The Smarmy Carny

Hillary RodHam

Hillary Clinton collapsed today in my neck of the woods. Yes, I have an alibi.

For some odd reason, she was speaking at Canisius College, a Catholic school. There were plenty of protests from anti-abortion groups and the Catholic diocese, of course.

Apparently she was "expected to discuss health care, not her pro-choice stance on abortion." Has anyone looked into exactly how Hillarycare deals with abortion? I'm not familiar with the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if you actually earned $500 for each abortion you receive.

Clinton later said that "It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds." What else would we expect a politician (especially one running for reelection) to say?

Ebay Listing

It seems that you can buy pretty much anything via drive-thru nowadays.

We are all familiar with the drive-thrus at McD's, BK, Wendy's, and the rest. I frequently use my bank's drive-thru ATM. We've even heard all about drive-thru weddings in Las Vegas.

A noteworthy entry in Ebay's real estate section auctions off "Climax World Famous Gentlemans Club and Nude Drive Thru." Apparently, this semi-popular strip joint east of Pittsburgh offers patrons the opportunity to pay $10 for a minimum of one minute of watching through a drive-thru window. The starting bid was $299,000.00, but any offers are requested via e-mail, so it's difficult to say how many serious inquiries they are receiving.

I guess in that town, you have a completely different reaction when the teen casually tells you that she works at "the drive-thru window."

Would you like fries with that?

I Gave Terror the Finger

Today, January 31, is the day to "Give Terror the Finger." (FYI, giveterrorthefinger.com now points to John Marfoe's Blog. Marfoe is the one who was behind GTTF.)

As you can see in the picture on the right, I went ahead and did it. I'm sure people at work will ask me about it, and I'm sure I'll tell them about it.

About 70 percent of registered Iraqis voted this time around, despite the terror threats and a few attacks. In America, we had very little threat and no attacks, and less than 60 percent of registered Americans voted in November 2004.

Let freedom ring! Oh, and please, give terror the finger.

Here is the text from giveterrorthefinger.com:

On January 31, 2005, in a show of solidarity with the bravery of the Iraqi people, all Americans should color their index fingers blue or purple, and give terrorism the finger.
The Iraqi elections have been a resounding success. Nearly 70% of eligible Iraqis braved threats of terrorism and voted on January 30. On January 31, we can all show our solidarity and give terrorism the finger just as nearly 10 million Iraqis did.

The Golden
Raspberry Award

The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation has been giving out Razzies for 25 years now. If you're not already familiar with the Razzies, it's basically the anti-Oscar, handing out awards for the worst-of-the-worst in film. In the first 24 years, they have "honored" such great films as Battlefield Earth, Leonard: Part 6, The Postman, Freddy Got Fingered, and most recently, Gigli. They tend to favor musicians-turned-actress like Madonna, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, and the Spice Girls. This year, Catwoman seems to be the favorite nominee.

Year after year, I take the time to look at their website and search for the nominee list. You'd think that there would be an easily visible "View the nominee list here" link somewhere, but instead you have to spot it in a list of the eight hottest topics. No big deal, since the results are always worth the effort.

Unfortunately, the Foundation showed their true colors this year when they released their nominees for 2004. In stereotypical Hollywood fashion, someone decided to mix politics with the entertainment industry. Allow me to quote directly from their nominee press release (original emphasis used):

. . . one of several political figures garnering RAZZIE nods this year, President George W. Bush as himself in FAHRENHEIT 9/11, for which performance he is also nominating as Worst Screen Couple paired with either Condoleeza Rice and/or His Pet Goat. For their appearances in FAHRENHEIT, both Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got Supporting nominations. And California's current governor Ah-Nuld Schwarzenegger is also nominated as Worst Supporting Actor for his cameo as "Prince Hapi" in Worst Remake contender AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. "The Uber-Nator" is also one of the contenders for a Special Commemorative RAZZIE as one of five Worst RAZZIE "Losers" of The First 25 Years — eligibility for which was determined by having amassed the most nominations over the years without ever actually "winning" a statuette.

