Beer & Self-Loathing

Sometimes I marvel at my ability to accept the absurd simply because it’s universal. It seems everyone else accepts it, therefore, it’s perfectly, well… acceptable. This is a lie. Instead of saying: “Boy, it sure is cold out there, but isn’t the snow beautiful?”, we should be running around with our arms flailing in the air and screaming: “Holy shit! The temperature is so low that water cannot retain it’s liquid state! Humans are made of mostly water. This is a huge fucking problem!” But for some reason we just accept it as Winter in MN. Well, maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe this simply isn’t okay. Of course, this collective state of psychosis-induced denial goes much deeper than merely tolerating a giant dump-truck barreling down the road pouring 2 metric tonnes of salt onto the ground. No, this ubiquitous shroud of denial has a whole other level of complexity.

Why is it that absolutely everything I enjoy is bad? I am unable to think of a single thing that I like which is good for my health or otherwise contributes positively to my life. Not one. It is a universal truth that we all accept for some reason. If it tastes good, it’s unhealthy, if it feels good it’s dangerous. Why has the Universe conspired against us so? Why is it that celery doesn’t taste like ice cream? Don’t get me wrong, I like a nice slice of watermelon, but it simply can’t compete with a chocolate fudge brownie covered with whipped cream.

I love beer. So naturally, it makes me fat, earns me a hangover and gives me diarrhea. Why? Why didn’t we evolve biologically such that beer clears up acne, stops tooth decay and makes you better looking? Note: beer only makes others better looking—yet another dangerous side-effect.

The notion that everything good is actually bad has been so ingrained in our species that even small children understand the concept. As a child I recall thinking that if the medicine tastes just aweful, it must be making me feel better. Pain was immediately translated into a long-term benefit. In fact, the more painful or distasteful something is, the more value we tend to ascribe to its positive effects. This is preposterous.

The universal acceptance of this concept is not only mysterious and baffling, but it is also the root-cause of most human suffering. We accept this idea and then act it out. That’s why so many religious movements require suffering and sacrifice here on Earth… to demonstrate a loyalty to God. Only through misery can we obtain the long-term benefits of the after-life. In fact, I am beginning to believe that a Universe so bent on denying us enjoyment could only be constructed by a supreme being, or God. That’s the only thing that makes any sense. There’s no reasonable explanation for life to have evolved in such a way as to provide us with a cheeseburger, only to have it clog our arteries and kill us. Why would that happen naturally? It wouldn’t.

I have had a revelation. It’s clear to me now, that the mere existence of bacon is proof that there is a God… a God who hates us.

When You're Right, You're Right.

Last weekend I went to Chicago for the annual Strictly Sail show. It’s where rich assholes get together and talk about their sailing yachts and poor assholes go to look at boats they can’t afford. I of course, am in the latter category. The drive in and out of the city along the I-90 toll-way reminded me of something that I had almost forgotten about… Republicans aren’t always wrong. You see, over the last ten years Republicans have behaved like complete jack-asses. It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when being a Republican didn’t necessarily make you a total douche bag. That time was 1993. Since then, we’ve witnessed an era of progressively more entrenched Republican douche-baggery the likes of which have never been seen. As such, it is easy to forget that the idea of personal and governmental responsibility isn’t such a bad notion. Reducing the amount of governmental waste and the likelihood of corruption can actually be a good thing. Unfortunately, the current crop of conservatives have gone so far off the deep-end that it’s hard to see the value in anything they support because it’s just so damn likely to be something ridiculous, racist, classist or otherwise intentionally ignorant.

So to my liberal friends out there I present a case-study on liberal politics and corruption that explains precisely what these conservatives are always bitching about.

