Bullshit 2008

Well folks, we've got just 767 days left until the presidential elections of 2008, and I think we all know the signifance of that special number, right? (Ummmm...no -ed.)

Oh...well...if you take the year of the next presidential election 2008 and add the number of votes in the electoral college (538) and then subtract the year of the ratification of the consitution (1789) and then add the number of ammendments contained within the bill of rights (10) do you know what you get?

(Shit...carry the seven...take the cosine...fuck where's my calculator...screw it, I'll just use google instead...Well I'll be damned. 767 -ed.)

Creepy isn't it? Anyway, given this very signifance of this day, I thought it was about time I started talking in earnest about the 2008 elections.

The first important thing to note is that the Democrats still look like they plan on nominating Hillary. As I've previously stated, this would be about the dumbest thing they could possibly do. I'm pretty sure the Republicans could nominate Hugo Chavez and still win an election against Hillary.

One of Hillary's prime competitors for the seat currently seems to be John Kerry. Which makes good sense. Just because Kerry couldn't win against one of the least popular sitting presidents in the history of the country, under horrible economic conditions and with the least popular war ever raging, doesn't mean the Dems should give up on him.

It does mean they should threaten to grind him up into delicate paste if he so much as enters the race though.

Another possible nominee under the Dems theory of "if first you don't succeed, feel free to fuck it up for us again" is former Veep Al Gore. Once again, the logic is obvious. If people hated Al Gore 8 years ago, then 8 years of subsequent whining and general creepiness is definitely going help. Plus his "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary is sure to get that environmentalist vote that the Dems always have such a hard time winning.

On the off chance that an important member of the democratic party is reading this, I'm going to give you a list of candidates that are acceptable to nominate: Sen. Biden, Sen. Edwards, Gov. Vilsack, Former Gov. Warner, Gov. Bredesen. That's it. Don't even consider anyone else. One of those guys.

If you're wondering where I got such a list, you can find a list of all the possible candidates at Politics1.com. Also you can find a prime example of the Daily Show's "Using a Question Mark to Hide an Opinion" theory. In Politics1's case, here's their current headline:

FLORIDA: IS CONGRESSMAN FOLEY AN ONLINE SEX PREDATOR?

Now hey, they're not SAYING Foley is a sex predator. They're just asking. Who knows whether or not he actually is? (Jesus. -ed.)

Moving on to the GOP, rumors are flying that Cheney is going to resign as Veep and President Bush will replace him with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. In the last four years, this women has risen up the ranks pretty quickly, and I don't want to make any trash accusations, but if I were President Bush I'd watch my back.

I know she's publicly said that she has no plans of running for president, but I haven't heard her say she has no plans of killing Dubya and annointing herself Empress for life. (Where were you with that question Tim Russert? Fat ass. -ed.)

Like I said, I don't want to get into any trouble here, but let me just ask this.

Is Condoleeza Rice convincing prominent members of the US government to step down by threating to devour them whole, in an ongoing plot to crown herself Supreme Empress and make the rest of the country her loyal zombie slaves?

I'm just asking.

Finally, I think it's clear, regardless of who the so called "important" parties nominate, who we should all be voting for. If you haven't seen trailers for "Man of the Year" or read Al Franken's "Why Not Me?" you might not be familiar with the idea of a comedian running for president, but it's existed for a while. Well, life is now imitating art folks.

The following is being reported by the New Statesman:

"He has now redirected his political energies and is standing (semi-seriously) for the Libertarian Party of America's nomination to run for president in the 2008 election."

Who's "he"? None other than Doug Stanhope. (Who? -ed.)

Doug Stanhope. Doug Stanhope? He was on the Man Show. (Oh, Jimmy Kimmel's friend. I like him. He was on that Dr. Drew show -ed.)

Uhh, no actually that's Adam Corolla. He and Kimmel were the original hosts (read: "funny hosts") of the show, then they were replaced by Doug Stanhope and Joe Rogan. (Joe Rogan? The guy from "Fear Factor"? That must have sucked. -ed.)

Yes, yes it did, pretty hardcore for that matter.

