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July 8, 2005LONDON’S BURNING
Rob: Thanks a lot Secret Organization group of al-Qaeda Organization in Europe, if that is your real name. You’ve just bought me a shitty commute on the subway for the next couple of months.
John: Mission accomplished. “Kill Westerners? Check. Inconvenience Rob? Check.” Allah be praised! All glory to Allah!
Rob: Oh, and the killing 40 people and wounding hundreds of others, that wasn’t cool either. This group is claiming responsibility for the bombs that exploded in London’s buses and subway systems Thursday morning. At this time, no one can confirm who actually is responsible for the bombings, the Secret Organization’s claims notwithstanding. How secret can your Organization be if you have a website anyway? You know, used to be in these situations you blamed the Irish. Nowadays it’s the Arabs. It’s hard to keep your religious fanatics straight. The bombings were probably timed to coincide with the G-8 meetings in Scotland, but it is a bummer that they happened so soon after the announcement that the 2012 Olympics would be held in London. So much for partying all week.
Jeff: Our organization isn't a secret and there still isn't anyone who knows about our website. Terrorist organizations have people looking for themand even they can't get any website traffic. How in the hell do you get people to read your stuff? Aside from bombing a bunch of Londoners, of course. My commute this morning sucked, too. I didn't even know what happened until I got to work. We were stuck waiting at Symphony station for around ten minutes and the trains crawled all the way after that. I don't get that one at all. If you're afraid of a bomb, wouldn't you try to get through the route as quickly as possible? And if a bomb actually went off on the T, would you even be able to tell the difference in half of the stations?
John: Let me take a moment to publicly denounce the Secret Organization group of al-Qaeda Organization in Europe for this nefarious attack. Thankfully, the G4 summit in London will continue on despite the cowardly acts of terrorism. I’m just glad Morgan Webb and Kristin Holt are all right and weren’t in London when the bombs went off. Oh, and Adam Sessler too, glad he’s okay. See, stupid terrorists, nothing will stop this all-important G4 summit. The leaders of the world will meet as planned and will discuss all the important issues in video games whether you like it or not, terrorist scum!
Bob Geldof: What the bloody hell are you talking about, mate? The world leaders in the G-8 summit – Group of 8, you wanker – are meeting to discuss environmental and poverty issues! We need 50 million dollars in aid for Africa and other impoverished nations!
John: What? No one cares about that.
Al-Qaeda Terrorist: Er, yes, we thought we were disrupting the video game summit. Our bad. PARIS GOT F’ED IN THE A
Rob: What would have been the biggest story out of England this week, if not for all the terrorism, was the announcement that the 2012 Olympics will be held in London. I was actually rooting for Paris, just to piss everyone with “Invade France” bumper stickers off. Seriously, “Invade France?” Now, what would that get us? All this France hating that’s so trendy now has made me more sympathetic to our Gallic friends, though, to be honest, the French do kind of suck. The only reason I’m even remotely interested in cycling is to root for Lance Armstrong because I know he annoys them. And all the bitching about our movies. If you don’t like them, do what I do, don’t watch them. Jerks. What was I talking about? Oh, right, that I rooting for France. Well, Paris, New York, and Moscow might have ended being the lucky ones though. Holding something as big as the Olympics sounds like a nightmare for a resident of any major city. I remember how much it sucked to have the Democratic National Convention in Boston last year, and that was a fraction of the time and people the Olympics involve. Not to mention all the terrorism. A city is better off without it.
Jeff: The Olympics suck anyway. Nobody cares about anything but gymnastics, and that's only if there's a new cute teenage girl the media can latch onto. And I really don't see what's in it for the host city. Who wants thousands of foreigners running around your streets for a month?
Hacksaw Jim Duggan: I don't need any gibberish-speaking, smelly furners around me, tough guy! Hooooo!
Jeff: Unless they go back to the original rules and have everyone compete naked, the Olympics have outlived their usefulness and should be cancelled.
John: A couple of months ago in Wired Magazine –
Homer Simpson: Ooh, the new issue of Weird! Wait a minute, this isn’t Weird. Why, there’s no magazine called Weird, is there?
