Hey George. The ocean called. They're running out of shrimp.

For no reason at all, I thought of this Seinfeld episode from 1997 or so, and found this clip of a deleted scene. Enjoy.



P.S.: Sporkless, you're still bald, too.

Fire Marshall Bill

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this aired during halftime of the Superbowl back in 1992:

"Oh the humanity! Hahahahahahahahaha!!"

I don't know what made me think of this, but Jim Carrey's Fire Marshall Bill character suddenly popped into my head. The continuing theme/gag of the character was that he was constantly warning others about extremely unheard of (or at least implausible) hazards, but he would end up causing explosions and fires himself.

I remembered something sad about that particular show, too: at the close of this episode, which was broadcast live, all the cast of In Living Color were gathered together to bid the audience thanks and goodbye, and Sam Kinison screamed, "I'd just like to say I'm really sorry I bet on Buffalo! Aaauugghhh!! Aaaugghhh!!!" It was one of his last appearances on television.

Sony Gurm!

For no particular reason, here are a couple of scenes from a very funny (and somewhat off-colour) movie from 1990, Crazy People starring Dudley Moore:

So remember, if your visual presentation doesn't make quite the sense you want it to make, just give the panel a little shake and it will be better.

Zealotry for the law! Part I

In my previous post about Super Rod Blago, I took a swipe at U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. In fact, following up on a comment from His Honour Lord Macrum of Maine, I relished the possibility of Patrick Fitzgerald losing the case. To his credit, Macrum did not let that pass without asking me why I felt this antipathy toward Fitzgerald, and he also asked what I thought about Kenneth Starr's pursuit of President Clinton back in the heady days of the 1990s. (Heh... er, sorry about that.)

I will start at the end, which is the beginning, and then work my way back, which is actually forward. In time, I mean. Whatever. This post is about Ken Starr. The next one will be about Patrick Fitzgerald.

Ken Starr, for those that were too young, too drunk or too wise to have been paying attention, was the United States Solicitor General during the administration of the first President Bush. He was later appointed by a three-judge panel to investigate the Whitewater controversy, which implicated Bill and Hilary Clinton in a failed real estate venture and, by extension, into the questionable circumstances surrounding the failure of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which was owned by the Clintons' real estate business partner. All of this was somewhat interesting at the time, but it soon became clear that as far as the Whitewater land development and Madison Guaranty issues were concerned, the Clintons seemed always to be just removed enough not to pursued in a criminal sense. But they were certainly guilty of having associations with crooked business partners. Fifteen individuals were eventually convicted of federal crimes, mostly embezzlement, tax fraud, loan fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, related to the Whitewater affair.

The problem was that the investigation, like almost all white collar investigations, dragged on for ages. Kenneth Starr unearthed some evidence of sketchy or questionable conduct by the Clintons, and by times the Clintons seemed less than forthcoming about the matter. But instead of dropping the issue and moving on, Mr. Starr kept digging, always finding out a bit more, but never enough to charge or present an impeachment report related to Whitewater.

Concurrent to this, of course, President Clinton was pursued in the courts by a woman, Paula Jones, to whom he had been very rude. I am not excusing Clinton's behaviour, which allegedly involved a sudden and unexpected invitation to a certain intimacy, but this is the political and social climate we have lived in since the 1980s, where rude behaviour is often considered illegal. Like almost all civil suits, this too dragged on for ages, and by the time it came to fore in the courts, putting it frequently in the news, President Clinton had been subpoenaed and had testified in a deposition and had once again raised suspicions about his truthfulness. And it was here that things went out of control: Kenneth Starr asked the Attorney General, Janet Reno, for authority to investigate the allegations against Clinton relating to what he may or may not have done with Paula Jones and with a now-famous White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

