You can't spell really stupid asshole without R-U-S-H

Maybe this needs to be a regular submission, but Rush Limbaugh had another great one today. So he's talking about George Mason University. No, he's not excited about their Cinderella trip to the Final Four. He's up in arms over the fact that GMU has a campus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In fact, he said that it seems like there is a cover-up and suggested that they should be taken out of the Final Four if it wasn't too late. How secretive is this UAE campus? Look here: George Mason University's official website. Where can you find information about this UAE campus? Its top secret, so nowhere of course. Except if you click on "Campus Information" and see it in the list of campuses. I'm worn out from the 15 seconds it took me to find that.

So far, so good

Yesterday's rumors said that students would start walking out at the end of 1st period. We are now past 1st and homeroom, going into 2nd and it looks like nothing is happening. It is raining a bit, and maybe that had an effect on the plans.

There is going to be a forum at lunch today where students can bet information about the law and maybe have some discussion. We'll see if anybody is willing to give up their private social time at lunch to voice their opinion.

2,000 visits

Congratulations to Lauri for being the 1,002,000th visitor to the Evil Twin of William Jennings Bryan (since I started the counter). At least I assume it was Lauri since the visitor was in Pomona during the day. As a prize, I think I'll give you the prize that we never gave Randy for winning the Essay contest. I actually think you might like it.

You thought I was done with the protesting?

There are strong rumors about the possibility of another walkout tomorrow. I was supposed to be in Burbank at a meeting to choose new textbooks for social studies, but the rumor is strong enough that they cancelled the meeting. In any case, keep your eyes open and realize that not all LAUSD students are uninformed, irresponsible truants.

More on the immigration issue

Just a few scattered ideas about immigration and protests:

1. One of my arguments is that we need to ease restrictions on allowing people to come into the United States to work. In my view, there is no reason to keep someone from coming here to earn a better life. If you want to see what the procedures are to come here legally, check out this government website. Did you go to the site? I did and it was confusing as hell. Now, here's my thoughts. When writing about the whole wiretapping scandal, one of the arguments that Republicans made was that the process to get a FISA warrant was too difficult, which meant that they could go around the rules a bit. Well, now that this process has become too difficult, these immigrant workers are just going around it. Didn't they say that was OK? Hmmmm...?

2. A point that I had made in my first post about this issue was that carrying a Mexican flag to one of these protests defeated the true purpose of the protest. Having said that, it has come to my attention that the organizers of the Downtown L.A. protest told people to wear white and to bring American flags. It seems to me that the people that are really fighting to protect their opportunity for a better life do want to be part of this country.

3. And you know what? Being part of this country does not mean you have to dump your old culture. Remember the whole "our country is a melting pot" idea from elementary school? Well, that has been changed from melting pot to a salad. In a melting pot, each individual ingredient loses its characteristics and becomes one homogeneous goo. In a salad, the ingredients retain their individual qualities and combine flavors to make a delicious light meal. What is "American culture"? To me, its the combination of every place our families come from. So I welcome the cultures from Latin America, Asia, Europe (even France), Africa, etc. We don't criticize people that speak Italian or Dutch or German in our streets, but we are quick to say that Spanish-speakers need to learn English.

4. My solution to the problem? Let people come here to work. Work with the Mexican government to make sure that people coming over are not criminals, drug dealers, etc. What gives me the right to be an American citizen? I was born here. What part did I play in that? None. I did nothing to earn my citizenship. At some point my parents' families came over from Scotland, Denmark, Germany, etc. and started living. So what makes me special. Well, now I pay my taxes, vote, and follow the laws (mostly). Why not let people earn their way here by working. Give them a chance to be citizens without having to go through a huge amount of bureaucracy. Most of us didn't have to.

5. The students that were part of the protests Monday who left school just for the sake of leaving school did something pretty stupid. However, the people that use these students as an example of why immigrants are bad are just as stupid. Do you really want to base your argument on immigrants on the decisions made by teenagers? Every conservative radio host (Rush, John and Ken, Elder, Bill Handle, etc.) that used these kids (yes, kids) to show how careless immigrants are really need to look at who they are talking about. When I was teaching at Redlands, I had a student who used a Dorito bag to pull his friend's turd out of the toilet and threw it into the pool so he wouldn't have swim practice. Is he a good example of how white citizens behave? Hell no. He's a good example of a dumb teenager. Find someone your own age to pick on.

