The Sinister Sunday.

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A day late, but still in time for titular alliteration (that sounds naughty…) welcome to the Sinister Saturday: The Special Sinister Sunday Edition!!! Man, I suck…really, I’m just awful.

As always – and now in its monumental second week – I will do a quick roll through the news that I liked, but did not like enough to use as the basis for a full post. Then, because I love each and every one of you like a precious desert flower, I will give a point to some blogs that I think that you must read if you are to flourish as a human person.

The Sinister Six

1. General David Petraeus testified before Congress. This means that Petraeus was subjected to eight-minute-long questions in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Since he had a day in between sessions, the General was free to find more nuanced ways to avoid explaining failure. It says a great many things about American politics that the only decent question came from a very old man who is retiring. While the departing John Warner made Petraeus look like a grad student defending his thesis, Barack Obama asked a question so lengthy that it appeared to be a campaign speech. Oh wait, I get it…

2. Bill Belichick, coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots and a bona fide Sith Lord was fined $500 000 for allowing his staff to film the defensive coaches of the New York Jets. The New York Jets? The Jets needed to be cheated to lose in the same was that you’d need to trick a squeegee guy to take your money. Word is that Bill was so upset that he trashed the training facility with purple lightning.

3.OJ “I’m not a vicious murderer” Simpson was arrested for a crime that is not going to become a really terrible book; apparently trying to retrieve some of his personal memorabilia from a casino. After all, a guy who didn’t murder his wife would have no reason to sell signed bits of crap under the table to avoid the thirty billion dollar civil penalty pinned on him when he didn’t have Johnny Cochrane in the room. Of course, given OJ’s history with the law, it would never occur to him that he’d be able to commit a crime and get away with it.

4. Since I waited until Sunday to write this, I got to see John McCain (R-Old and Busted) debate John Kerry (D-Dead and Loving It) debate on Meet the Press. This was a cruel joke. Of the two, Kerry was clearly the more concise as he knew full well that he would not win the upcoming presidential election.
5. A decidedly less than toned Britney Spears performed at the VMAs. Looking bloated and slightly confused, Spears appauled. While the reviews were bad, I can honestly say that she did not soil herself. There’s always and upside, people…

6. In a story that we know involves a woman soiling herself, the astronaut who traveled across the US in a diaper was commended by Buzz Aldrin for her resolve. We now have far more insight into what you do for kicks after have been to the moon.

You will no doubt be thrilled to visit some of this week’s blogs that tickled my fancy. As always, please drop in on them and give a visit to humor-blogs.com.

The Second Sinister Six

1. Howard, benevolent proprietor of The Web Pen Blog gives us some video goodness in the form of the latest from They Might Be Giants. This is serious nostalgia for me, and serves as a reminder of the dangers of writing your politics to music instead of adding a dash of politics into a song.
2. Ev Nucci, the mistress of My Life is Murphy’s Law has landed here, but potentially for the wrong reasons. There is some evidence that she might have stolen my favorite fountain pen. That pen really tied the room together.
3. I was going to give Karl Wolfbrooks at Faking Smart! a shout for saying things about Brett Favre, but instead, I wanted to highlight this newer and far creepier post. Creepier than the Green Bay Packers? Yup.
4. Just A Cool Cat proposes the best mandate for NASA leadership that I have heard of since the demise of Mars Direct. However, Mr. Cat, what about the limes? Where do the limes go?
5. Brent at The Ominous Comma (probably my favorite blog name ever…) announces with linguistic dexterity, that he has been named to the elite brotherhood of the… Go read the damn thing yourself.
6. While I normally don’t read book reviews, Aunt Bea at Central Snark offers one worth the time. Apparently a grave mistake was made, and the terrible and all powerful Diesel was asked for his two cents. The tragic result is a fine read.

 

 

 

 

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The Sinister Saturday

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Like many of my colleagues at humor-blogs.com, I’ve decided to flag down the week’s blogs I noticed and unlike many of them, I’ve also gathered news items that I took note of, but couldn’t muster the brain wattage to write a full post on. If I don’t get to you, don’t assume that I don’t care; just blame it on my addiction to old-people vitamins.

