Cursed by Derrieres

I've had a bad day.

It started, as is often the case, in the morning. We had a lot of wind, and everyone is back from vacation, so in addition to thousands more idiots on the roads during my commute there was plenty of wind shear on the rickety bridge that I have to cross over the canal.

Add in that every truck in Europe has these cute little flexible sides and wobbles like a drunken Joe Namath trying to propose to sideline reporters and you see what the problem here is.

I finally made it, and was very proud for not losing any paint off my car. I was carefully wending my way up the hills towards my office, obeying all posted speed limits and obeying signage, when my attention was diverted by underwear.

Red panties, to be exact. My Underwear Sense went off, telling me that panties, bra straps, or other feminine undergarments were observable within a six-hundred-yard radius.

She was crossing the street up ahead of me, and the wind was whipping fiercely, and she had a whole Marilyn-over-the-subway grate thing going, only she's a one of these brazen European women so the notion of modesty never crosses her mind and I get a view of her ass as she tries to make it around the corner of the building.

Hello, nurse!

I did what any normal man would do: I enjoyed the show, totally oblivious to the fact that I was in fact piloting 1500 pounds of metal powered by explosive fuel and traveling at speeds high enough to do more damage than my deductible.

Finally I came back to myself when she turned the corner and I realized that my rear-view mirror was laying about ten yards back and the scraping metal sound was not, in fact, the latest hit song but was rather the car scraping against the guard rail.

I'd been wondering what the fireworks outside were; turns out they were sparks from the fender.

I pondered briefly how to explain this to Wifey. I had three options:

1) I could lie, and tell her I just scraped it against a building
2) I could tell the truth, that I was distracted by another woman's ass
3) I could tell her it happened while the car was parked

If I chose 1, she would mock me. If I chose 2, she would mock me and maybe not be intimate with me for some time. If I chose 3, we both got the fun of blaming somebody who never existed, as if we were pretending to be OJ Simpson.

Option 3 is the winner! Since the car was already dinged, I just double-parked it and left it for dead. After all, I was in a hurry to get to work and begin creating value for my employer.

Okay, I admit it: I was in a hurry to catch the 8:05 show of Red Panty Lady.

Sadly, she'd given me the slip. I could have ridden up the elevator with the remnant of the smoking posse, but I opted instead to climb the stairs because it's healthier. And I'm all about healthy choices.

That, and accidental nudity.

The day went pretty quickly, and other than actually being busy wasn't so bad. I discovered at lunch that the smokers had decided to crowd the doorway in a mass five jackasses deep, so I had to wade through their nicotine stench to reach fresh air.

I mean, really, smoke all you want, but is it truly necessary to stand right in front of the only door to do it? Can't you move three feet to one side or the other? It's like watching cows go into a slaughterhouse, only the cows are slowly turning to leather before your eyes.

As I bought my sandwich, I was treated to the 12:15 show of Red Panty Lady (I remembered the floppy tan skirt). Turns out that up close, and with her clothing all in place, she's not so much to look at.

By which I mean she's ugly enough to frighten pug dogs and curdle milk with her two-watt smile. My treasured memory from this morning quickly turned into me feeling somewhat seedy, and not in a good way.

Thankfully, I keep a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my desk for just such occasions, so I rinsed my eyeballs out to purge them, a la The Crying Game. And we will never speak of this again.

In order to resolve the issue of the dented car, I used the Machiavellian strategy of parking it up the street so that Wifey couldn't see it. I figure I can get away with this for a few months while I figure out a good excuse, plus it'll give me more walking.

So you could say that the whole thing was good for my health, if not for my insurance bill.

On the walk to the house, I passed by a wood delivery service that had piled six hundred and forty three pieces of wood in the neighbor's driveway. They had a crew of three picking up wood pieces and carrying them around back to stack.

My Panty Sense tingled, and I noticed that the chick who was bent over to pick up some logs had holes in her pants; specifically, she had holes just below her ass cheeks big enough to reach for paradise through, so to speak.

Hello, nurse!

So I did what anybody would do: I enjoyed the view. At least, until the chick straightened up, when I noticed three pertinent things:

1) A mullet
2) An Adam's apple
3) Facial hair

The chick was a dude! AAARGH! And I'd left my hydrogen peroxide back at the office!

I was immediately creeped out. What the hell was wrong with me today? I was cursed by asses!

But then I reflected a moment: do gay guys get creeped out if they make the opposite mistake and check out a dude, only to find out it's a woman?

