You betcha'!

To all of you Palin fans out there, I will point out one thing to you: She winked at you. During a debate. Winked!

Several times. And, to the best of my knowledge, there was nothing in her eye. Except perhaps a tear for all the special-needs kids out there.

The last time a "wink" was contrived without intentional irony on national television was probably during some episode of Diff'rent Strokes in 1987. It's the kind of behavior that if you did in a bar, people would question your sanity; If done in a Miss Teen USA, it would probably get polite applause.

But would you buy a car from someone who winked at you? Would you hire an employee if they winked at you? Would you want a grown adult winking at you as a main component of trying to convince you of the righteousness of their opinion?

"Infantile" is the only word sufficient to convey how our politicians now treat us.

And honestly, who can blame them.


"More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?"
-Peggy Noonan

Refute this, please.

There is suffering that is not the fault of the person afflicted or any other person (tornadoes, asteroids falling from space, American Idol.)

If there is a God, he must be aware of this, by definition.

If he is not able to stop this suffering, then he is not worthy of the name.

If he is able to end this suffering, and he chooses not to, then he is not worthy of our worship.

Therefore, if God does exist, he is either so weak as to be useless, or so distant and removed as to be nothing more than a tyrant.

Discuss.

I was doing some research the other day when I stumbled on a startling fact: Pacifico tastes much better than Budweiser, but Bud pairs with two vicodin so much better. It might be because A-B actually puts a small amount of pure morphine into each batch of beer. You know, like Coke used to do with cocaine? Yea, they still do it to beer. Only its not a secret ingredient; everyone knows about it and no one says a thing. Except now.

How was this secret kept for so long? Simple. No one, and I mean NO ONE, would ever want to ruin that fun for the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, there are people who wouldn't think twice about answering the cell during a movie, slowing down at a green light, or even reminding the teacher about the homework she forgot to assign, but that same person would never discuss the mixing of synthetic morphine with The King of Beers (C)

The reason is simple: in order to actually realize this deliciously fun combo exists, you have to take both of the drugs (alcohol + opiates) separately, then together, then with a bowl of ice cream, to figure out the connection.

And anyone who ever did that, would never want to ruin another person's chance to discover it on their own.

Consider the following

Ron Pereleman: beastly billionaire. Married to multiple hot starlets.
Rush Limbaugh: Oxy-deafened blob. Banged all manner of Fox News Babes (C).
Howard Stern: Scarecrow-esque hook-nose Jew. Banged Angie Everhart (in her prime.)
Howard Hughes: Died, quite literally, of OCD; enjoyed not showering for years. Notorious womanizer and de-virginizer.

What these men all have in common is one thing: Absolutely zero sex appeal. There is not an honest, mentally-sound woman alive or dead who would consider, sua sponte, sleeping with any one of the lot. No, its not success that draws women to them. It's not the alpha male personality. It's not even the money. (Honestly, it isn't.)
What it is, is chutzpah. The sheer arrogance to buck their place in society and say, "I'm ugly as sin, but I'm still going to throw down on some top-shelf pussy!" These men are the true non-conformists. You think dying your hair green and listening to Joy Division makes you a rebel? Try putting on an elephant man mask, gaining 300 pounds, going to a bar, and landing a statuesque blonde. That is more of a middle-finger to society's expectations than any other act imaginable.

This observation leads us to one simple truth about women: That they implicitly trust the judgment of other women, namely, those who are actually screwing the aforementioned man-walruses. Of course, they may disagree in the abstract. "Come on Duke," the hypothetical female reader might say, "No way I'd bang Rush!" And this is true--to a point. But to see a beautiful, non-pro, liberated 21st century woman choose to bang the rotund right-winger brings up in a woman a primal fear: The thought that they could be missing out on something absolutely fucking amazing. If he is that ghastly, and layin' pipe to a sista that hot, there must be something very, very special about his personality sense of humor wallet cock.

