Sean's Year in Review

Midnight of New Year's Day is only a few hours off, so it's time for me to crack open the diary and see what I was thinking about over the past year.

I'm not so Victorian as to actually keep a diary, so the blog will have to do. Neither am I much of a sentimentalist, though I do find it funny to look back and say, "Was I really that concerned about the price of Starbuck's coffee?"

New Year's is a time of renewal and resolution. Millions of smokers will quit tonight, only to light up during the hangover the following morning. A number of fat people will say that they are going to drop fifty pounds, then chug chicken wings during the college bowl games. Life's funny like that: any other day of the year, a broken resolution would be a broken promise. But a broken promise on New Year's is okay, because people just think you were being a drunken ass when you made the declaration. They never believed you, anyway.

So, let me see. It was New Year's Eve, 2006, and I was in Acapulco. I enjoyed Coronas on the beach, then margaritas in the bar, and then a gorgeous Argentinian girl in the...well, let's not get carried away, shall we? Some things are better left off the page.

January

Shoes

I bought a new pair of shoes yesterday.

That shouldn't be news, but it is for me. I've always had a problem getting over to the shoe store and making a purchase. Like most real men, I only own a few pairs of shoes. A black pair for the suit, a running pair for the street, and a pair of sandals for everything else. I have never owned a brown pair of shoes in my life, not because I don't like the color brown, but because I don't have a brown belt to go with them. As for Oxblood, the name alone turns me off, and besides, red shoes are for Judy Garland.

Tanning and Work

Today's tanning episode got me thinking about work. You see, these two chicks are showgirls. That's their job. They're great friends and I love them to death. So as they were lying there, they asked me if I'd mind moving their chairs (whilst they were still lying on them) so that they could get a better angle from the sun. As women do, they had unstrapped their bikini tops and were lying on their stomachs. It was much easier for them to ask me to move the chairs, rather than tie the tops, get up, move the chairs, lie back down, and untie the tops again. So the thought crossed my mind to do it.

Then I saw something. Over their oiled, tanned, gorgeous kick-line butts, I saw a man painting a light fixture. He was sweating his balls off in the afternoon sun, paint chips all around him, the stink of varsol and epoxy in his nostrils.

I told the girls to stick it.

Heat

I have spent years in the world's hot spots and amongst the tourists they attract. Tourists are a funny bunch. Anyone that tells you they travel in order to learn about 'culture' are full of baloney. After sailing, flying, and hitchhiking around various parts of the earth, I have come to the firm conclusion that nobody wants to learn anything about anybody. At least, not anybody that is alive. People might fly to Italy, but they don't do it so they can rent an apartment in some Palermo craphole and learn the culture of getting mugged. No, they fly to Italy to check into a hotel, look at David's genitals, take a stroll around the Colosseum, then have a pizza at an 'authentic' restaurant.

February

My Name

It was in third grade that funny things started happening. My mom or my dad bought me one of those iron-on shirts, the ones where people would put their names on the back in case they forgot who the shirt belonged to when they pulled it out of the drawer. On the back of that shirt was written SEAN. So it was my shirt with my name. I can't remember what was on the front, but it was probably an iron-on Twisted Sister logo or something.

Anyway, I put on that shirt and went to school. All day long people called me 'Seen,' as in, "I have seen the light." I had no idea why they were calling me this, until I realized that they were ripping on my name. Since that day, I have probably been called 'Seen' about 5, 342 times.

Flush

If one sentence can sum up how ludicrous this stuff is getting, it must be the following one from Fox News, talking about Ibrahim Ramey, director of human and civil rights work from the Muslim America Society:

"Ramey said he was unaware of any specific complaints regarding the direction of toilets in U.S. prisons."

Poor Kids

They didn't look poor. They had well-combed hair and they looked as if they'd had three squares that day. Yet here they were, life's little lost ones. Their eyes darted from tourist to tourist and drunk to drunk, looking for a sucker or someone that wasn't paying enough attention to their wallet. They knew more about the street than I ever would, and they weren't old enough to enter high school.

And that's the way it's going to go for them. Roses, to heroin, to jail, to infection, to death in no time at all, and we'll still be going to the clubs and telling the next generation that we don't want their crummy flowers.

The Environment

Our conceit is limitless. The Earth has been through ice ages, massive earthquakes, hurricanes, innumerable volcanoes spitting sulphur into the sky, catastrophic meteorite impacts, so forth. But hairspray and unleaded gas will be the planet's demise?

Ours, maybe. But the Earth doesn't give a damn about us. Ask the next skydiver whose chute doesn't open how fragile the Earth is, and how much it cares. You'll get two four letter words in response. The first is shit!, the other is thud.



March

Al Gore

“The Earth has a fever.” What kind of an arrogant ass goes before Congress (and the TV cameras; let’s not forget why he was there in the first place) and talks to senators as if they are three years old? This man is quoted as saying that global warming is going to be the end of civilization as we know it, and he uses “The Earth has a fever,” to describe this scientific catastrophe.

I would love to hear Al Gore describe other problems using his condescending, talk-down-to-children-tone.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa: “The marble feels dizzy.”

9/11: “The birdies hit your Leggo set.”

Oil spill: “Exxon made a boo-boo.”

Hurricane Katrina: “Someone pulled the Caribbean’s finger.”

Apartment suicide: “Little man fall down, go boom.”

Assault and battery: “The bullies played a mean game of tag.”

Out With Friends

I have often said that it is not where you are, it is who you are with. I stand by that. If I am with my buddies Dave and Pete in some craphole, I will have a great time. If I am at the best nightclub in Berlin with some loser who complains all the time, I will hate life. This is why I despise going out with a group of people that cannot make up their minds on where they want to go. You’d figure they’d have learned it by now: if you’re truly friends, then it truly doesn’t matter. If the location matters so much, I have bad news for you: you aren’t friends.



April

Eavesdrop

I overheard a woman talking to her friend outside a mall last night:

"You know Angela. If it doesn't involve manicures, pedicures, martinis, or jogging, she doesn't give a shit."

Such is the epitaph over many a woman's thirties.

