Today, spring football practice winds up for the SU football team, culminating in the annual spring scrimmage. Few people outside of these parts care, of course, but here, we’re all hoping that our new coach can turn things around. He has a pretty tough job ahead of him, but so far, so good. We’ll have to see if that translates into wins.

Just so you don’t think we’re all a bunch of tea-bagging assholes up here, I thought I’d offer up this story. It’s about a woman paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. While she was in the hospital, her family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and complete strangers decided to surprise her with a wheelchair ramp. One thing led to another, and they wound up tearing the house down to the frame and completely remodeling it, adding two entrances with ramps, new windows, floors and door frames, a new roof, new water and heating systems, and they even re-landscaped her property.

Inspiring story, to be sure. Funny, though, if the government had had a hand in it, it would’ve been condemned as an act of evil socialism.

This woman from the UK with the nice voice – Susan Boyle – has become quite a hit. I heard them discussing her on an NPR news show yesterday while I was on my way to one of those socialist, government-sponsored parks that the tea-baggers want to do away with. They were trying to decide if this was a “big” story because it shows that you shouldn’t judge someone by appearances.

No, that’s not it. The real story is that, taken collectively, human beings are really shallow, nasty scumbags, who laugh at a woman coming out on stage to perform because she doesn’t conform to what society has decided people should look like. We titter and squirm with delighted anticipation at the prospect of them making a fool of themselves right there on the teevee, and can’t wait for Simon Cowlick (or whatever that fuck’s name is) to berate and humiliate them for our own amusement. I personally see no reason to watch people being deliberately mean to other people on the teevee (don’t we have enough of that in the “real” world?), and no reason to make a point of putting “contestants” on TV, just for the purpose of being laughed at.

I admit I don’t get the whole televised Karaoke thing, but surely they could weed out the people with no talent in the auditions. Except, where would the “fun” be in that?

Of course, Susan Boyle does have talent (a nice enough voice, I guess; I’m no expert), so good for her. If she makes us think twice before assuming that somebody who isn’t “beautiful” will suck, then that’s fine. But the “big” story (IMHO), is what a fucked-up value system we humans (at least we “Western” humans) have.

Here’s hoping we get our shit together some day. And win a few football games, too.

I’ll miss Texas. I’ve never actually been there, but I often enjoy Austin City Limits. And I like Lyle Lovett (never could understand what he saw in Julia Roberts, but love is a funny thing) and Willie Nelson. Still, I’m looking at the 2000 Presidential election, and without Texas it looks like Gore 266 – Bush 239 (Kerry would still have come out on the short end, 252-251, but I hear Georgia is looking to secede, too). Plus, Texas is the second largest recipient of Federal tax dollars (California being #1 and New York being #3).

Of course, Texas rakes in more than they pay out, unlike both NY and CA, which both pay out way more than they see from the Feds. And, if we believe the assertion that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder while noting that Texas’ per capita murder rate is above the national average (20^th in the US) even though they execute more people than anybody (and have the second highest per capita execution rate), we have to conclude that Texas is full of cold-blooded killers. Either that or the death penalty isn’t much of a deterrent – and we all know that can’t be true.

Oh, I reckon we’ll miss their oil. But without the Texas oil lobby writing our energy policy, maybe we can get off the fossil fuel, and stop spending trillions protecting US oil interests in the Middle East. We’d also be able to funnel more FEMA dollars into helping out LA, FL, the other Gulf and coastal states during hurricane season if we didn’t have to spend it on Houston, Galveston, etc.

I don’t eat beef, so they can keep their cattle (there’s always Canada for the meatheads out there; if we wanted to keep it an even 50 states, we could invite Ontario to join, but we’d have to get our shit together and enact universal health care first), and I’m not sure what else Texas has (unless there’s a market for brush, tumbleweeds, and road apples out there that I’m not aware of).

Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but God seems to hate Texas; seems like it’s always either flooded or drought-stricken. If being a good Christian is supposed to afford you a “protective shield” from God, then somebody’s not getting the job done down there.

So, yeah, I’ll miss Texas, and I feel bad for all the good folks in the Lone Star State, but between the drain on the Federal treasury, the corrupt politicians, the cold-blooded killers, and it being god-forsaken, I guess if they want to go, well, so be it. Whether Texans want to see if they can get a better deal from Mexico, or just become free-agents (they can even elect dubya President of Texas), I wish them all the best.

Vaya con Dios amigos!

Turns out, the NSA has been spying on us even more than they’re supposed to (and they’re supposed to spy on us a lot, I think). They call it an “overcollection” problem, and they even spied on a sitting Congressman. I thought it was the FBI’s job to spy on Congress? I think the NSA is a bunch of douchebags, so I’m calling on all real Americans come together en masse and hold D-bag parties (dates and locations TBA) to D-bag the NSA.