I know there are those who still say it's all about the money. To those I offer a damning piece of evidence: Manuel Uribe, one of the world's fattest men, without a pot to piss in, because he's probably making spaghetti in it.
Oh, and sorry ladies, he's taken:

"I was impotent before, but now everything's working again. Ask my girlfriend," he said happily, his Guinness World Records certificate [for losing 900 pounds in one year - Ed.] hanging on the wall.

To the list above, I must add Senor Uribe, who shares his steel-reinforced bed with his mamacita. He has the cojones (that's Mexican for chutzpah) to convince a woman that she would be better off with him, (all 1,230 pounds), than with anyone else.

Where the confidence to just not give a fuck springs from is a mystery more important to mankind than the location of the holy grail, alien life, or the clitoris. Which I guarantee none of the above has ever found....

Star Wars: Get Fucked!

I have to say it: Star Wars blows. It is just contrived, hacky dreck that is the most overrated franchise in movie history. Yes, it was a neat conceit towards the tail end of the 70's era of gritty realism. But that's it. Set against 'Bad Lieutenant', it's optimistic. But any other time, its pure unadulterated schmaltz. It's as if "Dude Where's My Car" spawned 6 films and infinite product tie-ins.
Lucas' license to print money became just that with the prequels, engulfing even the modicum of heart the original 3 had.
And so, here I present to you the Top 3 reasons why SW sucks.

1) The woodenness

In the first film, Lucas imagined, and shakily realised, a galaxy made of rock, sand, plastic and metal. Nothing was wooden - except the dialogue. The characters in the first film don't so much hold conversations as stand there like cavemen, lobbing chunks of monologue at each other. As Harrison Ford said to Lucas in a moment of majestic exasperation: "You can type this shit, George, but you sure can't say it."

The first plausible exchange in the sequence comes some way into The Empire Strikes Back, when the superfluous verbiage melts in the face of the steam rising between Ford and Carrie Fisher, or perhaps Lucas's sheer ignorance of human relationships. At moments like this, Ford turned into an unofficial script doctor, notably when Leia tells him she loves him (as you do, seeing someone you've got the hots for about to be frozen in carbonite). In the script, Han replied "I love you too," which was both predictable and implausible - he's supposed to be a bastard, albeit one slowly disclosing a heart of gold. Ford changed it to "I know," which is smug and shallow, but at least in character and free from monosodium glutamate.

2) The hollow centre

Star Wars was "a conscious attempt at creating new myths," Lucas said. So how do his stories and characters stand up against, say, those of Homer? It would be harsh, and hard, to pit five movies against 24 books of epic poetry, but there's a realistic yardstick available in the shape of last year's attempt to do Troy the blockbuster. Troy was widely regarded as a thin and patchy version of The Iliad, but it is more involving than any of the Star Wars films. When Achilles kills Hector, you can feel it hitting the audience hard. The first wince on that scale in Star Wars comes (look away now if you haven't seen The Empire Strikes Back) when Darth Vader slices off Luke Skywalker's hand. And the hand is duly mended. If Achilles had been dreamt up by George Lucas, he could have taken his injured heel to C-3PO, who would have fixed it in no time. Star Wars has assumed a myth-like place in contemporary American culture, but it lacks the edge, the depth and the resonance of the real thing. Its most mythical moment is when Darth Vader says to Luke Skywalker, "I am your father" - which is borrowed from Sophocles. Bland and calculating, Star Wars is a McMyth.

3) The arrogance

Some of the acting is so stagey, today's audience takes it as camp. In 1999, an interviewer made this point to Lucas. He didn't like it all. "It's not deliberately camp. The film is based on a Saturday-matinee serial from the 1930s, so the acting style is very 1930s, very theatrical, very old-fashioned. People take it different ways, depending on their sophistication ... Cinema has only been around for 100 years or so - not long enough for people to really understand it." Up to a point, Lord Vader.

Contemplation

I was buying blow at Outback the other day when I realized something: Where do handicapped people park at the Special Olympics? Do they just manage to wing it from 30 yards away? I can't believe they have special buses just to walk across a parking lot. I mean come on, if you are competing in the Olympics you should be able to crawl/bellyroll that few feet into the front door.

Then I had some of that warm bread they serve. Hey, it's free.