Archive for March 2012
Barack Obama at his inauguration:
“Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.”
Source: HuffPo
It’s flabbergasting to imagine a man elected president so woefully ignorant of history, that he has no idea how many presidents have come before him, that he has no concept that Grover Cleveland was elected to the 22nd and 24th terms of the office – 44 administrations, 43 Americans.
Hey Bammy, can you seriously be that much of a rube as to take the office not knowing how many Americans have taken the oath before you? There were probably at least a half-a-dozen Jeopardy fans named Jethro in the Appalachian mountains alone who were laughing when Obama exposed his ignorance of American history during his inauguration speech.
So this is our president, a man who has no idea how many presidents have stood before him, a man who talks about campaigning through the 57 states, a man who thinks asthma patients need breathalizers, a man who thinks a proper gift between the first meeting the world’s two greatest allies is to give the prime minister of Great Britain a bunch of DVDs formatted for the wrong region? Have you no idea of the history we share and that the bargain bin slop you’re offering with these DVDs don’t even work in their British DVD players?
How about offering the Queen of England an iPod full of videos of your greatest speeches. Because nothing says total narcissist like giving the Queen of England a collection of you and your greatest video hits that she could watch, enthralled with the greatness of your oratory powers, over and over . . .
When he first got elected, my hopes were soaring, I was hoping this would be the transformational candidate to bring the red and blue together and reform this nation into a nation of purple with one common purpose.
This man has none of that, he has none of those transformational healing qualities. The way he works a teleprompter, he seems half puppet, half angry snob.
Here’s the worst of it though, this man is now trying to rename an entire generation in his name. Slightly more clever than simply naming it Generation Obama (and I heard they ever kicked around the idea of calling it Generation Messiah) instead, seemingly oblivious that he’s the 43rd man to take the oath, they’re giving the Obama Youth Brigade the title of Gen 44. That’s right folks, never mind the fact that every generation has become branded with a name in an organic fashion, that the name propagated through natural repetition, this is the first time in the history of America that we have a single person, so self-consumed and self-obsessed, that he would have the gall to tell you that I am the almighty creator of your pop culture and I name you – “Gen44″.
If any single person tries to dub you and your generation with a label that makes them your solitary leader, reject that narcissist, reject what they’re trying to sell you, because a person like Barack Obama to me, is no different from the guy who created the People’s Paradise in Guana, the guy who lead the Branch Dividians in Waco, or the tyrants like Stalin and Hitler who told their followers to worship the Almighty State and it’s Messianic Leader above all else.
Jenna Talackova, the 23-year-old transsexual contestant who was set to compete in the Miss Universe Canada beauty pageant this May, has been disqualified. “She did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form,” the organization says in a press release. “We do, however, respect her goals, determination and wish her the best.”
No word on which “requirements” Talackova lacked.
Talackova began hormone therapy at 14 and underwent sexual reassignment surgery at 19. She was listed on the official Miss Universe Canada website as a contestant until it was discovered that she was transgender.
source: pop2it
I’ll admit it, when I think of transsexuals, the first thing that comes to mind is people like Chaz Bono, people who were somewhere inbetween the two sexes to begin with and probably are not attractive whether you leave them as born or change their sex. I also have this theory that the more homophobic a person is, the more they have latent homosexual desires they’re trying to repress, so I take pride in never worrying about doing anything people might say “looks gay” but even for me, this is a bit jarring. You think of people you might get together with and you think, “Oh yeah, I could totally tell if it was some man masquerading as a woman.” (No offense, Danny Bonacude.)
Look again at the photo and realize that Jenna’s hormone therapy started at 14, but this is a person who had a penis dangling between “her” legs until the age of 19. Look at that photo again – here is a person who had a penis for 19 years and just a couple years after that penis was sliced and diced and she was legal aged, she could walk into a bar on any given night and I bet you a dozen men would try to by her a drink and another couple dozen men other would just check her out and wish they had the courage to even talk to her in the first place.
But imagine this, for the one guy in the bar who might have been lucky enough to take her home (and I have no idea if she ever did, but imagining she may have had a one night stand or two) just imagine if after taking her home and bragging to his friends about this hottie he’d banged, maybe one of his friends had googled this Jenna girl and the truth had gotten out and all of a sudden his friends were telling him, “Dude, you went home with a dude!” From what may have been one of his greatest conquests ever, it would probably go to something he’d cringe at – something his friends would never let up on.
As I look at this photo of “Jenna” a final time, this “chick” is so hot, whether meeting her in a bar or at a grocery store, there is no way you could ever imagine anything other than pure, sexy woman, and I’m trying to sort this out and all I can come up with is two possible conclusions: either science is so good it’s wrong, or maybe some people really are born with the wrong sex. I don’t know which it is, but I’m wondering if it makes me gay the fact that I got turned on by Jenna’s sexy picture.
An elderly man is stopped by the police around 2 a.m. and is asked where he is going at this time of night.
The man replies, “I am on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late.”
The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”
The man replies, “That would be my wife.”