Good-Bye, Old Friend

I remember hearing about a friend that died. He wasn't a close friend, but we shared some drinks and jokes together. He was a hell of a guy. He got married, and three years later he dropped dead. I hadn't seen him in a long time. When I got the news, the first thing that popped into my head was him cutting up a salami and asking me if I wanted some. That memory comes from an all-night bender that we'd had. At the end of the night he pulled out some salami, some bread, and a knife. He said, "You want some salami?"

I feel like I cheated him. Nobody's first memory after death should involve a damned salami. I like to think he'll forgive me for that.

The Virginia Tech Shooting

I'm fed up with the cops, too. We've got America's Most Wanted, COPS, SWAT, Protect and Serve, and all kinds of tough-guy cop garbage on TV. When a drunk driver gets pulled over, the police have no problem throwing him to the ground or using a Taser to zap him into submission. On the SWAT programs, fifteen guys get out of a van all dressed in black body armor. They look ridiculous, like schoolboys at Hallowe'en. When they kick in the drug lord's slum door, they find the 17-year-old menace to society passed out on the couch in his underwear.

When they shackle the drug kid and put him in the back of the van, they usually bring on a sergeant to make some remarks. "Nobody got hurt," he says. "Successful day."

No kidding, pal. You stormed a suburban home as if you were the Marines. The kid didn't even know you were coming. The chances of somebody getting hurt were pretty damn small. Where are these tough guys when somebody is shooting cheerleaders and university professors in the back?

Netspeak

I have a friend that is the master of Netspeak. She loves it. When something special happens in her life, she types :P. This means she is sticking out her tongue. When she types ;), she’s winking. When she types :O, she’s surprised.

What people like her don’t understand is that I already know all this stuff because it’s implied in the language. When I write to say that I fell down a flight of stairs, they don’t need to type colon-capital-oh to say they are shocked. When they tell me they won free tickets to the playoffs, they don’t have to stick out their tongue. I know they’re a braggart and a blowhard. No emphasis needed.

May

Rosie Quits "The View"

Rosie. Ah, Rosie. The big, round, mound of sound finally decided to pack it in. She was due to resign from The View in a few weeks, but after her latest tiff with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, she punched the clock early. Or as Rosie wrote on her blog: "When painting there is a point u must step away from the canvas as the work is done."

True. Or as I like to put it, "When done taking dump, there is point u must flush."

European Chicks

Women north of the Rio Grande are a terrible disappointment when it comes to the mystery and the allure of woman. Yes, the French chick at the bar in the black turtleneck smoking the long cigarette might be a snob. But there is something sexy as hell about women that can stand alone at a bar and not once - not once - look around the room. Sheer confidence. Like a cat. Utterly disinterested in what you have to say or who you are...or might she be?

This as opposed to, say, the sexy allure of a chick from Kamloops wearing droopy denims when she shouts, "Canada kicks ass. Whoooo!" and then punches you in the arm harder than a lumberjack.

The Beer Test

The beer test is the ultimate indicator of how expensive a city is, because you can be sure that a city charging 1o dollars for a draft beer is not going to sell you a house for under a couple of million. To make a two million dollar house sound reasonable, just tell yourself that it's only worth two hundred thousand beers. Besides, what do you expect in a place like Monte Carlo, where Grace Kelly was a Princess and their Grand Prix has the Mediterranean for a backdrop?

Big Bucks

Any sports star that gets married and has kids before he retires is an idiot. I really believe that. Because man, if I was making ten thousand dollars every time I threw a ball or passed a puck, the last thing I’d want to do is go home to a bunch of screaming kids.

Planet Starbucks

The language of Starbucks amuses me. There is not a chance that any of these people knew what "grande" was ten years ago. Likewise chai, latte, or machioto. How did they learn the lingo? They must have been nervous the first time they used ten words to order a cup of coffee, some in a different language to boot. Or perhaps it just comes naturally to people that think there's no easier way to sound sanctimonious than to specify that their coffee be served at exactly 190-degrees. And what about the prices they pay? When a large (pardon me - venti) latte costs almost as much as a six pack of beer, you know things are seriously out of whack.

June

Gay Marriage

People that get upset when someone wants to talk about such a big issue, and have a good debate about it, aren't worth my time. When feelings drive laws, you should be very nervous. Today's good feelings about gay marriage could be tomorrow's bad feelings about not having Jews own supermarkets, blacks teach school, whites swim in pools. Seem ludicrous? 30 years ago, so did the very idea of gay marriage.

The Enviro-Boobs Strike Again

Poor guy. He's sane, but he doesn't get it: it no longer matters if the air gets cooler or warmer. All that matters is that it changes. Now that 'global warming' is called 'climate change,' the enviro-boobs and others of their mindless ilk can point at a thermometer or a thunderstorm any day of the week and say, "See?"

Personally, I can't decide which is better: global warming, so the babes are in bikinis throughout the year; or global cooling, so the babes want to spend more time cuddling in the Jacuzzi.

Growing up

Back in high school, I'm pretty sure we all wanted to get laid, but it rarely happened. Now, everybody's getting laid and they can't wait to post photos of the evidence all over the internet. It only took sex ten years to go from being the aw-shucks-red-in-the-face-sweaty-palms act it was, to a humdrum event you can now discuss over dinner.

July

Vegansexuals

Pardon the double pun, but sex in New Zealand just got harder to come by. According to one newspaper, Kiwi vegans have declared that they will not have sex with anyone who eats meat. They are calling themselves vegansexual. As if any red blooded human would care, since their “no meat touches these lips” mantra implies that they don’t agree with oral sex, either.

Tattoos

It seems like every woman in a tight shirt and low jeans was born with one of those Asian symbols just above their butt crack. I ponder what the symbols mean. I’d ask, but I know the ladies haven’t the foggiest. They got it because they thought it looked cool. Then the ladies give you dirty looks for staring at their butts, when all you’re trying to do is figure out what their butt is trying to say.

I wonder sometimes if they’re getting busy with an Asian guy, does the man ever think, “Why does this woman have ‘I’m With Stupid’ written above her butt in Mandarin?”