The Sinister Six

1. Osama bin Laden has released a new video but I couldn’t really focus since I kept wondering :
A) Why is he still alive?
B) How he thought that no one would notice that he had chosen to dye his beard? May Allah, we praise him, bless you in the holy Jihad and here’s some Just for Men. Wait…what? It occurs to me that you probably can’t buy commercial hair coloring in a Pakistani cave, so it’s either shoe polish or the byproduct of a goat.
Further, he spends an inordinate amount of time discussing how Whoopi is wrong for The View.

2. Potentially not a Senator Larry Craig has rescinded the previous retraction of his originally withdrawn resignation – did I get that right? If he has this much trouble quitting a job after being found guilty of lewdness, no wonder he flaps around like a netted flounder when he’s taking a crap.

3. In a chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong, NBC has added noted liberal orator and occasional newsman Keith Olbermann to the regular on air team of Football Night in America. While it is refreshingly obvious that Chris Collinsworth, Bob Costas and Tiki Barber have no idea why he’s there, it’s equally obvious that former wide receiver Collinsworth finds Olbermann to be an unmitigated tool and that this feeling is mutually expressed. Tiki Barber kept looking at his co hosts with the clear intent of not misreading the teleprompter.

4. Fred Thompson has officially announced that he is now a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. In a dreadfully long announcement on his website and an appearance on the Tonight Show, the ursine former Senator tried to look presidential without looking like a district attorney, a fleet admiral or any of the other serious roles where’s he’s asked to imitate a figure of genuine authori…oh, I get it.

5. David Letterman, in a clear sign that he is the real king of late night, made international headlines by agreeing to be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. The last time Jay Leno made news was when he announced his 2009 retirement. The next time he will make the news will be when that occurs.

6. Luciano Pavarotti died on Thursday; he was 71. There’s no joke here, of course and I sincerely hope (despite my own atheism) that he finds a corner of the afterlife with comfortable chairs and a good Alfredo sauce.

The Second Sinister Six

Okay, I think that we’re all a little tired of that “Sinister Whatever” thing now – if I weren’t such a lazy, uncaring baboon, I’d go back to think of something better.

Oh well…I took note of these, please check them out;

1. Diesel at Mattress Police has opened up another caption contest displaying not only his skills at Photoshop but his unending need to plaster his head all over his web site. Check it out and enter a possible caption. I understand that the winner gets a sack of Spanish gold. And no, despite having the perfect caption, I’m not playing. So there.

2. Chris C at Nothing to See Here gives us concise analysis of one of the most bizarre products I’ve ever seen. Really, this thing is messed up and, if I might add, an affront to Jeebus.

3. Mark Jabo at Get Incensed not only linked to me (a sign of tremendous wisdom) but also provided a nice series of video links to the late Luciano Pavarotti. It’s good stuff.

4. Over at The Frog Blog, The Frogster reminds us of the long and storied history of the Rutgers football program. I had no idea.

5. In a feature that strikes a chord with my former Catholicism, Joel at Crummy Church Signs reminded us all of the importance of the Blessed Sacraments; most notably, the Sacrament of Barbeque.

6. The ‘other’ Dan (ha!) of humor-blogs.com who runs the immensely popular Dan’s Blah Blah Blog tells us the chilling story of a terrifying encounter with The Beast. The suspense might kill you, so be careful.

Next Saturday, be sure to tune in (can you tune the interwebs?) for the next installment of The Sinister Saturday. There is a good chance slight chance some remote possibility that I’ll actually get off of my ass and write something.

But remember, this is for entertainment purposes only. Please, no wagering.

 

 

 

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Your Ass and a Hole in the Ground.

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I was going to say that I hate using the word ‘stupid’ but we all know that’s not true. I really like using the word but I really hate how people react when I do. They tell me that I’m being mean; they tell me that I’m not allowing for some cultural perspective or some other damn thing. Compassion and understanding, they coo, would be more productive.

Thanks, stupid!

I jest, of course. Those people aren’t stupid, they’re undergraduates. To be really stupid you must either have done graduate work (I resemble that remark), or be part of an opinion poll.