If I were a sociologist, I'd ask the government for a hundred million dollars to study this. I'd call it "Responses to Misdirected Attention by Sexual Orientation" and invent a metric called "Ookiness Factor" to compare how gays and straights respond to this situation.

Screw it, I think I'll ask for the money myself. I mean, how hard is it to be a Sociology major? All you have to do is bitch about how no one will hire you, ask for a government job, and be bad at math.

I've pretty much got two out of three of those down already!

The Fuel of Industry

Where I work, we have coffee machine that dispenses many different kinds of drinks, from espresso to café au lait to hot chocolate. It is, as you can imagine, one of the finer fringe benefits to my workplace.

It used to be that I drank one cup of coffee a day, back when I had to pay for it myself, right in the morning to get started. But now, I drink one cup a day, followed by another four cups to get through the morning, then one cup after lunch, then another one just before I drive home so I don't nod off.

Yes, I am a bit jittery, and there has been some insomnia, and occasionally I distinctly detect the aroma of burnt coffee grounds when I pee, but other than that there have been no side effects. My wife says I'm paranoid, but I swear that the PBA really is monitoring our house.

So this morning, as always, after I'd turned on my computer I grabbed my cup and headed down the hall to the coffee machine. See, that's the essence of multitasking: while the computer warms up, so do I.

It's like going to take a dump while you're waiting for a 5-MB e-mail that you sent to thirty people to finally process: you and your computer acting as one. I'm practically a cyborg in this regard.

But when I got to the machine, it was out of service. The coffee man was in the process of adding new beans, changing the filter, and checking the level of water, milk, and other stuff. Only the coffee man wasn't there; his cart was, and the machine was open with his keys in it, but nothing else was going on.

"Where's the coffee guy?" I asked the unfortunate bastard whose office faces the machine.

"He just opened the machine and left," the guy said. Then he called me a string of expletives for asking, because he's not the keeper of the coffee machine guy.

There's a reason the sorry SOB has that office. It was supposed to be mine, but I suck up to the boss in order to keep things like that from happening to me.

[Let me note in passing that whoever decided that it is legal for the coffee people to change the machine out at 8 AM should be beaten with a sack of nickels. The coffee machine should only be out of service in the afternoon, never in the morning, and absolutely never on Monday morning.

I think it should be a crime, in fact.]

Lacking legal protection, I did what any rational person would do: I decided to wash out my cup. I like to clean it when the encrustation of filth gets so thick that it begins to cause coffee to spill out when I fill it, thus impacting how much I can drink. We weren't yet to that point, but better safe than sorry. Besides, it beats doing work.

I don't know how long it takes to load my computer, but I'm guessing it's like thirty minutes. It'd be longer, but I haven't converted to Vista yet.

I went into the bathroom and ran some water from the sink into my cup. As I stood there, the door to the toilet cubicle opened, and out came the coffee guy.

He looked like death, but not yet warmed over. He was beet-red, sweating, and he stank. I don't know if he was out tying one on all night or what, but he looked like he'd been eating off the floor of a seedy movie theater. And judging by the stink coming from our only toilet cubicle, it was just as out of service as the coffee machine now.

"Hello," he said as he breezed by me and WALKED RIGHT OUT OF THE DOOR WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS AT ALL!

Let me repeat that last bit if you missed it:

HE DETONATED A WWI-ERA MUSTARD GAS BOMB IN THE TOILET, PRESUMABLY BIOLOGICAL IN ORIGIN, AND THEN WALKED OUT WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS!!!

I exited the bathroom to see him putting his feces-covered hands all over everything, rubbing his doodie germs on filters, bean containers, and water spigots with equal abandon. It was like watching a horror movie in slow-mo.

There were now two choices available to me:

1) Not drink any coffee
2) Drink some coffee and maybe die

What could I do? I had to have coffee.

So I hatched this cunning plan: I went up and down that hallway saying "Good Morning" to people, shaking hands and brandishing my empty cup, and asking them if they wanted to grab a coffee with me.

"He just cleaned it, so the beans are extra fresh!" I insisted.

I got enough takers to go ahead of me (5) that I figure they flushed out the machine pretty effectively. Then, and only then, I trusted in the power of hot water and coffee to keep me from being in any real intestinal distress myself and had the first of my five cups.

Only I had ten, because I'm really nervous now that I've got Pharaoh's revenge again, only this time Pharaoh will be in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention.

Safety First

In order to be more healthy, I've decided to start taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator. This isn't some rinky-dink commitment, either, like getting a colonic before the Oscars. I work on the eighth floor, so when I go upstairs there are a lot of them for me to climb.

