The Average Joel

An Average Ending

2010-07-25T21:20:00.001-07:00

What? Doth mine eyes deceive me? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an overly-long, drawn-out, poorly worded treatise on nothing?

Why yes. Yes it is.

After a several month hiatus, the Average Joel is back. And what message of good tidings do I bring to my avid and devoted reader? Well, to the both of you I have only this to say: so long suckers!

Allow me to 'esplain.

12 years ago, I found myself on a flight from Houston Texas to Bogota Colombia to begin my two-year Mormon mission. While all the other passengers calmly looked out the window as we crossed the Caribbean in twilight, I sat in a cold sweat, nervously clutching the air-sickness bag in the hopes of catching the remnants of dinner I was sure was about to come back for an encore. Did all these people on the plane not realize where we were going? COLOMBIA! SOUTH AMERICA! I was only minutes away from stepping foot in a country where I did not know a living soul and I could not speak the language. Heck, I could not even pronounce the name of the capital.( It turns out, Bogota does not rhyme with Dakota, seriously, who knew?). As if that wasn't bad enough, I was about to spend the next two years of my life in a country whose penchant for narco-terrorism and kidnappings had scared away every tourist since Romancing the Stone was made. Over the last twenty-years, the only movies made about Colombia have been written by Tom freakin' Clancy! Does this sound like the kind of place where you would want to sell religion door-to-door?

Well the plane, as all good planes do, eventually landed. And, unlike Hawaii where you are greeted by Hula Girls with flowers around their necks, I was greeted by sub-machine gun toting soldiers with bullets draped across their chests who surrounded the plane as soon as it pulled up to the gate. Bienvenidos, indeed.

As everyone else calmly filed out of the plane I stared blankly ahead of me like a nine-year- old boy at the top of a water slide he is sure will kill him. Too afraid to go. Too stupid/proud to turn back.

Then I remembered why I was there: to answer the call. So I stood up, walked off the plane and, in so doing, committed to serve the Lord whenever and wherever he wanted me to. Even Colombia.

That decision to serve has shaped every facet of my life ever since.

A few weeks ago, I discovered something scary and disconcerting. I was content with my life. And every time I have ever felt content with my life, the Lord has always decided to through me a pitch I haven't seen yet.

And then the phone rang.

To understand what I am about to say you need to know a little bit about the Mormon church. All you Mormons can go ahead and skip this paragraph and get back to eating your green jell-o. For you non-Mormons, please keep reading. Each LDS congregation is called a Ward and constitutes a set geographic area (usually a couple square miles). As Mormons, we do not have paid clergy. Each member of the Ward, is assigned a role and we rotate through these roles. It can be anything from teaching Sunday School, to leading music, to organizing church activities. Even the leaders of the Ward serve on a volunteer basis and are not paid. The leader of a Ward is a called a Bishopand he is assisted by two counselors. Together, these three men constitute a Bishopric. The Bishopric is responsible for the spiritual and temporal well being of all the people in the ward, usually about 100 families. Their role goes far beyond overseeing the church administration and organizing Sunday services. They help struggling bread-winners get a job and pay the mortgage. They help families get food through a special grocery store called the Bishops Store House. They counsel struggling marriages. They tend to the sick and needy. They help people overcome sin and addiction. They assist in the total well-being of every person in the ward. It is a tremendous responsibility, requires a large time commitment and, oh, did I mention it does not pay a dime?

Well, the phone call came from Stake Presidency (the guys who are in charge of the Bishops. Try to keep up.) The Stake Presidency needed to meet with me and right away I knew what was coming. We were due for a new Bishopric and there was really only one reason why they would want to talk to me.

Sure enough, at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, July 11th, I heard the words that would change my entire life. Will you serve as Second Counselor in the Bishopric?

Just like 12 year ago, sitting on the plane, every sensible part of my screamed no and frankly, the sensible part of me made some pretty good arguments. I am only 31 years old, isn't this a job better suited for someone older and wiser? I have five kids under the age of seven, how is this fair to my wife? I have a demanding job, how am I going to find the time necessary to serve effectively?

Despite all this, I could not ignore my decade-old commitment to serve. Anytime. Anywhere.

So I said Yes.

Now each Sunday, while the rest of the world sleeps, I get up early for my 6:45 a.m. Bishopric meeting, to be followed by 3 hours of church service to be followed by more meetings to be followed by in-home visits to be followed by...well, you get the picture.

Where does this leave me? Well, it leaves me saying good bye. For almost two years now, it has been the highlight of my week being able to stir up my thoughts and throw them out onto the internet like a Jackson Pollock painting. With the birth of the twins this has become next to impossible. Getting called to the Bishopric, I am afraid, was the last nail in the Average Joel coffin.

Before I ride off into the blogosphere sunset, let say thanks for reading and especially for commenting. I am a feedback junkie and I appreciate all the kind words, even when we disagreed. This site will remain up if you ever care to peruse my thoughts but new content will have to stay trapped inside my head, where it probably belongs.

However, before your internet- induced ADD compels you to click on something else (oooooh look..LOL cats!) allow me the chance to unmask myself and reveal my not-so-secret identity. My name is Joel. I am married to Wonderwoman. I have five children who, despite my best efforts, are as beautiful as they are smart. I am a proud, unabashed and vocal member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I am a child of a loving Heavenly Father who knows and cares for me. The same hands that made the sun, the moon and the stars made me.

Maybe I am not so average after all.

Mr. Obama: What Can Brown do for You?

2010-02-08T09:03:00.001-08:00

"Ted Kennedy's Karmatic Comeuppance". In a perfect world, that's what headlines across America would have said the day after Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Alas, most headlines tended to side with some sort of spin on old revolutionary themes, such as "The Scott Heard Round the World" or "The Boston Massacre." No matter what you call it, there is no questioning the magnitude of a Republican victory in such a historically and culturally left-leaning locale. Watching Scott Brown get elected to a Massachusetts Senate seat is like watching Rosie O'Donnell get elected President of Weight Watchers. This is certainly not the change Barack Obama hoped for.

Nevertheless, Scott Brown's victory could be the best thing that ever happened to Barack Obama. Just as Bill Clinton now gets credit for Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" (balanced budget, lower taxes, welfare reform) Scott Brown could be just what Barack Obama needs to save himself from...himself. So, Mr. Obama, what can Brown do for you?

Lesson #1: Time to Ditch Obama Care. Scott Brown's victory shows that America wants Obamacare as much as a person with bowel incontinence wants a pet tarantula. ( Sorry, obscure metaphors and Rose O'Donnell jokes are all I have to offer this world). Our healthcare system is broken, nobody denies that. But nobody in their right mind thinks that the solution to government-induced problems is more government involvement. Would anybody struggling with their car insurance company expect the DMV to make it better?

Obama's healthcare solutions show that he views public policy like a large McDonalds, where you can order whatever you want and make the guy behind you in line pay for it. Obamacare certainly started out with the best of intentions but what he ended up with was a trillion-dollar boondoggle wrought with union favoritism, and special interest buyouts. Comparing the fabrication of Obamacare to the making of sausage is an insult to sausage everywhere. What Obama ended up with was a pork-filled tube of government-largesse that not even the most obese progressive could swallow.

So what should Obama do? Cut that sausage into the pieces America can stomach. Focus on pre-existing conditions, making insurance cheaper (by allowing it to be purchased across state lines) and include tort reform to bring down the cost of healthcare.

Lesson #3: Rhetoric Makes for a Great Candidate but a Lousy President. President Obama loves to point out that words matter. After all, it was words (certainly not experience) that got him elected, right? But you know what matters even more than words? Action. Results. Success. While President Obama loves to attack the failed ideas of the past eight years, he so often neglects that Democrats ruled congress for two of those years. Blaming all of the problems he inherited on Bush may have worked for the first few months, but Democrats have been calling the shots in Washington for three years now and what do they have to show for it? We have the worst unemployment rate in decades and record deficits that will burden our country for generations.

For all his talk of bipartisanship, President Obama has done nothing conciliatory. He accuses Republicans of cow-towing to special interests while at the same time he is allowing insurance companies and unions to build his healthcare bill. He accuses Republicans of fiscal recklessness while at the same time proposing the largest budget in American history. He accuses Republicans of unprecedented obstructionism when he holds a filibuster proof majority. It is difficult to set a reconciliatory tone in Washington, Mr. Obama, when you spend most of your time accusing Republicans of, well, acting like Democrats.

Lesson #3: The Tea Party- It's ALIVE!. Considering Scott Brown was the first Republican elected to a Massachusetts Senate seat in a generation, you would think it would be worth mentioning this convenient fact in his victory speech. Alas, Scott Brown droned on and on about the importance of his victory without once mentioning the Republican party. The Republican Party, as an ideology, is dead. Stating you are a Republican no longer means you are a social and fiscal conservative. The meaning of Republican has become so muddied by the reckless spending of the Bush administration that it no longer has any actionable power or authority. President Obama needs to realize that the Republican party is beginning to function only as the administrative and organizational arm for the Tea Party.

Mrs. Pelosi's arrogant, down-her-nose sneering at the Tea Party movement notwithstanding, Scott brown proves that the movement has real power and real force. Far from being an Astroturf movement, the Tea Party is true grass roots with people of all shapes and sizes uniting around conservative principles. What distinguishes this from conservative movements of the past is the willingness of the Tea party to act out. Conservative activism used to be a complete oxymoron. Protests and petitions used to be the exclusive domain of people on the left. Conservatives were too busy, you know, working. However, enough people are concerned about the direction President Obama is taking this country that they were able to take Ted Kennedy's seat. As much as you may despise them, you can't ignore the termites when the roof caves in.

How bad is President Obama? Less than a year into office his actions have given rise to the fastest swing in political pendulum history. Conservatives have always outnumbered liberals 2-1, yet we are seeing in the Tea Party movement the silent majority finally come to life.

If President Obama wishes to have any success, he and the other Democratic leaders of congress, need to recognize the legitimate force of the Tea Party movement. This is no longer about getting more Republicans into congress than Democrats. This is no longer a political football game where we spend all our time pushing the ball back and forth along strict party lines. With the defeat of Republican Dede Scozzafava in upstate New York a few months ago, the Tea Party movement proved it is more content taking a risk on an unelectable conservative over an electable liberal. Because candidates will need the endorsement of the Tea Party masses in order to win election in this current political climate, you are more likely to have true conservatives, regardless of party, headed to Washington. If Barack Obama wishes to salvage his Presidency, and in essence, the country, he has to pivot to the center.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Obama's presidential victory was more like the Japanese victory in Pearl Harbor: momentous, short lived and serving only to wake the sleeping conservative giant. Scott Brown's election is the moment where Barack Obama needs to decide if he is going to be a permanent political force, or a short- lived kamikaze.

Maybe I am Just High on HopeyChangey

2010-01-10T13:36:00.001-08:00

Mormons are crazy. Anyone who has read even three sentences of the ill-conceived drivel I contribute to the blogosphere on a not-so-regular basis already knows this. But on this particular day, this particular Mormon is particularly crazy. Why? Because I am fasting (Mormon custom of abstaining from food and water for 24 hours) but I did drink enough water to slide a Claritin-D down my throat to combat the fact that I am Allergic. To. Texas. Shoving jitter-inducing drugs into an already jittery guy is like feeding pixie sticks to a ferret. The low pitched whirring you hear is not the fan from your computer, it is my heart desperately racing to keep up with the low-blood sugar drug fueled semi-panicked state I now find myself in.

The previous paragraph, my peeps, was totally random. And unfortunately, because of the ferret like stupor I now find myself in, so will the rest of this column be. Or so will be the rest of this column. Or the rest of this column will so be. Pick whichever grammatical construct best suits you. It's like a choose your own adventure but with grammar instead of, you know, adventure.

Wow, even the paragraph describing how this column was going to be random ended up being random. Now, let the randomness commence, if it has not already.

Everybody keeps giving President Obama credit for appointing the first transgendered person to his cabinet. Oh how quickly we forget Janet Reno.

It is good to see President Obama keeping his campaign promise (which he re-iterated over eight times on the campaign trail) to allow C-SPAN cameras into the healthcare bill deliberations. Wait..what? You mean he has not? You mean to tell me that the most significant legislation in the past 30 years is being deliberated exclusively behind closed doors and the American public won't even have 24 hours to look at it before it is approved along a strictly partisan line? That Obama campaign was like a fun night out on the town, getting drunk on HopeyChangey only to wake up next to the Reid-Pelosi Healthcare love child. How much HopeyChangey do you have to drink for that to look good? Answer: Ask Keith Olbermann.

I have said it before and I will say it again: worrying about the American Health care system while unemployment hovers around 10% is like worrying about watering the plants while the house burns down.

Considering the last two would-be terrorists on American-bound planes have smuggled explosives in their shoes and underwear, I think the answer to our security problems is rather obvious. Forget the full body scanners, just ban footwear and undergarments. It would be like flying through the sky on a plane full of Mathew McConaugheys.

As Jeff Jacoby from the Boston Globe pointed out this week, the Mayo Clinic, which Barack Obama has touted as a model of efficiency and compassion that the whole healthcare system should emulate, announced that it will no longer accept patients using Medicare. Why? Because Medicare only covers 50% of the cost to deliver service. This is particularly important in light of the fact that much of the proposed healthcare bill is paid for by slashing Medicare payouts to doctors. I guess once everybody on Medicare is unable to find a Doctor to treat them, the costs of Medicare really will go down. After all, the cheapest healthcare is the healthcare you never receive.

It turns out Barack Obama is against gay marriage after all. If you look into the details of the healthcare bill being bandied about in the shadows of congress, you will find that some couples could pay up to $2,000 more in health insurance premiums just for having the gall to be married. Barack Obama is trying to combat gay marriage by making the institution of marriage as unattractive as possible. Well played Mr. President, I knew there was a heartless conservative in there somewhere!

So I went to a home football game for the University of Texas and I noticed a few things:

1) The longhorn really is the perfect mascot for the University of Texas. After all, with Bevo by your side you are never more than a few feet away from a potential BBQ.

2) The University of Texas needs a choir director in the stadium. Every time they "sing" the fight song, all you hear is a conglomeration of chanting and swearing (mostly swearing) that vaguely resembles a biker-gang initiation. I probably heard the Texas fight song 20 times and the only words I could decipher with certainty were "Texas", "Fight" and "Sucks". No seriously. Maybe they just need to sing "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" to get warmed up.

If you just got that last joke then you are a full on BYU-lovin, green jello eatin' Mormon. I salute you.

3) Do not laugh when Colt McCoy gets hit hard and stays down on the ground for a while. Even though I was wearing full on burnt-orange (when in Rome) and I was sitting in the faculty section surrounded by 75-year old professors, I still almost got a good-old Texas tarin' and featherin' for that one.

4) You know you are in Austin when you walk into a gas station and there is a guy wearing 6-inch platform shoes, white bell-bottoms and a silver sequined shirt unbuttoned to the navel and no one even takes a second glance.

Just for the record all you University of Texas football fans: Brigham Young University has as many national championships and Heisman trophy winners in the last 25 years as you. Recognize!!!

Avatar was the awesomest version of Pocahontas I have ever seen.

When we elected Barack Obama, we elected a good looking, eloquent ideologue. Basically, we elected Sarah Palin without the experience.

One of my good friends, the Contemplative Tulsan, recently wrote about the decade that was and all the things that happened to him. Which got me thinking about the last ten years of my life and all I can say is HOLY MOTHER OF MARVIN THE MARTIAN! I've done a whole lot of livin'! Consider that in the last ten years I have: Returned from a mission to a third world country, met the love of my life, gotten married, received both a bachelors degree and a masters degree, stood on the Great Wall of China, floated in Hong Kong harbor, squatted in a Viet-cong tunnel, ridden a Cambodian elephant, gotten a full time job, moved seven times, bought my first home, saw every episode of Firefly twice, and brought five of my own children into this world.

Now one final word before I pass out from my Claritin-D'licious induced haze: desultory. Why? Because it is random.

Fans of the University of Utah: Proving Max Hall Right since 1892

2009-12-06T08:27:00.001-08:00

You may not have noticed it, but last weekend, my beloved BYU defeated its archrival Utah in overtime, 26-23. The score itself has become secondary to the endless brouhaha surrounding the post-game comments made by BYU's quarterback, Max Hall.

After the game, when asked about his feelings towards the University of Utah, Max stated ""I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything. It felt really good to send those guys home. I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless."

Apparently it is no longer okay to hate your rivals. This blunt statement has resulted in weeks worth of hand-wringing and guilt trawling by the U of U faithful who are shocked SHOCKED to hear such "hate speech" coming out of someone from a school run by the Mormon church. From talk radio, to newspaper op-eds, Utes all across the nation escaped to their parents basements to express the new-found hatred for such hatred.

This reaction by the Utes is nothing short of disingenuous. The only thing the Running Utes actually run from is reality. In 2004, Utah Quarterback Alex Smith, in discussing BYU said "I really hate them. Playing in the game helped me understand. They are the most arrogant people." in 2004, Utah defensive player Morgan Scalley said " I hate those pricks. I hate them with a passion." In 2002, Utah quarterback Brett Elliott said everybody hates BYU because "they're so cocky, it's ridiculous."

Apparently, the University of Utah only discovered its hatred for hate when BYU said it.

Let me say that I do not condone Max Hall's words. Max clearly paints with too broad of a brush and Max Hall himself said as much in his apology the following day. I do not hate the University and its fans, nor do I consider them all classless. I have too many friends and family members who cheer for Utah to possibly feel anything other than respect for the school. It is important to note, however, that Max Hall's comments did not occur in a vacuum and, while his comments do not apply to all fans, they do apply to a disproportionately vocal minority.

When pressed to explain his feelings Max Hall stated "They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose." And what are those other "nasty things?" During last year's game at the University of Utah, some Utah fans managed to smuggle in a blow up doll on which they wrote the name of Max Hall's mother. They then found Max's family and had simulated sex with the doll right in front of them. Couple that with the hundreds of obscene text messages Max's wife got from Ute fans and the beer throwing proclivities of the Ute faithful and it is easy to understand why Max uses the word Utah and hate in the same sentence. Would any of us do otherwise?

University of Utah fans need to understand that these incidents do not represent a tempest in a tea pot. These are not isolated incidents.

I have every reason in the world to cheer for the University of Utah. I was born and raised 30 minutes from the campus. Both of my parents graduated from the University of Utah. My cousin used to be the coach for the University's cheer squad. However, shortly before I was born, my father took my older brothers to a Utah home football game against BYU. There he witnessed BYU fan after BYU fan being harassed by the vocal Ute minority. He watched Utah fans hurl obscenities at them. Cut them off on the streets to and from the stadium. And yes, pour beer on them. My father was so disgusted by the actions of his University that he switched allegiances and ended up sending all five of his kids to BYU.

Apparently, my fathers disappointment with the University of Utah is not exclusively his. This fall, Sports Illustrated conducted a nationwide survey of College Football fans. Fans were asked questions like "What is your biggest conference rival" and "how would you rate the tailgating scene on game day." Answers were them split out by conference. Here are some results that Utah fans should find as interesting as they are embarrassing:

Fans of the nine schools in the Mountain West Conference, when asked which school has the rudest fans, selected first Wyoming (28.2%) and then, drum roll please, the University of Utah (19.7%). When discussing who has the rudest fans, you don't even need to bring up Wyoming, it is a given. It is like when discussing the best movies of all time you don't even bother bringing up Star Wars because everybody knows they are the best. The real battle is for second place and Utah wins the battle of the classless hands down.

When asked "what is your favorite stadium to visit in your teams conference?" BYU came in first with 19.2% of the vote. Utah? 5th place with 10.9%.

When asked which school has the most polite fans for visitors? BYU came in second with 16.5% (behind only Air Force). Utah? They ranked 7 out of nine teams with 2.2% of the vote. When your fan base can only out class urine- tossing hooligans in Laramie, you have got issues.

So, in terms of actual fan perceptions, the University of Utah is considered to have some of the worst fans, while BYU is considered to have some of the best.

So, Ute fans, rather than focusing on the hate-spewing mote in BYU's eye, maybe you ought to pay a little more attention to the beer-tossing beam in your own.

Becoming Jim Bob

2009-10-27T20:39:00.001-07:00

I finally understand Jim Bob.

Jim Bob Duggar from the TV show "18 Kids and Counting" could surely be enshrined in the Paternal Pantheon of the Prolifically Potent. As the name of his show suggests, his family has 18 kids and then some. What would drive a man to want 18+ children? The food bill alone would be enough to make Bill Gates start clipping coupons. So why does he do it?

Well, now that the twins are here, I am responsible for a family of almost-reality show sized proportions. And finally I understand why Jim Bob does it. What I haven't figured out is how to explain it.

You may have heard your friends compare being a parent to being a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. For those of you have heard this from your friends let me be perfectly clear: your friends are hillbillies. But those hillbillies you call friends are right. Being a parent is a constant scramble to keep balance and kick butt.

Having newborn twins, however, is nothing like being the afore mentioned mono-pod and his misplaced athletic interests. After all, as unfortunate as his disability may be, he does have the one leg. With newborn twins, you simply have NO useful appendages. Every possible limb is consumed in the relentless labor of keeping those two mouths fed and those two butts wiped. One of my favorite Far Side comics involves a man who, while looking into a mirror, discovers he has grown a mouth on his forehead. In disgust this bewildered man mutters "Great, another mouth to feed." For some reason, every time we have a child, this image goes through my mind.

As a new father of multiples I have found the most daunting aspect to twins is the logistics. Have you ever tried picking up a newborn baby with one arm? It is like trying to pick up a squishy bowling ball without using any of the finger-holes. I find myself setting the kids down and picking them back up again just so I can practice. Have you ever tried carrying two full car seats without hitting the frame of every door you pass through? Have you ever tried cramming three car seats into the back of a mini-van? Lets just say the three older kids are really getting closer now that half of the arms on their car seats have been removed.

Newborn twins also have a domino-effect impact on the other that can cause no shortage of consternation. For example, the other night I had changed their diapers, gotten them into their pajamas, fed them, burped them and gotten them to sleep when the twin boy let out a small cry as I set him down. This small cry caused his sister to grunt. This simple grunt created just enough force to get her to explode in her pants. This meant I had to change her diaper again and in the process of changing her diaper, she cried enough to wake up her sleeping brother. Thus with one small cry and I went from having two sleeping children to two wide-awake cry babies—half of them poopy. It is like the butterfly effect, only I always end up elbow deep in crap.

The twins also enjoy going for the hat trick as much as possible, where during one diaper change they manage to poop on me, pee on me and spit up on my one decent tie. They are like the Wayne Gretski's of bodily fluids.

And if you think I have it bad, you should see my wife. Not only is she still recovering from major surgery—not to mention spending nine months carrying around enough children in her belly to be considered a litter—but she is also the one responsible for feeding this thirsty brood. And being the true pioneer stock that she is, she is insistent on nursing them. This has turned her into the very personification of Las Vegas: a 24/7 topless buffet.

And yet I could not be more happy. You see, what me and the other Jim Bob's of the world have found is that happiness is not purchased, it is born and raised. The true measure of a man is not found in the soft leather seats of a sleek sports car; it is found in the torn up seats of a mini-van filled to the brink with your own children. There is no trophy you can hold that can match the joy of holding your newborn children. There is simply no law, no foundation, no organization, no governmental body that can have as profound an impact on society as one well-raised child. And I've got five of them.

I have included a great video produced by the Mormon Church about one amazing father. It does a good job of driving home my point (assuming my ramblings even have a point). I encourage you to check it out and promise you that watching it will not result in your conversion to the church. You will not come away renouncing coffee and wearing a "Joseph Smith is My Homeboy" T-shirt.(Unless you want to, in which case I know some missionaries who can totally hook you up.) It is just an inspiring message that will make men want be better and women want to marry garbage collectors. Seriously.

Adventures in See World

2009-09-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

Neitzsche once said that when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. I hope this is not true of gazing long into the under-dressed churning masses at Sea World. I know what I saw in the churning masses (i.e. 99% of women who wear bikini's shouldn't) and I would hate to think of what the churning masses saw in me (i.e. I shouldn't be wearing a bikini either). Here are some more of my observations, by the numbers, from yesterdays foray into Sea World with the kids.

1,000,000-grains of sand that managed to work their way into my toddlers diaper after one minute of playing in the sand box.

10,000- people with tattoos. Sometimes I feel like I must be the only person left on earth who has not seen fit to bedazzle his body with Chinese doodles.

300-weight, in pounds, of the girl whose bright red shirt read: "If you were me, you would be awesome." Clearly the literal nature of this shirt had not occurred to her.

60-soaked people sent scrambling up the stairs at the Shamu show with crying infants in their arms who discovered first hand that Shamu swims in water with a temperature hovering around true zero. This is, of course, my favorite part of the Shamu show. Before the show begins, they provide ample warning that those sitting in the first 16 rows will be soaked. Yet sure enough, after the first big splash, you can see waves of humanity scrambling up the stairs with expensive cameras and crying infants shocked- shocked!- to find themselves suddenly turned into a salt water slushy. Shamu is a Killer Whale people! Expect no mercy.

22-size in inches, that one's waste must be in order to use the middle seat of the monkey ride. All the other large seats were taken and my toddler really wanted to go, so alas, I crammed my generously endowed hind-quarters into that seat and rode on till my legs were numb.

20-seconds needed by that guy sitting on the curb to change the diaper of the infant precariously laid across his lap. As a father, you come to admire such displays of parental prowess. To you Mister Curb-Sitting-Lap-Using-Twenty-Second-Diaper-Changer I tip my figurative cap. You are now in league with the Across-the-Room-Baby-Poop-Identifier and the One-Handed-Child-Puke-Catcher.

12-times, while watching the large whales interact with their uber-skinny trainers, that I thought we had accidentally walked into the Rosie O'Donnell- Clay Aiken show. The only difference, really, is that Shamu is rewarded with fish instead of Twinkies.

3-wet wipes needed to clean up the kids before they could eat their Cheetos.

3-wet wipes needed to clean up the kids after they ate their Cheetos.

Zero-Penguins caught displaying their, ahem, procreative proclivities. The great fear of any young parent when taking his children to a place with animals on display, is that intended lesson on the animals in nature will turn into a lesson on the nature in the animals. I remember visiting the zoo with my wife, long before having children, and coming across two tortoises amorously engaged for all the world to see. Just then, a mother called to her young children and said "hay kids, come look at the turtl…….oh!" By then it was too late. Now mommy had some serious 'splainin to do. Who could ever expect such behavior from the tortoise? Monkies, sure. But the tortoise? Luckily, yesterdays penguins where cute, cuddly and purely platonic.

Now is the Summer of Our Discontent

2009-09-13T19:12:00.001-07:00

For President Obama, calling this summer a disappointment is tantamount to calling Transformers 2 demure and introspective. For the current administration, this summer has been a bombastic, glittery display of ineptitude and failure. No amount of CGI could put a positive spin on Obama's poll numbers where he is losing ground among all possible constituents- Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Since World War II only two other President's (Ford and Clinton) saw their approval ratings go below 50% faster. In fact, it took George H.W. Bush three years for his approval ratings to get anywhere near where Obama is at a mere 8 months into his first term. Regardless of the statistics, this much is clear: America is rejecting Obama faster than a black-market kidney and here is why.