Which leads me to my question, if we're going to have a comedian run for president, shouldn't he at least be funny? Doug Stanhope? Christ, Bob Dole was funnier than Doug Stanhope, and only had one arm. (Too soon, too soon. -ed.)

But the nonsense aside, I'm looking forward to this campaign. Personally, I'm hoping we end up with couple of "Greatest Hits" tickets. After all, we're living in an era when VH1 has more shows about past shows, than actual new shows. So why not an "I love the 90/early 00s" Presidential race?

Let's have Al Gore with Veep John Kerry versus Bush I with Bob Dole. And we wouldn't even have to vote. We could just add up the votes we cast in the last 4 elections. Everybody wins.

Montezuma's Revenge

I spend a lot of time making fun of Canada. Why? Because it's easy, that's why. For example, do you know why Canadians prefer to have sex from behind?

So they can both watch the hockey game. See? See how easy that was?

But in my single-minded obsession with mocking Canadians, I sometime lose the bigger picture. Indeed, there is a cornucopia of silly countries in the world, and they all deserve to be mocked.

And to find a country other than Canada that needs to be mocked, one need look no further than our other neighbor: Mexico.

For those who aren't aware (and that would probably be everyone) Mexico recently held elections. And, as this article explains, the loser of that election has, at the behest of supporters, installed himself as the head of a "parallel government".

This is allowed by an unusual provision in the Mexican Constitution, which allows for a parallel government, assuming two-thirds of all members of such an entity grow sufficiently full goatees. Mexican Law refers to this as the "James Tiberius Kirk Clause".

Of course, I think a parallel government makes good sense for Mexico. I've always been a firm believer that you can't have too much of a bad thing. And if one government can plunge Mexico into permanent economic destitution, imagine what two can do?

Does anyone else really hope that the President of Mexico and the President of Mexico (with a goatee) come together at a national press conference, only to sing "It Takes Two"?

And are there thousands of liberals all across the country right now, reading this and saying, "Wait, I didn't know that was an option. Fuck, we wasted all that time recounting votes, when we should have just made Al Gore start growing a goatee"?

In news from other silly countries, Sweden's just ousted the Social Democrats from power for the first time in over a decade, electing the "Alliance for Sweden". What does this mean for Sweden? It means movement towards a free-market society, and away from being the welfare, socialist state they've been forever. What does it mean for Americans? It means hippies suck, that's what it means.

Cause Sweden is really the last bastion of Socialism (or at least socialism that doesn't involve everyone but the government being poor as dirt). And if Sweden becomes Capitalist, I can finally sleep at night, knowing hippies will never get to take my shit away.

Unless of course the socialists all grow goatees.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a sign

Driving along the other day I passed the following road sign:

"Drive Carefully: Blind Child in the Area"

Along the same lines, I have a friend who lives in a neighborhood which has a similar sign only for a deaf child.

These signs lead me to the following conclusion: It is apparently just fine to drive like a crazy bastard if all of the children in the area have decent eyesight and hearing abilities. Cause if those kids don't get out of my way, it's their own damn fault. Maybe if you can see and hear so damn perfectly you should have seen or heard my car Little Johnny.

As if I would be driving down the road, see a child playing in the street and say, "Eh, no need to break, I'm sure he'll hear my car coming...oh wait, wasn't there a sign saying a deaf kid was in the area?" I like to think that most drivers just try to avoid kids to be on the safe side.

Of course, these signs are just a few among many of wonderful road signs. One of my personal favorites: No Drunk Driving.

And thank God that sign exists. Cause I was driving down Grand River once, about to crack open a fifth of tequila and guzzle it down behind the wheel. But then I saw a No Drunk Driving sign and realized that wasn't allowed on this road. Which is very unusual, because most of the roads I drive on are just fine with drinking and driving. But apparently Grand River doesn't alow that.

A No Drunk Driving sign on a street is like having a No Arson sign on your house. It's like having a Please Don't Rape Me in the Ass sign on your chest.

Actually...you'd probably want that sign on your back.

There's everyone's old favorite, the "Prison in Area: Don't pick up hitchhikers." That's a reassuring sign isn't it? I think I'd rather the sign read like this:

"Prison in Area: Feel gree to pick up all the hitchhiker's you like though, cause we got bars and walls and shit, and we keep those fuckers locked up good."