Sportscasters

I’ll give Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly a break on this. Years ago, in a face to face meeting, he asked Sammy Sosa point blank if he would take a steroids test. There was a great deal of controversy over whether Reilly should have asked the question. Not much controversy, though, over the fact that Sosa did not say yes or no. He still hasn’t. He just ignored it, it went away, and the sports writers let it, just as they let his corked bat slip from memory every time they discuss his homerun totals.

Soccer

The soccer tournament involved all of the qualifying countries in the Americas, including the United States. Canada didn't make it because Canada is so involved in soccer that they suck at it, ranking out of the top 50 countries in the world. When Bosnia-Herzegovina (28), Morocco (35), and Guinea (50) are better than you at a sport, you know it's time to stop asking when that sport will become popular in your country.

I flicked on CNN this morning and they were talking about David Beckham's arrival in Los Angeles. He used to play for Manchester United and Real Madrid. He's now come over to play with the LA Galaxy. Headlines on Yahoo are asking if he can save US soccer. The rest of us are asking if he can get out of the way so we can get another look at his hot wife.

Our Times

The other day I was on a flight from Washington DC to Toronto. It was a puddle jumper of an airplane, but it had jets, so it was noisy as hell in the cabin and the seats were too close together.

A little girl was across the aisle from me, looking out the window, and she turned to me and asked me how long the flight was going to last.

And I didn't know if I should say anything.

Such are the times we live in today, where speaking to a lone child is not something to cherish (the child might learn something; for that matter, so might you). Rather, speaking to a child makes you look over your shoulder, to see if anyone thinks you're some sicko who's trying to take advantage of a young innocent.

Look in the Mirror

The trouble with looking at yourself is the looking. Being bold enough to examine yourself, to be honest about what you see, is tough. I think it was Freud that said no one can psychoanalyse themselves (he also said the Irish are impervious to psychoanalysis, so I guess they can forget my whole point), but it's worth giving it a shot now and then.

August

Mother Theresa Dies

No one noticed the passing of Mother Teresa, and in a way I always liked that. She wouldn't have wanted the headlines, unless they came with a donation for her Missionaries of Charity. She had no crown jewels, and would have hawked them for food if she did.

10 years on, the news coverage still makes me laugh. A few days ago, a number of papers ran a story about how Teresa questioned her faith in God towards the end of her life. That's a great hit job on a devoted Christian, and a wonderful way to celebrate her life, isn't it? Diana, however, gets the tears, the flowers, and the orgasmic excitement of a nation in mourning. Fire up the TV. Replay the Elton John tune. Edit the video and photo montages. Set them to music, with soft focus and dissolve transitions. Nothing's too good for the Princess.

The differences in their deaths could not be more striking. One with malaria and heart failure, the other in a millionaire's limo. Guess which one gets the full blown Larry King treatment?

Senator Criag Bust

I remember reading a book written by a retired cop in Chicago. He went through the vice squad to pay his dues. For that detail, he had to watch gay men go at it in public bathrooms. He couldn't arrest them until they were virtually in the act of sex, otherwise there was no crime. He wrote some pretty disturbing images in that book, about Vaseline and all kinds of stuff, but it's an important example: to convict someone of a crime, there must actually be a guilty act. The lawyers called it mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty act). You need to have both in order to constitute a crime.

To believe that the Senator is guilty of a crime, you must then believe that everything the arresting cop is saying is the truth, and you must assume that Senator Craig was looking for sex. It just doesn't stand up. If you believe it does, then God help you when you're in the hands of an overzealous cop.

Bill Moyers Shows His Colors

A few questions for Bill Moyers:

1) If the journalist's job is to provide the public with the "best thinking" out there, who decides what the "best" thinking is?

2) If there is a "movement" for impeachment, how can there not be one against it?

3) Since when was public broadcasting meant to be an alternative to anything? Just because you suck at your craft and have to appear between telethons and Nova re-runs doesn't mean you can give yourself a cool title like "alternative."

4) When did journalists "dare not" talk about anything because officials didn't want them to? Did you even watch the pre-invasion press conferences? I did. Guys were asking Generals if Baghdad was going to resemble Stalingrad. This proves two things: they don't toe the official line, and they are morons.

5) "The journalist's job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium..." Really?

News to us. We lowly worst-thinkers always thought it was. It's nice to know that Bill Moyers believes equilibrium in a story of opinions is a thing of myth and legend.

The Flag

The flag looks pretty, but it means little. The rules that govern it don't actually exist. When you hear someone say that the flag shouldn't touch the ground, or shouldn't be used to wipe up coffee, they're borrowing from the Americans. There are no rules governing the use or misuse of the Canadian flag. You have every right to fly it over your house, or use it as a lobster bib.

Merv Griffin Dies

Merv Griffin died on Sunday. If you've ever watched Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, then you've seen his name at the end of each episode.

I remember staying in the Beverly Hilton about six years ago. It was one of his hotels. Merv's greatest hits were on one of the hotel's channels, and I watched an old interview he did with Richard Burton. Burton said to Griffin, "You're more successful than I am."

Merv looked suitably surprised, and asked Burton to elaborate. Burton said, "You're more successful than I am. Because you're on television." His emphasis on that last word was a sign of Burton's smarts.

Minnesota Bridge Collapse

It took CNN exactly 12 hours to have a graphic that said, Who's to Blame? written beneath pictures of concrete in water. Jack Cafferty, CNN's most asinine reporter (and that's saying something) went on his usual anti-Fed rant. He blamed the bridge collapse on Bush, Iraq, Bush, Iraq. He hearkened back to the glorious mud slinging days of Katrina and the tsunami (tidal wave, to the rest of us). Then he read some emails from his fans that did the same. Then he tossed it back to Wolf Blitzer and returned to his corner, waiting for Blitzer to call his unqualified ass back onto the tube to read more emails later in the show.

