Failin' Palin

You decide.

The Bail Out

I don't know enough about the fine details of the economy to have an intelligent opinion on whether we need a bail out or not. It's complicated and I don't feel like doing that much research.

All I know is that when you and me and people we know were losing homes and declaring bankruptcy, all the concern we mustered from Washington was "Hey, it's a Free Market. That's what makes America great! You made stupid decisions that made me and my buddies rich, so now you have to pay the price. Sucks to be you."

But when the Fat Cats stood to lose a measurable percentage of THEIR money, it's all "OMFG, OMFG! MELTDOWN! I COULD LOSE A HOME IN THE HAMPTONS! MAYDAY, MAYDAY! BAIL OUT!" The solution? Saddle the same people they just told to go fuck themselves with the debt burden that made them all billionaires.

See, the thing is, if we don't do a bail out, if we just let shit happen, all of those rich people will still be rich. They might go from being a billionaire to a millionaire. They might go from 18 homes to just 4 homes. But they will still be fucking rich!

On the other hand, those same, complicated securities, largely made up of bundled mortgages, that led to this crises are also the same ones funding your retirement accounts. So if we don't do the $700 billion dollar bail out, then almost every American will find themselves with a foreclosed home, renting an apartment, living paycheck to paycheck, with no retirement and completely dependant on Social Security.

So much for The American Dream.

Another economic issue that I know even less about is the involvement of China in the American Bond Market. From what I understand, China holds the majority of U.S. debt in the form of Bonds. China is funding our war spending through the daily purchase of billions of dollars in U.S. Bonds.

They buy our Bonds because they view them as safe, stable investments that are guaranteed to return their investment plus interest.

But what if China loses confidence in the long term viability of the American economy as a result of this financial crises and they quit buying our Bonds. Essentially, the American Government quits getting a paycheck and can't pay the bills.

Worse yet, what if China sees us in a weakened position, decide they are kind of sick of our shit and decide to deal our economy a death blow by selling off all of the Bonds they hold?

Asia is playing us like a puppet right now. We are no longer the masters of our own fate. We haven't been for a very long time. The legendary strength of the American Economy is as much of a paper tiger today as the strength of the Soviet Military was during the Cold War.

We are in a very, very fragile economic predicament and we don't have a lot of good will with the rest of the world thanks to our arrogant, blustering, rhetoric and our heavy-handed military shenanigans. Every time our president opens his mouth and says something, our prospects for survival become more precarious. He really needs to just shut the fuck up.

In fact, there is a conspiratorial element that thinks this whole fucking financial mess is a master strategy of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to drive the United States so far into debt that President Obama won't be able to do a goddamn thing except pay the bills he inherited from them. Then he won't be able to deliver on any of his promises because he doesn't have any money to spend and the Republicans take back the White House in 2012.

I probably have a lot of this stuff wrong. I'm no economist.

So I don't know. What do you think?

Gravitational Parenting

A recent post prompted a discussion in the comments about the appropriateness of a 14 year old getting her belly button pierced.

A typically anonymous commenter kicked it off.

"I hope you've already made the doctors appointment for the birth control because you are clearly giving her permission to grow up way too soon"

Since when do children need permission to grow up and when were parents granted the power to control it?

I think a child growing up is like Class V Rapids flowing down a mountain. You can't stop it or even slow it down.

If you try to build a dam the water will find it's way over it, around it or through it and go places you can't control.

As a parent, what you want to do is carve a channel ahead of the flow and guide the water into the course you want it to take.

Not only can you control the direction of the flow, but by judiciously widening the banks at critical points, you can calm the flow and make the waters less turbulent.

By trying to keep the banks as restricted and narrow as possible at all points, you only succeed in increasing the turbulence and violence of the water.

If you view each parent as a bank of the stream, it becomes self evident why both parents need to speak with the same voice. Doesn't matter whether you are married or divorced. When it comes to raising a child, you have to have the same destination in mind. If one of the banks is missing or takes a different course, you can't control the flow of the water.

