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June 2006
Picturing the Wrestlers’ Reunion
It’s photo caption time again
OK, so you liked that alligator at the door photo from last week. I get it. Sometimes you want me just to shut up and let you do all the work.
Pin this one down
So we’ll try it again. Here’s a photo that intrigued me with its possibilities. It’s from a reunion of old wrestlers who fought in rings from Florida to Texas.
Here are some fictitious caption offerings of my own. Feel free to add to them.
1.The Biloxi Bandit went into insurance, Fearsome Fred sold cars, but The Masked Marauder, well, he never quite left the ring.
2.Melvin the Actuary, who hadn’t removed his mask since that loser-leave-town cage match in Pascagula, is seen here separated from his nemesis, The Gentle Giant, by Lou the ref, who is still wearing black-and-white striped shirts.
3.The Gulf Coast Wrestlers regaled each other all weekend, swapping tales of their ring exploits, long road trips and recent colonoscopy results.
4.Bone Crusher, pictured at left, took time out from the filming of Nacho Libre to be at the reunion.
5.The Human Q-Tip, who had put on 120 pounds since his wrestling days, wore his distinctive white mask so his former colleagues would recognize him.
6.The Creature from the Blue Lagoon, pictured at left, finally made it to the reunion after spending half the weekend in jail due to a panicky convenience store clerk.
7.“Say ‘Cheat.’”
8.Here they were earlier in the evening, before The Atomic Drop hit Jumbo Magurski in the back of the head with a folding chair for not using tongs in the buffet line.
9.Clarence the Annihilator showed up wearing the only part of his costume that still fits.
10.The Terrible Tag Team got together for one more photo, joined here by Bronco’s life partner, Cal.
Got any caption ideas of your own? Join in …
Asteroid Terror Plot Averted
Space attack timed For America’s Independence Day
In what is seen as a vindication of the warrantless surveillance of the Solar System, the Bush Administration announced this week that is has foiled a terrorist asteroid plot aimed at destroying America’s annual Fourth of July celebration this year.
The asteroid, known as 2004 XP14, is believed to be possibly as large as a mile in diameter. It will pass our planet on the morning of July 3, precariously close in space distance — about 270,000 miles, the distance to our own moon. Information here.
No coincidence
Administration officials, speaking on the condition they not be identified as Karl Rove, stressed that the “wannabe” destroyer of America did not ever pose a threat, but was obviously aimed to terrorize the U.S. on its Independence Day.
“The heat generated by one of these primative yet deadly attacks can generate enough energy to simultaneously desecrate American flags in several swing states,” Ro the official said.
“It just goes to show how resourceful Al-Qaeda is, and why our anti-terrorism efforts are paying off.”
Al-Qaeda connection to asteroid?
Democrats, fearful of being seen as soft on terror, have so far been willing to allow the Bush Administration to claim the near-miss as a victory in the war on terror.
“There will be a special place in hell for XP14,” said U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Caught between a rock and a jihad place
According to the source, the asteroid’s path was detected by an undercover FBI astronomer, who posed as an Al-Qaeda scientist and administered the Al-Qaeda oath to XP14 as soon as the big rock breached the edges of our Solar System.
“After the oath was administered, and it continued to make a path right toward us, we knew we were on to something,” the source said.
Collision averted by prayer
Once the terrorist asteroid was detected, the source said, the president convened his inner-circle of strategic evangelists to “pray away” the asteroid, knocking it slightly off its path — enough to make it miss the planet by a hundreds of thousands of miles.
“It just goes to show,” the source said. “Our God is stronger than their God.”
Civilian scientists skeptical
That explanation, however, has been challenged by the Minor Planet Center, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which 
monitors potentially hazardous asteroids, such as 2004 XP14, and claims that this asteroid is actually just one of 783 it has been monitoring.
The astronomers say there’s no link between near-miss asteroids and Islamic terrorists. And that the next near-miss asteroid will pass by Earth on April 13, 2029.
“Are we going to make that one a terrorist plot, too?” one befuddled astronomer said.
Astronomers condemned
“Scientists from Massachusetts?” retorted right-wing pundit Ann Coulter. “What do you expect? These are nothing but elitist, pointy-headed left-wing nerds who hate America.”
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives filed legislation to require American scientists to take a loyalty oath.
Another bounce?
The asteroid plot comes days after the Administration got a bounce from the arrests of a small gathering of 
Bible-study, housing project Miami-area men, who practiced martial arts in a warehouse and sold African-American hair care products in the neighborhood.
The men, part of a self-styled, ideologically muddled group they called Seas of David, were conflated into Al-Qaeda terorrists by an undercover FBI informant.
The informant, who was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda, administered a fake Al-Qaeda oath to the men, and gave them a video camera so they could shoot footage of American buildings they might like to blow up some day — if they only had boots, weapons, cash, and a memory chip for their camera.
The arrests of the fake Al-Qaeda men by the fake Al-Qaeda operative was called a “significant investigation” in the war against terror, and it is believed to have emboldened the Bush Administration to come forward to announce other success stories in the continuing war on terror.
“The important thing right now is for Americans to carry on with their Fourth of July plans,” the source said. “We have saved the American people from this wannabe terrorist asteroid.”
The White House Talking Points Memo on Global Warming
To: All Operatives in the Field
From: Karl
Subject: Responding to Global Warming Report
Be advised that we are stepping up our political offensive on global warming.
As you are well aware, this week’s release of a 155-page scientific report — requested by Congress, those turncoat @#$#%s — has concluded that the earth’s temperature may be hotter than it has been in a couple of thousand years, and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.” Story here.
This really burns us up
The report will undoubtedly bring more political trouble to our door. And our policy has always been consistent on this: We are willing to study global warming and adopt a “jury is out” policy. But clearly, global warming should be given no more credence than any other crazy theory, such as evolution.
And we have no intention to allow our studying posture to spill into any sort of action that might affect our economic partners in the coal and oil industries.
It’s time to attack
So, we can’t let this new report stand as some definitive call to action. We must, instead, attack it, while characterizing this administration’s current policies to be both wise, and supported by a majority of “scientists in the field.”
(The field, by the way, is a small rectangle of grass behind Exxon-Mobil’s corporate headquarters. Har! Har! Har!)
So, here’s our 6-point action plan we’d like you to begin immediately:
1.“Stay the Course” on pollution
Polluting is hard work. And yes, sometimes there are tough choices. But we’ve made some significant gains in corporate profits over the past few years. And it would be a shame to impose costly pollution controls at a time when our energy partners need our full support in this uncertain world. Are you on the side of a strong America, or in with the international-treaty traitor crowd?
2.All concern about global warming should be referred to as “cut and walk” defeatism
Let’s change the argument from whether we’re doing irreparable harm to the Earth to whether a few “activist” researchers are trying to influence us with their “science agenda” to get us to conserve energy. What would these “biased” enviro-wackos — Rush or Ann may come up with a better term — have us do?
Carpool? Trade in our SUV for a hybrid car? Or … not even drive at all?
