was only a matter of time before the world would be mine.

.

.

.

.

The contractor at North State loved the idea.I talked to their architect, who drew up the plans and even made a 3D computer simulation of what my secret lair would look like after it was built.I sat there in the architect’s office as he showed me my underground secret lair – my future laboratory, my control room, my nuclear missile silo, my shark tank and the kitchen where my evil minions could microwave hot pocket snacks.It was a dream come true.

.

.

.

Then I saw the price.  Underground lairs are very, very expensive.  So we began to reduce the project. The shark tank was the first thing to go.  I really didn’t need a shark tank.I could use other means to dispose of the secret agents sent to stop me.

.

.

Then I gave up the missile silo.Nuclear weapons were old fashioned. I could eventually replace the nuclear missile with a much less expensive death ray.

.

.

.

Even with these sacrifices, the costs associated with a secret lair were just too high to afford. More and more of what I wanted was cut away until eventually I was left with what amounts to a secret closet in the garage.

.

.

Don’t get me wrong:the closet is very secret.  Unless you knew what to look for you wouldn’t really notice it.  But it is still a closet.  I can stand in it, but that’s about it.  I really cannot use it to menace the world.

And that is exactly what AEG told me when I sent them a picture of my secret closet attached to my membership application.They wrote and told me

The AEG New Member Selection Committee has decided to hold onto your application until such time that you improve upon your secret lair to meet or exceed AEG’s secret lair standards as described in the AEG publication “So You Think You Have a Secret Lair…” a copy of which is enclosed for your convenience.

.

.

.

So I guess my plans for world domination are going to have to wait.  Maybe I should reconsider this whole evil genius thing.In the meantime, I am using my secret closet to store some gardening supplies…

Wait! That gives me an idea – a beautifully evil idea!  I can infect seemingly ordinary gardening supplies to spread bacteria genetically engineered to transform people from home gardeners into an army of zombie slaves!  Mooohahahahah!!

.

.

.

I am back, baby!

.

DISAPPOINTED WITH OBAMA

People of Earth, we have a new President of the United States, the honeymoon is over, and I miss George Bush.

You may think that the “honeymoon” I speak of is the bipartisan cooperation that traditionally follows a presidential election. During this “honeymoon period,” a newly elected president – either in their first term or re-elected for their second term – can make big changes without much debate. George Washington himself used his “honeymoon period” to support legislation prohibiting discrimination against short people – or, in the parlance of the times “persons of diminutive stature.” Many experts consider this the beginning of what was to become the American Civil Rights Movement.

 

 

Other American Presidents failed to take advantage of their honeymoon period to shape our nation through new legislation. For example, Martin Van Buren hosted nude swimming parties in a pond outside of the White House.

 

Martin Van Buren - party animal.

 

Millard Filmore conducted eldritch surgical experiments involving humans and animals.

 

 

Chester A. Arthur required all members of his cabinet to wear masks that looked exactly like him and insisted that, whenever they met, everyone refer to one another only as “Luigi.”

 

 

Such presidential frivolities ended when their respective honeymoons were over.

George W. Bush took full advantage of his honeymoon to enact a tax break for rich people, which not only pissed away a $128 billion budget surplus, but also is one of the primary causes for the $3 trillion deficit Bush left us with – as well as the first domino that fell in the chain of events that created what is shaping up to be a world-wide economic depression.

 

"You want your prosperity back? I got your prosperity right here..."

But the kind of honeymoon that allowed George Washington and George W. Bush to cement their places in history isn’t the “honeymoon” I am talking about. And I am not talking about Obama’s “honeymoon” being over. He didn’t have one. The honeymoon I am talking about is the one between Obama and the American people. All honeymoons end when the mystery vanishes, and there is no mystery about what the Obama administration is going to do.

The next four years are going to be boring – incredibly, mind-numbingly boring.

 

Modern Americans may pick their president with the hopes that they will lead wisely, but we value our presidents, not for their wisdom, but for their entertainment value. It started with John Kennedy. We picked him because he looked good on television. The drama of his presidency – from the Cuban missile crisis to his horrifically tragic assassination – riveted our attention.