But by letting nature take it's course down a path that you can control (by being rationally and picking your battles), it is possible to raise a sane, well behaved, intelligent young adult capable of making good decisions.

Dark Matter My Ass

OK, I'm just an armchair scientist. I don't have a degree. So I'll try to keep this simple and include links to people way smarter than me.

Just a short time ago, our model of the universe began with The Big Bang.



The universe began in a cataclysmic, unimaginably hot and dense explosion. In milliseconds we go from an infinitesimal point, a singularity, to a rapidly expanding universe. Like a balloon being filled with gas.

From it's birth 14+ billion years ago, the universe has continued to expand. The biggest question was whether the universe would continue to expand forever until the last star died and the universe went dark and cold? Or whether there was sufficient gravitational attraction to eventually halt the expansion and even pull the universe back together into The Big Crunch, where the universe would once again collapse into a singularity. Perhaps even to generate another Big Bang and give birth to a brand new universe.

Simple enough.

Without getting into the complexities, I'll just say that in recent years, shit has changed. No, scratch that. Things didn't just change. They got fucking bizarre.

Strange Punchbowl Turd #1: It appears that the universe is mostly invisible. Everything we can see and detect, every planet, every star, every galaxy, every atom that makes up every single object in the observable universe, only accounts for about 0.5% of the matter that should exist according the most bleeding edge cosmological models.

WTF?

Cosmologist and physicists have postulated the existence of Dark Matter to make up this matter deficit. This Dark Matter is supposed to make up the other 95.5% of the universe.

So, 99.5% of the universe can't be seen, detected or measured. But wait, there's more.

Strange Punchbowl Turd #2: It was thought that in an expanding universe that originated in a cataclysmic explosion, the expansion would be slowing. It was just a question of whether it would slow enough for gravity to regain control over the expansion and pull everything back together, or whether the ever slowing expansion would outpace the reach of gravity leaving every bit of matter cold, dark and alone.

But no! That isn't what's happening! The expansion isn't slowing at all. It's accelerating! Over 14 billion years after the initial push of the only source of energy we can explain, "something" is shoving everything in the universe apart from every other thing in the universe at an increasingly rapid rate. Cosmologists and physicists have dubbed this unknown force "Dark Energy".

So, let's recap. Over 90% of the universe is shit we can't see, detect or explain but seems to form the gravitational "scaffolding" or "superstructure" of the entire universe. It is all being shoved apart by some mysterious energy source that we can't detect or explain, but which must be more powerful than anything known to man and seems to defy the laws of known physics and thermodynamics.

I call both bullshit AND shenanigans on Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Sounds to me like a lot of shucking and jiving, trying to put a familiar face on shit we know nothing about.

It sounds a lot like the theory of Luminiferous aether.

Like I said, I'm not a scientist. But I do have common sense, a sound grounding in scientific theory, and a great bullshit detector.

I'm going to go out on a limb right now and predict that "Dark Matter" isn't really matter, and "Dark Energy" isn't really energy.

My theory is that the observable effects that we attribute to Dark Matter and Dark Energy in our own universe are actually manifestations of a much larger structure made up of multiple universes and extra dimensions.

No, I haven't been smoking crack.

I'm talking about Colliding Brane Cosmology, a.k.a. ekpyrotic cosmology.

"In ekpyrotic cosmology — which was proposed in 2001 by physicists Paul Steinhardt, Justin Khoury, Neil Turok and Burt Ovrut — there is no beginning of time. Instead, our visible universe exists on one of two four-dimensional “branes” floating in a five-dimensional space. These two branes are locked in an endless oscillatory motion in which they creep together, “bounce” through each other, withdraw and then creep together again (see animation: Branes collide). At each bounce, which is like a fresh Big Bang, ripples in the branes collide and liberate energy at different places to produce the initial density perturbations."

The universe is a much larger and stranger place than we can explain today.

But I am absolutely 100% confident that the universe is completely explainable, adheres to consistent laws, and involves no supernatural hocus pocus. Which is exactly what makes it so magnificent, awe inspiring and humbling.