And wonderful road signs aren't limited to the US. In Canada, there's a whole variety of road signs that read like this:

"Drinking And Driving Kills: Stay Sober"
"Fatigue Kills: Take a Break"
"Tailgating Kills: Leave Some Space"

And you need that second line, cause if you just told me that Tailgating Kills that would leave me with questions. Is that a bad thing? Cause I'm only going to kill people who are driving too slowly, and won't that benefit us all in the long run?

But when you tell me to Leave Some Space, then I understand. Tailgating Kills, AND Canada would rather I not kill people. Without that second line, it's a little ambiguous.

Finally there's the "Kill a construction worker: 15 years in prison + $7500 fine." Is there anyone on the planet who is undettered by 15 years in prison, but couldn't handle that $7500 fine? Cause if so, they need to get into a line of work that pays them slightly more than five hundred bucks a year. Plus, do we really need to make it explicitly clear that if you run someone over, that's a very bad thing? Is the penalty not as bad if I hit a pedestrian? What if the pedestrian happens to be a construction worker, but isn't working at the time?

And what about if the pedestrian is a neural surgeon, or a nuclear engineer? Is the fine higher, since economically speaking those people are more valuable?

But nothing will ever take the place of my favorite sign. It was a billboard, in central Michigan. The billboard advertised for an Amish craft store somewhere in the area. In the upper corner of the billboard was the following:

www.amishcrafts.com

Back to School

Well, it's September, and for most of my readers that means it's time to head back to school. Or at the very least it means that for me, and frankly that's the only reader I really care about.

The first few days of class are always a fun time. There's the pointless "class introductions" in which you teacher makes you share your name, hometown, and feelings about the designated hitter rule...or at least that's what I'd ask for if I was a prof. Cause it's not like it matters what you have kids talk about, the only thing the rest of the kids are doing is thinking about what they're going to say on their turns. Like I really give a shit what town Popped-Collar Boy is from back in Cali.

But I'm a solutions-oriented guy, so here are some ways you Profs (a higher percentage of my readers have PhDs than you might think) can make introductions more interesting:

- Ask students when/if they lost their virginity
- Ask students to include their favorite sexual position
- Ask students which student in the class they think is the most attractive (borrowing from Donnie Darko)

Another part I love about the first days of class is when Professors talk about how to contact them with questions, and then always point out that the best way is really to send them an email. Which differentiates them from all my profs who prefer to be contacted by carrier pigeon.

And hand-in-hand with college comes Facebook...with it's HORRIBLE NEW FACE. I'm sure by now you're all familiar with the terrible crimes that Facebook has recently perpetrated on humanity. If not, go check it out, and then come back, after you're through recoiling in fear.

Here are my actual thoughts on the new Facebook and the overreaction of the Facebook community to it. First, obviously the changes they've implemented are drastic and doing it without warning was just flat out stupid. I grant that they offer a free product, but they should've seen this backlash coming regardless. Second, I'm assuming that in the next day or two we'll see something pop up giving us the option of using this feed or going back to Facebook Classic and an option to permantly turn off our mini-feeds rather than X out individual changes. (If you've found a way to do this, please let me know)

Third, what all the complaints about New Facebook really illustrate is what a massively powerful change the News Feed actually is. As near as I can tell the Feed was implemented on Monday night. Since then, dozens of "New Facebook Sucks" groups have popped up. Under the old Facebook system, most of these groups would have gained maybe a few dozen members. Maybe you leafed through your friend's profile, noticed this group and joined it. Or maybe your friend explicitly invited you or something. But by and large, most of us wouldn't find out about such a group's existence.

Under New Facebook Rules, the "Students against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook)" Group has grown, in just 48 hours or so, to 480,000 members. Over 100,000 have joined in the last 5 hours or so. In just the last 5 minutes, over 1600 students have joined. That's 5 students joining per second. That's un-fucking believeable. I imagine it's only a matter of time before it's the largest group facebook has ever had. Which speaks to at least one benefit of New Facebook.

Also the Crocodile Hunter died...so that sucks.