Truthiness

Now, I love Jon Stewart as much as anyone, but WOW, Steven Colbert has been awesome lately. He is insanely talented. I know I am late to the Truthiness party, but the genius of Truthiness cannot be overstated. When people ask me about living at the turn of the millennia, I will just say Truthiness and then bitch that you get off my lawn you damn show no respect youngins. The latest in Truthiness is the Harvard sophomore who pretty clearly plagiarized in what looks like a truly horrific book.

Its easy to see how this happens in the Truthiness age. She wants to be an author. Her publisher wants to sell books and thinks she is a great story and will sell a lot of books. Her agent wants a cut, her parents are stoked, Harvard probably thinks this is great publicity. Oooops, but you actually have to write the book. And that is the hard part. We don’t like hard. I want war and tax cuts. I want a Hummer and low gas prices. I want cheap shit from China and keeping jobs at home. So you copy the brunt of the book from some other book.

Now, I have never written a book, but I would imagine someone reads it before it gets out in the wide wide world and that someone who reads in knows a little bit about the genre. There were something like 40 issues. How does this happen? How does the editor not go – wait, I read this before? Truthiness.

In an nice coincidence, the #1 emailed article in the times (which I found getting this link) is about college branding – where colleges are selling a bill of goods to students to make themselves look better to US News and World Report - who has become the most important organization in education. All style, no actual substance. It is a lot harder to actually get small classes and talented professors who give a shit.

From moderately crappy movie “Moulouououun Rouge” I learned the Romantics were all about “Truth and Beauty” Interlude: What happened to Nicole Kidman? She was smoking in To Die For, now, she is kinda overly skinny and creepy looking. She set some land speed record from hot to not. But the Truth and Beauty idea is tragically flawed. We like Beauty so much, so much more than Truth. Truth can be ugly and gritty and generally unpleasant. We will sell Truth for Beauty every time. Thus, Truthiness.

Get that knife away from my dick you lunatic

There has been much blogging on religion of late and I felt the need to share this story, which I originally got from my brother in law and then being part of the 4^th estate, I needed confirmation – thank you MSNBC.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT – THIS IS INSANE.

Needed to get that out.

Now, as you probably know, in Jews are circumcised at birth and since some Jews are, well nuts, the circumcision is not done in a hospital, by a doctor, but instead at home, by a mohel in a ceremony called a bris. (FYI, Microsoft hates Jews as neither mohel nor briss is recognized by spellcheck).

So, after cutting the dick, some Orthodox Jews will wash the wound with wine. Then, the idea is that the mohel will drink some of the bloody wine. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, most use a straw, but some apparently suck the blood and wine off well, how shall I say, directly.

This story tells of a child who died as he contracted herpes from said procedure.
I think we have a winner in the “Will do craziest shit because God said so” contest.

I Hate Farmers

I hate farmers.

1. I hate the whole farmers are some embodiment of goodness and morality. Where did this come from?
2. Farms are serious polluters. The shit that washes into rivers and lakes from farms is really nasty.
3. Farmers are notorious republicans. Big government seems to be no problem when it comes to tax subsidies.
4. We are all supposed to feel bad about farms going under, but no one seemed to give a shit when steel imploded except Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. And Trade with China has decimated a whole bunch of other industries and no one seems to care – not even Billy Joel.
5. Whenever people talk about the estate tax, Bobby and Billy losing the family farm always comes up. Crap on a stick. Can’t tax the Hilton estate now.
6. Daylight savings time.

Now here is the thing, someone once told me that we did daylight savings time for the farmers. Recently, I did hear it was to save energy during the war, but I already decided to blame the farmers and I am a decider. Now I really hate daylight savings time. Changing all the clocks is a bitch, but adding children to the mix makes it truly hateful. See, when you have a toddler, you live by routine. Toddlers need routine as the world is chaotic enough and someone is always dragging you to who knows where for who knows why and why the fuck can’t I put that in my mouth, you bitch. Anyway, we had our routine and life was good and we were maintaining sanity. Then the fucking farmers had to get up to milk the fucking cows and the routine is blown to hell. We are still fighting to get the BOH to be every night. Weren’t the farmers supposed to get up with the sun anyway? Fucking A.