Yes, their policy, you should stress, is one of “cut and walk”, while the president remains optimistic that by continuing to pollute and contributing mightily to the worldwide global pollution, America is setting an example of both strength, hope and the freedom to pollute to the rest of the world — particularly China, which is starting to rev up its coal plants big time.
If China’s going to pollute with impunity, why shouldn’t we? America won’t take a back seat in polluting the earth to any country!
3.Make personal attacks on the scientists
Of course, we’ll be getting phone info from our NSA partners, and passing on anything in the personal lives of the global warming researchers that might be useful in discrediting their work.
We’ve already taken steps to remove these people from NASA, and have begun assembling a swift-boat-styled TV emergency response squad, cobbling together a collection of “experts” who could, on a moment’s notice, make scurrilous claims against the scientists.
4.Promote the idea that this administration is, as always, taking the wise approach
While we don’t want to admit that there is a global warming problem, we don’t want to completely alienate the fact-based community, which is still needed for about 10 percent of our political support.
So in that regard, put forth the idea that the president is actually “deeply interested” in the issue, and “working hard behind the scenes” with “scientists in the field” who “all agree” that he is doing the right thing.
Don’t worry, you won’t have to go into much detail. As we get closer to the mid-term elections, we’ll be providing you with lots of “war on terror” items to keep your audiences frightened about the thing we find usefully frightening.
5.Stroke the religious base
This is also a great opportunity to throw another sop to our church friends. The president, you can say, met with the vice president, who went through his Rolodex and summoned a meeting with the energy company leaders, and after “a frank and open discussion” they all agreed that there was only one sensible policy for America to follow regarding the rise in greenhouse gasses.
Prayer.
We are in the final stages of announcing a “Pray the Pollution Away Day of National Prayer”, a day that will demonstrate that a faith-based approach to problems really works.
- Talk up the new Superman movie
We don’t want voters slipping into the next theater in the cineplex to see Al Gore’s global warming move, An Inconvenient Truth. So whatever movies come out this summer — no matter how bad they are — just tell your readers, listeners and viewers that they ought to go see them. And not that scary environmental movie.
Another recommendation: that Snakes on a Plane movie. We’d rather Americans be frightened of that than global warming.
Could there be snakes on a plane? Should Americans be frightened about this?
Wow, explosive stuff here, and you can bet this Administration will act decisively if there is ever a snakes-on-the-plane situation.
Let’s talk about this for awhile. It could be a hot topic — but hot in a good way, not in the global-warming sense.
Beyond the $100 Hamburger
On second thought, my kid will have the chicken nuggets
The Old Homestead Steak House opened a new location this month at the Boca Raton Hotel & Club, and with it, debuted its new menu item — a $100 hamburger. Story here.
Restaurant owner Mark Sherry called it “going to the extreme” with the hamburger, which in this case includes a blending of Japanese kobe beef with American prime and Argentine beef — and of course, making it obscenely large (20 ounces) and available with exotic toppings (unusual mushrooms).
Is the doggie bag made from endangered rain forest wood?
And is a misery biscuit that sets you back $124.50 with tax going to remain the be-all, end-all of burgers?
We here at The Blogaroni imagine that, instead, this may inspire other restaurants to take the hamburger to even higher economic ground
And that in a few years, we will be writing about the $200 burger. With cheese, $250.
But how does one make a more expensive hamburger?
The Blogaroni presents …
More High-Priced Hamburger Ideas
name: The Cheney Burger
price: $175, plus $350-an-hour for the heart surgeon that stands by your table as you eat it.
description: You won’t want to by-pass this one. The burger, inspired by America’s shadowy vice president, is made with beef that has been stored in a secret location, and blended in a recipe that has been classified. You won’t believe the taste, or that a burger slathered with crude oil could go down so easy.
name: The Cruise Burger
price: $165, with a $10 discount if you mention Xenu, the alien ruler of the Galactic Confederacy
description: Eating this burger doesn’t have to be Mission Impossible for adventurous diners with a crazy desire for something different. Made from ancient beef with a hint of shaved placenta, this burger isn’t for everyone, but once you eat it, you’ll feel as if you can swallow anything.
name: The Shaq-a-burger
price: $135
description: The burger you dunk. You’ll want to elbow your way to the table for this one, the meatiest burger you’ll ever see . A few bites of this mound of Texas beef and you’ll need to towel off and take a breather. Try it with fowl.
name: The J-Lo Burger
price: $139
description: A tasty morsel, for sure, but it’s the bun that really makes this burger something special.
name: The Rush Burger
price: $210 — available only with prescription
description: You’ll want to send the maid out for this one. This burger, inspired by America’s gaseous talk-show host, features an addicting blend of ground-up special ingredients that will make lunch the high point of your day.
name: The Kate Moss Burger
price: $111
description: The burger for people who want to eat in expensive restaurants, but don’t want to put a lot of food in their mouths. This burger is available in small (1.5 ounces) medium (2 ounces), and jumbo (2.5 ounces).
name: The Al Gore Burger
price: $170, before rebate
description: The burger that comes sizzling hot to your plate. An inconvenient burger that’s not to be missed by serious diners. Comes with melting cheese and a tepid glass of water — sorry, no ice.
name: The Pat Robertson Burger
price: $140, all credit cards accepted
description: With a recipe passed down from God, this intelligently designed burger is simply divine, promising to cure most medical maladies, critical thinking skills and homosexuality.
name: The Bill Gates Burger
price: $355, with $10 going to African charity
description: Open a window on a whole new burger. You’ll want to crash after eating this monster. There’s nothing “micro” about the meat or “soft” about the hard roll it comes on. Comes with no sides, but they can be added through upgrades.
name: The Oprah Burger
price: $205
description: This one will send you straight to the couch. America’s most influential burger comes with a side of Dr. Phil’s Fries and a free session with a personal trainer. Just how big is the Oprah burger? Well, that is just part of its intrigue. Sometimes it seems to be a bulging 32 ounces, then at other times it comes to the plate slimmer than a quarter-pounder.
Alligator at the door
Honey, there’s an alligator at the door
The 6-foot alligator that showed up at this front door in Hilton Head, South Carolina, last week appears to be trying to ring the doorbell, which is a few inches from its left front leg.
Roslyn and Robert Loretta were home eating a teriyaki chicken dinner at the time. This photo was snapped by a neighbor with a telephoto lens.
It’s Caption Crunch time
We here at The Blogaroni would like to use this opportunity to take a news breather for the day, and concentrate on coming up with suitable captions for this photo. Feel free to join in.
1.“Just hand over the schnauzer, and nobody gets hurt.”
2.“These trick-or-treaters come earlier and earlier every year.”
3.Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin had no idea that after years of tormenting wild animals, they would track him down at his home.
4.“Open up, please! I can’t help myself. I’m in love with your purse!”
5.“Adrian! …. Adrian!….Adrian!”
6.Roger, who liked to blame everything on his ex-wife, threw open the door and uttered what would be his last words, “Very funny, Arlene!”
7.“Call Al Gore, Howard. It must be the global warming.”
8.The other alligators, impressed by his brazen tactics, called him Alligator-Qaeda.