As we approach Chicago along the I-90 / 94 corridor, we begin to see notices of the impending toll-way. Time to get out the roll of quarters and get ready for some good old fashioned inconvenience. Now for anyone from the Chicago area this will be old news. But for me, here in this little backwater town of Minneapolis, it was a new experience. We come to the first toll booth, hand over our $1.00 and are on our way. This felt like about 100 miles outside of the city. It was shortly thereafter that I realized I needed to use the loo. But exit after exit, nothing. No McDonald’s, no gas stations, no Motel 6’s to be found. Then I realized why. You see, there is an exit toll to leave the highway as well. This is so that people don’t exit before the toll station, then get back on afterward to avoid paying the toll. Makes sense I guess, if you NEED a toll road, I guess you would have to do this to avoid messy traffic along the side roads near toll booth stops. I also realized that the existence of these exit tolls however, made the road-side fast food joint or gas station obsolete. No one wants to stop for a cheeseburger or a slushy if it costs them an additional $1.00 plus the hassle of paying it to a machine or person again. They would rather wait.

This of course means that for the next 100 miles, you have to “hold it”. Except... lo’! In the distance, like a beacon of hope I saw a sign for the “Oasis”. It’s a supercharged rest-stop with everything you could want. It’s got a gas station, ample parking, and wide range of fast food--from Chinese take-out and McDonalds to little gift shops selling snacks and T-shirts. And this exit required no toll. The “Oasis” actually spanned the freeway which I am sure wasn’t cheap to build. I used the well-kept facility, grabbed a snack, topped off the gas tank and was on my way. No charge to get back onto I-90 either. As we drove on, I noticed another “Oasis” on the horizon. Curious about this first experience, we stopped for a look around. As I suspected, this one was identical. Same shops, same layout, same brands, same prices… the same. Now I don't know about you, but anytime I see exact replicas I sense the presence of a massive government works project. The faint smell of government corruption and inefficiency. I’m sure you know the smell. It kind of smells like… a Teamster. And sure enough, right there on the side of the building, the plaque proudly proclaimed that this “Oasis” was a public/private partnership brought to us by (then) Governor Rod Blagojevech. Like he stamped his name on the side of the building as if to proclaim to the world: “Ha! I fucked you again!” I felt like I just got sucker-punched.

So here was my guess as to how this whole thing went down:

- “We need to raise more revenue to maintain the highway.”

- “No Problem, let’s make it a toll road.”

- “Perfect. Done.”

1 year later…

- “Ummm, all the gas stations and restaurants for 100 miles just went out of business, there’s no place to pee! Oh, and it looks like we just put a bunch of people out of work.”

- “ No Problem. We’ll build some special rest areas and call it an “Oasis”.”

- “Perfect. Done.”

3 months later…

- “Hey, how are we going to pay for those fancy “Oasis” stops? I mean, who’s going to build them?”

- “No Problem. We’ll use the money from the toll road to pay for them.”

- “Perfect. Done… err, wait. Now how are we going to pay for the roads?

- “No Problem. We get Federal money for that anyway.”

- “Oh… so wait a minute, then why did we need to build the toll-way in the first place? It seems like all we accomplished was to put hard working small business owners out of business, inconvenience commuters and create an entirely unnecessary regulatory agency to manage a bloated infrastructure that delivers no net benefit to society.”

- “Yep. You’re welcome! Don’t worry, it all works out because the construction work created union jobs and moved chain-restaurants into non-competitive contracts for which, in exchange, they donated generously to my campaign. So you see, it all works out in the end. Like I said… no problem.”

Well I’ll tell you what... I’ve got a fucking problem… and I don’t even live there. Like I said this is just my guess as to how this went down. After some research I learned that in reality, the depth and breadth of the corruption extends far beyond the ex-governor. Companies were put into bankruptcy, money changed hands under the table and in general this whole nightmare of an experiment in inconvenience is far far more sinister than my pathetic imagination could have guessed.