The horror, the horror

Crap on a stick. I can't imagine reading anything worse. Frat lit.

A truly horrible restaurant experience

Since in this little fit of blogging, I shared a positive experience, I need to share a negative one lest my readers get to carried away with joy. Sunday, the smoldering French Horn and the Bassoon of Hope and Cletus the Fetus all go out for Brunch. However, the place we wanted to go was closed, so we go to the place across the street.

Right away, I had that feeling that we needed to get the hell out of there. There was one waitress for way too many people and she wasn’t that good a waitress to begin with. They didn’t even have someone in the back making coffee. She is calculating the checks on a hand calculator. Exactly 1 person in the whole front of the house for maybe 12 tables. Prices were pretty high too. So after forever (times 2 with a waiting 3 year old), she comes to take our order – of they are out of the appetizer we wanted for the kid. Well, can we just get a scrambled egg for her? A fried egg? No Scrambled? Over easy? No scrambled.

We sit in the place for 30 min before receiving a drink of any kind. Now this waitress was working hard, but there is just no way she can deal with this many people.

Food comes about 50 minutes after we sit down. We are talking about eggs, they cook in like 5 minutes. Its fine, although the scrambled egg is totally fucked up. It is indescribable. Just tiny bits of burnt egg everywhere. Never seen anything like it. Clearly someone had never seen a scrambled egg. Service remains non existent. No coffee refills, no water, no how is everything. Zip. And it is not just us, every other table is in a constant state of pissed about something not being done for them.

We finish eating. BOH has eaten 0 egg and is whining to go home. Hell, I am whining to go home. Check finally comes. I was charged $8.95 for a scrambled egg. Yes, a fucking 9 dollar egg. I pay it. It would have taken at least 30 minutes to deal with this and I have a pissed, tired kid.

About an hour later, at home. . . Well you know what happens when Scott McCellan (yeah, I don’t respect him enough to spell his name right) opens his mouth. Yeah, well that happened to my ass. Just a total explosion of shit. The unmistakable shit of bad food. Not sick, not a flu. Bad food. Let me tell you, “It burns, burns, burns the ring of fire.”

Bistro Clement, you suck.

I love the smell of me in the morning

I have acquired the single greatest consumer product ever. No, not an I-pod. Today, I am wearing Arm & Hammer Ultra Max Antiperspirant/Deodorant, Invisible Solid. The scent/flavor is victory.

I shit you not.

I respectfully disagree with the Brits

In a bizarre coincidence, the Brits just voted a lyric of U2's One, their favorite lyric. Unfortunately, the Brits were wrong (kinda like Tony Blair with the whole Iraq thing). There are only 3 lyrics that can compete in any lyric contest:

1. "The heat was hot". (Horse with no name, America)
2. "I'd rather be in Tiajuana, eating barbequed iguana." (Mexican Radio, Wall of Voodo)
3. The enirety of Safety Dance.

Seriously, "One life, with each other, sisters, brothers" is total 11 year old diary time.

Oh Dear

U2 at church. Ugh.

My favorite U2 story is how they always played some horrible U2 song when the hockey team came out after the intermission between 1st and 2nd period (I think 1st and 2nd). I mean this song was horrible. Whiny, too quiet, no beat or base line. It was a bad parody of a bad U2 song. The kind of song that made you want to sit down and do something else, quietly. It sucked the life out of you. Simply the worst pump it up song ever. And they played this every game. Mind you, we never got off to great starts after hearing the song. They would have been better served playing "Surry with the Fringe on Top"

I still love Chuck

Best sportswriter out there by far.

We just sort of watched it happen, and then we watched it get out
of control, and then we expressed shock without feeling a grain of surprise, and
then we tried to figure out how we were supposed to reconcile an alien reality
we unconsciously understood all along.