9.“Open the door, Julie. Just give me another chance. I know I’m different. But we can make this work. All I know is that I’ve been on Swamp Nine ever since that day you fell out of the canoe and came into my life.”
10.“Daddy, daddy, can we keep him?”
11.At first, coach Bobby Bowden thought it was part of an elaborate prank staged by students from the University of Florida.
12.Do you suffer from reptile dysfunction?
13.“There’s the doorbell, George. Why don’t you get it. I’ll tell Jennifer her blind date is here.”
14.“Hello, ma’am, I’m trying to raise money to take a field trip to the Everglades …”
15.Being a Jehovah’s Witness and an alligator was a challenge, but Elmer did his best.
Once again, if you’d like to add a caption or two of your own, jump right in …
The Confederate Flag in Space
The South Will Rise Orbit Again
A set of Confederate flags purportedly flown on the International Space Station and signed by a NASA astronaut, turned up recently on an eBay online auction.
The idea of a Confederate flag in space is a concept that, well, strains the imagination. Story here.
Beam me up, Beauregard
Stars-n-Bars Wars
And it has already created a bit of controversy. Astronaut Leroy Chiao said he has no recollection of signing the flags during 192-day Expedition 10 mission he had on the spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov.
From Racist to Spacist
The signed flags, which bear the space station seal, have been yanked from the online auction by the Russian space memorabilia dealer, following all the controversy over them.
Free the Satellites
We here at The Blogaroni think this might be a rare opportunity to compare and contrast the International Space Station and the Confederacy.
Foreign Support:
Space station: Joint venture of U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and European Space Agency.
Confederacy: Failed to get support from England and France
Power supply
Space station: solar panels
Confederacy: Rebel yell.
The Cost of Freedom
Space Station: Space tourist Dennis Tito paid $20 million to be part of a Russian mission on the space station.
Confederacy: Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation, decreeing that all slaves were free.
Southern Cross
Space Station: Name for a star formation
Confederacy: Name for the flag
Agriculture
Space Station: Growing peas in the wall-mounted Lada greenhouse in the Zveda module
Confederacy: Cotton
Hazards
Space Station: Meteors
Confederacy: Dukes of Hazzard
Strange atmosphere
Space Station: weightlessness
Confederacy: reenactments
A Vehicle for growing together, pulling apart
Space Station: During Expedition 7, Russian Yuri Malenchencko gets married aboard the space station to Ekaterina Dmitriev, who was in Texas — the only marriage in space.
Confederacy: Flag appropriated by the Ku Klux Klan as a banner of segregation.
Future
Space station: Uncertain due to budget cutting pressure
Confederacy: As certain as pickup truck sales
Rock, Paper, Scissors for a Peaceful Future
Conflict Resolution, One Hand at a Time
A ruling with real appeal
A federal judge in Tampa this month ordered a pair of opposing lawyers to settle their dispute by squaring off against each other in a game of “rock, paper, scissors.”
U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell’s written order has been viewed as a landmark decision — at least by the World Rock Paper Scissors Society.
Yes, there really is a World Rock Paper Scissors Society.
The international tournament this year is in Toronto on September 30th. First prize is $7,000.
Keep an eye out for Scizzoro
Taking Rock, Paper, Scissors Seriously
![callltoarms[1].jpg](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/shared-blogs/palmbeach/cerabino/media/callltoarms%5B1%5D.jpg)
Simple, or not?
Rock beats scissors. Scissors beats paper. Paper beats rock. It may seem hard to make a big deal out of this simple game of thrown hand signals, this game of random chance.
But it is a big deal. At least to some people who might also argue that there is a bit of skill and psychology involved in this not-so-random game of chance.
A moment to learn, a lifetime to master
The World Rock Paper Scissors Society is the governing body for the game. The RPS Society is a clearinghouse of information on all things rock-paper-scissor as well as the orchestrator of international tournaments.
![tourneys1[1].jpg](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/shared-blogs/palmbeach/cerabino/media/tourneys1%5B1%5D.jpg)
Sharpening your game
There are some rules (scissors must be vertical, paper horizontal, etc) and lots of posturing and claims of strategic advantage.
The most amusing part of the RPS Web site is the strategy discussion board, where players treat RPS with the solemnity of chess.
Topics include “faking randomness”, “wrist adduction” and “profiling subtypes.” Players share their own little mind games, things such as “The Ol’ One-Two”, which a New Zealander named Martin, claims gives him a competitive advantage in the game:
Let’s say you lost with rock. With a hint of condescension in your voice, ask your opponent, “So, are you going to throw rock again, or are you going to wuss out with paper?”
This might superficially seem like the “I dare you to throw rock” tactic, but the key difference is that here, you’re offering two choices rather than one. You’re also subtly mocking those choices as either boring or weak. Assuming you’ve picked the right opponent, you can now be fairly certain they’ll throw the unspoken third option - in this case, scissors.
Throwing rock, therefore, gives you a good chance of winning. Even when they don’t throw scissors, it may be because they interpret your ‘wuss out’ remark as an attempt to lure them into throwing paper, so they’ll throw rock (to beat the scissors they expect you to throw) and you’ll tie.
If you haven’t tried this ploy yet, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised - I’ve scored 50% - 25% - 25% (wins - draws - losses) using this ploy against random strangers.
Losing yourself in RPS
You can go so far to buy a strategy guide, collect trading cards of “professional” RPS players and listen to the first-ever RPS podcast, which is billed as 39 minutes of the finest rock-paper-scissors programming you’ll ever hear.
Naturally, there’s apparel involved, and partisan boasting among the fans of each individual option.
Paper enthusiasts wearing their emotions
The Cowboy, Ninja, Bear Variation
My teenage son says students at his college play a whole-body variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors called Cowboy, Ninja, Bear. In this variation, the players pace off from each other, back to back, like gunfighters. When they simultaneously turn around to face each other, they assume the pose of a bear, a cowboy or a ninja.
In this game: Cowboy beats bear (by gunshot). Ninja beats cowboy (by stealth). And bear beats ninja (by mauling).
Ninja beating Cowboy pictured here
Rock, Paper, Saddam!
Then there’s the variation inspired by Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq. It’s not really a game, but an imagination, through the use of still photographs, that what really is going on during this eight-month trial, is a huge game of rock,paper, scissors — with Saddam making the rules. Here’s the site.
Can rappers really boycott Cristal?
Cristal Blew Persuasion
News item: One of the hip-hop world’s leading voices, Jay-Z, has called for a boycott of the champagne Cristal. The rapper made his call after the recent comments of the champagne’s managing director Frederic Rouzaud were quoted in a recent issue of The Economist magazine.
“What can we do?” Rouzaud said, characterizing the rappers’ fondness for Cristal as unwanted attention. “We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.”
Jay-Z has since pulled Cristal out of his club, and his boycott has been endorsed by others in the rap world, including Diddy.
Pondering rap without Cristal
Imagine fuzzy dream sequence music here …. dee, dee, dee, dee, ….
It’s been two years now since the hip-hop world swore off Cristal, a move that has transformed the music scene in many ways.
