Presidential Fitness Test: #1

Hey there, campers, the staff at MMB hopes you're all having a good Labor Day Weekend, and we wanted to take a moment to reveal the results of the very first Presidential Fitness Test we'll be administering to the two Presidential candidates from time to time.

This week's test was the first any Presidential candidate faces, and it's an easy one to pass- picking a good Vice Presidential running mate.

Now I know we're all heard a lot of chatter about how hard it is to get this one right, and it's true that it's a hard test to get an "A" on if you're taking all the electoral and political considerations into account and grading from "A" to "F", but we're not- we're simply grading "Pass" or "Fail", because the aspect of the test we think is most important is the most basic one- is the running mate qualified to take over as President of the United States if something happens to you?

After all, that's the only Constitutional consideration- taking over from the President is the only reason we have a Vice President in the first place. Ability to work with the President, bringing in voter blocks, or regional blocks, filling out weak sports in the President's resume- that's all frill. A Presidential candidate passes or fails this most basic test based on whether or not their pick is fully capable of taking over the leadership of the entire country at a moment's notice, startng Day One. All in all, it's a fairly easy test, not too hard to pass. I can't recall a candidate who's had any real trouble with it. it's really sort of, you know, pro-forma.

So, let's see how the candidates did-

Barack Obama was up first, and I see he picked a running mate named J. Biden, who's been a distinguished United States Senator for more than 30 years with deep foreign and domestic policy experience. J. Biden is widely respected by his colleagues, and works well with members of the opposing party, and is in fact a personal friend of the competing candidate for President.

John McCain was up second, and let's see how he did- oh, well, uh, he picked a running mate named S. Palin, who has a degree in journalism, served a term as mayor of their hometown, population 7,000, and has worked for the last 20 months as governor of a state with a population one quarter the size of Chicago, Illinois. hmmm. Wait a minute-

[Are we sure that's all the card says? ... really? ... how odd. Are we sure he understood the question? ... well, all right, I guess so. ok, let's go live- ]

Sorry for the delay there, folks, but we have our final grades in this, well, frankly fairly easy test. So let's see the results-

[I'm sorry, are we really sure he understood the question???]

Breaking News-

Crude and utterly inappropriate information to follow. So all of you with refined tastes, except for Mike, Sara Sue, Cissy Strutt, Moooog, Phoebe, Malach, ... oh Hell... all of my regular readers, keep reading...

My Beekslayer friend, Admiral Don, has just found that Sarah Palin is being hailed across the internets as the-

VPILF.

Perfect. Crude, so crude. I'll note that if she had a single, solitary qualification at all this would be utterly inappropriate and we wouldn't be making fun of her, but McCain seems to have opened up the floodgates by insulting women and putting America at grave risk through this incredibly stupid choice. She's the female Dan Quayle of the campaign, and we all remember how seriously we took pretty young Danny Boy.

Lies Already???

Well, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hasn't wasted any time getting into the Rovian Spirit of current Republican politics- by lying and misrepresenting. It's only been a day, but she's been busy-

- One of her main selling points seems to be that she "stood up to the oil companies" in Alaska. In fact, she shook them down for more state money. Now that's fine- apparently several oil companies were exploiting a tax loophole which she closed, netting the state additional tax revenue, but it's hardly the image the phrase "standing up" conjures in most minds. In fact Palin has a long history of bending over backwards to support the oil companies, including supporting opening the ANWAR to drilling, ignoring the Alaska State Environmental Office's own scientific assessment that polar bears should be given protected species status, opposing any environmental rule or law change that would hurt Big Oil, and she recently gave half a billion (that's a Billion with a "B") dollars in Alaskan state funds to one oil company to help it build a private pipeline. Way to "stand up" to big oil, Sarah!

-It has been widely reported, and claimed by Palin herself, that she was not only opposed to the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere", but stopped the project. Both statements are outright lies. Congress stopped the project, and Palin, both as a candidate and as governor, supported it.