That's it for now.

New format

At some point today my blog decided to stop working correctly. Last time this happened I changed the template and that solved the problem. So, I did the same today and we are back on track with a more formal and less artsy color scheme. Everything else should be about the same.

I promised a new DotW soon, but I am really lacking in motivation right now.

Walkout update

Despite what most local media is reporting, not all of LAUSD was on lockdown today. In fact, although we were told that we may go on lockdown at the start of first period, it was cancelled about 10 minutes before school started. There were no walkouts by any students today at our school, although I heard there may have been some in other schools. However, there was nothing significant enough to report.

There was varied response from students. Many of my students made fun of those that participated in the walkout because they wanted to ditch. I asked those that did walk out if they would have gone to an after school rally. About 1/2 said that they would not, at which I suggested that they may be involved for the wrong reasons. I shared my views of the pending legislation and talked to them about protest a bit. My biggest point came in asking them about the news coverage that they saw about the walkouts. They all noticed that most of the coverage involved the students jumping fences, walking on the freeway, and the few that decided to throw rocks or bottles. I pointed out that the same people that supported this law will likely use these as examples of why some immigrants should not be allowed in. If anybody denies this, then they are simply clueless because that is exactly what the conservative talkshows were doing yesterday and this morning.

Some of my students are actually coming to me to get help in writing to elected officials and one even wants to do research about successful latinos that are 1st generation born in the U.S.

One student asked what people who supported this law would say about the protest. I reminded him about what the news showed and also pointed out that many talk shows (Rush and pretty much every other KFI show) were saying that people carrying the Mexican flags at these protests should go back to Mexico. I also mentioned that the people that organized the rally downtown on Saturday asked people to bring American flags.

All in all, I think this subject will likely die down by the end of the week, although there was talk of another walkout tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe it all depends on the rain.

Big Day for LA

If you are living in a cave, you may not know that there were massive walkouts today all over Southern California, LA Unified, and my school specifically. These walkouts were inprotest of HR 4437 (to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to strengthen enforcement of the immigration laws, to enhance border security, and for other purposes) which tightens restrictions on illegal immigrants and those that help them.

First, if you are not familiar with this bill, it does a lot to criminalize illegal immigrants in the United States by making their "presence" an "aggravated felony." It also makes it a crime to aid illegal immigrants and increases the penalties for hiring them. Although this provision also meant that churches and other charities would be effected, this part was amended today to give exception to churches and charities.

Now, my view of what happened today, at least at my school. Shortly after 1st period, some students began gathering and others simply began leaving campus. We went into lockdown, which means all students that were not in a classroom were herded quickly into their homeroom or into the nearest classroom. Those that were not in classrooms were considered part of the walkout. We remained in lockdown from about 9:00 until 11:15. During this time, there were PA announcements stating that students that participated in the walkout would face every possible consequence for truancy. Some were taken to the multi-purpose room and others just stood around, which I know since I could hear their chanting coming from the main quad. Now the rest has been pieced together from accounts that I got from other teachers. At some point, students were allowed to leave campus to head for a park, where the protest would continue. One teacher said that a good number of students headed away from campus in the opposite direction from the park. In any case, students that did not leave went to lunch. After lunch we resumed a regular class schedule. At the end of school, many people were brought back to the school on busses.

Now, my classes were about 1/2 empty or more. And let me say this. Most of the students that were not in class were not the type of kids that had any clue about this bill and were likely looking to get out of class. If this protest were to happen after school hours, I'm sure they would not have gone. In fact, one of my students was at the massive protest Saturday and was angry at the students that left, saying that they discredited the real protest.

My view on the walkout: What did this accomplish? The only good thing to come from this was most of my students are now aware of the issue, which clearly effects a good number of their families. Since the end of school I have been switching around the conservative talk stations and the word "truants" has been thrown around and there are plenty of jokes about how many of these kids were just taking the day off. So now the people that are actually trying to do something to stop this ridiculous law have to deal with being connected to a bunch of idiot students. One teacher said that about 1/2 of the kids that were in the quad did not seem to really even know why they were not in class. Many of my students said that they had friends that just went home or to another person's house to "kick back." All in all, this type of protest accomplishes very little.

