T.O. Explains It All

The Onion explains Terrell Owens' crappy performance last week....

Troubled, underperforming Dallas wide receiver Terrell Owens lashed out in a press conference at the Cowboys practice facility Tuesday, blaming a combination of teammates, world leaders, scientific organizations, and multinational electronics companies for his three-reception, 45-yard performance against Philadelphia Sunday. "I can't catch the ball if the quarterback can't pull the trigger on those passes, and he can't get the pass off if no one's blocking—and who can maintain concentration when [Afghan president] Hamid Karzai is criticizing [Pakistani leader Pervez] Musharraf for not doing enough to stop extremists in his country?"

I think I would pay money to see T.O. actually say this.

What Annoying Song is Stuck in My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Damn Steve Czaban's morning show on Fox Sports Radio, which made me listen to this song the other morning. For the record, Tracy Chapman always annoyed the hell out of me. The only thing I ever found interesting about her music was a parody "In Living Color" did that was much better than her songs. Unfortunately, she kept making music.

So here's "Fast Car"...

Terror Lake Celebrates Hannibal Crossing the Alps

Now even more people will be upset that I didn't ride into my wedding on the back of an elephant...

Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Three elephants, two African and an Asian, were taken out to a ranch near Boca Chica beach to perform, the 31-year-old Bhakta said.

He was in Brownsville to raise funds with friends and decided to get a first-hand look at border security while he was here, he said.

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

Bhakta decided to see if he could get an elephant accompanied by a six-piece mariachi band across the river.

According to his Web site, he is in favor of “sensible immigration reform” and supports a border fence, local law enforcement assistance with immigration laws and the use of the National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol.

“To my surprise, the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up,” Bhakta said of the stunt. “I’m astounded.”

...“If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country,” Bhakta said.

The mariachi band was not immediately available for comment.

(hat tip: Instapundit) I love the last line of the story. Of course, no one mentioned if the elephants could be reached for comment. Stunts like this aside, can someone explain to me how anyone thinks a border fence would be a bad idea? Heck, at this point, I think we need to consider a moat. As for the three people on the planet who get the title of the post, I apologize for sending this link to everyone else.

In the meantime, I'd like to add that I'm not related to Bhakta, even though we share the same first name and likely share the same ethnic heritage. For one thing, I don't have the gumption to ask Anna Kournikova out. For another, he has better hair. Of course, I went to a better Catholic undergraduate institution than that crappy school in Boston -- after all, our basketball team is educated enough to guard an inbounds pass.

Advice for Young Dads

Big Daddy Drew at the well-named group blog Kissing Suzy Kolber has advice for fathers of infants who are dragged to birthday parties and forced to make conversation with other dads at these parties. I have too many friends in this position not to provide a link... besides, the issue, as Drew points out, is figuring out whether the Dad in question is a sports guy or not. If he is, life is good. If not... ugh. Without sports, the conversation could get stilted...

There were a handful of other fathers at the scene. I am nothing if not outgoing, so I headed over to the group of guys standing around the requisite ice bucket filled with Coors Light and Yuengling (the only thing that justifies Pennsylvania's existence). I immediately went into an in-depth discussion of parenting methods with one of them:

"So, you got two kids?"
"Uh huh."
"What's two like? I only have one."
"Oh, it's great."
"Great..."

NOTE: Long pause. The guy's kid walks by.

"So, your kid's walking?"
"Oh, yeah."
"How's that?"
"Oh, it's great..."
"Great..."

This was like a tennis match between two mannequins. It's a moment where the NFL's existence becomes so paramount. The NFL is the common bond that links us all together. Can religion do that? I think not!

The scary part is, I have friends whom I can picture having this conversation.

By the way, I must defend Pennsylvania's existence. We also have cheesesteaks.

It's Funny Cause It's Not Me

My colleague ST challenged me not to laugh while reading this article. I failed miserably...

A WOMAN has suffered severe burning to her anus after being struck by lightning which hit her in the mouth and passed right through her body.

Natasha Timarovic, 27, was cleaning her teeth at home when lightning struck the building.

She said: "I had just put my mouth under the tap to rinse away the toothpaste when the lightning must have struck the building.

I don't remember much after that, but I was later told that the lightning had travelled down the water pipe and struck me on the mouth, passing through my body.

It was incredibly painful, I felt it pass through my torso and then I don't remember much at all." Doctors at the city hospital where she was treated for burns to the mouth and rear said: "The accident is bizarre but not impossible.