John: - there was an article with the conceptual art of the facilities proposed by the cities vying for the 2012 Olympics. Moscow had a pretty cool idea of building a harbor-side Olympic Village and using water taxis to shuttle the athletes and personnel from location to location. Got the money for that crazy plan, Ivan? No? That’s why Moscow was eliminated from the running first. New York hosting the Olympics is just not a great idea logistically. It’s hard enough to move around the city during the Puerto Rican Day parade – imagine if every other nation had thousands of people cramming into the city. Ridiculous. To be fair to the French, Paris had a very cool idea to build the entire Olympic Village at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Everything would have been centralized and it would have looked really cool from the sky. But no, sorry, no Olympics or terror for the French. Sacre bleu!
YOU’RE A GRAND OLD FLAG
Rob: At my wife’s family’s Fourth of July barbecue over the weekend, I noticed the napkins had the American flag printed on them. When she went to wipe her face with one, I warned her that someday she might be committing a crime by doing that. That’s if the latest proposed Constitutional Amendment to outlaw the desecration of the American Flag passes. This amendment is basically a pretty stupid idea. It’s a lot of fuss over something that’s really not that important. The Republic has stood for 229 years so far without being severely threatened by wild-eyed flag burners. And what counts as desecrating the flag? Can you burn a picture of the flag? How about showing a picture of the flag being burned? What if you had a flag with one pink strip instead of red? Is that still an American flag? Actually, it might be fun trying to figure out what you can get away with if the amendment ever passes. Not that I approve of burning the American Flag, I just like slippery slope arguments.
Jeff: I hope everyone took the opportunity to blow up an American Flag with an M80 this July 4th. It could be your last chance. As far as slippery slope arguments go, this is one of the best. How about a guy wearing American Flag pants? If you set him on fire, do you face desecration charges in addition to attempted murder? What if the same guy shits himself? Is he committing a crime? Actually, if the Amendment leads to less flag-based clothing, I might have to support it.
John: I love America. I used to have American flag boxer shorts and nothing made my crotch feel freer. I’m ambivalent about this issue. On one hand, passing that Constitutional amendment would be a shame if it denied us of something like this:
John: But as ever, there is a flip side, and we would be spared ever seeing something like this again:
John: I say keep the Constitution the way it is but arrest Lex Luger anyway. Not that he doesn’t get regularly arrested on his own even without the flag briefs.
ABORT MISSION
Rob: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement last week. This news dismayed Democrats who bemoaned the loss of a critical moderate “swing vote” on the court. Plus, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is totally going to die in the next three years, so they’re not picking up a seat there. All this means that the battle over the next Supreme Court Justice is likely going to be pretty nasty. Left and right groups are already bitching about prospective nominees, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Liberal interests point to Gonzales’s advocacy of torture in the war against terrorism, while conservatives complain about his unwillingness to extend the use of torture to abortion doctors. While the President is vowing that there will be no abortion litmus test on potential nominees, as always, this is what many on both sides will focus on. Maybe it’s because I’m a middle class white man, but it annoys when every time there’s a turning point or a debate over the future of the country, which has many issues and problems ranging from economics to defense to civil rights, we always end up talking about whether some 17 year old kid can get an abortion like it’s the most important thing to all of the 250 million people living in this country.
Jeff: O'Connor said she'd stay on until a replacement was named. Judging by the way the last few nominees have fared, she'll be on the bench three years after she's dead. I'm with you on the abortion thing. I just can't bring myself to care very much one way or another. I suppose I'd feel a little differently if I accidentally knocked some girl up, but even then it seems like a flimsy thing to base a strong political stand upon. Now if we're talking about the FCC's authority to mandate the Broadcast Flag, you'll have my attention. Big media's control of the government is just as troubling to me as the Bible thumpers'. And it sadly affects what I do in my home far more than any abortion laws.
John: As long as I don’t have to listen to Lance Jr. complain
again about how the announcement of Sandra Day O’Connor’s
retirement interrupted his watching The Price is Right, I’ll
be a happy man. |
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