Huntin' fer a Piercin'

I spent some quality time today with my daughter, young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis, trying to find someplace to get her belly button pierced.



She had wanted to do this about a year ago when she was 13 and I refused. She seemed so much younger last year and a belly button piercing is one of those borderline sexy things. I wasn't having any of it.

But this year, her and her new best friend wanted to get their bottom lips pierced.



No. Fucking. Way.

She is a very beautiful young lady and I don't think that she can improve on that beauty by punching holes in her face and filling them with metal. Sorry.

(BTW, her friend decided to go ahead and do her own lip with a fucking knitting needle. Told GTO it didn't hurt "that bad". But she had to take it out because she made the hole too low. No word on whether she intends to make another attempt at self mutilation.)

But because I'm just the coolest, smartest dad on the planet, I offered her a compromise.

I'd let her get her belly button pierced (because it is completely out of sight under normal circumstances), under the condition that there would be no more piercings of anything other than ears or any talk about tattoos until she turned eighteen. After that, she has a whole lifetime to make bad decisions.

She agreed.

So today I tried to get hold of Purgatory Tattoos. I had checked with them before. $20.00. I don't recall if we specifically discussed GTO's age, other than the fact that I would need to sign an authorization form if she was under 18. But they weren't answering their phone today.

Next I called Mercy Seat Tattoos in KC. They seem to have a pretty good reputation. But they don't do piercings. Bummer.

Next I called Freaks on Noland Road. They do piercings, but they didn't have a piercer on staff today. They mentioned a couple of Freaks locations downtown and then asked how old the person was. I told him she was 14. He said he didn't know anyone in the state of Missouri who would give a piercing like that to anyone under 15.

Ah. I see.

Nevertheless, GTO and I set out today in search of a piercing.

We drove by Purgatory and they were, in fact, closed.

GTO suggested that we just go to Claires at the Mall. We did, but they only do ears. Same thing at the Piercing Pagoda.

So it was back in the jeep for a drive through Independence. Heading north on Noland I saw the sign for Kingpin Tattoos and it was open. I swung around, pulled into a parking spot, turned and said to GTO "It appears to be in the basement of a barbershop. Down there." pointing to the steps and the barred windows.

Citing possible AIDS on needles, potential dead bodies in barrels and Sweeney Todd, she decided she didn't want to go in.



DISCLAIMER: Kingpin may be the best tattoo parlor in the area and have a sterling reputation for cleanliness and professionalism. I have no information to the contrary and certainly don't want to impugn their integrity. But walking up on it cold like that, it's not very inviting to first timers.

GTO later asked why can't tattoo parlors be all bright and shiny and happy? Why do they have to be so dark and threatening? I had no answer for her.

I remembered that there is a place at 24 Hwy and 435. I drive by it everyday. Butch's. We get there and it's open, so we give it one more shot.

A young man with gauged ear lobes, skater clothes and numerous tattoos politely asked if he could assist us. "Belly button piercing?" I say. "Excellent" says he. He walks behind the counter and immediately asks her age. "14". He professionally explains that Missouri state law prohibits piercing establishments from administering those types of piercings for anyone under the age of 15.

He further explains that when she does turn 15, we will need to come back with her birth certificate, a photo ID for each of us and that I will need to sign a form authorizing the procedure.

We thanked the young gentleman, wished him a good day, and left.

I come away from our search with two conclusions.

1. Most, if not all, tattoo parlors seem to be professionally run establishments that adhere to the law.

2. In retrospect, I'm very glad that we did not find someplace willing to "don't ask, don't tell" and give her the piercing. Because if they would have been willing to overlook the law that the subject must be at least 15 years old, what other laws or regulations would they have been willing to overlook? The laws about sterile needles, used once and properly disposed of? The laws about wearing sterile gloves, used once and properly disposed of?

When she turns 15, I will take her out again and fulfill my end of the compromise.

At the top of the list of places to have the procedure done, will be the places who refused to do it today. Well done.