To that end, I stumbled across this;

“…65% of Americans agree with the idea that…corporations make too much profit…”

This didn’t surprise or alarm me too much, although it did make me want to slap the next kid I see wearing a 65$ Che Guevara tee shirt. What I thought this really meant is that most people feel that multi-nationals are making too much money but are not giving any of it to them, personally. On some non-rational level, I agree with this premise. After all, I’m confident that the board of Exxon Mobil could give me three billion dollars and not really suffer for it. As it is, they’d spend that quicker than my daughters snap to attention when Dora the Explorer is on.

Trivia; Ernesto “Che” Guevara is the maternal grandfather of Boots the Monkey.

Trivia #2; I’m woefully sick of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. This guy was Castro’s Dick Cheney and his most lasting legacy is selling apparel for capitalists who run sweatshops. Che Guevara sucks gun barrels and did about as much for universal human solidarity as scrotal eczema.

Further, from the same poll:

“…the public continues to link the strength of the country with the success of business. More than seven-in-ten agree that ‘the strength of this country today is mostly based on the success of American business…’ ”

I read this four times before I could stop twitching like a marmoset with an espresso addiction. Everywhere you turn on teh internets, someone will lambaste you with the wisdom of Critical Thinking. My background is in philosophy, and to me, Critical Thinking is to philosophy what taking your pants off and talking dirty is to sex. It sure helps, but it ain’t the whole production. Also, you should never do it alone.

Obviously, this reflects a bias of mine (as does my amazing auto erotic response to the sight of kitchen shears) but at least the critical thinking crowd is trying. At their best, they are as sharp as a thing that you would expect to be well… very, very sharp. At their worst, they become Sean Hannity.

Wow. That is much worse than they deserve.

Most people are in conflict and dislike what they require, precisely because they require it and it is not in their control. There’s probably a clinical term for this, but I’m just going to return to my flagship term; stupid. No one blames a bakery for hoarding flour, after all (unless it’s those damnable Keebler Elves – their stuff is laced with ground up pixie bones), but cash is always its own kind of strange.

Money is indeed a different story. While money may not be the root of all evil, it is the root of most greed – social greed most of all. Maybe what we really resent is that the uber-rich folks don’t do what we want with their stuff.

I assume that you need to live in a big, fat, rich country to bemoan that corporations – the engines of your prosperity – have too much money. I can easily see someone in a poor nation complaining that the rich nation next door has too much money, that makes sense – but I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t want to live there. When the guy across the street bought a new barbeque, I killed him, but it never occurred to me to try to live in his house – that would just be creepy.

People (particularly those who read No Logo and didn’t ask for the punch line) have a natural tendency to dislike corporations. But this tendency is natural; geeks hate the popular kids, the fugly people hate the hotties and the 23% of the American population who still support the President hate people who can read and aren’t married to a toothless first cousin.

Trivia #3: The President is so unpopular that when I started writing this, the number of people who supported him was at 26%

Trivia #4; I’m going to be murdered by an anarcho-syndicalist from Nashua, New Hampshire. His name will be Bryant, his girlfriend will be wearing a beret and his dad will either be a banker or sell commercial real estate.

I better hurry up and leave…

 

 

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Hump(s) Like a Snow Hill

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No, I’m not writing about high-minded, wintry porn devoted to the literary works of Melville – but I should, of course. Instead, I’m writing about an event that has almost as much fake love; the pre, pre, pre-primary season of the 2008 American presidential election.

Although, like a lot of porn, the Democratic side has one woman surrounded by about eight men.

Ewww - sorry. Try not to think about that. Try really hard.

Currently, the process has reached both historic and foolishly epic levels. Both sides are crammed with an unprecedented level of political bio-mass all vying for the right to lose the next election.

The Democrats have a field that is genuinely notable for its historic diversity, and the degree to which I simply do not care. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both serious contenders for the nomination, and neither of them are a white dude (Hillary, thanks to the medical wizardry of the Swiss). Additionally, they still have comic relief in the form of Dennis Kucinich who has a lot more free time since he fell into the lava at the end of The Lord of the Rings. (It occurs to me that I’ve used this joke before – I owe you all a coffee…).

