American Madness

So now that the courts have rules that a Pennsylvania school district cannot teach Intelligent Design (a lovely concept that says some “things” were created by a supernatural being), we can now ask the questions that need to be asked.

First of all, is it intelligent design that a sewage pipe runs through our recreational area? What kind of supernatural being would design such a thing? A supernatural engineer who flunked out of MIT?

Plus, why only one mouth? It is very difficult for some people to talk out of both sides of their mouth, and if they had two, hypocrisy would move along that much faster.

Finally, why do some male genitals hook to the left? I haven?t actually seen this phenomenon in action, but some women I know swear that it?s true. They also seem to think this model hits the G-Spot much more efficiently. This is confusing. Does this mean the G-Spot is on the right? Can?t we all compensate by moving a bit to the left? Is this more information than anyone needs to know?

Questions, questions.

I really wanted to pose these and other queries to the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. But now that the school board’s decision has been termed ?breathtaking inanity? by a federal judge, I?ll just have to ask my priest or rabbi or legalized Nevada hooker. Unless they overturn her, too.

All the hundreds of fans who packed the Philadelphia streets Saturday for an open casting call for extras for the new Rocky movie needed was a picture, a resume and a simple message that would have made the fictional ex-champ proud: “Yo, pick me!” Fifteen years after starring in Rocky V, Sylvester Stallone is reprising his role as the boxing champ from South Philadelphia in the upcoming movie “Rocky Balboa.”

I didn’t know Rocky was getting back into the ring, did you? I thought Rocky V showed an aging, brain-damaged puncher who was headed for an early demise. How can this character perform a comeback?

Does Balboa move around the ring with a cane? A walker? Does he wear Depends?

If he was finished in 1991, how does the 2006 version fight anyone with a pulse? Maybe that’s it: Rocky fights Max Schmelling. With one hand behind his back. No problem, because one good kick and Schmelling’s bones will role off the canvas.

I’d pay to see Rocky kick Max Schmelling’s bones. I’d also pay to see Rocky fight in one of those motorized wheelchairs that run over your toes. That hasn’t happened to you? Just wait.

Rocky was a great series that jumped the shark after Mr. T’s Clubber Lang. I wish they wouldn’t keep these things going on and on forever like they did with Planet of the Apes.

First came the great Charlton Heston movie. Then came the the great sequel where the world blew up. Then the next one where the Apes went back in time….well, that was pretty bad. Then the fourth one where the apes stated a small boutique in Bloomington, Indiana which grew and grew until it was able to take on WalMart…I thought the whole premise was unrealistic. Apes hate Indiana.

I hope Rocky fights Dr. Zais. I’d pay to see that. The could both trip over Max Schmelling’s bones, and then the Ape could throw a bone up in the air like one did in 2001: A Space Odyssey. A great monolith could rise from the center of the ring, and Sylvester Stallone could be shown as a space baby, sucking his thumb.

I’d pay to see that.

Good news! Now you can help advance the cause of medical science, even after you’re dead!:

A biological anthropology professor at the University of Northern Iowa, Tyler O’Brien, envisions turning some prime pasture in the Midwestern state into a body farm, where human bodies — buried, stuffed in car trunks or exposed to the elements — can provide scholars and criminalists with new benchmark data on human decay.

“This idea has strong scientific value,” O’Brien said. “To answer the question of how long a body has been dead, how long a person has been missing, is critical to criminal investigations.”

O’Brien is seeking a grant of $400,000 to $500,000 from the National Institute of Justice and other organizations to obtain the land and set up the project.

This is big! And it brings up a number of valid concerns:

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To: Heads of Sales & Marketing

Re: Keeping your jobs and our pricing strategy

All:

It has come to senior management’s attention that we’re spending tens of thousands of dollars a year trying to figure out how to price our items. People, I don’t care if that’s what they teach you at Harvard, Yale, or Wharton. At dear, old Pace University’s night business program, we learned business is all about moving product, and recent figures show me we’re not doing that. To that end, CFO de Krook and I want to roll out our new, more aggressive pricing plan. Let’s call it “Operation Undercut.”

Instead of pulling your chins and scratching your heads trying to work out toe the penny what our logistics and infrastructure costs are, here’s what I want you to do. When you quote a price to a retailer or wholesaler, casually ask what our competitor is charging for the same item. If the price is lower than the one you quoted–say forty-seven cents per item, compared with your offer of fity [sic] each–cough twice, slap your forehead with your palm, and say, “Oh, did I say fity cents a unit? I meant forty-six cents, because you’re such a good customer.”

I know you all work on commission, based on the size of the sale you’ve made, so I understand your fears that shaving margins will also sharply reduce your commissions. That’s why this memo is circulated on the same day that we’ve just introduced our new “Overpriced Executive Line,” basically the same office-supply garbage we already sell, produced at the same places and for the same cost, just stuck in nicer gold-colored and silver-colored boxes with ribbons on them, designed to make executives feel important and willing to pay 40 percent more.

So be of good cheer and keep those expense accounts down. Go forth and sell, sell, sell!

Onward and upward,

The Guy Who Writes The Checks

Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World noted yesterday that Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, has decided to speak out about what he witnessed during his tenure. Tom summed the Financial Times piece where Wilkerson speaks out brilliantly:

“What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.” Wilkerson said. He also added that The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was “a concrete example  of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. “You don’t have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you’ve condoned it.”

With this information now becoming public, I’m realizing how prophetic my pseudo-satire piece on the Abu Ghraib scandal, which linked the deeds there straight up to Rumsfeld and the President, really was.

This piece was written in May of 2004, directly following the Abu Ghraib abuses. I had no idea how right I’d be.

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