 

 

Lyndon Johnson turned out to be entertainingly crazy.

 

 

 

You can’t beat Richard Nixon for entertainment value.

 

 

Gerald Ford is remembered more for falling down a lot than for any of his policy achievements.

 

 

Jimmy Carter continues to entertain us by simply refusing to go away.

 

 

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults and strengths, was fun to listen to and watch.

 

 

George Bush Senior endlessly delighted us by not knowing what a supermarket price scanner was and by having horse manure thrown at him in Brazil.

 

 

Bill Clinton’s rise and fall reminded us of a Greek drama where the hero is a great leader, brought down by a fatal flaw – i.e., an uncontrollable passion for chubby interns.

 

 

Bill Clinton's drug of choice.

And America didn’t vote for George Bush as much as we voted against Al Gore because Gore was painfully dull.

 

 

 

 

After only a few weeks in office, it is abysmally clear that we are not going to be entertained by the Obama administration. We made the mistake of choosing a president who is a good family man and thinks through virtually everything he does or says. There will be no improvisation in the Obama administration.

 

 

Which is why I miss George W. Bush. Sure, he was an utter disaster, leaving everything he touched or even considered worse off than it was before it captured his attention. Sure, he made a lot of his rich friends even richer, but the way he did it wrecked the ship we all live on, and – rich or poor – we are all going down as it sinks. As my good for nothing liberal son points out, and I cannot argue against, no single person in the history of the world has left more people around the world worse off for his passing than has George W. Bush.

 

 

But I digress. The point is that, for all his faults – or maybe because of them – George W. Bush was incredibly entertaining. Every time he opened his mouth, something amazing might come out.

 

 

I especially enjoyed watching and listening to Bush mangle the English language as if he were a developmentally disabled eight year old. For example, he referred to himself as “the decider.” He made up his own words, like “subliminable” and “misunderestimate.” You had to laugh when you heard him say things like “I know how hard it is to put food on your family.”

 

 

Well, none of that is going to happen in an Obama administration. He is just going to plod along, thinking things through, making sense, grappling with problems no one can solve – and just being no fun to watch or listen to at all.

 

 

Unless I am misunderestimating him.

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: WITHOUT WARNING by John Birmingham

I just spent the last two days putting off high paying work to read WITHOUT WARNING, the latest novel by John Birmingham.  I’ve never reviewed a book before, so I am compelled to enact what I imagine a book reviewer would say, and this is it:

I experienced John Birmingham’s WITHOUT WARNING in the same manner I would have experienced a full glass of a good California zinfandel: it began strong in character, getting better with each taste and ended with a big finish, making me sad it was gone and leaving me wanting more.

No kidding. It was a really good read. The zinfandel analogy is spot on.  I highly recommend WITHOUT WARNING to the thousands of people who read this blog. Go out and buy it. I promise you won’t be able to put it down, and when you are forced by time and fate to do so, you will be scheming to find time to pick it up and continue.

Okay. I’ve done my book reviewer thing. Now it is time to get back to what I do a little better.

All of the characters – other than Fifi – were memorable. I especially enjoyed seeing the Rhino and a cameo by Murphy.  But the one character I enjoyed most – but didn’t quite get enough of – was Stavros. I LOVED that guy, and I believe he was more pivotal than would appear on first reading.

John Birmingham, where ever you are, please continue to develop this fine, Greek character (whom I suspect also has an Irish ancestry).

The guy on the left has an Irish last name.

As a matter of fact, please consider adding additional Greco-Irish characters, perhaps one that is an attorney with a small liver.  Yeah!  Wouldn’t that be great?  I mean, really, who doesn’t want to read about a character who is half Greek, half Irish – and is an attorney – who gets drunk really, really easily? And, while you’re at it, give him (has to be a guy) Attention Deficit Disorder. And flat feet.  Oh yeah, and he has to be bald.  I mean, that is a must, don’t you think – for verisimilitude and pathos?  Bald middle aged attorneys of Greek/Irish ancestry just reek of pathos. At least I hope that reek is pathos.