Conversely, the Republicans have a collection of the whitest dudes most notably the blindingly white Mitt “Now with Bleach” Romney. However, the Republicans do have a range of political ideologies that (for them) is pretty broad. Rudolf “Frontrunner?” Giuliani is a New York moderate, Congressman Tom Tancredo is really angry about immigration, and Ron Paul is clearly the candidate who was doing the most talking when I changed the channel to watch Iron Chef.

Maybe the real meaning gets lost in translation but there’s something magical about that wisp of a Japanese actress tasting a dish and saying “These spices make me weep for my ancestors…”

I’m not talking about Iron Chef America either. While a fine show featuring a host of culinary talent (most notably the mountainous and brilliant Mario Batali) and the inimitable commentary of Alton Brown, that show has never – and I mean never – had a baseball manager state that the tempura he’d just eaten “Would inspire his team to victory among the memories of their honored dead”.

(NB – I originally mistyped Iron Chef America as “Iron Hef America” which could make for a lucrative , if nauseating, reality show about Hugh Heifner and the miracles of Viagra.)

As I’m writing this, I just finished listening to the pod cast for This Week with George Stephanopoulos and am moving on to Meet the Press. Either the networks have been implanting more cameras into my wife’s head, or I’m terribly unoriginal, because they are discussing (albeit, while presumably sober) the same topic as I’m clacking on to teh internets right now.

No, George Will is not talking about Iron Chef – although he’d be ideal as a judge;

“While I’m not ready to stand up and applaud, this spiny lobster is proof positive that the entrepreneurial spirit and the free market can make decent cuisine without anyone abusing the constitution, or inflating the welfare state…”

Presumably, he would then be killed by Chen Kenichi. But I digress.

The general wisdom being espoused is that neither party is on love with the current crop of candidates, and so the race is really wide open despite having been statistically unmoved since April. Sure, the Fundies don’t like Giuliani; presumably they’ll jump ship if given a viable alternative (The Angle of Pestilence in ’08!) and the far left has yet to find a candidate who has always been against the war and also has enough of a résumé. But that’s been the case since before everyone agreed that Spiderman 3 sucked hind teat.

In other words, in this super diverse field, neither side can pick a horse. Too many choices? Too many primary voters hesitant to go in such an unconventional direction? Not enough fat guys?

Bingo!

What the world needs now is another Howard Taft, a giant blimp-like political oracle to whom we can look (albeit not all at once). Sadly Taft is constitutionally barred from serving again because he is dead, and might still be serving on the Supreme Court. The Taft Court must have been a blast to serve on – every writ came with a basket of Buffalo wings!

Trivia – After the passage of the Certiorari Act in 1925, Chief Justice Taft celebrated by spending the weekend bathing in 500 gallons of sour cream.

Trivia #2 – That sour cream is still being served by TGI Friday’s.

Sadly, since Taft cannot run, both parties have selected alternative fat guys to get into the race to fill the Saturn-sized void left in Taft’s wake.

Republican Fat Guy; Former Senator, former actor and current potential candidate Fred Thompson. I’d endorse Fred, but only if he dresses up like the Admiral of the Enterprise that he played in The Hunt for Red October.

Democratic Fat Guy; Al Gore. Also from Tennessee, I’d endorse him if he agrees to stop writing books and shuts the hell up.

More fat guy news as it develops…

The Sinister Summer

Given that it’s summer, I have an excuse to be lazy. As such, I’d been updating less as I went places to do things with my wife and broodlings…actually, I’d just been taking more naps, but that’s not important. My premise for The Reasonable Ego has always been that it’s less like a blog and more like a newspaper column (a bad, bad newspaper) so my updates are sparse by interweb standards already.

But just because I’d been posting less for the last few weeks, it doesn’t mean I love you less…no, wait, actually it does.

Sorry.

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I See Paris, I See France.

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From high atop my perch here at The Sinister Tower, I see many things. Generally, I ignore most of what I see, preferring instead to return to the confines of my Mixology Research Center where I frustrate the staff by refusing to put anything in my Scotch. But not this week, Jim.