My Corruption of the Luddites Continues

I owe the inspiration for this post to an exchange I had with A Librarian.

She is always waiting for episodes of Dexter to appear online because she claims it is The Only thing on cable worth watching and she refuses to pay for cable to watch one program.

Fair enough. I have over 500 channels and I rarely find anything worth sitting through.

But it reminds me of a similar situation from about 20 years ago.

It was the early '80s and I was working at Halls in Crown Center. At the time, Diebel's had a shop there on the 2nd floor.

There was a guy who worked at Diebel's who I used to consult with on premium cigars and hand crafted pipes. He was a Neo-Luddite who fancied himself as a budding writer.

He was all about hand rolled cigars, freehand pipes, Montblanc fountain pens and finely crafted writing paper.

He didn't own a TV because there wasn't anything on TV worth watching. He only listened to NPR on the radio.

He was dead set against owning any sort of "computer", but he was considering buying one of the new Word Processing Machines.



Ya know, for his writing.

At the time, I had just purchased my very first computer. The venerable TI-99/4A.



I suggested that he should get one of these computers and a compatible dot-matrix printer to meet his Hemmingwayesque goals.




The only catch was, you had to hook the computer up to a TV to use as a monitor.

After repeatedly listening to all of my nerdgasms about how wonderful my computer was and all of the things it could do, he finally caved and bought one for himself.

He now owned a TV. He felt cheap.

But he comforted himself with the knowledge that it was a sacrifice he made for his true craft of writing. He didn't actually watch TV. It was simply a tool. Like a new nib for his Montblanc.

After a few months of using his new-fangled contraption, he confessed that he had in fact watched some of the public programming on KCPT. He liked NOVA and found some of the documentaries and historical dramas unobjectionable.




I viewed this as progress. A narrow, pretentious and persnickety man was expanding his horizons and discovering new intellectual challenges. Perhaps, in the process, he would finally come out of the closet that everyone but him knew he was in.

But he still vehemently eschewed (he used words like that) "broadcast TV". The opiate of the unwashed masses. He would have nothing to do with it. Just a little, occasional sip of Public Television.

Six months later he knew all of the characters on The A-Team by name. He could differentiate between Baracas



and Face.

I love it when a plan comes together!

A Librarian, you're next!

Talk Like A Pirate Day 2008

Make a Difference

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)"

Thanks to Leigh Ann Little for this link and suggestion.

Let's have a little healthy competition.

How many new voters can you register through your blog?

You ain't making any money off of all that blog traffic.

How about using it to make a difference?

I don't care if you are right wing, left wing, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party, or just plain Batshit Crazy.

The only way any of us can change anything in any direction is to vote. So let's get as many voters to the polls as we can and let the chips fall where they may.

This Sounds Fun...Who's In?

Living n the Scoot Utopia is hosting another walk.

"This Sunday (September 21) I'll be leading a group walk throughout the downtowns of the two Kansas Cities. The walk begins at 9am and should last about 3 hours."

Let's do it!

Radioman's Kansas City

I've added this guy to my blog reader and I think you should too.

He describes his blog as "Slightly liberal, slightly anti-war, slightly political, slightly opinionated media & news critic"

I like his stuff.

She's An Idiot

Which WATCHMEN Superhero Are You?

YOU ARE NITE OWL II



Smart and sensitive but still packing a punch, you'd do well in law enforcement. Your sincerely chivalric approach to life and your fetish for uniforms are the stuff from which heroes are made.

WATCHMEN Profile Inventory (WPI)

It doesn't actually generate the HTML code or graphic for you, so you might have to use a little elbow grease.

Large Hadron Collider Goodness!

As you may have heard, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (not to be confused with the Small Hardon Collider...that's completely different) was recently turned on (heh heh) and much to the surprise of IDIOTS, the world did not end.



For those who are afraid that the LHC is going to generate mini black holes that will eat their way to the center of the earth, feed on our molten core and destroy the earth, I can offer you two things.

1. Go fuck yourself you uneducated, ignorant rube and be sure to use protection so there's no asexual human reproduction happening.