School Speech or Rallying Cry?

Let me state up front that I have no problem with President Obama asking for an opportunity to speak to America's youth in their schools. In fact, I welcome it. As President, he should be reaching out to the next generation and encouraging them to do better. I applaud him for the speech and I certainly hope it is taken to heart by those who heard it.

What I do have a problem with are the suggested lesson plans forwarded on to schools from the Obama administration prior to the speech that included such loaded questions as "How can I help President Obama?" or "How will he inspire us?" These questions turned a speech about staying in school into a rallying cry for the Obama Youth. Maybe for the next speech, they can just forgo the lesson plans all together and send each child their own Obama Youth arm bands. In classic Obama form, he managed to clutch failure right out of the jaws of success.

Background Check Czar

All those Czar's and President Barack Obama doesn't have a single person in the White House capable of running a background check? You would think with all his technological savvy, President Obama would at least Google the names of his staff before declaring them special advisors. Alas, this lesson is too little, to late to save the former Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones.

In Van Jones, Obama thought he was getting an experienced environmental advocate, but what he ended up with was an admitted socialist and supporter of cop killers like Mumia Abu Jamal. That much, however, Obama could live with. It turns out Jones's cardinal sin was not his support of an economic system that has led to the impoverishment of billions of people, but rather his support for a petition that called 9-11 an inside job. I guess President Obama is okay with communists in his cabinet, but he draws the line at having anybody near him who would blame the government for anything.

The Grassroots are Never Greener on the Other Side

Conservative activism used to be an oxymoron. Holding up signs, disrupting meetings and shouting down the opposition used to be the exclusive domain of leftist protestors. Then Barack Obama mentioned the words "Public Option" and suddenly every townhall meeting in America turned into ground zero for conservative anger and angst. Now it is conservatives making the signs, shouting the chants and getting their faces on the evening news.

Nancy Pelosi and much of the other Democrats on Capital Hill wrote the protests off as "Astroturf" movements organized by special interests. Suddenly, it turns out, dissent wasn't patriotic. Looks like San Fran Gran Nan is going to have to scrape that bumper sticker off her car.

If Nancy would just look closer (assuming all those botox injections still allow her to squint her eyes) she might see that the opposite is true. It is the pro-Obamacare crowd that is being organized and cajoled into action by special interests. For Nancy Pelosi, the grass isn't greener on her side. The grass isn't real at all. All you have to do is look at the signs.

For example, one photojournalist in Denver (http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2009/08/pelosi-astroturf-healthcare/) took pictures of all the pro and anti-Obamacare protestors who showed up for Pelosi's visit to a local clinic. If you look at the pictures of the conservative, anti-Obamacare activists you will notice they all have one thing in common: they are all home made. If you look at the signs for the liberal pro-Obamacare protestors you will see that they are all holding the same professionally made signs that point you to a common website. Subsequently this photojournalist points out that three of the pro-Obamacare liberal protestors are actually Mexican day laborers who don't even know what the signs they are carrying mean.

Lets see, one side is using unorganized, homemade signs while the other is using manufactured, professional signs held aloft by hired hands. Which side would you say is true grassroots?

President Obama has just not been able to wrap his mind around the fear most American's have of a government run healthcare option. President Obama, in attempt to ease peoples concerns, only made them worse when he compared the government run option to the U.S. postal service. Yes, that is just what people want out of healthcare: long lines, substandard facilities and damaged goods. The harder President Obama pushes for healthcare, the faster his approval rating falls.

Endure us, Honduras

No action taken by the Obama administration is as wrong, ill advised and out right foolish as his actions towards Honduras.

Quick recap of the facts. President Zelaya, in direct defiance of the Honduran constitution, sought a special election to allow himself to serve another term in office. He had special ballots for the referendum printed in Venezuela (for the record, ballots from Venezuela are about as trustworthy as spring water from New Jersey) and shipped in to the country. The Honduran Supreme Court declared the referendum unconstitutional (because under the Honduran constitution a referendum could only be ordered by the legislature) and seized the ballots. Zelaya, following the example of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez, then led an angry mob into a military base to reclaim the ballots and distribute them illegally. The opposition had already stated it would refuse to participate in the election so any results Zelaya could achieve from a farcical referendum would be a misrepresentation of the people. Because of his aggressive acts and willful violation of the law, the Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest Zelaya and the legislature voted to provide Roberto Michelleti (a member of Zelaya's own party) with temporary presidential powers until an election could be held in November.

Despite the obvious democratic and legal justification for Zelaya's arrest, the President Obama has preferred to officially sanction Honduras until Zelaya is returned to power. At first the sanction came in the form of non-recognition for the new government, but now they have taken more drastic measures such as revoking government visa's and finally denying hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the impoverished nation.

There is simply no justification for Obama's actions other than a desperate attempt to seek favor from the South American thug-in-chief (and fellow book club member) Hugo Chavez. We should expect our President to courageously stand for Freedom and Democracy, instead, President Obama has chosen the cowards path in favor of the thugocracy currently ravishing South America.

That raspy sound you hear in the distance? That would be FDR and JFK rolling over in their graves.

If this summer of our discontent has proved anything it is this: when you elect a man President who has no idea what he is doing, you end up with a President who has no idea what he is doing.

Blubber, Blatter, Blister and Bumble

2009-08-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

I have been so busy at work for the last 2 months that I have been completely unable to put one rational, coherent thought together. So here are four irrational, incoherent thoughts. Please to be reading and enjoying.

Whale Wars: Rise of the Hypocrites

One nice thing about summer is that regular TV is chock full of crap. Just how many tired reruns and Octomom specials does it take to fill the three month telivisual void known as Summer? Answer: Apparently a lot. The good thing about all the garbage on TV is that it gives you a chance to venture out and try something new. No, not reading or spending time with the family. By new I mean a new show that any other time of the year would not crack your Tivo Top 100. This summer, that show has been Whale Wars on Animal Planet.

Whale Wars is basically a reality show in the same vein as Deadliest Catch or Ice Road Truckers. Only in the case of Whale Wars, rather then follow around a bunch of slack-jawed hillbillies as they attempt to complete a difficult job in the Frozen North, we follow around a bunch of hygienically challenged Green Peace hippies as they attempt to disrupt legal whaling in the Frozen South. The one thing all these shows have in common is they make me glad my TV does not have smell-o-vision. If the primetime Emmies handed out awards for "Worst B.O. in a Reality TV Series" we would already have our nominees.

The unclean heroes of Whale Wars, known as Sea Shepherds, spend weeks at sea each year following around Japanese whalers in an attempt to disrupt their operations.

For the record I am not pro-whaling. My need to see wet blubber is satiated every time I take a shower. I look at whales much the same way I look at spiders, scorpions and clowns: stay out of my house and I will not actively seek to destroy you.

That being said, I always find myself rooting for the Japanese Whalers; not exactly the intended consequence of the show. The sanctimonious hypocrisy displayed by the anti-whaling, anti-showering beatnik Sea Shepherds has turned them into the real villains. While they claim to be anti-violence, the methods they use against the Japanese are nothing short of dangerous and blatantly hostile.

When the Whalers use non-lethal sonar weapons, the Sea Shepherds start firing flares at them. When the Whalers tow a long rope behind them to keep the Sea Shepherds from getting too close, the Sea Shepherds respond by circling the whalers with their smaller boats and dragging a line under their hull to disable their prop. When the Sea Shepherds get frustrated by the powerful water cannons aboard the Japanese whalers, they respond by trying to throw bottles of Butyric Acid onto their decks. How dare you try to keep us peace-loving whale huggers away from your ships using non lethal methods. Eat acid you violent jerks!

The only thing more inhumane then killing whales is putting the lives of actual humans at risk, even through supposed non-violent methods. That is what the Sea Shepherds do every day they are out at sea. When you value the life of a bloated sea cow (i.e. whale) more than you do an actual human being, you have lost all perspective and deserve no sympathy. The Sea Shepherds are far more William Ayers than they are Mahatma Ghandi.

Art Imitating Life

Last night, my wife and I sat down to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. At one point during the movie, the very pregnant Daisy (played by Cate Blanchett) interrupts Benjamin to say she has "to go pee." At that very moment, my very pregnant wife had just stood up to visit the restroom for that very purpose. Hillarity ensued.

Secretary of Hate

In case you missed it, our nation's top diplomat and chief tact-ician, Hillary Clinton, recently snapped at a Nigerian student for having the audacity to ask her about her husband, Bill. Hillary's carefully worded response to an innocent question, was to remind this student that Hillary is the Secretary of State, not Bill and, in her most derisive tone, she would not be channeling her husband. Oh snap!

I think we can all agree that being Secretary of State is the perfect job for Hillary Clinton. Now, she doesn't even have to worry about being in the same country as her husband. Who says theirs is a marriage of political convenience?

Blaming the Republicant's

Now that health care reform has stalled faster than a '72 Pinto in the middle of a Hurricane, President Obama is falling back on the old, reliable Democratic crutch: blame the vast right-wing conspiracy.

In a radio interview this week, President Obama took the focus off his own failure of leadership to state ""I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook."

There is only one problem. Republicans have absolutely no ability to stop health care. None. Ninguno. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Maybe Obama missed that part of civics class where they discussed filibuster-proof majorities, because he clearly does not realize that he has one. With 60 members of the senate in his pocket, President Obama could pass any bill he wants. Want to make Shark Week a national holiday? Go for it. Want to provide tax subsidies to one-eyed, scurvy-ridden pirates? Its all yours. Want to create a nationalized health care system that drives up the national debt without so much as reading the bill? Done and done.

Obama Care has thus far failed for one reason and one reason only. Obama's inability to convince the members of his own party of its merits. And how could he convince them? Nobody actually knows what Obama Care is. How does the public option work? Who qualifies? How much will it cost? Does it have sliding scale monthly premiums? Will it require co pays and deductibles? The most basic question of any insurance program have been either ignored or unanswered. All this despite countless news releases, town hall meetings and a primetime news conference. If you still fail to persuade people to your point of view despite your own personal likability and a lapdog media, maybe the problem isn't the opposition. Maybe the problem is the message itself.

Name Shame Blame Game

2009-06-28T18:51:00.001-07:00

My wife is great with child in the same way that the China is great with a wall. They are both awe inspiring, beautiful and, ahem, man made. But unlike that ancient anti-Mongol device aptly named the Great Wall of China, there is nothing yet about the twins currently growing within my wife's womb that lends itself towards a proper name. Coming up with appropriate names has thus far been the hardest part about having twins aside from the puking, weight gain and inability to bend down and grab anything below the hip—or so says my wife.

Providing a proper name is one of the most important things you will ever do for your children. An inappropriate or poorly thought out name can lead to a life time of embarrassment and can even reduce the child's future earning potential. The rich and famous can afford to provide their children with abominations of nomenclature such as Apple or Moxie Crimefighter. I, on the other hand, am not nearly famous enough to get away with naming my child Loquacious Kazoo as much as I might like to.

In the court of law, some names have actually been considered forms of child abuse. In New Zealand, a girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii was placed in to state custody so her name could be changed with the judge in the case pointing out that her name constituted a "social disability and handicap."

Sadly enough, I am not nearly as good at naming babies as I am at making them. However, there are some simple rules I stick by to prevent my child from a lifetime of social abuse.

Rule #1: Buck the Trend

The first thing we check when we come up with a name is its ranking on the top 100 names list. Anything in the top ten is ruled out. Sure, Jacob may be a great name, but who wants to spend the rest of his life being one of a countless sea of Jacobs in every classroom, church congregation or place of employment. Each time you run into someone with your name, you can't help but feel like they have absconded a portion of your identity. Especially in the Google age, the last thing you want is for a potential employer to check your name online and confuse you with another Aiden (the #1 name in 2008) who got caught embezzling from his employer.

Rule #2: Don't Make it Up

This seems to be more and more common these days as people take individuality to the extreme and approach naming their child the way a dyslexic five-year old approaches Scrabble. They just cram a bunch of letters together until something sticks. Kylon, Jolissa, Jesaray, Mavira, Ersaid; these might make for good names in Middle Earth, but here in America, we prefer something a little more conventional.

Rule #3: It is a Name, not a Nerd Confessional

I consider myself a bit of a geek. I love me some Star Wars every bit as much as the next guy. Nevertheless, that does not give me the right to name the twins Luke and Leia as much as my inner 10-year old wants to. Just because you attend the Sci-Fi convention religiously does not mean your child's name should be sacrificed upon the alter of Nerdom. This all but rules out Kal-el, Skywalker, Anakin, Padme, Frodo, Strider, Samwise and, of course, Optimus Prime.

Rule #4: The Serial Killer Test

There are some names that are synonymous with evil. There is just no nice way to name a child Adolf, Mussolini, Atilla or Cain. Similarly Ted Bundy and Ted Kaczynki have ruined the name Ted for everyone. Who can meet a woman named Lorena without also thinking of Mrs. Bobbit?

This has been perhaps the biggest disagreement between my wife and me. She really wants to name the twin boy "Carter". However, I cannot even hear the name without thinking about gas lines, stagflation and the Iran Hostage crisis. Sure Jimmy Carter has done some nice things for Habitat for Humanity, but he is without question the worst American President we have had since Hoover. Although the name has a nice ring to it, so does Lucifer. I might think about it if our two other sons were not also named after US Presidents. We have had many Presidents worth recognizing and I will not betray my political leanings by welcoming a Carter into my home. We might as well name him Clinton Pelosi.

Rule #5: Avoid Intentional Misspelling

While there are certainly some people who are going to disagree with me on this, I see no point in giving someone a commonly accepted name and unique-ing it up by intentionally misspelling it. What value is there really in having a Jacyn instead of Jason? Stefany instead of Stephanie? Suzzyn instead of Susan? Aarik instead of Erich? All you are doing is condemning your child to a lifetime of having to explain his name to people.

On this same note, we should all agree to avoid names that require grammatical symbols such as an apostrophe or dash. My oldest brother tells the story of deposing a young girl at his law firm whose name was spelled Le-a which everyone pronounced it Lia. When the mother found out how her daughters name was being pronounced, she became offended and exclaimed "Lia? Whose Lia? My daughters name is LeDASHa." That's right. Her name includes the first non-silent dash in English history.

So, after all is said and done, my wife and I still don't have names for the Unborn Two. We both agree on Danielle for the girl, but for the boy, my wife prefers Carter while I prefer Collin. As a compromise, we are leaning towards Christian. Yes that's right. A Mormon naming his son Christian. The thought alone might be enough to make Mike Huckabee's head explode. A boy can dream, can't he?

Puppies As Polar Bears: Obama’s Acute Moral Equivalence

2009-06-14T08:04:00.001-07:00

After President Obama's 6,000 word address to the Muslim world in Cairo, it is safe to say Egyptians haven't been this enamored with a foreign leader since Mark Anthony was amorously engaged with Cleopatra. How Mark Anthony managed to gain so much Egyptian support without a teleprompter is a mystery most historians have yet to broach.

All-in-all, I thought President Obama's speech was…gulp…pretty darn good. I thought he struck an appropriate chord by focusing on America's shared history and values with the Muslim world. While I don't expect his speech to have any impact on the extremists operating in the Middle-East, for the silent majority of moderates, the picture of America as "the Great Satan" certainly became less focused.

President Obama's speech provided America's forked tongue, cloven hooves and sharpened horns a much needed cosmetic cover-up. A few more speeches from President Obama to the Muslim world and we might be able to move out of the Satan category all-together and become just plain-old "demonic infidels". Who says there isn't hope for U.S. –Arab relations? Maybe all North Korea needs is a 10,000 word speech from President Obama on America's appreciation of kimchi and old-lady sunglasses.

However, this speech did reveal something far more troubling about Barack Obama than the fact that his middle-name is Hussein --seriously, who knew? It revealed that President Obama suffers from Acute Moral Equivalence, a disease afflicting much of the Left.

Those suffering from Acute Moral Equivalence lump everyone into a gray, churning pool of guilt resulting in a puppies-as-polar bears equivalence where the victims become the perpetrators and the perpetrators become the victims. For the moral-compass deficient, Columbine is a tragedy but so is the social isolation that may have caused it. September 11^th is a tragedy but so is the intrusive foreign policy that caused it. Rape is a tragedy, but so is the short-skirt that caused it.

Take, for example, the portion of the President's speech concerning women's rights where he correctly pointed out the need to educate girls in the Muslim world and allow them the freedom of choice. But then he had to temper his remarks with the caveat that "the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life." Equating the struggles women face in America to those faced in the Middle-east is like equating Mother Theresa's struggle with chastity to Paris Hilton's.

This acute case of Moral Equivalency that President Obama suffers from is most apparent in his remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In an attempt to straddle the moral fence and reach out to both sides, President Obama mandated that the Palestinians "abandon violence" and that the Israelis abandon "settlements" in disputed territories.

When you equate those who destroy with those who build, you have lost any sense of moral authority. When building homes, hospitals and schools brings with it as much condemnation as suicide-bombings, rocket attacks and kidnappings then any claims you may have on a moral-North Star vanish.

To be sure, these settlements are inflammatory but to specifically ask that they be abandoned while making only a superficial condemnation of the horrific violence used by the other side is unfair to the Israelis who have gone out of their way to make the peace process possible. One side of this conflict builds schools, the other side fires rockets from them. One side of this conflict wants to raise their children in peace, the other wants to turn them into unwilling martyrs. One side of this conflict fires rubber bullets, while the other throws Molotov cocktails. There is only one side in this conflict, that while not perfect, has shown a demonstrable desire to achieve peace. President Obama would do well to remember that one side of the conflict deserves public praise, not public berating.

Even the Great Satan knows right from wrong.

GayKK: The Mormons are Coming! The Mormons are Coming

2009-05-31T08:42:00.001-07:00

Drop that Appletini and put on your white hoods because the Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!

This just about sums up the latest call to arms by the newest entrant to the GayKK, Californians Against Hate, who recently purchased ads in three east-coast newspapers warning of Mormon influence in the gay-marriage debate. The ads featured a Paul Revere-esque warning followed by an amateurish caution against Mormon influence in the marriage debate. Consider this abomination of rhyme and meter contained within the ad:

Listen my friends and you shall hear
Of Mormons coming, inciting fear
From Utah to Seven Northeast States
Gay marriage rights, they hop to eliminate

This whole advertisement, including the poem, is about as ironic as an insomniac slumber party. First, consider that this blatantly hostile, ignorant and inflammatory ad was created by a group entitled Californians Against Hate. That's like Hitler calling his propaganda machine Friends of the Jews. Also, you can't help but laugh at an ad that incites fear by warning about Mormons inciting fear. Apparently this whole organization was sick that day in English class when rhyme, meter and irony were discussed. One of the major complaints during the Prop 8 debate was about the Utah based church inserting itself into California politics. Yet here we have a California based group inserting itself into East Coast politics. Remember, the GayKK mantra is simple: It is good for me, but not for thee.

Luckily, three other newspapers in the east coast saw right through the GayKK propaganda and refused to run the ad stating "it borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion." This of course is the modus operandi of the entire GayKK movement.

The Washington Post recently ran an article pointing out that the advertisements are just another salvo in the GayKK's fight to demonize the Mormons. This strategy is built around the fact that more people have Gay friends than Mormon friends. If the GayKK can play on people's fears and ignorance enough, they feel they can win the battle of public opinion, especially as it relates to gay marriage. As the founder of Californians Against hate stated in the article, "People will vote for someone because they like so and so, or because they don't like the other guy." In the case of the GayKK, they are trying to turn Mormons into the other guy.

Rick Jacobs, founding father of the GayKK and creator of the Kalifornia Kourage Kampaign (an organization I already discussed here) goes on to tell the Washington Post that Mormons "exist and flourish in this country because of the concept of equal protection. I find it just an irreconcilable hypocrisy that a group that rightly thrives within the essence of the American system would seek to repress and deny rights to another." Newsflash Ricky: gay marriage is not a right. While it may be perceived as such in some states and you may personally believe it is, nationally there is no federally protected right to same sex marriage. Hence the existence of the Federal Defense of Marriage act (signed by Bill Clinton) that allows states to refuse to recognize same sex marriage.

You know what is a right Ricky? Freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Those are real rights, and Rick Jacobs and the other Knights of the GayKK seek to deny Mormons their constitutionally protected rights because Mormons fail to support their perceived right to gay marriage.

Gathering angry mobs to protest Mormon churches and temples, spray painting our places of worship, boycotting our businesses and publicly flogging anyone who dares vote their conscience are all methods used by the GayKK to deny Mormons their constitutionally protected freedom to worship.

Juxtapose the GayKK's hostile methods with those used by Mormons in support of Proposition 8. We simply voiced our opinion in public and in private and allowed people to vote. We did not spray paint the doors of gay activists. We did not mail envelopes containing a suspicious white powder to gay bars. We did not stand outside a business and shout down everyone inside because the owner had the audacity to make a $100 contribution to the other side. The GayKK may claim they are right, but they can no longer claim to have the moral high ground. They seceded that territory the minute they decided to demonize a minority religion simply for voting their beliefs.

One of the most insulting aspects of the GayKK movement comes from their inability to appreciate the sincerity and deep felt belief of the religious. As Rick Jacobs stated, "I certainly didn't choose to be gay. People make choices to be Mormons, or any other religion." Here Rick insults Mormons and all religious people alike by equating theological preference to ordering off the menu at Chili's.

I could no more deny the Mormon Church than I could deny that the earth is round or the sky is blue. For me to deny my religion would require that I deny the countless existential experiences that make me who I am today. It would require that I deny the answers to prayers I have received and the miracles I have witnessed. More importantly, it would require that I deny the whisperings of the Holy Ghost who tells me with a surety that the Church is right. I do not simply believe the Mormon Church is true. I know it is true. I am not Mormon because of genetic pre-disposition or choice. I am Mormon because of Divine compulsion and I do not believe the religious feelings of those aligned against gay-marriage are any less sincere.

I do not oppose gay marriage because I hate homosexuals. I oppose gay marriage because of my belief in the divine nature of marriage and the importance of family to our eternal salvation. Mormons are not the enemy and the GayKK would see that much more clearly if they simply would remove their white hoods.

To view the Washington Post Article click here

To see the ad for yourself click here

Intellectual Ball and Cheney

2009-05-24T06:10:00.001-07:00

True Story: the police officer assigned to patrol my high school was named Officer Richard Head. Needless to say, being bestowed with a phallic insinuation as a name is not the best way to win the respect of teenage boys. His badge and gun were about the only thing protecting him from a lifetime of wedgies and swirlies.

This sophomoric treatment of Officer Head can explain, at least in part, the hatred and loathing American-liberals hold for former Vice President Dick Cheney. They just can't respect the opinions of a man whose name induces more sniggers, chuckles and guffahs than Ima Hogg.

Beyond his name, what reason is there, really, to hate Dick Cheney? I'm not saying he is on my Christmas card list, but what reason was given before anointing him Public Enemy Number One? Based on the way he is treated in the public and in the media at large, you would think Dick Cheney marinates his steak with dead puppies.

Consider what Maureen Dowd, New York Times Columnist and Plagiarist-at-large, recently wrote about the former Vice President:

"He left our ports unsecured, our food supply unsafe, the Taliban rising and Osama on the loose. No matter if or when terrorists attack here — and they're on their own timetable, not a partisan red/blue state timetable — Cheney will be deemed the primary one who made America more vulnerable."

The fact that such a specious, illogical rant could make its way onto the pages of the New York Times proves that Maureen Dowd is not the only one suffering from acute intellectual deficiency. In the school of ideas, Mrs. Dowd and her ilk clearly ride the short bus.

Blaming Dick Cheney for any and all future terrorist attacks is like blaming global warming on the Thundercats. There is simple no rational justification for such a broad accusation. Using that same logic, can we blame the Oklahoma City Bombing on Dan Quayle? Additionally, how is ferreting Osama Bin Laden out of a hole while at the same time assuring that no one spits in your Big Mac the responsibility of the Vice President?

The Vice President has one job: Don't die. That's it. His responsibility is to live in case the President doesn't. There is no more emasculated and neutered political position in the United States government. One former Vice President famously said that the office "was not worth a bucket of warm piss."

Dick Cheney never wrote, voted on or debated legislation. His only votes came as a tie breaker. He passed no executive order, commanded no troops and issued no official policy. Dick Cheney had less power and influence than the First Lady, yet we are supposed to believe that all past, present and future terrorist attacks are his fault.

Sadly enough, the Obama administration is applying the same twisted, baseless reasoning that turned Dick Cheney into a villain to its own national security policy. Say what you want about the Bush administration policies on the war on terror, they worked. For almost eight years we have not had a single significant attack on the US homeland or any of her over seas assets. Despite this success, Barack Obama, in the height of arrogance, is hoping to get the same or better results by doing less. He is betting that a pre-9-11 national security policy will have post 9-11 results. He is wrong.

Luckily, the same Dick Cheney whom the liberals so despise, has taken time away from crushing rainbows and oppressing widows, to publicly point out the numerous flaws in Obama's myopic national security policy. By simply opening his mouth, he has the entire Democratic establishment back stepping faster than bar full of line- dancing cowboys.

Consider all that has happened since Dick Cheney started to issue a voice of warning only a few weeks ago. On two key issues of national security, military tribunals and the release of the water boarding photos, Dick Cheney has played a part in getting Barack Obama to completely, and pathetically reverse himself.

He has gotten Barack Obama's own intelligence appointees to reveal the fact that waterboarding helped prevent a 9-11 type of attack on Los Angeles thereby saving countless thousands of lives.

By keeping the focus on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, he has managed to catch Nancy Pelosi in a blatant and all-too-public lie. There is even now murmuring that she might be forced to resign because of her I-didn't-know-then-I-did-know-then-I-was-lied-to-then-I-was-briefed-but-I-wasn't-fully-briefed web of deception.

The attention Dick Cheney has brought to the declassified memos also shows that Barack Obama released these memos against the advice of his own intelligence officials and every intelligence official who preceded them. Dick Cheney has continually asked that the information gleaned from enhanced interrogation be released to the public. The fact that President Obama has been so reluctant to do so shows his fear that the court of public opinion will decide that the answers we got from our interrogations were worth whatever methods we used to ask the question.

Additionally, on the issue of Gitmo, Barack Obama is now facing push back from his own party who voted 90-6 to refuse funding for the closure of the prison. Mysteriously, the national media has even begun to recognize Dick Cheney's credibility on the issue of national security as shown by their willingness to televise his live rebuttal to Barack Obama's security speech offered in the National Archives.

