Top 5 Pieces of Documented Evidence That Prove How Raptor Ended This Blog, His Life, and Very Nearly All of Human Existence

McBane here, for one final time. (Though I very nearly wasn't. Same goes for you.)

A truly catastrophic turn of events has led this blog to a demise that, while not unexpected, was nonetheless notable for circumstances that were both shocking in emphasis and horrifying in brutality.

Allow me to explain. Raptor, in all his hubris, got in yet another argument with me, this time over whether or not it was okay to divide by zero. After warning him numerous times not to attempt such a dangerous task, he tried to hammer out a computer program for it on his PC as I went to the corner store for a slurpee.

As you can see, he did make the attempt, and the viciously abrupt riptide in reality sucked me off my feet and toward the back of the store toward Raptor's house (though I have to say...I kind of expected it might be coming).

5)



If you were within a 30 mile radius, you probably expected something similar. The effects did not stop there, unfortunately; they resonated deep all the way through the dark and unholy bowels of the Earth into the south Indian Ocean. My proof? On the opposite side of the globe from Raptor’s house, Heard Island reported a strange, isolated blast of seismic activity and a sudden, terrifying tidal shift in one of their inland lakes.

4)



Luckily, Raptor’s computer melted down before any real significant damage could do a full spinebreaker on our collective sanity.

3)



(The insignificant damage, incidentially, including Raptor’s life, that of his roommates, and his house, as seen below; I of course made a t-shirt out of it, and I feel compelled to note that you can go through our online store for a $15.99 one-size-fits-all machine-washable garment.)

2)



So let me end with a final warning to all of you: dividing by zero is bad news. This is what happens when your brain divides by zero...

1)



...and God only knows how dangerous it can get if you allow a powerful computer to do it.

Worst of all, gentle reader, is that it can destroy a blog that was 50% awesome 100% of the time. (The 50% I did, of course.)

The humanity...

Top 5 College Coaches

Raptor here neglecting his duties.

Today’s task: deciding who amongst all the rabble is the best of the best in getting there teams to ready to play on Saturday. College coaching requires a lot of different skills. You’ve got to be a good recruiter, be a father figure, be a motivator, be a strategery artist, and probably most of all you gotta know how to do all of that and appease the alumni.

How do you rank something that had so many intangibles? You could come up with some sort of advanced metric system. You could add up the wins and losses of the past five years. Or you could just shut the hell up and accept this list as the fact it is. It’s science.

5. Nick Saban
Saban would totally be higher if he wasn’t such a dick. He’s won national championships, is a great recruiter, and always has his teams ready to play. Unfortunately, he’s a fucking liar who won’t be around for the hard times. He’s the coaching equivalent of the hot bad boy every girl wants to change. Sure he may show you some new moves in the sack, but he’s gonna leave you for the next hot thing that comes along. And he gave you herpes.


4. Urban Meyer

That being said. There’s nothing wrong with trading up. We all want to move up in life and probably would take more money to go elsewhere if it’s offered to us. Just be up front about it. Urban Meyer is a pretty bad ass coach, I have to say. It takes a lot for me to say that because I hate the SEC with a passion. Football fan Prima donnas.

But his teams are super competitive each year. He hounds recruits into submission with his text messaging. I really have nothing bad to say about the man except he looks like he’s squinting all the fucking time. This coming from a half Asian.

3. Jim Tressel

Yea I know the Sweater Vest has lost the past 2 title games. But it takes a lot to get to those title games. And it’s not like he hasn’t gotten a team to win the champeenship. Sure he’s an ardent conservative in this increasingly liberal football world. But he keeps on chugging away like the goddamn little engine that could, chipping away at the field 3.333 (repeating of course) yards at a time. And you know what? That’ll get you where you want to go more often than not.

2. Mack Brown

Is there a level of bias that got Mack Brown to this spot? Absolutely. Will I back down from my stance? Not even if the devil had a hold of my balls. Since Getting to Austin He’s brought us handfuls of great recruiting classes, found the diamond in the rough that was Colt McCoy, and has never had less than 9 wins in a season. That’s quite an accomplishment in a rough and tumble conference like the big 12. He’s the model of consistency. To top it all off he has perhaps the most calming voice ever. If ever a family tragedy occurred, I’d want him to break the news to me. I could hear it now:

“Raptor, son, I’ve got some bad news. You’re entire family was killed in a horrible car accident involving a yugo and a gasoline truck. Times might seem rough now, but it’s our job to work through this. Come early, Be loud, Wear Orange.”

sniff

1. Mike Leach

He might not have the championship pedigree the other coaches on the list have, but Mike Leach is all sorts of awesome. To wit:

• He’s started Mike’s Pirate school.
• He’s mocked the fake army of A&M (finally a coach who had the balls to).
• He’s awesomely weird and completely unflappable.
• He’s breathed life into a football program no one outside of Lubbock knew existed til he got there.
• He’s an incredible offensive innovator. For a long time people thought that his offense was nothing but trickery and scheming. But the years have rolled by and no ones really been able to stop it. In fact the opposite is happening. Everyone else is slowly but surely adopting his offense little bits at a time.
• Most of all he wins with what he’s got. He might not have the resources of the UTs or Floridas of the world, but he’s come up with a game plan that maximizes his chances of winning. To many coaches coach not to lose. Mike coaches to win.
  

How good is he? As an OC for Kentucky, he made Tim Couch into a#1 pick. That my friends is a monument in coaching.

Top 5 Dark Horses to Cheer For...in World Cup Qualifying

Once the 2008 elections are over, we can get back to what is usually the most important thing in the world at this time: World Cup qualifying, in all it’s complicated splendor and glory.

Now, pulling for the U.S. in CONCACAF; you’ve got that down, I’m sure. But who should you cheer for in the other regions? Let’s stay away from the obvious guys: you need dark horses (no one likes a front-runner. Oh, and you’re allowed to cheer for two teams from UEFA, since they get 13 spots.)

5) UEFA (Europe) - Israel

Israel generally annoys me. This is a sensitive subject though, so I should preface it: the Jews survived the Holocaust, America stepped in, and we liberated them and gave them a state. Fantastic. Well-deserved. One of the finest moments in our history or theirs.

But we gave in and gave them a state right where the worst possible place to put it is. If we had given them a state in north Africa, and then they wanted to go back in and take Jerusalem that would be their problem; not ours. Yet, our problems and theirs are instead often inexorably linked. Now, we pump aid into Israel like it’s going out of style. They’re consistently the largest recipient of U.S. aid, and they necessitate the need for the U.S. to give tons of aid to countries like Egypt (that’s right; you can bet your bottom dollar if we didn’t send aid to Israel, we wouldn’t need to send any to pacify any other Middle Eastern countries.

So Israel is expensive. Also, this whole allied-forever thing with Israel is a bit burdensome. Do we really have to back Israel up if they decide to nuke Iran? Do we have to get in a war when they do? I mean, let’s get one thing clear, folks. Israel does pretty well for itself financially. Their military and intelligence agencies are truly frightening. They’ve pretty much destroyed and crushed the entire Palestinian population. If Israel wanted to wipe the rest of the Middle East off the map, there is no doubt in my mind they could do it. Yet the Middle East sees us as in bed with Israel on a lot of stuff, and that‘s kind of a bummer. Makes our lives harder, that’s for sure.

But I cheer for their soccer team for pure entertainment value. Because of regional animosity, they play in UEFA instead of the AFC. Gentle reader, if you think an Iran-U.S. soccer matchup was testy, just wait until you catch Israel-Iran at the World Cup. Or Israel-Egypt. Or Israel-Saudi Arabia.

I’m excited already.

4) CONMEBOL (South America) - Uruguay

Brazil, Italy, Germany, Argentina, France, England and…Uruguay. What do all these world powers have in common? They’re the only seven teams to have ever won a world cup. (“Only seven?” you may be asking. “Seriously? Ever?” Yup. Only seven.)

When you see Uruguay play, you think one thing: jerks. But if you were to think something else, you might think: pride. This isn’t a side that’s just happy to be there, folks. It’s a proud nation of tough footballers who are haunted by a burden of history that they can no longer realistically hope to carry.