I think this idea will go viral, and my goal is to raise enough money to leave a million D-bags (or at least one D-bag for every D-bag in the NSA) on the steps of the NSA (assuming they have steps; can’t say as I recall what their building looks like). And by “my goal,” what I mean to say is I hope somebody else will do it. Maybe Move-On or something. If you can’t make it to a party near you, then stay at home and D-bag yourself (which is a lot easier than T-bagging yourself, unless you’re really, really flexible).

Speaking of douchebags, our Governor is planning on introducing legislation to legalize gay marriage in New York. That’s all well and good (hard for me to believe it requires new legislation; if it’s legal for one person to marry another person, then that’s all we should need), but I can’t help but think this is some sort of a plan by Paterson to improve his popularity ratings. Everybody pretty much despises him at this point, so if he at least can improve his popularity with gay people, his numbers have to go up at least a little bit. Kind of a “gay bump.” The anti-human rights people are poised to oppose the legislation, of course (ironic that these are the same people who were running around T-bagging each other yesterday).

In other douchebag news (or, rather, news involving douche bags), 63% of Minnesotans want Norm Coleman to give it up already. Apparently 37% of Minnesotans are lawyers.

Another beautiful day shaping up here. I’ll have to fire up a couple of web cam sites at work so I can see it.

For many radio stations, it appears, they’re getting what they pay for. Rush Limbaugh gives his show away for free to small and medium markets, in exchange for advertising time. Doesn’t really surprise, me, and I reckon that’s probably been Air America’s business plan, too. Unfortunately, as regards their current lineup, I doubt they can even give it away.

As many of us struggle to get our shit (and dollars) together to pay our taxes, it’s comforting to know that offshore corporate tax scams are stealing $100 billion a year (give or take) in tax revenue that the rest of us have to make up for. You can see a state-by-state breakdown of how much you’re getting fleeced for here. In New York, it’s over $8 billion. That’s about half of the State’s budget deficit (the one that’s got Governor Blinky calling for layoffs and massive cuts to health care and education – among other things). In other words, if we could recover that money, we’d balance the books in two years. In theory, anyway. In practice, Republicans would just ram through tax cuts for rich people and we’d be in the same hole we’re in now.

Still, you’d think if they can tell you how much money we’re supposed to be getting, they could change the tax laws to plug the hole in the dike. But that’s probably just Socialist crazy talk.

I hope this isn’t too obvious (no doubt Vernon will do better later on):

It’s that time of year when they offer tax filing tidbits, and here’s one I thought was pretty interesting: debt reduction. Turns out, if you’re in the hole, debt-wise (you know, like, you’ve been laid off or hit by medical bills or that big balloon payment came due), and managed to get your credit card company or somebody else to whom you owe money to forgive part of the debt, the amount that was written off is taxable income, so you’ve got to declare it.

At the same time, the credit card company gets to write that same amount off as a loss. Now, let’s review:

You struggle to make minimum payments for a few years, paying thousands in interest and barely touching the principal. If you’re “lucky,” after making back two or three (or corporate Jesus know how many) times what they loaned you in the first place, they “forgive” what’s left that you owe, and you have to add that amount as taxable income, while the corporate pirates brave captains of industry that made money off your misfortune get a tax write-off. Sounds fair to me.

No word yet on whether taxpayer bailout money counts as corporate income. My guess? Not so much.

Makes you want to jump into a pen full of polar bears.

It seems once or twice a year we need to go over this, so here we go again….
 
Yes, polar bears are very cute. And yes, they do, indeed, want to play with you. But no, it will not be as much fun as you thought it was gonna be. For you.
 
For the bears, however, it’ll be a pleasant diversion from a boring day of lying around the pool getting ogled by stupid tourists.

Of course, the big news of the weekend (other than the new Obama dog) was the successful rescue of Captain Phillips from the dread Somali pirates. We’re all happy about that (well, most of us; polls show that 3 out of 4 pirates disapprove of the way the situation was resolved), but there seems to be an awful lot of animosity out there directed toward the pirates. I don’t know why, really. They’ve obviously identified a niche in the market, which they’re attempting to fill.

When their actions result in loss of life or tear apart a family, we call them pirates and criminals. When a CEO decides to move his company’s manufacturing to Indonesia in order to exploit the cheap labor (and, in the process, destroy the lives of hundreds of families), we call him a shrewd businessman. When an insurance company denies a claim for a life-saving procedure to save money, we call it the “best health care in the world.” If a financial institution uses every loophole imaginable to avoid paying taxes, then takes billions in tax payer dollars in order to pay more in annual bonuses than most taxpayers will make in a lifetime, it’s called “contractual obligation.”

