In this time of ugly and stupid political rhetoric, the time has come for our politicians and the people who cover them to cut the shit. Between the hot-air, grandstanding do-nothing politicians and the know-it-all, everyone who disagrees with me suck – radio and TV talk show hosts the country is sick of political discussion because it deteriorates into a grouse-fest. Nothing is getting done and fewer people vote each year because they’ve had it up to here.
This is why it’s time for a Constitutional Amendment mandating the Duel to resolve political infighting and name-calling. It was the great Aaron Burr who once said “In your face, Beeeyaaatch” as he stood over the dying Alexander Hamilton. The two had taken their political disagreement to its logical conclusion, Burr won. The nation mourned and Congress outlawed Dueling from that point on. This was a huge mistake. The Duel is a valuable too for maintaining civil discourse in a polite society. Here’s how the law would work:
Any person holding political office, or running for political office, who feels their character, has been impugned or that their position has been unfairly represented publicly; can call for a settling of the dispute by a Duel. The intent of a Duel must be announced by a slap of the face of the opponent; by bare hand or by the traditional set of riding gloves in available, striking hard enough to be heard and felt yet not as hard as to cause severe injury.
The Duel must be held within one week.
The Duel can be in a safe, public location or a private location with witnesses.
The Duel will be fought with a snub-nose, .38 caliber pistol. Each pistol will contain eight (8) rounds of hollow-point ammunition.
No ballistic vests may be worn.
The Duelists will be handed their weapons and stand back-to-back. A witness will begin counting out loud the numbers from one to ten (in numerical order). Upon reaching the number ten (10), both contestants will turn and begin firing their weapon. Each may fire their weapon until it is empty. At no time can either contestant approach the other while firing.
The Duel is over when both contestants have stopped firing. A contestant can cease fire after one round if he chooses to do so.
The contestant who is still alive, or has survivable wounds is the winner. If both are wounded, the contestant with the least damaging wounds is the winner. If both contestants are wounded equally the contest is a draw. If both contestants die, the contest is a draw.
There will be no dancing, cheering or celebration of any kind by the winning party.
If challenged to a Duel, it is not mandatory to accept. However, declining to fight in a Duel has consequences:
If one declines to Duel, they must apologize – daily – in public for 30 days.
They must acquiesce to the challenger all points at issue and never again make challenge.
If the one who declines is in the news media or has a talk show, they must remain silent on the challenger except to apologize.
Duels must be fought by the initial parties no substitutions are permitted by either side for any reason.
No limit will be made to the number of Duels that can be called by any one qualified person.
I think that the idea that you might have to face off against Nancy Pelosi or Trent Lott, armed with a .38 might make you choose your words much more carefully.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Damn You, Cruel Brain!
My brain did it to me again. After a long night of dreaming about Nazi Zombie Lizards and hooking up computers to a giant router, my brain throws me this little cookie. Suddenly I’m standing behind the counter of a breakfast café’ that I used to frequent back in the 1980s. The waitresses there were all beautiful, which is why I frequented it, and now in my dream I’m back there. I look to my right and to my left and all the girls are there too – NAKED, I’m also naked and they seem to be really happy about the situation. There’s a lot of giggling and hugging and…
That’s where I woke up.
What? No! Not now! Jeeezis , why now? That’s not fair. See, I think it’s the brains way of making it up to you. I’m going to think about this all day, the girls, the giggling and my brain’s amazing recreation of something that never happened. In fact, I lay in bed for almost four minutes trying to remember if that actually had happened to me because it was so real. But no, it was my brain’s way of waking me up in such a way that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Still, I’m a little pissed off because I got three hours of Nazi Zombie Lizard hunting me through the ruins of Stalingrad and then another two hours of the IT problem from hell. Why not seven hours of happy stuff with the girls? Is that too much to ask for? I guess not.
I’ve gotten pretty good at lucid dreaming. I can fix on an image or a person and then dream about them most of the night. The thing is that my dreams still deal with dream stuff (solving problems, searching for McGuffins or standing around waiting) it’s just that Jennifer Aniston is along for the ride and that makes things better. I don’t know if the real Jennifer Aniston is as helpful as the one in my head but if she is she’s got a Nobel Prize coming to her down the road. However, Ms. Aniston is never naked. Maybe it’s my fault, maybe I’m too much of a gentleman(nerd) to take advantage of her in my head. Anyway, some nights it’s her, other nights it’s Cindy Crawford, Shiri Appleby or Brooke Shields. Even on the nights I don’t bring them along my lucid dreaming comes in handy. Take the Nazi Zombie Lizards, they never caught me because I set boobie traps and would counter attack and snipe at them as I made my way to the river. Some nights I just let my brain take me where it wants to take me. Dreams are important because it’s your subconscious’ way of telling you what’s wrong , clueing you into things that you didn’t know were bothering you.
