… Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and a Gay Man from Iowa go into a bar …

For real, gay marriage is now legal in Iowa.  And in a related story, snow shovels are on sale in Florida.  Wouldn’t making it legal to marry your pig have been more useful?

Those crazy Iowans will do anything to remain king-makers in Presidential Politics.

Sean Hannity was taking up for Larry Craig last night.  Sean Hannity!  Paraphrased:  “Well perhaps he just happened to be tapping his feet, perhaps his foot just happened to slip under the stall divider slightly and happened to touch the officer’s foot.  Perhaps his hand just happened to slip under the divider just slightly, blah, blah, blah.  What world does Sean Hannity live in?

Now first of all, the women’s rest room has, like the women who use it, always been something of a mystery.  It’s a Bermuda Triangle of sorts.  No one has touched the legend of the place and come back to tell about it.  So I’m not pretending to speak of it here.

But as far as men’s rooms go … nothing accidentally goes anywhere outside of its designated confines.  That’s not just a rule and a courtesy, it’s … an instinct.  You get in that stall and I don’t care how narrow it is, I don’t care if the only clean spot on the floor happens to be right under the divider, you keep your arms and legs and every other appendage inside the stall at all times.  And well inside the stall.  You don’t chance it.

Now, those of us who use your average public rest room recognize that the first suspicious thing Craig did was to take a stall next to a stall that was already occupied. (more…)

Hooray!  College Football is back.  Time for week 1′s picks:

Right out of the gate we’ve got a tough slate.  Actually, part of the difficulty lies in not knowing what we’re going to get out of some of these teams this year.

The top two games are easy.  OK State at Georgia and Kansas State at Auburn.  ESPN’s little blurb for these games makes them sound as if they could go either way.  Right.  Two middle of the pack teams from a mediocre conference take on two powerhouse teams from the nation’s toughest conference, and two national championship contenders.  Auburn and Georgia being at home is so much more gravy.  The only tough decision here is which of these games to make my 10 pt game, and which one, 9.

Almost as easy, Washington State at Wisconsin.  Again, middle team from pretender conference, although, as I’ve discussed previously, ESPN is hard at work selling us on how good the Pac 10 is.  All the better to prop up USC you know.  But Wisconsin is loaded and another championship contender.  The Badgers at home – more icing on the cake.  8 pts on this one.

In the next layer, two more easy games, only these have the favorite traveling.  UCLA at Stanford, and Missouri at Illinois.  Sure, I’m not real high on the Pac 10 or Big XII, but you’ve got two cases here where the best the home teams can hope for is to avoid embarrassment.

Here’s where it starts to get tough. (more…)

In honor of the impending (sort of) beginning of the Office – Season 4, and because it is totally hilarious, I give you this.  It’s a high school prank run by BJ Novak, the guy who plays Ryan Howard and co-produces or directs or something like that. 

It’s kind of strange.  On the show, Ryan has become something of a tool which should only get worse with him moving to corporate and taking over Jan’s old job.  But from what I can tell on his MySpace account (which, admittedly, is very limited), he seems like he’d be fun to hang out with, pranks like this being the case in point.

Since I took Democrats to task for challenging a key state over primary scheduling, I must be fair and report that the Republican Party has joined the madness.

Here’s what I don’t get:

“If we don’t do something, this is going to become a national primary, and there will be federal legislation that takes it away from the parties, …”

Yes, heaven forbid, not a national primary!  Why take care of the whole mess in one quick swipe when we can drag it out over months, or even years?!

See, I don’t care about all the wrangling, or who controls what.  My problem is with how this all plays out in a practical sense.  Currently, the race is essentially over about halfway through the primary season, giving, in some cases, disproportionate weight to the early states.  So, what you see now is every state trying to push their primary earlier to become a bigger player. (more…)

This is hilarious, and if you needed it, another tragic symbol of how things really are in China.

In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

The article does go on to show how this is a move aimed at squelching the nation’s buddhists by coopting the Dalai Lama’s succession process.

I wonder if, after this law goes into effect, that the Lama will still be able to tip his caddy by promising them total consciousness on their deathbed … “which is nice.”

You know, I get a kick out of all the cries for Britney Spears to lose custody of her children.  Granted, by all indications her parenting skills seem to be on par with the rest of her train-wreck of a life.  But what is the alternative?  Turn the kids over to their father, Kevin Federline!?

The day you make K-Fed look like Dr. Spock (Not Mr. Spock, Britney, DR. Spock … he writes these things called “books” about … just trust me, he’s really smart) is the day you need to just pack up and permanently move in to rehab.

Howard Dean, in his role as DNC, is squaring off against Florida Democrats over the timing of their primary.  And then he’s gonna square off against South Carolina, and Rhode Island, and Michigan, and then he’s gonna … well, you remember the man in all his splendor.

Apparently Dean is the only person of voting age in America not keenly aware that in the National Political picture Florida is … what’s that word? … CRITICAL!  If I’m the Sunshine State I give Dean a big “Bite Me!  Ignore us at your own peril.”

I guess I just have to ask, “What did you expect when you put this firebrand in charge of your party?”  Sober reflection?  Restraint?  Well thought-out strategy?  No, from Dean, as we have all learned, you pretty much get noise.

2006?  Please.  That one was the Democrats’ to lose, with or without Dean.  Give him credit for not screwing it up and move on.

Man, I was hoping the new and improved “not mine” excuse would get a trial run while it’s still fresh off of it’s … new and improved-ification.  This case was a golden opportunity.  A U of Arkansas football player was arrested when, during a traffic stop, one thing led to another and he was found to have two joints, one half-smoked, in his car and 1 tablet of X in his cargoes.

Perfect.  Dude, how do we even know they were your cargoes?  How do we know you didn’t get dressed in a hurry and mistakenly put on Lindsay Lohan’s cargoes?  How do we know you didn’t recently loan your car to a bunch of different people … so many that it would be nearly impossible to determine who left their pot in your car?  When you really look at it, the prosecution has a very flimsy circumstancial case going here.

On second thought, though the story doesn’t say so, I’m going to guess that this athlete does not have a couple of lame Disney remakes under his belt nor does he prance about in front of the cameras with two fake boobs spilling out of his dress in every direction.  Perhaps it was best that he just clam up and and take his lumps.  Wouldn’t want to be ruled in contempt for being a wisenheimer.

I had pretty much given NBC / Trump’s The Apprentice up for dead.  Now it seems as if a fate worse than death might be in store for the show.

Donald Trump says he wants the train-wreck triumvirate of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears for the next edition of his show The Apprentice.

There was a time, after the show’s first or second season, when this would have seemed completely inconceivable.  Where on earth would you find a place for the queens of skank on Trump’s show?  But, after recent efforts, including last season when one of the teams had to live outdoors and sleep in tents, I am depressed to find little surprise in this.  Why not take that one last step toward becoming a total reality circus?

This weekend I’ve got a lot of accounting work to do and have a season 1 Apprentice-fest going in the background.  At the very beginning of the very first ever episode, Trump said, “This is not a game, it’s a 16-week job interview.”  That’s what made The Apprentice great. (more…)