The Razzies in general are quite fun, but this is clearly a political statement from the nominators. John Wilson, the Razzies' founder, is quoted as having said that "It wasn't Mr. Moore's editing, it's the raw footage of these people just making fools of themselves." Even if you buy into the propaganda behind Fahrenheit 9/11, we have a direct admission that the awards were given for them "just making fools of themselves." If this is how you interpret this footage, then clearly this is not acting. How can you receive a "Worst Actor" award without even acting in a movie? Fahrenheit 9/11 shows archive footage, not acting. If these nominations can be made, what about all of the horrible characters interviewed in other documentaries? Why have they been left out for so long? I don't know anything about Wilson or the others responsible for the nominations, but all of these thoughts lead me to believe that these nominations are merely an attempt for a leftist retaliation for the loss in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Additionally, I have a gripe with the other Fahrenheit 9/11 nomination, as it shows a true lack of originality. The nomination is Britney Spears. This nomination is also not for acting, but for an interview. She was in the movie for only a few seconds. I'm not sure why they decided to nominate Spears, but it boils down to this: Either she was nominated because she dared to utter a pro-Bush sentiment, or because the Razzie people needed to fit Spears in somehow and did an IMDB search to find out where she had appeared, or both.

I hate to say it, but the Razzies have lost credibility with me now. I'm afraid they've fallen below even the MTV Movie Awards in my book.

This year's Razzie goes out to the Razzies.

Federal Social
Security Calculator

If you're like me, you're human.

If you're also like me, you're not yet retired. In fact, I'm not even halfway there yet. If you're not yet retired (and American), you most likely give some attention to Social Security, as it will someday supplement your life savings. Media hype and the 2004 election campaigns also tried to make as big a deal out of SS as they possibly could. One political party wants the system to be given an overhaul, where you could take partial control of your contributions (akin to 401(k) plans) and most likely outperform whatever the government might get out of your money. The government generally doesn't have a great track record as far as finances are concerned. Another party wants SS to remain as it is, where the government forces you to toss part of your earnings into the kitty for the government to "invest."

Naturally, it would be nice to know how much you can expect to get when you retire. Find out here. Not only does The Heritage Foundation's Social Security Calculator tell you approximately what you could expect to get based on national and historic averages, but it also gives you an idea of what you might expect to get if you are given the opportunity to take hold of the reigns on your SS contributions.

Oh, and keep in mind that SS payments are indended to supplement your life savings and not sustain you completely.

Update: Also read up on President Bush's plans at preservingsocialsecurity.com! There's also a petition there to sign if you're so inclined.

Louis the Weatherman

In college, I majored in Philosophy and Communication. One of the courses I took was Broadcast Journalism. My class had the opportunity to take turns doing all sorts of tasks, from producing to anchoring to giving the weather report.

I can tell you that it's definitely confusing when you're giving the weather report in front of a blue screen. You're looking at a TV or monitor next to you so you know where to point on the map that doesn't really exist behind you. You see that you need to point to the left, which means you really need to point to the right. Getting confused over something like this is understandable for your first time on the air.

Meet Louis. He suffers from this confusion regarding the weather map, but it goes a whole lot deeper than that. In this video, Louis tries to give the weather report. I'm not sure if this was for an actual college news broadcast or if it was for a class, but he suffers from the worst case of Red Light Syndrome I have ever seen.

This truly is painful to watch. If I were the anchor on that program, I would not have been able to retain my composure after that ordeal.

Louis' mind was as cloudy as his forecast.

Updated update: For crying out loud! All three links I posted went dead! I've reposted three more working links: Ebaumsworld.com and Gorillamask.net. Okay, it was three, but even one of those bit the dust, too. Ack!

1754blog

I got my very first hat tip today from someone I don't personally know!

Those of you who have been paying attention will have noticed that I added a link to 1754blog.com (link now broken) in my menu. While looking at my stats today, I noticed that I got a referral from the site. It turns out that someone there read my previous entry (regarding NASA's World Wind) and decided to post a link.

I apologize for the self-indulgence, but I really didn't think that anyone was actually reading this blog, save for the 5 people I badger about reading it on a nearly-daily basis.

If you have not yet taken a moment to peruse 1754blog.com, please do so. I kind of think of it as "What if Drudge ran a blog?" It's really quite cool, I assure you.