Here’s a few links that just barely scratch the surface of this fiasco:

Toll Road News

Chicago Tribune

Chicago Business

So hats off to you my Republican friends. You’ve got this feather in your cap. Here’s your shining example of government in action. Now that said, please remember that just because this happened, doesn’t necessarily mean that absolutely everything that government does is bad. Let me say this again, just to be clear here; we still need government. You can’t use this as an excuse to cut the marginal tax rate to zero and abolish the Department of Education. And to my even more conservative tea-party type readers let me say this. Just because this happened in the State of IL, does not mean that it was Obama’s fault. Stop doing that shit! You see, that’s the kind of stuff that makes it so damn hard to take you seriously.

A Lot of Hot Air

I recently read a diatribe from a well-known author likening the scientific and social acceptance of Global Warming to the Eugenics movement of the early 20th Century. My instinct upon reading that, was to dismiss the notion outright as preposterous. However, in the interest of open-mindedness I thought I’d give it another look. For those of you that don’t know, I’ve touched on the eugenics topic before with my post inspired by the film Idiocracy. Which in actuality, is a pro-eugenics film; the underlying principle being that we are breeding ourselves into stupidity. Something that, as a species, we should probably try to avoid. Of course, in practice, the eugenics movement inexorably led to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Which, as it turns out, is something we should probably try to avoid even more.

The point is, this is an example of a reasonable-sounding idea gone terribly awry. It all seems innocent enough if you just take the term at face value: “Eugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species by improving human genetic qualities to counter dysgenic dynamics within the human gene pool, specifically in regard to congenital disorders and factors relating to the heritability of IQ.” Like the eugenics movement, the Global Warming movement offers a similarly sensible theory: “The Earth as an ecosystem is changing, attributable in great part to the effects of globalization and man. More carbon dioxide is now in the atmosphere than has been in the past 650,000 years. This carbon stays in the atmosphere, acts like a warm blanket, and holds in the heat — hence the term ‘global warming’.” Sounds reasonable enough. Makes sense to me anyway. In fact, it makes sense to a lot of people. Just like eugenics did almost 100 years ago. So much sense, that the scientific community rallied around the concept of eugenics and received research funding to study their claim. The problem is, that unless the theory holds true, the funding stops and the researchers have to find a new job. So, it comes as no surprise that the more research grants are given to study the validity of a theory, the more “science” points to its validity. Go figure.

I’m not saying these two issues are identical—not at all. However, I am saying that there is a certain similarity. They both have taken an issue with an almost infinitely complex set of variables, boiled it down to a simple concept we can all understand, funded science to support and validate the theory and then attempted to institute sweeping sociological changes that impact the lives of millions of people based on their findings. I’m not an expert on Global Climate Change. I first studied the notion in 1992 and frankly have heard little new on the subject since then. But I do know this much. When people start trying to scare the hell out of me, I am immediately suspicious. My first instinct is to safeguard my loved-ones and my wallet. I find the notion that the Earth is going to devour our civilization with catastrophic weather changes equally credible to the arguments that claim there is no Global Warming at all because it’s cold outside today. For some reason, I get the sense that both sides are lying to me.

There’s some intellectual dishonesty going on here from both sides that I find disturbing and ideologically paralyzing. I mean, I want to understand the issue. It’s important to me, and I’ve no doubt there is merit to the claims of scientists all over the globe who present climate change as a very real threat to human beings. But that belief I have is just that. A belief. I don’t know that for certain. And I am skeptical of anyone else who claims to have a complete understanding of the planet’s ecosphere and temperature fluctuations, our impact on them and the almost infinite number of other variables that contribute to the livability of our species on this wildly diverse planet. We know so damn little about the whole thing. Let me re-phrase that… I know so damn little about the whole thing. So little in fact that I am begging both sides of this issue to come together and present their ideas with some sense of credibility. I’m a big believer in science—I’m generally a fan of, you know, facts. But I’ve got to warn you, if your scientific conclusions can be picked apart by the likes of me, you’re on shaky ground. Like I said, I am not an expert, but even I have been able to find the double-speak and missing pieces of critical data on many of these studies (on both sides).