I've also started eating healthy lunches. For example, today I had a ham sandwich, an orange, some potatoes, and a bottle of water: nothing but health food for me. Okay, it is true that the potatoes were fried and salted, the ham sandwich was a foot long and covered in mayonnaise, and the orange had chocolate on it, but it was healthier than my usual lunch eating spoonfuls of sugared lard out of the container.

After I was finished, I decided I wanted a chocolate waffle. So I grabbed some change out of my desk and headed down the stairs. Since I didn't know how much the waffles cost, I decided to grab 1.50, which was a fifty-cent piece, two twenty-cent pieces, and six ten-cent pieces.

For reasons not entirely clear to me, I decided to toss the handful of coins up in the air and catch it as I walked out into the stairwell. I caught eight coins, but the ninth (a ten-cent piece) got away from me and went "Ching!" on the stairs and bounced up into the air.

Plonk! It hit the handrail and went vertically.

Whack! It hit the wall on the other side, and then in a totally improbable bounce it ricocheted off the stairs again. I couldn’t have done it if I wanted to. So now the coin was on the landing for the 7th, and I was on the 8th.

Ching! Plong! Whack! It ricocheted again, dropping another flight of stairs, and was on the 6th. I couldn't see it any more, but I could hear it echoing through the stairwell.

Ching! Plonk! Whack! Fifth floor.

Ching! Plonk! Whack! Fourth floor.

Ching! Plonk! Whack! Third floor.

Ching! Plonk! Sploink!

"OW! Dammit, my eye!"

That didn't sound good. I waited a moment and heard no more coin bouncing, but I did hear a great deal of cursing from the bottom step.

"Hey, asshole, you just hit me in the face!"

I held my breath, saying nothing. I didn't recognize the voice, but it was one of those voices that sounded like it might be coming from somebody with hairy knuckles. And statistics show that hairy-knuckled people are both prone to violence and typically bigger than you are, probably because they're more closely related to gorillas.

"That's it, fucker, I'm gonna come up there and kick your ass!" the hairy-knuckled, overreacting, angry man said.

I heard heavy treads on the steps far below, which is no mean feat since they're made of concrete. This was definitely somebody I didn't wanna meet in the stairwell.

"There's no way you could make it all the way up ten flights of stairs!" I used the huskiest voice I could muster up to try to sound tough.

He continued to climb. "Bastard! You're gonna be shitting shoe leather for a week!"

That really didn't sound good. "Yeah? Well, you'll be making change from your eyeballs!"

And I threw the entire handful of coins down the stairwell, trusting in luck that at least one would hit its mark. Preferably the fifty-cent piece, since it was the biggest.

Ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching! Plonk-plonk- plonk- plonk- plonk- plonk- plonk- plonk! Whack-whack- whack- whack- whack- whack- whack- whack!

And so on and so forth, until around floor four I heard the sound I'd been waiting for:

SPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINKSPLOINK!

Followed quickly by "Son of a biiiiiiiiiiitch!"

CRASH! BANG! POW!

Then silence for a few seconds, followed by an ominous groaning.

I decided I didn't need a chocolate waffle after all and went back to my office.

And I also decided to go back to eating sugared lard.

These Things I Believe

It's platform season, so I thought I'd supply a list of things that I believe, because one of the things I believe is that people who believe differently from me are wrong.

And I'm not afraid to say that.

1) I believe that stupidity is both hereditary and catching, so if you have stupid parents or consort with lots of stupid people, it's almost certain that you'll be stupid, too.

2) I believe that when my wife painted my son's fingernails last week, that was wrong, and if we were to divorce that should be grounds for me getting custody of the children.

3) I believe that paper clips should only be stored in a small bowl, and never in one of those mock-guillotine-radiation chambers so you have to stick your finger down in there and worry about getting erectile dysfunction.

4) I believe that the government shouldn't subsidize art or sports, except for the activities I enjoy, like football and musical theater.

5) On the subject of governance, I further believe my taxes should be lower, but that your taxes should be higher.

6) I believe most art is crap and artists are stupid, which can be proven by listening to them explain their crappy art using stupid, meaningless phrases. I think this correlates to my first belief.

7) I believe caring people don't let their loved ones get degrees in sociology.

8) I believe that it should be legal to wedgie people who use Latin phrases in arguments.

9) I believe the plural of platypus should be platypi, because platypuses looks like the name of an STD that you hope your girlfriend doesn't have.

10) Also on the subject of language, I believe the plural of moose should be meese.