That's it for today- I'm sure that given an additional 24 hours she'll manage to come out with some more whoppers. Yes sir, she's a perfect addition to the GOP ticket.

Do They Think Women Are Morons?

So one-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is McCain's Veep choice. Apparently they are going after disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, but choosing a rabid anti-choice Neo-Con is an odd way to go about it. Do they really think Hillary supporters are such morons that they'd prefer a candidate who opposes everything they believe in, simply because she happens not to have a dick?

Well, apparently.

And do they really think that they can get any more traction questioning Obama's readiness to govern the country when they plan on placing a person a heartbeat away from the Presidency who's entire government experience consists of two years as governor of Alaska (Alaska, for crying out loud!) and being a one-term mayor of a town of 7,400 people?

I'll hand it to John McCain- he couldn't have hurt his campaign any more, or insulted American women more, if he'd worked at it for a month. But wait, come to think of it, he did work at it for a month.

That sure makes me feel better.

Geez.

UPDATE: So, I've just cruised a few Republican pundit blogs, and of course they're trying to put the best face they can on this. A few admit that it destroys McCain's main argument against Obama, the "unqualified" thing, but most are doing some really ingenious contortions to twist it around. See how these sound to you-

-several argue that she has more "executive experience" than either Obama or Biden, because she's been governor of Alaska for 18 months. So ok, fine. But does being governor of Alaska for a few months qualify you to take over running the United States?

-one especially imaginative fellow is suggesting that she has more foreign policy experience than Obama and Biden, because her state borders Canada and Russia. I can't wait to see how that argument flies in the debates.

I Have A Dream, Today-

Today is the Anniversary of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I HAVE A DREAM" speech-



We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men re crated equal-

I have a dream today.

That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

This an historic night.

- - -

In other news-

DENVER — Mindful of the pitfalls of hosting cocktail parties while Gulf Coast residents are being evacuated, John McCain’s campaign suggested Thursday that Republicans could postpone their upcoming national convention in St. Paul if Tropical Storm Gustav makes landfall over the weekend.

Well, they may be screwed for a while then. After Gustav hits, Hana is scheduled to hit Florida, and then there are 2 more tropical waves with good circulation coming across the Atlantic that are expected to develop into hurricanes. I suppose they'll simply postpone until October, or is it ok to sipn champagne and pop balloons while a hurricane hits the East coast??

- - -

We remember you Martin, and congratulations to Barack Obama, and to America!

- - -

Friday Morning Update: I was typing McCain's name and didn't cap it so it came out mccain. Spellcheck (which always knows the real truth) didn't like that, and suggested alternate spellings of "cocaine" and "Novocaine".

America, we may have a problem...

I'm an Ebay Slut-

You can buy anything on Ebay...

Cissy Strutt was writing about selling things on Ebay recently, and since I sold my Sense of Shame there last year, I felt no compunction whatever about ripping off her idea for a Monday blog post. I sell and buy on Ebay, but buying by far is the most fun. Here are some really cool things I've won recently-

A bag full of Mitt Romney's Ethics-

The US Air Force's new fighter-interceptor, as modified by the Dept. of Defense to deal with high fuel costs-

A nuclear-powered blender-



A slightly stale pop tart-

A "non-chemical" garden-mole control system-

A pygmy albino fruit-bat-

Of course, not everything always goes well. The seller claimed this was a self-playing saxophone, but unless I let it play it's own tune it sulks and won't do anything at all...

And then there was Dick Cheney's Sense of Decency-

An Important Messsage from Barack

Dear Supporters,

throughout the long campaign it has been your support which has given me the drive to continue each day, so I wanted you to be the first to know the name of my choice for a running mate. The choice was not an easy one to make, and there were many qualified candidates.

From the beginning, I wanted to find someone who brought strengths to the table that would round out our campaign. Many Democrats and Independents have also expressed strong support for a female choice. And I wanted to chose a person with a strongly independent frame of mind, somebody who would tell me the truth rather than just what I wanted to hear.