Claiming that the ocean level will rise and engulf the State of Florida within 10 years is equally unhelpful to your cause as claiming that because some scientist buried a set of data means that there is no threat at all. It’s childish, reactionary posturing from self-righteous partisans who care more about scoring political points than they do about addressing the important issues of the day. Frankly, it’s just plain stupid. Almost as stupid as claiming that I am comparing environmentalists to Nazis.

Insomniac's Requiem

I’m tired.

I’m tired of struggling to pay the bills.

I’m tired of going to sleep stressed out and waking up with a headache.

I’m tired of self-important know-it-alls who act on ignorance.

I’m tired of watching my home fall into disrepair without the money to stop it.

I’m tired of watching good people get bullied and shamed by the greedy and the selfish.

I’m tired of bureaucracy that is designed to kick us when we’re down.

I’m tired of a world that rewards the belligerent and punishes the patient.

I’m tired of the fear and uncertainty I never had when I was young.

I’m tired of watching my life pass me by.

I’m tired of defending justice and common decency against stubbornness and apathy.

I’m tired of the pretending that I’m not tired.

I’m tired of the status quo.

I’m tired of starting over.

I’m tired of it all—and if I weren’t so tired all the time, I’d do something about it.

But I’m just too damned tired.

Hating on Haiti

The events in Haiti over this past week have been occupying a fair part of my thoughts. Basically those thoughts range from: “What an unimaginably horrific, shitty fucking mess of a tragedy.” All the way to: “Holy shit, what a nightmarish, soul-crushing human catastrophe.” Perhaps it’s because I’ve been looking at options on where I might be able to live in the Caribbean someday, or perhaps it’s just my famously empathetic nature. Regardless of which, it only stands to reason that I have become increasingly pissed off at those who would politicize this for their own agenda.

Today I heard some famous blow-hard who shall remain nameless, make a comparison between the earthquake in Haiti and Hurricane Katrina. The claim was that all those critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the latter are now silent about all the failings of the current administration’s handling of the former. As if the two events were somehow mirror images of each other. There are some differences as it turns out. Like the little known fact that Haiti is not part of the U.S. I know that may come as a surprise to some folks who believe that every nation-state within 1,000 miles of our border is somehow a U.S. Territory, but it’s not. Do I really need to mention the relative logistical differences between getting relief supplies to an American city of several million along our southern coast to getting relief to a small island nation with almost no infrastructure to begin with? I do? Well I won’t.

It’s not that I am an apologist for all things the Obama administration does, but the reaction seems to be pretty swift and comprehensive in relative terms. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to argue the point. The situation down there doesn’t deserve further politicizing. There comes a point when I become so frustrated and angry that I no longer wish to give these people the benefit of my considered debate. It is no longer worth it to me to try to educate them. I simply stop caring enough about them to try to persuade them or those who believe them. There comes a point where, even I, throw my arms up and declare: “Fuck you! Fuck you and your ignorant, insensitive, semi-illiterate idiot followers. Fuck you, Rush Limbaugh, for implying that the WhiteHouse.gov website asking for donations to help is somehow a political conspiracy. Fuck you, Pat Robertson, for implying that Haitians were in cahoots with the devil and they had it coming to them. Fuck you, Hugo Chavez, for implying that U.S. troops have been sent there to occupy the country rather than provide support. Fuck you, Danny Glover, for implying that this had anything whatsoever to do with global warming. Fuck the lot of you!”