I am not a professional writer, but I can tell you that this is a very good idea.

The author of WITHOUT WARNING writing down my idea for possible future reference.

 

And remember: the Wave eats people.

 

THE NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY

By Paul Nicholas Boylan,

Columnist

[Reprinted with permission of the Sacramento Valley Mirror, where this article first appeared.]

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has chosen former Maryland Lt. Gov Michael Steele – an African American – to be its Chairman. Several RNC members said it was a historic moment for the party.

.

Michael Steele frowning.

.

“This is a dramatic sign that the Republican Party is the real party of change,” said current RNC chair Mike Duncan. “The GOP is seen as the party that can take a one hundred dollar bill and change it into four twenties,” Duncan said. “But now we will be seen as something else.”

.

Incredibly rich, incredibly white women

.

“This is the first step of our effort to reach out to the Negro voter,” said former Tennessee GOP leader Chip Saltzman – who distributed a CD to RNC committee members featuring a song called “Barack the Magic Negro.”

.

Chip Saltzman and his brother Chip

..

“The liberal media – which is controlled by the Jews,” Saltsman explained, “took that song out of context. I sent that song to each and every RNC member to alert them to the fact that American politics has changed, and we have to change with it.  I believe I helped get Mike chosen as chairman. The song pointed out that the Democrats have a magic Negro, so we need one, too.”

.

.

“It is classic case of one-upsmanship,” Duncan agreed. “So they have a Negro. Well, our negro is better than their Negro,” he said. “The Democrats’ negro is a half-breed.  Our Republican Negro, on the other hand, is full Negro on his mother’s side and his father’s side.  No race mixing miscegenation here. None of our social conservative base can accuse us of promoting the mongrelization of the races.”

.

Angering social conservatives

.

“And our Negro has a Christian name. An American name,” said Track Hemplin, an unemployed grade school custodian and Civil War reenactor. “Our negro is named Michael Steele.  Say it with me – ‘Michael Steele….’ sounds like a football quarterback.    But the Democrats’ Negro is named Barak Hussein Obama.  Hell, that sounds like one of them Mooslam terrorists.  If I’m looking at two male Negros, all things being equal, I would feel more kindly toward the one that isn’t a half breed and has a name that sounds American.” Hemplin admitted.

.

.

“And our Negro has a kung fu grip. And he comes with a vehicle,” Hemplin added.

.

.

Political pundits believe that the RNC’s choosing Steele is a sign of a more fundamental shift in Republican political strategery.  “Historically, racism has worked very well for the Republican Party,” said Dr. Krista Schnurstein, Professor Emeritus of the American Institute of Political Theory. “Racial hate was a unifier and a persuader. Poor, uneducated whites could be persuaded to support Republican candidates – who want to cut their wages, health care and food safety and keep them poor – purely because of their common hatred for black people.  Politicians could take advantage of racial stereotypes to create fear, which would then translate into votes for the “law and order” Republican candidates.”

.

.

“But the effectiveness of racism vanished during Obama’s inauguration,” explained Herman Oberstein, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation. “White America watched in amazement as hundreds of thousands of black people converged on Washington D.C., and yet no one was murdered, no one was shot, no one was stabbed, no one died. Not one white woman had the letter “B” cut backwards into her cheek.  White America was astonished at how unexpectedly well-behaved all those colored folks were.”

.

.

Norman Weisser, a freelance political consultant agrees. “There were no riots. No looting. Nothing,” Weisser said.  “When the world looked out at the faces of those watching and participating in Obama’s inauguration, they didn’t see white and black. They saw Americans.  And that spelled the end of racial division as a political tool.”

.

/

Despite both parties embracing African Americans, racism is still very much alive and will be for the foreseeable future.