I am glad to say I believe I have found that person. My choice has lived for many years close to the seats of power, and had the chance to not only observe the day-to-day running of our government in Washington, but to participate in it. She brings an accomplished resume to the campaign, and a reputation as a fighter and winner.

And lastly, I know that she can go toe to toe with John McCain and never flinch.

So today I am proud to announce that I have picked Cindy McCain to be my running mate.

On to Washington!

-Barack Obama

It's Just So Easy to Lose Track...

Oh c'mon- this is a mistake anyone can make, right?

John McCain Not Sure How Many Houses He Owns

WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after he cracked that being rich in the U.S. meant earning at least $5 million a year, Republican presidential candidate John McCain acknowledged that he wasn't sure how many houses he and his wealthy wife actually own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain responded to a question posed by Politico, according to a story Thursday on the publication's Web site. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Later, the McCain campaign told Politico that McCain and his wife, Cindy, have at least four in three states, Arizona, California and Virginia. Newsweek recently estimated the two owned at least seven properties.

On the campaign trail, McCain doesn't refer to his wife's wealth, estimated by some at $100 million and based on her late father's Arizona beer distributorship. McCain's campaign didn't respond immediately to a request for comment Thursday.

Smooth Sailing...

If you've ever watched The World's Deadliest Catch", you probably are as in awe of these fishing men as we are.

And now our nephew is out there, with them.

eeeek.

These are the guys who spend months off the Aleutian islands in Alaska, bringing in fish and crabs for a living.

This is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. And our nephew is... eeeek.

Well, ok, he is actually not going out on a crab boat, he's on a long-line trawler, which is a bigger boat, and he is not crew, he works for the US Department of Fisheries, as a scientific observer. But still... his training included donning a survival suit within 60 seconds, and being able to turn over the survival raft.

Eeek.

And here's an inside tip- the crab boats you see on the cable show also have government observers, but they cannot be shown on camera, because anyone being shown on camera must sign a release that anything they say can be broadcast, and as government employees, the observers must sign a statement that they are working confidentially. So, when you watch that show, there is one other crewman out there on the deck checking the catch over who you will never see.

Here is hoping that Ed's trip is smooth sailing!

Jumping to Conclusions...

One day the pastor invited his new young assistant pastor to have dinner at the rectory. While being served, the young pastor noticed how shapely and lovely the young housekeeper was. As the meal progressed he began to wonder if there might a bit be more between the pastor and the housekeeper than simple housekeeping. After the meal was over, the middle-aged pastor assured the young minister that everything was purely professional... that she was the housekeeper and cook and that was that.

About a week later the housekeeper came to the pastor and said, "Father, ever since the new assistant came for dinner I have not been able to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose he took it, do you?" The Pastor said, "Well, I doubt it very much, but I'll write him a letter." So he sat down and wrote:

The young assistant received the letter, and he answered it as follows:

Warning Signs-

A few years ago my friend and fellow bookseller Joyce Godsey wrote this quiz. The original was 100 questions, which I've whittled down. You can see the entire quiz here.

Book Geek Test -

Have you ever deliberately bought another copy of a book because it had a different cover than the one you have?

Have you ever bought extra copies just so you could give them away?

Have you ever spent more than 20.00 to replace a book you read as a kid?

Have you ever pre-ordered a book as soon as it was humanly possible?

Have you ever maxed out your library card?

Have you ever tried to acquire absolutely everything an author has ever written including, text books, liner notes and book jacket blurbs?

Can you sense whether there are books at a yard sale or a flea market booth before you get there?

When you're shopping with friends do they try to rush you past the books and then groan audibly when you stop?

Have you ever not heard your named called in a bookstore? On purpose?

Have you ever been asked to leave a bookstore because it was 10 minutes past closing?

Do you fix mis-shelved books in bookstores?

Do you help customers find books in stores you don't work in?

Have you ever stood outside a bookstore waiting for it to open?