In a world drowning in a cacophony of opinion from all sides, Dick Cheney is emerging as an inconvenient, powerful and articulate voice. As conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt stated "Cheney scares the appeasers of the new millennium, even as Churchill scared the appeasers of the '30s, and for the same reason. Cheney knows the enemy, and he knows the new government isn't taking that enemy seriously… Every time he speaks, millions will listen closely as hundreds within the Beltway scowl." Sorry President Obama, but when people (even conservative talk show hosts) stop comparing Dick Cheney to Darth Vader and start comparing him to Winston Churchill, you've got problems.

Recent polling also shows public opinion of Dick Cheney is starting to improve. In fact, after Dick Cheney's rebuttal, an informal poll on MSNBC found that 61% of the voters agreed with his viewpoint on national security while only 31% agreed with Obama . Now if this were a Fox News poll, it would not be worth a pitcher of warm anything. The fact that is comes from MSNBC, whose litany of liberal talking heads still could not convince a majority of its listeners that Obama is right, is very telling.

For the Obama Administration, Dick Cheney is suddenly becoming an intellectual ball and chain, keeping their flights into fantasy and fiction firmly grounded in reality. Dick Cheney doesn't need a badge and gun to protect himself from Beltway Bullies. He just needs that truth.

An Opology for the Masses

2009-05-17T07:23:00.001-07:00

"Love means never having to say your sorry." These words from the 1970's classic romance A Love Story constitute the second dumbest words ever uttered on the big screen. The dumbest words ever uttered, of course, belong to Top Gun with the climactic You-could-be-my-wingman-any-day-No-you-could-be-mine repartee between Maverick and Iceman. A true cinematic nadir.

Back to the original point, anyone who has been married knows that love means saying your sorry no less than 10 times a day. Sorry I left my socks in the middle of the floor. Sorry for not putting my shoes in the basket. Sorry I allowed my body to produce two eggs thereby making it possible for us to have twins.(I am still waiting to hear that last apology from my wife).

However, with President Obama, it appears the love story he has with his supporters, particularly those in the media, bears far more in common with the sycophantic 70's romance than with actual love. No matter what he does, no matter how egregious the error, his supporters just won't say they are sorry.

Over the first few months of the Obama administration, he has committed blunders that are simply inexcusable. Yet his defenders in the media continue to deflect blame and minimize criticism. No matter how large a deficit he creates, no matter how desperately he clings to his teleprompter, no matter how many special education kids he insults, the Opologists will always be there, willing to turn the other cheek. For many of the Opologists, their willingness to forgive is about their only Christian virtue. In real Christianity, it is the Messiah who asks us to forgive others, but in the Church of Opology, it is others who ask us to forgive the Messiah.

The distinctions between Christianity and Opology go even deeper. After all, what is the biggest difference between President Obama and Jesus?

Jesus knew how to build a cabinet.

Barack Obama's difficulties putting together a cabinet really are the punch line of a joke. In the history of the United States, we have had only 20 total nominees for a cabinet position not end up getting the job. That makes the fact the Tom Daschle, Nancy Killifer, Bill Richardson, Judd Gregg, Hilda Solis were all nominated but never took office even more embarrassing. Even the ones Barack Obama managed to get through, like Timothy Geithner and Hillary Clinton, were not without their own bit of controversy. In fact, the only nominee Barack Obama has nominated without raising an eyebrow is Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under former President Bush. When you least controversial pick is a former Bush appointee, you've got problems.

President Obama ran under the notion of Hope and Change, yet mere weeks into his tenure and he was using fear and panic to push his agenda. Even as a candidate, he was calling the U.S. economy the "worst since the great depression", a dubious claim at best. Then, as debate over his massive porkulus bill ensued, he warned that a failure to act would turn a "crisis into a catastrophe." Yet once the bill is passed, Barack Obama starts stating that, economically speaking, things aren't as bad as we think they are. Huh? Where is Al Gore screaming "He betrayed us! He played on our fears!" when you need him?

Concerning the state of the economy, Barack Obama is proving he intends to back up the words of his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and not let a "good crisis go to waste." Barack Obama is using this current financial crisis as the largest bait-and-switch ever foisted upon the American people. Everyone, including Barack Obama, knows that we got into this mess because of a banking collapse caused by the toxic mortgage debt of people who bought more home than they can afford. So, with the banks in collapse and homes in foreclosure, President Obama proposes to solve the crisis by reforming our energy policy, fixing our healthcare system and improving education. To be sure, energy, healthcare and education are important priorities but they are not the cause nor the solution to our economic woes. Our financial system is bleeding to death and President Obama's only cure is to take more vitamins. So while President Obama doubles the national debt in order to fix the economy, he has yet to lay out a solution to the banking crisis that got us here in the first place.

President Obama said there were no earmarks in the stimulus bill despite the billions of dollars of earmarks written all over the document. Obama then said he would eliminate pork in the federal budget, but when the budget stop-gap needed to complete the fiscal year came out with more pork than a Hawaiian BBQ, he blamed it on Bush and promised that he would get rid of the pork next time. There is a word for that type of double speak; it is called lying.

Obama's hypocritical inconsistencies are legion despite the media Opologists insistence on turning the other cheek. He claims to support the troops while at the same time slashing defense spending and considering an idea that would force soldiers, including those wounded in war, to pay for their own healthcare. He ended military tribunals in Guantanamo bay only to re-instate them 100 days later. He lectures against deficit spending and run away government despite having created the largest deficit in American history.

While the Opologist's in the media will never bring themselves to utter those infamous words, it is only a matter of time before we all say we are sorry.

The Lunchbox List

2009-05-10T06:37:00.001-07:00

I turned 30 years old this past week which makes it official: I am no longer a teenager.

Thirty is an interesting age. It puts you half way between toilet papering someone's house and yelling at the kids to get off your lawn. Half way between baggy jeans, and pants up to your nipples.

The best part about being 30 is that I can officially stop pretending to care, or even understand, all things "teenager." I can accept the fact that every time I attempt to write a text message I look as nimble and dexterous as the Stay Puff Marshmallow man trying to pick up a penny. I can accept the fact that every time I touch an Xbox controller, some ten year old kid eating Twizzlers in his mom's basement is going to beat me. You know what? That is okay; because today, I am officially grown up.

All your life you are asked this one ominous question: what are you going to be when you grow up? Well here I am all grown up. I have a wife, a house, a mortgage, a retirement plan, a career, an education and children. So, so many children. So what am I?

I am the sum of my experiences. I am someone who has repelled Australian-style down the side of a cliff. I am someone who speaks two languages and can impersonate virtually every character on Sesame Street. I am someone who has stood on the heights of the Great Wall of China and the depths of the Cambodian Killing Fields. I am someone who has ridden down the slope of the Andean mountains in a Colombian-jungle bus driven by a 14-year old kid. I am someone who has carried a coffin and rocked a cradle. I am someone who has fallen madly in love with a woman and helped bring three (soon to be five) children into this world. I am someone who has cried tears of pain and fear, but mostly joy. Above all, I am someone who every time I come home at night hears three scampering voices shout the best word in the English language, "Daddy!"

Recently, my oldest son turned six and this has been as much an epiphany for me as my turning 30. My children are finally getting to the point in their lives where they will start having the experiences that will form the building blocks of their future identity. As their father, I feel it is important that they have as many beneficial experiences as possible.

Which got me thinking, what are the experiences each person should have before they grow up? We have bucket lists of things to do before you die, so I think it is time we started a Lunchbox list: things to do before you grow up. For example:

Run a lemonade stand selling .25 cent cups of sweet delicious capitalism

Sleep outside on a trampoline

Catch a lizard and/or frog then beg your mother to let you keep it

Eat ice cream until you throw up. Then eat some more.

Spend a warm summer evening playing tag with a wet sock.

Get grounded for doing something your parents are secretly proud of

Toilet paper your neighbors yard

Catch your parents praying together

Speak in front of a large crowd

Hike into the woods for no reason

Read a whole novel in one sitting

Take apart a household appliance just to see how it works

Dig a hole just to for the sake of digging

This is just the start to what I hope becomes a great little parenting tool. Don't know what to do on a Saturday afternoon? Pull out the Lunchbox List. If you have any suggestions for what you think every kid should do before he grows up, I would love to hear it.

Fry Mumia: Part Two

2009-05-03T07:05:00.001-07:00

Besides being a cop killer and all around jerk-face, Mumia Abu-Jamal still believes he is a victim of racist oppression. Despite the fact that a) he is guilty and b) two of the jury members and one of the key witnesses who convicted him are black, Mumia and his Legion of the Duped have managed to use his supposed victim status to turn him into an icon. On this point, however, I have to agree with them. Mumia Abu-Jamal is a victim of racism, except the only racists in his sad life have not been his oppressors. They are his supporters.

The question each of us should ask in this case is: why Mumia? If it is truly about his innocence, then surely the progressive left that has propped Mumia up as an icon could have found a more worthy recipient of their time and energy. Surely, right now, there is someone sitting on death row who didn't have the murder weapon right next to him with the bullet from the murdered cop in his belly?

So why Mumia? Mumia Abu-Jamal is an intelligent man, an eloquent poet and a powerful speaker. In short, he is everything progressive liberals expect black men not to be.

George W. Bush said it best (for the record that is the first time "George W. Bush" and "said it best" have ever been used in the same sentence) when he described the liberal racism that props up Mumia as "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been made into an icon, not because of racial oppression, but because he defies racist expectations.

While this soft bigotry may help Mumia, for other minorities, I cannot see it as anything less than destructive. Soft-bigotry may not display the overt harm of Jim-Crow era racism, but they are both cut from the same cloth. You cannot believe an entire race of people needs your help with out also believing they are inferior to you.

In the public arena, soft-bigotry goes by many different euphemisms, most common among them are "diversity" and "affirmative action." These hall marks of soft-bigotry have become so ingrained in society you can see their hand at action in every corporate board room and every university lecture hall. But do they actually help?

Empirically, we are starting to see the evidence of how soft-bigotry hurts the very people it is supposed to help. In an academic setting , researchers Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber have found that race-based preferences at Ivy-league schools resulted in less minorities wishing to pursue academic careers. Researcher Richard Sander also found that race-based admission standards in law schools results in less black and Hispanic lawyers, not more.

Affirmative Action, especially as it is practiced by Universities in the form of race-based preferences, cannot survive even the most surface level analysis without showing its racist roots. If race-based preferences are about providing opportunities to poor, lower class groups, why not use parental education achievement or parental income instead of race when handing out preference? As it is now, the daughter of a black CEO has a better chance of going to an Ivy League school the son of a white farmer.

If affirmative action is about helping historically oppressed groups, why are Asians not also given preferential treatment? Over the last 100 years, perhaps no other groups has had to suffer as much as Asians. The same Jim-Crow laws that applied to blacks, applied to Asians. During WWII, Asians all across the country were rounded up and placed into internment camps simply because of their race. The large in-flux of Asian immigrants to the US during the 60's and 70's also means many Asians have had to overcome language barriers that African Americans have never faced.

Despite their historic oppression, Asians do not receive preferential treatment from colleges because, as a group, they have already exceeded what ever racist low-expectations school administrators have for the other minority groups. In other words, it is not enough to be from a historically oppressed minority group, you have to be from a historically oppressed minority group with low expectations.

Because of the Orwellian world we live in-where night is day and good is bad- saying that all races are equal and should be treated equally, without preference for one or the other, makes you a racist. Saying Blacks and Hispanics are equal to me in every way and therefore do not need my help, makes me a bigot.

In reality, there is only one difference between me and the Pro-Affirmitive-Action-Free-Mumia crowd. When I say men should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" I actually mean it.

Fry Mumia: Part One

2009-04-14T21:33:00.001-07:00

On April 6, 2009, the US Supreme Court, in a sudden fit of sanity, declined to hear the appeal of Mumia Abu-Jamal. This decision ended a decades long process of appeal after appeal by Mumia and brought him one step closer to the death penalty.

If you are reading this and scratching your head in bewildered confusion at the mere mention of Mumia's name, take comfort. The fact that you do not know who he is means you are either A) gainfully employed, B) a person with a basic understanding of personal hygene or C) someone who is not Facebook friends with Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Fidel Castro or the European Parliament. Either way, I salute you.

So who is Mumia Abu-Jamal? Simply put, he is a cop killer.

On the night of December 9, 1981, Officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a light blue Volkswagen bug traveling the wrong way on a dark Philadelphia street. Office Faulkner asked the driver, Mr. Cook, to exit the vehicle after which the Officer was punched in the face. Faulkner retaliated, striking Mr. Cook with his flashlight. In a nearby parking lot, Mumia was working a late shift as a cab driver when he heard the commotion. Entering the scene, Mumia saw the officer struggling to arrest Mr. Cook, who just happened to be Mumia's brother. Mumia drew his Five-shot .38 revolver and shot the distracted Officer Faulkner in the back. Officer Faulkner managed to respond and fire off a shot of his own hitting Mumia in the upper abdomen. Mumia fired more shots and missed the struggling Officer. In response, Mumia moved closer, placed the gun inches away from Officer Faulkner's head and fired, hitting him just above the eye and killing him instantly. Mumia staggered away and sat down on a nearby curb until the police arrived seconds later.

Despite the fact that he was found on the scene with his .38 revolver by his side containing five spent shells, despite the fact that he had Officer Faulkner's bullet in his stomach, despite the multiple eye witnesses who identified him as the shooter and despite the testimony of the hospital guard who over heard him take credit for the murder stating he hopes "the mother ****** dies!", Mumia Abu Jamal claims to be innocent.

Lets see here...Motive? Check. Murder Weapon? Check. Multiple Eye witnesses putting him at the scene? Check. Sorry Mumia, even OJ Simpson would find you guilty.

Unfortunately, countless Useful Idiots do not.

Mumia's army of naive believers is legion. A simple Google search for "Free Mumia" reveals website after website dedicated to the proposition that Mumia is a political prisoner. This silver-tongued charlatan has inspired a virtual cottage industry, fueled even more by the internets power to inform and deceive. Everything from Mumia inspired podcasts to the ever present "Free Mumia" t-shirts are literally only a click away.

His protests to the contrary, being put in jail was the best thing to ever happen to Mumia. Before killing Officer Faulkner, Mumia was relatively unknown outside his own Philadelphia circle. While he is proud to be one of the founders of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panthers, his association with the Marijuana Users Association of America receives little attention. He never finished college and spent years working as a reporter bouncing around from one local Philadelphia radio station to another where his progressive political shtick never translated into a lasting audience. At the time of the shooting, he was President of Philadelphia Association of Black journalists.

Since murdering Officer Faulkner, Mumia has received an audience and, ironically, a credibility he could never have earned on his education or talent alone. He has been a regular on National Public Radio. He has received an honorary degree from the New College of California Law School. He has written countless books and essays pandered off onto an all-too-willing audience. He has been named an honorary citizen of 25 cities across the globe including Paris, Montreal and Palermo and he has received the support from virtually every Hollywood Celebrity to ever don a picket sign and bullhorn.

All this popular support not withstanding, Mumia is nothing more than an arrogant, cowardly, two faced liar who will do anything to save his own skin. He is, after all, Parisian. The Pro-Mumia propaganda machine is so strong and so pervasive, you cannot talk about Mumia without in turn confronting the many blatant and obvious lies that the legion-of-the-duped pass off as fact.

Mumia and his ilkdamning claim that Officer Faulkner was shot with a .44 caliber pistol, not Mumia's .38 caliber which, you know, just happened to have five spent shells and just happened to be sitting right next to Mumia at the crime scene. This charge is patently false. The prosecutions ballistics expert called during the 1982 trial stated very clearly that Officer Faulkner was killed with a .38 caliber bullet. The defenses own ballistics expert, at the same trial, conceded that the bullet was a .38.

Claims have been made that the Judge at the trial, Judge Albert Sabo, has sentenced more people to death than any other judge in the United States. There are two problems with this claim. First, this naked assertion has no merit considering no such records have ever been kept. Second, Judge Sabo has never sentenced anyone to death considering all his murder trials have been jury trials and the jury has been responsible for sentencing.

This most damning claim in favor of Mumia's innocence comes from the 1999 testimony of Arnold Beverly in which he claims to be the real shooter. He claims that he was hired by the local mafia to kill Officer Faulkner for his interference with their drug dealings. While on its face, the testimony seems exculpatory, any digging below the surface reveals a blatant, desperate lie. None of what Arnold Beverly claims can be supported by the evidence or the sworn testimonies of any of the witnesses present, including Mumia and his brother. Mumia's own defense attorney Daniel R. Williams called the testimony "insane", "absurd", "outrageous" and ultimately a "lie". (Dan Williams, Esq., "Executing Justice" (St. Martin's Press, 2001), pp. 328-330.)

The Arnold Beverly testimony created a rift between the four member defense team handling Mumia's case, with two lawyers not wanting to participate in the ruse they called "assisted suicide" and two other lawyers desperate enough to try anything. In the end, Mumia broke the tie and decided NOT to use Arnold Beverly's confession in his 1999 appeal. How can Beverly's claim have any credibility when Mumia himself does not believe it? This simple fact has not stopped every Mumia supporter from trotting out the Beverly confession as though it were the gospel truth.

In 2001, Mumia changed his mind and attempted to bring the Beverly confession into court, but because he had known about the confession for over a year and not used it in court for his defense, legally the confession was inadmissible. Which is almost a shame, considering Beverly claims to have shot Faulkner with a .38 caliber revolver, apparently unaware that Mumia has been trying to pass off the .44 caliber lie for quite some time. Consistency, it seems, has never been team Mumia's forte.

Nothing, in fact, has more haunted Mumia's defense than its own incompetent inconsistency. It has never offered a logical explanation for the events of that fateful night that does not include Mumia shooting the officer. For years they have hung their hat on a "running man" theory expect none of their witnesses can agree on which way he ran, and none of them actually claim to have seen him do the shooting.

Furthermore, they have never offered an explanation for how Mumia ended up with Officer Faulkner's bullet in his belly. One defense witness, William Singletary ,claims Mumia was shot by Officer Faulkner after he already had a bullet in his brain. Mumia claims he was shot by Faulkner first, and then he sort of passed out until police arrived. Arnold Beverly claims that Mumia was shot by another police officer who responded to the Officer Faulkner shooting.

When facts and logic evade them, all Mumia supporters can rely are emotive claims of injustice, their favorite being that Mumia is the victim of racial prejudice. Sadly enough they are right, only not in the way they intended.

Stay tuned for part two. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!

(For more information on the details of the case, I suggest going to Mumia.org and danielfaulkner.com to see both sides of the case. While you are at it, here is a fun game to play. One website includes blanket assertions with no back up data and the other side includes well researched and documented facts. Bet you can't guess which side is which?)

Hire Education

2009-04-05T13:24:00.001-07:00

Confession time. First: I have a secret crush on Reba Mcentire. Ever since I saw her use an elephant gun to blow holes in a giant worm in the movie Tremors I have always gotten a little blush at the mere mention of her name. Ladies, in case you are wondering, the true way to mans heart is through the barrel of his gun.

Second: I think College education, as it is done today, is a scam.

This does not mean that I am advocating that current students should quit school and waste away their lives playing video games in mom's basement. I am simply stating that the college education we our receiving today is not worth the money we are putting into it and it needs to change.

Over the last fifty years, the price of college education has increased at almost double the cost of inflation. The average college graduate now finishes school with $20,000 in student loans, a 58% increase since 1993. Despite- or as I would argue, because of- government student aid, a college degree has never cost more.

Why do we go to college in the first place? Forget all the lofty ideas of broadening your horizons, developing your mind and diversifying your experiences. We go to college for one reason and one reason only: to get a job.

Unfortunately, modern halls of scholastic achievement have forgotten their role in preparing the modern workforce. Perhaps it is because educators, protected by the umbrella of tenure, have forgotten the need to compete. Regardless of the reasons, colleges fail to provide their students with the competitive advantage they think they are buying when they fork over $20,000 a semester for a degree. In the current marketplace, landing what we perceive as a good job without a college degree is virtually impossible. However, so many people are going to college that the value of a degree seems little more than the paper it is printed on. It is sad to say that a college degree has never been worth more and worth less than it is today.

The fundamental flaw in college lies with the curriculum. We still continue to utilize an outdated model of education that requires just as many general education classes as major specific classes. Thus our students are spending upwards of 50% of their money and 50% of their time on courses that have nothing to do with their major and, ultimately, their future career.

I knew going into college that I was never going to be a doctor, scientist, historian or art critic. Yet how many hours did I waste away learning the difference between the nucleus and the mitochondria, metamorphic rocks and igneous rocks, baroque and neo-classic architecture. While this may help me sound smarter at a cocktail party, it does not help me with my job.

This is not to say I advocate obliterating general education courses as a whole, but the hour requirements should be trimmed and their focus should be narrowed to practical skills and knowledge that we all need to function in modern society.

In practice this means we need courses that focus more on our Constitution and form of government so each student knows their role in our democratic process. Our English courses should not waste so much time on literature and put more emphasis on technical writing. The writing skills of our students have never been as bad as they are today, yet our colleges continue to waste valuable teaching time on The Odyssey and The Iliad, when what are students really need are courses on verbs, adverbs, commas and semicolons.

Additionally, our schools need to provide students with at least one business writing course that teaches them the basics of memo and resume writing. The key to getting and maintaining any job is your business writing abilities. No matter your degree or where you went to school, if your resume is not professional and polished, you might as well have a degree in underwater basket weaving from the University of the Interwebs.

I do all of the hiring for my office and I can tell you that less than 5% of the resumes that come across my desk could even be classified as "good." Less than 2 out of 100 are excellent. I would say a full 50% are embarrassingly awful. These contain everything from obvious formatting errors to grammatical mistakes a kindergartener could catch. Despite the fact that every person in HR will tell you this same thing, most schools do nothing about it.

Our Universities also need to provide their students with coursework in basic personal finance. Much of our current economic woes can be traced back to the fact that the majority of Americans, including college graduates, do not understand the magnifying power of compound interest. If the housing market has proved anything it is that we, as a society, are financially illiterate. Our Universities must do more to provide the financial information that our media and our K-12 education is not.

Part of reforming the education process means reforming our views on blue-collar work as well. As a society, we tend to consider blue-collar work as something of less value. However, many blue-collar jobs, such as a plumber, carpenter or a machinist, can provide an excellent quality of life for those who pursue them. Less than half of those who enter college will graduate. How many of these college drop outs would have been better off if we had pointed them to blue-collar vocational schools in the first place. Unfortunately, too many modern parents consider themselves a failure if their children become anything less than a lawyer or a doctor. This is a fundamental paradigm shift that we need to accept. We need blue-collar workers and we should be proud of anyone who pursues technical knowledge in a blue-collar skill or trade.

It is truly ironic that blue-collar vocational schools could teach modern universities a thing or two about education. Vocational schools don't waste any time on fringe knowledge. They provide hands on learning and provide the skill set their students need to succeed, nothing more and nothing less, all in about two years. Why do our Journalists need four years of education? Considering what passes as objective news these days, all it really takes to be a successful journalist is a lifetime membership in the Democratic Party and a thorough understanding of the Communist Manifesto. In reality, everything you need to know to be a successful journalist could easily be taught in a one-year vocational school and a one-year internship. This same methodology could be applied to a whole host of professions that now require four years of schooling despite only needing one year to learn the basic skills of the profession.

Considering a University's primary purpose is to make people employable, it is down right criminal that schools allow their students to graduate in anything that does not have obvious employment opportunities. Any school that charges as much for a degree in Feminist Studies or Philosophy that it charges for Business or Computer Science should be sued for fraud. If every time you tell people what you are majoring in and they ask "oh, that's nice, what do you plan on doing with that," you can consider yourself robbed.

My feelings towards college as a whole may come as a surprise to many of you, considering I have a Bachelors in Public Relations and a Master of Public Administration. However, I was smart enough to choose to go to Brigham Young University, a school that emphasizes the practical while at the same time being incredibly affordable. My graduate school (The Marriott School) is in the top twenty nationally (according to Forbes) yet it has a tuition about 1/10 of what you would pay elsewhere. In fact, the total student debt I racked up for my wife's degree and my two degrees is less than what most students pay for one year of undergrad. Simply put, my education is worth what I spent for it. It has provided me with a great job while helping me avoid crippling student loans.

Unfortunately, people in my same station in life will become increasingly rare as the cost of a college education continues to increase at the same rate the quality of college education decreases.

Ultimately, when considering the value of college education, we need to remember that it was not a college stiff with a degree in Latin American studies who saved us from the alien earth-worm invasion. It was an uneducated red-head with an elephant gun.

Undocumented Love

2009-03-31T19:22:00.001-07:00

As a heartless conservative, the gaping maw known as my soul contains a limitless capacity to hate. I hate school bus drivers who expect me to help pay for their $800,000 mortgages.

I hate third world dictators who, in the process of destroying their own country, feel the need to lecture us about the benefits of socialism.

I hate anti-war protestors who came out every week to protest the War then suddenly stop the day Barack Obama took office. These on-again off-again protestors just prove that no matter what slogan they have scrawled on their picket signs, their hearts they will always bear the motto: Say No to War, Unless a Democrat is President.

Don't think for one moment that just because conservatives find it easy to hate some groups of people brainless liberals, in contrast, poop rainbows. Liberals just prefer to mask their hatred behind politically correct euphemisms. Their hatred for rich people is called "re-distribution of wealth." Their hatred for white males is called "racial equality." Their hatred for rational, science based public policy is called "global warming."

Despite all the prevalence of hate on both sides of the aisle, there is just one group of people I cannot hate no matter how much Sean Hannity and Michael Savage tell me to: Illegal Immigrants. Be ye Mexican, Colombian, Guatemalan, El Salvadoran or, heaven forbid, Canadian, I just can't hate you.

I will tell you what I do love though: America. I love her culture, her form of government, her seemingly endless sea of hotdogs and hamburgers. Were I not born in America, I would swim any river, cross any desert or participate in any mail-order husband program it take to get here.

I just cannot condemn illegal immigrants for doing exactly what I would do if I were in their place.

Many of the arguments against illegal immigration reek of petty ignorance and outright xenophobia. I once worked for a small, white, upper-middle-class municipality. One day we got a call from a woman who wanted to report that she had seen two Mexicans driving a truck down her street. They were weren't speeding, or running down old ladies with their 1984 Ford F-150, they just happened to have the audacity to be caught driving while Mexican. Since this experience, it has been hard for me to oppose immigration with any degree of passion when I know I am lining up on the same side of the aisle as that ignorant bigot.

Most of the contentious arguments hurled into the sphere of public dialogue by anti-immigrant activists crumble quickly under the light of truth; none more so than the idea that "immigrants don't pay taxes."

The list of taxes and fees everyone in America pays, legal and illegal alike, is legion. Sales tax, property tax, gas tax, car registration fees, parking tickets, moving violations, code violations, hotel occupancy taxes, social security contributions, storm water fees, library late card fees, heck, we even have fees-in-lieu of taxes. Believe me, I work for the government, I know my taxes.