I have uncovered a perverse and unnatural alignment of world events. A series of events so unbelievable and so Byzantine that they rival when Alexios Angelos IV, in a brazen act of polygamy, was married to each of his footstools. In a clear indication that La République Française is slowly trying to overwhelm the Western World, I have taken note of the following news stories that now eek their way across the zeitgeist.

1. The French have elected a new French-person-in-Chief: On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy won the second round of the presidential election in which he beat the holy living Roquefort out of Marie-Ségolène Royal. The final tally had Sarkozy winning by about 2.2 million votes.

No hanging chads here.

My own reaction was mixed. I can’t say that I wanted Royal to win, but she would have been much more pleasant to look at during G8 summits. What’s really amusing about this is the reaction in the United States (surprise!). Most nations that have strong ties with France congratulated the new guy and moved on. But you whacky kids south of the border took another approach entirely - you are one zany and unpredictable global hegemon!

The American Left (motto: We’re Lost in Victory) quickly derided Sarkozy as another lap dog for President Bush. The American Right (motto: Infighting for Freedom!) seemed moderately pleased that France had elected a ‘conservative’. Bill O’Reily even lifted his personal ban on France that had apparently cost them billions of imaginary Franco-dollars as reported in many imaginary Franco-publications.

Let’s be clear though; this is France – a nation with 5 political parties that self-identify as socialist, revolutionary or communist. The “ultra-conservative” Sarkozy, in a frightening shift to the radical right, is considering that he might want to look at possibly exploring the possibility of eventually drafting some legislation to extend the workweek beyond 35 hours. Wow.

Let’s not even mention that Sarkozy is an ally of Jacques Chirac and just-resigned Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (translation: Dominic Likes Vile Bread) who did a very nice job of jointly telling the US to go pound Chauvignol prior to the invasion of Iraq. The last person to lead France that would appeal to the current American Administration was Napoleon Bonaparte.

2. Mitt “Mittens” Romney Declares War on France: In an accidental exercise of his First Amendment rights, Mitt Romney’s campaign expectorated a strategic document that listed France, Hillary Clinton and ‘Jihadism’ as “enemies…he could run against”. This would be a lot more troublesome if Mittens hadn’t already held every possible political stance in existence. Mittens Romney was for abortion, and is now against it. Mittens Romney was for gay marriage, and is now against it. Mittens Romney was against being a political tramp who would stoop so low as to eat a kettle of boiled moose droppings in exchange for your vote, and is now…you get the idea.

To illustrate how ludicrous this is, prior to seeing France as a campaign target, he was actually their Foreign Minister under the alias of Roland Dumas. Also, he used to be for Jihadism (you can’t become offended at this, since Jihadism is not even a word) and his Jihadism-ite codename? Hillary.

This Mittens guy has no shame…yet… this week.

3. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer Captures Paris: You may not think that this is really about France, but Paris Hilton and the albino dude from the DaVinci Code look an awful lot alike. So since I’ve just spelled it out for you, I’ll move on.

Unlike many bloggers, I have no problem writing about Paris Hilton, but it’s only now that she’s done something really interesting. Paris has gone from merely being a vacuous rich girl to being an official, honest to jeebus convict. Paris might be going to jail for 45 days, or maybe for 21 days. Paris might be going to jail in California or they might incarcerate her in Arizona. All of this stems from the fact that the Los Angeles county jail is supremely overcrowded. Personally, I think we should send her to Gitmo, but that’s just me.

This is a girl who would have no trouble being interrogated by Marines or held in uncomfortable positions, injected with truth serum (or injected generally, I’m guessing) or forced to sit naked in a room full of strangers. If one of those strangers had a camera, the Marines might need reinforcements. Really, it’s a win-win.

Especially for France.

Wait…what?

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Get on the Dialogue Train.

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I prefer not to see the patient until they are dead – it prevents me from making diagnoses that might later seem wrong. My skills at prediction are about on par with those of a cranky old goat trying to work the controls to a nuclear-powered, super-colliding grain elevator. I shake my head and ram things with my horns but my record for success is poor.