“Hate is still great,” proclaims Track Bramble, Exalted Cyclops, “and is still a powerful political force.  Just because the GOP don’t hate Negroes no more don’t mean we can’t hate Hispanics and Greeks – ‘specially those filthy illegal immigrants.  And homosexuals. It is still perfectly okay to hate homos.  And Mooslams.  And women who work outside of the home.  It is still okay to hate them.  And environmentalists. And wine drinking east coast intellectual elites.  And the theory of evolution.  And ugly people.  Dontcha just hate ugly people?”

.

East coast intellectuals: it is still okay to hate them.

.

Republican Strategists, however, are anxious to “keep the eyes on the prize” – which is the growing demographic of stupid voters.

.

.

“The true goal here is to convince stupid people to vote Republican,” said the Reverend Billy Bob, Director of the William Robert Law School and Christian Catering Emporium. “Let’s not forget that stupid people are forty-two times more likely to vote Republican than someone who can read and who may have gone to college,” Bob continued.  “Let us also not forget that stupidity is cross-cultural and cross-racial. Just as there are stupid white people who vote Republican, there are stupid black people that might vote Republican, too.”

.

And Republicans will thank them for voting republican.

.

And that is the true importance of the RNC picking an African American to be their chairman.  The choice was more than a sign of change:  it is a desperate and cynical gamble on the adamantine belief that black voters are too stupid to tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat.

.

.

THE SECRET OF MY (NEW) INTERNET SUCCESS

As some of you remember, I wrote an essay during the halcyon days of JournalSpace (JS) musing on my sudden Internet success. After crawling through cyberspace getting a few visitors here and a few there, all of a sudden my blog began being accessed hundreds of times a day.

.

This happened during a cycle where I posted photos related to lesbian equestrians. Apparently, people all over the world were keenly interested in lesbian horse stories.

.

 

 

Better prose than you might suspect.

 

I pandered to this interest as long as I could. But then I broke stride and posted a short essay describing my feelings after the death of a loved one. Whereas the world wide web was peppered with people who couldn’t get enough of lesbians and horses in whatever combination I could conjure up, the combination of love and death acted like bug spray on a bunch of roaches: my international audience disappeared.

.

 

 

 

 

 

.

I am experiencing the same sort of thing here at WordPress. I just reached that magic 5,000-viewer milestone with a sudden stream of viewers.

.

 

 

 

.

Like my Internet success at JournalSpace, my achievement here at WordPress does not stand up to close scrutiny.  Careful inspection shows that my success here at WordPress is an illusion – something I find utterly fascinating.

.

 

 

 

One of the reasons I now prefer WordPress is the wonderful tools WordPress provides to data junkies like me.  JournalSpace let me know who was visiting my blog, but WordPress lets me know why.

 

 

WordPress provides two utilities that place a bright light on the motives of people who visit my blog.  The first of these tools shows me which blogs “referred” others to my blog.  For example, I get a lot of referrals from John Birmingham’s blog

www.cheeseburgergothic.com. /John graciously lists me as a blog he follows and people who read his blog click on that link to access my blog.  I get the same kind of traffic from (in no particular order):

cageliner.blogspot.com

therbs-bar.blogspot.com

bangarrr.wordpress.com

dirkflinthart.blogspot.com

jadedj-banquetofconsequencestoo.blogspot.com

mamagetshergrooveback.blogspot.com

lermontov09.blogspot.com

mokoreturns.blogspot.com

becomingkate-becomingkate.blogspot.com

64poundsofrumpsteakpleasesanta.blogspot.com

rhinorog.blogspot.com

nataliatherussianspy.blogspot.com

gurubob09.blogspot.com

alonewithnoone.blogspot.com

morphinekisses.journalspace.com

puma.journalspace.com

labetine.blogspot.com

lovingdeparture.blogspot.com

sacrificial-doll.blogspot.com

drej08.wordpress.com

loupylou.wordpress.com

truckersjournal.wordpress.com

dorrie.de/F1

wildwesty.wordpress.com

drewsbird.blogspot.com

mirrorone.blogspot.com

captainmando.wordpress.com

nautilis.wordpress.com

karada007.wordpress.com

dkpark.wordpress.com

uamada.wordpress.com

I also get regular referrals from unexpected places, like:

google.com.au

huffingtonpost.com

Apparently Australians and liberals (not always synonymous) are interested in my particular brand of invective.