About the only taxes illegal immigrants don't pay are income taxes. However, I have a newsflash, unless these immigrants are making over $45,000 a year they wouldn't be paying those taxes anyways. In fact, thanks to Earned Income Credit (created by none other than Ronald Reagan) if these illegal immigrants were filing their taxes, the government would be paying them. These millions of people operating under the radar without filing their taxes and thereby qualifying for EIC, saves this country billions of dollars a year.

Just because I do not hate illegal immigrants does not mean that I love them either. While I may love the food, music and occasional rockin' mullet some of these immigrants bring with them, that does not mean I can completely ignore the costs that come with crossing our border illegally.

While immigrants do pay their taxes, they also come with inordinately high expense. The way illegal immigrants utilize hospital emergency rooms as their primary care physician has bankrupted many a hospital. The disproportionate reliance of illegal immigrants on our countries generous social services has placed a grave burden on federal, state and local governments. Too many people getting into a lifeboat just sinks is for everyone.

Also, in a post 9-11 world, we must be very cognizant of the threat posed by porous American borders. You just can't expect to keep your house safe with an open door. While I am sympathetic to the desires of most immigrants to simply make a better life for themselves, we must realize that it only takes one bad apple to ruin the pie.

So in short, I am pro-immigrant, but I am also pro-border security. The recent wave of drug-fueled violence just passed our southern border should be reason enough to build whatever crocodile-filled moat it takes to protect our borders and end illegal crossings.

While there was much about President Bush's domestic policy that left me wanting more (or in most cases less; as in less pork, less unfunded mandates and less prescription benefits for old people). But there was one thing he had right: the Guest Worker Program.

In a capitalistic society, any time you have a company who wants to hire people and people who want to be hired, it is the role of the government to get them together. An efficient government can act like an economic E-harmony of sorts. If we have low skilled labor that wishes to work low-skilled American jobs, we should find a way to make the match.

The Guest Worker Program did just that. It allowed people seeking jobs to enter our country legally and provided our employers with the cheap labor upon which they had grown dependent. It allows the government to know who is here and reject individuals we determine are unsafe or unwilling to abide by the rules. While some of the other portions of the comprehensive immigration reform gave me pause, the Guest Worker Program was a no brainer. It gives us all the benefits of immigration while significantly decreasing its costs.

Congress, however, threw out the Guest Worker Program because there were other portions of the bill they could not agree on. In typical partisan fashion, Congress attempted to replace the plumbing in the whole house rather than just fix the leaky faucet. In the end congress managed to do what illegal immigrants could not: become the one group everybody hates.

Twin Speak

2009-03-22T08:48:00.001-07:00

As the Average Joel, I am average in many ways. Average height, average weight, average Madden Football abilities (the true measure of a man). But in one area I am anything but average. In fact there is one area in which I exceed all others: making babies.

While this may come as news to some of you, most will not be surprised: My wife is pregnant. Considering I already have three children, being pregnant with yet another child barely elicits even a congratulatory hug, or at the very least, an at-a-boy butt slap. This laissez-faire attitude has pretty much dominated my entire approach to this last pregnancy, even more so than the incessant puking from my wife. The only thing that made this trip down maternity lane any different then the previous pregnancies (aside from before mentioned puking) was the semi-satisfied smile that dominated my face at knowing this was going to be the last one. The last child who would ever need diaper changes. The last child that I will ever have to lull to sleep in the middle of the night. (Okay, lets be fair, the last child MY WIFE will ever have to lull to sleep in the middle). The last child I will ever have to fight with because I had the audacity to choose the red Sippy cup instead of the green one even though their both the same FREAKING SIPPY CUP!

Then, on Thursday, my entirely calm demeanor towards this pregnancy changed. With one swoosh of the ultrasound wand my worst fears were realized. Our sweet little baby was healthy, happy and growing just right. Oh.. and so was the other one.

Thats right: Twins

As we have begun spreading the news around about the double trouble brewing in my wife's womb, we have received mostly one of two reactions. The first reaction is good natured disbelief, along the lines of "No Way!" "Are you serious?" and "Surely thou dost jest most capricious zephyr!"

The other reaction tends to be a commentary on the Michael Phelps like fortitude of my- how do I put this delicately- man seed. As my mom so tastefully put it, "Your boys can swim, bud!" Of course, considering my wife is as fertile as a Tennessee Valley, I hardly deserve all the credit.

In fact, all the credit really belongs to my wife. You see, my wife has a very tight relationship with the man upstairs. And no, I am not talking about the creepy hermit living in our attic, I am talking about God. For example, there was a moment in time where we had a mouse living in our van. Apparently all the Craisins and goldfish our children had strewn about the car were enough to support another sentient being. To be fair, there are probably enough cracker crumbs in our car support an entire third-world army. But try as we might, we could not get rid of this mouse. No bait was too tempting to lure him into our many well placed traps. Until, finally, my wife prayed to catch this mouse. What should happen? Sure enough, the next morning, there was our little stow away, finally caught in a trap.

Well, unbeknownsed to me, my wife had been going behind my back and praying for twins. We always knew we wanted five kids, but we also knew that my wife could only handle four pregnancies. The answer to the riddle was for my wife to ask Heavenly Father for twins.

Well, ask and ye shall receive.

Of course like any other husband, I greeted this news of my wife's secret supplications with a feeling of betrayal. I am not bothered by the fact that she asked for twins, I am bothered by the fact that she did not ask for a million dollars. I mean, if she is that tight with the Big Guy, would it have hurt her to ask?

In some ways I am almost disturbed by my wife's powers. It is like I am married to a Genie in a Bottle. I am afraid now that if I upset my wife, I will wake up with a shark head, gorilla arms and kangaroo legs. Forget to take out the trash and I could be the worlds first Shorrillaroo.

These twins also reveal another disturbing force controlling my life: Baseball. Le 'me' splain. I have been to five professional baseball games in my life: Two San Francisco Giants games, one Houston Astros game and two Minnesota Twins games. As it turns out, I have two boys that, especially as babies, could easily be classified as Giants, one little girl who has her head firmly planted in the clouds, much like an Astro and now Twins. Coincidence? I think not. Considering how hard it is to get our current kids to keep their clothes on, I am just glad I never went to an Expos game.

All kidding aside, I am honest-to-goodness excited about the prospect of twins. While the image of me trying to keep two rambunctious twins quiet in church has become my new vision of hell, I can't help but be happy about the two little additions to the family. I mean, just think of the tax benefits?

All Your Lungs Are Belong to Us!

2009-03-08T13:47:00.001-07:00

My Lungs are slowly destroying the planet. Every time I breath, my lungs take life-affirming oxygen and turn it into earth-burning carbon dioxide. The fact that my lungs can convert something so innocent and healthy into something couch-jumpingly evil has me convinced my lungs are full of miniature-Scientologists.

That is why I have decided to adapt a sedentary life style. If every breath I take slowly destroys the earth, than each calorie I leave un-burned helps heal the world. That's right, I am decreasing my carbon-footprint one elevator, escalator and moving side-walk ride at a time. At least that is what Al Gore would have me do and he should know; he is a world renowned expert on exuding hot air. It is simply a matter of time before the government begins to impose strict exercise taxes on anyone would have the audacity to pollute the environment with the air from their lungs just so they can stay slim and healthy.

While you may be surprised to discover, based on all that you have heard lately, carbon is actually a good thing. Are we not carbon based life forms? (The only exception being Rosie O'donell who is, I believe, the worlds first Twinkie-based life form) What does it take, then, to turn the building block of life into a planet-destroying villain that we all must eradicate? It takes the same thing Dr. Atkins relied on when he convinced people bacon was healthier than bread. Faith.

Faith is the building block of modern environmentalism. It is faith that allows global warming-Chicken Littles to take specious scientific data and turn it into sky-is-falling fact. It is faith that allows people to continue their belief in Global Warming orthodoxy even when it snows three inches in Las Vegas.

Reliance on faith is not the only similarity between the green movement and religion. In fact, the two are completely indistinguishable. Global Warming has all the basic tenets of any religion. For scripture it has Michael Mann's Hockey Stick. For Prophets it has Al Gore. Sin comes in the form of carbon emissions and forgiveness in the form of carbon-neutrality. The global warming movement even has apocalyptic warnings to rival anything found in the book of Revelations. While it took several centuries for Christianity to begin selling indulgences, the green movement managed, in only a few decades, to start selling them in the form of "carbon off-sets".

Needless to say, I am what the true-green believers have labeled a "Global Warming skeptic," much in the same way Christopher Columbus was labeled a "flat-earth skeptic" by the predominant religion of his time. There are fundamental question about Global Warming that, for me, have yet to be answered by empirical data.

First and foremost, is the globe actually heating up? If the globe is heating up, is it just the cyclical nature of global temperature which we know for a fact was even higher during the medieval ages despite the auspicious lack of SUV's?

How can global warming be held responsible for making things too hot, too cold, too wet and too dry all at the same time? It seems there is no climatic anomaly that cannot be laid at the feet of global warming.

If the earth is heating, how can we be sure it is our fault? Recent global-warming on Mars indicates that either the sun is to blame or the Martians have all managed to switch over to a Prius.

Is global-warming really a bad thing? Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't a warmer planet lead to increased evaporation, additional rain fall, longer summers and better overall growing conditions? If you are interested at all in eating, like I am, how can we be sure a warmer planet is the doomsday world the media likes to portray it to be. Did you know that despite the supposed melting glaciers and ice caps, world sea levels have not increased since 1979? There goes my chance at Nevada beach front property.

Is increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing Global Warming, or being by caused by Global Warming. If you learn anything in an entry level statistics class it is that correlation is not always causation. Did you know that every year the sale of ice cream increases at the same time the national murder rate increases? Does this mean ice cream causes murder? No, it is called summer time and most murders and ice cream sales happen to take place during those three balmy months.

While my heartless conservativism can be blamed for many things, such as my desire to punch innocent puppies and deny free bus passes to war widows, when it comes to my inability to baptize myself in the Church of Global Warming, being conservative has nothing to do with it.

On issues of energy usage and pollution there is little about the global warming movement with which I disagree. I believe we should have very strict minimum MPG standards for every new car sold in America. I believe we need to get away from coal powered electric plants and rely more on renewable sources of energy like wind, geothermal and especially nuclear. I believe that American industries should have tight pollution controls put in place. Much of the changes being advocated by Green theists I fully endorse and support.

But using an unproven theory like Global Warming to push matters of public policy only polarizes the electorate. All of us see the looming energy crisis that will occur if we don't get a handle on our addiction to oil. No one, conservative or liberal, can argue with the need to stop sending so much of our money to terrorist-supporting oil barons. We have reason enough to begin seeking alternative energy solutions without green zealots smacking us over the head with the Gospel according to Gore.

Concerning global warming, we all need to take a long deep breath no matter how many polar bears it kills.

If Only He’d Been Given Tact

2009-03-05T20:37:00.001-08:00

An ornamental desk pen holder constructed from the wood of the 19^th century anti-slaving ship the HMS Gannet. A framed commission of the HMS Resolute, the same ship from which President Obama's desk was created. A first edition set of the Churchill biography penned by Sir Martin Gilbert. For the girls, two outfits from the high-end British clothing store Topshop and six unreleased children's stories found only in Britain. These are the gifts presented to President Obama on their first official meeting as heads of state by our most important ally, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom.

How did President Obama reciprocate such a meaningful and symbolic gesture? By presenting him with a box set of 25 classic American films on DVD and two replica Marine One helicopters found easily in the White House gift shop. That's right, he matches Prime Minister Brown's gift of such tremendous symbolic significance with two HotWheels and a handful of movies you can find in the $5 bin at Wal-mart. Can we assume that when the Prime Minister of Australia comes for a visit, he can expect oven mitts and a Jell-o mold?

Calling Obama's gift a diplomatic blunder is like calling the sinking of the Titanic a nautical oopsie. It's not like our relationship with the United Kingdom is an important one; they have only participated along aside us in every major global confrontation since World War I.

While President Obama is said to be displaying his new pen holder with pride, Prime Minister Brown is clearly less keen on his thoughtless stocking stuffers; he refuses to even comment on the gift he was given by President Obama. The story itself had to confirmed with sources inside the Whitehouse.

Oh well, this is nothing a $25 gift certificate to Chili's can't fix, right Mr. President?

Truth Deficit

2009-02-26T20:15:00.001-08:00

It seems every problem the country faces is one that President Obama inherited from his predecessor. The Economy, the War on Terror, the Budget Deficit: all George Bush's fault. Truth be told, that George Bush sure had it easy; the only thing he inherited from his predecessor was a large bottle of stain remover.

With every action he takes, President Obama shows that George Bush, much like Homer Simpson's alcohol, is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Bush leave you with a problem in Afghanistan? One of George Bush's troop surges ought to fix that. Bush dump a reeling economy into your lap? Try using another Bush-inspired stimulus package. Bush not keeping the country safe enough? Then you better keep the Bush-appointed Secretary of Defense.

About the only difference between this administration and the last one is that it no longer takes two gallons of Botox to get Nancy Pelosi to put on her malevolent smile. Now it just comes natural.

For all the Democratic talk of wrongful inheritance, there is still one anti-Bush boogey man that should have no legs: the idea that the Democrats discovered the deficit when they came into office and had nothing to do with its creation. This is simply not true.

During President Obama's speech to the nation this week, he mentioned inheriting a deficit four times. And each time Nancy Pelosi's minions would spring from their seats faster than Paula Abdul at a N'Sync Concert. But no matter how many times you say it was inherited, it does not make it true.

While this may be hard to believe, when George Bush was in office he did not spend a dime. The executive office has no approval over fiscal appropriations. While they can propose a budget, ultimately it is the congress that decides where and how the money is spent. This means every charge George Bush put onto Uncle Sam's credit card for the passed two years, came with a Democratic signature. Yet Barack Obama and his ilk have the audacity to act surprised when they walked into the Oval Office and opened up their first credit card statement.

To be sure, George Bush and the Republicans are far from blameless in the regard. But since Barack Obama has taken over, the national debt has more than doubled. Even TARP, the bank bailout from last fall, was voted on and approved by then- Senator Barack Obama.

Since then, President Obama has only added to the deficit with a stimulus package of his own. Yet knowing his reckless augmentation of the federal budget deficit, he still has the audacity to host "fiscal responsibility summits" and lecture the nation on personal responsibility. It is like watching Paris Hilton lead and abstinence-only clinic.

In the end, the only inheritance President Obama should be worried about is the one he leaves our children.

28 Days Later

2009-02-19T20:56:00.001-08:00

While this may come as a surprise to many of you, I am not a flesh-eating zombie. As a heartless conservative, my desire to consume the hopes and dreams of widows and orphans remains unchanged, but I have yet to develop the taste for human flesh. In fact, I think we can all agree that in Obama's America, nobody will have the means for mindless consumption.

Clearly a zombie-free America shows that the first 28 days of the Obama administration were not nearly as bad as they could have been. It is important to start any dose of constructive criticism by pointing out what the person does well. President Obama, when it comes to not turning us into the living dead, you take the cake.

As for the rest of your accomplishments in these past 28 days, well, not so much.

You think picking a Cabinet is hard, you should try picking out the curtains

The first and easiest job a President will ever have is picking out his cabinet. The list of requirements for being in the cabinet include: 1) Being a human being 2) Paying your taxes. So how could President Obama possibly screw this up so badly?

First there was Timothy Geithner, President Obama's pick for Treasury secretary. He avoided paying Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years despite being warned by his employer to do so. Of course, this minor tax problem we are willing to overlook. I mean, the guy is only going to be the head of the IRS, why would he need to know how to properly pay his taxes?

Then a couple of lesser cabinet picks, Nancy Killefer and Hilda Solis had to withdraw their respective nominations due to less than honest remittance to good old Uncle Sam.

And finally, back from the political grave, was none other than former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle, President Obama's pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Surely a man who championed higher taxes on the rich for years while in the Senate would give his fair share? Alas, it appears a man who earned $5.2 million dollars in the five years since he left office could not afford the basic services of H&R Block. Who says the rich aren't hurting? Don't worry Tom, President Obama's got your back. Way back.

If you add on to the fact that both Bill Richardson and Judd Greg have turned down Obama's offer to be Commerce Secretary, you find for the first time in history a Presidential Cabinet with an unemployment problem.

Setting higher ethical standards, expect when he doesn't

When President Obama boldly stated that no lobbyist would "work in my Whitehouse" he meant it. Literally. In fact, every one of the dozens of former lobbyists now working for the President have their office space well outside of 1600 Pennsylvania. When it comes to his own ethics rules, Obama means what he says and says what he means. He just doesn't mean what you think he's saying when you think he's saying what he means. See what I mean? Among the dozen or so lobbyists-turned-Obama advisors who will never work in his White house (wink-wink) are:

William Lynn, Deputy Defense secretary who just last year was a lobbyist for a defense contractor. Certainly no conflict of interest there.

Ron Klain, Joe Biden's Chief of Staff, who lobbied for drug maker ImClone. Assuming ImClone manufactures a drug called Hypocritix®, he may be the perfect man for the Obama administration. They are clearly already taking this drug in strong doses.

A good captain always goes down with the (Bipartisan)ship

There is a U.S. President who once wrote "Genuine bipartisanship assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate to negotiate in good faith.

"If these conditions do not hold if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this 'compromise' of being 'obstructionist.'"

Which sage American President described so clearly the bipartisan politics of Washington gone a wry? Bill Clinton? FDR? Dare I say, JFK?

Nope. It was President Barack Obama.

Consider this quote in light of the "bipartisan" economic stimulus package just passed by congress and signed into law by President Obama. To help I have made a list of the differences Obama describes between a bipartisan and a partisan bill. See if you can tell which side of the list best applies.

Bipartisan

-Honest give-and-take

-Serves agreed upon goal

-Better schools and lower deficits

-Exacting press corps

-Informed electorate

Partisan

-Nobody paying attention to substance

-Phony accounting

-Understated by a trillion dollars

-Minority opponents called "obstructionist"

It is sad to see President Obama sign a supposed "bipartisan" bill when he, above everybody else, knows it is not. He clearly knows what bipartisan legislation looks like in theory, just not in practice. Oh for the days of President Bush when the only words that would haunt him were his dumb ones. It looks like President Obama will always be haunted by his smart ones.

Maybe we can keep Guantanamo Bay open if we turn it into a Planned Parenthood?

What President Obama has achieved in 28 days says even more about his failures. In just 28 days he managed to begin closing Guantanomo Bay and he reversed the executive order restricting federally-funded abortions over seas. I think we can all be proud to see a President who rushes to provide terrorists with greater opportunities for freedom than unborn –third world babies.

Regardless of how you feel about these issues, how can the President justify wasting any time on such low-priority, low-importance issues when, by his own words, we are facing a dire economic crisis. Its like watering your plants while the house burns down.

Zombie or not, this administration has left me just the same way the previous administration did: with an unquenchable thirst for brains.

The Morning After: A Declaration of Dependence

2009-02-16T19:16:00.001-08:00

With the passing of the Economic Stimulus Bill, we see the dawning of a new day. A day where every bank that makes a bad decision can count on Uncle Sam to come to the rescue. A day where every Californian making minimum wage can count on Uncle Sam to pay for the mortgage on their $600,000 lunchbox of a home. A day where single moms with 14 kids can count on Uncle Sam to pay for every aspect of her children's lives, including their conception.

Our founding fathers had it totally wrong. We don't want to declare independence. The only thing any of us want to declare is bankruptcy so Uncle Sam can cancel all our debts. Since our constitution is a living breathing document, it is only fair that the Declaration of Independence also be subject to the will of the people. Keeping this in mind, I have gone ahead and made a few edits.

We hold these truths relatively valid ideas to be self-evident, that all men people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator Evolutionary Process with certain unalienable undocumented rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness free mortgage payments for life, Universal Healthcare and the ability to marry our cousins. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed junk bonds sold to the Chinese.

Don't tell me the new Declaration of Dependence does not represent the zeitgeist of America. Just a month ago I saw a homeless man standing on the street corner with a handwritten card board sign that said "Denied Social Security. Denied Housing Benefits. Next: Freedom of Speech." I have no doubt the forefathers are nodding in consent. Social Security, housing benefits, freedom of speech. In today's America, they are one and the same. We have become so addicted to public assistance that we can no longer distinguish between rights and social programs.

In our desperate attempt to create rights, we have completely neglected to fulfill our own individual responsibilities. We fight for universal healthcare while ignoring our own personal health. We champion gay marriage while doing nothing to preserve those marriages that already exist. We fight for the right to abort a child, while ignoring the personal choices that lead to the unwanted pregnancy.

In reality, we are not looking to create rights as much as we are trying to erase consequences. And that is ultimately what this stimulus bill hopes to do. Erase the consequences of the past 10 years. Erase the greed that saw Wall Street buy into unproven mortgage securities. Erase the foolhardiness that saw millions of homeowners buy homes they could not afford. Erase the recklessness of state and local governments who spent like sailors on leave even when it was obvious the ship was about to sail.

This stimulus bill is the economic equivalent of the Morning-After Pill. It provides short term relief while doing nothing to change the drunken behavior that got us here in the first place.

It is morning in America and we have all woken up with a bleary-eyed hangover. Good thing we can count on Uncle Sam to write us a prescription for what ever ails us. After all, today is our dependence day.

The Sandman Cometh

2009-02-15T05:49:00.001-08:00

On our very first night of matrimonial bliss, my wife and I learned the hard way that Hollywood is full of crap. It is physically impossible for two sane, warm blooded creatures to fall asleep in each others arms. It's hot, uncomfortable, puts your arms to sleep and it causes you to cough up hairballs. After ten minutes of trying to sleep with a numb left arm and my wife's hair tickling my nostrils, we decided to institute strict Mattress Territorial Demarcation (MTD). The left side of the bed is mine, the right side is hers and in between both sides we have a strict neutral zone that can only be violated when my wife is pregnant or wishes to become so.

This has been one of the best decisions of our marriage. As luck would have it, my wife is a roller. Had I not torn myself from her loving arms that first night, I could have easily ended up with her toes in my nose and an elbow where the sun don't shine. I am not the only one who has benefitted from strict MTD. One night, a few years into our marriage, I had a dream that I was being chased by a dog in a corn field. I woke up to find that all those kicks intended to hit the dog had actually befallen my poor wife. Had that strict neutral zone not been in place, I could have punted my wife from the bed and landed myself on the couch.

Perhaps nothing poses a greater threat to MTD and the nocturnal bliss it ensures than foreign invaders i.e. Children. In a desperate attempt to lull the little tyrants to sleep, many parents make the fatal error of allowing their child to sleep in their own bed.

There are many obvious reasons why this should never occur. First: children are pointy. Catching an elbow in the ribs from a child feels like falling onto a charging rhinoceros. Children also roll around at night like two barrels inside Niagara Falls making it impossible for anyone within a five foot radius to sleep comfortably.

Luckily, my wife and I have developed a system for getting children to sleep in their own beds that is the stuff of legend. Lets just say, if I were a comic book character, they would call me Mr. Sandman. Like a magician, I had always hoped to carry my Sandman Secret to the grave, but because it is Valentines day and my thoughts have turned towards love, I will kindly share with you the patent-pending Average Joel childhood bed-byetime method. Getting your kids to sleep effectively is broken into three phases 1) Ease the Transition 2) Develop a consistent bed time routine 3) Deal appropriately with children who get out of bed.

Ease the transition. The first mistake most parents make with their newborns is trying to get them to sleep in a crib right when they come home from the hospital. Remember, less than 48 hours a go, or less, this child was snuggled in the fetal position in a warm, tight, squishy space. Yet, we expect them to sleep flat on their backs in a cruel, cold crib.

For the first few nights, we will put the child to bed in a basinet next to the bed. They aren't going to sleep much those first few nights no matter what you do, so this is the only time in the child sleepy-time development process that you can do what is best for you. After a few nights, transition the baby into the car seat. This is going to be their home for the next couple of months.

At first my wife and I felt guilty for putting out children to sleep in the car seat. There is just something so un-parently about leaving your child in a plastic contraption that you set on the floor. However, for the child, this is the next best thing to the womb. It is warm, it puts them in a comfortable position and it reduces the risk of SIDS (no seriously, it does.)

Once the child is sleeping moderately well in the car seat next to your bed, start moving them into their own room. Maybe at first they only stay for half the night, but start getting them used to sleeping away from Mom and Dad.

Once the child is sleeping well in his own car seat, in his own room, start transitioning him to the crib. Do this first by placing the car seat inside the crib until he gets used to sleeping there. Once this happens (around month two) start putting him to sleep flat on his back for nap time only. Once the child is comfortable sleeping flat on his back for naptime, you can start putting him to sleep flat on his back at night, this should happen around month four.

Once your child is sleeping flat on his back in his own crib, you have it made in the shade. It is important to keep one thing in mind throughout this whole process: Crying has never killed a child. Each child hits the point where he is going to cry about his new surroundings. However, you need to have the will to allow the child to cry, sometimes for a long time, until they learn to accept their surroundings and sooth themselves to sleep.

Make a consistent bedtime routine. This can take on many variations, but the point is to be consistent. Do it at the same time, read the same books, sing the same songs. This creates a Pavlov's dog like reaction in your child such that the minute the clocks strikes 7:00 and he hears the song "I am a Child of God" he instantly starts to feel sleepy. Also, make sure your kids go potty and get a glass of water before hitting the sack. If they don't, they will use these necessities just as you are about to say good night to push back, if even for a few minutes, the inevitable bed time.

Deal Appropriately with children when the get out of bed. Once your children are out of the crib and into a toddler bed, they will start to explore their new found freedom and push your parenting buttons. When a child gets up at night, it is important to remember that what they want most is validation. They want recognition. So when they get out of bed, yelling at them, believe it or not, only reinforces the behavior. You need to ignore them as best you can. The first time they get out of bed, pick them up, put them back in and tell them you love them and that they need to go to sleep. The second time they get up, don't so much as look them in the eye. Keep your mouth shut and put them right back into bed. Repeat as many times as necessary until the child gives up and lets slumber take hold.

Once you have mastered these three steps, you and your spouse can get back to what is really important: sleeping.

Economic Stimu-less

2009-02-08T07:28:00.001-08:00

Fact: I like steak. Real steak. You know, flame-kissed chunks of beef that still moo when you stab it with a fork. Imagine my disappointment, then, the first time I ordered a Salisbury Steak. Rather than a plate over flowing with sizzling bovine deliciousness, I got a hamburger patty covered in gravy. Look here, Mister Salisbury, I know steak and you sir, are no steak!

I believe President Obama and the Democrat-controlled congress use the word stimulus much in the same way Salisbury uses the word steak-i.e loosely. Despite all the special interest pork they cram in and pet project gravy they ladle on top, with the proposed stimulus bill you still won't get what you are looking for: juicy, delicious economic recovery.

In reality, this stimulus package is more like a hot dog than a Salisbury steak. The more we learn what is inside it, the more it makes us want to puke. Here are just some of the greasy details:

$100 million dollars for child development centers. Unless we are developing these children into cyborg butlers that we can sell two third-world oil barons, I don't see how these centers are going to stimulate the economy.