This is what passes for reporting nowadays. Jack Cafferty rolls up his sleeves like some 1950's newspaper editor and pretends to do some investigating. The next time you watch this guy on TV, you'll realize he does nothing of the kind. He's a morning show has-been. He's a hack. He sits on a stool and reads emails sent to him by the unemployed of America. Who else is watching CNN at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and writing political diatribes to Jack Cafferty?

Girl Talk

Look, if your relationship is headed for the dumps, you don't need a stranger to give you a list. You need to go with your gut. Guy never calls when he's always three hours late? He's balling somebody. Woman doesn't want to have sex with you anymore? She's not attracted to you. Guy constantly picks on your appearance? He's a jerk.

You know these things, but knowing is not believing. No list in the world is going to help you with that problem. Everybody's been there. When friends are calling your boyfriend an idiot or your girlfriend a witch, you know they're right. You just don't want to believe it.

You're on your own with that one.

Sean Penn

Speaking of pro-Fascists, it looks like Sean Penn has decided to go a step further in his glorious career as a pro-Fascist actor. I used to think that he was a great actor, and still would, if I saw any more of his films. I wouldn't call it a boycott, so much as a bore-cott. Is there anything more mundane that watching a rich American celebrity punish himself for being just that?

Seeing Penn bootlick the heels of an anti-Semitic dictator is a good reminder that actors are just people and some people are morons.

September

French Ambitions

People that believe the US mission in Iraq is all about oil are stupid or misinformed. The US actually believes what they are doing in Iraq is right, for moral and security reasons both. The French are vastly more cynical. They are the true oil-believers. While the Americans and Brits get killed, France buys the oil, and they don't have to fire a shot. All good. But a nuclear Iran changes the formula. A nuclear Iran will alter the costs of French oil interests in the region. The French aren't going to stand for that. Far cheaper to bomb Tehran then be strangled by Tehran's control of the the entire Middle East.

Inviting Hitler

The news out of Columbia University gets more bizarre by the day. On the heels of inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian anti-Semitic tyrant, to their grounds for a "robust debate," a Dean of the University has come out with this as their defence: if Hitler were willing to have a debate with Columbia students and faculty, then the Fuhrer would be invited, too.

When you have to use Hitler as an attempt to quell outrage, you know you've lost your grip on reality.

Cosmo Girls

Think about that: first, they're saying that prehistoric women sat around waiting to screw the losers that weren't invited on the hunting trip. Then they're saying that prehistoric man knew that sperm had anything to do with sex (a sophisticated leap, not quite believed by many island populations in the early 20th Century). Then they're saying that prehistoric man thought his penis was a sponge, and that he could use it to soak up another man's semen. Leap forward a few thousand years, and Cosmo tells every wife in America that if their husband gives them the apocalyptic sex they've always dreamed of, it means he suspects she's running around.

Great. Thanks, Cosmo. We try to show our ladies a good time and you turn it into another chance for "open dialogue."

Death Proof

First, the writing: it's tired. Kill Bill was so well written that we know Tarantino's still got the goods, but with this difference: Kill Bill is not about Quentin Tarantino, while Death Proof is nothing but. It has ten-minute lunch room conversations, but only a passable cast saying the lines. Reservoir Dogs it isn't. Tarantino is horrible at writing teenage girl dialogue. He should stick to bank robbers and assassins. Teenage girls talking about boyfriends for an entire scene is the stuff naps are made of, especially since none of these boyfriends are ever going to appear in the movie. In other words, who cares?

Sean's Baseball Prophesy - Before the Mitchell Report

Jose Canseco released a book a couple of years ago. In it, he fessed up to his steroid use, and said that while he was in the bigs, approximately 80% of the league was juicing. He was lambasted by sportswriters, players, and fans as a dirty rat.

It's turning out that he's likely the most honest man this league has produced in decades.

Michigan Blows It

Michigan lost to Appalachian State, 34-32. Appalachian who? I had to Google the school to find out where it is on the map (Boone, North Carolina; apparently they have quite a music program).

October

Sarkozy Walks

I've pointed out before that Sarkozy walks to the beat of a different drummer. Being French, he gets away with it. Still, I can't fault him for this one. If a reporter showed up from the "most respected news magazine show in TV history" and started asking about my wife, I'd say au revoir, too.

Tonight on 60 Minutes, they aired an interview between Lesley Stahl and the French President. In the interview, Stahl asked Sarkozy about his marital relationship (not long after the interview was taped, Sarkozy and his wife separated). Sarkozy got up, said, "Merci," took off his microphone, and walked out.

The press would have a field day with any British or American leader that did that. Instead, 60 Minutes promoted the piece by calling Sarkozy "smart, energetic, and tempestuous."

UN Wake-up Call

Starvation, by the way, is never caused by a food shortage. There's tons of food lying around. Famine has always been caused by political regimes keeping food from people, not by people wandering into a desert and realizing that there's nothing to grow so they might as well sit down and die. The UN could try to do something about thug regimes not feeding people, but they're too busy writing bogus reports on climate change. Not as messy that way.

Byrd Busted

Funny that his 2002 fear of a declining career coincided with the 2002 receipts of HGH, and continued after he had Tommy John surgery in 2003, then the receipts dried up in 2005 when the league banned HGH. Funny.

Byrd's excuse of a doctor's prescription grows even more shady, as the Chronicle reports that one of the prescriptions was filled out by a dentist whose license was suspended in 2003 for fraud. That does not sound like the kind of high-end doctor that teams provide to their players. I'm not an anatomist, but I do know that the last time my dentist asked me how my pituitary gland was doing was never.

Deborah Kerr Dies

Kerr will be remembered best for her charm and manner, but I especially liked her role in From Here to Eternity. That is one of my must-see Fade to Black films this week. The Sundowners and An Affair to Remember are two others.

Steinbrenner Hangs Them Up

In 1985, he told the press that a bad start to the season would not affect his opinion of manager Yogi Berra. 16 games later, Berra got canned.

On April Fool's Day, 1999, pitcher Hideki Irabu dogged it on a play to first. Steinbrenner called Irabu a "fat pussy toad" in the press, then refused to let him join the team in Los Angeles. Later, he apologized for calling Irabu fat, and said that the team needed Irabu "big time." At the end of the season, Irabu was traded.