“It’s just not the same, trying to find words that rhyme with ‘Dom Perignon’” said a Yale musicology doctoral student, who preferred to stay anonymous because of a budding East Coast-West Coast rivalry developing between rap music doctoral students at Stanford and Yale.
The Notorious C.R.I.S.T.A.L.
Mentions of Cristal had been part of the hip-hop lexicon since Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious B.I.G., did his “Cristal forever, play the crib when it’s mink weather” line in his rap with Jay-Z in Brooklyn’s Finest.
But once the Cristal boycott became the only cool thing to do, many hip-hop performers were suddenly faced with lyrics changes to their raps.
In the Dogg house
Snoop Dogg couldn’t performBo$$ Playa, because of that “Where’s the Cristal, you like to get wild,” line.
“I tried substa-shizzling Krug,” a frustrated Snoop Dogg confided, “but it just don’t flow.”
Putting in his two fifty cents worth
The rapper 50 Cent abandoned his rap Rotten Apple, because of that line, “Teachin’ the hoodrats what Cristal tastes like.”
Mr. Cent confided that when he tried to substitute the words “Dom Perignon” in the lyrics, it just created confusion.
“To most of the hoodrats, Dom Perignon sounds like some Mafia dude,” Mr. Cent said. “When I rapped I was bringin’ the Dom Perignon, they thinkin’ I’m talkin’ about some Sopranos muscle to bust heads. It just ain’t right.”
The Wu Tang Clan tried shifting to Tang until NASA complained.
Wu …
Tang
Bust a cherrystone
Rappers experimented with other beverages, discovering that the drink that supplied the best rhyming opportunities was actually clamato juice.
Shucking and jiving
Diddy’s recent release, We Be Clammin’, is seen as an attempt to elevate the fishy-tasting tomato juice to Cristal’s former hip-hop heights.
“I’m a Ipswich gangta with a jones for da jamming /
sippin’ tomata juice dats righteously clammin’ /
Tell all the ho’s that Diddy’s on the loose /
just don’t be drinkin’ his clamato juice.”
But despite Diddy’s best efforts, clamato juice never really caught on.
Resentment that goes 8 miles deep
Eminem avoided any substitute beverage shout-outs, instead just focusing his rage on Cristal, a drink, he claims, that was introduced to him by his mother. This provided Eminem another opportunity to blame his mother for something.
His new hit-single, Cleanin’ Out My Refrigerator, includes a particulalry graphic fantasy section in which he breaks Cristal bottles over the heads of his mother, his fiancee and some woman who just happens to be knocking on the door at the time to sell magazine subscriptions. The rap ends with Eminem force-feeding the women the three-week-old broccoli from his crisper drawer.
Critics have referred to that song as an allegory for our times and a cautionary tale about the rash fiscal policy of making repeated incremental raises in the prime lending rate.
A rap world without Cristal?
“It’s a real problem,” said the Yale musicology doctoral student. “The tripod that hip-hop music stands on is bling-bling, Cristal and women who are sexually attracted to guys with anger management issues. So by removing Cristal, you’ve essentially crippled 33.3 percent of rap music.”
For example, Jay-Z tried doing his Hard Knock Life rap by changing the line “Let’s sip the Cris and get pissy-pissy” with “Let’s play Scrabble and get the dictionary out for word challenges,” but it just didn’t resonate with the so-called hoodrats, many of whom had not memorized all the 96 allowable two-letter words.
Hanging on by a bling and a prayer
“I just think that rap music cannot not afford another boycott,” the Yale musicologist said. “If say, for example, some major bling-bling manufacturer says that they are disappointed that rappers are wearing their diamond-crusted dollar sign necklaces, it could be catastrophic to the art form.”
Getting FEMA to pay for your sex change
You GAO, girl!
Congress’ Government Accountability Office contends that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has handed out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
People alleging to be storm victims have gotten the government to pay for some eye-raising items, such as NFL season tickets, champagne at Hooters, Girls Gone Wild videos, Caribbean vacations, and in one case, a sex change operation, according to the GAO.
A sex change operation?
“I don’t see how this could happen,” said U.S. Rep Charles Dent, R-Pa, after being told of the sex change expense during a congressional hearing this week.
Just call me “Katrina” … No, I’m “Katrina”, you’re “RIta” … No, I’m “Jeane” … I thought you were “Frances”
MWM seeking plausible explanation
We here at The Blogaroni firmly believe that there are two sides to every story. — and so, in that light, we will imagine some non-fraudulent explanations for a sex change operation as a hurricane expense.
1.A simple mixup of acronyms
“Your honor, this is a very understandable mistake. My client believed that he/she was filling out a form with another FEMA — the Female Emergency Makeover Agency.
2.The name of the government agency is misleading
“Your honor, my client, who was left homeless by the storm, made the unfortunate, but understandable assumption that FEMA was just short for FEMAle, a government agency that helps women only. He certainly didn’t want to have the sex change operation, but he thought that was the only way he could possibly be reimbursed for his home.”
3.FEMA is to blame for vague language in describing what’s covered
“Your honor, we contend that the contract language is too vague to prosecute my client, who was interpreting the FEMA guidelines in an honest manner. The agency said that it would pay for “reconstruction” and that is precisely what my client had done.”
4.HPTSS
“Your honor, I have three doctors letter here, documenting that my client suffers from Hurricane Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. As you will see, the doctors say that this affects everyone differently. And while you and I might not behave in the way my client has — having a sex change and going on a clothes shopping spree at Lane Bryant — I think we’d have to err on the side of understanding here. Getting a sex change is the way my client has dealt with the stress of the storm, and therefore is no less a legitimate hurricane expense than say, a re-roofing. By the way, your honor, let the record reflect that my client would be here today, but she is getting her toes done as part of her continuing and difficult therapy.”
5.Sex change? No, that was a typo!
“Your honor, we can explain everything. My client, Ms. Scrumptious, never attempted to get the federal government to reimburse her for a sex change. When filling our her claim for other legitimate hurricane expenses, she knew that there might be some question of fraud, seeing as how her name, according to the federal government, is still “Walter.” So she attached a photo of her new Ms. Scrumptious self with her claim, and typed the words “see change” on the form. But unfortunately for my client, the photo must have slipped from the paper clip and it never made it as an attachment to the claim form. And when Ms. Scrumptious, who has some fabulous press-ons these days, was typing the words, “see change” on the form, she inadvertantly clicked one of those big nails on the “x” rather than the second “e” in the word “see.” We are entering a typewriter keyboard into evidence to show that the “e” key and the “x” key are on the same side of the keyboard, as well as letters typed by the same finger — the ring finger on the left hand. So, as you can see, your honor, my client never intended for the government to pay for her sex change. Now, I’d like to address the charge relating to the expensing of those bottles of Dom Perignon champagne …”
Look Out: It’s Cher’s War Now
Uh-oh, now Cher’s involved.
We’ve really done it now. We’re not talking your everyday Baldwins, Sheens, or Sarandons here. This is a woman, who like the war, never really goes away.
She’s a one-person insurgency … against time, gravity, and basically anything in her path.
And she’s coming to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify. And she’s in a foul mood about the war.
Mayday! Mayday! Diva! Diva! Diva! Abort. I repeat Abort! Abort!