Things about this protest and all of the others that bothers me:

1. Why do you chant "Viva Mexico" and other pro-Mexico chants if you are trying to get the ear of the U.S. government?

2. I ran into a former student who asked me if she looked sunburned. Let me translate freshmanese for you. What she really said was "Look at me, Mr. Austin, I was part of the walkout today - aren't I cool?" I asked her what she thought that she accomplished today. "Nothing" So I asked "Why did you go?" "I don't know." I continued "so you lost a day of education to not accomplish anything?" Her genius response? "You don't understand because you're not Mexican." I told her that I probably understood the law better than her and had probably done more to try and stop it than she did and suggested that if she really cared that she should write a letter or call her Senator or even President Bush. She wanted no part of that.

3. Why do people who have no clue about what they are protesting always talk on the radio and TV? One radio show played interviews with students that had walked out.

Interviewer: So you think that immigrants should have equal rights?
Student: Hell Yeah!
Interviewer: What rights should they have?
Student: Martin Luther King Jr. gave us free speech.
Interviewer: What do you think this law would do?
Student: its racist against immigrants

Way to represent the movement. You know that conservative media hunts these people down and uses them as the example of why these protests are pointless.

4. I know that this protest was started by an older non-student that simply wanted to use them as pawns for the movement. Way to take advantage of kids. It certainly helped the movement.

Finally, let me share my view on immigration. I think our country needs to do a lot more to keep people from just crossing the border without regulation. Who should they stop? Terrorists, drug dealers, gang members, other criminals. Who should they not stop? People looking for an opportunity that simply want to work and make a better life for themselves. Look, we need these people to keep our economy moving. They do all of the shit jobs that we don't because it pays 10 times as much as any job they could get working for an American factory in Mexico. And don't say that they are stealing jobs from Americans. Americans are stealing jobs from Americans. Rich people are moving their companies all over the world so they can pay those people miniscule wages and so they can get a huge profit. If you don't believe me call Dell Tech Support and try to find somebody who can speak good English. If a person comes here, legally or not, and keep a job and contribute to society, why not let them stay? Because they don't pay taxes? A) Corporations weasel their way out of taxes all of the time B) have you ever looked at the tax rates for people earning immigrant job wages? Its pretty low. C) They do pay taxes. Its called sales tax.

The United States is a country founded by immigrants. We have tons of people here, of many different ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. The white majority has long taken advantage of the poor immigrants to build their railroads, wash their dishes, pick their fruit, and mow their lawns. Why not help them out? Many of them are hard-working people, family people, spiritual people, kind people, intelligent people, and most of all - THEY ARE PEOPLE! When has our country stood for treating people like crap? Every example is a case that most of us are ashamed of: slavery, Indians/Native-Americans, Japanese, segregation, etc.

An EToWJB Update

I feel like I have been slacking on my blogging duties in a big way. A lot of it has to do with available time, which has been an issue lately. Another lame excuse is the lack of interesting news since there is a lot of issues I'm feeling strongly about lately (hence the rant the other day). However, days like today make it easy to blog. Here are a few interesting e-topics I discovered today while exploring the internet instead of working. And by "exploring the internet" I mean "reading the CarpetBagger Report for 5 minutes."

First, let me admit to you a deep, dark secret. As a freshman at UCSD I took Philosophy 10: Intro to Logic. This class was at 9:00 am, which was way too early for me that year, so I rarely made it to class (maybe 50% of the time). I got sick maybe 10 minutes into the first midterm and left to vomit on my way to Student Health, where they checked my poo and declared that I had food poisoning. (This was not a shock since I had eaten breakfast at ClubMed, one of the more sketchy eating facilities at UCSD). After that, I missed maybe 3 straight classes. When I returned to class with a new determination, I was lost because they had somehow moved into the math part. Therefore I dropped the class and took my only "W" during my college tenure. Where am I going with this? Well, the part that I actually learned from this class dealt with logical fallacies. As it turns out, other people have picked up on Bush's frequent use of the logical fallacy called "Straw Man" where you create a false weak argument to make yours look better. Read the link to get a better explanation. The CarpetBagger Report has referred to this a few times now, and there has also been response to the AP article (that I linked to) in the conservative PowerLine blog. One example of a Bush Straw Man: "Now, I understand some say, well, maybe they're just isolated kind of people that are angry and took out their anger with an attack. That's not how I view them." Here's the thing: there are no "some" that he's talking about. This was also a big point in the movie "Outfoxed" about FoxNews. I could make the argument "some people think that educating our kids is bad, I say that we need to do it." The fact is there are really no people that say education is bad, but I would be trying to make myself look better by making up this fictional group of "some people." Read the article and see other examples.