So at first glance, it may seem like Uruguay is a dirty team. But the truth is, they play at near-maximum levels of frustration and desperation, all wrapped in a thick underdog tribalism; if the U.S. had a world cup of the major cities, Uruguay would be the equivalent to Philadelphia, I suppose. They were once on top of the world, and they know the world has caught up and surpassed them, and they‘ll never be more than just another place on the map. But they’ll always know that Uruguay used to be something more, if maybe because they just won’t let themselves forget:

Two-time world champions. (That’s the actual “world,” as opposed to U.S. “world” champions of our domestic sports.)

3) AFC (Asia) - Uzbekistan

The Uzbekis are a pretty shady group of people, but then again the “Stans” have historically been underrepresented in the World Cup, and Uzbekistan is the only one left.

Why Uzbekistan? Well, there’s not a lot of dark horses in this region, and North Korea and Iran are hard to get behind. And who gives a shit about Qatar? I’ll admit, the only things I know about Uzbekistan came from the (largely) uninformative report of a girl I went to grad school with; she was tall, blonde, dumber than a bag of hammers, read the Drudge Report like it was the Bible, thought Eddie Sutton was a great human, had the most amazing skeletal structure I’ve ever seen, and was unfailingly polite on the rare occasions she was forced to interact with me. (I don’t think I‘ve ever held such a nice person in contempt before or since.)

Anyway, she thought Uzbekistan was the land of the scumbags, so I figure they can’t be all bad.

Let’s move on.

2) CAF (Africa) - Rwanda / Sudan (tie)

Africa has some pretty neat countries. Ghana’s squad is called “The Black Stars,” and has a bunch of physical, intimidating players on their team, none of which are Fred Williamson.


No, you tell "The Hammer" that 60% of Playgirl readers are gay.

(The players are not movie stars; they’re called this because their star has a black flag.) The Ivory Coast has the best name of any country ever (named not for beautiful, glistening beaches, but for beautiful, glistening dead elephant tusks). Cameroon’s unis all come from David Bowie’s closet and could potentially give seizures to an epileptic. Senegal once had a player called Papa Bouba Diop. (Pronounced Papa Booba-dop.) All very cool.


You do not need to adjust your monitors to view Cameroon's uniforms properly. However, you may need to bite down on a wooden spoon when they congregate.

But both Rwanda and the Sudan have legacies of horrible genocide in which the U.S. has refused to intervene; the least we can do is cheer for their soccer teams. (Pick whichever country you thought had the most horrific atrocities.)

1) UEFA (Europe) - France

France? A dark horse? Qua? They won in ‘98, and were runner-up in 2006, you may say. Well, obviously you’re forgetting the French motto, liberté, égalité, fraternité, which translated means “capitulate at the first sign of adversity.” Yes, France is already way behind in their qualifying group, and has some serious catching-up to do.

Not surprising, since France is full of wankers (or so the Brits tell me). I, like the British, hate the French. They‘re insufferably arrogant, they’re hypocrites in all facets of their lives, they live on style instead of substance, and they think they’re the best at everything.

We Americans, by contrast, are insufferably arrogant, we’re hypocrites in all facets of our lives, we live on style instead of substance, and we generally are the best at everything (except soccer).

Basically, France is like our bratty kid sister, but with huge fucking stones.

I hate the French.

But goddammit, I respect them.

Wankers.

Top 5 Thoughts After the Third Presidential Debate

McBane here. It's Raptor's birthday. As I'm sure you know, Raptor, hobbits give presents to other people on their birthdays. I think it's the right thing to do in this situation. Ironically, today will also be Raptor's death day (don't complain; I think all he really wants for his birthday is death).

Anyway, after watching Always Sunny, Taxi to the Dark Side, and the presidential debate all in a row, I have suddenly become clairvoyant: the key to happiness is firing up the DVR and watching lots of good tv after work.

Some thoughts on the debate:

5) This is a just-for-me thing, but I loved Senator Obama's response on Colombia. "Actually, I understand it pretty well." (He does; illegal drugs and Colombia were responsible for roughly 70% of my study in grad school.)

Obama's obviously not dumb. As a matter of fact, he's obviously the smartest guy amongst the two presidential contendors. It's funny how McCain said Obama needs to stop running again Bush; it's almost as if at times McCain thinks it's 2000 and he's running against Bush again.

The only better response would have been, "who gives a flying fuck about free trade pacts with Colombia?"

4) Same chill pill needs to be taken as regards DC school vouchers, Senator McCain. We're in the worst financial crisis in 80 years, sir. Joe the Plumber and his cousins Joe Six-Pack and Jane Winebox want to know about the economy, so please tone down the sarcasm and the know-it-all attitude, especially for things that are NOT worth it. (Why keep bringing up Bill Ayers, too, if you keep saying you don't care about this old washed-up terrorist? "I'm not here to attack anyone, but Senator Obama is a subversive son of a bitch. Now please, let's move on. Really, no attacks. They're offensive to me. And yes, I think it's fine for my supporters to threaten to kill Obama.")

3) Could McCain have given a worse answer to the Roe v. Wade question? It's a commendable position (I guess), but damn, talk about a way to let all the air our of the evangelical balloon.

2) The only time I have ever, ever seen Obama look thrown off-kilter: when McCain bizarrely tried to attack Biden's foreign policy credentials. (Obama: Smile and nod, smile and nod, and uh...wait, what the hell?)

1) I may start watching network news again if Bob Schieffer acts like this more often. Bob, don't retire.

Top 5 Senate Attack Ads (Historical)

McBane here. Ready for a negative carpet-bombing attack by the RNC and other groups against Senator Obama? You should be. Why? Because he’s winning. And they work.

The senate is probably the closest thing to a presidential race that you can find in scope and substance, and I enjoy the senate races and like to draw attention to them. But it still gets goofy in there. Let’s take a look at the five most ridiculous, historically, to let us know what kind of thing we might run into in the next three weeks.

5) Schaffer-Udall (2008)

The lesson - peace is stupid and possibly evil. (Thank goodness we don’t know anything about peacekeeping in Iraq; how else would we spend our money?) The other lesson - never vote for a different version of a bill if there is any military funding in the original bill. Basically just vote for every bill and you’ll be safe.

In any event, Republican Bob Schaffer and Democrat Mark Udall are running for an open seat in Colorado. Should be interesting.

4) Chambliss-Cleland (2002)

Chickenhawk Republican Saxby Chambliss used one vote that Democrat Max Cleland, Vietnam vet (and triple amputee) made against a version of a Homeland Security proposal and turned it into a big scare-the-shit-out-of-you ad with bin Laden and assaults on Cleland’s patriotism. This plays well in the South, and Chambliss won.

3) Gantt-Helms (1990)

CNN analyst and attack ad ace Alex Castellanos, master of the subliminal (if not the sublime) image, preyed on affirmative action fears to give the notorious old racist Republican Jesse Helms the edge in a re-election campaign against Democrat Harvey Gantt.

Quotas, obviously, are illegal. Say what you want about affirmative action, but I think in practice, it’s little more than lip service. But again, running against race in the south wins. What can you say?

2) Coleman-Franken (2008)

I have a strong personal preference in this one; I was big on the late Democrat Paul Wellstone, and I thought the manner in which Republicans tried to spin his memorial service into an inappropriate political rally was about as low as you can go. I also think current Republican senator Norm Coleman is an opportunist and has nothing but his self-interest in mind. I do think the Democratic nominee Al Franken is funny, but I also think as a former satirist and lefty radio host he might be a polarizing figure for the party. (Satire is ripe ground for attacks, since many people “don’t get it.“ Plus, whenever I see a polarizing political figure, I remember a conservative acquaintance of mine informing me after 2004 that the Democratic party was dead for ever. The implied lesson I‘ve learned, of course, is obvious: there will also be elections after 2008. Dems need to watch out.)

Minnesota. What can you say? Even their third-party candidates are ridiculous. (I especially loved how when Jesse Ventura ran for governor, he wanted to cut all financial aid for colleges, despite having a huge groundswell of support from college students. I guess he inadvertently proved his own point that college is a waste of government money.)

In any event this ad is obviously mean and for simpletons. But I guess that’s the Coleman way.

1) Corker-Ford (2006)

In a surprisingly closely contested election in Tennessee to fill Bill Frist’s empty seat, Democrat Harold Ford Jr., a young black bachelor (since married), had drawn even with Republican Bob Corker in the polls before the RNC started going negative. This ad caused quite a stir not just in Tennessee, but nationally.