$15.6 billion for Pell grants to college students. How does incentivizing more kids to stay out of the workforce and in school provide a short term economic stimulus? Long term? Maybe. But short term the only people this portion of the stimulus benefits is Snack Ramen.

$66 million for school districts to provide services for homeless children. Unless they plan on serving these kids by putting them into sweatshops making knock-off Gucci bags, how could this possibly benefit the economy?

$250 Million to develop a data system that measures student achievement. Don't we already have the SAT and ACT for that?

$600 million for early intervention programs for children with disabilities. Good idea? Yes. Economically stimulating? No.

$2.4 Billion for Carbon Capture Sequestration technology. Thats right, $2.4 billion to invent some fandangled air purifier to remove carbon from the air and decrease our supposed environmental footprint. Oh, if only there were some type of organism that took carbon dioxide and, through the process of photosynthesis, turned it into clean, environmentally friendly oxygen. You know, something like a tree. Here is a thought, rather then investing this money into an unnecessary contraption that at best duplicates a process my front lawn is capable of, why don't we use it to plant more trees? At $100 dollars a tree, we could plant 24 million of them. This reminds me of the millions of dollars we spent during the race to space to invent a pen that could write in zero gravity while the Russians just used a pencil.

$200 million for leaking underground storage tank enforcement and clean up. Apparently these underground tanks must be leaking money. I can't think of any other reason why this would belong in a supposed stimulus bill.

$2.7 billion for comparative effectiveness research. I hope the first study this money funds is how comparatively effective comparative effectiveness research actually is. My guess: not much.

$1.1 billion for the expansion of Head Start. When it comes to who to blame for the economic crisis, I agree with the Federal Government. It is not Wall Street's fault, it is the fault of four year olds who have the audacity not to attend preschool. Glad to see we are using this stimulus package to do something about it.

$335 million for STD prevention programs. Looks like Hollywood is getting a portion of this stimulus package after all.

$30 billion for national highways. This is one of the only parts of the stimulus package I can agree with but not because I think it will help. Japan spent 10 years and $5 trillion dollars trying to pave their way out a recession and it failed miserably. But, since we are already on the highway to financial ruin, we might as well make it as smooth a ride as possible.

What these line-items of the project show is that, after being in the Whitehouse for only a few weeks, President Obama has already lost sight of what is important. In trying to help families bring home the bacon he has ended up just dishing out more pork.

The point of any economic stimulus package is to create more jobs. When people have jobs they can pay their mortgages, buy new homes, pay off their credit cards and buy large-screen TV's from Walmart- all fundamentals of our new economy. In fact, if we could create 5 million jobs, we could cut unemployment in half, bringing us to unemployment levels not seen since the mid 90's during the dot-com boom.

With a stimulus package of $825 billion dollars, each of those 5 million jobs would cost $165,000. That is enough to pay for the salary and benefits of the average American worker for three years. The answer, is not to try and trickle this money up from social programs or down from infrastructure projects, the answer is to put this money directly into the hands of employers. The government can simply pay for the salaries of any new hire employed by any organization (public or private) up to $45,000 a year for the next three years.

Is there any organization that would not take advantage of this? Manufacturing would be able to add workers and cut costs. Construction companies would be able to hire more employees and build faster and cheaper. Schools could add teachers and non-profit companies could add much needed man power. Now some controls would need to be put in place to prevent abuse, such as not allowing the number of employees funded through this program to exceed 5% of the total number of jobs within an organization, but these controls could be easily implemented and enforced with existing resources.

Of course this idea could never work in Washington D.C.. It is weighed down with far too much common sense. Its all steak and no sizzle.

All I Need to Know, I Learned by Having Children

2009-01-29T20:27:00.001-08:00

"Let's do it."

With those three words my entire life changed. Seven hours and about 300 ice chips into labor with our first child, our little boy's heart beat dropped dramatically and inexplicably. The nurse tried to remain calm as she gentle poked , prodded and pushed my wife's belly in an attempt to get things back to normal. I am sure even the nurse knew it would not work, but like when the TV stops working, you hope that all it needs is a solid whack. Despite the nurses desperate cajoling, my son's heart beat would not go up. A doctor was immediately ushered in and after looking at my wife and the heart beat monitor, he uttered those infamous words.

One thing they don't tell you about going into labor is the number of cables and wires it involves. The minute the decision to do an emergency C-section was made, there unfolded a ballet of unplugging and yanking that sent multicolored tubes and wires flying through the air like spaghetti. I could not tell if my wife was giving birth to a human or to a super computer.

As my wife was being wheeled out of the room a nurse handed me a pair of scrubs and told me to change quick. Rushing down the hall, I walked into the operating room to see two doctors beneath searing lights with scalpels at the ready. They looked at the anesthesiologist and said simply, "tell us when."

The anesthesiologist injected a clear liquid into my wife's arm and seconds later gave the sign. In a whirlwind of precision, the doctors began cutting and pushing. With each push, my now-unconscious wife would groan as the air was forced from her lungs. This unsettling sound was quickly followed by the most comforting and horrifying sound I have even heard. My new born son, screaming from inside the womb. (As a side note, Screaming from the Womb would be a great name for a band. But I digress.)

Within seconds this muffled scream became a full blown yell as my son emerged from the womb and let the cold rough world know exactly what he thought of it. The nurse, who not moments before was poking my wife in a desperate attempt to save my son, burst into tears and rushed my son to the baby warmer to make sure he was okay. But we all knew he was. With a scream like that, there was certainly no doubt his lungs worked.

And there I stood, sobbing uncontrollably, surrounded by a screaming son, an unconscious wife and a team of doctors and nurses breathing a sigh of relief.

Welcome to Fatherhood.

Since then, fatherhood has brought with it no less crying , screaming and groaning. And that is just from me. Now, five years and three kids later, I can say parenthood is nothing, if not educational. In a fair world, anyone who has a child while still in school should be allowed to skip every required class on biology. Believe me, having had two kids by the time I graduated from college, I knew what made life possible: cheerios and applesauce. Luckily, the lessons of parenthood don't stop there.

I have learned that it is possible for a mouse to live inside your minivan and survive on only the crackers and Craisins lurking beneath your children's car seats. What I have not learned is how to get rid of said mouse.

I have learned that, when done properly, putting in a car seat should never take more than 33 seconds. Of course, the first time I put in a car seat, it took three hours, two gallons of sweat and a naval expidition's worth of profanity to get it in.

I have learned that going to the bathroom is not a team sport, as much as your children wish it was. A solo deuce is not an oxymoron. It is a privilege.

I have learned that when you tell your two year old son to "put Daddy's glasses away", you better make sure did not hear "throw Daddy's glasses away".

I have learned that whenever you get two or more mom's with young babies in a room, within minutes the conversation inevitably turns to pooing, nursing or both.

I have learned that if the baby passes gas while you are changing his diaper, he is not being cute. He is issuing a warning. This phenomenon has many names in our household. I like to call it "the preamble to the constitution." My wife prefers "a turd honking for the right-of -way."

I have learned that nothing gets kids to change into their pajamas faster than an Elmo puppet accompanied by a great Elmo voice. It is a great source of pride to my family and the generations that have preceded me that I can impersonate virtually every character from Sesame Street. In my house, I like to refer to this as my Street cred.

I have learned that no matter how hard I try not to, watching pregnant women walk still makes me laugh. They look like they just got off a horse. And then ate it.

I have learned that the most important thing you can ever do for your marriage is to get your children sleeping in their own beds in their own rooms at as early an age as possible. Believe me, if it were possible for the child to sleep in his own bed in his own room before birth, my wife and I would have found a way.

I have learned that no sound can arouse a slumbering mother and father as quickly as that of a puking child. If I could somehow program this sound into my alarm clock, I would already have the child in the bath and the sheets off the bed before my wife even hit the snooze button.

I have learned that parenthood causes you to say the weirdest things. My personal favorite: "Son, quit biting the coffee table."

I have learned that most disputes over whose turn it is to change the stinky diaper can be settled with a simple game of paper-rock-scissors. Oh sweet rock, you've never let me down.

I have learned that the term Projectile Vomit is an understatement.

I have learned that no life is worth living if it does not involve bathing your son in a Walmart sink after exploding out of his diaper in the middle of the store.

I have learned that when your not-quite toilet trained daughter pees in the middle of the aisle in any given store, you are pretty much obligated to buy at least something.

I have learned that nothing wakes a sleeping child quite like your college fight song. Especially if your college fight song starts with the words "Rise and Shout."

Inauguration: Greek for “Thank Goodness We Only Have to do this Once Every Four Years”

2009-01-22T19:44:00.001-08:00

On election day, I came home to an excited five-year old son who triumphantly declared:

"Dad, I voted in school today. I voted for Obama."

This one little statement was all it took to destroy the fragile remnants of my heart that my shrewd conservatism had not yet consumed. Question after accusatory question raced through my head. Had I not worn my "Reagan is my Homeboy" T-shirt enough? Does this mean they will revoke my NRA membership? Is this because I failed to get him the Ann Coulter doll for his birthday?

"Why?" I blurted out, desperate to know the source of his deception.

"I don't know."

Frankly, I can't think of three better words to describe this entire electoral process: I don't know.

In a country 300 million strong, why did we choose from among us Obama and McCain?

Why would the Republican Party nominate a man who once considered being John Kerry's running mate?

How could a man with no executive experience, a racist preacher and past associations with domestic terrorists and slumlords be elected president?

How does Nancy Pelosi cram that much Botox into her face with our springing a leak?

And finally, how could the transcendent moment where America's first black president takes the oath be so, well, underwhelming?

I just don't know.

First, nobody wants Obama to succeed more than I do. If he does well, the entire country does well. While I may have voted for the other guy -Oldy McFarty I think his name was- I have no qualms accepting the will of the people and embracing Obama as our President. There is even a part of me that is little bit excited.

I have no doubt the inauguration was supposed to stoke my optimistic fire, but instead it doused it beneath a large pile of blah.

And because I can't really think of a good segue into the rest of my essay, here are some unsolicited thoughts on the inauguration.

Reverand Warren, next time you give the most watched inaugural invocation in history, I suggest you prepare a little bit ahead of time. "It all exists for your glory. History is your story." Congratulations. It rhymes. What else ya' got?

Am I the only one who can't get over how Reverend Warren pronounced Sasha? He didn't just state it, he exclaimed it. Like Eddy Murphy saying "Showtime!" SSSSSSSASHA! Her name sounds even cooler if you throw out your jazz hands when you say it.

I loved how, after taking the oath of office, Vice President Biden referred to the Supreme Court Justice as Mr. Justice. He must be the husband of my favorite Miami Police detective-turned-lawyer, Senorita Justice! Now that is a dynamic duo.

It was nice to see Utah Senator Bob Bennett get a chance to speak at the inauguration. I think we can all agree it is the first and last time anyone from the state of Utah will have anything to do with the Obama administration.

Through out his campaign, President Obama claimed that he was going to fix America's problems. Yet several times during his speech, he stated how it is our responsibility to help fix things. That's right, he is president for less than five minutes and he is already passing the buck.

I do not contest Aretha Franklin's place as the queen of soul. So for her sake I will blame her horrible rendition of My Country tis of Thee on the frigid Washington DC air. It sounded like Fantasia strangling a cat.

Gotta love Aretha Franklin's hat though. Looks like someone got a Bedazzler for Christmas.

Is Yo Yo Ma short for Yo Yo Mother?

Anyone who thinks American literature is not in a state of decline need only hear one stanza of the pseudo-poem offered during the inauguration.

"A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin."

Seriously? That's what passes for poetry these days? Compare that to Robert Frost's Poem prepared for JFK's inauguration.

There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young amibition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.

At the current rate of literary decline, I have no doubt that the next inaugural poem will simply be texted to all those in attendance and will read something like this:

2 R Nu Pres, who is so gr8

Lets make a bttr st8

Don't LOL, can't U See!

U make me say OMG

I must say, I was quite impressed by Obama's speech. In fact, I liked it even more than the first time President Bush gave it.

I am glad to see that Obama is taking seriously the idea of having an inclusive government. How else can you explain the crazy, racist uncle he invited to give the closing prayer. Redman get ahead man? Yellow will be mellow? White will embrace what is right? You could hear the crowd laughing uncomfortably and hoping he would just shut up, the same way you do when grandpa starts going on and on about Ay-rabs at Thanksgiving dinner.

Well, it is story time with the kids so I need to conclude my inaugural musings. Now where did I leave my copy of Rush Limbaugh's greatest monologues?

The Joelies: The 2008 Average Joel Movie Awards

2009-01-11T09:22:00.001-08:00

Turn on the spot light and roll out the red carpet! It's time for the 2008 Average Joel Movie Awards. Each year, I present Joelies to Hollywood's most deserving actors and movies based on completely arbitrary categories. It's just like the Oscar's, only interesting. Without further ado, the envelope please…….

Best Actor: Wall-e, Wall-e

He sings, he dances, he collects trash and compacts them into one foot cubes. Lets see Anthony Hopkins do all that without a strong laxative. This of course shows the brilliance of Pixar, who can take a two foot Robot with three fingers capable only of moving his eyes up and down and produce a more dynamic character than anything Keaunu Reeves has ever played.

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Leadger, Batman Dark Knight

You know your performance is nothing less than brilliant when you can turn something as innocent as hand sanitizer and make it look creepy. I imagine every magician in the world must hate Heath Ledger. Now every time a magician asks someone if they want to see a magic trick, this poor person covers their right eye and runs away screaming.

Best Actress: The Monster, Cloverfield

A larger than life woman stumbling around New York dropping babies all over town hasn't been this frightening since Britney was Mrs. Federline.

Best Supporting Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow, Ironman

Gwyneth Paltrow managed to do something in this movie that she has never done before: not annoy the crap out of me. For this, Mrs. Coldplay, we salute you.

Least Attractive Female in a Leading Role: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Batman, The Dark Knight

I thought I might have to retire this award in honor of Julia Styles, then I saw the Dark Knight and realized that the torch had been passed. Perhaps it was the goal of the director to depress us even further by including a female lead whose demeanor can best be described as, well, droopy. She is the physical embodiment of Eeyor.

With this award, we clearly see that the Batman franchise is suffering from a chronic case of LFHD (Lead Female Hotness Degeneration). Consider the leading ladies from each of the franchise's films: Kim Basinger, Michele Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone, Katie Holmes and now Maggie Gyllenhaal. Each one less attractive their predecessor. I suppose at this rate, the next Catwoman will probably be played by Judy Dench.

Best Man Movie: Quantum of Solace.

From a man's perspective, this movie has it all. Cars, fist fights, explosions, hot babes covered in oil. And just like a man, this movie also refuses to stop and ask for directions providing those along for the journey with any semblance of where they are or where they are going. Just get in, buckle up and don't ask questions.

Worst Movie Rating: The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian

I have not seen a movie this undeservedly PG since Star Wars: Episode II, a movie with more decapitations than good acting. Prince Caspian features body after body being shot down with arrows, multiple battle scenes, a pagan ritual to bring back a dead ice queen, horrifying dwarves and four children getting onto a subway without adult supervision. The rating system simply does not mean anything anymore when this type of movie
is considered just as appropriate for children as, say, Enchanted.

Best Fight Scene:Kung-fu Panda

Sure, watching James Bond duke it out in an exploding, Bolivian desert hotel is pretty nifty, but even that pales in comparison to watching the Furious Five take on a crazed snow leopard atop a rickety old bridge. Did I mention, the Monkey is voice by Jackie Chan? Anytime Jackie Chan is involved, your best fight Joelie is assured.

Best Remake of a Remake:The Incredible Hulk

The movie did exactly what it needed to: make us pretend that The Hulk never existed.

Best Sidekick: The Refrigerator, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Sure, the Shia Lebeoughfffffghff guy had spunk and moxy, but do you think he could save Indiana Jones from a Nuclear Explosion? No amount of fancy motor-cycle driving is going to save you from the on rush of a mushroom cloud. Yup, when Uncle Sam goes nuclear, who among us wouldn't want our trusty, lead-lined Frigidaire. And for that, Mr. Refrigerator, you will always be in our hearts.

This is, of course, not the first time an Indiana Jones sidekick has been upstaged by a refrigerator. Poor Short Round's 15 minutes of fame were quickly forgotten when Walter, "The Refrigerator" Perry Superbowl Shuffled his way into our hearts the following year.

The Average Archive: The Academy Award for Most Pretentious Anti-War Movie Which Nobody Saw Goes Too......

2009-01-08T21:01:00.001-08:00

Long before the Average Joel went global, I would occasionally write silly bits of bloated bloviations and post them to a familial site on the interwebs. In preparation for my prestigious 2008 Movie Awards (The Joelies) I have included here what I wrote about last years films. Please to be enjoying now.

The theme for this year's Oscars is "The One. The Only." Which of course begs the question, the one and only what? The one and only time of year that Hollywood gathers to celebrate mediocrity and pat its collective pretentious back? Nope, they have the Golden Globes for that too. The One and Only chance to watch ignorant millionaires fake expertise on complicated matters of foreign policy? Nope, we have the Democratic convention for that. How about the One and Only person who actually saw all of the movies that got nominated? Now that's more like it.

With each passing year Hollywood works harder and harder to distance itself from the people who actually pay for their meal ticket, or in Hollywood's case, their low-calorie, low sodium soy bi-product. The Oscars may be Hollywood's high-five to itself, but to rest of America, it is just another one-finger salute. Of the five movies picked for Best Picture, not a single one of them ranks within the top 50 in Box Office sales in 2007. Sure, most of the films were released late in the year, but that didn't stop movies like "I am Legend" and "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" from going on to collect more money than all the five best picture nominees combined. When your top grossing Best Picture nominee can't get more attention than Ice Cubes "Are we Done Yet" or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, how can you really call it the Best Picture? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it does it make sound? If a movie plays in a theatre and nobody sees it, does it really count?

Now admittedly, awarding the Best Picture based on how many people have seen it is hardly the best possible criteria for an award show. There are enough slack-jawed yockels in this world to make a film exclusively devoted to bowel movements a box office success (think anything with Adam Sandler). But isn't Hollywood shooting its own Gucci-clad foot by awarding shows with accolades that bomb in the box office? All they are doing is encouraging the George Clooney to make more "Michael Claytons" and less "Ocean's Elevens."

So who are this year's true winners and losers?

Best Actor: Matt Damon, The Bourne Ultimatum

Playing a lawyer with a pang of conscience like Michael Clayton is easy. Try playing a government trained assassin with acute amnesia. Now that takes talent.

Best Supporting Actor:Bumblebee, Transformers

This role is a real challenge for any actor, let alone a sentient robot from outer space: make an audience care about you without saying a word. If anything, Bumblebee's inability to speak was his greatest asset as the dialogue given to the other Transformers read like a one act play from a geek convention.

Best Actress: Amy Adams, Enchanted

Amy Adams was to this movie what Jack Black was to "School of Rock". She took a thin, smarmy, unbelievable premise and for the fleetingest of moments, made us believe it. She narrowly beat out the fat chick from Hairspray, only because I do not know her name and I am too lazy to look it up. Laziness is of course is the number one qualification for being an actual voter in the Academy Awards. Maybe I should submit my resume.

Best Supporting Actress: AnnaSophia Robb, Bridge to Terabithia

She really only won this award because, given the rate Hollywood is eating up young stars, it is the last time we can mention her name without also saying "is pregnant", or "was recently released from re-hab" or "lost custody of her children to a part-time wannabe rapper ."

Best Fight Scene: The Bourne Ultimatum

It is hard to pick one scene in particular. Just press play at any moment in the movie and you are sure to either see him fighting, or running. Kind of like a night on the town with Colin Farrell.

Best Car Chase: Transformers

There really wasn't much competition. When the cars themselves can go from weaving in and out of traffic to punching each other on the side of a skyscraper, well, you can't really be beat can you?

Best Animated Film: Meet the Robinsons

The conventional wisdom says Ratatouille and to be sure I did like that movie a lot. But Meet the Robinsons did what the French rat couldn't: entertain my kids for a solid hour and a half. Seeing it in Digital 3D helped its case a great deal as well.

Best Film I Did NOT See: The Simpsons Movie

This is really just a recognition of the past body of work put out by this crew. Kind of like giving Dan Marino an honorary Super bowl Ring.

Best Movie to Watch A Second Time: Spiderman 3

I liked the third installment of the Spidey franchise when I first saw it; however I did not love it. After seeing it a second time, I was able to appreciate it more and get more out of it. Maybe I was just able to ignore MJ's whining and the weird "dark" Peter Parker sequences a little better.

Best Use of a Fat Suit: John Travolta, Hairspray

I still don't know why they chose John Travolta dressed in drag and clad in a fat suit to play the mother in this movie. Are there suddenly no fat women in Hollywood? Did Kathy Bates not return your calls? Regardless of the reason, John Travolta did a heck of a job. He made his love duet with Christopher Walken only kind-of creepy instead of really creepy like every other scene with Christopher Walken in any other movie.

Best Use of a Car as a Projectile Weapon: Live Free or Die Hard

Jason Bourne gave this movie a tough run for the money, but ultimately, seeing Bruce Willis launch a car out of a tunnel and into a low flying helicopter made my inner 10-year old boy squeal with a little too much delight. My one fear is that the success of this movie will lead to another film titled "Live Freer or Die Harderer." A little piece of me dies inside just thinking about it. Writing the title took two years off my life.

Best Picture: Transformers

Yes, I know this clearly makes me a charter member of the League of Extra Ordinary Dorks, but I loved this movie. Shia Labeuoghff (spelling?) does a great job selling the premise (seriously, the show is based off of a kids toy how believable could it get) without making it somber or wearisome. The cars were awesome and the action scenes were some of the best I have seen since the Matrix Trilogy. Whenever I feel lonely or blue, I just let my mind take me to a place where fighting robots battle it our over a one foot cube and destroy half of L.A in the process. Ahhhhhhhhhh….now if I could only get them to shut up.

2009: A Year in Preview

2009-01-04T08:39:00.001-08:00

Doing a review of 2008 and is SO four days ago. Now that 2009 has knocked on our door and invited itself in like a crazy cousin trying to sell you on Amway, we had better get used to the idea that it is here and that the only way to escape it is death. On that happy note, I would like to usher in the new year with my preview of 2009.

In an attempt to keep money in his bank and carbon-producing fuel in his private jet, Al Gore will start making even crazier predictions. Just last month he stated that in 5 years, all of the arctic ice will melt. By this time next year, he will be predicting an attack from a mechanized alien race that has been trapped beneath the ice for a thousand years ushering in a new millennium of doom. DOOM!

While people like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe use socialist ideology to drive once prosperous countries into the ground, the news media will continue to report that capitalism has failed.

The National Hurricane center will predict an above-average number of Hurricanes. This will continue their trend of making panic-inducing predictions regardless of empirical evidence. Al Gore must sit on their board.

In college football, Georgia and Auburn will receive high pre-season rankings only to tank in every important game on their schedule.

Adam Sandler will make another gazillion dollars starring in a movie based on flatulence and annoying voices.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will adopt an entire African village. In unrelated news, the demand for L.A. area nannies who speak fluent Swahili will get so high that Manute Bol will consider coming out of retirement.

All summer, cable news journalists will dedicate a portion of each broadcast to either 1) Tracking a hurricane 2) Talking about a hurricane 3) Talking from inside a hurricane 4) Showing the aftermath of a hurricane or 5) predicting future hurricanes. Personally, I think we could make the whole summer more interesting if we started naming Hurricanes after race horses. Having your city demolish be Hurricane Man o' War makes sounds a lot better than getting beat up by a Katrina. Just imagine the wrath of Hurricane Seabiscuit: the little storm that could.

At some point, we will discover that someone else from Barack Obama's past is either a terrorist (Bill Ayers), a slum lord (Tony Rezko), a corrupt politician (Governor Blagojavich) or a racist (Jeremiah Wright, his own grandmother). Barack Obama will immediately denounce this person in a mesmerizing 90 minute speech which Chris Mathews will call "The best speech I have ever heard since the last one President Obama gave."

This summer, the price of gas will start to climb again and Anderson Cooper will dedicate an entire broadcast to interviewing people complaining about how much money it costs to fill up their 5-mile-a-gallon Hummer.

Financial Analysts who can't predict what is going to happen on the stock market in any given hour will make sure-fire predictions about what is going to happen in the stock market next year.

During the annual Academy Awards, Hollywood will see fit to present Oscar upon Oscar to some pretentious, three-hour movie that is either anti-war, anti-religion or anti-republican. This movie will double its ticket sales in number of Oscars received.

Paris Hilton will once again prove Einstein's theory of relativity by making her 15-minutes of fame stretch on for eternity.

Boys and Girls from across the country will descend on Washington DC and demand a bailout for the failing lemonade-stand industry.

During the summer, somewhere in the middle-east a camel will sneeze instantly raising the price of oil by $10 a barrel.

Nanny State

2008-12-16T19:35:00.001-08:00

I always expected the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse to usher in the age of darkness with a thunderous whinny, not a nasally whine. Alas, my erroneous predispositions not withstanding, it appears as though such an apocalyptic age is nigh. Grab your children and head for the proverbial hills. America's most obnoxious sitcom nanny has asked to be considered for a vacant senate seat. That's right, Fran Drescher is headed for Washington.

Yes, that Fran Drescher. You know the big haired Jewish girl from queens who made a living by sounding like a strangled cat with a cold. The same woman whose autobiographical novels include Enter Whining and Cancer Schmancer. Apparently Gilbert Gottfried had already laid claim to the titles Enter Annoying and Prostate Shmostate.

Lets not forget she also starred with Timothy Dalton in one of the silver screens most horrible creations, The Beautician and the Beast. It is the story of an obnoxious, loud talking Jersey girl who wins the affections of an attractive but brutish foreign monarch. For being as staunchly pro-choice as Fran is, there is simply no excuse for her not aborting this cinematic abomination upon conception. As a side note, has there ever been a greater fall from grace in cinematic history than that of Timothy Dalton? In less than ten years, this guy went from starring with Bond girls to bail-bond girls.

Recently on Larry King Live, Franny the Nasal-Nanny announced her intentions to be considered for Hillary Clintons vacant senate seat. Among her many qualifications, she lists being "a product of the New York public school system", having a father "worked two jobs" and being a survivor of cancer. Her most compelling argument: "I was on the panel and cancer, you know, hearings." Apparently she never heard of the sentence and complete, you know, grammar. About the only thing she is qualified to do is host a panel discussion on hairspray, pink lipstick and the Jersey turnpike.

Nevertheless, for the first time in my life, Fran, I can say you have inspired me. Not through your Cancer Schmancer foundation, or your stand against "violence against women and children and animals," but for your stand for the political entitlement of cheap 90's sitcom stars. I think we can all agree the way to fix Washington is spelled TGIF. Just imagine.

Steve Urkel, National Director of Intelligence.