11) I believe that when you discover that everyone else thinks you're wrong, you should suspect a global conspiracy to hide the truth. Anything else would be irrational.

12) I believe that monkeys in the zoo should be required to wear pants, because they make you look bad in front of your date, and their libertarian nudism and wanton scratching is further demoralizing to those of us who chafe within our Dockers on a hot summer day.

13) I believe that we should set aside a Hawaiian island and allow people to hunt criminals who have received the death penalty, and film it, and then we'd have a hit show on our hands.

14) I believe we were wrong, as a people, to stop putting ne'er do wells in the stocks in the town square and pelting them with garbage. We were also wrong to stop wearing the great big black hats with gold buckles on them. We were not wrong to do away with the dresses that went from chin to ankle, though, because ta-tas are meant to be enjoyed, not bundled away like flatulent relatives when visitors come over.

15) I believe that you can't buy love, but you can buy hair and vodka, which should get you pretty close.

16) I believe that if you work hard, stay out of trouble, pay close attention to your investment portfolio, and treat people right, you'll end up paying far more taxes than the slovenly drunkard who has repeat appearances on 'Cops' for beating up total strangers, and in the end you'll both be dead and he'll have been on TV a lot more than you will have, unless you do something crazy like die in some seedy motel room while having a sexual tryst with a B-list celebrity.

17) I believe it's impossible for us to say which person in the preceding statement led the fuller life without knowing which B-list celebrity it was.

18) Speaking of has-been celebrities, I believe the biggest problem with shows like Dancing with the Stars is that it leads people to believe that would-be porn stars like Kim Kardashian are stars, whereas they are in fact skanks.

19) I believe you've spent more time reading this list than was probably justifiable.

20) I believe that kids these days are wrong, and it was better in my day. I didn't use to believe that, but then I turned 30.

Grammar Not Included

This is a pathetic statement:

Sea ice is the primary habitat of polar bears. They depend on it to hunt their primary prey, ringed seals, which create lairs on ice for breeding maintain breathing holes with powerful claws.

Not because I feel bad for the drowning white agents of icy death, but because it makes no sense whatsoever. Try reading the damn thing a second time! Who's maintaining breathing holes with their powerful claws? The bears? The seals? The Leviathan waiting to be released by Gaea to destroy us all for our crimes against Earth?

Sheesh. And I still labor to get over 20 hits a day. I must really suck.

Things Your Coworkers Don't Want to Hear

Most coworkers exist in a different place in your life than your family and friends. They're acquaintances, but not particularly close. After all, the only reason that you and they are together is mere happenstance and not any particular desire to spend time with one another.

Some coworkers, though, don't really understand this and will often transgress the bounds of propriety. Below is a list of things that I think every coworker should understand are just not typically acceptable.

"Can you look at this rash/mark/mole/lesion?"
Unless your colleague is a doctor, don't go to them for medical advice. If it can't be pulled off with a staple remover, odds are that they won't know how to help you. An extreme no-go is anything you have to disrobe to show to somebody. Remember: whatever ugly thing is growing on you will be discussed around the coffee machine for the rest of your career.

"Let me tell you about my children…"
There's a chance that your coworkers want to hear about your children. It's about 0.5%. If they're curious, they'll ask. Otherwise shut your pie-hole.

"I'm leaving early to go to the hospital for an operation."
This only counts if nobody knows why the hell you're going, and you don't tell anybody anything other than this. It's a big gray area: do we ask what you're having done? Is that too intrusive? Does the fact that you told us mean that you want us to ask? Thanks for ruining my whole day worrying about the appropriate response to your potentially grave health problem that might actually be getting botox injected into your ass.

"This girl was so freaky!"
As impressive as your sexual conquests are, remember that you're at work, not in the gym locker room. Keep your speech appropriate for the occasion. By all means, blow off some steam with your male colleagues by regaling them with your freaky girlfriend stories. Just do it outside work hours. And remember that nobody likes a braggart, so even if it's true you might want to soft-peddle it just a tad.

Anything that involves crying
When a woman cries in your office, and nobody died, you really don't have any idea what to do. Run away? Hug her? Kill yourself? Even worse is when a man does. Call me an overmasculine creep if you will, but it's all I can do not to say "man up and stop your bawling, dude."

"I'm having trouble at home…"
Good, keep it there. Unless your homicidal husband is on the way to the office with a gun right now, I don't want to hear about it. My wife bitched me out over the way I do dishes last night, but I'm not dumping that in your lap. This is a double no-no because it always ends in tears.

