- Let it not be said that the W. administration is slacking off on setting and reaching goals as it nears its much-needed and welcomed end next year. Granted, the goals these Neanderthals are reaching are ones that will do harm to the country and not good, but still they are reaching goals and let’s be honest, that’s something W. and his minions have failed miserably at for the past six years (Mission Accomplished, right W., that’s what you said about the war in Iraq three freaking years ago?). The current goal that the administration is pushing toward is its quest to further f’up the environment. In seeking to achieve this dubious goal, the W. administration has made it harder for non-permanent streams and surrounding wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The new guidance handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers mandates that for such waters to be protected, there has to be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway. Well, anything to protect the environment less. Denying that global warming exists at all has long been a benchmark for the W. administration’s environmental policy, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that our Intellectual Midget-in-Chief is taking further steps to allow for the degradation and pollution of our nation’s ecosystem.
- News from the land of the creepy and disgusting: the British government, responding to the increasing problem of overcrowding in the nation’s cemeteries, has approved the reuse of gravesites. Under the new rules, burial plots that already have one occupant may be dug up and deepened, with the first body reburied at a deeper level and a second body buried above it. The Brits hope this will head off the oncoming problem of having cemeteries fill to capacity within a few decades, but the practicality of the matter and the absolutely revolting, disrespectful notion of digging up old bodies and then shoving another one in the same hole in the ground like you’re assigning random dorm roommates incoming freshman at college turns my stomach. Local authorities would have control over what is done with the headstones in the cemeteries in their area where these double burials take place, but at that point, does it really matter. Are you going to just chisel the name of the second occupant below the first one and make the family of the new grave occupant repay the family of the first deceased half the money for the headstone their departed loved ones now share? You all are telling me you couldn’t just force landowners near cemeteries to sell you their land in order to expand the cemeteries you already have? We have that concept here in America, it’s called eminent domain, you might want to give it a shot.
- So the NFL is going to have another "competitor" beginning in 2008. I use the word competitor in parentheses because like the USFL, Arena Football League and XFL before it, the United Football League is going to fail and fail big. Every few years there is a dissident faction that takes issue with the NFL’s relative monopoly on football in America and sets out to give the American public an alternative. The biggest problem with this thinking is simple: We don’t want an alternative to the NFL. The NFL has made itself into a year-round entity, with the season running from August to February (when you include preseason games), the draft and its buildup from the end of the season to the end of April, mini-camps and training camps during the summer and the non-stop NFL player presence on the police blotter (OK, so the league isn’t exactly pursuing that last one, but it’s still true). The best players in the world are in the NFL, and we get our fill of football from the league and also from college and high school teams. Every league that has tried to challenge the NFL has run into similar problems: lack of a good TV deal, lack of overall talent and a football fandom that has no need for another league to follow. It doesn’t matter if the UFL is willing to go into Las Vegas, where no other major pro sports league is bold enough to venture, or if they are willing to go international with a team in Mexico City. Nor does it matter if the UFL has lured the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban to be one of its owners, with all of his business savvy. The UFL is going to fail because it will be viewed as an inferior product from Day One and it is not going to have the resources, talent or means to change those perceptions. It may take one season, it may take two or three, but the UFL will fold like a tent sooner rather than later.
- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand. It jumped up a notch. It did, didn’t it? William Jefferson’s involvement in a bribery and money laundering scandal looks to be on a blistering pace to ruin his congressional career, with the Democrat from Louisiana having already resigned from the House Small Business Committee and with Republicans pushing for his expulsion from Congress. Before I go any further, though, I have to kick myself for missing this before now: How ironic that this guy’s name is so close to the name of another noted liar and low-character politician, William Jefferson Clinton. Just pointing that out, but I digress. Jefferson’s resignation from the Small Business Committee came before the other members of the committee were able to vote on kicking him out, so basically W.J. hit the eject button in a futile attempt to save what little remains of his dignity and integrity. And once again, his constituents actually reelected this guy two years ago while the probe that led to this whole mess was ongoing. That says a lot about the voters in his district in Louisiana, none of them good.
- I love TV. Let me say that right off the bat before I say what I’m about to say so you don’t think I’m some bitter misanthrope who just wants to be surly about something. Here’s my proposal: we should seriously consider shutting down the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW) during the summer. The reason for saying this is simple: these networks keep coming up with steadily worse and more asinine programming for the summer, to the point that I’m wondering if you’d actually need to find someone with a negative IQ to enjoy these shows. Start with the disturbing number of talent, or more aptly described as lack of talent, shows. There’s America’s Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance and The Next Best Thing just off the top of my head. The premise for all of them is sad, bizarre losers from off the street trying to show off their "talent" at things like impersonations, juggling, comedy, dancing, etc. while a panel of D-list celebrity judges try to replicate the personality molds for judges so badly crafted by the judges on that hack karaoke contest, American Karaoke. Then there are reality shows like Pirate Master, where a motley collection of dorks compete in pirating challenges to see which one of them has the most useless, pointless skill set known to man and can earn the title of Pirate Master, whatever the frak that means. Then there’s the CW, working feverishly to continue maiming its own slate of programming to the point that it has no quality shows left and the network is forced to off itself, trying a thinly veiled copy of The O.C. with the new series Hidden Palms, which has ended up as a homeless man’s version of O.C. with worse writing and much worse acting. The only, and I mean only, quality show that has new episodes airing during the summer is Traveler on ABC, and one good show among those five networks isn't enough to keep me from repeating my version of Ron Burgundy’s advice to Champ Kind on the set of Channel 4 News: You guys might want to stop broadcasting for a while, just shut it down, Champ, sit this one out.
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