Friends in the Facebook Age

I went on Facebook the other day and took a look at a few of the people that have labelled me as 'friend.' If you're not hip to Facebook, a friend is someone that knew you a hundred years ago, writes you an email, and then never writes you again. You're put into a "friend list," and there you remain.

You're like a collector's item from their distant past. Maybe they pull you out once in a while, blow some dust off, look at you in the light of the window, and put you back. Maybe they print out your picture and draw mustaches on it. Either way, you're theirs to keep, unless you 'unfriend' them, and who would want to be so rude as to do that?

Facebook is the Ebay of society. Instead of trading old lamps and hockey cards, you get the chick that sat next to you in first grade and the guy that made everyone laugh with the hand-under-the-armpit fart trick.

Al Gore's Nobel Prize

Alfred Nobel, master of dynamite and TNT, started the whole Prize game back in 1895. Back then, the prize was to go to a person that fought for peace and disarmament. It now includes poverty, economic growth, and the environment. In other words, it's being watered down to include virtually anybody for anything.

Why Terrorism Works

And here I thought this multi-cultural deal was supposed to bring us all together. Not so. Islam, however, is a separatist faith and culture, in word and deed. Yet a highly successful one. Jews have never had Hanukkah and passover celebrations in public schools, and they've been around these parts for centuries. Then again, they haven't blown anything up to show their displeasure about it.

November

Re: The Loser That Got An Operation to Not Have Kids

"We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.

"My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision."

Au contraire, nitwit. I am more than happy to accept your decision. Knowing that you will never raise a child does not disturb me in the least.

The Gutsy Arts Crowd

Here's a piece I found on the Times (UK) website. It's a story about artists in Europe not standing up for themselves because they're afraid of getting their throats cut.

Gotta love the "artists." Whether they work in paint, film, or literature, the vast majority of these thought provoking individuals are a bunch of chickens.

Bye-Bye Britain

Here's another laugher. Dress-up day at an English school shouldn't make headlines, but this one does. Students and teachers at the school had to dress as Muslims to belatedly celebrate the Eid festival. In the afternoon there was a party, but only women could attend. Of the students, most are Christian. Of the 47 teachers, 2 are Muslim. Yes, you just read that. No word yet on when everyone will have to wear a yarmulke or a Buddhist robe.

December

Brian Williams: Moron

Brian Williams: "My nominee for 2007 Person of the Year is a woman--a woman with a history of abuse, a woman who has never run for elective office, someone we all know, someone who makes her presence known on a daily basis in all our lives and, for my money, is better than any male alternative. That woman is Mother Earth. I think the environment is the compelling issue of our time."

Yes, he really said that. And yes, this is the man that reads you his interpretation of the important news stories on a nightly basis.

Juiced

You have to ask yourself, how is it that sports writers have not been unearthing these stories for the past ten years? The answer is simple: sports writers kiss the ass of every athlete they come across, because if they do not, they won't get 'access.' Gaining access also means keeping mum about the dirty laundry that they might trip over in the locker room.

The players that have been juicing should be ashamed to be on this list, but the sports writers should be equally embarrassed. Once again they have proven to be the most cynical people to ever hold a pen. I place no value in anything they say regarding sports. One minute they're defending Marion Jones to the hilt, the next minute they're holding the Kleenex while she cries in shame on the courthouse steps.

Fat Shopper that Honked at Me

Christmas gives me a chance to give thanks for many things. My friends. My family. My life. The fact that I don't drive a minivan or have floppy boobs and weigh as much as an NFL left tackle.

Gore's Advice: Save the Earth - Cut Back on Your Jet Fuel

I was bumbling around cyberspace today and saw an old interview between Al Gore and CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith. It's on the MRC website. The interview was taped on April 1 (rightly so), a few months before the Swedes crowned Gore as King of the enviro-boobs.

Check this out:

Co-host Harry Smith: "Last week, former Vice President and Oscar winner Al Gore took Capitol Hill by storm, dazzling senators with his expertise, and today he joins us. Mr. Vice President, what do you say to those who still doubt that climate change is the Earth-destroying crisis that you and every environmentalist group says it is?"

Al Gore: "Harry, if your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

Smith, chuckling: "I know a lot of moms out there are nodding their heads. Speaking of action, any tips for viewers who want to reduce their own carbon footprint?"

Gore: "Well, I try to use my personal jet only for important trips. We gas up our fleet of SUVs only after sunset, and the thermostat in my 10,000 foot mansion is set at 68 degrees when Tipper and I aren’t there."

Smith: "Boy, I wish I could cut back like that."

You can't make this stuff up.

I love this interview. Every time I look at it, I find new fascinating things to laugh at. The conceit is so palpable that you have to read it twice and say aloud, "Did they really say that on television?"

"If your baby has a fever...If the crib's on fire..." Well, thank you for clearing up all the scientific mumbo-jumbo with examples I can understand. Gore's right. The last time I saw a crib on fire, I didn't speculate on how fire resistant the baby was. I phoned the Sierra Club and asked them to lend me a jug of water, but they hung up after calling me a heathen for wasting our most precious resource.

"I know a lot of moms out there are nodding their heads..." Say what? What a lame brained segue. How many moms out there are nodding their heads and saying, "Yup. When I saw junior on fire, I knew it was as bad as climate change."

"My personal jet...fleet of SUVs...10 000 foot mansion..."

The bald arrogance of that statement is obscene. It would be amazing that he said it with a straight face, until you remember that this fat cat has known no other life except one of inherited privilege. Still, I know what Gore was up to. He was trying to head off the counter-arguments at the pass. People had ripped on him before for flying around all over the place and living the high life, while at the same time hearing him tell people not to use air conditioning. So this statement was meant as a sop to his own people as well as a defence against his opponents.

News to Gore: good job. It worked. Six months later, they handed this bozo a Nobel Peace Prize.