There’s just no way to outlast Cher.
This is an entertainer who has been on a three-year “farewell tour”, a woman who called C-SPAN at 4:20 a.m. her time — on Memorial Day — identifying herself only as “Malibu, California,” before launching on a screed about the war and the need for better helmets for our troops.
“Is this Cher?” C-SPAN host, Steve Scully asked, recognizing her voice.
“Yeah,” Cher answered, “I know that I am an entertainer and from Hollywood and should have no conscience, but I am an American and I just cannot bear these people for another moment.”
Operation Turn Back Time has begun
Cher, who just turned 60, has launched herself into the war, a champion and major financial backer of Operation Helmet, an effort by a former Navy doctor to supply helmet liners to American troops, a safety upgrade that Cher said the government should already be making.
She has become a vocal critic of well … everybody.
“I couldn’t be a Republican ‘cause I think I believe in too many services for poor people, but I’m fed up with the Democrats. I just think … you’re gonna find all their spines where you find the elephant’s graveyard,” she told Ed Schultz recently on his Air America radio show.
“If you say anything opposed to the administration, somehow they’ve been able to wrap themselves in the flag, so that if you have any opposing viewpoint, you’re unpatriotic,” she went on.
The Beat Goes On
Thursday, she will be on Capitol Hill for testimony to an House Armed Services Committee looking into the need for better helmets.
We here at The Blogaroni have some major questions surrounding Cher’s upcoming appearance before the House Armed Services Committee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.
Here they are:
Question No. 1: How can we tell it’s actually Cher?
There are so many Cher impersonators roaming the Ramada lounges of America.
Will there be some on-the-spot DNA analysis to make sure it’s actually Cher, and not, this woman person?
Question No. 2: Will the improved Cher-backed helmets look fabulous?
Question No. 3: What will Cher be wearing to the Congressional hearing?
We’re rooting for her 1986 Academy Awards ensemble:
Question No. 4: Shouldn’t she let Ben Roethlisberger be the celebrity spokesman for a good, strong helmet?
Once the helmet-shunning Pittsburgh Steelers motorcycle-riding quarterback gets out of the hospital after recovering from this accident …
… he’d make a great helmet advocate.
Question No. 5: Will Cher’s criticism of the war effort hurt gay enlistment?
Question No. 6: Will Cher be swift-boated by the armchair hawks who have provided the blind-eyed cheering section for this ill-conceived, poorly executed, tragic debacle of a war?
Actually, that was a rhetorical question. Of course, she will.
Beware of Naked Bicycle Riders
Share Bare the Road
Attention, motorists. Look out for guys like this.
Riding with your flashers on
There’s a new form of street protest has been growing over the past couple of years. It combines nudism with energy conservation.
That is, the fossil fuel kind of energy.
“Burn Fat, Not Oil,” is one of the slogans of The World Naked Bike Ride — an event that was held last weekend in cities around the world.
These naked bike rides on city streets create a spectacle.
Blush hour traffic
“It is time to stop indecent exposure to automobile emissions and to celebrate the power and individuality of our bodies!” proclaims the World Naked Bike Ride Web site.
Fleshing out the issue
If you think my purpose of writing about this is to show a bunch of photos of nude and semi-nude people on bicylces you are absolutely, most likely, possibly, arguably, somewhat, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt correct.
However, I am more interested in the language of naked bicycle riding protests, which must somehow pair up the twin evils of “oil depedency and body shame” into one tidy package, a package that often ends up looking like this.
The protest language so far has yielded these slogans:
“Our Nude Bodies Are Dependent on Food, Not Foreign Oil” and “Less Gas, More … (body part that rhymes with gas).”
Clearly, the oil protesting nudists could use a little help.
So without further ado, The Blogaroni presents …
Ten Suggested Nude Bicycle Protest Slogans
1.Gas up at Taco Bell, Not Exxon
2.Crude people, not crude oil
3.Degrading but biodegradable
4.We have traffic jam between our toes
5.This seat is drilling me
6.The only oil we depend on is Coppertone
7.We’ve outgrown our Shell
8.Zoom, zoom, va-boom
9.Our spills are easy to clean up
10.Honk if you like our hood ornaments
Mutants vs. Global Warming: An easy choice for Jeb
An Inconvenient Movie
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush met recently with two scientists who have found a correlation between global warming and stronger hurricanes. Bush wasn’t moved. Story here.
At least not enough to see Al Gore’s stirring movie presentation on global warming called An Inconvenient Truth, a presentation, which, by the way, shows how the melting of the polar ice caps could eventually submerge the southern half of Florida in the span of a couple generations.
Keeping His Eyes on The Mutants, Instead
Jeb took the opportunity to point out that he wasn’t interested in the global warming movie. Instead, he said, he went to see X-Men: The Last Stand.
Bush called the widely panned X-Men movie “excellent” and bolstered his argument by pointing out that the box office receipts of the real-life global warming movie was only about $500,000 in ticket sales, while the fantasy mutant X-Men movie took in about $130 million.
“So I was in the majority of opinion, apparently, on that, in terms of entertainment.” Bush said.
Jeb’s Idea of Harmful Warming
In terms of being a responsible adult, however, is taking the time to be intrigued about this …
… better than taking the time to be intrigued about this?
Dude, Where’s My Governor?
We here at The Blogaroni have seen both movies, and think that, yes, Jeb Bush — a man with a potential future as a national leader — should see the global warming movie, even if he finds himself in a theater that isn’t packed with teenagers on date night.
But we don’t want to lecture Jeb, who apparently needs to be entertained. So we will put An Inconvenient Truth in terms of the X-Men: The Last Stand, so he can fully grasp the bad news he has been trying to ignore.
A Global Threat
X-Men: The Last Stand: Jean Gray has become possessed with the cosmic power of the Dark Phoenix, and now she has world-domination aspirations with the help of a powerful band of mutants led by Magneto.
An Inconvenient Truth: Greenhouse gases caused by dirty sources of energy have contributed to the accelerating warming of the Earth which threatens to cause dramatic climate changes in the next 50 years.
A Real Hottie
X-Men: The Last Stand: Mystique
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planet Earth. The 10 hottest years in the history of the Earth have occurred in the last 14 years.
What the American Government Is Doing About It
X-Men: The Last Stand: Taking strong action. Coming up with an injection that “cures” mutants of their potentially harmful special powers.
An Inconvenient Truth: Not much at all. Downplaying the threat; failing to enact tougher carbon-emissions standards, pulling out of international treaties that set tougher pollution controls. Letting energy companies write energy policy. Putting short-term profit over long-term solutions.
Villified Creatures With Wise Advice
X-Men: The Last Stand The Beast wants to work with the U.S. Administration to solve the problem
An Inconvenient Truth: Al “Enviro Beast” Gore wants to work with the U.S. Administration to solve the problem
A Quote to Remember from the Movie
X-Men: The Last Stand:
“When an individual acquires great power, the use or misuse of that power is everything. Will it be used for the greater good or will it be used for personal or destructive ends? Now this is a question we must all ask ourselves. Why? Because we are mutants.” — Professor Charles Xavier.