Second, I also found another interesting report through the CarpetBagger Report. It shows which states give the most to taxes and which states get the most money from the feds. It turns out that 9 of the Top 10 states that spend the most relative to what they give are states that generally vote Republican. 8 of the Top 10 that spend the least relative to what they give are Democrats. For example, for every $1 that Mississippi gives to the government in taxes, it gets $1.77. California, on the other hand only gets $0.79 for every dollar it gives in taxes. What does this really mean? I don't know. But I guess reducing big government isn't that important to some Republican voters. Note: there are probably other factors that go into the numbers, but that does not make them less interesting.

Finally, I realize that I have not given out the Pat Robertson Douchebag of the Week award for over two weeks, but I promise that there will be a comprehensive edition within a few days. It just means I have to start giving the monkeys more incentive to type faster. I'm heading to the South Pasadena farmer's market tonight. Maybe they'll have some good bananas. Or pistachios.

Another gem from that dumbass Rush

So there is a teacher that started a program through his classroom where every kid would take home one of those fluorescent light bulbs that save energy. He hoped that they would learn about preventing the greenhouse effect. This idea spread school-wide and Home Depot donated a couple thousand light bulbs so every student in the district could take one home. They said that using these bulbs would save energy equivalent to a certain number of SUVs. Rush's take on this? Schools are filling their "mush-brained" students with leftist ideology about the greenhouse effect that is not that serious. He said it was as bad as showing an episode of Captain Planet in a classroom. Again, this guy has a serious case of cranial-rectal insertion syndrome (he's got his head up his ass) and needs to get a clue about real-life.

Today is the first day of the rest of your retarded war

Warning! This is a rant.

So today is Day #1 of the 4th year in Iraq. What have we accomplished in those 4 years? Well, we got Sadaam Hussein out a while ago. They have a new government that doesn't do much. Oh, and there is the 2, 317 American soldiers that have died too. How many Iraqi deaths? I've heard 100,000, but there is not much to justify that. However, more credible numbers seem to point at over 30,000. But at least they're better off without Saddam. However, now Iraq seems to be the home of anti-American insurgency - which was not there under Saddam. So are the people of Iraq being used as bait for terrorists? Who knows, but I see no end to this fiasco and no end to the now $250 billion of our tax dollars that have been sent there. Check out this interesting website that shows what we could have done with that money instead.

One thing we still don't have, however, is an honest answer to why we started in Iraq. WMD? not there. Terrorism? Wasn't there until we showed up. This cannot be considered part of the war on terror. The fact of the matter is that our president thought a war would gain him some popularity and wanted to show that he could do something about 9/11. Afghanistan was OK, that was anti-terrorist. Iraq? There is no connection there and anybody who says that there is a connection is simply lying to you and to themselves. I wish people could just be honest and admit that the war in Iraq was a war to get Bush to look tough and some other asinine reason that I don't get. Bush and his cronies know that they have to look tough, but don't want to admit that our country is a target for terrorism because we always stick our damn nose in everything. Well, everything that could get more profits for oil people. Genocide in Sudan? No worries there. 500,000 American cancer deaths? Let's toss them $2 billion, but not anything close to the cost of the war. Let's criticize our nation's schools, but not actually give them money. Let's make people afraid of foreigners, but not actually protect our borders because big business needs cheap labor. Let's talk about making a better world, but not for the poor in our own country. Let's bring democracy to Iraq, but make sure that we don't give people a choice other than rich white Democrat or rich white Republican.

I'm getting continually frustrated with every member of our government from federal to state to local and their continued quest to make sure they have a job instead of making sure that they solve the problems that our country faces. We need something to change.