At least the pirates don’t hide behind the “invisible hand of the market” and “fiduciary responsibility” to justify their actions. They know the risks and rewards of their chosen profession, and if they wind up with a bullet in the head, well, so be it. They may be greedy criminals who don’t care who they have to kill or ruin to get their way, but at least they aren’t pretending to be saintly, misunderstood captains of industry making the world a better place. They may be scumbags, but at least they’re not lying, pretentious scumbags.

Which I guess is the difference between pirates and capitalists.

Whether you celebrate Easter or, like me, have Easter thrust upon you, have a happy, honeybaked ham kind of day (or lasagna, in my case).

Speaking of hams, today’s porcine purveyors of pompously pedantic picayune prognostication include…

On Press the Meat, it’s Jeff Goldberg, from The Atlantic, NPR’s Michele Norris, Robin Wright of the Washington Post and The Washington Examiner’s Byron “the dork” York. Plus Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson from NPR’s popular “Planet Money” (obviously not the same planet I live on).

Over on CBS’s Faze the Nation, Bob Scheiffer has Mexican Ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukan (are they sure he isn’t Armenian?), Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post, David Sanger form the NY Times, and conservative columnist Kathleen Parker (who at least knows a pig in lipstick when she sees one).

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Democratic Senator Evan Bayh and Rethuglican Tom Coburn. Then a couple of twits from the Fux Business Network (the only network that can make CNBC seem prescient), Liz Claman and Jenna “Jameson” Lee, and this week’s “Power Player,” Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington (shouldn’t he be in church or something?). Plus the usual bunch of fuxheads.

The Goebbels network really cranks up the porkometer, as George Snufalufagus hosts homophobic Pastor (and Obama buddy) Rick Warren. The pig parade continues at the Roundtable with disgraced former House Speaker Newt “pigface” Gingrich, pork puller George :jerk: Will, WaPost columnist (and Alberto Gonzalez defender), Ruth Marcus, and Paul Krugman (how’d he sneak on there?).

Later, on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley reports on the “DEKA Arm,” which is making it possible for amputees to pick up small, delicate objects they never thought possible. Lesley Stahl reports that, thanks to the shitty economic times and Baracknophobia, there’s a run on guns in this country (oh boy, that’s what we need – heavily armed and desperate morons; if they’d just shoot each other, it would be OK, but they seem intent on fucking things up for the rest of us). And Charlie Rose talks to Steve Wynn, who is apparently a casino mogul whose eye disease is slowing making him go blind.

Whether you dine on ham, lasagna, or Matzoh, have a good Sunday.

UPDATE: Finally, a First Puppy.

I’m sure the self-righteous wingnuts will be outraged that Obama let this dog get lei’d at such a young age. And of course PETA will be no less outraged, seeing as the puppy didn’t come from a rescue shelter.

I’ve been eating a lot of stir-fry veggies these days (mostly because it’s easy, and I may not be cheap, but I’m definitely easy). That, and the rather copious amounts of Cascazilla red ale I’ve been consuming since they jacked up the price of Hop Devil, means I can pretty much fart on demand (not wimpy farts, either, but knock-the-buzzard-off-a-shit-wagon, peel-the-wallpaper-off-the-wall farts that even the dogs run away from). If Captain Richard Phillips ate stir fry and drank beer, this whole goddamn hostage thing would have been over days ago (the pirates would be begging the US Navy to throw them in the brig).

It comes in pretty handy at the store when those pushy goddamn women seem intent on shoving their grocery carts up my ass. I also like to pause and leave a little something behind for those people that feel compelled to catch up on old times with their long lost friends in the middle of the goddamn aisle while the rest of us are just trying to pick up beer and veggies and get home.

It never ceases to amaze me that it apparently has never dawned on so many of these idiots that there are actually other people in the world. Sure, but run them over with your shopping basket, and you’re the asshole.

There’s something horribly wrong with a world where tickets to see Arnold Dorsey Engelbert Humperdinck are 150% more expensive than tickets to see Buddy Guy. I mean, Engelbert was a hit with the old broads (like my mom) back in the 60’s (mostly the sexually repressed Catholic girls that found his name titillating, I bet), but most of those women (like my mom) must be dead by now. And, let’s face it, Engelbert Humperdinck is no Tom Jones.

Buddy Guy at #30 in the top 100 Guitarists of all time shows what a piece of crap Rolling Stone – Matt Taibi aside – magazine is (or at least has become); one gets the impression that they’ve never heard – let alone seen – Buddy play. I’d ask them how they came up with that list, but Obama would probably invoke state secrets. On second thought, since Buddy is a Chicago guy, maybe Obama would be down with wiretapping the RS office phones in an effort to find out what the deal us.