An Inconvenient Truth:
“Danger lies not in what we don’t know, but in what we think we know that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain
It’s National Accordion Awareness Month: Do You Know Where Your Accordion Is?
Accordion Players, Please Stand Up
Unless you’ve got a bad back, that is. Or your sciatica is acting up.
Gather round, ye practitioners of the strap-on music box and let yourself be counted.
Yikes, that was a little scary. On second thought, maybe you should just spread out and blend in quietly with the population.
And celebrate the month!
Yes, June is National Accordion Awareness Month, a celebration that is worded in such a way that it sounds more like a warning.
Saying “National Accordion Awareness Month” seems to imply that there ought to be a pre-packaged educational warning to parents:
So make sure your children are aware of what they’re supposed to do if they encounter a strange accordion player in public: Stop, drop, and rock-n-roll.
I come not to mock the squeeze box, but to praise it
But before I do, I would like to share with you my favorite accordion joke:
Q: How is an accordion different from an onion?
A: People cry when they chop up an onion.
OK, with that out of the way, now I can tell you that I have become an uncloseted accordion player in my middle age.
That’s me and my strolling-sized Weltmeister musette accordion, perplexing the neighbors and traumatizing their dogs.
Most people don’t expect to hear an accordion unless they’re at Oktoberfest, and a guy who looks like this walks on the stage.
Roll out the barrels earplugs
“Polka” comes to mind when people see an accordion. And while accordions seem to be especially made for polka music, their charm — I’ve learned — lies elsewhere.
But it would take a while to learn.
I took accordion lessons because my father took accordion lessons when he was a boy. Unfortunately, The Beatles and the other rock-n-roll bands that consumed my imagination in the 1960s were particularly void of accordion-playing role models.
The British were invading without squeeze boxes
The only people I saw on TV playing accordions were Lawrence Welk and his ever-present sidekick, Myron Floren.
Kid repellent
I took lessons from a sour Dutchman named Mr. Andriessen, who had no interest in pop music and used a plastic hammer to tap my knuckles when I hit wrong keys — which was quite often.
During my teenage years, I briefly tried playing the accordion in a rock band, then quickly abandoned it for the guitar and the saxophone. But yes, there was a time when I was playing Build Me Up Buttercup, She Came In Through the Bathroom Window and I’m a Believer on the accordion.
I even taught myself to get by on a few songs with the accordion’s cool cousin — the harmonica.
The accordion is essentially a keyboard harmonica, and yet, they both have such divergent reputations.
Cool
Uncool
So, I abandoned the accordion for about 25 years.
Why did I come back?
I would occasionally be surprised by the beauty of the instrument. They would be accidental discoveries.
More than once, I was struck by the loveliness of a cafe accordion
When I saw the French movie, Amelie, in a movie theater, I was constantly distracted by the haunting accordion music in the soundtrack.
When I listened to Rickie Lee Jones’ terrific “Pop Pop” album, it was the bandoneon (a small tango accordion) in her sparse arrangements that caught my attention.
And it was Astor Piazzolla, the Argentine composer and bandoneon player, who made me re-evaluate my youthful, premature dismissal of the accordion as a hoplelessly inferior, and somewhat comical, musical instrument.
Can anybody imagine a better instrument on which to play La Vie en Rose, Bessa Me Mucho or Oh Marie? Aren’t European and Latin love songs joyful on an accordion?
Even the occasional American songbook classic (like I’ll Be Seeing You) or Disney ballad (like Someday My Prince Will Come) can be magical on the accordion.
Isn’t an accordion so much more than a polka-playing contraption?
A few years ago, my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday.
And without giving myself time to think, I answered, “an accordion.”
Squeeze in, pull out. Repeat, repeat, repeat
So I bought my little accordion, and began relearning the fundamentals. I’m kind of a hack. If Mr. Andriessen were around, my knuckles would be raw.
But I amuse myself playing some of that cafe music — minus the cafe — and that’s good enough for now.
Yes, it makes me happy.
As I was thinking about this, I had a vague recollection of a Carl Sandburg poem that mentioned an accordion. So I dug it up today, surprised to find that the name of the poem is “Happiness.”
And so I’ll wrap up this acknowledgment of National Accordion Awareness Month with Sandburg’s words:
I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines River
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion
Blind Ambition: A Guide Dog for Katherine Harris
The Birth of the Dumb Blind Joke
Katherine Harris, Florida’s profoundly challenged Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is planning to get a guide dog in November — if she is elected in her bid to outseat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Harris, however, is trailing Nelson by 32 points in the latest Stategic Vision poll.
No, I haven’t gotten to the part of the blog where I start making jokes.
Her intention to use a dog that assists blind people with navigating in public places is actually what Harris told New York Times reporter, Mark Leibovich, in a front-page story that ran in Wednesday’s edition:
“Once Ms. Harris wins her race for a Senate seat, she says, she plans to travel everywhere with a guide dog.”
Once again: I’m not making this up. The story goes on:
“She will care for the dog for 18 months, spending nearly all her waking hours with it. ‘You can’t let them sleep in bed with you,’ Ms. Harris said. ‘Which is going to be harder on me than the dog.’
Harris said she would have the dog as part of its training, before it would be sent to serve an actual blind person.
Pictured here with current lap dog
For the record, Congresswoman Harris can see, is married, and as a member of House of Representatives, is already someone who gets doors opened in her path.
No word yet on whether she will also be using a cane to walk the streets of Washington, D.C.?
Plausible explanations
I don’t buy the whole training-the-dog cover story. Clearly there must a sensible, perhaps even politically strategic reason, why Harris is planning to carry on like a blind person.
The Blogaroni presents …
Six Plausible Explanations Why Katherine Harris is Getting a Guide Dog
1. To Appeal to the Dyslexic Religious Right
Praise Dog!
She walks with Dog, lives at the right hand of Dog, and finds many opportunities during the day to tell others that she has an awesome Dog.
This will provide the missing piece to her evangelical campaign, a campaign, she says, that has been fueled by a message from God for her to run.
2. She plans to ride the dog to work in the Capitol
She’s pretty good with a harness, and some of those dogs are big enough to ride. It’s the best she can do, seeing as how there isn’t enough room for a horse on crowded Washington, D.C. sidewalks.
3. Blonde, not blind!
When talking about her future plans in Congress, she mentioned to her staff that once she beat Nelson she wanted to be “blonde.”
“Blonde” must have sounded like “blind.”
The next thing you know, she’s locked into some cockamamie plan to get herself a guide dog. And when you’re down as far as she is in the polls, you can’t afford to irritate any demographic. Even the blind.
So now she’s stuck with the dog plan.
Some staff members are going to get so fired over this!
4. A preemptive move to stop Stevie Wonder from raising money for Nelson
5. Harris is still scarred by previous campaign against a dog
In the Republican primary for her House seat in 2002, Harris faced a dog write-in candidate.
Wayne Genthner put his border collie, Percy, in the race against Harris, with the slogan “Put the ‘lick’ back in Republican.”
