The Election Is Over But the Badmouthing & Bitching Continue

It has been a week since George W. Bush won the presidency over John Kerry. I stayed up late watching the results but my prediction of Bush running away with the election was announced many, many months ago. John Kerry, in my opinion, is just not capable of inspiring people to do anything. I thought Edwards was very affable, but Kerry managed to put me to sleep whenever he opened his mouth.

Four years ago, Bush just barely won the presidency. Gore, a competitor with Kerry for most boring human alive or dead, won the popular vote but not the necessary electoral college votes. The debacle of hanging chads and seemingly moronic Floridians cast doubt on the results and there were numerous lawsuits.

There was a pall over Bush's first four years with people like jackass, propagandist filmmaker Michael Moore and Barbara Streisand claiming that W. stole the election in 2000. Well, in 2004 the people spoke very clearly and Bush beat Kerry by 3.6 million popular and 20 something electoral college votes. The people spoke very clearly and selected a man who despite making mistakes, actually has beliefs and stands up for them. Kerry doesn't actually stand for anything that doesn't have an opinion poll attached to it. The people saw this and voted accordingly. Democrats lost important positions all over this country. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader in congress lost his seat.

So, to all of the bitter people who refuse to concede that their candidate was beaten fair and square; admit that their party has greater problems with being out of touch with the rest of the country; and that people like Michael Moore, Barbara Streisand, and Leonardo di Caprio should just shut the hell up and stay out of politics; I say:

Jon Stewart Brings Down The House

America is quite different from many other countries when it comes to the media. For many decades, the news people used to only present the news and allowed the viewer to decide for himself how he felt about it. In most other countries, that objective system remains in place and allows people to be better informed. This system has been replaced in America by media sensationalism and Jon Stewart has had enough.

With the presidential election being only a couple of weeks away, naturally the media talks about the candidates incessantly. Politics is the word of the day. Each candidate speaking to groups of people of what they will do to improve America's future and fix the problems that currently affect the people. CNN, a cable news channel that broadcasts 24 hours a day, doesn't just broadcast news.

One of its most popular shows is a debate program called Crossfire. On this program, the right and left "debate" back and forth the issues in politics. They analyze and spin whatever gaffes their respective candidates and parties make. The right is represented by Bob Novak and Tucker Carlson while the left is represented by Paul Begala and James Carville. They have a variety of guests on where they can "debate" with them.

I watch this program almost every single day because it's a political version of Jerry Springer. Nothing is ever debated on this show. The hosts argue and yell at one another, talk over their guests, bushwhack their guests, talk about the least important issues possible, make outrageous claims, and most importantly, they never resolved anything on their show.

Jon Stewart, the anchor of the Comedy Central broadcast news spoof the Daily Show, appeared on the program this past Friday. Jon Stewart and his program are quite successful having just won an Emmy and currently have the #1 selling book on the New York Times Best Seller List. He has been a critic of CNN and Crossfire in the past but no one could have expected what would happen on the program.

Stewart was introduced as being either the funniest smart man or the smartest funny man on television. They thought he would come out, plug his book, crack a few jokes, and be the funny man. Instead, they found someone who used the opportunity to be honest about the sad state the media was in. As the 14 minute segment dragged on, it only got worse. It was both beautiful and painful to watch.

A picture of when things were still civil
Stewart started off by asking if they could all just get along. He pointed out that the people of CNN could do so much for the people of this country by calling politicians on their bullshit and really informing the people. Instead, what they actually provide is political theatre. Stewart felt that the media was in fact "hurting America."

The hosts wouldn't actually answer any of Stewart's questions or respond to his challenges. They accused him of being soft on his political guests(Kerry actually appeared on The Daily Show) and that there wasn't a difference between the two programs. Stewart pointed out that his program is in fact on Comedy Central and the program that leads into his is puppets making crank phone calls.

Most of the dialog was between Carslon and Stewart. Carlson was practically pleading with Stewart to be funny. Stewart responded with, "I'm not your monkey." Then Carslon put up a graphic of the questions that Stewart asked Kerry on his show. Why did Carlson have a graphic of this? Was he going to in fact bushwhack Stewart on Crossfire even if things had gone according to plan?

A glimpse of when things turned ugly
Things got so heated that at one point Stewart actually called Carlson a dick. The hosts of Crossfire were totally out of their element with this wise guest. When they tried to counter his questions and statements with their own, Carlson asked about the dildo incident involving Bill O'Reilly. Stewart looked really sad when they did this because they were only proving his point about the sad state of the media in this country.