He's smart; He's no good with the ladies and he is a complete Nerd. Perfect for the CIA. Now the next time we are sold a war with faulty intelligence, he can just look into the camera and exclaim "Did I do that?"

Balky Bartokomous, Secretary of State.

He has great foreign experience and a knack for getting along with perfect strangers. He is like a female version of Madeleine Albright. "Russia wants to put nuclear missiles in Venezuela? Get out of the city!"

Kimmy Gibler, Speaker of the House

She is brain dead San Francisco native who you just can't seem to get rid of no matter how hard you try. Put simply, she is basically Nancy Pelosi on Botox.

Mona Robinson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Who's the Boss's resident septuagenarian cougar would never get tired of the double entendre offered by that title. Veterans Affairs? Get it? Get it? If this blog had a studio audience, they would be rolling over in their seats. Where is a laugh track when you need it.

By throwing her leopard-print hat into the ring, Fran Drescher shows us that we have entered into the "I could do that" stage of American politics. It is the stage where our government has become so inept that any person with a modicum of success looks at the TV every time Harry Reid speaks and says, "Well…I could do that." And frankly, who could argue? I have no doubt a monkey with a flashlight could offer better guidance than any of the current leaders on Capital Hill, Republican or Democrat.

Let me just say, you think Fran Drescher in the Senate is scary, consider what else she said on Larry King: "Well, you know, I'm a U.S. diplomat now. I was appointed by the State Department. Hillary Clinton is going to be my new boss. I just returned from a four country Eastern European tour of duty."

Now you tell me which is worse, the Nanny representing the people of New York in Washington DC or the Nanny representing the people of the United States all across the world. Suddenly Senator Fran Drescher doesn't sound so bad.

Putting the $$ back into Rece$$ion

2008-12-07T07:35:00.001-08:00

When the CEO's of the big three automakers heard that Barack Obama was going to bring change to Washington, they must have understood he meant spare change. How else would you explain the metaphoric tin cup they have been holding out for the past month. They should just get some cheap cardboard signs that read "Will work for Bailout".

Unlike these same CEOS who would not recognize an innovative idea if it knocked on their door and claimed to be their long lost son, I have five fool-proof ideas to make money in tough economic times.

REALITY BITES… AND BRINGS HOME THE BACON

If the hit reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8 has taught us anything, America is still willing to buy tickets to a freak show. In fact, the entire TLC channel is being hijacked by reality shows about freakish families. They should just change the motto of the network to "And you thought your life sucked.." Which inspires my most fool proof money-making technique yet: creating my own reality TV show! It is a simple three step process:

Step One: Quit my job and begin pursuing my dream job of becoming a multi-platinum rapper named Sloppee Jo'

Step Two: Impregnate my wife with child number four. Considering my wife is as fertile as a Tennessee Valley, this is the easy part.

Step Three: Contact TLC and sell them the rights to the first of its kind reality show about a white wanna-be rapper, his wife and four children tastefully called Jo', Da' Ho, and Da' Fo' Mo'

JUNK SCIENCE: THE MOVIE

Don't know anything about making movies? Don't know anything about science or empirical data? Don't worry. All it takes is one snazzy powerpoint and a bunch of chicken-little-worse-case-scenario-statistics and a snappy Melissa-Ethridge inspired soundtrack to earn yourself a hit movie, an Oscar nod and if you are lucky, the Nobel Peace Prize.

I think Al Gore must spend all day laughing and rolling around in the ill-gotten lucre filling his 10,000 square-foot mansion with a carbon footprint the size of Paul Bunyan's.

My movie is going to be about how Dentists have convinced the world that wisdom teeth are unnecessary just so they can make billions of dollars removing them from the mouths of their unsuspecting victims. I call it An Inconvenient Tooth

WHO NEEDS SKELETONS IN YOUR CLOSET WHEN YOU'VE GOT CLINTONS IN YOUR CABINET

It seems the only thing people are doing more than file for unemployment benefits is run for President. When it comes to gaining full time employment, all these Presidential wannabees may be on to something. After all, the only place that is hiring these days appears to be the Office of the President, oh I'm sorry, Office of the President Elect.

And the surest way to procure gainful employment within the Whitehouse to-be is to be a former opponent of Barack Obama. Call him dangerously unqualified? You'll get the Vice Presidency. Worry about his ability to handle midnight telephone calls? Secretary of State is yours. If only Bill Richardson had withheld his endorsement of Obama, he might have been able to do better than Commerce Secretary.

Well Mr Obama, much like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson, I also opposed your presidency. I will gladly accept your nomination as Director of National Intelligence, or has that job already been offered to Dennis Kucinich?

GATE®

I have already missed the boat on trade marking the word Change and Bailout which would have earned me no less than $1 billion this year so I am going to jump ahead of the pack and trademark the word gate. You know, as in Watergate, Troopergate, Katrinagate and Travelgate. Let's just say I have a hunch that over the next four to eight years, we are going to be using this word a lot.

IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET..?

We can all thank Plaxico Burress for pointing out that when it comes to gun violence in a New York night club, we have nothing to fear but fear ourselves. Which is why I am going to invent the first pair of pants with bullet proof pockets. Our motto: "When the safety just isn't enough."

Being Thank-filled

2008-11-25T21:18:00.001-08:00

There are many things about Thanksgiving that fascinate me. First, that we as a nation set apart one day each year to dedicate ourselves solely to the three F's -Food, Family and Football. Secondly, I am fascinated by the intricately layered rainbow Jello that my wife manages to create each year. It is as much a work of art as it is delicious.

What fascinates me most about Thanksgiving, however, is the fact that it was first instituted and made a national holiday during perhaps the most trying time in American history. You would think Thanksgiving would be a product of the 50's what with its preponderance of Dads sleeping on the couch all afternoon while mom is in the kitchen doing the dishes. But no, Thanksgiving is not a product of the 50's. You might think Thanksgiving would be a product of those first pilgrims and their Native American buddies, but alas, they only serve as a nice back story.

In reality, Thanksgiving was first instituted in the midst of the American Civil War. Think about that. Thousands of men had died and millions more would endure the scars of battle that last a lifetime. Brothers were literally being pitted against brothers. All of the nation's best resources were being dedicated towards a war amongst with ourselves and our President decided to set aside a day to give thanks. What??

Despite the fear and uncertainty of the time, Abraham Lincoln had the vision and foresight to see the many ways in which our nation was being blessed. He managed to see through the blood and fog of war and witness a benevolent hand blessing a nation and its people.

In a time of war at home, he was thankful for the relative peace abroad. In a time when the fields of battle yielded so many victims, he was thankful for the fields at home which yielded so much fruit. And of these many blessings he stated:

"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

While the only brothers being pitted against brothers this Thanksgiving will be on the flag football field, there is no doubt that America is still going through a bit of a rough spot. How much more than should we be thankful for the things that we do have. Consider the many things I am thankful for this year:

I am thankful to live in a country where a man by the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president. This gives hope to all the unfortunately named Richard Heads and Fred Frank Funks that exist out there.

I am thankful to have a daughter who is not old enough to like Hanna Montana. Egads that music is horrible.

I am thankful to have a family who, despite all my glaring faults, still likes having me around sometimes.

I am thankful live in a country with such an abundance of food that we make reality TV shows dedicated to watching fat people weigh themselves.

I am thankful to live in a country where 6% unemployment sets off pandemonium. In France they have a saying about an unemployment rate so relatively low "C'est Imposible!"

I am thankful for a DVR. I am now so used to fast forwarding through commercials that whenever I am watching live TV, I still instinctively grab the remote any time a commercial comes on. It is a serious condition I call "DVRthritis."

I am thankful to live in a country that was able to look passed the color of a man's skin when selecting a president. Now if only we hadn't looked passed his inexperience and blatant political pandering.

I am thankful for a car that runs. If you knew my history with cars, you would know how much this means to me.

I am thankful for a home that is actually increasing in value. The French have a term for that as well, it is called "Texas."

I…am…thankful…for…my…job. There I said, are you happy!

Last but not least, I am thankful to be a citizen of a country where I can write what I like, think what I want, and believe whatever the heck it is us crazy Mormons believe in. In short, I am thankful to be an American.

Now it is your turn, what are you thankful for?

When the Gay Come Marching In

2008-11-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

The ignorant, hate-filled anti-Mormon protests ranging from coast to coast deserve a serious, thoughtful analysis; an objective discussion of the feelings and emotions causing such animosity against the religion. Which is why I highly encourage you to go some where else and read it.

Here, I treat these protests with the same seriousness with which I treat our sacred political process (i.e. none). Below are some of the photos from these protests that gave me a hearty, old-timey chortle. Really, I would like to thank all those bigots who felt the need to disrupt our religious services because we had the audacity to disagree with you in a democratic election; I haven't laughed this hard in years. But remember: I am not laughing at you, nor am I laughing with you. I am laughing because of you.

The original drafts of this poster said go back to New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. Then they realized that Mormons had already been driven by angry mobs out of those states. I guess now we can add California to the list.

I think we can all agree that the word "Hater"= stupid=dumb. Thank you Jerry Springer for foisting that term on society.

With that type of Christ-like compassion, I guess this protester will be burning along side us.

I think the founding fathers would agree: Gay marriage is a far more protected institution then something as small and unimportant as religion.

They are right about this one. The Main entrance is actually around the back.

While being tolerated may suck, I think we can all agree it sure beats being persecuted by an angry mob.

We keep trying to separate the church from hate. Why do you think we build fences around our temples? Also, if you look closely you will see a German Iron cross. This of course has nothing to do with the church but appears to be the new logo for the Gay Rights community.

Now if this sign had said "Virile Mormons", I think we could all agree it is true.

Well, at least one of these hate filled bigots has a sense of humor.

Poster board and Markers: $5
Two Jackets: $50
Taking your kids out on a cool autumn night to advocate violence and untrue stereotypes: Priceless.

As this bishops house in Southern California teaches us, you just can't spray paint bigot on someone's door without indicting yourself. It is like a member of the KKK spray painting "Racist" on a black mans door.

Okay, I actually kind of like this sign.

Protesting LDS churches in California is one thing, but protesting 7 year old girls in Seattle, where they did not even vote on the measure? Way to keep it classy.

Oh, I'm sorry, how did this picture get in here. Same bigoted movement, different century.

And I'd hate to be part of a group that pushes ignorant, untrue stereo types.

When democracy doesn't get you what you want, I think we can all agree the next best option is petty vandalism.

If you look really closely, this reads "I Heart Religious Persecution"

Finally, Mike Huckabee and the Gay Community have something they can all agree on.

With this I conclude my opus on gay-marriage and anti-Mormonism (for now). While my respect for the gay rights community as a whole has diminished somewhat, my love and respect for the individual members that I know within that movement has not. If anything, this discussion has only solidified the high esteem in which I hold you in. I would conclude with one of my favorite quotes by Joseph Smith where he said "Come on, dear brother, since the war is past,
For friends at first, are friends again at last" but I am afraid the mere mention of something Mormon-esque might make some in the gay rights movement all angry-smashy-torchy.

So Long Mr. Nice Gay

2008-11-16T18:49:00.001-08:00

Despite all their attempts to redefine marriage, it seems the only word the gay rights movement has managed to redefine is, well, gay.

Over the past two weeks, the word gay –which used to mean happy before it meant a same sex attraction-- continued its transition and it now means "blind, ignorant rage". How else can you possibly explain headlines like "Gay Activists Protest Mormon Temples." If gay means people with a same sex attraction, then a gay protest at a Mormon temple makes as much sense as a PETA protest outside HomeDepot. There simply is no reason for a quarrel between the two. Use the new definition and you get blind, ignorant activists protesting a Mormon temple and that at least makes sense.

Frankly, I think the homosexual community will be excited about the new meaning of gay. Now the only people who have to be worried about being outed are rednecks and skin heads. Just imagine:

"Son, is this your copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf?"

"Where did you find that? Have you been looking under my mattress?"

"Son, be honest with me, are you filled with ignorant rage? Are you… gay?"

"Yes Dad, alright. I'm Gay. I can't help it. Whenever I see a black man or a Jew, it makes me feel so angry!"

"I don't understand. Where did you learn to be gay?"

"I learned it from watching you, Dad. I learned it from WATCHING YOU!"

Call me crazy, but this has afterschool special written all over it.

Whatever you may think about the church or whatever your feelings are towards gay-marriage and Proposition 8, outside of blind, ignorant rage, there is no justification for protesting LDS temples and meeting houses. Now before you pull out the pitchfork and torch and start protesting my house, let me explain why.

While the recent anti-Mormon protests have shown us how homosexuals feel about the LDS church, it has not changed how the LDS church feels about them. The late President of the Church, Gordon B. Hinckley stated:

"People inquire about our position on those who consider themselves so-called gays and lesbians. My response is that we love them as sons and daughters of God. They may have certain inclinations which are powerful and which may be difficult to control. Most people have inclinations of one kind or another at various times. If they do not act upon these inclinations, then they can go forward as do all other members of the Church…We want to help these people, to strengthen them, to assist them with their problems and to help them with their difficulties."

Simply put, you can hate the Church all you want, but the Church does not hate you.

Turning the LDS church into the Prop 8 boogey man is ignorant and unfair. Proposition 8 did not pass because of the Mormon Church, it passed because 52% of Californians voted for it. Even if every Mormon had voted against it, the proposition still would have passed. If you really want to blame someone, blame Obama. It was the unprecedented African American turnout in support of Barack Obama who voted 70-30 in favor of the proposition and pushed it over the top.

The idea that the LDS church bought the election is an intellectually dishonest argument. First of all, the LDS church did not spend a dime on the election. Yes, it encouraged its members to contribute financially to support Proposition 8, but the Church itself spent nothing.

Secondly, the Yes-on-8 campaign was vastly outspent by the gay-rights movement. According to Time magazine, the No-on-8-side spent $43.6 million to defeat the proposition, the other side spent only $29.8 million. You simply cannot claim the election was bought when the losers spent more than the winners.

Proposition 8 passed because its proponents won the war of ideas. Admittedly, the LDS church was a major force in organizing and communicating in favor of the proposition. So if the gay-rights movement hates the church because we were better at persuading people, well, then compliment accepted. Bare in mind, however, that this was the LDS Church's first foray into political activism. The fact that it was so successful in persuading so many people has far more to do with the gay-rights movements inabilities than with the Mormon church's abilities. For the Gay-rights community, this was defeat snatched right out of the jaws of victory and you have no one to blame but yourselves.

It was the belligerent actions of people like Gavin Newsome and the other members of the GayKK who tried to earn public support for gay rights by cramming it down our throats.

Breaking the law and handing out marriage licenses to gay couples does not encourage acceptance of gay marriage anymore than graffiti encourages acceptance of the arts.

Saying gay marriage is going to happen whether we "like it or not" makes you sound more tyrant than tolerant.

You don't ease the fears of the pro-traditional marriage supporters who worry about homosexuality being taught in schools when you drag a group of first graders to a gay wedding.

Finally, you can't expect to earn public sympathy when you ignorantly and belligerently attack a minority religion for having the audacity to disagree with you in a civil, democratic election.

Despite these obvious facts, the blatantly anti-Mormon protests continue. Just this week two envelopes containing an unknown white powder were mailed to LDS temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Apparently someone in the gay rights movement knows of a right to terrorize small churches clause in the constitution that I have never heard of. (Don't worry, if it isn't in there, I am sure the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals will write it in for you.)

Why is the LDS church being so unfairly targeted? Because it is easy. The LDS church is the only group not protected by the umbrella of political correctness that falls over the other groups involved in the debate. Pick on African Americans and you're a racist. Pick on Jews and you are anti-Semitic. But pick on Mormons and you are just another part of Mike Huckabee's America.

For a group of people who fought so long against unfair stereotypes and hatemongering, the gay rights movement wasted not time pulling out hateful terms and untrue stereotypes of Mormons. It seems the most popular poster at the anti-Mormon love fests is the "If you can have 5 wives, why can't I have just one." Great poster except for the fact that it is NOT TRUE. The LDS church has not allowed polygamous marriage in over a hundred years and anyone who even whispers support for the practice is excommunicated faster than you can say "Warren Jeffs." But hay, who needs facts when your persecutin' Mormons. The people of Missouri sure didn't.

My particular favorite are the "No on H8" signs right next to the "Mormon Scum" or "Vile Mormons" or "Go to Hell Mormon" posters. I have no doubt these protesters have very acute "gaydars" but their irony detectors must have been left at home.

One look at these anti-Mormon protests and you can see that ignorant rage is the new gay, intolerance is the new tolerance and Rainbow flags are the new burning crosses.

It’s All about the Benjamins, Until They Try to Marry Each Other

2008-11-11T20:13:00.001-08:00

When I set out to voice my support for Proposition 8, I never expected to spend so much time on it. Every time I try to write about something else, Proposition 8 lures me back in with it seductive controversy and come-hither intrigue. I am like the Michael Jordan of Proposition 8. Rest assured, this will be my last treatise on this topic after which I will move on to more important things like politics, the economy and my fascination with the mythical Strawberry-Banana. Seriously Science, quit trying to cure cancer and start genetically manufacturing my dream fruit immediately! But as for now, Proposition 8, I can't quit you!

In looking over the many words I have written on the issue, I realize I have yet to boil my arguments down to their most cogent and salient issue.

The most important issue is not about how much Gay couples want to get married, despite the fact that it is about the only argument they seem to offer. After watching Keith Olbermann's diatribe on the issue, it seems you could boil his whole argument down to "Homosexuals really, really love each other and they, like, totally want to get married, so we should like let them since they have asked so nicely and all."

The most important issue is not love. They are plenty of non-traditional relationships built on a foundation of love that even Homosexuals don't support. I personally get tremendously tickled watching the gay rights movements explain why two men should be allowed to marry but one man and two women shouldn't.

The most important issue is not what good people homosexuals are. I have never met a gay man or lesbian woman I did not immediately take a liking to. However, just because you are a good person does not mean you should be able to marry who ever you want. Mother Theresa could marry Mary Magdalene and I would still oppose it (although it would make a terrific Dan Brown novel).

The most important issue is not rights. If marriage were a right, then you would not need a certificate from the government in the first place. Do I need a certificate to practice free speech? Do I need a permit to go to church? Those are rights. Marriage is no more a right than getting a drivers license. It is a privilege.

Similarly, the most important issue is not fairness. As a society, every law we have carries with it some measure of unfairness; of inclusion and exclusion. Why can't people under 35 years of age be President? Why do only men have to submit for the draft? Why are minority candidates given preferential treatment when applying to state colleges? Why do I have to drive on the right a side of the road if I am left handed? As a society, we pass such laws because the individual sacrifices they require provide greater value to society as a whole.

And in a word, that is what the issue is really about: Value, not love, not rights, not desire. Value. If we are to provide Gay Marriage with equal status then it must prove that it holds equal value.

Unfortunately for the No-On-8ers, they have yet to prove in the slightest that homosexual marriages hold the same value to society that heterosexual marriages hold. I have asked this question before and I have yet to see a valid response: "What value does gay marriage provide society that just being roommates doesn't?"

Don't tell me it is love. Love does not pay for public services or help put my kids through school. You can't buy love and love and can't buy you anything in return. While love may benefit you personally, how does it help society?

There are measuring sticks that can be used to measure the value of traditional marriage versus gay marriage. Religion, philosophy, morality to name just a few. However, few of those perspectives provide us with the common ground we need to make a collective decision. I may have my own personal religious views on the matter but in an incredibly diverse country such as ours, religion can no more help us decide on gay marriage than it can help us decide what to eat.

However, there is one way to measure value that we can all agree on: money. That's right. Greenbacks. Dinero. Scrilla. What ever you want to call it, we all know what it is and we all know how much it is worth (Answer: a lot less than it used to).

Using plain old dollars and cents we can compare the value of one relationship to another. We are a society fueled by money. The very basic services we need to survive and thrive (infrastructure, education, public safety) all require money.

The average amount of money my wife and I will earn over a lifetime will probably not be that much different than a gay- couple. In that sense, our relationships are equally valuable to society. However, there is one difference, with my wife and I, we are able to have children and those children in turn can become a tremendous benefit to society.

For example, If you figure each of my children earns $50,000 a year over 40 years of work, that is $6.0 million dollars my little family pumps back into society that a gay couple will never be able to replicate. If each of my children has three children in turn, than my wife and I can count on an additional $18 million added back to society.

While it may seem to dehumanize the issue by boiling it down to pure earning potential, at the end of the day, without it, nothing else will matter. With the incredibly top heavy social support network our society has established, if there are not sufficient workers earning enough money, than the whole system collapses. Why do you think western Europe and Japan are starting to freak out (freaking out being the technical term) about their incredibly low birth rates? Why do you think Australia will literally pay you cash for each child that you have? Why do you think Russia had a national Conception Day? ( No Seriously. It must be the first case in modern history where an entire country was given the day off and encouraged to have un-protected sex). Why have they all gone to such drastic measures? Because, as a society, they have written checks that they can't cash if there is nobody there to pay for the future benefits they have been promising. Say what you want about traditional families, but it is my kids that are going to pay for your social security not the other way around.

This also raises another salient point as to why we need to support and protect traditional marriage; because it provides these children with the best opportunity to maximize their potential. Children not raised by a Mother and Father are far less likely to be successful productive citizens. These kids are more likely go from being a boon to society to becoming incredible burden. My kids already have to pay for your Medicare and Social Security, let's not add additional prisons and food stamps to their already overflowing cup.

This concept of value is also why I can frown upon the draconian laws that prevented interracial couples from marrying while still supporting Proposition 8. Because interracial couples hold the same value as any other. They have the same ability to have and raise honest, good children and for that they are equally deserving of marital recognition.

To society as a whole, there is just no more beneficial institution than traditional marriage. It has no rival. It has no equal. Because of its tremendous, inherent value, it deserves the highest pedestal we can put it on. With this special recognition comes the societal pressures and rewards offered only to marriage that help it to succeed and, more importantly, help it to raise another generation of Americans who give more than they take.

Commentary Commentary

2008-11-08T22:38:00.001-08:00

The following post is in response to a comment posted by Boymystere on my West Coast GayKK blog posted earlier this week. His comment was so respectful and well-thought out, I felt it deserved an equally respectful and well thought out response. But since this is me we are talking about here, you are pretty much stuck with whatever comes out.

Boymystere- First, thank you for your open and honest response. This is the type of dialogue that is so greatly needed to maintain the free market of ideas our democracy is based on. Dissenting opinions are always welcome and I appreciate you taking the time. I hope you will indulge a response on my part.

Allow me to offer you a metaphor that I think will help explain why I support Proposition 8. I consider myself a well educated man. I have a Master's Degree from one of the nation's best schools. However, there are a large number of people who are not able to get a Master's Degree; some because they don't want it, others because they simply lack the ability. Sadly enough, there are far more people who want a Master's Degree than can actually get one.

Now, imagine if my school, in order to correct this perceived inequality, started handing out Master's Degrees to anyone who wanted one. A Master's Degree, at the end of the day, is only a slip of paper. Its value comes from what it represents: education, intelligence and hard work. When it no longer takes education, intelligence and hard work to obtain a Master's Degree, than its value becomes less then the piece of paper it is printed on. Handing out degrees based on desire, not achievement, does nothing to help those who want one and everything to hurt those who earned one. When everyone can have a Master's Degree, no one can. (Side note: This reminds me of Hank's response to a Christian Rock Band on King of the Hill: "They are not making Christianity better; they are just making rock and roll worse".)

Gay Marriage will never disrupt the relationship I have with my wife and the loving home we have tried to create for our children just like handing out Master's Degrees like party favors will never rob me of the education I achieved in earning one. What it will do is rob from my marriage the meaning that makes it so valuable. Marriage is the institution created by society to give children the best possible chance at success. When marriage loses meaning, it will be abandoned all together. When this happens, we rob from our children the commitment between a Mother and Father they need to have the best chance at success.

You may call this paranoia on my part, but sadly I have seen the consequences of the devaluation of marriage with my own eyes. I lived for an extended period of time in a country where marriage was virtually non-existent. This was due to the draconian laws of that country which made marriage virtually impossible. The result of this marriage-less society was family after family of fatherless children. With no social pressure or reward for fathers to stick around, very few of them did. Now, a whole generation of fatherless children is almost ensured a lifetime of poverty, crime and ignorance. Don't believe me? In this country I once met a single mom who became a grandmother at the ripe old age of 28. That is three generations right there suffering from a marriage deficient society. Even in our own country, we see that demographic groups which do not value marriage suffer from the same or similar problems I saw across the pond. No government, religious or academic program has ever been able to duplicate even a portion of the success that we see when Mom and Dad are married.

Even if California law were changed and homosexuals were allowed to marry, they would never have a marriage in the true sense of the word. When two men are allowed to obtain a marriage certificate, in that moment, all they and anyone else will really be getting is a piece of paper.

West Coast GayKK

2008-11-04T20:27:00.001-08:00

There are certain people in this world that we can all agree are infallible. Mother Teresa. Martin Luther King. Mahatma Ghandi. Now imagine making a film which depicts these people as bullies and burglars. You could no easier kick a puppy or strangle sunshine. Yet, for the California Courage Campaign, stooping so low is all in a days work. In a brazen attempt to smear the LDS church for its support of Proposition 8 in California, the Kalifornia Kourage Kampaign has begun airing an ad which depicts LDS missionaries invading and burglarizing the home of a lesbian couple to "take away their rights". It shows them barging in, rummaging through their home (including the underwear drawer) and tearing up the couples marriage license. No seriously. See the ad for yourself here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28UwAyzUkE.

Apparently, after making this movie, the Kalifornia Kourage Kampaign hopes to branch out with ads depicting Nuns lynching homosexuals and Jewish Rabbis bombing a gay pride parade.

While you may not agree with LDS beliefs or even their methods, it is difficult to find fault with Mormon Missionaries. These are young men and women who put their entire lives on hold and leave behind their families for two years just so they can help others. Yet because they happen to represent a contrarian viewpoint, the West Coast KKK has no problem blatantly misrepresenting them. Hitler's propaganda master Leni Riefenstahl may be dead but his spirit lives on.

Regardless of how you vote on Proposition 8, we can all agree that the lies and outright misrepresentation of the LDS church depicted in this ad cross the line. Could you image John McCain producing an anti-Obama ad that showed two black men barging into the home of a white couple and stealing their rights? No one, on either side of the political spectrum could defend such an ad. Not only does this blatantly anti-Mormon ad propagate lies and encourage hate, but it does nothing to advance the public dialogue on the issue at hand. Even if you do not support Proposition 8, tell me, what good can possibly come of this ad? How can a group that pretends to support equality and tolerance create something so inherently unfair and intolerant?

I think it is time we unleashed the fury of all the Average Joel readers (both of them) and email Rick Jacobs, (rjacobs@couragecampaign.org) founder of the Kalifornia Kourage Kampaign to let him know how we feel. The First Amendment gives them the right to say what ever they want. It also gives us the right to respond.

