KicK! Making Politics Fun

The George Tenet book, At The Center of the Storm, hit the shelves today brimming with attacks on the Bush  Administration for going to war on bad intelligence, politicizing war, and conducting no serious debate as it was pre decided by our Great Decider and his gang of NeoCon ideologues. Tenet's main concern was how the administration used his off the cuff "slam dunk" comment to sell the war to the American people, and then as it deteriorated, blamed Tenet for the war gone bad.

What was the Fox News Sunday Spin? Brit Hume ignored all such issues to say that the only substantial part of the book was that it sold the idea that torture in Guantanamo -- waterboarding and such -- worked at saving thousands of Americans lives. Hume reviewed a book about how a war went bad to promote torture.

William Kristol, the resident Fox News NeoCon pundit who helped plan this war in 1991 and has pushed it as his central purpose in life now for 16 years, also completely ignored the issues and charged Tenet with attacking an underling who was a poor innocent woman! Crazyass Fox News, the number one source of News in America!

25 years ago, higher education began the purge of school nicknames and mascots derived from indigenous peoples. The Dickson State Savages of 1972 became the Blue Hawks, just after the Marquette Warriors became known as the Hawks. Wisconsin Willie Wampum was withdrawn. 

It was the beginning of a new practice - naming College Sports programs after threatened wildlife. In the haste for change, in flew the Falcons and the Griffons and even America's own symbol of freedom. According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service at FWS.GOV "The Bald Eagle is also endangered in the U.S.A. conterminous States" -- that is the 'lower 48' for those of you not smarter than a 5th grader.

It's everywhere this week that America needs heroes. It is what the Conservatives are saying, along with needing to have something to laugh at too. Presenting the latest Internet meme -- 40,000+ jokes by his own reckoning -- of "More New Facts about Chuck Norris" for all stages of a conservative's life.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice (or Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle).Good stuff for the elementary school kid who, outside of selfishness, probably hasn't really forged any kind of right leaning tendencies yet. Just standard superhero fare of accomplishing the impossible.

Chuck Norris can slam revolving doors (or Chuck Norris can tie shoes with his feet).Funny stuff for young kids and TY-Y rated since there's no weaker sex stuff yet. Cute exaggerated comments that Republican Moms and Dads can enjoy right along with the children.

Military-Va. Tech flag controversy - Focus on Afghanistan - MSNBC.com

Sgt. Jim Wilt fighting in Afghanistan is angry about our flags at half mast for the Virginia Tech students. He wants our flags at half mast for soldiers who die in Afganistan and Iraq. It is the talking point of the day as the media questions, "Yes indeed, why is that?" Hello...

My question is who is the biggest dumbass, Sgt. Wilt or The Media? My vote goes to the Media because Sgt. Wilt was just mindlessly yaking.

If we were to put all our flags at half mast every time a soldier died, we would no longer experience flags at full mast. Which would not only make the process meaningless in itself, but would surely cause us to have flag poles then cut in half to save you tax money! And then... We would soon manufacture half sized poles. And as progression goes, soon all our flags would be the same size as the ones we line our sidewalks with or wave above our heads on the 4th of July.

NBC walks fine line - Roanoke.com (Here is the standard bleat on this issue)

I do not like this business about blaming the media for telling us about this crazyass gunloon, I do not like it atall. It's not about civil discourse, but political correctness. Which is the primary reason conservatives have been in charge for most of a generation -- PC is Liberal Nazism -- it worked. This is absurd, did we not want to know who Lee Harvey Oswald was, James Earl Ray, John Wilkes Booth, Josep Mengele? Come on... HELLO...

I want the media to show me reality rather than emotional poo-poo. I want the media to tell me the truth rather than the dishonesty of censored omission. I also find myself relating this horrible mass murder to events on the ground in Iraq. There are more victims and families suffering this same thing every goddamn day. And there aint no busloads of counselors working that shift, the only recourse the stricken families find there is perhaps a few kind words from the body part cleanup squads.

(reprint of article originally published here on 12/30/2006)

Early in January - quite possibly the very first day of the New Year - a very large number of people in a major  northeastern city will become very sick upon waking. There will be severe headaches and nausea with some sort of  connection to beverages from France, or possibly California.

Soon thereafter, in nearly the exact same area,  hundreds of people will get sick eating Chihuahua tacos? It makes no sense, but this is clear as a bell - Tacos. Really  limp, smelly tacos which points to either lettuce or perhaps green onions being the culprit for the mass illnesses in  New Jersey or New York. But this remains a source of confusion since how can a thousand people getting sick by eating  at Taco Bell be a major news story.