Addressing some of the charges: Ford attended a Super Bowl party (along with 3,000 other people), which was the referred-to party hosted by Playboy. (Referred to by the squeaky-voiced white sex kitten/woman with bared shoulders.) By the way, I’ve never been able to find a copy of the article posted in the commercial; if you do, please let me know, I‘d love to read it. (Also, I’m assuming some dude who held a stake in some porn company probably donated something to his campaign, as far as that charge goes.)

In any event, I don’t know what this ad could possibly be suggesting, except that Ford was a young sex-crazed black dude with a taste for white women. A tough message to battle for Ford, who was looking to be the first black senator from the south since Reconstruction. Corker saw his poll numbers shoot up and he won the senate seat in an otherwise down year for Republicans.

The lesson, apparently: go mean or go home.

Top 5 Reasons Tony Gonzalez Should Have Been Traded

Raptor here, hating on Carl Peterson.

When I was but a wee raptorling, my dad was stationed in Ft Leavenworth, KS. Between blissful jaunts to the banks of the Missouri river and soccer practice, a funny thing happened. I started to like sports.

How’d this happen? Strangely enough because a MP stopped me one day as I was playing tag in the cul-de-sac. Instead of getting into trouble for playing in the street he handed us some Kansas City Chiefs Cards. It had QB Stephen DeBerg on it. My friend got a card with some loser named Neil Smith. None of these names really meant anything to me at the time, but the cards appealed to the pack rat part of me. I started researching what this football thing was. It took a little while, because the rules and frequent breaks made for uneven watching as an 8 year old, but eventually I was hooked. I began pestering MPs for more of these Chiefs cards eventually coming 1 card short of completing the set (My friend would never trade me his Neil Smith card). The football cards eventually got me down the path of baseball cards, which then got me into lovin the Royals.

Military brats move frequently, but there allegiances don’t. I carried my newly acquired love for the Chiefs and to a lesser extent the Royals with me wherever I went. The early 90’s were a great time to be a KC sports fan. The Royals were still competitive and the Chiefs behind the brain trust of Marty Schottenheimer and Carl Peterson kept winning and moving tantalizingly closer to ultimate playoff glory. Because they were good it was relatively easy to find games on the weekends and to keep tabs on them no matter where we moved. Sadly, this wouldn’t last forever.

The Royal’s never really recovered from losing Bo Jackson and were bought by an owner who cared more about the bottom line then winning. They started sliding further and further down the standings each year, and further and further back into the sports page. The Chiefs fared a little better. They remained competitive through out the 90’s, with DT and some killer defenses and their varied array of quarterbacks. But after one too many playoff flops, the eternally snake bitten Schottenheimer was fired. Then came the bleakest moment in my Chief fan existence, the death of Derrick Thomas.

Time and Teams go on. My hopes were buoyed by a high octane offense installed by the innovator of the fastest show on turf, Dick Vermeil. We made up for a lack of a great wide out by having perhaps the most dynamic tight end in the game, Tony Gonzalez. He’s been one of my favorite players to watch in the post-DT era. He always showed up on game day and always gave it his all doing whatever he could to help the team. He’s done it for 12 seasons now.

But everybody has there breaking point. After 12 seasons he’s starting to feel the clock ticking. He’s still an elite if not the elite TE in the game, but his time is running out. KC is mired in a rebuilding year, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. So 3 weeks ago he secretly asked for a trade.

The trade deadline has come and gone, and Gonzo is still with the team. Which is somewhat bittersweet for me as a fan. He should be out there catching passes from Eli or McNabb this weekend, not hoping for Herm to call his number.


5. Because the Chiefs are rebuilding

The Herm Edwards Era has been nothing short of horrendous. He took a high flying fast offense, and slowed it down to a grind it out, leading to the breakdown of its most talented players. He broke down one promising and still young running back by rushing him 416 times during a season. He’s forced the Chiefs to go into what seems like a never ending rebuilding stage. The team won’t be competitive for some time now. We lack a solid line and a quarterback (please don’t make me hope for John Kitna). And somewhere lost in the midst of all this is our spectacular TE, Tony Gonzalez.

4. Because he’s not being utilized properly

Herm couldn’t come up with a passing scheme to save his life, and even if he could there is no one on the roster who could pull it off anyways. I’m completely convinced he would run Larry Johnson every down if he could get away with it.

Tony needs someone to chuck him the ball. He’s mostly wasted as a runblocker.

3. Because his trade value is only going down

Yea so the Giants lowballed you with the offer of a third round pick. What did you think you were going to get? I know the Giants got a second and a fifth for Shockey, but he’s young, overrated, and they were dealing with the Saints a franchise not exactly known for there smarts. TG’s getting up there in age. You’re not going to get the same value for him. Besides, Peterson you do seem to have a fairly good grasp of garnering good value on your draft picks (Alabama QBs aside).

2. Because Herm Edwards dicked him and the fans of Kansas City

In this year’s win against Denver, KC was up big on the Broncos and for the majority for the final quarter just tried to run out the time with running plays. Again lost in the Herm shuffle, Gonzo was 3 yards short of the Career record for receiving yards by a TE in the Denver game. Post game interviews had Edwards saying he was unaware of this fact (which might not be too shocking with how unaware he is about most things). All he needed was a quick 1 yard out and to fall forward and the KC stat-keepers would have given him the record in front of his home crowd.

Isn’t that how you want to break a record? At home, in front of your fans and family, in a win against your hated (Fuck the Broncos!) rival?

Instead he had to break the record on the road in a blow out loss to the Panthers depriving him and the fans there moment to celebrate together. *


1. Because it was the right thing to do

Look there’s a lot of a-holes in sports demanding trades. Chad Johnson does it every year. He’s a d-bag prima donna. Tony isn’t. He didn’t’ go to the media with this request he did it behind closed doors. He’s not going to sit around and pout because this trade didn’t happen. He’s still going to go out there and give it his all.

He knows he’s a big part of Chief lore. He broke records here. He had a great run here. He wants to come back and retire a Chief. He just needs to go make a last grab at a ring.

Carl should have given the chance.

*To those who argue that the chiefs needed to run out the clock I say: Don’t be afraid of losing the ball. The man’s lost only one fumble in the past 7 years. He’s got some of the strongest hands in the league. Sack up and give the fans what they want.

Top 5 Movies That Help Explain Who the Most Compelling Movie Character of All Time Is

McBane here, stretching the format of the top five list well beyond the breaking point…

Religion is fascinating to me. I grew up Catholic, and as any Catholic will tell you, for you to be accepted by the church, Catholicism is not a trait that helps comprise your character so much as the central underpinning to your identity. (You can also watch the movie

5) Dogma

if you need help understanding this).

Anyway, growing up Catholic made me wonder: what were other religions like? Are all Judeo-Christian philosophies generally the same? How different is Islam, really? And how do we in the West even begin make sense of Eastern religions?

I’ve pored long hours of inquiry and study into this, and frankly, these answers could take all day. But probably the most useful thing I have learned is that there is only one long-time, established religion in the world no one has gone to war in the name of: Buddhism.

Though you may think you don’t know much about it, Buddhism has appeal to virtually us as Americans. Remember

4) Star Wars

and all that Jedi stuff? Essentially Jedi precepts are just a sci-fi reinterpretation of Buddhism according to Lucas. Simply put, Buddhist principles teach that the only way to achieve nirvana (inner bliss) is to renounce all human desires (which lead to attachment, loss and suffering), in order to reach an enlightened life that understands that we are all simply components of one larger reality. As a practical matter, this implies that the greatest satisfaction in life is to sort of be a warden of peace.

However, Lucas and his western predilection toward individualism seemed to suggest a possibility that Buddhism never took into account, which is this: when he invented the Sith, Lucas laid the groundwork for an individual enlightened by pure evil.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, Lucas wasn’t a savvy enough storyteller to see the possibility he had created. His Sith, despite all the window dressing, were really nothing more than tormented, greedy souls who simply lusted after power. To me, this always seemed like a philosophically wimpy approach. These are characters who are supposed to be able to mentally battle the selfless Jedi? Anakin Skywalker is the most powerful dude in the universe, but yet he somehow descended into the depths of philosophically bottomless evil through a simple series of playschool-variety temper tantrums?