Still, is it too much to ask for the naked waitresses again?
That’s where I woke up.
What? No! Not now! Jeeezis , why now? That’s not fair. See, I think it’s the brains way of making it up to you. I’m going to think about this all day, the girls, the giggling and my brain’s amazing recreation of something that never happened. In fact, I lay in bed for almost four minutes trying to remember if that actually had happened to me because it was so real. But no, it was my brain’s way of waking me up in such a way that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Still, I’m a little pissed off because I got three hours of Nazi Zombie Lizard hunting me through the ruins of Stalingrad and then another two hours of the IT problem from hell. Why not seven hours of happy stuff with the girls? Is that too much to ask for? I guess not.
I’ve gotten pretty good at lucid dreaming. I can fix on an image or a person and then dream about them most of the night. The thing is that my dreams still deal with dream stuff (solving problems, searching for McGuffins or standing around waiting) it’s just that Jennifer Aniston is along for the ride and that makes things better. I don’t know if the real Jennifer Aniston is as helpful as the one in my head but if she is she’s got a Nobel Prize coming to her down the road. However, Ms. Aniston is never naked. Maybe it’s my fault, maybe I’m too much of a gentleman(nerd) to take advantage of her in my head. Anyway, some nights it’s her, other nights it’s Cindy Crawford, Shiri Appleby or Brooke Shields. Even on the nights I don’t bring them along my lucid dreaming comes in handy. Take the Nazi Zombie Lizards, they never caught me because I set boobie traps and would counter attack and snipe at them as I made my way to the river. Some nights I just let my brain take me where it wants to take me. Dreams are important because it’s your subconscious’ way of telling you what’s wrong , clueing you into things that you didn’t know were bothering you.
Still, is it too much to ask for the naked waitresses again?
Friday, November 10, 2006
Having An Underground Lair Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be.
It seemed like a great at the time. It was a place to park my crime-fighting jet engine-powered crime fighting car, a place to store my wardrobe and cape and an out of the way place for a high-tech lab and Cray computer. I had fire-pole access from the study and I had a cool hologram to disguise the cave entrance. It wasn’t perfect, the place was always cold and damp; even with the small nuclear reactor I installed for power the place just never seemed to warm up. Then there was the summer when I had to deal with the bat infestation, those little brown bastards shit all over everything. They were hard to get rid off because I had to wait until they flew out at nightfall and then put screens up over all of the entrances. Still, it was a great place, at least until I got a youthful crime-fighting sidekick.
My sidekick, let’s call him Sparrow, talked me into putting in a bar in one unused corner of the Lair. He suggested that nothing would top off an evening of kicking the shit out of evil-doers like a nice cold beer. Well, sure enough, the bar went from a large cooler full of beers to a twelve-keg tap system. Sparrow started spending more and more time in the underground lair to the point where I had to change the lock and lay down the law. The guy was going through a keg every other day; he must have a bladder the size of Kansas. Sparrow promised to behave and after a while I trusted him with the key and he seemed to clean up his act. Then the gang at the Justice…uh, Bowling League finds out about the bar and sure enough they start dropping by and hanging out in MY underground lair. These guys all had their own secret hide-outs and bases, one even had a fortress of…something or other, but evidently none of them had thought about putting in a bar. You have to understand, these guys and gals are well known for high moral standards and ethics, but you’d think they were a bunch of college freshmen when they stop by the lair for a cold one.