Look, this shit doesn’t happen overnight. It took a couple hundred years of slavery, occupation and internal corruption to create the cluster-fuck of a country that is now Haiti. What Western powers and the subsequent corrupt military leaders of the country didn’t manage to destroy, this earthquake finished off. This is a massive, complex situation involving command and control requirements similar to a war. This is, quite literally, nation-building. Not only do we need to get food and water there, we need to get it to the right places at the right times via air, land and sea (without airports, roads or ports mind you). Then we have the little job of keeping people from killing each other over the food and water we are delivering. I understand that donations from people all over the world are pouring in. The people of the U.S. (in spite of some loud-mouthed assholes) are a good and generous lot for the most part. I hope our actions serve to silence the critics at home and abroad who would try to portray diligence as incompetence and compassion as villainy.

The Nothing

The new decade has fallen upon us. I don’t know about you, but it snuck up on me. Almost like a predator jumping out from the darkness of the thick jungle canapé above. I simply didn’t expect the last decade to end so... abruptly. But here we are, staring straight into the face of 2010. What are we calling this new decade? The tens? The Teens? The Tweens? I am unsure. Appropriately however, it feels like the world is just entering puberty. Everyone seems uncertain of their future, naively optimistic about their prospects for happiness and utterly confused about what the hell is going to happen next. It feels as if the world is about to enter middle school and all that rubbish that occurred during grade school was completely pointless and is now relegated to an increasingly small part of our fading memory. Did we really make popsicle-stick sculptures in class a few years ago? Why? What was the name of that little girl I thought was so cute? I can’t recall. It all seems so long-ago and irrelevant. Remember that time we played kick-ball in gym class and Ronny broke his arm? Or how about the time we invaded Iraq to get WMD’s? No? Me neither. Did we really elect G. W. Bush twice? You're joking.

But rather than look forward and try to predict what’s going to happen as we enter puberty I thought I’d take a stab at classifying the time we’ve spent together these last ten years. We need to have a catch-phrase for... The Aughts? The Naughts? The Zeroes? I am unsure. But it needs to be called: “The ________ Decade". I’m not really sure if anything in particular stands out. I mean, really is there anything we can hang our collective hats on as the overriding social order of the last ten years? Not really. Which is just about perfect for a ten year period commonly known as “The Naughts”. Because I’d say that “naught” a God Damned good thing happened over the last ten years. Nothing of any real positive importance anyway.

Future generations will look back at this first decade of the 21st century as a time when we lost our way. When things really, really started to get markedly worse in the world. They will see the dawn of this new century as the beginning of the end of prosperity, culture and integrity. We didn’t really invent anything, cure anything or create anything of lasting value for future generations. No real progress (of any type) was made… not scientifically, spiritually, economically or politically. The human genome project perhaps qualifies as something of an achievement. That may be the only thing of substance to come out of the last ten years, but even that was a 13-year long project that ended in 2003, which really makes it an accomplishment of the 90’s that just sort of wrapped itself up in this decade. It seems that all we've accomplished as a society in the last ten years is a significant improvement in the creation and advertising of drugs that prolong erections. Well thank God for that!

No… the last ten years may as well not even have happened. In fact, judging by the way things ended up at the end, we’d have all been much better off if it hadn’t. What a complete fucking waste of ten years. So join me in saying good riddance to the last ten years… “The Nothing Decade”.

You Are What You Eat

I’m getting more and more confused by the “liberal media”—now referred to (interchangeably) as the “mainstream media”. You hear that term thrown around a lot on TV and radio these days. The Internet is flush with articles and blogs decrying the liberal bias of the “mainstream media”. I did a Google Search on the exact phrase “Mainstream Media”: Results 1 - 10 of about 4,880,000. So there are at least 4.8 million links to articles about this menace not including the Drudge Report. It’s almost gotten to the point where you can’t watch, listen or read anything in the media these days without hearing something about how the media is liberally biased.

My confusion surrounds the insidious and conspiratorial nature of this plague of liberal misinformation and how they let the cat of the bag about their own existence. I am constantly bombarded with news about how “effective” they are at brainwashing Americans and how they work hand-in-hand with the all-powerful Federal Government to foist their leftist/socialist/communist/fascist/Kenyan agenda on us. But these supposedly near-omnipotent controllers of the mainstream media can’t seem to keep their own dirty little secret.