This bogus character construction sort of makes the movies seem more ridiculous than they already are, and the unenlightened approach of the Sith meant that it was obvious that they would always self-destruct eventually, despite having a bazillion midi-chlorians or whatever bullshit was supposed to give them their power.

Frankly, a Sith, at the end of the day, is not a very compelling villain.

Consider, conversely, the scene from

3) The Matrix Reloaded

when The Architect is talking to Neo, who as it turns out is the villain (or at least he is to the machines and to the 99.9% of humanity willing to live in the matrix). The Architect explains to the stoic Mr. Anderson that, unchecked, even the most unlikely result from the most minor variable can (and will) lead to chaos over a long enough time horizon if it is not accounted for, which of course was also the point of

2) Jurassic Park

and (I think) the crappy sequels.

How does this have anything to do with reality? Well the way I see it, folks, with the rise of globalization and human interconnectivity (along with the scientific creation of weapons of mass destruction), it is increasingly easier than ever before for one bad apple to cause an extinction-level event for the human race.

The question is, though, who would that exploding needle in the gasoline haystack be? Who would be best equipped to pull off an extinction-level event?

The answer lies in

1) The Dark Knight

and Heath Ledger’s sociopathic Joker.

Here’s the thing about sociopaths; they’re hard to figure. Movies tend to paint them into a corner as being intrinsically evil and fiendish plotters and all this shit. But being a sociopath doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. It just means you don’t have typical human feelings. However, many (most) sociopaths function in society; they don’t all become serial killers or whatnot. They are doctors and lawyers and nuns and hookers and rocket scientists and garbage men and maybe even your next-door-neighbors. (And Raptor.)

However, what makes the Joker so terrifying is that he is an enlightened sociopath who, for whatever reason (it doesn‘t matter - once you reach enlightenment, your past is no longer intrinsic to your being) is able to find joy in a few perverse things. (And I know, the idea of an enlightened sociopath is so shocking as to seem alien, but I mean odds are, there has to be one or two of them out there, right?)

The Joker never questions his desires in this movie, never has any self-doubt regarding them; he completely at peace with them, and himself. There are only a few things that affect him emotionally; sadism, for example, simply makes him happy. Chaos makes him happy as well.

And that’s about it for touchy-feely.

Now, his enlightenment (as a sociopath) basically means that unlike Buddhists, he is only capable of reaching nirvana through these few things that he can achieve true feelings for…and he has found that he has no reason not to continue to enjoy them.

What makes him even more frightening is that not only does he desire wanton chaos, he is incredibly smart and he takes joy in being a force multiplier when it comes to his destructive worldview. This, in combination with his other factors, is what makes him unlike any other villain; if you don’t fight him, you’ll lose, but fighting him will also make you lose as well. You can’t fight him and not get dirty.

In part, there is no way to dissuade him other than killing him; like an evil doppelganger to a Buddhist monk, he has no obvious character flaws that can be exploited, and the purity of his desires (notice how he burns the money he earns) gives him a kind of integrity and relentlessness that is impossible to overpower. In fact, he is so impervious to threats that he even looks forward to experiencing death, as evidenced several times throughout the movie; yet we also learn that he doesn’t have a death wish (or a desire for martyrdom - both of which could be used against him), but (as a sadist) instead simply looks forward to the physical sensation. Also, since he doesn’t have to follow Buddhist precepts, he can remain innovative, creative, crafty, cunning, and charismatic, all while being completely enlightened.

Yet at no moment is anything supernatural about him. He is, rather, a completely human character that represents the absolute worst threat to humanity another human could possibly be. And since we all know that the villains are more interesting than the heroes, this means Ledger’s Joker is the most compelling character in cinematic history.

It probably would have made more sense to post this when The Dark Knight came out, but I had to think about it.

Top 5 Unanswered Questions of Our Time

Raptor here, back from an extended LSAT study break.

The world is full of mysteries. What are UFOs? What ever happened to that chick who learned to fly? Why are panda's cute? Who ate the last of the nachos when I very clearly wrote my name on the container?

But if I were to narrow it down to 5 questions that I want answers to these would be them.

5. How did Don Knott’s win the Death Pool against John Ritter?

Did anyone see this coming? Don Knott’s never looked like the bastion of good health. I half expected him to keel over at any time when he was in the Incredible Mr. Limpett.

4. Is It Better to Align Myself with the candidate supported by the KKK or the candidate supported by 98% of Dane Cook fans?

Really, it’s hard to determine which is/will be the most detrimental force in society. Both are groups formed from great ignorance. Both groups are such that any association will kill your rep in even the politest of company. I have a feeling that ultimately, the Dane Cook fans will rain down more damage on this country due to there total lack of marketable skills and incompetence.

Either way, I’ve only got 27 days to decide.

3. When will Disney mellow their harsh and release Song of the South?

Come on Disney, I know you have a slave who enjoys being a slave in this movie, but what about cutting out the crappy live action parts and giving us the Bre’r Rabbit cartoons. Oh and maybe keep Uncle Remus singing that classy little ditty, Zippidy Doo Da!

They’ve released plenty of other horribly insulting movies, from DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer. Give me my animated birds on my goddamn shoulder!

2. How good will Colt McCoy be when he finally hits puberty?

I won’t lie, I have a minor man crush on Colt McCoy, (it’s man love. It’s not gay. I just want to wear his skin and be him…) but anytime he’s giving interviews I expect his voice to crack like the nerdy teenager on the Simpson’s. He’s got such a boyish face/demeanor. I know he hit the weight’s this past summer and it shows, but one day he’s gonna get his growth spurt, then watch out world!

1.Whatever happened to Tina Pinciotti?

Every generation has a missing sibling mystery. There was the Amber Alert for Chuck Cunningham in Happy Day’s. Judy Winslow went upstairs and never returned (more alarming was Carl Winslow’s, a police officer, lack of concern). There was also the case of Marissa’s younger sister, Caitlyn, on the OC, but that was eventually remedied by having her return from boarding school somewhere in season 3. But none of these mysteries intrigue me as much as the whole Tina Pinciotti incident.

Why?

For starters, the rest of the characters where all established in the pilots. Tina came along 6 episodes into the run of the show. Had it happened the other way around it would be completely understandable. Characters are cut from pilots all the time. But if you introduce a family member further into the run of the show you expect them to hang around for a few episodes or at least have some sort of explanation of there disappearance (boarding school for Caitlyn, porn for Judy, and for god sakes someone put out an APB for Chuck please!). Was there going to be a story arc there? Did the very act of Fex hitting on her cause her to disappear? Was she abducted by aliens?

The best theory I have is she, Judy, and Chuck were all taken by the aliens in the Forgotten.

Top 5 Things on the Internet that I can watch repetitively and still find funny

Raptor here promising something more substantial tomorrow.

In the mean time, here’s some things that have actually made me laugh in the past couple days. And can’t we all use a little laughter.

5. George Washington

4. The Divorce Song

3. Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals

2. Charlie Get’s Molested
Perhaps my favorite episode of my current favorite show. I swear I've had the argument in the cold open with McBane at some point in the past.

1. Larry Holmes’ GrillMaster

Just opening the page makes me start cracking up.

Top 5 Journalist Idiaks

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Top 5 Times When White People Can Say "Nigger"

McBane here. Who put that slur in my title?

Growing up, I used to think “fuck” was the worst word one could utter. I thought this because it was the word people always said when they were the most insanely pissed, and they always apologized afterward. It took a while for me to learn about this other word, and I was taken aback. Discovering racism is definitely one of the most disillusioning things about growing up (though I’ll be honest - absolutely nothing beat the shock value of finding out there was no Santa Claus).

I started thinking more about this word again a while back, when I heard about the big fight on The View. I expected that Whoopi Goldberg had taken a scorched-earth, scorched-eyebrow approach toward never saying the word; though I was prepared to disagree, I was at least ready to defend her for making Elizabeth Hasselbeck cry, because Hasselbeck is 1) a ditzy neo-con, 2) someone who got famous simply for being cute while losing on a reality show, and 3) rich from marrying an NFL quarterback who‘s never played a down of meaningful football. (Goldberg, conversely, had to change her name to “Whoopi Goldberg,” date Ted Danson for a long time, work hard building a career as an excellent character actor and a stunningly mediocre comedian/comedic actor, and convert to Judaism [this is speculative]. Oh, and she’s black.)