You know, I used to wonder how bad things could get if Bush wasn’t such a dummy. Obama is certainly no dummy. :paranoid:

It occurs to me that only Christians (and maybe “24” fans), with their penchant for torture porn, would call a day where you get nailed to a cross and left to suffer and die (after having your ass kicked all day dragging said cross through town) “good.”

But have a good Friday (so to speak) anyway.

Today is the end of an era here in the ‘Cuse, as the Syracuse China plant closes its doors. Oh, the current parent company – Libby – will keep stamping “Syracuse” on a line of china; it just won’t be made in the United States (let alone Syracuse) anymore. Let’s hope there aren’t any heavily armed and close to the edge paranoid schizophrenics amongst the soon to be unemployed. To add injury to injury, the Ball Corporation announced it’s closing their plant here, in July. Not to worry, though; we’re building a really, really big mall.

We have a bit of an eccentric stove in my house (it’s a Tappan – a brand I cannot recommend). It worked fairly well when I first bought it, but soon developed some sort of a neural disorder affecting the electronic burner ignition system. You turn, say, the right front knob, and the left rear burner starts sparking. Or you turn the front left one on, and the left rear one sparks. Or you turn the front left knob a little bit, and the front right one sparks, but you turn the knob a little further, and the right rear one starts. Unfortunately it’s not consistent, so you’re never sure which one will spark. I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out which one’s clicking, and then turning on the gas to the one that seems to be firing (which of course causes a third burner to start clicking).

Sometimes I just turn ’em all on, and hope at least one of the damn things lights up (which can take a while, allowing the gas to accumulate under a frying pan or something, before suddenly exploding in a huge fireball, which is simultaneously very scary and really cool – especially if the kitchen lights are off). It’s kind of fun standing there, listening to the gas come rolling out and the four sparkers clicking, deciding how long to wait before shutting them off (I can hear Clint Eastwood whispering in my ear through clenched teeth, “are you feeling lucky, punk?”). Kind of a kitchen version of “chicken.”

Of course, sometimes you might want a specific burner to light, so you have to do it the old fashioned way – with a match. For this purpose, we have a box of wooden kitchen matches up in the cupboard. This box (which precedes my presence in the house), has a rather emphatically scrawled (complete with multiple underlines)

TOP

written across the top of the box. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision how that came to be (makes me laugh every time I see it).

Now, I’m sure there are many of you out there (particularly the females) who are saying to yourselves, “well that’s a very smart thing to do, labeling the top of the box so you don’t spill all the matches out.” And I suppose it is, but to me it epitomizes one of the differences between men and women – namely, the lack of an inclination to check before fully committing to a course of action that may have unpleasant ramifications (you know, like invading and occupying Iraq, or increasing troop levels in Afghanistan 🙄 ). The prime example of this, of course, is the toilet seat. Men who live with women are typically forced to put the toilet seat down (unless we want to be awakened in the middle of the night by an outraged – and somewhat damp – woman, hovering over us menacing, cursing like a sailor, and threatening a rather specific sort of bodily harm).

Contrary to popular belief, there are times that I, too, require the seat to be down, and on those occasions, I naturally check to make sure it is down before I assume the position (much like I only partially slide the match box cover open, until I’m sure I’ve got it right-side up). Now, I’ll admit that I’ve never actually fallen into the toilet, but I’m fairly certain that if it happened once, I’d never forget to check again.

I can hear the women out there now saying, “I don’t need the seat up, so why should I have to put it down?” A fair point, I guess, except I would counter with the argument that, while you don’t need the seat up, I’m pretty sure you’d just as soon that I didn’t leave it down (on a side note, it was years before it suddenly dawned on me one day why public toilet seats are horseshoe shaped). I’ve always thought the best way to get a woman to quit complaining about you not putting the seat down is to stop putting it up.

But, of course, putting the seat down is a small gesture, and the desire to preserve the peace greatly outweighs the slight effort it takes (and of course I refer not to physical effort, but the effort to remember to do it). Especially if you’d like to wake up with all the body parts you went to bed with (John Wayne Bobbitt left the seat up one time too many after a drunken night out on the town).

As I used to tell my stepson (who suffered alone in a house full of four women, and two female cats before I came along), you gotta pick your battles; no point in squandering good will on something trivial. In fact, in our house, putting the seat down isn’t enough; I have to put the lid down, too (not sure if Granny drowned in a past life or something).

Not on Sunday, though, as we’ll be having Easter dinner over at my in-laws, where my father-in-law is king of his castle, and a man is free to leave the seat up to his heart’s content.