We all recall the terrible liberal media bias of the 2008 Presidential campaign. Oh, “They” try to cover it up with reports by The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) who found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign. “They” are, no doubt, just another liberal mouthpiece for the left wing. Even the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has challenged CMPA's non-partisan claim, based on the argument that much of its funding has come from conservative sources, and that its founder, Dr. S. Robert Lichter, once held a chair in mass communications at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and was a Fox News contributor. You didn’t hear about that study? No? Hmmm. It must not have been widely reported in the media.

While the three major network’s evening news broadcasts still garner a larger share of the audience during that time slot, Bill O’Reilly has claimed that he has bested at least one of them on occasion. But that’s not the whole story. The important statistic here is not the total numbers who watch during a given time-slot, but rather the total number of hours of news watched. When speaking in those terms, the network evening news programs aren’t even a blip on the screen when compared to the 24x7 cable news channels. Here we see continued shrinking of the major network news audience while MSNBC is growing and CNN is standing pat. Basically, Fox news has three times the viewers of their next closest rival. And with around-the-clock broadcasting it’s downright pervasive.

“Fox News, which launched in 1996, will finish out 2009 with the network's best ratings in its history, averaging 2.2 million Total Viewers in primetime. Compared to the same timeslot in 2008, Glenn Beck is up 96% in total viewers (averaging 2.3 million). Bill O'Reilly, who now makes it 10 years as the top cable news program, was up 13% in Total Viewers with 3.3 million tuning in.” - Kevin Allocca, Mediabistro.com (Data by Nielsen Media Research)

So I guess I have some bad news for the “alternative” media out there — like Rush Limbaugh (the most listened-to radio program in the U.S.) — who seem to fret so much over the liberal bias of the “mainstream media”. You ARE the mainstream media. You are “They”. So what do you have to say for yourselves?

Pants on Fire

When Representative Joe Wilson shouted out the words: “You Lie” to the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress. He did three things. First, he violated Congressional rules, second he demonstrated a lack of common civility and finally, he lied. What the President had just said was, in fact, not a lie at all. Joe just didn’t like it. As time moves forward, Americans are becoming more and more disillusioned with their new President. The expectations may be too high here. I don’t ask for much, I just ask that I not be lied to. That’s pretty much it. I don’t expect my President to tell me the whole truth, just try to avoid directly and blatantly lying to me. So it got me to thinking... what are some of my favorite all-time Presidential lies of the last 30 years?

"In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found guilty.” – Ronald Reagan, April 1982. He repeated this lie to The New York Times 4 years later on March 21, 1986.

What makes this lie so wonderful is the fact that he repeated it 4 years after the initial telling. Although, most people would be offended by being told an obviously transparent lie, somehow (maybe because it’s Reagan) the act of repeating it 4 years later and the bald-faced obstinacy he had about it makes the whole thing kind of endearing.

“We did not—repeat, did not—trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we,” - Ronald Reagan, November 1986. Four months later, on March 4, 1987, Reagan admitted in a televised national address, “A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

This gem of a lie is notable for the liar’s wondrous ability to tell the lie, admit it was a lie, then deny the lie’s existence. This lie sets the stage for future Presidents who may now claim that the facts and data notwithstanding, the truth is how I choose perceive it. Simply brilliant. As Nietzsche, wrote: "'I have done that,' says my memory. 'I cannot have done that,' says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually, memory yields."

“Read my lips: no new taxes!” – George H.W. Bush 1988 Republican National Convention.

So this wasn’t really a lie per se. I mean, at the time it was told, he hadn’t actually approved or signed off on a tax increase. Although, he should have known he would—everyone else did. It’s sort of a retro-active lie. This lie is special because it pretty much sealed the deal for both his election and (four years later) his defeat. In that way this lie is self-correcting.