We all know how the story went from there. Zealotry for the law! Yes, yes, said Ken Starr, I know this all about private conduct, but the president may have lied about the matter under oath. Well, duh. Of course he lied about it. And while I do not condone or excuse lying under oath, my position is that no man, not even a philandering scumbag adulterer like Bill Clinton, should have to testify in a deposition or in court about the women he has had. This was ridiculous. I know, I know, I am opening up myself to criticism for saying this, because I believe that the absence of public criticism of abhorent moral behaviour has fuelled the general decline of Western culture in the last forty years. Bill Clinton should have been publicly embarrassed by these revelations, but I cannot see any justification for the matter being dragged into court. Ken Starr didn't see it this way, though. Mr. Starr is a man of great intellect, high personal moral standards, and great generosity. But he was blinded by his zealotry for the law, and put the United States through an entirely unnecessary political episode. One might argue that if it had not been Starr, it would have been someone else. I can counter that with you may be right, or you may be wrong. It could just as easily have been someone who would have pulled the curtain on the matter instead of ordering testing of evidence on a blue dress. Zealotry for the law does not always translate into justice.

Two final interesting points about Clinton and Starr, one of which may raise the wrath of some of my readers:

1) Ken Starr has since expressed regret about asking Janet Reno for authority to investigate the Lewinsky matter.

2) The laws which permitted Bill Clinton's prosecution for sexual harassment were put in place for good reasons, but the blame for the degree to which they have become weapons in the hands of vengeful people rests entirely with the political left. The obsession with political correctness that brought us to the day when a person's life can be ruined, socially and legally, based on another person's unproved allegations, is most definitely not a conservative creation.

If time permits, I shall post my complaints about Patrick Fitzgerald tomorrow or Friday.

The End of Temporary?

You know how trends work, or at least, how they're supposed to work? Something starts, lasts a while, then dies off or fades and gets replaced by something else. In other words, most trends are temporary.

Now, I certainly know that "temporary" can mean a few days, weeks, months, years or decades. It all depends on one's point of reference, and the trend in question. What I refer to here are things that should have lasted, at most, a few years, but seem to be a permanent feature of life instead. (And yes, of course I know that such judgment may be jumping the gun, and completely unfair, but today at least I prefer to take the unequivocal Kent Brockman approach to analysis.)

Which brings me to the heart of the matter: the following are trends, fads, fashion statements, cultural quirks, or things that should be so classified, which have long since worn out their welcome. Some are quite subjective, yes, and your mileage may vary, but here's an incomplete list of things I just wish would fade away, or improve and cease to be a problem, because their 15 minutes of fame have somehow been stretched out. These are in no particular order:

1. Tattoos.
Not my thing, not even close. In fact, I think most of them are gross and rather detract from a person's looks, regardless of where they're placed and how large or small they are. I've yet to see one I like. But instead of being a passing fad, they're going mainstream. I fear too that when folks who are particularly marked up reach old age, the tattoos shall emphasize the general sagginess that comes with it.

2. Facial and body piercings.
See #1 above. If you like that much metal on your head, wear a steel helmet.

3. Facebook.
"BRB. Have to go to the bathroom." I call the thing "Faceplant", but it should actually be more like "Facepalm". What is it with the tendency of people nowadays to advertise their every move on Facebook? Don't even get me started on the gems that teenagers put on Facebook, or the stupid photos, or the fact that no one, anywhere, actually has 1,396 friends. What should be a great facility for helping people stay in touch or helping businesses and governments get information out to their customers and citizens has evolved into a catch-all medium for brain farts, insults, bullying, prostitution, drug-dealing, narcissism, and anything that even used to pass for a normal conversation. Yes, God forbid you pick up the phone... better to put a message onto someone's "wall", where you can monitor how many of your "friends" register how much they "like" your message about meeting your buds at the movies. Don't know how any of these people can actually still understand spoken language since this is the only way they talk, but at least they still go to the movies.

Get bent, Zuckerberg. I hope your "invention" gets replaced by something else.