Photo: Reuters/Kimberly White

Winter's Coming - Pass the Sunscreen

I woke up this morning ready to watch some football. As is my wont, I stepped outside with a cup of coffee, and lo and behold, my feet got cold inside of five minutes. I checked the temperature. 10 degrees C. Hmmm. Where's all this global warming I've been hearing so much about?

Nietzsche
I remember reading Nietzsche some time ago, where he talked about crime and punishment. He had a theory that said as a people become more prosperous, so they become more complacent about crime. It is in third world and less prosperous countries that you find hands being hacked off for theft, stoning for adultery, beheading for murder, so forth. In prosperous countries you find words like parole, suspended sentence, no contest, rehabilitation, and community service.

Nietzsche likened it to a large beast regarding fleas. What are these fleas to me? I am large, successful, powerful.

The analogy can be used on a nation: what are these pesky criminals to me? They can't bring me down, they can't upset my balance of power. Nietzsche saw this complacency as our root for the ideals of what we call mercy.

I think he was on to something, and that it can be extrapolated. When countries become prosperous, so they become complacent about all things. It should be no surprise that Al Gore received a "Peace" award for talking about climate change. He is a Western fat cat, patted on the back by other Western fat cats. It does not matter how much pain and suffering is going on in the far flung reaches of the world. The West is fat and complacent. We have time to discuss the weather patterns of the Earth circa 2176 AD. The people in less prosperous countries do not have that kind of time. They're thinking about tomorrow's meal, or next week's bullet.

Roasting in June - Norway
Imagine Al Gore visiting Burma today and giving a speech on climate change and its impact on global conflict. If they weren't so polite, the monks would laugh him off the stage. Climate change? They're busy dodging bullets and knitting the bones that got broken in yesterday's crackdown.

Here's a news story about Dr. William Grey, a scientist that knows what's going on, both about the climate and the politics of the enviro boobs. His most telling line is,

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong. But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

He's worth a read. By the way, don't forget to check out my daily Worrisome Warming Watch in the links bar. I've chosen a place in the continental US that will tell us how warm it is again this winter. I think the name of the town is apt.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I can't decide which is better: global warming, so the babes are in bikinis more often, or global cooling, so they want to spend more time in the hot tub. Whatever happens, we'll find a way to manage.

Al Gore - Nobel Sham

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There's going to be a hue and cry from the old school types, who will insist that talking about polar bears is not on the same level as Theodore Roosevelt ending the Russo-Japanese war.

These critics miss the point. For the past half century, the Nobel Peace prize has not been about peace, but about politics. In the same way that a Nobel Prize for Literature means that the author's books are boring crap, so the Peace Prize means that the winner was some guy that, well, what exactly?

Child Soldiers - Sudan
Saying that environmentalists deserve a Peace Prize is a pretty big stretch. It's quite obvious that this was handed to Gore and his looney-tune buddies as a slap to George W. Bush, in the same way that it was handed to Jimmy Carter in 2002. I have no idea what Jimmy Carter has done to "advance peace," just as I have no clue what the UN and Kofi Annan ever did. He won the prize in 2001, after supervising the Oil for Fraud scandal and doing absolutely nothing to stop tyrants around the globe from murdering people, especially in Africa.

This is Ole Danbolt Mjoes, Nobel committee chairman, awarding the prize to Gore: "We would encourage all countries, including the big countries, to challenge, all of them, to think again and to say what can they do to conquer global warming. The bigger the powers, the better that they come in front of this."

Ah! Now I get it. If you use the word conquer, you can give the Peace Prize to anybody. Old Ole asserted that this was not a slap at Bush or the US for not adopting Kyoto (Clinton, darling of the Left, didn't adopt it, either). Still, one can't deny the Nobel crowd's bald politics. When handing the Peace Prize to Carter in 2002, then-committee chairman Gunnar Berge called it a "kick in the leg" to the Bush Administration. You can't get more direct than that.

Alfred Nobel, master of dynamite and TNT, started the whole Prize game back in 1895. Back then, the prize was to go to a person that fought for peace and disarmament. It now includes poverty, economic growth, and the environment. In other words, it's being watered down to include virtually anybody for anything.

Burma
The Buddhists that get shot in Thailand on a daily basis by Islamic thugs, the people struggling for democracy in Burma and getting tortured for their trouble, the peasants in Darfur that are hacked to death each and every day. No peace for them. Al Gore is being hailed as a prophet. How about doing something for peace now?

Here's another laugher from the Nobel Committee, upon presenting the award: "[Climate change] will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

News for you, genius: the vulnerable countries are already in danger. There's no "may" about it. Violent conflict and war are taking place right this minute. Take off your rose colored political blinders for the first time in your life, and you might be able to see the blood in the streets.

It makes one ill to think that there are fat cats like Al Gore patting themselves on the back in Norway over a dubious scientific theory, while a few thousand miles away, men, women, and children are receiving the hard facts of a bullet to the brain.

Al Gore - An Inconvenient Ruling

A judge in the UK has ruled that Gore's An Inconvenient Truth must come with guidance notes if it is to be shown to students for the purpose of teaching them about climate change. You can read the full story here.

You'll find my take from a few months ago here.

Photo: Al Gore on Saturday Night Live

Blog This

My friends have a fear of what they call “being blogged.”

I heard it again the other night, and not for the first time. We were sitting around having a couple of drinks and one of them said, “I want to say something, but I’m not going to because I don’t want to get blogged.”

By me, that is. And I understand their fear. They’ll be talking to me one minute, chatting away about this that and the other, and the next day they see it in quotation marks.

I need to put their minds at ease. There’s certain rules in regards to writing, whether in blog form or the old fashioned way. The first rule is: don’t lie. Don’t make something up out of whole cloth and pretend that somebody said it. You can paraphrase all you want, but never lie.

Second, don’t bother with their names. Even if the thing gets into print, a name isn’t usually necessary.

So my friends can rest easy. I won’t lie about what you say. And if I happen to mention the time you got drunk and slept with five Thai hookers while on a weekend bender, I won’t mention your name, either.

I notice Al Gore managed to make the news this week. He went before Congress and talked about global warming and made himself look like a condescending know-it-all. Again.