Speaking of a cranky old goat rendered insensible by baffling progress, let’s talk about Don Imus.

A little bit of personal context; In January of 2005, on a completely unrelated site, I stated that;

“All media is a hideous, corporate whore in service of a political pimp.”

Who says that the sublime is dead?

My good friend Paul over at Gor[b] gave me an intellectual snap in the plexus for being such a bloviating monkey and stated quite rightly that such a ridiculous statement of hyperbole could certainly not be made to all media. Given that Paul was obviously correct and has ties to the shadowy death squads of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I relented;

“I have to admit - this was in reference to American media.”

My view of the American media was eaten and excreted during the discouraging scandal over Imus and the Rutgers women’s basketball team. This is a story that has no upside; this piglet hangs from the teat from start to finish. There are plenty of villains, a tedious plot and good guys who really aren’t. There is also no real importance to Imus himself – he is a just a scraggly, disoriented, mumbling dinosaur who stepped on the land mine after missing it a thousand times before.

When Imus made his remarks, the uproar was not immediate but it finally hit, maybe because it was a slow news cycle. The Leatherface of talk radio apologized serially, but this was not enough to save him from the most upstanding duo of the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. That chill you feel down your spine is entirely normal – please don’t be alarmed.

Well, be alarmed, but don’t be alarmed about that.

In the second-most depressing chapter of this, The Reverends have managed to be further legitimized as voices for moral outrage regarding race. Both of The Reverends have said ridiculously incendiary things about race; Jackson called New York City “Hymietown” and claimed that he was “tired” of hearing about the Holocaust. Reverend Sharpton complained about “white interlopers” and was a central figure in the lethal Crown Heights Riots. Most famously, he stoked racial tension all across New York when he rabidly went after the white police officers that (it turns out) had done absolutely nothing to Tawana Brawley.

Jackson apologized for his remarks and Sharpton never really did. Now that Sharpton has eclipsed Jackson in representing their constituent communities, you need to wonder who made the better deal. However, I begrudge neither of them the right to rip Imus to dusty shreds. Those whom they unofficially represent were slurred, and in as much as The Reverends have an obligation, this would pretty much be it. Even if they didn’t mean it, they’d have had to show up for this one.

NBC News and CBS Radio both fired Imus, but only after suspending him, only after sponsors vanished like White House emails, and only after employees within both companies complained. Personally, I have no issue with any of this – a company should be able to fire whomever they wish. NBC News has a long and proud reputation to preserve, apparently, so good for them. However, I doubt they would have gone from nothing to suspension to termination had there not been a heavily publicized backlash.

The Left complained that Imus was getting off too lightly because he’s in bed with Big Media. The Right claimed that Imus was getting off easy because he’s in league with the Liberal Media Elitists. Colleagues of Imus supported him, ignored him or vilified him with varying degrees of sympathy. Others bathed in self-doubt about having appeared on his show so that he could help them sell their books. Still others, like the increasingly ego-maniacal Keith Olbermann, smugly pointed out to us that they had objected to Imus all along. Again, they did not seem to notice Imus’ super-offensive shtick as much as they reacted to other people noticing.

We don’t even need to discuss that most people reading this only know who Imus is because of the scandal, and have only been exposed to the remarks in question because of YouTube.

Inevitably, the media, The Reverends and even the Conflicted Colleagues found a silver lining to this when they remarked that it would lead to A Very Important Dialogue reinvigorating the issue of race in the America.

I’m not saying that everyone involved is full of yak poop (but I am thinking it). The people describing The Very Important Dialogue sounded a lot like the guys I knew in university who got back together with their girlfriends after getting caught sampling the nectar of another flower. They knew that they had to talk about it, and they knew that it was important, but you also knew that if no one ever brought it up again until next spring they’d be pretty happy about that as well.

Whatever you do, do not take note that if all the people involved really found Imus that offensive, his bony ass would have been out of business in about 1983.

When the Very Important Dialogue happens, I hope it’s held in the warm green glow of that nuclear-powered, super-colliding wheat conveyor. That way, we can all be goats together.

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