 

 

 

.

I love seeing and hearing from fellow members of the JS Diaspora.  But these friends and friendly websites count for a fraction of those reading my blog, and it is those anonymous, invisible people whom never comment who interest me most.

 

 

The second WordPress analytical tool I enjoy sheds the most light on the mystery of why people I don’t know from JS visit here – there is a function that lists the search terms people are typing into search engines like google and yahoo people to find my blog.

.

A fair number of these phantoms are interested in me – and I do mean me.  They use the following search terms to find and access my WordPress blog:

Paul Boylan attorney

Paul Nicholas Boylan

Paul Nicholas Boylan’s blog

Paul Nicholas Boylan mug shot

Paul Nicholas Boylan cocaine

Paul Nicholas Boylan criminal record

Paul Nicholas Boylan photo

“Paul Nicholas Boylan” pornography

Paul Nicholas Boylan “I dream of”

“Paul Nicholas Boylan” Darwin

“Paul Nicholas Boylan” gay

My analysis of these particular search terms seems to indicate someone is fishing around on the Internet hoping they can prove I am a drug using homosexual pornographer that spent time in jail for teaching evolution.

.

 

Please don’t be concerned. My legal practice often requires that I become involved in contentious issues. People I represent love me; people whom my clients oppose sometimes hate me, which prompts them to research my background in an attempt to “dig up dirt” about me to publish anonymously on the internet with the hope that, if they can harm my professional and personal reputations, then they can minimize my effectiveness as an advocate, counselor and advisor. It comes with the turff.

.

.

 

.

But those desiring to learn more about my life of lust and crime are very few.  The majority of my visitors are interested in something else.

They are deeply interested in Sarah Palin.

.

 

 

 

.

Every day I get hundreds of hits on my site by people who got here using the following search terms:

sarah palin

sara palin

sarah palin pictures

sarah palin sexist picture

sarah palin naked

naked sarah palin

sarah palin dominatrix

sarah palin suspended

sarah palin 2012

palin in superbowl ad 2009

dirty photos of sarah palin

sarah palin in black face

sarah palin ball gag

Palin boots

sarah palin in boots, pictures

sarah palin cocaïne call girl

revealing “sarah palin”

sarah palin stupid

sarah palin, mund auf, augen zu

sarah palin leather skirt

sarah palin ass

sarah palin stripper

free sarah palin pictures

sara palin look a like

sarah palin without glasses

sarah palin pouting

 

There are more, but you get the drift.

So, the reason why my blog is receiving significant and unexpected traffic is because I posted a couple of political pieces about Sarah Palin little realizing that, for many, many people out there in cyber land, Sarah Palin is a fetish.

I’m not sure how to react to this insight.

 

Sarah Palin in leather playing video game

Sarah relaxing at home after being Governor

Sarah and two "boy toys"

Palin's actual feet and shoes.

 

.

.

ONE MORE HEAD ON THE PYRAMID

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.\.

.

.

.

People of Earth, by now you’ve heard that still-President Bush is in the process of pardoning lots and lots of criminals.  Some of these pardons were expected.  For example, the President has commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby – the guy convicted of lying to federal officials about revealing the identity of a CIA secret agent in order to punish her husband for criticizing the President’s handling of the war in Iraq.

.

.

Scooter Libby (when he's relaxing)

.

Everyone knew that Bush would pardon Libby, but Bush is also signing some completely unexpected pardons.  For example, the vast majority of the criminals Bush pardoned so far were jailed for drug related offenses, primarily marijuana and cocaine.  Who could have foreseen that George W. Bush would have any sympathy for drug users, especially cocaine and marijuana users?

.

.

.

One of these pardons captured major news coverage.  The president pardoned Isaac Robert Toussie – also convicted of lying to federal officials. But then, on Christmas Eve, Bush revoked the pardon, sending Toussie back to jail.

.

.

.

Here is how it went down:

Mother:  Kids!  Kids! Gather ‘round!  It is a miracle!  A Christmas miracle!