Conservatives are having a gay old time over the fall of "liberal" Don Imus. The talking buttheads are gigglin' because the Left has managed to remove a popular Left leaning Good Ole Boy who gave Democrats and liberals a loud voice in conservative dominated talk radio, to be replaced with yet another intolerant loud mouthed conservative -- who like the rest of his ilk -- ply's his overwhelming bigotry and racism in a more popular syntax. MSNBC found the country so lacking in intolerant Right-wing bigots on AM radio, they had to fill the hole. So now each morning on TV we can all watch Smerconish rail against negroes, immigrants, Mexicans, foreigners, Muslims, Arabs, Democrats and above all Liberals. MSNBC wants to be fair.

12 video games sold by Ebay user BLAZERS5505 (Blazers5505@hotmail.com): Aliens, bombers, and rooms! Destroyers, blasting and hunting ... Dinosaurs and Tetris Attacks!!

Galaxian expanded on the formula pioneered by Space Invaders. Bomberkids - A multiplayer bomberman. The Fourth Element is a good clone of the original Connect Four. JezzBall is a computer game in which red-and-white balls, referred to as atoms, bounce about a rectangular field of play, or room.

Labyrinth is a challenging game where you navigate a square through a maze. Mars Patrol is a side-scrolling adventure where you have to jump over pits and blast away boulders to clear a path for your vehicle. Subhunt is a classic game (where) you control a destroyer that floats above many passing U-Boats. Uncle Worm is a simple game that plays very much like the old classic Snake.

Yoshi is a dinosaurlike video game character appearing in a number of video games produced by Nintendo. Block Dude - a puzzle/action game in which you move blocks to navigate to the end of the level. Tetris Attack - Description, Just like on the gameboy. This has nothing to do with Tetris! Pegs - Description, A game of object elimination.

Original research along with game descriptions taken from the first line of Wikipedia.org when available, or the first line of TI-Calc.org -- the platform on which the games would play. Video games are in the order of the auction listing, with the last four being part of a multi-game pack.

CNN curmudgeon Jack Cafferty was dumb founded when he asked why these school shootings happen only in America. Hello...

Call it the FIRST world, the WEST, the INDUSTRIALIZED world or the CIVILIZED world no matter, America stands aloof. In magnitudes the United States beats the rest of that world in regards to:

Gun Availability, Gun Violence, Rape, Assault, Corporeal Punishment, Capital Punishment, War

And there you have it Jack.

There seems to be three factors that differentiate us from the Rest of the West. Over the top capitalism, historically embedded racism and crazyass religion.

The first is about anger caused by our ever increasing disparity of wealth and class. The second concerns anger caused by exclusion, unfairness and bigotry. And the latter which shifts responsibility from the individual to the supernatural.  And there you have it America. Get your shit together.

Relative Reality Check: This happens everyday in THIRD world Iraq. EVERY DAY. And whose fault is that? The United States' propensity for violent solutions(war) and crazyass religion. Bad mix.

Chris Wallace, conservative moderator of Fox News Sunday, had Al Sharpton in the hot seat for most of a half an hour to discuss the Don Imus issue. Other than referring to Don Imus in the first sentence, Wallace spend the entire time attacking Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Hip-Hop, Black Comedians, Twaina Brawley and the Duke Stripper. The issue of racism on AM Radio (or anywhere else) was most obviously avoided. Even Juan Williams (Half of Fox News’ Liberal GoFor Duo – Allan Combs the other) chimed in to only attack Sharpton, Jackson and Hip Hop. Williams was followed by Brit Hume and Bill Kristol to reiterate the horror of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Hip Hop while they laughed and giggled that liberals are more racist than conservatives. Gosh... And they get away that.

They live in the house behind us. They live next door and across the street too. It's the Ned Flanders family. Most worrisome is I think they now inhabit our residence and we never saw it coming.

We'd have never moved into the neighborhood if we knew THEY lived here. But it was never obvious since everybody pulled into their driveway just before 5:30, pressed the Sears garage door opener, and immediately disappeared into their own private batcave. There was no keeping up with the Flanders since you never really saw them long enough to see whether they were driving an Altima, Accord or Camry.

We've lost a very important American tradition: To complain about our neighbors. If you live in the city you can complain that they are too close. In the country you can complain that they don't visit enough. But in the new Suburbia, even the old coots can't complain about kids on their lawns.

The kids in suburban areas don't play outside -- swimming, tennis, soccer, and even bicycling are now inside sports when you move to the $175,000 subdivisions. And all of those require professional tutelage. For fifty bucks your kindergartener can attend a class with a trained expert so they can learn how to ride a two wheeler bike from a stranger. Son-of-a-diddly, indeed, Ned!

The realtors tell all the prospective Ned Flanders and the Ned Flanders wannabees about the local school system and it must work in attracting them. But Mrs. Flanders of the North has no reason to ever meet up with Mrs. Flanders of the East since their children all end up attending entirely different private schools.

And all those planned activities to nourish the little Rods and Todds means Ned Flanders #6 never runs into Ned Flanders #9 around the neighborhood. So as we end the trip through master-planned communities filled with Ned Flanders on every corner, this Odyssey ends with the plea "Where's Homer?"