The Gr8 Divide

2008-10-23T20:24:00.001-07:00

Here in Texas, we have never met a dead horse we did not want to beat. Why do you think we invented the Piñata? That being said, please indulge me with another stand on my Prop 8 soap box.

For those of you who are too short on memory or too long on laziness to look it up, Proposition 8 is the California ballot initiative that would write into the constitution that marriage is between "a man and a woman". Despite the fact that everyone is either a man or a woman (except for perhaps Janet Reno) this simple statement is still considered discriminatory by Proposition 8 opponents. Having beaten the discrimination horse already (although I am still keeping my eye on it) I would like to move on to another reason I support Proposition 8 and traditional marriage: impending constitutional apocalypse.

The great thing about our constitution is that it acts like a legal trump card. You can pass all the crazy, cock-a-mamy laws you want, but the constitution always wins. It is like a Rosie O'Donnell in a room full of Twinkies. Those little cream filled cakes don't stand a chance. However, with the subsequent support for homosexual marriage and, more specifically, homosexual rights, a constitutional clash is beginning to unfold. Watch out Rosie O'Donell, here comes Roseanne Barr.

Choosing a favorite constitutional amendment is no easier than choosing between my new born children. However, if I had to choose, it would be Samantha, uhh, I mean, the 1^st Amendment. Why the first Amendment, you ask? Well, because it provides these great little things called freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The very same first amendment that lets you speak truth to power lets me make fun of mullets (Motto: Manhattan up the front, Nashville down the back).

However, there is this other great amendment called the 14^t^h amendment which provides equal protection of the laws. This means laws could not be applied discriminately; regardless of race, religion, sex or vegetable preference. Heaven knows we would take down you cauliflower lovers if we could!

All of us accept the 14^th amendment as valid (or at least we have since the government forced it down Alabama's throat in the 60's) and who could really find fault with it? Being of a minority religion myself, I am glad that I can where my "Joseph Smith is My Homeboy" shirt without fear of retribution. However, the gay rights movement is now pitting the 1^st Amendment against the 14^th. Freedom of Speech and, more specifically, freedom of Religion are now battling it out in a cage match to the death. After all, if a religion refuses to allow gay marriage among its parishioners, who wins? The right to worship how you please or the right to not be discriminated against? If legal precedent around the country is any indication, the 14^th Amendment now has the 1^st Amendment in a choke hold, and the gay rights movement is starting to hit it with a chair.

Don't believe me? Consider the following:

"In New York City, Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a school under Orthodox Jewish auspices, banned same-sex couples from its married dormitory. New York does not recognize same-sex marriage, but in 2001, the state's highest court ruled Yeshiva violated New York City's ban on sexual orientation discrimination. Yeshiva now allows all couples in the dorm."

"A Christian gynecologist at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista, Calif., refused to give his patient in vitro fertilization treatment because she is in a lesbian relationship, and he claimed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. (The doctor referred the patient to his partner, who agreed to do the treatment.) The woman sued under the state's civil rights act. The California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in May 2008, and legal experts believe that the woman's right to medical treatment will trump the doctor's religious beliefs. One justice suggested that the doctors take up a different line of business."

"A same-sex couple in California applied to Adoption Profiles, an Internet service in Arizona that matches adoptive parents with newborns. The couple's application was denied based on the religious beliefs of the company's owners. The couple sued in federal district court in San Francisco. The two sides settled after the adoption company said it will no longer do business in California."

"A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer, Elaine Huguenin, to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination. It ordered her to pay the lesbian couple's legal fees ($6,600)."

"Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of New Jersey, a Methodist organization, refused to rent its boardwalk pavilion to a lesbian couple for their civil union ceremony. The couple filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. The division ruled that the boardwalk property was open for public use, therefore the Methodist group could not discriminate against gay couples using it. In the interim, the state's Department of Environmental Protection revoked a portion of the association's tax benefits. The case is ongoing. "

Now, in case you are wondering what propaganda machine of the Far Right I pulled these examples from, you will be happy to know it is from a little place called National Public Radio (When Gay Rights and Religious Liberties Clash by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR.org, June 13, 2008)

In my religion, the sanctity of traditional marriage is not just some fringe doctrine. It is an integral part of the very purpose of our existence. The LDS church could no sooner perform a gay marriage than it could open up a virgin-sacrificing coffee shop (Motto: Come for the Latte, stay for the pagan sacrifice.)

I do not expect to see gay couples knocking on the temple door the day after Prop 8 is defeated. However, the slippery slope acceptance of gay marriage puts us on is very slippery and very slopey. How long before LDS marriages are challenged in court? If a photographer can be sued for not taking pictures of a gay wedding, how can a pastor not be sued for refusing to conduct one? If the state sees gay marriage as equally valid and worthy under the law than how can a church refuse to officiate one without violating the 14^th Amendment?

The challenge against the church this will cause will not occur over night, but slowly. First, people will go after the church's 501c3 status (Accountant speak for Non-Profit) and thus remove many of the tax protections afforded the church. You will start to see law suits filed to prevent LDS youth groups and congregations from using public lands (you know, kind of like what is happening to the Boy Scouts.)

How long before speaking out against homosexuality is considered a hate crime? Will we be arrested for preaching and believing our own religion? In June 2004, a Swedish pastor was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail for giving a sermon that said, among other things: "All homosexuals are not pedophiles or perverts. They nevertheless open the door to forbidden areas and allow sin to take hold of the life of the mind." I think we can all agree, that is one hate filled jerk.

Now before you go too far, let me say that even I agree there is a tinge of tin-foil hat delusion to my ranting . But then again, isn't there always?

Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to see how the failure of Proposition 8 does anything to support the free exercise of religion in the state of California or any where else in this country. When Mormon Bishops start getting hauled off to jail, don't say I didn't tell you so! After all, by then that might be considered hate speech.

Now I will get off my soap box. The air up there makes me woozy. Next time, I am bringing a Sherpa.

It’s ON Like DiscriminatiON!

2008-10-15T19:36:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, a wise man once said that "a good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years." Of course, due to inflation, a good catch word can now obscure analysis for 100 years. There is perhaps no greater drain on the public dialogue than the unanimous acceptance of a good buzz word and all its implications. Words like diversity, living wage and empowerment are universally accepted as The Good and never challenged in the public sphere, despite their many obvious shortcomings.

For no other word is this more painstakingly true than discrimination. This one word carries with it so much burden and onus that we each flee from its accusatory finger like Britney Spears from an over-eager Social Worker. Governments, institutions and corporations go to tiring lengths to prove that they are untainted by the discrimination boogey man.

Yet, what does discrimination even mean? Legally, it is supposed to mean an unfair application of the law, but as it is used now, discrimination basically means "an idea I disagree with." Not getting enough money from work? That's discrimination. Can't afford a house in the neighborhood of your choice? That's discrimination. School officials admitting unqualified minority candidates over more qualified white ones? Well, apparently that is not discrimination.

Now, in the name of a word which has no meaning, we mean to obliterate a word that does. Unlike "discrimination" this word has had meaning through every age and every society of mankind. It has had meaning in every nation and every culture. This word, put simply, is marriage.

For the past decade, across this country, gay-rights organization have sought to use the power of the courts to obliterate the meaning of marriage in favor of an overly broad definition of discrimination. There is only one problem: marriage, as defined between a man and a woman, is not discriminatory. It is a law and a definition that applies equally to all persons. I am no more able to marry a gay man than a gay man is. Equally so, a gay man has just as much right to marry a woman as I do (and did). Traditional marriage between a man and a woman is no more discriminatory than handing out free donuts, even if what you really wanted was a pretzel. It is what it is, take it or leave it.

If we are to hold gay marriage up on the same pedestal as traditional marriage, than gay marriage must prove that it holds equal value. Alas, this is where the gay-rights movements has perpetually come up wanting. In working so hard to show there is nothing wrong with gay marriage, they have yet to show that there is anything right with it. Traditional marriage has been and will always be the building block of society and the facts bear this out clearly. Individuals who are married live longer, have more money, are less likely to commit crime and are more likely to live fulfilling lives. Similarly, the greatest indicator in the success of a child is whether or not his parents are married. No government program, no school, no religion can have as a great an impact on a child and, in turn, society as a mother and father.

Adulterous relationships certainly exist, yet as a society, we do not endorse them. Why? Because of the harm and damage that the relationships inflict on a family, specifically children. While gay marriages certainly do not harm children, conversely, they cannot show how they benefit them. For this reason they are no more deserving of state recognition than that of a man and his mistress. Still don't believe me? Answer this question: what value does gay marriage add to society that just being room-mates doesn't? Why, then, should they be given the same recognition and privilege reserved for the single most successful social program in history: traditional marriage?

This political season, most of us will not be able to participate in the most important election of this new millennia. Not because of some imaginary republican voter-suppression machine, but because most of us do not live in California. (What, I can't vote just because I don't live in California? That's discrimination.) On this November's ballot, California voters will be asked to support Proposition 8 which writes into the constitution that which we have always known: marriage is between a man and a woman. This simple proposition would overturn the California Supreme Court decision which trumped the will of the people and provided equal recognition to an unequal union.

Having been raised in the Bay Area, I have always said that California would be the greatest place to live on earth if it weren't for all the Californians. Now is your chance, California, to prove me wrong. Now is your chance to redeem yourself for all the past ills you have foisted upon the rest of the world, namely, Police Academy 1 through 8. On the other hand, Catwoman we will always hold against you.

Thats Debatable: My Thoughts on the Debate

2008-10-11T07:17:00.001-07:00

Is offering universal health care, lower taxes on 95% of Americans, increases in early childhood education, more affordable college tuition and $500 checks from oil companies the "call to service" and "sacrifice" Senator Obama is asking for from the American people? At least after 9-11, President Bush asked us to spend our own money. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can get from your country.

Everybody said the town hall format of the debate was supposed to help McCain, but I don't see how. Watching him wander around while Senator Obama was speaking reminded me of a patient in an Alzheimer's ward. At any moment I expected him to look up at the camera and ask how he got there.

To quote McCain "We've got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't … like us very much." He is right, that money is much better spent bailing out failed banks here at home. Banks who wouldn't recognize a risky loan if it woke up next to them in bed and demanded a snuggle. Sorry Dubai, we have got our own greedy crooks to pay off!

Every time Senator Obama said "deregulate" only one thought went through my mind: Deregulators…Mount Up!

This will go down in history as the debate with the most utterances of the word "fannie" in history. I counted seven, which is six more than any other debate. In fact, the word fannie has not been said in a presidential debate since 1908 when William Taft famously called William J Bryan "a fannie-white lilly boy."

Obama never ceases to amaze. "When George Bush came into office, our debt -- national debt was around $5 trillion. It's now over $10 trillion. We've almost doubled it." He did all that math, ladies and gentlemen, without a calculator. Who is this man from Nazareth?

John McCain said "my friends" 22 times during the debate. Sorry, John, no matter how many times you say it, it does not make it true.

During the debate, both candidates received questions from people by the names of Oliver, Fiorra and Ingrid. Immediately after the debate, these people stepped out of the auditorium and into the Charles Dickens novel where they belong.

The same man, Senator Obama, who wants to provide universal everything and more government issued checks to the people also wants to "take on entitlements". It looks to me that the only things we won't be entitled to under an Obama administration are monkey butlers and a government-provided nightly turndown service.

When asked about how to fix Medicare, McCain stated: "My friends, what we have to do with Medicare is have a commission, have the smartest people in America come together, come up with recommendations." So McCain's solution is to have other people come up with solutions? He is not even President yet and he is already passing the buck.

Concerning energy, Obama stated "And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal." Yes, if there is anything we need, it is more Earth, Wind and Fire.

Quoth Senator Obama concerning the war in Iraq "It's also put an enormous strain on our budget. We've spent, so far, close to $700 billion and if we continue on the path that we're on, as Sen. McCain is suggesting, it's going to go well over $1 trillion." So, let me get this straight. Spending $700 billion to liberate Iraqi women and children is too much. But spending $700 billion to bail out Wall Street fat cats is money well spent?

Much like his counterpart Senator Biden, Obama's policy for intervening in another country bears little difference to that of George Bush. "So when genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us. And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible." So tell me, Monsieur Obama, how does that not apply to Iraq? Do you think Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing of the Kurds involved a shower and a bar of soap?

Concerning Pakistan, McCain stated that he was not going to "telegraph" his punches. Silly old McCain. These days we don't telegraph punches. We text them.

Obama states very clearly that we are going to "have to put some additional troops in Afghanistan." Wait a minute. I thought troop surges don't work?

I think we can all agree with Senator Obama, that what Iran needs is a stern talking to. "I believe that we should have direct talks -- not just with our friends, but also with our enemies -- to deliver a tough, direct message to Iran that, if you don't change your behavior, then there will be dire consequences." If Iran still does not co-operate, may I suggest putting them in time out?

My final thought: America, at 300 million strong, is without question the greatest nation on earth. So how in the world did we get stuck with these two?

Saying it Ain't So Joe!

2008-10-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

“Can I call you Joe?” With those five words, the debate was already won. Sara Palin’s greeting to Joe Biden, caught on camera, instantly set the tone for how the debate would unfold. She would dictate, Biden would respond. It is a shame all of his responses were not as straight forward and honest as his response to that first brilliant question. Unfortunately for next 90 minutes, America was treated to a veritable buffet of Washington double speak from a man who has had thirty years of practice. Sometimes, it almost seemed like Joe Biden was debating Joe Biden.

Constitutionally the Same. Civilly Different. In Biden’s own words, he stated that “in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple,” but than went on to say “Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.” So, from a constitutional stand point, he sees no difference between same sex couples and heterosexual couples, but from a civil side, he does not want to redefine marriage. Explain to me the difference between civil and constitutional? In relation to redefining marriage, I can see little difference. How can you state that constitutionally same sex couples are deserving of every right as heterosexual couples but on a civil level say that they are not deserving of the same rights? Doesn’t the constitutional side drive the civil side? Isn’t that the whole point of the constitution?

No How, Just When. When both parties were asked about their administrations exit plan from Iraq, Biden was quick to pounce on Governor Palin for offering no plan, and he than proceeded to offer no plan himself. He said “With all due respect, I didn't hear a plan. Barack Obama offered a clear plan. Shift responsibility to Iraqis over the next 16 months. Draw down our combat troops.” With all due respect, that is not a plan; that is an arbitrary timeline. Shifting responsibility to the Iraqis is something that is already happening and has been happening since the day we set foot on the sands of Iraq. In fact it was the whole point of the invasion. That is like saying your strategy to win the game is to score more touchdowns. Well duh. But how are you going to do it?

Concerning the timeline, the question I would like to ask is simple: why 16 months? Why not 15? Why not 18? It is a number plucked from a hat because it sounds good. It provides no measurable goals or objectives, but it does tell Al Queda and the other insurgents exactly how long they need to keep fighting before we will quit. If bringing our troops home is so important to Senator Biden, I am curious to know, what is his exit plan for Korea? For Germany? How about Japan? When will those troops come home? The fact that no such plan is talked about, let alone considered, is all the proof you need that, for Joe Biden, bringing the troops home from Iraq is more about winning in politics, than winning in war.

Tea Time with Tyrants. Governor Palin pointed out that Barack Obama’s decision to sit down, without preconditions, with tyrants such as Iran’s Ahmadinejad was “beyond bad judgment.” Biden replied with this whopper “This is simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say sit down with Ahmadinejad.” Joe Biden must have forgotten about this little thing his pal Al Gore invented called “The Internet”. It doesn’t take more than 30 seconds to you-tube the moment in the primary debates where, on July 23, Barack Obama said clearly and unequivocally that he would sit down with tyrants without preconditions. And Joe Biden should know, he was there. I will save you the thirty seconds it takes to find it, just go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dSPrb5w_k

He than went on to talk about the five secretaries of state and various world allies who are encouraging us to “Sit down. Talk. Talk. Talk.” He even blasted John McCain for having an administration that would be, in his own words, unwilling to “sit down and talk with the adversary.” So, according to Joe Biden, Barack Obama will not sit down with Ahmadinejad, but maybe he should? Is anybody else confused? If a “tea-time with tyrants” style of foreign policy is wrong, why did he spend the next few minutes advocating for it?

This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George are perceived to be a gay couple. They kept insisting they were not gay, but each time they did so they had to make the caveat “but not that there is anything wrong with that”. Well according to Joe Biden, Barack Obama would never sit with tyrants, but not that there is anything wrong with that.

Resoluteless Resolution Like most every other Democratic Senator, Joe Biden has spent the last five years trying to talk his way out of his vote to go to war in Iraq. With five years practice, you would think he would be better at it. During the debate he said, “I gave the president the power. I voted for the power because he said he needed it not to go to war but to keep the United States, the UN in line, to keep sanctions on Iraq and not let them be lifted.” Since when is voting for a resolution to go to war, not a resolution to go to war?

Hay Biden! Bush Called. He Wants his Doctrine Back. When asked about when the United States is justified to “go in” (i.e. invade) another country, Joe Biden said “when a country engages in genocide, when a country is engaging in harboring terrorists and will do nothing about it, at that point that country in my view and Barack's view forfeits their right to say you have no right to intervene at all.” Explain to me how that does not apply to Iraq?

How many times do you have to drop mustard gas on your own people before it counts as genocide? How many thousands of children have to die of starvation before it counts as genocide? How many rape rooms and torture chambers have to be built before it counts as genocide? How many families of suicide bombers have to be paid off before you can be considered supporting terrorists? By Senator Biden’s own definition, we were more than justified to go into Iraq. Senator Biden’s current opposition to the war in Iraq tips his hand about how he really feels about intervention. “Say NO to war, unless a Democrat is President.”

Based on an evening filled with double speak and contradiction, don’t be surprised if the next time he is asked what name he can be called, he responds “you can call me anything you like ,as long as it is Senator Biden.”

It's a Blunder-filled Life!

2008-09-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

Great Zuzu’s Petals! What a week on Wall Street! These past seven days have had more epic collapses and stunning rebounds than Tom Cruise’s career. And much like Tom Cruise, Wall Street will continue to freak us out, take our money and prove that we, somehow, can’t live without them. Wall Street, I can’t quit you!

This week brought with it the warm fuzzy feeling we get when a nation comes together to bail out a bank who otherwise would have collapsed under the weight of its own ineptitude. Why just replace the name Fannie May, Freddie Mac and AIG with George Bailey, and we all just took part in a multi-billion dollar re-enactment of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life”.

There really are a lot of parallels between the goings on in Wall Street and the goings on in the fictional Bedford Falls of Frank Capra’s classic film. As we all know, George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) is the manager of a bank who provided the much needed capital for his little community to grow and prosper. Until one day, George Bailey made the sub-prime decision of putting all of his money in the hands of Uncle Billy. Anybody who knows anything about Hollywood knows that Uncle Billy was going to lose the money, after all, the man has a pet bird. If Hollywood has taught us anything it is this: people with pet birds cannot be trusted. I am talking to you Jafar!

Well, needless to say Uncle Billy lost the money which would have caused the bank to close and sent George bailey to jail. Than, amazingly, the town got together, pooled its money and saved the bank. Community bail-outs, a true Christmas miracle!

The current crisis on Wall Street was every bit as foreseeable as Uncle Billy’s slippery fingers. Four years ago, I was driving down the street near Sacramento California when I saw a sign advertising starter homes in the $400,000’s! That is in dollars, people, not pesos.

Who would honestly pay $400,000 for a home the size of a lunchbox? Upon seeing this sign I turned to my wife and said “where are the people who work at Wal-mart living?” And that is the question Wall Street never asked. Anybody with two eyes and enough grey matter to fill a cereal bowl could tell that prices this high were more symptomatic of a bubble rather than true market value. If your median wage earners cannot afford your median value home, you are out of balance.

Far from failing to foresee the problem, the Banks were complicit in creating it. Making credit so cheap and so readily available allowed prices to sky-rocket further beyond what the market supported. Imagine if the banks had required income verification and a 20% down payment. This bubble would have never happened. Home prices would have reflected actual earnings and people would have been force to live with in their means. Instead, the banks offered adjustable rate mortgages with no income verification, allowing McDonald’s employees to buy McMansions of their own.

Despite the Bailey-esque blunder of making mortgages easier to get than shoe rentals from a bowling alley, the government, sigh, did the right thing and stepped in to bail these companies out.

In a perfect world, I would rather chant “burn baby burn” and watch these inept corporations suffer the natural consequences of their own foolish hubris. But much like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, sometimes the only thing standing between an appealing Bedford Falls and an appalling Pottersville, is a solid banking and financial system. While there are some banks we can afford to do without (like the Lehman Brother’s Bank) there are other institutions that are too integral to the financial system as a whole to see go under. The people of Bedford Falls may have paid to save George Bailey’s Bank but as the alternate universe shown to us by the angel proves, they would have paid far more without it.

Now each time a bell on Wall Street rings, rest assured, another hedge-fund manager got his blings.

Your Candidate/My Candidate

2008-09-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

Eric Snider is a fellow BYU alum (Motto: We have reunions every week. Its called church) and he is also the funniest writer on the internets. This past week he wrote a column called "Your Candidate/My Candidate" that I felt needed to be shared. In addition to a weekly humor column, Eric also does terrific movie reviews and manages to post at least one funny aside every day. I cannot encourage you enough to check out www.ericdsnider.com. Without further ado:

YOUR CANDIDATE/MY CANDIDATE by Eric Snider

Your candidate lacks experience.
My candidate is refreshingly free from the stain of politics.

Your candidate has been part of the Washington system for too long.
My candidate is blessed by years of political know-how.

Your candidate is a reckless loose cannon.
My candidate is a maverick.

Your candidate is exotic and strange.
My candidate represents America's melting pot.

Your candidate is a flip-flopper.
My candidate adjusts his views as new facts come to light.

Your candidate is cranky and stubborn.
My candidate is tenacious.

Your candidate makes brash, controversial remarks.
My candidate speaks his mind, no matter what.

Your candidate has a checkered past.
My candidate has a colorful past.

Your candidate has served time in prison.
My candidate has an intricate knowledge of our country's legal system.

Your candidate sold government secrets to Russian spies.
My candidate is a savvy capitalist with international business experience.

Your candidate once killed a Mexican day-laborer and dumped his body in a river.
My candidate takes a tough stance on immigration.

Your candidate is addicted to painkillers.
My candidate takes a pro-active approach when dealing with difficult situations.

Your candidate is a promiscuous bisexual.
My candidate supports gender equality.

Your candidate was seen drinking the blood of a freshly slain goat in unholy tribute to the dark lord Beelzebub at a gathering of Satanists.
My candidate is an active participant in his religious congregation.

Your candidate released a sex tape on the Internet.
My candidate has nothing to hide from the American people.

Your candidate commandeered a Civil War reenactment and fired a cannon into a crowd of people, killing three.
My candidate vigorously defends his right to bear arms.

Your candidate is a pedophile.
My candidate loves children.

Your candidate burglarized a nursing home.
My candidate treasures the things that our senior citizens have to offer.

Your candidate recruited teenagers to work in his meth lab.
My candidate believes in teaching science to young people.

Your candidate visits prostitutes.
My candidate supports small-business owners.

Your candidate is a wealthy elitist who doesn't trust common Americans to make good decisions.
My candidate shares the views of the Founding Fathers.

Doctrine Doctorin’

2008-09-14T13:56:00.001-07:00

The Bush Doctrine is a phrase that has been bandied about so much that it has lost all meaning, like “pro-active”, “synergy” and “mandatory evacuation”. It should come as no surprise that when asked about her opinions on the Bush Doctrine by ABC’s Charles Gibson , Sara Palin’s responded with: “In what respect?”

Rather than clarify his question, Charles Gibson turned his serious interview into an offensive game show by looking down his nose and saying “well, what do you interpret it to be?” I’ll take “Broad, Over-used Political Clichés for 200 please.”

The minute Sara Palin was picked to be on the ticket, I began wondering how long it would take for the media to forgo questioning her positions and begin questioning her intelligence. It is only a matter of time before she gets the “Name the Capital of Tajikistan” pop-quiz posed to her by news reporters who only know the answers themselves because they are holding the cheat sheet passed to them by their staffers. Apparently, Alex Trebec has already been signed up to moderate the Vice-Presidential Debate.

After allowing her a chance to flounder on the question, Charles Gibson than did what he should have done in the first place: clarify. He stated : “The Bush Doctrine is we have the right to self-defense, pre-emptive strike against any country we think is going to attack us.”

That sounds nice, except there is one problem: that is not the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine was determined almost immediately after September 11th when George W. Bush stated “we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

This simple ideal of doing whatever it takes to root out terrorists across the world and making no distinction between them and the nations who support them has defined every foreign policy decision of this administration. It is the reason we went into Afghanistan and it is the reason we went into Iraq.

In September 2001, this very idea was echoed by none other than Charles Gibson. He stated “The president in his speech last night… issued a series of demands to the Taliban, already rejected. We'll get to that in a moment. He also outlined what is being called the Bush Doctrine, a promise that all terrorists organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated.”

So Charlie, what exactly is the Bush Doctrine? Is it a “pre-emptive strike against any country we think is going to attack us” or is it “a promise that all terrorist organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated?” Can Charlie Gibson answer Charlie Gibson’s own question?

Sadly enough, Charlie’s contemporary slant on the Bush Doctrine seems to be echoed by other members of the media establishment. Shortly after the interview, Anderson Cooper of CNN and his panel of Washington Literati tsked-tsked Sara Palin for not knowing the Bush Doctrine, while also making it very clear that they did not know what it was themselves. It was like watching four mechanics try to treat meningitis.

The real question is this: why has the definition of the Bush Doctrine changed among the media establishment from one of rooting out terrorists and terrorist sympathizers to one of preemptive war? The reason is simple, mainstream America has a different name for the idea that there is no difference between terrorists and the nations that harbor them, it is called “common sense.”

In a post-9/11 world, taking on terrorists and terrorist sympathizers is is not an ideal, it is a mandate. However, a preemptive strike against a country who poses a potential threat is a policy not so easily swallowed. This is why the invasion in Afghanistan went off with little to no opposition, while invading Iraq was protested from the beginning.

Through an Orwellian shift in the meaning of the Bush Doctrine from one that everyone agrees on (terrorist sympathizers=terrorists) to one that most people oppose (shoot first, ask questions later), those who oppose the current administration can use this very term as a bludgeon against Republicans. It would be like asking Sara Palin what she thought of Karl Rove. No answer she could have given would have satisfied them based on their predisposed dislike for the man. Likewise, no answer she could have given would have satisfied the media elite based on their erroneous definition of the Bush Doctrine.

Speaking of words that have lost all meaning, can anyone tell me what “Journalistic Integrity” means anymore?

A Fauxpology to the Nation

2008-09-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it is a shame newscasters aren’t eligible for academy awards, because I think we have our winner for “best crocodile tears in support of partisan ideology”. In this category there is really only one contender, Keith Olbermann. You may remember him from his days as a host of SportsCenter on ESPN. Well, apparently there is some network called “MSNBC” (Motto: “BSNBC was already taken” ) and Keith Olbermann is its highest rated television personality. This is the equivalent of being the tallest person in midget town.