“No one has a realistic expectation that a dog can get elected,” Genthner told USA Today. “But plenty of people will be willing to vote for a dog to represent their discontent with the political system.”
Harris beat Percy, but since then, she has been cognizant of finding a way to shore up her dog-owner support.
6. Somebody’s got to lead her around Washington
She can’t take campaign money and directions from bribery artist Mitchell Wade anymore.
Her good Congressional buddy and mentor Randy “Duke” Cunningham is in prison.
George W. Bush, the man she practically installed in the White House, has turned into an ungrateful scaredy-pants. Ditto for the rest of the Republican powerbrokers.
And let’s face it, there’s only so many symbolic votes on family-values issues one can cast.
What is she supposed to do for the next six years?
She might as well while away the time by playing with an extremely obedient, pre-potty-trained, dog.
The Gay Flag Burning Amendment
The next step for Values Voters
The Republicans in Washington are going back to what they do best: attacking gays for the good of the country.
This is the kind of bold leadership that will cement their hold on the voters they can’t afford to alienate.
Like this guy:
Or this woman:
But what happens next?
It’s a long road to the November elections, and Republicans will have to come up with new ways to say that they aren’t the party of homosexuals. They can’t simply be content to push for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
If they don’t keep the drum beat going against gays, the gay-haters might start to hate something else — like the war in Iraq, for example. Or even worse, the repeal of taxes on the rich.
And that could be politically disastrous.
Any ideas out there?
So far, the plan is to switch from the gay bashing into the symbolic protection of the American flag from hypothetical burning.
A Constitutional Amendment to forbid the desecration of the American flag is an old idea that is both legally doomed and useless — considering that the burning is going on in other countries.
We have always found it much more efficient just to bomb these people into compliance.
Getting back to gays
No, it makes much more sense for Republicans to just find new ways to say that they aren’t gay.
And perhaps the best way is to go from the American flag burning debate into a national debate on burning the gay flag, which is sometimes referred to as New Glory.
Yes, Republicans could sponsor a Constitutional Amendment to expressly permit the burning of the gay flag.
Firing up the base
Last year, in Bloomington, Indiana, police stopped a church group from burning a gay flag. Story here.
The pastor of the protesting church group framed for Congressional Republicans the argument they need to embrace:
John Lewis, pastor of the Old Paths church, said his group burned the flag there because it believes gay people will burn in hell.
“The elite city of Bloomington harbors an elitist, faggot business called The Inner Chef which openly and unabashedly claim they are against God Almighty,” Lewis said. “… We were there to cry against it. We burned the flag, and we will do it again.”
Bin Who-den?
By speaking out for the need to burn the gay flag, Congressional Republicans can once again prove to their vital base of support just what we should be focusing on, how much is at stake, and whose side they are on:
And then, Values Voters like this patriotic American (see American flag in non-gay-bashing hand) will surely show up at the polls to save the Republicans, who have taken the time to show they care.
Any questions?
Soccer World Cup Fever in the U.S.A.: 98.6 (Fahrenheit)
U … S … A ……… U … S … oh, never mind
Friday, the World Cup Soccer Tournament begins in Germany. This once-every-four-years event is anticipated throughout the world with wild excitement.
Well, not exactly throughout the entire world. In the United States, soccer is still the sports equivalent of the metric system — yeah, we know the rest of the world is crazy about it, but we don’t care.
Soccer is a Celsius sport, and we’re still clinging to Fahrenheit.
Why isn’t soccer a beloved sport in America?
The Blogaroni presents …
Ten Reasons Why America Isn’t Wild About Soccer
1. We Didn’t Invent It
Football, baseball and basketball are American sports. As for ice hockey, we’re humoring the Canadians on that one.
But soccer is in the category of “other” sports that include cycling, rugby, curling and cricket.
2. Multi-language aspect of the game prevents proper understanding of on-field insults.
3.Soccer hair
Wet, unruly and lots of it.
4.Soccer fans
They’re just plain scary.
The Dutch all show up in orange, and look vaguely demented …
… the English want to fight …
… and the Brazilians come to dance.
The average international soccer crowd makes a Miami Dolphins - New York Jets football game seem like a ladies club social.
5. Not enough scoring in soccer
Too many games end without either team getting a goal.
If you watch something for two hours and nobody scores, you’re either at a soccer game — or a Star Trek convention.
6. So many games end in a tie
This is clearly un-American. America likes victory, even when its only an imaginary one.
7. Deciding a game by penalty kicks
Sometimes the only way to come up with a champion is to have a round of penalty kicks after the game.
I recall the Brazil-Italy World Cup final in 1994. The game ended after regulation play plus extra time in a 0-0 tie. Italy lost because during the penalty kick phase, Roberto Baggio, kicked one over the crossbar of the goal.
Ending a game this way is like deciding a champ by holding a spelling bee.
Americans prefer the baseball model, where teams keep playing the game for as many innings as it takes for somebody to break the tie.
8. Players faking injuries
When players lose the ball to a player on the other team, the usual reaction is to flop on the pitch, as if the victim of a horrible foul that appears to have caused a career-ending injury.
The player stays immobile on the field in a state of theatrical paralysis until the referee stops play, and orders that the player be carried off the field in a stretcher.
The injury lasts precisely as long as it takes the stretcher to reach the touchline. Once off the field, the player bounds out of the stretcher, fully recovered, and ready to rejoin the game at the next opportunity.
In America, people who want to fake injuries have a different venue just for them: It’s called the courthouse.
9. Excessive celebration after goal scoring
American baseball players rarely show emotion on the field, even after hitting a home run. American football players can get penalized for excessive celebration on the field. And in basketball, there’s so much scoring, that players usually only have time for a single thrust of a fist in the air before they have to dash down the court to prevent the next score.
But in soccer, because goals are so far and few between, the celebration seems to have no bounds.
A goal is usually cause for diving onto the pitch to await the rest of your team to pile on top of you in some kind of ritualistic S&M exhibition.
10. Mexico beats the U.S. too often
This is clearly problematic. How are we supposed to build a wall along their border and play the role of the superior nation when they routinely beat us in soccer?
Clearly, America won’t begin to fully embrace soccer until we can ensure that when Mexicans come here, it will be to be exploited by American employers, not to celebrate the soccer prowess of their national team.
Preparing for the Date “6-6-6”: An Apocalyptic Primer
Good Times, End TImes
As Tuesday, June 6, 2006, approaches, we must assess the numeric significance of 06-06-06, and realize that this is a clear sign that the Rapture is upon us.
The Values Voters Check Out
The Rapture is detailed in the Bible, somewhere after the part about the necessity of stoning unruly children to death:
Lucifer’s Lotto
“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” — from the Book of Revelation
The Beast! That guy from the new X-Men movie?
I don’t mean to make light of the Apocalypse. With the present leadership in our country, and its continuing effort to appeal to an ever-narrowing base, this End Times concern may actually turn into something tangible:
Such as a sales-tax holiday on Rapture supplies.
Stocking up on duct tape and batteries at the Apocalypse Depot
So I’ve been reading www.RaptureReady.com, a Web site dedicated to those who are extremely concerned with the end of the world, the identity of The Beast and a variety of other matters that might best be described as unintentionally hilarious.