"You look so sexy. If I wasn't married/dating/working with you/whatever…"
It doesn't matter how true it is, how innocently it's said, what the reason is, or anything else. It's creepy. It's super-creepy if she works for you or is a lower level than you. As Confucius so wisely said, "Never stick your dick in the cash drawer."

"It's that time of the month…"
LALALALALALALALA! I can't heeeeeeeaaaaaarrrr you! Here's a quick tip for women: the only time a guy cares about your monthly cycle is when he wants to have sex with you and this information is pertinent to your availability. Otherwise, we don't wanna know. It's not like I'm jogging across the hall to tell you that my balls itch really bad this morning. Show some consideration, okay? Please? For the love of God, think of the children!

I am the world's foremost Bigfoot authority

Let's get one thing straight: they're extinct.

I got a letter from Amanda Beals at MainStreet.com, where Jim Cramer desperately needs an editor. She wanted me to link to a piece about how much a makeover for Bigfoot would cost, which I'm not going to do because they clearly left out the services of a taxidermist, which of course you'd need to properly prepare a Bigfoot for display.

Because, and I repeat myself here, they're extinct.

A quick search reveals that the prolific Ms. Beals somewhat papers blogs trying to drum up links, which sent me from "feeling special" to "feeling cheated upon" within a two-nanosecond interval. I have no idea why this should be, since all she's doing is what every responsible blog owner does: try to publicize their product.

Well, except me. I just spam by cross-posting everything to those foolish enough to sign me up as a coblogger.

You know who's demure? Jen.

I would like to say that Jen at Demure Thoughts is the most Demure person on the internet. In fact, Jen=Demure. Demureness becomes her. I vote for her as "Most Demure" on the Internet.

Of course, I also vote for her as "most likely to be mauled by a demure bear with flaming genitals" but that's a whole different matter. San Antonio is dangerous.

Another Healthy Food I Don't Like

I see that watermelon has Viagra-like effects on men. Does that mean I have to start eating it? I don't like watermelon, unless you salt it. I have high blood pressure, which means I can't salt it. Ergo, no watermelon-assisted Viagra-like watermelon effect for me.

Now I know why Wifey, who forwarded me this article, was quietly sobbing when I called her this afternoon. She wept for all those lost summer afternoons, when I, half-soused from drinking the leftover beer I found in cans abandoned under picnic tables in the park, fumbled inadequately in the boudoir when we could have had a watermelon-assisted, turbo-charged sexual romp that would have made the NFL and Smilin' Bob jealous.

Instead she gets wham, bam, "I think I'm gonna puke!" It's really a miracle she's managed to stay married to me this long.

Why can't it ever be something that I can handle, like armpit-stains? Wouldn't you love to read the headline "Armpit stains increase feminine arousal, male sexual performance, indicate career success." D&D players would have this reputation for being tantric sex gods, instead of self-pleasuring dweebs who spend all their time in their mom's basement obsessing over whether Thor could beat up Superman.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go eat dinner. Wifey made it especially for me: watercrust salad, prilosteak, and a fifth of vodka. She also sent the kids away for the night, but I'm not sure why.

My New Gig

As some few of you probably know, I have begun blogging over at doubleplusundead. No, I don’t know why it’s called that. I suppose I really ought to ask, but I was so happy at writing for a big blog that I just accepted without thinking about it.

My general plan right now is to continue to blog here with the more personal stuff: travelogues, musings, and general weirdness. I’m not planning on having another vasectomy, so I doubt I’ll recreate the magic of that particular saga, but you never know.

Over there I’ll do political stuff, likely cross-posted at Real Debate Wisconsin and also here (probably with a delay). I doubt I can write effectively for 3 blogs, so I’ll have to crib myself just to keep up with demand.

Yes, there’s a demand for my writing. I have ten whole readers a day, and I’m not even related to three of them! But rest assured that you can expect to continue to read the same high-quality posts from me that you’ve always enjoyed.

Jed Clampett is a Climate Criminal

I never thought I’d live to see the day when the most reviled man in America would turn out to be Jed Clampett. Shame on Buddy Ebsen and Jim Varney for playing him on TV and in the movies!

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at Clampett’s crimes against humanity:

He drilled for oil!
Without a permit, no less. Listen, drilling for oil is bad. This is one of those things that both major candidates can agree on. I’m sure it’s because oil drilling rigs use baby kittens as lubricant, cause massive environmental damage that kills rare and beautiful animals, and despoils pristine land masses, like nude beaches. And Clampett just up and drilled away.