Things affecting my mood today

First, the things that are increasing my good mood:

1. Kona coffee
2. Its a test day in World History so I just get to sit around a lot
3. I scored 2 goals and had 3 assists Monday night and I'm still feeling good about that.
4. the possibility of Happy Hour tonight
5. "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" (my favorite NPR show) is now being podcasted.
6. St. Patrick's Day is coming Friday
7. My 6th period 9th graders: they're really coming around and growing up.
8. the picture on my desk of Amanda and I in front of the San Clemente sunset

Now things that are pissing me off:

1. Republicans: why don't they get in trouble for lying? (not all of them, just Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Rove, etc. - OK, most of them)
2. Democrats: why don't they stand up for something useful? Anti-Bush can only last another 3 years or so.
3. The "War on Terror": Why are we fighting this war? The way I see it, the goal is to protect American lives. How many Americans have died in the last 10 years because of terrorism? I think I'm being friendly when I say 5,000. How many Americans will die of cancer this year? According to the American Cancer Society - 564,830. Which gets more money? Duh. So who really cares about American lives? I call bullshit. Even AIDS kills more Americans than terrorism.
4. Barry Bonds: he needs to retire and Major League Baseball needs to void all of his statistics. Hank Aaron was always a skinny-ass guy until he got a little fatter near the end of his career. Fatter, not buffer.
5. This one kid in one of my classes: He isn't getting it and he's being an asshole to me and everyone in class. "Why do I have a D?" The real question is Why don't you have a Fail?
6. the radio: why don't they ever play anything good?
7. Bill O'Reilly: for so many reasons I can't get into it.

Well, at least there are more good mood items. That means that I am in a generally good mood today. If I had a mood ring on it would be blue, which I think means happiness.

My conflicted feelings

The Jordanian government executed two prisoners today for the 2002 assassination of American Diplomat Laurence Foley. This is a strange story for me for several reasons. First, Foley's son, Mike, was a good friend, roommate, and co-worker of mine in college. Second, Mike's dad was working for USAID in Jordan on a project to bring clean water to parts of the city (at least that is what I remember). This seems like a strange target for assassination, other than the fact that he was an American. Third, it was this event that got Amanda and I talking again after we had not really talked too much after I left college.

However, this story is also a great challenge to my way of thinking. In the past, I was a little torn over my feelings towards the death penalty. Over the last few years, though, I have become a stronger opponent to the death penalty. This opposition is based on several thoughts. First, I'm not sure that killing someone because they killed someone serves as a good message. To me, it sounds like a government saying "you can't kill, but we can." Second, it does not serve as a remedy to the murder. The victim is not brought back, so it really doesn't achieve any goal. Finally, it does not work as a deterrent. The U.S. is one of the few "Western" countries that still has a death penalty and yet has higher murder rates than any other "Western" nation. In fact, our murder rates are usually 4-5 times greater than the murder rates of European nations.

What makes this difficult is that I think these guys deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law, which means hanging in Jordan. Knowing what Larry was doing in Jordan and that he was a nice guy that wanted to help people makes it even worse. I envision these assholes dying on those ropes as justice served, but don't really feel any better about what happened. So there's the rub. If I ever had to face the challenge of a loved one being killed, I would probably want to find the person who did it and take out my anger on them, but what would that accomplish besides getting me in trouble? I understand killing someone in defense because that prevents the murder, but killing the perpetrator after the fact does not provide that protection. Tough call.

A Little Reminder about reality

Last year I was at a Galaxy game against ChivasUSA where my support group was given special passes to stand directly behind the other team's goal in order to harass their rookie goalkeeper. At halftime we were switching sides when I ran into the Galaxy's President and General Manager, Doug Hamilton. I thanked him for letting have the rare opportunity, for the free beer garden, and then told him that he needed to fire our coach. He was very polite and simply, professionally, walked away after my last comment.

On the team's flight back from Costa Rica tonight, Doug Hamilton had a heart attack and died. Here is a picture from a reserve game this last year as Doug walks away putting his son on his shoulders:


I have put literally thousands of dollars, hours and hours of my time, and a good part of my heart and soul into supporting this team. In a weird way, when you get that involved in a team, they become a second family and certainly the Home Depot Center became my second home (just ask Amanda how I reacted the first time I went there and how much time I spend there now). During the last 2 years I have said nearly nothing good about Doug because I disagreed with just about every decision he made in regards to this team. However, it is sad to me to lose this member of my second family and even sadder when I see the picture above. Even though I, along with the majority of the Riot Squad, constantly ripped him for his bad decisions, in the end he proved us wrong by bringing us 2 league titles in 4 years and many of the players that he brought in will continue with this team for years to come.

It also reminds me that even a healthy and young guy can unsuspectingly pass away almost at any moment and that we should all be a little thankful for what we have. Yeah, I know its sappy, but these are the types of things that get me into a sappy mood.

Thanks for the titles and the beer Doug. And I'm sorry for being an asshole to you.

Those dirty Arabs!!