I’m still ready to defend her for making Hasselbeck cry, but then I found out Goldberg was in favor of using the term as a form of empowering black people by taking the word from racists, and that Hasselbeck thought it shouldn‘t be used under any circumstances.

Back to square one.

I mean look, I’ve heard Goldberg’s argument many times before, and it makes sense, I suppose…for black people. But I’m not black, and you aren’t either. And it’s really none of our business whether black people use it or not. All we want to know is: what about us, white people (and Asians and Jews and Hispanics and blah blah blah)? When do we use it? I think Hasselbeck just wants to get the word out of the way, and I understand; I can never really find any percentage in using it.

Chris Rock discussed this recently in his comedy special (in a manner of speaking); he posited whether it was ever okay for white people to use the n-word. His answer, ultimately, was “not really.” (This is good advice.)

But I also hate the idea that some words shouldn’t be said. No one hated this idea more than George Carlin, and I once saw him launch into an elaborate, 20-minute joke with the n-word as a punch line to prove it. Logically it was well done, but I still kind of felt the sensation of playing leapfrog and having him fart in my face on the way past.

Now banning words is, of course, a terrible idea and I won‘t pretend otherwise. Legally, you can say the word; that won’t change, and it shouldn’t. (It is, after all, more important to protect the rights of people you disagree with than the people you do agree with. Protection of minority rights is what keeps democracies from dissolving. This is why we have the ACLU; what a lot of people don‘t understand is they hate the bastards they represent as much as everybody else. But I digress.)

I think the real question is this: is it ever socially acceptable for a white person to use the word, especially around black people?

The answer is yes. I won’t give you all the acceptable places (this is a free blog, after all). But I’ll give you the best ones.

5) A Quote

Again, context is everything. If you’re doing it to drive home a point about how racist someone is, that’s okay. If you use it because you want to get to say the word around black people without getting in trouble, it leaves you on shaky ground at best. Some situations fall in-between, such as a line in Dynamite Hack’s cover of Easy-E’s Boyz N’ tha Hood. (The answer in this case is: Acceptable. When in doubt convene a panel of at least nine people, the majority of them black, and ask for a ruling. It’s probably a good idea to keep some record of the ruling to protect yourself, again a good suggestion gleaned from Mr. Rock.)

4) A Dude Disguised as a Dude Playing Another Dude

Although Robert Downey, Jr. never used this word in Tropic Thunder (though he did slap another cast member who said it and then quoted “The Jeffersons” theme song to said cast member), it would have been acceptable if he had one strange line where he did say the line, and then have everyone on the set applaud him as a hero [as part of the movie]). Why? Because the satire in this case was that he was playing an actor who was playing a black man (he was not in blackface, and yes, there is a big difference). The social commentary in the movie is that Hollywood is self-important and out of touch with what constitutes responsible and realistic acting, and him dropping the line like he was a winner for doing it would have made sense as part of the satire.

Yes, satire is dangerous and risky, but it is also important and useful and generally a good idea.

Still, you had better leave it to guys like Downey, Jr.

3) Under Deep Cover in the Ku Klux Klan

If you’re an FBI agent and you’re trying to bust these guys up, you gotta slather some racism on yourself like it’s going out of style.

It’s for the greater good, folks.

2) In the Year 3000

Give your local geneticist a call: he/she will tell you that in a thousand years, due to ethnic intermingling/the ability to have sex with just about anyone (which really has only just taken off the past few decades or so and will explode sometime soon), the human race will have turned a strange shade of brown. The n-word can then be used as a historical curiosity without any rancor. (Fellas, on a related note, do you know redheads will probably be extinct in the next hundred years? Better get your hands on one while you can.)

1) In the Title of a Thoughtful Blog Post

This, of course, is completely obvious.

Top 5 Kinds of People Who Piss Me Off

Raptor here, puttin’ the lotion on it’s skin, lest he get’s the hose again.

People in general are all right, until you get them all banded together making stupid and irrational decisions.

5. Hippies
It always amazes me the amount of sway on youth culture the hippy movement has. I mean sure they usually have pretty good weed and there’s always that cute girl who never wears a bra and wears the floral patterns, but trust me you don’t want to see these things combined 20 years in the future. Those free flowin tits will be free fallin. Plus they really seem to enjoy sitting around all day and complaining about the man, or corporations, or the environment, or how they never noticed all the ridges in the back of their hands. And really, do you want to get your political commentary from some guy in a sash who can’t seem to figure out how to open a box of soap?

4. Protestors
These people seem to go against everything I stand for: apathy. Also they managed to keep Kissinger from coming to UT and giving a lecture that I was totally jazzed to go to.

My main beef with them isn’t there protests, it’s the way they poorly handle the abuse that comes along. Protesting has gotten a lot of good things done, like suffraging women, equal rights…. I’m cool with you using your right to gather and free speech, but typically things get out of hand. Typical scenario:

Gather a large group of people through web sites, chat rooms and emails. I mean A LOT of people. Said people are usually excitable people in nature (i.e. the kind who attend protests). Police gather to make sure things stay in check (And really when there’s a gathering of 1000+ it would be highly unwise not to have a Police presence). Excitable people get more excitable and start harassing members of the party being protested and police officers by throwing eggs, food, and rocks. Police officers clear streets with gas, and/or rubber bullets. Protestors complain that they were abused by police officers during there “peaceful” protest.

Really guys, you got it good. Ask the Palestinians how well the Isreali Police force responds to having rocks thrown at them by protestors.


3. Celebrity Environmentalists
Look I know being hooked on oil sucks. But you know what your goddamn Hummer runs off of? That private jet you used to fly from 2 continents for Live Earth, you know how many carbon credits that requires? Do you know how stupid the idea of carbon credits are? Before you come after me with your climate crisis, fucking read a few science books.

2. Film Majors
These guys are dicks. No exceptions. Don’t talk to me about the beauty of the cinematography. Give me explosions, tits, and comedic kicks to the groin!

1. Evangelicals/Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Really, I hate anyone who thinks that there is no possibility that they could be wrong ( except of course me, because I’m always right damn it!). But this debate is fucking tiresome. Really there’s no way to prove whether either side is right until your dead and have no choice but to find out. So really in the mean time, it’s nothing but a bunch of baiting and antagonizing the other side about an improvable point.

Top 5 Commercials

McBane here. What to do with the never-ending deluge of advertising that assaults us at every turn? That’s right: rank them for entertainment value.

5) Burger King - “Little Kick”

Eating this chicken would have killed a man. Wise decision by Burger King to make it less dangerous.

4) Reebok - “Office Linebacker”

There’s something refreshing and liberating about watching a linebacker throw a secretary through a cubicle wall, don’t you think?

3) Nike - “Next Level”

Not sure how heavy this rotation was in the U.S.; I saw it a lot in Euro 2008 but nowhere outside of that. Directed by Guy Ritchie, I’m guessing this will unfortunately start a trend of the first person POV ads by directors who aren‘t as good for products that aren‘t as cool, like the iced coffee ad for McDonald’s.

2) Old Spice Swagger - “LL Cool J”

Sublime on so many levels, and the music is outstanding. I only wish they had cast Puffy instead.

1) Firefox - “Get Firefox!”

Point taken.

Top 5 Minutes Pro-Palin Feminist Journalists Should Spend Before They Write Another Newspaper Column

One of the most disturbing things I have been hearing lately is that some supporters of Senator Clinton may be flocking to Governor Palin (an extremely small number, no doubt, but significant nonetheless); I have even been reading some columns across the country’s newspapers in which self-described feminists try to persuade women to do so. I was going to make a completely reasoned, logical response as to why this is a bad idea.

Bad move. Politics is not about reason or logic. It’s a popularity contest held by an uninformed electorate. Think I’m being too cynical? How about this: think of someone you know of average intelligence. Got that in your head? Now realize: half of Americans are dumber than that person. And a lot of them vote.

What Karl Rove politics has taught me is that reality is nebulous: you’re allowed to say anything made-up if you want, as long as you get your talking points across. I‘ve finally decided: why fight it? Why not go down that rabbit hole? Why not construct an argument that proves your point even if you're not sure you believe in it, and even if the evidence you present isn't accurate?