He owned guns!
In some ways, this is even worse than drilling for oil. I hope and pray that the day will come when this nation will give up its obsession with weapons and let the government confiscate them all, leading to a new age of peace and freedom, just like in the UK, where surveillance cameras now capture every second of you being stabbed to death in public as people rush by on their errands.

He had a CO2 footprint bigger than Mecha-Godzilla!
Not only did he have that big oil well spewing toxic gasses all over, his gigantic mansion lacked even rudimentary energy-saving devices. What’s worse, he insisted on driving around an overloaded rattle-trap truck with no emissions control systems.

He exploited the natives!
There’s an episode of the Beverly Enviro-Rapists about how part of Jed’s land actually belongs to the local natives, but he’s never sold it to them or let them have any profit or even let them build a casino. Is it that much of a stretch to imagine that one of Jed’s ancestors, knowing full well the mineral value of the land, hoodwinked them for trinkets and beads?

He took special favors from banks!
On second thought, this is apparently a-OK for members of congress and other high-interest people. So at least on this score, he’s a real American hero.

Return to Imperialism

Everybody says that Americans have built a new Roman Empire, but I don’t think that’s true. When the Romans conquered somebody, they had the good sense to bring back souvenirs. That’s why today there are Egyptian obelisks all over Rome.

Whenever we conquer somebody, we just end up with a bitchy ally who complains about the way we do things but never lifts a finger to help.

That’s why we need to import the following cultural treasures from other countries and put them to use right now:

The Great Wall of China
The Chinese hardly need this any more. It’s not like the Mongols aren’t going to be coming over the top any time soon. So we might as well bring this to the US and put it to good use between the US and Mexico. We can hire the guys that put London Bridge in Lake Havasu, since they’ve already got experience doing this sort of thing.

The Pyramids
Not only is Egypt full of these things, they provide a really tangible benefit to the country that has them: according to the game Civilization, if you build pyramids you get to pick whatever type of government you want! I vote that we switch ours for “competent.”

Russian Tennis Schools
I don’t know whether they’ve got some kind of cloning device in the basement of these places, or a robotics lab, or what. But the reality is this: female Russian tennis players are hot! But they’re wasting their time canoodling with washed-up second-generation singers and stuff. In America we’d realize the full potential of these women in the sport of kings: Foxy Boxing.

Easter Island Heads
The ancient Greeks used to set out Herms everywhere, which were basically heads on top of giant penises. Kind of like a bronze-age Kos Diarist. That’s a little “adult” for the US, but these are the next-best thing: inscrutable giant heads. Environmentalists will really go for this, too, because you can tell them that it’ll make Americans think about saving trees or some crap like that. As if a giant stone head makes you think of a tree.

I’m sure there are other great cultural treasures out there we could grab besides these. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear ‘em.

Al Gore: Super Villain?

(originally posted at RDW)

I’ve given the matter of Al Gore’s energy use a lot of thought, and there’s only really one likely scenario that comes to mind to explain his massive utility bills: he’s crossed over from regular villainy to cartoonish super-villainy.

There are three cases to explain what his evil plan is for world domination:

1) Mind-Control Ray
First Gore started beating the drum about environmental dangers and fanning the flames of Bush hatred to reduce mental resistance to suggestion. Next, he worked on his advanced mind-control device, conveniently located in central Tennessee, where he will have a straight shot at the satellites needed to use transmit the signal all over the world.

Then he tests his device, using it to get a Nobel Peace Prize despite the fact that his efforts have yielded no results whatsoever, least of all improving peace, but rather may be responsible for increased violence as food crops are turned into fuel.

Any minute he’ll throw the switch and we’ll suddenly find ourselves compelled to walk to work and live in solar-powered huts, while he and his cronies fly around in private jets telling us how we need to eat more feces to be environmentally responsible.

2) The Weather Machine
We know that Gore is obsessed with the weather. Is it possible that he’s taken up Mark Twain’s ancient challenge to do something about it? Therefore, he’s working day and night on a machine to try to cool the planet, perhaps plunging it into a new ice age.
The Gore Effect? That’s a feature, not a bug.

3) An Army of Bigfeet
Imagine if one day, with access to the secrets of both Area 51 and the government files on Bigfeet roaming in Colorado, the Vice President got the bright idea to use alien technology to create a cybernetically-enhanced race of carbon-neutral Bigfeet to carry out his dark desires to demote humanity back to the Stone Age.

Earth in the Balance was published in 1992, meaning that the first generation of Bigfeet are nearing adulthood. Any day now they will appear and seize control, marking the beginning of a Planet of the Apes style reign of terror.