2. Here is a blog you can check as often as your hysterical paranoia demands. It is run by a group of people who, like you, have an unreasonable fear of science. They are monitoring the activities at CERN and live blogging the results of the experiments in easy to understand layman's terms. It's called Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?



But for you sane, RATIONAL people, I have something else.

CERN has setup a couple of webcams where you can watch the activity in and around the LHC live. If you are a sub-atomic particle physics junkie like me, one camera is porn, the other is crack! Get your Higgs Boson jones fix here.

It's a good day for science!

Harvesters Weekend At The Renaissance Festival

This weekend at The Renaissance Festival, September 13th and 14th, bring 5 non perishable food items for Harvester's and buy one ticket at the gate, get one free!

Do the math!

Two adult gate tickets at $17.50 each is $35.00

Two adult advance tickets at $15.50 each is $31.00

Two corporate partner discounted advance tickets at $12.50 each is still $25.00 just to get in the door. That's without turkey legs and scotch eggs.

Buy one adult gate ticket for $17.50 on Harvester's weekend and get another adult ticket for 5 cans of Aldi's store brand green beans, total $18.50!

It's the best weekend of the year to go to the Renaissance Festival. It's your best bargain and it is the greatest benefit to the community.

Me and my daughter, young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis and I will be there.



You should be too.

McCain * Palin - “Original Mavericks”

I love the fact that McCain and Palin are campaigning as two "mavericks" who buck the system, upset the apple carts, and chart their own course! The Republican party has never been so enthused and energized!

What The Fucking Fuck?

Question: Why was the Right Wing so dead set against McCain in the first place?

Answer: BECAUSE HE WAS A FUCKING MAVERICK!

They couldn't count on McCain to tow the party line, to loyally salute the GOP flag and blindly support whatever wrong-headed agenda they happened to be shoving down America's craw.

He had voted against the President too many times! He couldn't be trusted! Because he committed The Cardinal Republican Sin...sometimes, he actually made up his own fucking mind about issues and voted accordingly.

BLASPHEMER! APOSTATE!

Republicans aren't supposed to think! They aren't supposed to analyse data or question authority!

That's for those gay, Birkenstock-wearing, wine-sipping, cheese-nibbling, wife-swapping, tree-hugging, French-speaking, Volvo-driving, intellectual-elitist, terrorist-coddling, Liberal DEMOCRATS (spit)!

NO! Republicans are supposed to start their day with a download of Karl Rove Approved Talking Points and regurgitate as necessary. Ya know, the same way ya learned The Bible!



The Republican Establishment has HATED John McCain for years because they didn't think he was "one of them". He wasn't "on board". Wasn't following "the program".

And he wasn't. Until this election campaign.

He realized that being his own man, being a "maverick" didn't work for him in 2000 for all of the reasons I just mentioned. He couldn't win the support of his own party. They went with the incredibly intellectually stunted and easily manipulated Shrub instead.



But now, in the most incredible but completely unsurprising display of hypocrisy the world has ever seen, the Republican Establishment is enthusiastically whipping up a frenzy of support for their very own "John McCain! Maverick! Agent of Change!"

Horse.



Shit.

They swallowed John McCain's primary win with all the enthusiasm of a ruffied bimbo at a porn booth glory hole going down on some smelly wino cock.
[graphic ommitted in deference to your delicate sensabilities]

Now they are proclaiming it's the best thing they've ever tasted and everyone else should gobble it up too! YUM!

Watching the Republicans rally around McCain and Palin because they are "mavericks" is one of the most intellectually and historically laughable circus side shows I've ever seen.

What a bunch of buffoons.

It's embarrassing.

Palin's Pentecostal Past

From CNN.

"For decades, Sarah Palin went to church with people who spoke in tongues and believed in faith healing and the "end times." Her former pastor says the Pentecostal past of the GOP vice presidential nominee may now be being downplayed to avoid misunderstanding. But the pastor, Tim McGraw, says he's sure religion influences Palin's policy-making"

Yeah. I want someone with THAT world view to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful position on earth.