4. Constant, unrelenting cell phone texting.
The answer to the old question "Can we talk?" seems to be "No". We can no longer talk, but we can punch tiny buttons on our mobile phones all freaking day long. That's just fine, if one is home or not in a public situation, or not simultaneously trying to do something else, like eat, converse with someone else, drive a car, take a crap, or listen to the teacher. Really, everyone. It's cute technology, and very useful, but it's overdone. Get over it already and learn how to speak properly, and write right.

5. Terrible telephone etiquette generally.
More cell phone trouble here. Gotta make a call when you're out? Fine. Need to speak loudly in a crowded waiting room, an elevator, at a cash register as you're paying for something? No, I don't think so. Excuse yourself and find a quasi-private place to yap on the phone. It's good manners. And don't even get me started on the nearly non-existent verbal skills that some people have but yet try to make a living as a telephone marketer, customer service agent, or receptionist. Seriously.

6. Pants which show off the upper half of the crack of one's ass.
Maybe we're just running out of material, and someone thought it would be a good idea to conserve it by doing away with the upper several inches of every single pair of pants they could get their hands on. This "low rise" trend with pants crept into our lives about a decade ago, and it hasn't gone away yet, in defiance of most fashion trends. However, this is less about fashion and more about looking as trashy as possible, so perhaps I ought not hold my breath.

7. Endemic lack of math skills.
I don't really care if someone needs a calculator for a simple addition or subtraction problem. It doesn't even bother me if a slow-in-the-brain cashier needs the cash register to figure out that my change is a nice, round number. The odd argument I have with a fast-food cashier over their improper entry of my order in the cash register doesn't faze me either, but it sometimes freaks them out that I can tell them what my total should be with tax included, because they have no idea how someone can do that. But that's not the problem here. I know I'll probably catch hell for saying this, but the problem is old people who for forty or more years worked and earned money, but couldn't do the basic math required to tell them that they needed to save some of their income, instead of spending all or almost all of it on frivolities, so they wouldn't have a retirement during which they would have to rely entirely on subsistence-level government pensions and therefore have access to a diet consisting mainly of only mayonaise and cat food.

Seriously. How bloody stupid do you have to be not to notice that having little or no savings when you turn 40 is a wake-up call, at 50 is severely urgent, and at 60 or 65 is disastrous? And how in the name of Sam Hill is this the government's fault? Who the hell do you mathematically-challenged geriatrics think the bloody government is? If I have any damn money when I'm 65, it will be because I've saved it over the years, not because the government is giving me the sort of large pension to which you think you're entitled but haven't earned. The current system is a ponzi scheme anyway. Smarten the hell up and start saving money, fools. Do the math; it ain't hard. This trend of not being able to add and subtract should have ended in the 1980s, but I see by the headlines screaming at me about little old ladies and men, along with the other usual suspects, complaining about the "inadequacy" of the Canada Pension Plan or United States Social Security that it's a permanent feature of life. It shouldn't be.

8. Useless, timewasting, empty-talk meetings.
I get invited to these all the time as part of my day job, and they're often in inconvenient places. For most of them, I can find a reason not to attend - because they really have nothing to do with me or my job anyway - but for the times I have to be present, I have a golden rule: you have one hour to make your point. If you wish to converse in circles until the afternoon has been killed off, be my guest. But if we start at 1:00, you can bet that at 2:00 I will be getting up, excusing myself, and going back to the office. Really, folks: it's fine to meet and talk about something, but as Homer Simpson once said, "Yeah, but what are you gonna do?"

Useless meetings should have been just another passing fad. At least these folks are open about the real reason they like meetings.

9. Beauty pageants for children.
I cannot believe how unreliable are the memory banks of some apparently-sentient humans. Has everyone forgotten the tragic case of JonBenet Ramsey? This poor girl, whose murder to this day is unsolved, was famously an entrant in child beauty pageants. The TV clips we saw of her and others were sick-making, not because the children in the pageants were unattractive or badly behaved, but because of the spectacle of their hideous parents living unrequited dreams through the exploitation of their children. Yet today these stupid pageants live on, with jealous, shallow, callow, screaming parents teaching their daughters that it's all about how you look, and in the process objectifying their girls and contributing to the pornification of the culture. Just how do you think these poor girls are going to the think about themselves and others when they become teenagers? Is this any kind of basis for a healthy outlook on life?