Have you ever scribbled a recommended book title on the back of your checkbook register or deposit slip?

Have you ever made up fake plans so you could read undisturbed?

Have you ever stayed up all night to finish a book and then called in late the next morning?

Have you ever started reading a book at the store and bought it so you could finish?

Have you ever flung a book you didn't like across the room?

Do you turn magazines sideways so you can read the book titles in the picture backgrounds?

Do you surreptitiously try to get the titles off the books people are reading on the subway?

Do you wonder why the people on TV don't have more bookcases in their homes?

Has anyone in your household encouraged you to open a bookstore so you can sell all the books cluttering up the place?

Have you ever used something for a bookmark that was important and forgotten what book it was in?

Have you ever sat in the car in the driveway while listening to an audio book?

Have you ever sat in the car in the driveway reading a real book?

Do you take more books on vacation that you could read in three vacations?

Do you have more than 4 unread books on your bedside table? more than 10? more than 25?

Do you have no bedside table, just a pile of books?

Have you ever fantasized about a 10 minute bookshopping spree?

Do you know the home city of all the major publishers by heart?

Friday Night Lights-

A longtime reader noticed that this blog has been moodily dark lately... yes probably true. With war in Europe, and Bush still in office, and McCain still above 3% in the polls, I'm in a bad mood. We're having rain here every day or every night, which is raising hell with the garden and local crops. Too little rain, the usual summer malady, is bad, but too much rain isn't good either. The tomatoes are croaking, and nothing else in the garden is healthy, and every time I try to work the flower beds or the woods out back I raise a swarm of mosquitoes the size of Alabama.

And yes, I'm in a bad mood, because the summer is 3/4 over, and I haven't even been outside to enjoy it yet, because I'm chained here to the fucking computer, trying to make money.

Whine whine whine. Kvetch kvetch kvetch.

Hee hee hee- Blogger, my over-the-shoulder grammar and spelling tutor, thinks "yest" is a word.

Oh well. That's all. Here's a song that suits my mood. Have I mentioned lately that my wife is a candidate for sainthood?

Look, Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's... oh Shit!!!

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. This one is dedicated to Moooog35-


BERN, Switzerland— Artist Paul McCarthy’s 'Complex Shit', a giant inflatable dog turd the size of a house, blew loose from its moorings at the Zentrum Paul Klee last week, bringing down power lines, breaking windows and creating a general uproar before landing on the grounds of a children’s home 200 meters away. Although the unintended flight happened on July 31, details emerged only yesterday.

The McCarthy piece is part of the exhibition "East of Eden: A Garden Show," which runs through October 26. According to Juri Steiner, the director of the Klee center, the museum was not yet sure if the work would go back on display.

And Just Another One More-

This one's for Mike. You gotta love the headline-

Dog Cloner Admits:

'Yes, I'm The Mormon Sex Slave Kidnapper!

Just One More-

For the Reverend Anaglyph-

S(illy) U(seless) V(ehicle)s

As Americans get used to $4 a gallon gas, the love-affair we have had with SUV's seems to be ending. The staff at MMB recently spent minutes hours roaming the internet stealing photos researching Americans' new attitude toward their gas-guzzling shitboxes behemoths.

I'm sure this Lego SUV gets better mileage than a traditional one, at least going downhill-

Some people simply grab Martha Stewart's hot glue gun and can of gold glitter-

We have a few bets going as to whether this concrete SUV gets better mileage than a real one -

Some people have been re-purposing their SUV's-

And a few are getting ready to make the trip to the gas station a bit more exciting-

Of course, there's always the "pedal-for-your-life" approach-

Well, that's today's presentation. We hope you enjoyed it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to walk the dog-

Beijing Duck

I guess the Genocide Games begin today in China. As I blogged in April (and repeat some of that post here), I think it's time to re-think the Olympics.

It's a travesty that China is hosting the games, and its the worst sort of dark comedy that the IOC actually believed all the promises the Chinese government made them back when they were bidding to host the games and is now shocked, yes shocked that the Chinese government is now reneging on many of those promises.