For example, there’s this frequently asked question: “Are angels male or female?”
Turns out, the answer is male, and it’s not just guesswork:
“Furthermore, angels are always described, when they appear, as ‘men,’ and the pronoun ‘he’ is always used in reference to them. Somehow they have been given by God the capacity of materializing themselves in masculine human form when occasion warrants, even though their bodies are not under the control of the gravitational and electromagnetic forces which limit our own bodies in this present life.” (The above excerpt is from The Giants of Old (Part 2), The Genesis Record - by Henry Morris.)
So there you have it. In summary:
Real Angels
Fake (female) Angel
Anaheim Angel
And RaptureReady also answers other pressing questions thinking people have often wondered, questions such as:
“Will the Antichrist be a Homosexual?”
Probably so, some experts say, according to the site.
Hell-oooo!
Yes, we are talking about serious stuff here by people who have their fingers on the pulse of the truly important matters of the world — for example, whether Israel will gets its hands on a “spotless red heifer” — because if that happens, it’s ball game over, folks.
Threat evaluation
But my favorite feature of RaptureReady is the handy-dandy numerical scoreboard that calculates how close we are getting to the Big Day.
It’s called “The Rapture Index.”
The folks at RaptureReady explain: “You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.”
Oh, no! Ecumenism is on the rise!
The Rapture Index assigns numerical values on 45 indicators of the Apocalypse. Floods and plagues are up these days, but droughts are down. The European Union has apparently been assigned the role of “Beast Government” and the fortunes of the Bush administration with the U.S.A. Patriot Act is apparently tied to warding off the beast.
George W. Bush, Holy Defender
The Bush Administration, it turns out, is our best defense against The Beast.
Did I mention that there’s increased Satanism in Russia? Yes, this is all very scientific, serious stuff. Anyway, the bottom line is that we’re currently at a Rapture Index of 156, which puts us well over the window of “heavy prophetic activity” and into the highest category of Apocalyptic readiness:
Yes, according to RaptureReady, we are in the readiness zone entitled: “Fasten Your Seat Belts.”
So, I don’t know about you, but between the Rapture enthusiasts and the people in power who are counting on them, and egging them on, I’m not making any plans beyond Tuesday.
Seat belt fastened
Why Gallagher the Comedian Would be a Better Governor
How the Gallaghers Stack Up
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher is aiming to be Florida’s next Republican candidate for governor.
To do that, he’ll have to beat Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist in the biggest-troglodyte-wins competition that is the statewide Republican primary.
This is like picking between the measles and the mumps.
But we here at The Blogaroni wonder how much better it would be for voters if the other Gallagher — Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr., the comedian — was the Gallagher in this race.
Don’t laugh. Here’s how Florida’s veteran comedian stacks up to Florida’s chief financial officer.
A Tale of Two Gallaghers
Florida roots
Politician Gallagher: Grew up in Delaware.
Comedian Gallagher: Grew up in Tampa.
Education
Politician Gallagher: University of Miami, where he was on a swimming scholarship
Comedian Gallagher: University of South Florida, where he was on a work-study scholarship, working as an agricultural chemist at Florida company
Early Days as Salesman
Politician Gallagher: Selling library equipment across the Southeast.
Comedian Gallagher: Selling chemicals for Allied Chemical in Chicago.
Campaign failures
Politician Gallagher: Three previous unsuccesful campaigns for Florida Governor.
Comedian Gallagher: In his only try for governor (in California during 2003 Recall Election), he finished a respectable 16th out of a field of 135 candidates.
Panders to audience by bashing …
Politician Gallagher: homosexuals.
Comedian Gallagher: watermelons.
Brother wanna-be issues
Politician Gallagher: Possible confusion among voters with political neophyte brother, Doug, who ran unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate in 2004.
Comedian Gallagher: Possible confusion among audiences with comedian neophyte brother, Ron, who imitated his act by calling himself “Gallagher Too” and smashing watermelons onstage. The routine was stopped when Comedian Gallagher sued his brother in federal court for stealing his act.
Heavy reliance on props
Politician Gallagher: Eager to shed his bachelor playboy image that dogged his three previous gubernatorial campaigns, he is now married and a father, and spares no opportunity to drag his wife and son in front of voters every chance he gets.
Comedian Gallagher: Especially the Sledge-O-Matic to bash watermelons and other items onstage. He also uses a trampoline that looks like a couch and an adult-sized Big Wheel.
Refining the act
Politician Gallagher: After spending a career as a moderate Republican who was pro-choice, for gun control, against school vouchers and school prayer, he has suddenly become the conservative family values candidate in the race — an anti-abortion crusader, who wants to expand school vouchers, penalize business owners who prevent employees from keeping guns in their cars while at work, ban gay marriage, rail against “activist judges”, and talk about his fervent new epiphany of Christian faith.
Comedian Gallagher: Started smashing watermelons onstage more than 20 years ago. Still smashing watermelons onstage.
Snippet from onstage routine
Politician Gallagher: “For the greater glory of God – that’s why we are here on earth. Whether we are leaders in government or in another profession, all that we do has dignity and worth before the Lord because we live for His glory.”
Comedian Gallagher: “I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. They’ve got one marked “Brightness,” but it don’t work, does it?”
Competitors in the arena
Politician Gallagher: Only has to outclass Florida Attorney Gen. Charlie Crist, the state’s top lawyer who took three tries before passing the Florida Bar exam. Gallagher looks like Mensa material next to Crist.
Comedian Gallagher: Only has to outclass Florida’s other famous prop-comic, Carrot Top. Gallagher looks like Mensa material compared to Carrot Top.
Signs that Your Neighbor is Growing Marijuana
Seeds of suspicion
This week, a home in Delray Beach caught on fire, and when rescue crews arrived, they discovered that there were 200 marijuana plants being grown inside. Story here.
Just goes to show you, you never know what the neighbors are up to.
Where’d you get those, in the garden department at Loew’s Highs?
I would imagine, though, that a home full of marijuana plants would lead to some … well, let’s just say, unusual behavior by the occupants, who from time to time, would be sampling their crop.
So without further ado, The Blogaroni presents …
A Dozen Signs That Your Neighbor is a Marijuana Farmer …
1.That’s not a Zephyrhills water truck making deliveries to their house, it’s a Little Debbie truck.
2.You wonder why suspended Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams keeps driving by.
3.At Halloween, the only trick-or-treaters who knock on their door are teenagers with skateboards.
4.For a such a small lawn, they certainly have a lot of bags of grass clippings at the curb on garbage pickup day.
5.The first Girl Scout to make it to the house wins the cookie sales competition for the troop.
6.At the neighborhood block party, they always bring the brownies.
7.Your block parties are hilarious, simply hilarious.
8.Their dog is too fried to bark at the mailman.
9.The last time they participated in a pot-luck dinner at their kid’s school, the PTA voted to listen to Bob Marley’s music for the rest of the evening.
10.They think it’s a shame to paint their house just one color.
11.Their pet parrot doesn’t want a cracker — he wants smores.
12.You’ve never heard of an entire family having glaucoma.