"Since I was a little boy, I've heard about the Iowa caucuses." – Bill Clinton, who was a graduate student at Oxford when the first Iowa caucus was held in 1972.

This is the kind of little white lie that makes me just want to say “awwww shucks.” I include it here because although it speaks to the man’s instinct to lie, it’s just about the most harmless, adorable little lie I’ve ever heard a sitting President utter.

"I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." – Bill Clinton.

In the grand scheme of things, and in retrospect, this lie seems fairly harmless to everyone but Hillary Clinton. But there’s some context to the lie that the quote doesn’t capture. I remember when he told this lie. He did so on TV—addressing the camera (me) directly. He looked me in the eye, and he pointed his finger at me in an accusing fashion when he lied to me. That kind of pissed me off. It’s one thing to tell a lie, it’s quite another to wag your finger at me when you do it.

Now we come to George W. Bush. I hesitate to comment on or list out all these lies because; for the most part they are still fresh wounds. So here are just two that require no explanation:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." --State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.” May 29, 2003.

G.W. Bush wins the award for my all-time favorite presidential lie. It's an entirely new kind of compound lie, meaning that it requires two separate statements to make the lie the true classic that it is. Both statements are by themselves lies, but together they create a third, magnificent lie. In this respect, G.W. Bush has actually invented a new form of lying and it is for this innovation that I place the lie at the top of my list:

Lie 1: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." --Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001

Lie 2: "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." --Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

Magical. 

The Only Thing We Have To Fear.

Throughout the Bush Presidency (either Bush will do) there seemed to be this ethos that Republicans and conservatives were “real men”. Manly men. Not those “girly men” Schwartzeneger always talked about. Republicans were tough. Not just strong on defense, but also strong on offense. They did manly things like hunting and clearing brush. They were the ones with the big ideas—living up to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, another tough-guy, “give ‘em hell”, “win one for the Gipper” hero of the Silver screen and the White house. He had the vision and machismo it took to defeat communism, lower taxes and usher in a new age of prosperity for his beleaguered people. He dissected the world with a broad sword, not a scalpel. Now that’s manly. Hell, Sarah Palin was shooting moose from a helicopter back when Joe Biden was riding the Amtrak to the office. To put it bluntly, Republicans had balls. Conversely, Democrats were whiney little wimps who were afraid of their own shadows and complained about carpel tunnel syndrome. But since the election of President Obama this has all changed. I don’t know how else to say this…

Conservatives are cowards.

You can’t tune to Fox News, or talk radio or the floor of the House of Representatives without hearing about how “afraid” they all are. As Glenn Beck tearfully put it: “I just love my country… and I fear for it.” Conservative bloggers are terrified of health care reform and claim the government is out to kill all the old people and take our children away. How often does a Fox News anchor or commentator start a segment with the words: “Scary news coming out of the White House today…”? More often than you’d think I suspect. I heard Rush Limbaugh say “scary stuff folks”, “it’s frightening”, “this is a nightmare”, “you should be afraid” or some variant on that theme at least a dozen times in a little over an hour. We’ve got right-wing pundits and politicians all over the media talking about how they are “under siege” and struggling to find the strength to “fight back”.

What a bunch of pussies.

If you’re offended by that then you are one of two things: You are either a feminist (in which case you are correct to be offended), or a conservative (in which case you are just being a huge pussy). C’mon… grow a pair guys (that includes you Palin). For some reason as soon as Obama took office you became “afraid” of everything. What happened to that good ol’ big idea mentality? That down-to-earth, man of the people, “real American” optimism and confidence? Where’s your unapologetic, righteous swagger when we need it most? This is America damn it! We are the big-dog, ass-kickin’, war-winnin’, 4-wheelin’ bad asses of the world. What the hell can you possibly be so damned afraid of? I mean, you’ve become so cowardly that your terrified of things that haven’t even happened. In reality, Obama hasn’t actually done anything yet. It’s become a pathological cycle of terror. No one is killing grandma. Homosexuals aren’t going door-to-door and destroying your marriage. Your children aren’t being forced into pagan sex cults.