Al Gore: “The Earth has a fever.”

Really, Al? A fever you say? Well kindly hand me that super sized bottle of aspirin so we can help bring its temperature down. Have mom make a cold compress to put on its forehead, and fire up the stove so we can make some hearty chicken noodle soup. While you’re at it, would you mind running the kettle so the Earth can dip its feet in warm water? Oh, and put a towel over its head, lest it catches chill. It’s awfully drafty in outer space. Tuck it in before bedtime, wipe its nose, read Where the Wild Things Are, and ask if Al can kiss it all better. Then call it “Earthy,” pinch its cheek, and shut out the light, making sure to tell Neptune and Venus to keep it down, because Earth is trying to sleep.

“The Earth has a fever.” What kind of an arrogant ass goes before Congress (and the TV cameras; let’s not forget why he was there in the first place) and talks to senators as if they are three years old? This man is quoted as saying that global warming is going to be the end of civilization as we know it, and he uses “The Earth has a fever,” to describe this scientific catastrophe.

I would love to hear Al Gore describe other problems using his condescending, talk-down-to-children-tone.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa: “The marble feels dizzy.”

9/11: “The birdies hit your Leggo set.”

Oil spill: “Exxon made a boo-boo.”

Hurricane Katrina: “Someone pulled the Caribbean’s finger.”

Apartment suicide: “Little man fall down, go boom.”

Assault and battery: “The bullies played a mean game of tag.”

Nothing will make this man keep his trap shut, especially after having his butt kissed at the Oscars.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Al Gore. Okay, yes I do. But what bothers me about him is that I have to look out the window at snow and ice, listen to him say that the Earth is getting too hot to bear and that I shouldn’t drive an SUV, then watch him hop a gas guzzling jet plane back to his estate.

Civilization as we know it, Al? What’s this we crap?

You Can Be Serious

Most of the people I know are of the multi-culti ilk, the types that sit around and give a little Bush-bashing over supper, talk about how wonderful it is to live in multi-ethnic Canada, and mutter uncomfortably when someone mentions Jesus (unless they're swearing; people that have decided Christianity is for the birds still use it when they spill their coffee. "Christ, that's hot!")

I know so many multi-culti left wing weirdos (and those are the majority of my friends) that I sometimes wonder how Bush, Howard, and Harper managed to get into power. The answer is that the people who voted for them are serious, while the people who bash them all the live long day are not. Serious people don't harp on about things, they get on with their lives and do what needs doing, and then they vote. Unserious people eventually turn into blowhards, railing against their enemies without doing anything about it.

Back in 2004, a girlfriend of mine asked me who was going to win the US Presidential election. I said Bush. She thought I was nuts. She worked in a health spa and saw 14 clients a day. Every one of them told her that they hated Bush and that he was going to get ousted from power. They gave her the usual Alec Baldwin insight into why Bush would blow it: he's dumb. I repeated that he would win.

After he won, she asked me how I could have been so certain. I told her that I hadn't been too sure, but once she'd told me that every gym rat and fat lady in need of a deep cleansing facial massage hated Bush, I knew he was a shoo-in. Serious people go to work, feed their kids, don't want to be blown up by terrorists, and only freak out about their skin if they're caught in a grease fire. Serious people think about serious things. Fat ladies with bad skin read People magazine under the hair dryer and regurgitate whatever the New York limousine liberal writes in the op-ed.

It is ironic that the left wingers who pretend to champion multi-culturalism and a kinder, gentler hand are more unaccepting than the people they despise.

Take the evening news. If Bush comes on the screen, it is normal for the left winger to say, "Look at this moron." Just like that. They don't care who in the room might disagree with them. They take it as self-evident that Bush is a moron, and that you'll agree with them.

The same people that say, "Never talk about religion and politics," are the people that talk about religion and politics all the time. If the Pope gets a write-up in the paper saying that abortion is bad, the person reading the paper will tell the room that the Pope's an ass without any second thoughts whatsoever.

I knew a guy who once showed me a cartoon map of the United States. Instead of being called 'the United States,' the cartoonist had written, 'Jesusland.' When the guy showed it to me, he was chuckling. When I didn't laugh, he smirked and said, "Oh, you're one of those."

One of what? If he meant that I was one of those people that don't laugh at lame gags, he was spot on the money. If he meant I was one of those people that take pity on losers like him, he was right again.

Because none of the above examples are serious. They're not arguments, they're opinions put together using the Frankenstein technique: a little David Letterman, a little CNN, a little CBC, and voila: Bush is a dummy, the Pope hates women, and the United States is a collection of Bible thumping imbeciles.

I am always nervous whenever too many people believe the same thing, and I am extremely nervous when their views on a subject can be wrapped up in one statement. "Bush is a dummy." Okay, but he beat your hero Al Gore in all of his college grades, so does that mean I don't have to believe in global warming anymore? Because Al Gore, by your definition, is a dummy?

Serious people look for answers. They seek them out. If they see a word in the paper that they don't understand, they don't complain that the egghead who wrote the piece uses too many 'big words.' They look it up.

Unserious people believe anything that is repeated often enough, and feel it is their duty to repeat it, too. And when they run up against someone who doesn't know the mantra, they feel confused and frightened. And, as these bleating sheep are so fond of telling us, we fear what we don't understand. Unserious people cannot face their own pathetic irony.

Unserious people are afraid of issues that can only be discussed, never acted upon. Global cooling in the '70s becomes global warming in the '80s, which becomes climate change in the '90s. That's three major shifts in the argument in as many decades. How are we supposed to act on it if we can't even make up our minds what it is we're acting upon? The unserious people aren't concerned with that. They're concerned with the idea that they're concerned. They merely want to talk. It makes them feel good. Action takes guts. Unserious people don't have them.

But what about the congressional elections, you ask? Yes, what about them. They're being trumpeted as a victory for the left, and a backlash against Bush. Or, more specifically, as a backlash against Bush's ideals. (Never make the mistake in thinking that someone dislikes another person because they know the person. I don't know Bush personally, and probably neither do you. It's his ideals you like or dislike, not the man himself; put Clinton's words in Bush's mouth and, with the exception of Monica Lewinsky, people would change political parties overnight).