(sarcasm)I just know that this is all just part of their continuing terrorist plot to blow up our ports, but Dubai Ports World has agreed to turn over ownership of the American ports that they are buying to a "United States entity." This is not enough!! We need to prevent any Arab from even buying an American pack of gum! Those terrorists have no part in our country!! (/sarcasm)

Strangely enough, this actual agreement to give up control of the American ports may not be enough, which is what brought on my sarcastic rant. Somehow, many Democrats are saying that this end is not enough. I think the Republicans might be calling off the dogs though, since they do want to have a chance to keep their majority in November (I think they've already lost that fight). I think that I am in total agreement with the hundreds of writers that have said that Bush gets what he deserves on this. He wants us to fear Arabs, and now we are so afraid of them that they can't even take our money.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what this 3rd world terrorist country looks like, here are some pictures:

Downtown Dubai

The only 7-star hotel in the world is in Dubai

The Grand Hyatt in Dubai (several pictures here)


What a dump! No wonder there is so much terrorism! Oh wait. Its not a dump and it looks to me like their #1 motivating factor is $$$$$ and not radical Islam. I think we need to face the fact that not all Arabs are terrorists and that many Muslims are just as capitalistic as we are.

Can we move on to the other crap that Bush has screwed up?

Douchebag of the Week 3/7/06 or whenever I finish writing it

I always hate not having time to blog due to stupid things like work and TV. OK, not so much TV, but I also tried to blog the other day, but was distracted by soccer video games. In any case, there are a plethora of nominees for this "weeks" issue.

First, a complete anti-Douchebag special award goes to Jason McElwain. He is an autistic kid that has been a manager for his high school's basketball team for 3 years. As a gift for his senior year, the coach let him dress for the final game of the year. As they were up 20+ with 4 minutes left the coach put Jason in. After missing his first shot by 4 feet, Jason nailed 6 3-pointers and finished with 20 points. His team went on to win the state title. Watch the video. It rocks. Jason is my new hero.

On to the douchebags.

Terence Braxton: What is a good way to supplement your measly teacher income? Take bribes of course. I always tell my students that I am willing to take bribes as long as its enough for me to live comfortably for the rest of my life without having a job. This guy, however, actually took the money. Kids in his PE class could get out of class by giving him $1. I guess he made a few hundred, which shows just how lazy some kids are.

Franklin Paul Crow: One of the things that I hate about having a roommate is when they don't replace the toilet paper when it gets used up. Well, Franklin's roommate was tired of this problem and pulled out a gun. I guess Frankie didn't see this as a joke an proceeded to bludgeon his roommate to death with a sledgehammer. Then he realized that he did forget to replace the TP. OK, not really. He did kill the guy though.

Alan Patton: Um, this guy hides in bathrooms and drinks boys urine. Yeah, I guess I really don't have to say much more here. He doesn't molest them though, so that keeps him from winning, which is too bad because this week's prize is a gallon of urine.

Travis Frey: There are a lot of child molesters in the world, so that does not distinguish them enough to be Douchebags of the Week. However, this kiddie porn dealer came up with the now infamous marriage contract. Here's one line: "When we are at home, and alone as a family, you will be naked within 20 minutes of the kids being in bed." Other topics include rewards for good behavior, body hair trimming, required sexual activity and the points awarded for each. I find it hard to believe that this stand-up citizen is also a kiddie porn freak.

Dumbass thieves (although they didn't get caught): So you build up the guts to actually hijack a semi carrying beer. So what beer do you take? I jack a truck of Newcastle. These assclowns now have a gang of MGD. I know a lot of people drink this piss and would love about 2000 free cases, but those people deserve what they get. Can you imagine how drunk these guys are all of the time? I wonder what happens when you get to case, like, I don't know, 250. Don't you say to yourself "I'm tired of MGD all of the time"? That's what I mean. Rob the truck carrying microbrews or kegs or something. All right, I admit it. I'm actually really jealous.

Mr Tombe: Normally, having sex with a goat is enough to get you nominated for Douchebag of the Week. However, this guy goes the extra mile when he is punished. He has to marry the goat. You know what's coming... I wonder if the goat started to nag him after they were married. The best part is that he also had to pay a dowry to the goat's owner. I am not kidding about that either.