The complete and total absence of any sort of oppression combined with your perverse belief in some giant tyrannical conspiracy can only be explained by the fact that you must be tremendous cowards. The only other possible explanation would be that you are intentionally attempting to terrorize the American electorate to the point where they become a frightened, unthinking, reactionary mob of mindless automatons that senselessly parrot your ideology so that no actual progress for the benefit of the country can take place, thereby solidifying your chances of an empty political victory in the next election so that you can maintain your power base by capitalizing on the ingrained fear and racism of an ignorant public terrified of the notion of a black man as President… oh wait.

Ohhhhhh. Okay. I get it now. Never mind. Nice move.

Global Drying

In light of the release of several emails from renowned scientists regarding global climate change, and the resulting cries of conspiracy and fraud, I thought I’d take a moment to address environmental issues. Whether or not you subscribe to the belief that climate change is man-made or not, there is really no doubt that the planet’s climate is changing. Some places are getting colder, some hotter, some drier and some wetter. Ice caps are melting. Now I don’t know if this is all the result of increased solar activity combined with a reduction in the ozone layer or if particulate matter is actually causing global dimming to occur that is offsetting human activity. I don’t know if people are to blame. But I suspect that we’re not helping. Let me get directly to my main, important point:

Why the fuck do you need fourteen goddamned square feet of paper towels to dry your hands in the men’s room? Granted only about 50% of men actually wash their hands after using the facilities, but apparently that half of the male population really, really likes to make sure that their hands are dry. You know what I am talking about—the guy who pulls the little paper towel lever in rapid succession about 8 times, dries his hands, then repeats the process. The resulting basketball-sized wad of spent paper is then unceremoniously tossed onto (not into) the overflowing garbage can where it rolls gently onto the floor until, eventually, some underpaid janitor will stuff it into a big, non-biodegradable plastic bag and have it trucked to the landfill where it will spend the next thousand years.

As I write this, I can hear the noise of that little lever: “ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk…”. What’s the thought process here? “I better make sure I get enough paper towels while they’re still free.” Maybe all men are simply OCD. “I CAN’T GET DRY!” Listen, just take one pull from the machine and end it. This isn’t a slot tournament guys. But even worse than the lever-style is the new electronic dispensers, they are already set to deliver five times the required amount of paper towel needed to dry Andre the Giant’s hands, but you still see dudes waving their (already arid) hands over the little sensor to get more. Are they expecting candy or money to come pouring out of that dispenser? I feel like I’m watching a hamster with electrodes hooked up to its neural pleasure center tapping furiously at a little electro-shock switch to get more.

Aside from just plain wastefulness and the lack of concern about conserving something that’s free, I think there’s a mental component to this. If you watch real closely, you can see that the aggressive manner in which the device is activated corresponds to an expression of satisfaction on the user’s face. Like he’s finally in control of something. He’s going show that paper towel dispenser who’s boss. It’s more than the typical (and very manly) tactile joy we get from interacting with a mechanical device… it’s almost domineering. As if to say: “My life is out of control, I don’t know what the hell I am doing, my wife is a tyrannical nag and my boss controls my every move. But here… here in the men’s room, I am in control. Take that you fucking paper towel dispenser! Yeah, that’s right bitch, you’ll give me all the paper towels I want!” Watch for it next time you’re it the men’s room—watch how they approach the machine with a cocky sense of contempt then rip that towel from the grips of the machine with a satisfied flourish.

The bottom line here guys is this... if you need more than 12 square inches of paper towel to dry your hands, you have a medical problem. Oh, and by the way, thanks so much for running through the entire day’s supply of paper towels in the men’s room by 4pm. I guess I’ll just dry my hands on my pants again you inconsiderate prick.