Son:   What is it mom?

Mother:  Dad is coming home!  The President has pardoned him!

Daughter:  Praise the Lord!  It is a miracle!

Mother:  Now everything is going to be all right. Let’s gather around the Christmas tree and sing our praises to the Almighty for showing us His mercy.

[Phone rings]

Mother:  I’ll get it.  Hello?

President Bush:  Hi. This is the Decider. I decided to change my mind. Isaac staying in jail.  Merry Christmas, y’all!
.

.

That's right! Back to prison! Hahahahahaha!!!!!

.

Why did this happen? Why did still-President Bush satisfy the wildest hopes of that family only to bring them crashing down on Christmas Eve?

Bush said he did it because, after he granted the pardon, he heard the guy’s father gave money to the Republican Party.  In other words, the President sent that guy back to jail because letting him out would make the Bush Administration look corrupt.

.

.

Isn’t it way too late for Bush to worry about looking corrupt? Doesn’t the Bush Administration already look corrupt? Let’s review:

.

    During the Iraq War, the Bush Administration gave trillions of tax dollars – through no-bid contracts – to businesses and people who gave money to the Bush family (on September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld admitting “According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions”).

.

    The Bush Administration was defined by the high level of “cronyism” it embraced.  Bush gave high paying government jobs to his friends – even if they had no experience or were incompetent – to an extent never seen by any other administration in American history.

.

    When the Bush Administration didn’t like scientific data, it fired the scientists who compiled the data or pressured scientists to come up with other, bogus results.

.

    When Federal attorneys refused to start fake investigations designed to help friends of the Bush family, those attorney’s were fired and replaced with attorneys who would do it.

.

    The Bush Administration created and implemented policy designed to hide evidence of official wrongdoing, where email records were automatically destroyed or where official business was conducted using Republican National Committee email accounts. Just a few days ago, a federal court said Bush couldn’t keep secret the list of people who had been invited to stay at the White House. It was too late: the list had already been destroyed.

All of this looks fairly corrupt to me. And not just a little corrupt – it looks really, really, really corrupt. In the face of such a record of brazen corruption, it makes no sense that Bush believes that pardoning that guy would make his administration look any more corrupt than it already looks. It is like Attila the Hun worrying that one more head on top of a pyramids of human heads will make Attila look barbaric. So what is really going on?

.

.

I asked my good-for-nothing 17 year old son, Evan – who has a gift for summarizing complex situations – why would Bush revoke a pardon on Christmas Eve? My son blinked and said “he did it to be mean.”

.

"Kitten is best when eaten live, he he he."

.

And suddenly it became clear.  Bush and his cronies like hurting people.  It explains so much – from Bush and his buddies sitting back and watching Katrina destroy New Orleans to Dick Cheney shooting his “friend” in the face. It explains why they fought so hard to make sure people got tortured.  It explains why they lowered food safety standards, resulting in mass poisonings. It explains why they allowed the economy to collapse – why they actually did things to make the fall deeper and more painful.  It explains why they gave hundreds of billions of dollars to the people who caused the collapse and none of it was used to help people who were losing their homes.

.

.

I suddenly understand that Bush and his cronies like to hurt people, and now it all makes sense.

They sent that guy back to prison on Christmas Eve because they wanted to make him and his family sad.

Mission accomplished.

.

HOTTER THAN YOU 1.1

My good friend, Christine, took issue with HOTTER THAN YOU 1.0, posted previously.  She opined, quite correctly, that she is hotter than the woman depicted in HOTTER THAN YOU 1.0.

The point of this series of photos is to show hot COUPLES, not two hot people together.

For example, the two people in the following photo are, frankly, not all that hot. But put them together, and you magically get a hot couple that is probably hotter than you and your significant other.

.

.

Christine, I am not in any way saying that you are not hotter than Victoria Beckham. But I am saying that David and Victoria together are hotter that you and – well, take your pick.

If I am wrong,  any of you are welcomed to send a photo proving it and I will gladly post it within this series.

.

.