I do feel sorry for the athletes, but in my book human rights are more important than sport, and we need to stop and ask ourselves whether it is morally right to ignore political repression, cultural genocide and the complete muzzling of all speech and dissent for millions of people, just so a few thousand people can play games for a few weeks, the rest of us can watch, and the television networks and Coca-Cola can make heaps of money. When criticizing the host government gets its citizens five years in prison, I think it trivializes the concept of human freedoms to say we'll look the other way so that somebody can run a 100-yard dash.

The problem does not begin and end with the China Games, of course. It began back in 1936 when Nazi Germany hosted the Games. The theory that the Olympics foster international understanding, and the notion that awarding the games to a certain country will have any effect whatsoever on their internal political policies, is an utter crock of bullshit. Nice idea -doesn't work.

So let's rethink the idea of the Olympics completely -they're too damned expensive for most countries to build facilities for anyway. The answer is to have all countries contribute to building and maintaining an international Olympics facility in Greece, and use it for every Olympics. Let every "nation" participate, and yes, I mean every "nation", not country. Nations of peoples- united ethnically and culturally, have been around for millenia, even as national boundary lines get re-drawn every generation. Let's cast aside the absurd argument about, for instance, "which" China gets to come. Let them both come. Let Tibet send a contingent, along with any other ethnic group that can claim "nation" status. That would include groups such as our own Sioux nation. Why not? I think that would be a blast.

She'll See You at the Debates, Bitches!

Uh oh, Bitter Old White Guy has pissed off Paris...

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

and while I was looking for that, I found this-

Thoughts That Keep Me Awake at 3 a.m. ...

-What are the American people thinking? Are we actually about to elect a President who is charismatic, popular, and generally liked, instead of a nasty, botoxed, albino dwarf who eats live baby lizards for lunch? WTF????

-And who is Paris Hilton going to vote for now?

-Does Prince Charles have a blog? Does Queen Elizabeth? What do they blog about? "Had to rub elbows with the commoners again all day. God, I need a sherry!".

-Is Hell an actual place, and if it is, and I end up there, will they make me share a room with George Bush?

-Who first decided that it would be a good idea to make a "tofuburger", and will they be sharing that room in Hell with Dubya?

-Should we be calling the Blogger-Google combo Bloggle or Glooger? How about Goober?

-Do I really need to know what 'Facebook' is?

-3 things God has to answer BIGTIME for- mosquitos, eggplant, Mel Gibson movies.

-Hey, Kate Hudson- ditch lance Armstrong. He's a steroid-pumped, serial-lying, three-time LOSER.

-Manny who?

No, Tell Me- How Do You Really Feel?

Bloggleland seemed unsettled this a.m., so I dug this little form letter out of the archives (I cannot take credit for writing it, I'm sorry to say) and offer it for the use of any of my Bloggle friends who might feel need to further express themselves on any current issues- any at all. It's a classic of its' kind...

- - -

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

Blogger Goes Insane-

There is Evil afoot in CyberBlogLand!

So far this a.m. Blogger's spam*bot (or whatever the Hell they call it- a computer program that flags blogs as "spam blogs" and shuts them down) has tagged Doom Cake, Mental Poo, and Tongue in Check as "spam blogs", and shut off their ability to post.

Apparently Blogger's computers are running amok through Blogland. God only knows who'll they'll get next. We'll keep posting and updating everyone here for as long as we ca-

. . .

UPDATE: They've bound and gagged Phoebe Fay too. And not in a good way...

UPDATE UPDATE: They got Cissy Strutt as well. When will the madness end? Will Bloggle be able to regain control of the rogue software before it swallows all of the Blogasfear¹ whole? Now that the problem has gone international, will Condi Rice be brought in to help quell the crisis? Will Blogger bloggers ever be able to blog again? How long will MMB last before we are also cut off?

And what about Naomi?

Stay tuned.

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¹ TM. 2007 Joey Polanski.