Don't speak Russian? Try speaking "tongues". I'm sure that the United States issuing a mandate that all of the translators at the United Nations learn "tongues" will boost our standing in the world.

While we're at it, "goon-babble" might be a good language skill for them to acquire.

Jesus Fucking Christ!

This bitch is crazier than a shit-house rat!

This Cracked Me Up!

Do NOT Download XP SP3

Microsoft has a new Service Pack for Windows XP available.

Available to idiots stupid enough to download it.

If they had it debugged and fixed, you would just get it in the middle of the night and be none the wiser.

But it is still in that

"Psst! Hey buddy! C'mere. Look at dis! I got a new XP Service pack available. Wanna give it a try? Ah, c'mon! Ya big fuckin' pussy! Ya ain't got a hair on yer ass if ya don't download it!"

stage.

Here is proof of what I'm talking about.

Microsoft is offering FREE, 24/7, three channel (email, live chat and phone) technical support for XP SP3 problems until April, 2009!

Doesn't that seem a bit overly generous for Microsoft?

More proof.

I actually had a real, live, Microsoft tech working with me for about 6 hours today trying to fix my problem.

It's still not fixed, but I'm just sayin'. When was the last time you actually got that kind of attention from Microsoft?

I hope to have more to report when I'm no longer operating in SAFE MODE!

The Mighty Zippo...The Rest Of The Story

About the time I married my last wife, my dad gave me the Continental Can zippo that I had heard, smelled and lived with for my entire childhood.

It was the most awesome gift my father could have given me. This was HIM. This was his life. It was engraved with the logo of the company he had been working for when I was born. This was his approval. This was his acknowledgement that I was a responsible, full grown, adult male. It was his way of saying "Ya done good son, and I'm proud of ya."

I know it's just a fucking cigarette lighter. But it meant a lot to me. It was like he was giving me his life. His legacy.

So one day I make a trip to Independence Center. We're not talking Bannister Mall here, so I'm not as security conscious as I should have been. I leave my dad's lighter, a pack of Marlboro lights with maybe 3 cigarettes in the box sitting in the cup holder of my jeep. I didn't lock the jeep.

I come back out less than an hour later and my smokes and my dad's 50 year old zippo are gone.

My $700.00 Nikon 35mm camera is still in the jeep, but the 3 Marlboro lights in the flip top box next to the convenient silver zippo are history.

This wasn't some sophisticated shopping mall parking lot robbery ring at work.

This was just some broke-ass, lazy fucker with a nicotine fix that needed a smoke and saw an unguarded pack of cigs and a source of ignition.

I was fucking devastated! You have no idea how much that simple Zippo lighter meant to me. I knew I would never see it again.

Flash forward to Christmas, 1994.

My first Christmas as a father.

Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis was only 10 months old.

But in my Christmas stocking was a small, gift-wrapped box.

Inside the box was an engraved, silver, Zippo lighter.

The inscription said:



"My Dad's Zippo.
Love, Galadriel, 1995."


Yeah, I know. She was only 10 month's old.

But it's still a pretty fucking awesome gift, under the circumstances.

I'll cherish that Zippo for the rest of my life (despite the obvious provenance) and I will ensure that Galadriel inherits it when I pass on.

Although I hope she never, ever, uses it to light a cigarette.

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.

The Mighty Zippo

I grew up around smokers. I was raised by smokers.

I was born in 1955. Everybody smoked. My grandparents smoked. Pregnant women smoked. Doctors smoked. My teachers smoked (the teachers lounge reeked and belched smoke like Cheech and Chongs VW mini-bus). Broadcast news legend Edward R. Murrow chain smoked like a chimney on TV, even as he introduced Public Television on my 7th birthday in 1962.



And the sound track that accompanied all that smoking was the unique sound of the opening, striking, and closing of the Zippo lighter.