Recently, there were three presidential debates and a single vice presidential debate. All of them were mindnumbingly boring because all of the candidates with the exception of John Edwards have the charisma of a rotting corpse. Kerry is funny looking, stuffy, longwinded, and just sucks the energy out of a room. Bush is incapable of speaking publicly without giving the impression that he has had some sort of head injury.

In the most recent debate, the candidates pretty much answered the same questions with the same answers. Nothing new happened until the moderator asked this one question: "Do you think that homosexuality is a choice?"

Bush answered by saying that he just didn't know. However, he felt that people shouldn't be discriminated against. Kerry responded by saying that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian and that she would not say it was a choice. All three people grading the debate for CNN, Novak, Begala, and comedienne Jessi Klein from Comedy Central felt that Kerry shouldn't have done that. They each commented on their blogs right as this happened. Kerry's comment is what the media decided to focus on.

In the days after the debate, the Cheneys expressed their outrage that their daughter was singled out by Kerry. Their offense was challenged to be shame by John Edwards' wife. The media couldn't stop talking about it. It was on Crossfire, Hardball, Scarborough, and all the other shows.

This unnecessary but ultimately insignificant comment was taking precedence on the news stations over more pressing issues such as: the war, the economy, the rising costs of healthcare, the deficit, etc.

This is exactly what Jon Stewart was talking about. Rather than talk about the news, the media in the U.S. focuses on something insignificant and sensationalizes it. Mary Cheney's sexual preference is important to no one. The fact that the presidential election is about two weeks from now and the media chose to focus on this is rather disheartening. Stewart chose their forum to bring about change and we can only hope that it comes soon enough. Stewart 2008 does have a nice ring to it.

Britney's Mom Is As Insane As Her Daughter

I was reading the Drudge Report when I saw this article about Britney Spears' mother not being happy with the media's image of her daughter as being trashy. A mother's love for her child is known to be unconditional. However, her comments revealed that this stage mom is quite delusional.

Lynne mentions on Britney's website that she has come across numerous photos of her daughter portraying her as trashy. She says that Britney is not going to give into pressures of dressing in more favorable ways to please the paparazzi. Could the reason that the media as well as the world thinks of the fashionably challenged Britney as being trashy is because she is?

The delicate butterfly that is Britney Spears
Britney has seemingly jumped on the same controversy bandwagon that Madonna as well as other celebrities have been riding for decades. Andrew Loog Oldham, the manager of the Rolling Stones on their ascent to stardom, once said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. However, none of the Rolling Stones ever mock masturbated while sitting in a large champagne glass for a mostly teen aged audience.

Britney has seemingly gone out of her way to show that she is no longer a girl, but a seriously confused woman. Her record sales, while still successful, are nowhere near what they were just a few years ago. Her onstage tongue kissing with Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards caused controversy but didn't really boost record sales or sell out venues on her tour.

Britney made headlines by marrying her childhood sweetheart for a whopping 55 hours before having the marriage annulled. Months later she was engaged to one of her backup dancers and they announced their wedding plans as his ex-wife was about to deliver their second child. Definitely a classy catch for Miss Spears.

Britney's mother being mad at the media for them portraying her daughter as trashy is quite laughable. After all, Britney has done all of the work for them. One can only wonder what will happen next.

Hurricane Fever

Florida has taken a real battering over the past few weeks. No, it had nothing to do with the upcoming election or the infamous one of hanging chads or stolen elections, but with Mother Nature's tropical fury - hurricanes. The latest, Hurricane Ivan, is apparently going to travel up the western coast of the state.

The reign of terror began about 3 weeks ago with Hurricane Charley. It was expected to travel up the western coast of the Sunshine State and level Tampa. What Charley did was smash up much of the southwestern portion of the state, in locales like Port Charlotte and Fort Myers, then avoided Tampa altogether and attempted to level Orlando. There were many people in Orlando who had fled Tampa only to watch it uproot trees and taunt them from their hotel windows. These people included the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Many people were without power for over a week.

Soon after, Florida was rocked by Hurricane Frances. This demure sounding hurricane was to rock the Miami-Dade Broward area but hit farther north in Martin County. Charley weakened in Florida and traveled up to the coast and caused severe flooding in the Carolinas. People who were riding the tempest out in their storm shuttered homes started to go stir crazy after waiting for what could have been their pending doom. They couldn't even take their shutters down as yet another powerful hurricane was waiting in the tropics, Ivan.