Why pretend that people care about journalistic principles, or even know what they are? Why pretend that truth about yourself or reality or what you actually believe in is relevant to anything at all? Guys like Sean Hannity and Bill O‘Reilly have figured out anything can sound like the truth if you yell it loud enough and you‘re a big enough cocksucker.

I say why not fight fire with fire…that way we can all burn.

I am McBane, and I approve this message.

5) Minute One

Feminist, I just read your column.

I’ve sat here and thought about it for awhile.

I feel compelled to respond, and I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because I have talked with many women who share a viewpoint similar to yours. Though a Man, I want to understand your frustration better. Because I feel like there are very, very strong arguments out there not to vote for McCain-Palin and to vote for Obama-Biden, and yet so many Hillary supporters like yourself seem to be unconvinced.

It would be demeaning of me to say that when it comes to voting you don’t understand the repercussions of your decisions; it’s equally likely, if not more so, that I don’t get it. Or more benignly, it could just be that we just come from different places and don’t interpret things in the same way. But now that your article has let me understand your frustrations a little better, let me give you my point of view, so maybe you can try to understand the frustrations of people like myself.

I've spent the last 30 years of my life trying to overcome physical maladies and illnesses inflicted on me in a Russian gulag at the end of the Cold War. I have been bed-ridden for months at a time. I’ve had nearly 50 surgeries. Even now, I can barely walk upright. My life is exhausting and terrifying. If I had no family to help me and had to try and get by on the assistance the government gives, I would not be alive right now. I’m not complaining - what happened to me can (and does) happen to all different types of people. But chronic suffering is a powerful thing. It makes you never want to see it happen to anybody else.

I live in one of the largest military towns in this country. My three best friends are all in Iraq right now. I also personally know several people who died there. I have read and watched as people who have lost limbs, or have been heavily psychologically damaged have since come back. A lot of them don’t get the care we should give them. When I see them and the sacrifices they and their families have made for God knows what reason, I never know what to say. I do know I have no idea how to make any of it right. I just want to stop this ridiculous crap.

I live in a place with a lot of human trafficking. My wife is a former victim. I researched the area extensively when I got my doctorate. Trafficking is pervasive and cheap; at least in the days of slaves as chattel, there was reason to take care of them from an investment standpoint. Now humans are easily identified, kidnapped, used up, and disposed of. There are slaves of all kinds. There are sex slaves, mainly young girls: Eastern Europeans on the east coast, Asians on the West, Latinas in the south. There is slave labor: (ECONOMIC POP QUIZ - what do you get when you globalize a world economy? Competitive labor costs! What’s the most competitive labor cost? Slaves!) many of them are children. Coal workers in Brazil, brick makers in Pakistan are some of these.

Fighting traffic in humans is something I currently do for a living now, and I can't sleep most nights. I see something new and horrible every day. Human trafficking is at a point where there are more slaves alive now than there were during the antebellum South (the population of people alive right now is obviously much larger, but still - every one of those slaves is an independent person. They’re not just a statistic. As Lincoln said, “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”)

4) Minute Two

So no, kindly columnist, I’m not in your shoes. But I know something about disappointment and suffering - these two things have been at the core of my life; both experiencing them and studying them. They are not uniquely feminine experiences. And I feel like McCain and Palin are on the wrong side of how to improve the lives of those who suffer. They don’t want universal health care. They don’t want to admit we made mistakes in Iraq and need to stop hemorrhaging money and human lives there. They’re not worried that we might all be dead from global warming in 50 years. I could go on, but the Republicans are on the wrong side of so many issues, it’s amazing.

I should qualify that: wrong is to some extent a relative matter. But I think logically, secular humanism is something that absolutely everyone in this world would benefit from. (By most definitions, that is an essential component of feminism.) And I think that the Republican party and Sarah Palin is the wrong place to go looking for that.

You’re a journalist. I understand that you have to write columns that make a provocative argument. But do you really believe what you’re saying? I hope so, because people who read it will be convinced that you mean it. To paraphrase the late Kurt Vonnegut: we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. If your principles are such that you feel like voting for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it outweighs all the arguments against it, then you should do it. But if you would feel guilty about it, maybe you shouldn’t.

Again, perhaps I simply don’t understand the argument of a lot of disaffected Hillary supporters (like yourself). Because the sense I get is simply that they are seeking an ephemeral feeling of vindication for their candidate losing the nomination. Hillary is qualified to be president; to some degree I will even admit she is a sympathetic character, and (assuming a Democratic congress) I would have gladly accepted her as my president (and she still may end up back in the White House, one day). But to me, to support Sarah Palin in the name of feminism to subconsciously make up for Hillary losing the primary seems like a perversion of feminist ideals. Again, I’m just a Man. I only have one X chromosome. So hopefully I‘m just being stupid right now and there are some other points I don‘t understand.

3) Minute Three

One of those points I might not understand is how Sarah Palin’s femininity could transfer from her being vice president to ultimately empowering women across the nation at large. I can’t imagine it being as amazing as some women seem to suggest. I imagine that if Barack Obama becomes president, on inauguration day the sun will rise, the sun will set, a lot of black people will look around and smile for a minute, and then they probably get back to the largely mundane tasks of their lives, like the rest of us. I imagine if Hillary was in that situation instead, many women would do the same thing; they would just happen to notice that in Hillary‘s case, they would start to see things on her agenda that would change their lives for the better, as opposed to Palin, who would make their lives worse.

Let’s be honest, too. Thatcher. Meir. Merkel. Women have been in charge, and will be in charge, all around the world. Some of them are capable. Some are not. Some are on the right side of the issues. Some are not. I don’t understand why there needs to be a woman on this winning ticket, right now, in this election year.

One thing I do understand: a woman will eventually be president of this country. Of that, there is no doubt in my mind. I think, ironically, one of the things working against Hillary was that she was such a presumptive favorite that it created an underdog appeal for Obama. Two years ago no one (and I mean no one) said “well Hillary Clinton is certainly up by a huge margin in all the polls now, but by the simple fact of her gender she cannot possibly win an election for president.” Again, we will have a woman president. Is it overdue? Yeah. Fuck yeah, even. But would women be suffering if Obama-Biden were in charge instead of McCain-Palin? No. I know something about suffering. I abhor it.

This would not be suffering.

Did Hillary get a raw deal in the primaries? I think she probably did. But is getting Palin on the ticket what would make her happiest? Are you fucking kidding me?

I mean yes, Chris Matthews is a nincompoop. Keith Olbermann can be one too. So can a lot of media members. So can a lot of Men. (So can a lot of women.) And I don’t mean to make light of this; I understand your frustration runs deeper for a lot of different reasons, and I understand that perhaps when you saw what happened to Hillary, it maybe felt like part of your identity was being attacked as well. That maybe you felt some betrayal of what the possibility of being a woman in America was; that maybe you felt like you suddenly realized that the country was full of sexist hypocrites and that you weren‘t as close to equality as you thought.

I don’t feel quite the same way, obviously, and I freely admit that I can’t understand if you feel this way or not, or how much it bothers you if it does; it’s hard to measure another person’s emotion.

But there are 300 million people in this country. There are six and a half billion people in the world. A lot of them are super-fucked. They need help right now. They can have an America in the hands of a party that, at its’ core, I think still cares about people; or they could have a McCain-Palin ticket, the ticket of a party that at it’s core cares about markets and trying to remake the world into America, though America a) doesn‘t have that capability any more and b) is kind of a huge hypocrite when it comes to “implementing“ American ideals in other countries.

4) Minute Two

This is kind of an important election.

I happen to love the Democratic ticket, but I will accept that hypothetically there could be better solutions, or choices, than Obama-Biden (that involve Clinton). But I just remember 2000, when I voted for Nader, because I thought maybe it really didn’t matter all that much who won between the two major parties; I just wanted a third-party voice to be heard.