After a video a tribute to 9-11 was shown during the GOP convention that showed..wait for it…wait for it.. actual footage from 9-11, Keith Olbermann felt it his duty to apologize on behalf of his entire network for having aired the video.

He said “If, at this late date, any television network had, of its own accord, shown that much video tape and that much graphic video tape of 9/11—it, we, would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that video tape the way I did, I apologize. It is a subject of great pain, for many of us still, and it was probably not appropriate to be shown.”

Let me just say, if you reacted to that quote the way I did (by having your collective IQ drop by 30 points), I apologize. There is so much intellectual scat sprinkled about in this feauxpology that I feel it my obligation to point them out.

“If at this late date” So apparently, the further away from the events you get, the less you are allowed to discuss them. So by that logic, the Boston Massacre is taboo to show, but watching Tom Brady’s knee collapse over and over again in supper slow motion is okay. Maybe that was the whole problem with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, it happened too long ago and thus the pain is all too fresh.

“We, would rightly be eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republic Party itself” So the Republican Party would eviscerate you for showing a Republican Party produced video? Man, I knew partisanship in Washington was out of control but I had no idea that even the Republican Party opposed the Republican Party.

“For exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke the pain again” Well, all I can say, is it is a good thing Keith Olbermann is a talking head of today, not a freedom fighter from yester year. Can you just imagine someone daring to cry “Remember the Alamo” around the self anointed Patron Saint of the martyrs? Don’t bother trying to imagine it, I have already done it for you and it goes something like this:

SCENE: Crowded, early 19th century military camp outside San Jacinto Texas. It is early morning and men are gathered are lining up to begin marching on the unsuspecting Mexican forces a short distance away. PRIVATE KEITH OLBERMANN is seen doing one last spot check on his hair in the side of his canteen. SAM HOUSTON rides his horse to the front of the awaiting troops and begins to address them in a loud boisterous voice.

SAM HOUSTON
Men of Texas, today we fight, not just for ourselves or for our families. No, today we fight for freedom!

(Gathered crowd screams in excitement. Private Olbermann, unswayed by Sam Houston, is seen dusting off the shoulders of his uniform)

But it is not for freedom alone that we fight. We fight to honor the sacrifice of the hundreds of men who gave their lives that we might keep ours. Remember who you are and why you fight. Remember the families and the land you love. But above all, remember the Alamo!

(The men scream emphatically, but Private Olberman is seen waving his hand desperately to get Sam Houston’s attention. )

(annoyed) Yes Private Olbermann, what is it?

PRIVATE OLBERMANN

(Turning to face crowd)

It just seems so icky to exploit the memories of the dead to try and get us to stand up and fight. Surely those who died at the Alamo would be disgusted to hear us use their memories avenge their deaths. Indeed, the best way to make sure they did not die in vain is to pretend they never existed.

If their sacrifice has taught us anything, it is that, rather than fight the Mexican’s we should seek to understand them first. Don’t we see that the only reasons they are fighting us is because we are trying to take their lands and meddle in their politics? If we really want to have an impact the way our fallen brothers would want, we should all come together and craft a sharply worded resolution against Mr. Santa Ana. Huh? Whose with me?

SAM HOUSTON
(quietly to soldier standing beside him)

How fast can you tie a noose?

END OF SCENE

According to Keith Olbermann the only thing I am allowed to remember is the Alamo gift shop. His apology does beget the question, what is the appropriate way to remember 9-11? If showing it and talking about it are wrong, than what is right? Should we commemorate the day by sleeping in and reading Chicken Soup for the Soul? September 11th was an uncomfortable day and there is no way of talking about it that doesn’t bring with it some semblance of that discomfort. The only real way to avoid the pain of 9-11 is to forget it ever happened. Keith Olbermann must have slept through that week of history because we learned far too many important lessons to erase it from our text books by pretending it never happened. Apparently MSNBC should update its motto: “If the truth makes you uncomfortable, then we are the network for you.”

For a video summary of all the fuss’ click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDx80bnFrVs

CNN: Setting the Bar for Journalistic Excellence

2008-09-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

John McCain, a man so capable of reaching across the isle, he was able to get the Democratic Nomination as well.

Northern Exposure-less

2008-09-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

In response to a question from Anderson Cooper this week about whether or not Sara Palin has more executive experience, Barack Obama said this:

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month.”

Generally, I try to avoid reasoned analysis and deep thinking, but three things about this quote got my brain juices a’ percolatin’.

1)There is no doubt, Barack Obama’s campaign is more difficult to manage than the Wassilla, Alaska. Correct me if I am wrong, but there appears to be something on Sara Palin’s resume he seems to be overlooking….hmm….what could it be……I don’t know, maybe it might have something to do with her being the GOVERNOR of the entire state of Alaska!

Perhaps he has not yet heard that Alaska was made a state in 1959. Considering his economic ideas are still stuck on outdated 19^th century ideology (i.e. Marxism) it should come as no surprise that his geography needs a little updating as well.

Sure Barack Obama’s campaign may have 2,500 employees, but the State of Alaska has over 15,000. Obama may spend $12 million a month, but the State of Alaska government spends $458 million a month. Obama may think he can win the battle of judgement, but in the battle of executive experience, he is clearly outmatched.

2) In sighting his executive experience, Obama mentioned only the experience of running his campaign. I believe Hillary Clinton was right when she said “Running for President does not qualify you to be President.” This is like claiming you are qualified for a job based on how well you are doing on the interview.

Unlike with Sara Palin, Barack Obama did not overlook the totality of his own executive experience. Sadly enough, he laid it all out. Barack’s campaign is the first time Barack Obama can ever say he has been in charge of anything. He has never been in charge of a state. He has never been in charge of a city. As far as we know, he has never been in charge of his own lemonade stand. In comparing himself to Sara Palin, Barack Obama only further proved that he has absolutely no experience to qualify him for the position he wishes to assume. Based on our resumes, I have no doubt I would make a better Nuclear Scientist than Barack Obama would make a President.

3) The most important point I took from this can only be gleaned by listening to the interview (go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ougP_HgxY). In referring to governor Palin’s town of Wasilla, he calls it “Wasilly”. Serisously, Wasilly? I thought reading off a prompter was the one thing you were good at, Obamy.

Pander Bear Babies

2008-09-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

If Hugh Hefner has an alter ego, it would no doubt take the shape of John McCain. Where as Hugh is a pornographer of the lowest sort who does nothing without being surrounded by bimbos in various states of undress, John McCain is a war hero who does nothing without being surrounded by smart, beautiful, accomplished (and appropriately dressed) women. The only real surprise about John McCain picking Sara Palin as his Vice Presidential candidate is that it was a surprise at all. If the campaign for Veep were a beauty pageant, Sara Palin would win hands down, although my money is on Mitt Romney to win the bathing suit competition.

Let me be very clear that I think Sara Palin is a brilliant pick. The minute I heard it was her I felt something I have not felt this entire campaign: enthusiasm. Stephen Colbert on his show “The Colbert Report” often does a segment called “Make McCain Interesting” where individuals can submit videos of John McCain’s head digitally placed on top of the body of someone in a famous movie. Believe me you have not lived until you have seen John McCain dance away in Saturday Night Fever. Colbert of course missed the point. If you want to make McCain interesting, get him out of the picture and insert a hot, machine gun toting, moose hunting woman who happens to be governor of some state called Alaska (State Motto: So cold, even Russia didn’t want us.)

Does this mean Sara Palin would be the best possible Vice President? Of course not. There is not doubt that Mitt Romney or Governor Paulenty would be more capable of assuming the highest office on a moments notice. But while she may not be the best possible Vice President, there is no doubt she makes the best possible Vice Presidential Candidate. There is not point putting someone on your ticket if they don’t help you get elected. Sara Palin does just that in a way no other candidate could. She unites the conservative base and poses a real threat to bring over moderate, disenfranchised Hillary voters. She also has enough experience and has exercised enough good judgment in her career to make her qualified for the Presidency were it thrust upon her. Nothing has been funnier than watching Obama supporters squirm while they accuse her of being inexperienced without indicting their own guy. If I have to choose between someone who has been governor for two years and someone who has been a senator for even less, I am going with the governor.

However, there is no doubt that John McCain is doing a little pandering with this pick. As qualified as Sara Palin is, there is no doubt that here greatest asset is her second x chromosome. Name one qualification Sara Palin has that Bobby Jindal doesn’t have? Bobby Jindal is a young governor with just as much experience and popularity among conservatives . Yet that is not what John McCain needed. He needed someone with all the conservative credentials of a Bobby Jindal or a Mitt Romney, but who actually looks good in a pant suit (not that Huckabee wouldn’t have tried if that meant he could get the nod.)

The past few days, however, have been rough on the GOP’s favorite pander bear. Revelations about the pregnancy of her 17-year old daughter, Bristol, have brought with it questions about her conservative credentials and whether or not her family needs her more at home. There is no doubt that Sara Palin will have a difficult road ahead of her balancing the needs of her country with the needs of her family. But if she is confident that she can do both, who are we to judge? She is hardly the first President or Vice President to have a young family. It is difficult to ignore the overt sexism dripping from the tongues of the members of the media who turn back the clock on the passed 50 years by saying her rightful place is in the home. When a male president has a young family, they call it “Camelot”. When a female vice president has a family, they call it “crazy”.

Many feel that the pregnancy of her oldest daughter has tainted the campaign but I just do not see how. If the Republican Campaign stands for anything, it is not abstinence only education or intelligent design; it is personal responsibility. When people make mistakes, they should have do deal with the consequences of those mistakes. This is of course anathema to the Democratic “were all victims so here’s your check” platform. That is all being pro-life and pro death penalty really is: holding people to the natural consequences of their decisions. Conversely, what is pro-choice and anti-death penalty but a way of artificially removing consequences. “That which gets rewarded gets repeated” is the undercurrent of all modern conservative legislation. Palin, of course, could have gone the Democratic route. She could have had the baby aborted and then see if she couldn’t get her daughter some type of consolation prize from planned-parenthood (“Look Mom, this abortion comes with a free I-pod!”) but instead her daughter chose to have the baby and will have to suffer the consequences. That is conservativism personified.

In the end, McCain simply could not have picked a better person in his quest to defeat Obama. Afterall, who better to beat a shallow, talentless hack who does nothing but look good and spout off morally-obvious platitudes than a former beauty queen.

Karl Marx for Student Body President

2008-08-31T21:59:00.001-07:00

It is back to school time and each year as the leaves begin to change and the air begins to cool, my mind is always consumed with one thought: educational inequality. Did you know that last year, close to 100% of high school diplomas were given to Seniors? What did Seniors do to deserve such special treatment? Why aren’t more high school diplomas given to Sophomores and Juniors? If you are old enough to have your learners permit than, by golly, you should be able to get a high school diploma.

Of course members of the educational-industrial complex, other wise known as “the man”, will argue that Seniors get diplomas because they have earned more credits. How is that fair? Just because you have been at school longer than a 14 year-old freshman does not mean you are any more deserving of pomp and circumstance. Are we not all Americans? Do not all our zits pop and bleed the same? Credit-inequality can no longer go unnoticed by administrators who care more about educating than what is really important: their students feelings.

What I propose is a vast redistribution of credits. Those high school seniors who have more credits should be asked to contribute some of their credits to those students in the lowest educational achievement categories (i.e. freshman and stoners who can’t seem to pass geometry). Just think of how harmonious school will be with Seniors who have the satisfaction of seeing their AP English credits given to a sophomore, and a freshman who realizes that they will never have to take trigonometry because some Junior has already done it for them. Surely the bones and dust of our forefathers are rolling over in their tombs knowing that right now some 15-year cheerleader is having to study for her history exam rather than having the credits given to her by someone who already took the class. Just think of all the contributions she could be making to society instead wasting her time studying, such as texting her friends to find out if Johnny just likes her or if he like-likes her.

This is the moment, my credit-challenged brothers and sisters, when we can finally take away diplomas from the most credit-rich members of our schools and see that they are made available to all, regardless of whether you took Chemistry or not.

Does any of that line of thinking sound familiar? Without being too specific, I have just laid out the economic platform of one of the nation’s major political parties who, for fairness sake, shall not be named. Let’s just say it rhymes with “flemocrats”.

Each time the question of economics comes up in the current political climate it dwells far more on class than on mobility. We tend to look at economic classes as static, much like the congressional approval rating. It ain’t changing, so why bother. Due to our willing ignorance of class mobility, we focus more on taking money from people at the top and giving it to the people at the bottom, rather than moving people from the bottom up to the top. This idea is, of course, as absurd as taking credits from seniors and giving them to freshman rather than helping freshman move up the educational ladder. Economic achievement is no different than educational achievement; it takes time and effort.

A University of Michigan Study shows that only 5% of people who were in the lowest income category in 1975 where there in 1991. This means a full 95% of people managed to move up at least one category. A full 95% of people were economically mobile. A US treasury study shows that in the 10 years between 1996 and 2005, 58% of people in the lowest income group had moved up at least one level. “Twenty-six percent of them achieved middle or upper-middle class income, and over 5 percent made it into the highest income group.”

Need further proof? Three years ago I was so far below the poverty line that I felt like bumming change off of hobos. Have you ever tried supporting a family of four on $600 dollars a month? Mac and Cheese starts to taste pretty gross after a while. It should be noted that I was also a grad student whose earning potential far exceeded his actual earnings. Now, a mere three years later, I am earning well above the median income and I am firmly entrenched in the middle class. It was through education and skill achievement that I became economically mobile, not through government hand-outs and redistribution programs.

Besides, you think the rich don’t already distribute some of their money? Each day, Bill Gates gives out some of his money to over 40,000 people. These people are called “employees” and they do something called “work” and for this they receive “compensation”.

You don’t raise people out of poverty with other peoples money any more than you raise people out of school with someone else’s grades. Poverty is ended when people earn their own money.

A Case for War

2008-08-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

Every Thursday I see them. The anti-war protesters standing on the corner of main street, waving their placards and pleading for honks of approval from passing motorists. Not a single one of them is under 50. Those that can, male or female, sport unwashed, unkempt pony tails. Each of them holds up yellow signs that are either morally obvious platitudes, or anti-Bush slogans. “No Blood for Oil.” “Impeach Bush” “Bush Lied People Died” “End the War in Iraq” or my personal favorite: “Say No to War!” Gee, who could argue with that? What these signs lack in creativity, they certainly make up for in brevity. I always wonder how they would react if someone held up a sign that stated what these naive and obtuse slogans conveniently leave out. Something like:

“Liberating Iraqi Women and Children is Costing too Much!”

“Saddam Only Murdered his own People, lets Give him Another Chance!”

“Say No to War unless a Democrat is President!”

“War for None. Burqa’s For All!”

“Give Surrender a Chance”

“Useful Idiots: Unite!”

“War Never Solved Anything! (except Slavery, Nazism, Communism, Totalitarianism, Imperialism and Genocide)”

“We’re Winning! Lets Quit!”

Unfortunately, I don’t ever expect someone to hold up such a sign. Doing so would require brains and initiative and anyone with these qualities on a Thursday afternoon is likely to be doing a little thing I like to call “work”.

The protestors clearly prove that mind-numbing platitudes repeated often enough become the truth.

Take the pesticide DDT. Thanks to Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring the whole world became convinced that DDT was endangering birds and humans and that it must be stopped. So, bowing to political pressure, DDT was banned across the globe. Only problem was, Rachel Carson was wrong. DDT did not endanger humans and birds the way she argued. However, without the cheap and effective DDT to combat mosquitoes, malaria, which had been on the decline, suddenly became and African epidemic. Slowly (and silently) the ban on DDT has been lifted but how many millions (literally MILLIONS) of Africans had to die before the world was willing to admit that the lie repeated often enough was still a lie?

Simply put, I believe our decision to invade Iraq was the right one and I support staying in Iraq indefinitely. Sadly enough, this puts me on the fringe of our society. But just as society was wrong about DDT, they are wrong about Iraq. No amount of subjective journalism or late-night punch lines will convince me otherwise. Here is why.

Bush did not lie

Do you realize, Mitt Romney predicted that the Patriots would win Super Bowl XLII? That liar! Sure, the best intelligence at the time said that the Patriots were 14 point favorites, but the fact is the Giants won, which makes Mitt Romney a liar! Romney lied, the Patriots perfect season died!

Does that logic sound familiar? In the run up to the war in Iraq, the whole world believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. By whole world I mean Israel, France, England Canada, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and yes, even Barack Obama. Well it turns out they were all wrong, and yet somehow, Bush is the only one with “Liar” slapped on his back.

Why did the whole world believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Because he wanted us to. Saddam told his FBI interrogator, after his capture, that he tried to keep up the illusion of possessing weapons of mass destruction to prevent an attack from Iran, who he feared more than the US. With his words may have said they had no weapons, but his actions said otherwise. In order to keep up this illusion, he antagonized weapons inspectors, maintained his labs, and tried to hide indirect evidence where possible. His illusion was a gamble, and he lost.

The idea that Bush lied presupposes that he knew the truth. That, unlike the Democratic Party, Bush knew that Iraq did NOT have weapons of mass destruction. How was Bush going to know this when every advisor and every bit of intelligence he received said otherwise? Lets not forget that Bob Woodward, in his book Bush at War details a conversation Bush had with then CIA Director George Tenet (a Clinton appointee). During this conversation in the Oval Office, Bush questioned the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In reply, George Tenet raised his arms and said that the existence of the weapons was a “slam-dunk case.” So, put yourself in Bush’s shoes. Who do you trust, your intelligence advisor, or a sociopathic madman?

Was Bush wrong about weapons of mass destruction? Mostly. While we never found the smoking gun, we did find enough labs and materials to make any sane person wary. Saddam may have not had the finished product, but he clearly had the capability. Which is worse, meth or a meth lab?

The War Was Legal and Just

There is a mistaken belief that somehow the war with Iraq was illegal. Which law, exactly, did we violate? President Bush had overwhelming approval from Congress to take military action against Iraq. Iraq was in clear violation of its treaty used to end the first Gulf War. It had not allowed Weapons Inspectors the access required by the treaty and was continually firing on US aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone. Simply put, they broke their contract and we had a right to come collecting.

If history has taught us anything, it is that great tragedy is often preventable. When Germany invaded the Rhineland in 1936 it blatantly and aggressively violated the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. Such an act was a gamble by the young German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. He sent in under-trained and under-equipped soldiers into territory Germany agreed to stay out of. At the time, the French military outnumbered the Germans 10-1. Had the French simply upheld the treaty, and forced the withdrawal of the German Army, Hitler would have been humiliated and World War II prevented. Alas, France was in the throws of an aggressive anti-war movement which prevented political leaders from making the prudent decision and stop Hitler in his tracks. I don’t even need to explain how that decision turned out.

Everyone questions the cost of acting in Iraq, but no one ever questions the cost of inaction. Luckily we will never know what would have happened had we stayed at home, because we did what the French would not, stood up to tyranny rather than look the other way.

Many will put forth the petty straw-man argument that if we are going to invade Iraq, we might as well invade North Korea and Iran. The inability to do everything is not an excuse to do nothing. Such a multi-lateral war would be next to impossible given the current size of our military. Of the members of the Axis of Evil, Iraq was clearly the best place to start strategically. We were legally justified to attack and doing so put us right in Iran’s back yard.

Some will argue that the US does not engage in pre-emptive war fare. Have these people ever actually picked up a history book? Do they not remember the Spanish-American War? The Mexican American War? The Barbari Wars? The war in the Philipines? Just look at the Marine Hymn “From the halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.” Each of those represent pre-emptive strikes by the US to protect its security and its assets. The US has always reserved the right to defend itself, even if it means shooting first.

We are Winning

While we are talking about global consensus, how about the silently growing agreement that the US has turned the tide in Iraq? Troop deaths are down. Civilian deaths are down and Al Queda is growing increasingly frustrated and impotent. While a political solution is still necessary, the military solution is being provided. I will be the first to admit that we had a flawed, naive and frustrating strategy for much of the first few years in Iraq. Much of the problems in that country are of our own making. Nevertheless, under the direction of General Patreus, few can doubt that things have improved and America has found a strategy that works. Nothing is certain, but why would we tough it out when things are going bad, only to turn tail and run when we start to win? That would be like the US fighting through the Battle of the Bulge only to turn around and surrender during the push towards Berlin.

If you want to know if Iraq has been a success, you really only need to know one word: Libya. Our invasion of Iraq was just the motivation Libya needed to forgo its covert weapons programs, stop harboring terrorists and restore normal relations with the United States. Had such a diplomatic coup occurred with any other President under any other circumstances, it would have been greeted with Nobel Prizes. However, given the fact that it occurred under Bush and as a result of an unpopular war, it has received little to no recognition. It is, however, the most important diplomatic achievement since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Iraq is not Vietnam. Leave and it Will Be.

During the bloody aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, you could not turn on the TV without hearing the same anti-war diatribes used during the Vietnam War. Journalist wasted no time in digging up timeless classics such as “Quagmire “and “Exit Strategy”. While our strategy may have been flawed, there were several things that were going right. America made great headway in the majority of Iraq in securing its people and protecting her assets within a very short time. It was only in the densely populated regions surrounding Baghdad where trouble brewed. Despite all the violence that existed in Iraq and still exists, we would have to stay for another 40 years to lose as many Americans as we lost during Vietnam. While each soldier killed is a tragedy, in terms of troop loss, the war in Iraq has been the most successful US occupation ever.

The one comparison that is never made is between post-withdrawal Vietnam to post-withdrawal Iraq. When US troops left South-east Asia and funding to the South Vietnamese government was cut off, the communists were finally able to unite Vietnam. In so doing, they killed thousands of innocent and loyal South Vietnamese, forced even more into re-education camps and created the tragic refugee crisis of the boat people. While staying in Vietnam was expensive, leaving was just as costly.

US emasculation in Vietnam also spilled over into neighboring Cambodia. At the same time the US was withdrawing from Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge (with support of the North Vietnamese) pushed into Phnom Penh and took control of the government. Under the rule of the Khmer Rouge, upwards of two million Cambodians were killed.

I have been to Vietnam and Cambodia. I have seen the economic toll being paid by the South Vietnamese. Vietnam is just now allowing the foreign investment and free enterprise needed to grow the economy and lift its people out of poverty. I have no doubt that communist rule of Vietnam set the country back at least 20 years.

I have also walked the Killing Fields of Cambodia. I have seen the thousands of skulls of those who died for committing no crime. I have seen the bits of clothing and bone that still line the trails. I have seen the serrated palm fronds the Khmer Rouge would use to cut off the heads of teachers and government workers. I have seen the Chankiri tree where, after grabbing infants and newborns by their hind legs, their heads would be beaten. No price was too much to prevent such a tragedy from occurring. Is the life of one US soldier worth more than the lives of thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodians? I don’t think so and neither should you.

The same post-Vietnam War tragedy is exactly what we will get if we leave Iraq. Al Queda will regain control and sectarian violence will tear the country apart, one bomb at a time. We can expect sectarian strife to grow more bitter and ceaseless violence to fill the power vacuum our departure will create. Can we honestly expect any different? Can you honestly expect things to just work themselves out? In the wake of Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, such a power vacuum was created and it was eventually filled by the Taliban. Which was worse? The violence we see now in Iraq pales in comparison to the violence we will see if we leave. This is the one question never answered by those who encourage retreat, yet it is the question that matters most. We already have the Killing Fields of Cambodia on our hands, leaving Iraq will give us a thousand more.

If anything, this blog proves why the war is so unpopular. Thoughtless excuses for abandoning Iraq easily fit onto a poster. Well-thought out reasons for staying need more explanation.

Moving On Up

2008-08-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

Now that Sam has christened the new house by peeing on the floor, I guess we can say that we have officially moved in! Huzzah! For our little family, this now makes six different houses in the passed seven years. Needless to say, when it comes to moving, Robyn and I are pretty much experts. However, this move has been different than all the others because, for the first time, we are moving into a house of our own. This may be our sixth house, but it is our first home. Here are a few thoughts I feel moved to share (Worst. Pun. Ever.)

Families are not solid, but rather liquid. They will quickly move to fill any space they are given. We have added an extra bedroom and almost an additional 1000 square feet and, somehow, it already feels like it is too small. Of course that feeling of claustrophobia is probably the result of the mountain of unpacked boxes filling each room.

Old diaper boxes are the best boxes you will ever find for moving. They are easily stacked, you can fit most anything inside, and they have holes in the sides for handles. When you move as much as we have, you learn these types of things.

Grass is a fickle, demanding master. Feed me. Water me. Weed me. Mow me. Caress me. Love me. I feel like we adopted another child.

Every time I move, I am glad I am Mormon. With just a few phone calls I was able to get complete strangers to show up at my house on a Saturday afternoon to do all the brute labor that I am incapable of doing by myself. Joining the church is worth it, just for the moving plan.

The perfect house is a lot like the perfect man. It does not exist. The trick is learning to love what you got.

We all have a terribly distorted view of what is necessary to survive. I spent two years of my life, as a missionary, sleeping on foam pads on the floor with only two desks and two chairs filling the entire one bedroom apartment. If I wanted a nice glass of cold water, I had to boil it first and then put it in the fridge for a whole day. Now look at me, I would not survive two minutes without central A/C, a comfy couch, and my king sized mattress.

If I ever get carpel tunnel syndrome, I am suing the loan company. Having to initial and sign a document proving that you read and signed the thing that you just read and signed? I am sure somewhere deep inside that mortgage contract I promised away my first born son.

Graffiti is the single worst property crime possible. Sure burglary and arson may destroy one home, but graffiti destroys every home in the neighborhood. Other crimes can be committed by people who don’t live there, but graffiti is always local. The only thing that graffiti says loud and clear is that this neighborhood is full of crappy neighbors.

The second most satisfying thing in the world? Putting the brand new key into the brand new lock on your very first home. The most satisfying thing in the world? Carrying your wife across the threshold of your very first home.

Our Master Bathroom shower contains a bright canister light above it in the ceiling. I have never had a light in the shower before, and I must say, it is very disconcerting. I am not used to seeing quite so much vivid detail.

Craigslist is the single greatest innovation since Ziploc bags. Great looking, six seat kitchen table? $400. Twin bed frame for Tyler? Free. The trick when you are emailing the potential vendor is to come off sounding one part nice and friendly and another part desperate and pathetic.

With all the genetic engineering going on these days, how come no one has engineered the Strawberry Banana. That would be the greatest fruit in history. I know this has nothing to do with owning a home, but that is something I had to get off my chest.

We have a mesquite tree in our backyard that well represents Texas. It is big, beautiful, makes for a great BBQ, and is filled with half inch thorns that will punish anyone who dares walk barefoot near by. On the list of famous Texas icons, it deserves a place right alongside the lone star, Armadillo and Type II Diabetes.

Good fences don’t make good neighbors. Blinds do