Our only hope is that a secret service agent can rise up and stop this evil terror, whether it’s Bigfeet, mind-control, or (shudder) Bigfeet with snow cannons and mind-control rays.

But where would we find such a man? Who could possibly infiltrate and destroy this evil genius’ lair?

I don’t know about you, but I vote for this guy:

Help us, Chuck Norris! You’re our only hope!

EU Reminds on Opposite Day

The European Union reminded the world today that June 13 has traditionally been known as “Opposite Day” and any decisions taken then are considered to be the reverse of what was actually decided.

“This is actually very good news for the Union,” said EU Spokesperson Reginald DuChamps de Marny. “We are certain that the Irish knew about the tradition, and so when they voted No, they actually meant Yes. So the progress of diminishing national autonomy can continue and we can collect power in Brussels, which is where it belongs.”

Catherine Borney Hump-Skoting said that the tradition also explained the continent’s warm welcome to US President Bush. “We hate the man, forked tail and all. But since it’s opposite week, we have to act like we like him. But France isn’t really going to give military support to any missions overseas, Italy isn’t really going to send soldiers to Iraq, and the US still doesn’t have any prestige overseas.”

She added that “it’s important for US voters to understand that it’s still necessary to vote Democrat to increase prestige overseas, because being well-liked by your peers is more important than anything else in life.”

Others were not so happy with the news. Greg Packer, interviewed on the streets of London, was irate that his country didn’t get a chance to also validate the treaty. “We didn’t get a yes or no vote,” Packer said. “Parliament just rubber-stamps anything Brussels sends to us. It’s like living in Zimbabwe, only with less personal freedom.”

But EU spokespeople disagreed with the Zimbabwe analogy. “We hardly had any beatings,” countered DuChamps de Marny. “Which is obviously a big difference.”

Honesty in Headlines

Let’s pass a few headlines of current stories through a filter and see how they should be more honestly written:

Guy we think is moron badmouths guy we think is evil
McClellan memoir must be true, despite the fact we hated him

Hillary won’t roll over, die
Hope is good until it becomes a distraction

McCain not fit to be president because he’s not a Democrat
Being a good Republican means he’s best of the worst

We think Olbermann’s an idiot, too
But he’s our idiot so we don’t get worked up about him

Bloggers’ main role should be donating to Democrats, exposing Republicans
Spouting opinion is to be discouraged

UN versus Wal-Mart

Which one is a greater threat to world peace? Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

Uniforms
UN Workers wear blue helmets
Wal-Mart workers wear blue vests
Verdict: Toss-up. The vest might make you look like a Boy Scout, but the helmet makes you look like a condom.

Child Exploitation
UN Peacekeepers are abusing children, with at least one major event per year going reported. UN spokespeople have a “can’t make an omelet without breaking an egg” response:

A UN spokesman, Nick Birnback, said that it was impossible to ensure "zero incidents" within an organisation that has up to 200,000 personnel serving around the world.

Wal-Mart employs 2.1 million people worldwide, with nary a hint of organizational failures that allow child exploitation to thrive.
Verdict: UN, but only if you happen to be female or have a child. Otherwise no problem.

Weapons
UN Peacekeepers are far more likely to engage in illegal arms sales than combat when they encounter militia groups. That is, when they stick around and don’t just retreat at the first sign of trouble.
Wal-Mart sells weapons in accordance with all local and federal laws, but still makes massive headlines whenever a disturbed teenage client shoots up a school after frequenting their stores.
Verdict: Wal-Mart. But only because the UN’s cowardice offsets their corruptness in this matter.

The Company they Keep
UN Peacekeepers are often found around genocidal thugs who rape, maim, and kill their opponents without fear of the Peacekeepers getting involved.
Wal-Mart generally doesn’t have a presence in places with massive amounts of raping, maiming, and killing, other than their Chicago-area stores.
Verdict: UN. Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas

Where the money goes
UN Peacekeepers are funded by the UN, which derives most of its income from the so-called developed world, which means that their raping and pillaging is heavily subsidized by Western democracies.
Wal-Mart is a publicly traded company that delivers goods and services to millions of clients worldwide, and is dependent upon their continued commerce for its very existence.
Verdict: UN. Because I really prefer hands-on raping and pillaging instead of outsourcing it. Or at the very least take bids. I bet Blackwater could rape and pillage at a fraction of the UN’s cost.

Overall, it sure looks to me like the UN is far more dangerous to world peace than Wal-Mart, the bête noir of the worldwide Left.

But what do I know? I’m just the one paying for it.