I was about as wrong as a human being could possibly be; it did matter who won. A week later, no one gave a shit about Ralph Nader‘s movement. And Bush is still our president. The economy sucks. Our military is fucked. We have a debt that, along with rising Social Security and Medicare costs for the baby boom, will cripple my generation fiscally. We could lose Afghanistan. We’re not doing anything with Pakistan. We’re happy to let the oil companies continue our stupid energy policy. Bin Laden is still at large. We’re creating a free recruitment campaign for terrorists every day we stay in Iraq. We won’t fix Iraq; the surge is bullshit - violence is down because we’ve set up a nation of Tony Soprano-styled divisive ethnic groups. Russia is getting scary again. We need someone who can hold their own with Putin and Maliki and Ahmadinejad and Jintao and hell, even Sarkozy (the French are always dicks). We can’t have eight years even remotely like the last one. Even if a woman is part of it. You see what I’m getting at?

Good. Now remember: you’re a newspaper columnist. That means you’re about as oppressed as Leona Helmsley. If it bugs you that much that Clinton didn’t get the nom, look in the mirror; maybe you could have been a little more active. Maybe you should have cared as much as Obama supporters did, knocking on doors and organizing caucuses and raising money. Don’t cry about it now; now there’s no justification for you to be a coward and make an incendiary argument for McCain/Palin (especially one that people will read) when you know (or should know) that it’s an irresponsible thing to do.

1) Minute Five

Be a feminist; it‘s a great thing to be.

But don’t be a bitch.

And don‘t vote McCain/Palin.

Top 5 Reasons It Would Suck Being a Woman

Raptor here, burning bras and fighting the man.

Ladies, I recognize it’s hard being a woman. I wouldn’t want to do it. Besides bleeding out dead ova every month, there are a plethora of reasons why it sucks to be you. Allow me to enumerate.

5. If they make a sitcom about you and you’re unattractive, your counterpart will be equally if not more unattractive than you.

This one just isn’t fair. Let me speak to you in your language.

Fatty guys who are funny get Stacey Carosi a girl it took the coolest guy alive, Zack Morris, an entire summer to get with!

Fatty Chicks who somehow get there own show get Dan Conner, who never went to 'Nam.

4.You have to read Cosmo every month and pretend it’s a new issue.

Were you aware that pink is the new black. Then, strangely, orange is the new black the next month instead of the new pink. I got bad news for you. In the words of Los Bravos, black is black.

Uh Oh! Autumn is coming. Time for Cosmo to inform you to buy sweaters!

Also amazing to me: that that they keep up with the Cosmo Sutra with the same 3 positions recycled over and over again under different names. Let me save you 4.99: there’s the one where you get up on top while your partner sits Indian style, some variation of doggy style, and reverse cowgirl.

3. The shoes are retarded.

Seriously. I have walked a mile in your shoes… and then some ( I was Smurfette one fateful Halloween). You guys need to learn this thing called function over form. Sure your 23 inch heels might make you feel sexy when you go to a wedding, but they lead to blisters, bleeding, sprained ankles, and worst of all tearing of the brides dress when you step on it on the dance floor. Plus you’re not impressing the men folk. If a man comments on your shoes he’s a) gay or b)really gay. And all you lesbians out there, same goes for you. My point is someone commenting on your shoes probably likes the cock 98% of the time.

If you are going to wear these, I revoke all rights to bitch how uncomfortable you are.


2. The Shower Curtain Hangers are Also Retarded

Ok. These things right here

See Them?

They will come off of the curtain rod every time. I mean everytime. So don’t bitch at me when there’s spillage during my shower.

1. You go to these women for fashion/moral advice

You women eat this show up. I can’t decide which part is worse, the fact that you take fashion tips from Carrie who looks like she got kicked off the short bus for looking too …um, special, or the horrible life lessons it eschews.

I mean it’s one thing if you watched and took something away some wisdom about life and some of the baser truths it espouses (i.e. You know that guy who keeps cheating on you, but you think he can change if you keep nagging at him? He’s a cheater and he’s not going to change. ) But you don’t seem to learn from it, in fact you revel in it and spend most of your time trying to decide if you’re a Carrie or a Miranda! (And I am not a Miranda goddamn it! Stop trying to put that label on me!)

Top 5 Greatest Inventions of Humanity

McBane here. Happy September 11th, everybody!

This is a day when a lot of people tend to get a little down. But I’d like to take a moment here to pay homage to the five greatest intellectual triumphs in the history of man.

5) Abortion

Although I usually say I’m on the fence, I think I probably am pro-abortion, solely because if I knocked a girl up I’d probably want her to kill her baby. Shit, who am I kidding? I’d want her to kill that fucking baby even if she birthed it and it became a living, breathing kid and I didn‘t find out about it until it was ten years old.

I don’t need the aggravation.

But there’s also a powerful argument to made about women protecting their bodies, blah blah blah. Plus we murder like animals and shit all the time and eat them. Those animals have brains. Little fertilized eggs don’t. So what’s the big fucking deal, bitch?

4) Drugs

Drugs kick ass. Illegal ones, mainly, but prescription drugs aren’t bad either. Why work to fix the big empty hole in your soul when you can mask it chemically?

Declaring war on drugs, by the way, has got to be the stupidest thing this country has ever done. Booze is legal, which is a pretty solid drug in and of itself, and it powers our economy. We want our economy to grow, right?

And don’t get me started on how too many people over-consume booze. What’s so bad about vice, bitches? Are we fucking Puritans? Is drunk driving that big a problem? So what if slightly under one in one hundred people dies in a car wreck? That doesn’t even meet Cheney’s “One Percent Doctrine” of going to war. (Odds are you probably won’t miss that one in a hundred anyway.)

At least give us weed, man. I’m willing to compromise.

3) God

I’ve covered God a bit in this blog before. But God really is wonderful. Without God, if we treated people with disrespect, or disgust, or disdain, we would just kind of be assholes. But God allows us to demonize people in all kinds of wonderful ways, AND we can be better people for it, AND it never has to make sense!

God also allows us to enjoy our second-greatest invention:

2) War

War = hell. Hell = other people. Logically, this means: war = other people. In fact, without crazy terrorist fealty to God, we probably wouldn’t even have had September 11th! (Er, at least it wouldn‘t be as meaningful…you know what I mean.)

Can you imagine?

Luckily, this was not the case. The reason this was so lucky is that war is very entertaining. If there was no war, there would be no war movies (Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket, Jarhead), no war-themed video games (Halo, Ghost Recon), no war-themed miniseries on HBO (Generation Kill, Band of Brothers), no contemporary war protest music (um…).

Face it: we love war. We can’t get enough of it. And it doesn’t really affect us in any other way. Americans who die over there tend to be poor or gung-ho patriots, and I’ll make you a bet: if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t friends with any people like that. I know I’m not. So why should it bother us? People in Africa are dying of HIV and starvation, and we REALLY don’t give a shit about them. Are people in America any more important? No, right? So again, what’s the big fucking problem?

Plus, war gives us a sense that there is something hugely important going on in our mundane lives. We can watch a war movie and think: wow, man, that’s really something. I really get it. That’s powerful stuff. Geez. It makes me look at the world in a whole different light. And oh by the way…do you think KFC is still open?

I want some fucking fried chicken.

And I want it now.

1) Satire

Ok, I’m back. KFC, in fact, was open! (God bless America.)

Oh yes, satire. Life is complicated. Issues are complicated. People are complicated. Existence is complicated. Yet, it’s hard to point this out without aggressively opinionated hardcore maniacs thinking you’re wishy-washy. Why is this? I don’t know. I‘ve never been able to figure it out. (It’s too complicated.)

This is where satire comes in. None of us really has any complete idea of what we’re doing, and we all fuck up more than we like to admit, even to ourselves. (It’s okay, though: you can’t spell failure without U-R-A.) Satire helps us realize that being a fuckup is not the worst thing to be: the worst thing is being an inflexible asshole. (No one likes those, not least of all the producers in the “movies” Raptor has a role in. They‘ve told him explicitly on numerous occasions.)

Look, the reality is there’s always a bit more going on in life than we want to admit, or than we can understand. So if you want to, go ahead and hate the Republicans or the Democrats or radical Islam or over-accelerated culture or unstoppable globalization or whatever you want to all you want this September 11th. It’s understandable, and human, and lot of it is probably reasonable and justified.

But don’t be afraid to be thoughtful on the issue. And while you’re at it, give someone a fucking hug or something too. Maybe catch up with someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Life is hard for just about everybody, after all.