With the season 5 premier airing in just a couple hours, I wanted to share with you my…
Top Ten Reasons Why Mad Men Is the Best Thing on TV
10. Set Decor. Or is that set direction or . . . I don’t even know what it’s called because I rarely ever even notice it on a show but the sets on this show, that 60′s style, from the high class homes and apartments to the beatnik slums, from the posh clubs to a great scene in a classic diner, so often while I’m paying attention to what’s going on, I’m also thinking about how cool the style was from that era.
9. Bertram Cooper. The bow-tied founding partner may be the only television character I’ve ever seen who actively encourages his fellow partners and employees to read a book or two from Ayn Rand. For that alone he makes this list.
8. Pete Campbell. What could I say that could possibly match these collections of Pete Campbell quotes from Season One, Season Two and Season Three.
7. Watching my dad’s generation operate – it’s the closest I’ll ever get to having been there to see it in person.
6. The drinking. Classic scene – Roger Sterling: I bet daily friendship with that bottle attracts more people to advertising than any salary you can dream of. Don Draper: It’s the way I got in. RS: So enjoy it. DD: I’m doin’ my best here. RS: No, you’re not. You don’t know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it’s good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it’s what men do. // And it’s a lot of fun watching both generations operate with a glass of whiskey in their hand as part of the office routine.
5. Peggy Olsen. You really have to cringe watching some of the things Peggy and the other women had to endure in the workplace back in those times, but here was a woman who blazed a trail, moving up to a position that had been “men only” territory. Where women of today would have the recourse of a lawsuit, Peggy only knows she can never let them think they’ve broken her. She’s admirable for all her courage and strength, she’s a smart and sexy woman (in a girl next door kind of way.)
4. Joan. Forget about how hot Christina Hendricks is, okay wait, why would you want to forget about how hot Christina Hendricks is? Okay, so leave those aside, I mean, leave that aside and just look at what this woman does for the entire firm. She gives advice and it is brutal, but it is exactly what that person needed to hear at that exact moment, every time. She’s cool under pressure, she always thinks in terms of what’s best for the company as a whole, she is hands down, the MVP of the team and it is just amazing watching her operate.
3. Roger Sterling. Most people have some sort of editing mechanism that serves as a gateway between thinking a thought and voicing it – Roger Sterling has none of that. But whereas a lot of people would not be all that funny if they shared everything they were thinking, Sterling is more often than not downright hilarious when he lets it fly.
2. Nostalgia. As with any era, there was a fair share of bad in the early 60s, but the writers manage to straddle a fine line with it, for example we often get a scene or a line that is grossly un-politically correct to our modern sensibilities, yet in the hands of the writers of this show, it’s usually funny enough that we find ourselves both laughing and cringing at the same time. I can also remember for three or four episodes leading up to November of 1963, wondering how they would deal with the Kennedy assassination, and when that episode came, the way the writers handled it was profound – I had always grasped how that day might have been as devastating for all Americans as I know 9/11 was, but watching the event through our favorite character’s eyes, this was the first time I ever really felt how the devastation could have been comparable.
There was so much that was good about the 60s too, though – the optimism that we as a nation had risen to become the best place in the best of all possible worlds, the suits, the shades, the dresses, the way the cars looked, it was a style that in many ways was more modern and space age than that of today, for the first time both TVs and airline flight were affordable for the average American and not just affordable, but new and glamorous… it was the 60s, my friends, we were on our way to the Moon and the people of Madison Avenue were there to sell us that American dream, one element of that dream at a time.
1. Don Draper. Do I need to elaborate? If I do, you need to check out the show.
A rally organizers have billed as the “largest secular event in world history” will be held on the National Mall today.
The Reason Rally will bring atheists and nonbelievers together in a hallowed American place… The rally will express some of the alarm atheists can feel at seeing religious creeds on U.S. currency or hearing politicians pay respects to “people of all faiths,” but not those who have none.
Source: NPR
When the “largest secular event in world history” only has to apply for a permit of 15,000, that’s pretty pathetic. Who knows if they’ll even make that mark, but there are WNBA teams who have averaged better attendance than that!
These are people who will gather together and most likely spend most of their time talking about how religions are the cause for all the wars, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the century just past saw more people slaughtered by Godless states such as the Nazis, Stalin’s Soviet Russia, Mao’s Communist China and third world Communist dictators than all the previous centuries combined, but I respect the efforts of the atheists to gather together and have their voices as a small minority in America heard alongside everyone else’s.
The part I don’t get is, these are supposed to be people of science, people of reason – where is the logic in trying to brand yourself as a “nonbeliever”? Bullshit. Believing in nothing is a belief in and of itself. You can try to convince yourself you believe in nothing all day long and the only thing it will make you is a nihilist. Most atheists are not nihilists, which means they believe in a lot of things, one of which is the absense of God.
You say you worry about the respect paid to “people of all faiths” but feel slighted as a person who has none? Are you seriously trying to tell me it takes no faith to believe that the universe was created without a Creator, that all of this reality just poofed out of nowhere?!?!
It’s amazing to me how so many smart people can be completely oblivious to the fact that it takes just as much faith to believe in the absense of God as it does to believe that there is a God, but dear atheists, please take heart, when the phrase, “people of all faiths” is used, trust me, you and your faith in the lack of a God are right there in there.