She was wearing rubber bathroom shoes at the time and so instead of earthing through her feet it appears the electricity shot out of her backside," a medic told local television news channel, 24 Sata.

And the important remaining question is, what happens if she was wearing rubber pants?

Update: Wojr was stunned to see me post a story that is more in keeping with what ends up on his blog. He's right, of course, but I refer him to the fact that I was merely acting on a tip from one my five readers (my family stopped reading this blog a long time ago -- Indians only use computers for productive purposes). I have to keep the few people reading this happy, or... well, I'm not sure what they would do, but whatever. Of course, this has resulted in two things -- a political post from Wojr that is far funnier than anything I've written recently, and the realization that Wojr and my colleague ST think alike.

I'm not sure who should be more scared -- Wojr (who's now thinking like a lawyer), ST (who's now thinking like Wojr), or their respective families. Unfortunately for ST, I hear that once you go Wojr, you never go back. My only thought is that as the bridge between these two worlds, I apologize to both of them.

Exhibit A For Term Limits

Okay, Ted Stevens is officially pissing me off. Bob Novak tells us why...

In a caucus of Republican senators, 82-year-old, six-term Sen. Ted Stevens charged that freshman Sen. Tom Coburn's anti-pork crusade hurts the party. Stevens then removed from the final version of the Defense Department appropriations bill Coburn's "report card" requiring the Pentagon to grade earmarks. The House passed, 394 to 22, the bill, stripped of this reform and containing some 2,800 earmarks worth $11 billion. That made a mockery of a "transparency" rule passed by the House earlier this year, supposedly intended to discourage earmarks.

...Stevens, the Senate's president pro tempore and its senior Republican, reflects a majority in both parties defending pork. He has been enraged by Dr. Coburn, the obstetrician from Muskogee, Okla., challenging his seniors. But after an angry Stevens took Coburn to task for undermining party unity, the rookie was supported by the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Sen. John McCain asserted that the people backed Coburn, who then made clear he was not intimidated by Stevens.

But as the leading Senate conferee determining the final version of Defense appropriations, Stevens stealthfully pulled out Coburn's Senate-passed report card. It would require the Pentagon to assign a letter grade, from "A" to "F," on the desirability of each unrequested earmark.

The earmark process enables the Congressional-Industrial complex to fund projects the military does not want. This year's bill appropriates money to buy 10 unrequested C-17 Globemaster cargo planes from Boeing. It also funds 60 F-22A Raptor stealth fighters, not supported by the Pentagon and opposed by McCain and Sen. John Warner, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman. F-22A appropriations are guaranteed for three years, reducing leverage with contractor Lockheed Martin.

Incredibly, page 336 of the bill's conference report says that under the new House rule purportedly revealing sponsors of earmarks, there were zero earmarks in this year's Defense money bill. That suggests the transparency rule is as big a sham as its critics have claimed.

The rule's biggest loophole restricts earmarks to "non-federal" spending, which would absolve the larcenous former Congressman Duke Cunningham from earmarking. By definition, all Defense expenditures are "federal." But in reality, many such appropriations end up in the hands of a private beneficiary. Thus, $4.6 million in the current bill goes to the Army Center of Excellence in Acoustics at the Jamie Whitten Center (named for a legendary congressional porker) at the University of Mississippi.

Despite the plethora of unwanted expenditures, President Bush on Sept. 29 signed the Defense bill because its overall spending is within his budget. But it requires transferring funds from needed military programs to politicians' pet projects. The $5.5 million for an unrequested telescope at the Air Force Academy may come from money for night-vision combat goggles.

Clueless Republicans are personified by Sen. Conrad Burns, trailing for re-election in Montana. Burns said opposition to all earmarks by his Democratic opponent, State Sen. Jon Tester, "showed us how reckless and out of touch he is." Burns then issued a press release listing over $775 million of his earmarks, including more than $60 million for the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery.

(hat tip: Instapundit) No wonder Burns is trailing in Montana. Are these guys born clueless, or is there something in the water here in DC?

Just so I understand this -- Stevens wants Coburn to sit down and shut up because pork is good for the party's chances of staying in power. Not good for the country, not good for the military, just good for the party (actually, him) staying in power. And it's not like the King of Pork has done anything useful with his power, like getting some entitlement reform passed.

Can anyone else think of a better ad for term limits?

Up Yours, Hugo

Next time someone asks, this a clear example of patriotism...

In Alaska's native villages, the punishing winter cold is already penetrating the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation.

And yet a few of the small communities want to refuse free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil."

The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.