I'm not so sure about a leftist victory in the election, per se. The Democrats gained the House and the Senate, but not by very much. The country is still coming up 50/50. If Bush had fired Rumsfeld before the election instead of after (the biggest gaffe of his presidency), the Republicans would have taken it in a walk.

But they lost, and it would be easy to assume that the Party of the Unserious (that would be the Democrats) are proven correct: that the country should pull out of Iraq. Really? Is that what the election said? I don't think so. I think the election results showed that people are just a hair more ambivalent about the war, not about being there in the first place, but with how it is being fought.

I was at an interview a few weeks ago, where someone was asked what they thought of the Hiroshima bomb site. The answer was, "If we did stuff like that more often to people that screwed with us, we wouldn't be having this problem in Iraq right now." The whole room got uncomfortable, and people cleared their throats, and somebody changed the subject.

But what about that? You don't hear too much of that stuff in the man-on-street interviews produced by CNN. But the opinion must be out there. Dig deeper. Do your homework. Look around.

The Iraq question has a magnifying effect on people, showing them to be serious on the one hand, or unserious on the other. Anyone who thinks Iraq is not intrinsically tied into the war on Islamic fascism is either incredibly ignorant, or pro-fascist. This is the supreme war of our generation. This is bigger than the Cold War, and bigger than Nazi Germany.

In the Cold War, some relatively sane guys had their hands on the button, and they were prepared to use it only if the other guy did first. With Nazi Germany, at least we knew where these guys were, and we were pretty sure that if we knocked over Berlin, they'd surrender.

It's interesting to note that back during the Cold War, there were marches against nuclear weapons, movies made about the world going up in smoke, and pop stars making anti-nuclear statements between bong hits.

Today, with Iran saying they're going to wipe Israel off the map, and the North Koreans test firing rockets into the Sea of Japan, nobody gives a damn about nukes. Why? Because the people who yawn at the idea of Israel being obliterated aren't serious Western citizens. They are, in fact, pro-fascist, and anti-West. There can be no other explanation. All of Israel's enemies are racist, totalitarian regimes, bent on her destruction. To not care what these regimes plan on doing, to not march against them for the first time in history, shows that you implicitly support what they stand for.

Can there be any question of this? Imagine sitting in your office in Iran. You watch as hundreds of thousands protest against Bush sending troops to Iraq. You watch every news agency from CNN to Al-Jazeera rake the Americans over the coals for tying a leash to a prisoner's neck. The outrage and condemnation are far louder than when an insurgent's prisoner has his head sawed off. In Italy, the rainbow flags drip from the windows, with Pace ('Peace') written across them. From New York to Sydney to London to Tokyo, the unserious march shoulder to shoulder, decrying their own governments.

You tip back your chair, shoot your aide for some insult or other, and flip the channel. It only gets better. Your enemy's newspapers expose classified information. The UN, based in the city where two buildings were knocked down by people you call martyrs and heroes, invites Hugo Chavez to attendance. There, he calls the President of the country he is visiting 'Satan,' then hops the next plane home without fuss.

You yourself step in front of the cameras and declare that Israel must be destroyed, that Jews should move back to Europe, and that the Holocaust never happened. And you mention in passing that you want to develop nuclear technology to bring the electric bill down.

In France an average of 80 cars a day are burned by Muslim 'youths,' who just never seem to get old. In Madrid, boom, in London, pow.

Death and mayhem, and blood running through the streets. Then, perhaps to test the waters one last time, to see just how hypocritical and ignorant the Unserious of the West are, you pull out the big guns. While the lesbian Rosie O'Donnell on the View tells the American housewife that Christianity is as bad as Islamic fundamentalism, hundreds gather outside in Kermanshah, Iran to watch a homosexual man hang for the crime of sodomy.

And after all of this, the world and Rosie say...nothing. At least, not to each other. But to you, the racist, fascist, immoral dictator, the silence is deafening approval for the words you say and the acts you commit. How could it be taken otherwise?

His name was Shahab Darvishi, by the way, the homosexual man who came up against Islamic justice. Sodomy, like rape, murder, adultery, blasphemy and espionage, are capital offences in Iran. And before the ladies get too happy with the death-for-rape deal, you might want to know that you need four eyewitnesses to prove rape. And even then, as happened recently to a gang rape victim, the woman might receive 96 lashes for reporting said rape, because it means admitting she was alone with a man not her husband.

It should be plain that this is a battle of ideologies. This is Freedom vs. Fascism, and Good vs. Evil. Serious people know this. The Unserious should too, because it is summed up in one little line that even their feeble minds could grasp, were it not for their blind hatred of the man in the White House.

No matter how many clitorises are clipped from the crotches of young girls, no matter how many heads are cut off, no matter how many cars burn in France, no matter how many Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims themselves are gunned down in the street. The Unserious have tuned out this information. They receive their orders from the fascists, and they march accordingly.

Until, perhaps, it's their cousin or sister that gets blown to smithereens on a downtown bus. Which is exactly why the Americans and others (we Canadians chickened out) are in Iraq right now. It's the oldest lesson in the book. Fight in someone else's backyard. I don't care if the Americans are there for two hundred years, I just hope they have the willpower to stay there. Better that volunteer soldiers slug it out in Iraq, than scores of women and children are decimated at a shopping mall in Philadelphia.

If the Americans were to pull out of Iraq, it would be the singular greatest defeat in the history of the world. Do the Unserious really believe that 3000 dead soldiers requires a Super Power running away from bands of murderers and thugs bent on knocking down our buildings, hacking off our heads, and mutilating our children? Nevermind what they would do to the Iraqi civilians immediately after an American withdrawal. Can they be serious?

This is a battle of wills. A car bomb here, a car bomb there, and sooner or later the Yankees and the Brits will run away. But how far do you run? If you aren't there to keep an eye on your enemy, exactly how long is it until they have their eye on that shopping mall in Philly? Tell me where you run to then.

Seriously.