Ivan has so far destroyed 90% of the homes in Grenada and is on record as the sixth most powerful hurricane of all time. It is currently over Cuba and is expected to hit the west coast of Florida and travel into the Gulf of Mexico. The people are tired of having to deal with gas stations out of fuel and super markets that are out of things like water, batteries, and other groceries.

Florida is said to have been fortunate for a few decades with weather patterns that would ultimately blow most hurricanes away from the state. Scientists have said that changing weather patterns and currents have now made the "Sunshine State" a hurricane magnet. With these high powered winds and the destruction that they and their tornadoes cause, one can only wonder if this is soon to be paradise lost.

From One Spectacle to Another

Now that the Olympics have come to an end, it is time for the Republican National Convention to assemble in New York City. Yesterday, there were hundreds of thousands of protesters marching in front of Madison Square Garden with all their banners, chants, and mostly moronic ideas - all in the name of free speech.

It is a wonderful right to be able to peacefully assemble and say what you want to say. However, when those ideas are so outlandishly ridiculous, will you truly garner any support? Let's take a closer look at some of the marchers' beliefs:

1. Signs saying that the current president is the number one recruiter for Al Qaeda.

What kind of silliness is this? Al Qaeda, just like any other anti-American group will recruit as many and as hard as it can until it either achieves its goal or is eradicated from the planet. Reason and dialog will never change the fact that American values and customs are not acceptable to them and never will be.

2. Reclaim Democracy.

Democracy was never lost - it is what got Bush in office. People seem to forget that Clinton and his administration were widely loathed for the assorted improprieties and scandals that they were involved in. Gore, while highly experienced as a politician as a senator and as a vice president, is still one of the dullest people on the face of the planet. He has the charisma and charm of a corpse. Not to mention he invented the Internet. Thanks, Al.

3. No Blood For Oil

It is a terrible tragedy when a soldier dies for his country. It is made even sadder when that soldier dies in a far off land for a people that don't want him there to begin with. As the old poem goes, his is not to reason why, his is but to do and die. While this is not The Charge of the Light Brigade, it is an all too real experience that is fueling much protest and anger in the American people. Sons are coming home in body bags and in pieces and for what?

The answer, many claim, is oil. Iraq and Afghanistan have large oil deposits and the US wants a cut of the action. People act like this in and of itself is a bad thing, however, it is not. Firstly, America is heavily dependent on oil. More people own cars in this country and drive more than anywhere else in the world. Gas prices are incredibly high right now and people are complaining. Secondly, the cost of this war is also quite high and to help repay the war debt there are only so many options - tax us or hustle the Iraqis and Afghanis.

When you have an administration with so many members who were previously involved in the oil industry, it only makes sense that they would hustle the Middle Easterners. It's a win-win situation for the Americans as an oil partnership would lower the prices of gas in the US and the savings can be used to pay the war debt. I really find it hard to believe that these protesters' Gulf War morals will cause them to want to pay more at the pump.

4. National _______ for Peace, Peace Peace Peace, Peace_________ with a side of Peace

Man, with the exception of the Swiss, is a warlike animal. From the very beginning of time, it has always been about getting either what you need or want by any means necessary. There is indeed a time to talk and a time to fight. These people don't see things that way at all and this is sad. History has shown that people who only choose peace as the solution ultimately lose until they change their minds. For a reference, look up Neville Chamberlain.

The RNC is about to begin and there is no telling what will happen. People who actually attend rallies and protests tend to get unhinged and teargassed. With the Democrats already saying that they will not sit idly by, a good show is guaranteed for all.

The Musical Messiah Returns

When you think of the truly great singers, one name rises above the rest. Pavarotti? Bono? Bennett? Nay, dear friends. These people are no talent hacks when compared to Him. Who is this person you ask? The man, the voice if you will, William Shatner.

Shatner, whose distinctive phrasing has already made him a musical legend, has decided to grace us with a new album. His musical collaborator this time around is none other than Ben Folds of Ben Folds Five fame. Joe Jackson sings all the truly rockish parts of the songs.

Here is a link to Shatner's rendition of the Pulp classic Common People. Shatner truly makes it his own. You must stretch and truly focus your chi before listening or you may die. You have been warned.

Happy Canada Day!


The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

137 years and counting.