This would describe the Iraq War, torture, Valerie Plame, Jack Abrahmoff, Katrina response, the last 2 elections.

In November 2000, the United States held a presidential election, and nobody
knew who won, so we just kind of made up an outcome and tried to act like that
was normal. Less than a year later, airplanes flew into office buildings, and
everybody cried for two months. And then Enron went bankrupt, and the U.S.
started acting like a rogue state, and "The Simple Life" premiered, and gasoline
became unaffordable, and our Olympic basketball team lost to Puerto Rico, and we
reelected the same president we never really elected in the first place. Later,
there would be some especially devastating hurricanes and three Oscars for an
especially bad movie called "Crash."
Things, as they say, have been better.

Awesome

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl

I've wanted to comment on the Duke Lacross thing, but have been kind of waiting for a big factual break. The pcitures and the DNA have not been incriminating towards the players, but what has made this interesting for me is not if these players raped this woman - a horrible crime if it happened - but that it is not absurd, shocking or unbelievable that it might have happened. The culture there made it inevitable. And not just Duke, this could have been Dartmouth, Stanford, UConn, UVA, anywhere. That should give every university president pause to think how they will prevent it.

They won't. No Balls.

While on the lacross topic, my high school had a lacross team. On wet days they would practice in the school parking lot. Now, there are two things to know about lacross. 1) the ball is small and hard. 2) no person from North Hunterdon Regional High School ever caught a lacross ball. They would spin it in their sticks, throw it, miss it, go pick it up and then spin it again. Hugely funny, except for all the dents in your car from the balls.

Balls

or lack thereof. Jacques Chirac showing all the courage in the face of adversity the French are famous for has caved on his jobs law/easier to fire law.

Jump Back and Let me Kiss Myself

I feel good. Something about this post has me feeling better than I have in a while about the state of our nation. When I see the cataclysmic stupidity and arrogance and being completly out of touch of the republican taliban, I realize their demise is a historic inevitibiliy. People progress. Yes, we are idiots, but we are less of idiots than we were 50 years ago. And 50 years from now, people will look back at this era and mock us – and rightfully so.

Tired of being hassled by the man

No comment I can come up with can add anything to this story.

No justice, no peace.

Maybe its not $300

The NY Times looks at the numbers for the Bush Tax Cuts. As expected, the benefits are not even for the rich - only the super rich. Merely rich people are beneath the taliban. Of course, there is no news here. This is what every honest person reported would happen.

However, the idiots who continue to support the taliban continue to believe that these tax cuts in some way benefit them and are not completely and totally irresponsible. I am always amazed at the ability of the taliban to hide their lizard skin. Dudes making 40,000/year in Ohio will be voting GOP for these tax cuts so their kids can pay the crushing national debt and they themselves can see absolutely no benefit.

Yes, Virginia, the tax on work is higher than on investment income.

Now, the classic argument that not taxing investment income will increase jobs. I will admit that I am not an economist, but have yet to hear actual economists explain this. See, this is what I don't get: I earn 20,000 from working and I take that money and buy shoes, food, etc. That money then goes to the various businesses that I spend it at. They in turn hire more people, create jobs, investment, etc. Similarly, if I earn 20,000 from dividends, and then buy shoes, food, etc. How does that second bit of cash turn into any more economic development?

There is plenty of honest research on tax cuts/hikes: Kennedy, Reagan, BushI, BushII, Clinton. There is no clear evidence that tax cuts will grow the economy. And please don't refer to the growth of 2002-2006 and say that was caused by tax cuts. Much of that is the dead cat bounce from 2001.

This guy has a nice take on taxes.

Pulling off the Lizard Skin

Remember V? It was this show where these aliens came to earth and they looked like regular people, but when you pulled off their skins, they were these hideous lizzards that ate human flesh.

Well, I think the human skin of John McCain has been pulled back.