Bill O'Reilly: I feel like he has been nominated before, but somehow this complete moron has stayed off the Douchebag radar so far. Maybe the monkeys on the EToWJB staff are scared of him. OK, there is apparently a feud between Bill and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, previously a horrible sports guy on LA's own CBS Channel 2. It is so bad that Bill does not allow people to even mention Olbermann when they call in. Keith, for his part, has referred to O'Reilly as the "worst person" in the world or U.S. or something like that. However, in this case Bill has shown what kind of ass he really is. When a caller mentioned Olbermann, Bill "dumped" him and said that he had the caller's phone number and that he would turn the number over to Fox Security and that they would pay the caller a visit. Since when is threatening your callers legal? I hope this costs O'Reilly at least a couple of million if not his job.

Finally, in a FoxNews themed issue of the Pat Robertson Douchebag of the Week Award, the winner:

Ann Coulter: You would think that I am nailing this psycho for something she said about politics, but I am not. Unfortunately, Ann ventured into the world of Oscar predictions. Warning: If you are black, Asian, gay, transgender, any combination thereof (yes, she uses the term "gaysian"), or just a human being with a conscience, you may be offended by what she wrote. For example, she said Crash would not win because "Hollywood feels it has done enough for the blacks." and "Hollywood can never do enough for the gays." She also quotes the award's namesake by saying that "homosexuality has gone from 'the love that dare not speak its name' to 'the love that won't shut up.'" No, really. Then she suggests titles to movies that will follow the Brokeback gay cowboy theme: "Westward Homo," "The Magnificent, Fabulous Seven," "Gunfight at the K-Y Corral" and "How West Hollywood was Won." She correctly predicted that Hoffman would win, reasoning that they couldn't give everything to Brokeback but also saying that "at least Truman Capote was gay." There are so many more gems in there including her suggestion that Al-Jazeera gave a 4 1/2 pipe-bombs rating to a documentary about suicide bombers. By the way, she makes all of these comments after having admitted to not having seen any of these movies. Congratulations Ann Coulter, you are an absolute fucking douchebag.

Holy Holidays Batman!

In case all of the heathens that read this blog aren't aware, we are now in the 40-day period of Lent. Yes, Mardi Gras is more than a time for getting drunk, showing tits, and throwing beads. It is a day where you are supposed to get rid of all of those things that get you in trouble during Lent, historically it was flour products (I think) which is why many churches have pancake dinners on Tuesday. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and I was one of those people that had ashes on their head, although I was at church at 7:30 so nobody saw it besides the other 400 people that also had ashes on their head.

Now, I have always followed the tradition of Lent where I give up something that I like as a version of fasting. In the past I gave up MTV (when I was maybe 10), soda, fast food, and chips. This year I wanted to give up something that has always been a really bad part of my diet. I've conquered many of these things: I only drink diet soda maybe twice a week, the sweet smell of donuts make me sick usually, I rarely have fast food (usually at the beginning of a road trip), and I have never been much of a desert person. So what do I give up? Well, I have found that there is one food item that has stealthily added to my girth over the years. I have long preached the greatness of this staple food product in all of its forms, yet its best-tasting forms are the worst for me. Now, I am no low-carb freak, but I have decided to give up...

POTATOES

Yep. I figured out that the potato is the best and most evil food. I can think of 4 forms of potato that are probably responsible for at least 10-15% of my extra weight: skins, fries, hash browns, and tater tots. They are soooooo good, but they are soooooo deep-fried, covered in cheese, sour cream, chili, bacon, etc. So until Easter I will eat nothing that is made of or includes a potato.

Now, my other Lent tradition is to add something good. I think I have a decent exercise schedule, although it is off a bit right now. So, I will stick to 3 gym days, 2 walking days and 1 soccer day. That's exercise every day. However, that's not an addition.

My addition will be a minimum of 1 hour of reading for pleasure every day. I am 20 pages from finishing Kafka on the Shore and I really want to finish my Khrushchev biography. I do read a lot now, but not nearly as much as I would like. In a way, I envy my friend Peter (from Pete the Elder) since he reads voraciously, although he reads all of these conservative books that trash liberals. (I'm sure he'll give me some shit for that). I think Peter reads about 3-4 books a month. Maybe its because he's a fast reader, maybe its because he works at a library, or maybe its because he isn't addicted to several TV shows. Whatever the reason, I want to get through more of the maybe 30 books that I have bought and have not even cracked open.

Anyways, I think that Lent is a good thing and always gives me a reason to look at the bad things I do and try to fix them.