Sparrow's busy playing bartender, what he’s trying to do is get in Won..uh, Princess Di’s pants. That ain’t gonna happen, Barry, Clark, Hal and I have all tried, she’s into Army guys. It’s just no fun, I mean these guys all have secret identities, why do they have to hang out at my place? Clark says his hide-out is too cold and nobody wants to go there. Prince Di is from an Island full of hot chicks, does she ever invite any of the league down for some fun in the sun? Hell no, the bitch. Anyway, my underground lair is just cool any more. Even when I’m trying to work, there’s some asshole in tights coming up to me and pointing at the giant LCD screen and asking “Hey, duth zat thing get ESPN?” Dude, I’m trying to solve a crime here, do you mind? Oh, and because it’s an underground lair, everybody thinks it’s just hilarious to pass gas as often as possible. Hal and his “Hey, do you want to know why they call me “Green Lantern?” schtick, you’d think after 159 time that he’d get tired of that but no. Then Clark Kent has to top him with ‘Hey gang, here’s why Krypton was destroyed!” Great, now I have to re-paint my car, thanks a lot, farm boy.
You know, I should have gone with a Penthouse with a secret room behind the book case. Maybe even a big yacht. But no, I had to have an underground lair. Why does everyone want to hang out in an underground lair anyway? At this point, I’m thinking that I should “Leak” the location to a couple of super villains so I have an excuse to shut the place down, but then I’ll end up with the reputation as the League party-pooper. Then it’s ‘Sorry, my X-ray vision isn’t working”, “No, I can’t help you, fight the giant robot by yourself”. You’d think the League would be above politics, the truth is that cape or not, the gang can be as petty as a high school cheerleading squad. My only way out is to talk the guys into initiating a new guy into the League, someone with an even better hide-out. That’s going to be hard though because the Marvel guys mostly live in their apartments or in their secret lab/penthouse.
Does anybody know if Hugh Heffner has any secret powers?
My sidekick, let’s call him Sparrow, talked me into putting in a bar in one unused corner of the Lair. He suggested that nothing would top off an evening of kicking the shit out of evil-doers like a nice cold beer. Well, sure enough, the bar went from a large cooler full of beers to a twelve-keg tap system. Sparrow started spending more and more time in the underground lair to the point where I had to change the lock and lay down the law. The guy was going through a keg every other day; he must have a bladder the size of Kansas. Sparrow promised to behave and after a while I trusted him with the key and he seemed to clean up his act. Then the gang at the Justice…uh, Bowling League finds out about the bar and sure enough they start dropping by and hanging out in MY underground lair. These guys all had their own secret hide-outs and bases, one even had a fortress of…something or other, but evidently none of them had thought about putting in a bar. You have to understand, these guys and gals are well known for high moral standards and ethics, but you’d think they were a bunch of college freshmen when they stop by the lair for a cold one.
Sparrow's busy playing bartender, what he’s trying to do is get in Won..uh, Princess Di’s pants. That ain’t gonna happen, Barry, Clark, Hal and I have all tried, she’s into Army guys. It’s just no fun, I mean these guys all have secret identities, why do they have to hang out at my place? Clark says his hide-out is too cold and nobody wants to go there. Prince Di is from an Island full of hot chicks, does she ever invite any of the league down for some fun in the sun? Hell no, the bitch. Anyway, my underground lair is just cool any more. Even when I’m trying to work, there’s some asshole in tights coming up to me and pointing at the giant LCD screen and asking “Hey, duth zat thing get ESPN?” Dude, I’m trying to solve a crime here, do you mind? Oh, and because it’s an underground lair, everybody thinks it’s just hilarious to pass gas as often as possible. Hal and his “Hey, do you want to know why they call me “Green Lantern?” schtick, you’d think after 159 time that he’d get tired of that but no. Then Clark Kent has to top him with ‘Hey gang, here’s why Krypton was destroyed!” Great, now I have to re-paint my car, thanks a lot, farm boy.
You know, I should have gone with a Penthouse with a secret room behind the book case. Maybe even a big yacht. But no, I had to have an underground lair. Why does everyone want to hang out in an underground lair anyway? At this point, I’m thinking that I should “Leak” the location to a couple of super villains so I have an excuse to shut the place down, but then I’ll end up with the reputation as the League party-pooper. Then it’s ‘Sorry, my X-ray vision isn’t working”, “No, I can’t help you, fight the giant robot by yourself”. You’d think the League would be above politics, the truth is that cape or not, the gang can be as petty as a high school cheerleading squad. My only way out is to talk the guys into initiating a new guy into the League, someone with an even better hide-out. That’s going to be hard though because the Marvel guys mostly live in their apartments or in their secret lab/penthouse.
Does anybody know if Hugh Heffner has any secret powers?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)