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial day to all you US readers, which is pretty much all of you. I kind of forgot about it, since it's just a normal workday where I live, but I hope you all have a good day and remember those who have died for our freedoms.

Nostrildamus Speaks!

I’m going to go out on a limb and make some predictions for the rest of the year:

New England Patriots go 6-10 next year. Not only do they have a superbowl hangover, they have a “we almost reached legendary status but flubbed it” hangover. The whole team will implode.

No matter who wins American Idol, they won’t have a successful singing career. But this is really more of a rule than a prediction.

A famous sub-18 starlet appears naked somewhere, probably on the internet. This will not go well for whomever it is that publishes the pictures. Miley Cyrus’ photos will seem quaint by comparison. This is a barrier that we are approaching at light speed (the sexual exploitation of minors) and we’ll hit it like a bug on a windshield this year.

No matter who wins the president, a major chunk of the population will be angry. Not Hillary? Sexist! Not Obama? Racist! Not McCain? Ageist! This will not make for good times in 2009.

The negotiations in Denver will be ugly, with one side chanting “count every vote” and the other one squirming. No one will gain from this except perhaps the Republicans, but that remains to be seen.

People will still believe anything they read on the Internet, despite the fact that they ought to know better.

Europeans will hate our next president, too. It doesn’t matter who it is. The fact is that Europeans expect the American president to “do something” to help them out. What goes unanswered is why they appear to believe this is the job of the US President.

Howard Dean will cement his membership in the inaugural class of the Bonehead Hall of Fame.

A mutant duck/bear crossbreed will be created in a laboratory and it will wreak havoc across South Korea before finally being stopped by the US Navy in the Sea of Japan. For reasons unknown Instapundit will link to the story with the comment “Indeed.”

There will be ever-more bloggers with ever-less to say. I’ll still struggle to break fifty hits a day.

Happy Earth Day!

I know this is early, but follow the link over to Demure Thoughts and enjoy a good laugh at Earth Day's expense.

Enough is Enough

It is time for us to stop pretending that we’re not at war and get serious about ending the most dangerous threat ever to face our great nation. We’ve shrugged off attack after attack on our military and our civilian infrastructure, and the only thing our tolerance has brought us is more hatred.

That’s right: it’s time to destroy all the animals. We can no longer turn the other cheek and listen to the mealy-mouthed liberals who want to let them take our way of life from us.

We’ve known this day was coming since the day that a deranged rabbit tried to kill President Carter. I don’t care how incompetent the president is, I don’t want some scraggly-assed savage taking shots at him without experiencing extreme retribution.

Fortunately Carter managed to escape the bucktoothed agent of death, but can we take a chance that our other elected officials will be so lucky? In India, the deputy mayor of Delhi was killed by wild monkeys. Our clear impotence at their outrageous attacks on our key allies only emboldens them further.

Worse, some traitors in the US try to foist upon us that these animals are peaceful, or even worse, scarce! In a recent holiday, rabbits were portrayed as pink, fluffy, candy-leaving agents of world peace. In reality, they are hissing, buck-toothed assassins who want to tear your throat out and eat your children.

These savages know no bounds or decency: in Boston a schoolgirl is savagely attacked by an angry hawk, which tried to pull her brain out of her head in front of horrified classmates. And it is not only the children who are at risk: just last year a beaver attacked an elderly grandmother who was swimming with her children, probably for impropriety.

How long will we ignore polar bear attacks on our submarine fleets, squirrels disrupting the mail system, and crocodiles stopped only by alert citizen intervention?

It has come down to us against them, their teeth gnashing for our blood. And Ted Turner is already on their side!

Some might tell you that this is a problem that can be solved by law and order; well, I remind you that the guards are often the first victim, as jailers in San Francisco and China found out recently.

We need to get serious about this and vote to secure our great nation from these dangerous animals. If congress would just divert 1% of the funding from their secret project to develop a mind control chemical to add to Coco-Puffs, then we could develop a bomb that preferentially destroys animals but leaves structures and humans intact.

That would go a long way towards cleaning out the real hell holes around the world, like Yellowstone National Park, where ordinary people can’t walk in the open for fear of being trampled to death by arrogant, smelly buffalo who don’t even bother to learn the rules of the road and end up smashing your car for $2,500 in damage that your insurance won’t cover just because you had a few drinks at the lodge.

So this November, while other parties fret about overseas wars and illegal aliens, vote for the candidate who best understands the challenges that face us here in America right now:

Vote Fudd: He'll Get those Wascally Wabbits