And if, at times, you can’t figure out what it is you’re supposed to be doing, remember: being a nice person is generally a pretty cool thing to be.

You fucking jerk.

Top 5 Unacceptable Reasons to Bother Me During the Longhorn Game

Raptor here fulfilling my moral obligation bring sexy back.

I know I’ve dispensed a lot of advice in this blog. But heed this more than anything:

When I am sitting down to watch the Horns on Saturday, don’t think you can break my attention away from the game. Attempt to pull me away from the TV and the consequences will be swift and severe.

The following are merely the top 5 of the nearly infinite supply of reasons to bother me, that while you may think they are important enough to annoy me with your presence, you are horribly wrong.

5. There's a Terrorist Attack Downtown

You know what happens if I stop watching football? The terrorists win.

4.Telling Me About Your Day-

I’m sure you think that the meaningless trifle you do in between your interactions with me are both important and interesting. You couldn’t be more wrong.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that when you leave the room you cease to exist since I can’t see you anymore. So anything that happens when you enter this nebulous black hole of existence is either a) a blatant lie created by a collective subconscious, or b) something that happened in another dimension of the polyverse.

Either way, I don’t care.

3. Getting Married

Ok. Really. Who’s the inconsiderate one? Me for drunkenly grabbing your maid of honor’s ass as she marches down the aisle or you for not thinking about the rest of us and having your nuptials during FOOTBALL season? You’re setting yourself up for years of disappointment, starting from the wedding night when you realize how flat in the front a man who allows his bride such a scheduling error is.

I’ve expressed my feelings adequately in the your card which contains a picture of my middle finger and a $50 dollar gift certificate to Bed Bath and Beyond.


2. A Death in the Family

Ok I concede this one is kind of big and you can tell me…

…at halftime.

1.Sex

Look don’t think I’ll be distracted by your seductive womanly ways. I’m channeling all my positive energy to Austin.

That’s not to say I won’t be putting it to you. I’ll just be making eye contact with and dreaming of one Colt McCoy.

Top 5 Songs That Are Impossible to Put in a Playlist

McBane here. Despite all my bluster, I’ll be the first to admit: I pretty much don’t understand anything. Aside from the Dallas Cowboys, foreign policy and mind-shattering tantric sex…when it comes to the sea of knowledge, I’m pretty much adrift in the horse latitudes. (You are too, more or less. Luckily for you, you’re just too stupid to realize it. Asshole.)

One of the things I don’t understand is how I’m supposed to listen to music anymore. Do albums matter? What function does the radio have nowadays? Is it weird that I have a YouTube playlist and an iTunes playlist and that they don’t overlap at all?

Understanding how to experience music has largely become ineffable. But I do know this: stick these five awesome songs in a playlist and people will look at you like you just puked in the church collection basket.

5) “Ballroom Blitz” - Sweet

This song is, in a way, kind of glam-metal sounding, but also incredibly high energy. And yeah, it’s kind of gay, too, in that faggoty hair-band way (and by gay I mean they can do anything…no, wait…I’m thinking of retards). All-around great song.

By the way - shouldn’t it be more surprising that most glam cokeheads have traditionally tended toward producing power ballads? Ballads seemed to be the standard for excellence in the era, and I don‘t know why; who has the patience for a guitar solo when you‘re on coke? Why don’t more cokeheads put out music that sounds like Ballroom Blitz, or more bluntly, anything by The Ramones?

Life is mysterious.

4) “You! Me! Dancing!” - Los Campesinos!

This is a song about dancing that, as it is wisely pointed out by someone whose name I can't recall, you probably can’t dance to, unless you bust out your Charlie Brown. Interesting song construction: starts off with a massive escalating musical clusterfuck at the beginning that, if you played with the bass up all the way in your car, might lead to you giving abortions to pregnant women. (“Ahhh! My baby!”)

Anyway, when you’re ready for the intro to stop, the song gets poppy in the middle, breaks out some chimes, and then segues into some weird babbling shit at the ending.

Pretty awesome, right? Doesn’t go with anything, does it? Let’s move on.

3) “The Moneymaker” - Rilo Kiley

You may also know this song by the original title, "Raptor's Asshole."

Jenny Lewis's voice is kind of on the wrong end of her endlessly fluctuating (and perplexing) cool/annoying seesaw here (kudos though for sliding up the bass note at 3:11 - KA-POW). However, Sennett (and de Reeder to some extent) steal the motherfucking show, busting out some goddamn KILLER sleaze-guitar riffs (all while sporting some excellent lounge-lizard tuxes).

An FYI to enhance your cultural Q rating: killer sleaze guitar that doesn’t sound stupid is generally regarded by knowledgeable guitarists as very, very rare, and very, very cool. Yes, I‘m completely making this up. But you must admit, this song is way too high class to be grouped with other slutty songs that share solidly strummed sleaze. (Again, I barely even know what I‘m saying right now. I just like the alliteration.)

2) “The White Rabbit” - Jefferson Airplane

Seems as though it was written purely to make you have a terrible fucking trip after dropping acid…which seems like a dick move, doesn‘t it? Most people who write songs about dropping acid tend to be users themselves, and generally don’t want to spread open their puckered assholes to spray drizzling shit all over other people’s parade.

But whatever the motivation for this song, it really stands awesomely on its’ own four rabbity feet…but topples over in a playlist.

1) “Bohemian Rhapsody” - Queen

Where would this song and “Ballroom Blitz” be without Wayne’s World? In an Eastern European zone of cultural mediocrity, that’s where, buried under a pile of techno tripe at the nightclubs while everyone spazzes out on X and glow stix, boogying till sun-up in their Capri pants.

Luckily, these songs have not yet met such a dark fate. They can be liberated.

Rock on, reader.

Rock on.

And don’t let the man keep you down with his playlists.

I'm friggin sorry

Raptor here.

OK I apologize for the hiatus. Much like that Joanie Mitchell song, you didn't know what you got til it was gone. But I'm back (unlike your deadbeat father who's still nailing that trailer park hooker), and, now as before, I'm here to give you the education the public school system denied you.

Today's lesson:
Top 5 Phobias Of Raptor

That's right class, because I've been away so long, I'm will to impart upon you some of the secrets to defeating me. A list of fears if used correctly could possibly give you a momentary upper hand in our future battles. Maybe in the .01 seconds between the time the fear shows itself, and the time my hatred for you over comes said fear and I bash your head in with a solid dragon punch, you will be able to get a shiv into my side.

5. The Large Hadron Collider

Why it freaks me out:

Because it can end the world in a variety of different ways, be it creating mini black holes, strange matter, or opening wormholes. It's statistically improbable, but not statistically impossible.

Why it won't benefit you:

You will find it impossible to lure me to within 25 miles of this thing. If I enter said vicinity I'm already dead.

4. That Stephen Tyler and Julia Roberts Will Fall In Love and Have Children

Why it freaks me out:

Tyler and Roberts have perhaps two of the largest mouths in the business. This child will literally be able to swallow it's own head, a la Pacman. The implications of this are staggering. The world will collapse upon that spot or at the very least anyone witnessing this event will go completely insane from the horror of it all.

Why it won't benefit you:

In this age of tabloids I'll have a huge heads up on such an unholy union and once thusly alerted will arm myself with a plane ticket to LA and metal hangers.

3. Spiders

Why they freak me out:

Why do I fear spiders? Because one almost killed me. I got a pretty wicked staph infection from a spiderbite.

Why it won't benefit you:
Because um... Spiders never bite twice?... yea..something like that


2. Zombies

Why they freak me out:

Something about, you know, their being undead coupled with their hunger for human flesh. The zombie apocalypse is inevitable people! Always be aware. Again I promise to do anything in my power to prevent you from becoming a zombie (except McBane), but the second you're bitten, you're dead to me. (Although, I do have many questions about zombies. They seem to bite both to eat and reproduce. How do they decide which when approaching a crowd of people? Do Zombies have emotions? Do they retain any memories of there past existance?)

Why it won't benefit you:

You might think I'd say that Zombies don't exist in this section, which is only partially true. Zombie's don't exist YET. No the reason that this won't benefit you is you cannot train a zombie.

1. Zombie Spiders

Why they freak me out:

It's a motherfucking zombie spider.

Why it won't benefit you:

It's a motherfucking zombie spider.