"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

Hey, I thought I was doing something symbolic by avoiding Citgo. If there's a way to send money to these folks, I'll donate to the charity.

What Economy?

Michael Barone makes a good point on information we won't find in the MSM...

The Labor Department Friday announced that the number of jobs increased between April 2005 and March 2006 not by 5.8 million but by 6.6 million. As an editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes, "That's a lot more than a rounding error, more than the entire number of workers in the state of New Hampshire. What's going on here?" The most plausible explanation, advanced by the Journal and by the Hudson Institute's Diana Furchgott-Roth in the New York Sun, is that lots more jobs are being created by small businesses and individuals going into business for themselves than government statisticians can keep track of. Newspaper reports on the number of jobs usually focus on the Labor Department's business establishment survey. But over the past few years, the Labor Department's household survey has consistently shown more job growth than the business establishment survey. The likely explanation: The business establishment survey misses jobs created by new businesses. Our government statistical agencies do an excellent job. But statistics designed to measure the economy of yesterday have a hard time reflecting the economy of tomorrow.

The federal budget deficit has been cut in half in three years, three years faster than George W. Bush called for. Why? Tax receipts were up 5.5 percent in FY 2004, 14.5 percent in FY 2005, and 11.7 percent in FY 2006. That's up 34.9 percent in three years. And that's after the 2003 tax cuts. When you cut taxes, you get more economic activity, and when you get more economic activity, the government with a tax system that is still decidedly progressive gets more revenue.

You know, for all the ridiculous overspending Congress and the Bush Administration have engaged in, the tax cuts have worked very well as part of a solid economic expansion. Of course, that doesn't fit the MSM's running theme, so don't expect to hear about it anytime soon.

Now This Is Good Political Advertising

This may be the funniest political ad of all time. I'm sure Madeline Albright will protest, and that Democrats will claim the GOP (which, according to Drudge, is opting not to use the ad) is playing on voter fears.

However, to quote Homer Simpson, it's only funny (and scary) 'cause it's true. There's a part of me that wonders what Zucker will do with Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker. Then again, even I can hit that target.

The link to the ad is here, but you can just watch it below...

Your Next Speaker

The next time the Democrats want to know why I can't take them seriously on national security, here's the answer, from the woman they would like to appoint as the next Speaker of the House...

"The United States must not create new nuclear weapons and ignite new arms races. As the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, we have a moral obligation to be a leader in ridding this scourge from the face of the Earth forever.

"The United States does not need a multi-billion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile.

(hat tip: Professor Bainbridge) Let me stop for a second and try not to throw up. Come January, there's a significant possibility that Nancy Pelosi would be two heartbeats from the Presidency. Yes, the speech is from 2003 -- but we already knew North Korea had nukes by then and only lacked a delivery system. Pelosi would essentially waive the white flag on defending ourselves from ballistic missles, two decades after President Reagan told Gorby to take a long walk off a short pier when asked to shut down SDI. For crying out loud, her constituents would be the ones in range of a Korean missile. Maybe I could just chalk this up to stupidity and go merrily along my way here in DC as crazy Kim turns the West Coast into a barren wasteland, but having Hollywood disappear would be offset by the loss of some good friends, not to mention the fact that he might hit Vegas as well. If Pelosi won't protect Las Vegas, what kind of American is she?

Better yet, Pelosi wants to rid the Earth of nukes forever. Does she have a magic wand of some kind? Or was she smoking something? Come to think of it, she is from Northern California.

The GOP probably deserves to lose the House majority -- partly as a headslap to return to conservative principles and partly because fresh blood is needed in DC. The only problem is, the Democrats are making a good case for keeping them in power, because I'd rather be alive and complaining about the government then dead because they failed to protect us.

Maybe They Can Send Hans Blix to Inspect the Fence

Here's proof that politicians outside this country are just as dumb as the ones here...

Mexico's foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations.

Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on a European tour, that a legal investigation was under way to determine whether Mexico has a case.

The Mexican government last week sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing the plan for 700 miles of new fencing along the border. President-elect Felipe Calderon also denounced the plan, but said it was a bilateral issue that should not be put before the international community.

(hat tip: Captain's Quarters) Well, at least Calderon's actually got a brain. What, exactly, would the UN do to stop the border fence? Threaten to pass a resolution condemning us? Maybe they would send us a nasty note or an email chain letter.

Then again, we might have a way that the UN could be less popular in the U.S. and be seen as a less effective. This could pave the road to sending them packing from all that plush and expensive NYC real estate... hey, is there any way we can help the Mexicans file this protest?