It is easy to distinguish between the sound of a Zippo opening and closing and that of a lesser, cheaper lighter. It just doesn't sound the same. (go to the bottom of the page and click on "The sound of a Zippo:" and "The sound of a Rippo:")

Like the "potatopotatopotato" sound of a Harley Davidson...



or the unmistakeble War Bird Growl of a P-51 Mustang firing up it's pistons and taking flight,



it is a uniquely American sound and one that you can immediately recognize, no matter how faint.

I remember my dad's Zippo. It was a company branded lighter. He worked for the Continental Can Company in Coffeyville, Kansas.

His Zippo was engraved with the red-laquered filled logo of the three nested Cs.



Below that was engraved "Continental Can Co. Coffeyville Plant 17".

My dad smoked Camel straights - no filters.


Predictably, that was my first brand as well. I smoked them for years. My pussified frends accused me of smoking them so they couldn't bum from me. Truth was, they just tasted better than filtered cigarettes. But I digress.

I grew up listening to that lighter click open, flint wheel sparking the Ronson lighter-fluid-scented flame to life, and the distictive click of the lid snapping shut to snuff out the fire.

It was ubiquitous.

I quit smoking over two years ago, and that is the only thing I miss. The sound and feel of a Zippo. The ritual of removing it from it's case and unscreweing the spring to change the flint. Refilling the lighter fluid so it's full, but not so full it will leak in your pocket and give you a nasty chemical burn on your thigh.

Ah, good times!

I have another story about my dad's Zippo that I'll save for another time.

But for now, I will just leave you with this AWESOME video of cool Zippo Tricks and a link to this list of tutorial videos so you rebel smokers can learn your own mad Zippo skillz.

Timing Is Everything

The Vajayjay Vote

I stole this fair and square from Erin who stole it from Jon Stewart!

Because it's fucking funny!

The Real Reason Meesha Left Mother Russia

His secret identity and nefarious shenanigans were exposed by cutting edge Russian wood-cut media.

The D may have three balls, but Meesha has extra arms growing out of his ass.

I ask you, which is the more useful mutation, eh?

You can find more coverage of Meesha and his minions here by Russian artist Кузнецов Андрей.

Meesha, this is what you get for allowing this abomination from Midtown Miscreant to be posted on your blog.

The Toll of Office

George W. Bush in 2000. Age 54.


George W. Bush an hour ago. Age 62.



The Senator from Arizona has had a history of melanoma (skin cancer).


John McCain in 2002. Age 66.


John McCain today. Age 72

How much of a toll would the next 4 years of a country at war on 2 fronts with a nation divided take on John McCain?

Is Sarah Palin really ready to take on the mantle of the President of the United States should John McCain not survive his first term?

Think about this people.

Who would you rather have a heartbeat away from the presidency? Sarah Palin?


Or Joe Biden?



I can't believe there is any question about this.

The Palin Pregnancy and You

"I think, if anything, it shows the Republican Party is a real American party," said Rex Teter, another Texas delegate. "Every family has to deal with children, and sometimes children make decisions that parents wish they would not have been made, and things happen. But I think children are a blessing from God."

Sen. Barack Obama said firmly that the news should not have any bearing on the campaign for president.

"Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president."

I agree with all of the above.

That's why I think politicians, particularly Republicans, should stay the fuck out of people's bedrooms, stop persecuting gay people, quit preachifying about abstinence-only education (which obviously doesn't work!) and start giving their children actual FACTS.

I have direct, personal, knowledge of many strict, Christian, abstinence-only households that are dealing with unmarried teen pregnancies.

I don't know of a single atheist, fact-based household dealing with a pregnant teen. Not one. All the atheist families I know have straight A students who make good choices and stay out of trouble.

Living life and raising children based on truth, facts, trust and knowledge works.

Living life and raising children based on medieval fairy tales centered around an inherited maternal guilt from an apple-eating, snake-worshipping temptress results in sexually repressed children who explosively rebel against their upbringing with catastrophic results!

If you love your child, educate them and arm them with the truth.

Don't try to indoctrinate them into your fantasy world.

And don't you DARE try to pass legislation codifying your failed world view into laws that govern me.