Seriously, parents: knock it off and grow up. And if you really are that stupid, leave your children out of your dysfunctional socializing and competing with others also in need of brain implants. This shit should in the past by now.

10. Telemarketing calls.
I don't want to talk about my credit cards, my computer, your credit cards, your products, fake vacations, your fraudulent schemes, or the charity of the week. I have credit cards and I don't care if the interest rate on them is 964% annually, because I pay them in full each month and I never pay interest. And I don't need any more credit cards, thanks. Your inquiries about my computer are probably an attempt at identity theft, so piss off. I don't need any more stuff in my house; if I decide I want something else, I'll buy it without your prompting me. I do not believe you when you say I have won a cruise to the Bahamas: I know about this marginally legal scheme and it's just a hook to get my credit card number and rope me into taking five to seven other, overpriced vacations which I cannot afford and which I have no desire to take anyway. The really fake and criminal calls are visible from miles away; you're wasting your time on me and I hope you suffer stomach cramps severe enough to cause hospitalization for every call you make in the attempt to cheat someone out of something. I have charities I support; don't pitch any more at me.

And, you call at stupid times of the day and evening. Disparais de la mappe, okay? (Loose translation: get bent.)

11. Lady Gag-Gag, Ke$ha, and others like them.
Their music is, occasionally, decent and catchy. Their looks, personalities, wardrobe choices, and stage performances are gross and disgusting. And yet they stay on the charts because - apparently - the only people whose musical tastes count anymore are rebellious teenagers. No one else likes music? How about this: we go back to the way it was in the 1970's, when there was only one Top 40 chart and any kind of musical genre could make its way onto the hit parade. Then the rest of us could enjoy the occasional respite from filthy "artists" like Ke$ha telling us, amid the apparently now-involuntary pelvic gesticulating on stage, for reasons which still escape me, to "go insane, go insane." No, Ke$ha, you're quite enough nuts for everyone in the room. Go take a bath, and get the stupid dollar sign out of your name. I'll stay sane if it's all the same to you.

12. The credibility of Keynesian economics.
After decades of evidence that pump-priming the economy provides only very short term benefits, we still suffer from governance by individuals who take only a static view of the economy and jump up and down, pogo-stick-like, over inequalities in economic condition among a population. The remedy they propose borrows from the tried and failed belief that all economic growth is controlled by manipulating demand, and this in turn is appropriately directed by the government.

Hey, America: How's that working out for you? The problem with your stuck-on-Keynes thinking is that you and Europe are going to drag us down the vortex with you. Back in the 1990's, when Canada was heading toward the fiscal cliff, a very sly and clever man named Jean Chrétien ran in an election (1993) promising that the problem was only a political one - i.e., the fault of the party in power - and he promised some Keynesian-like infrastructure spending to solve the problem. To the dismay of the left, and every other party who ran against him and lost, he changed course less than a year later, cut spending and transfers to the provinces, and within a few years we had a balanced budget. In the meantime, the fiscally sane approach to governing actually set the stage for excellent economic growth in the late 1990s. Keynes would have predicted the opposite, because of the static view that taking money out of the system - even if it's money you don't have - undermines demand.

It took a left-leaning Liberal like Jean Chrétien to solve the problem and smash the paradigm. But fifteen years later, the Keynesian approach, which is the deadbeat dad of massive stimulus spending, quantitative easing and debt monetization still holds sway in all the wrong places.

13. Global warming.
There can be little doubt that the climate is changing. I do not make this statement because some unbalanced sinecured conehead has told me so, but because this is what the climate has always done. It changes. We know about ice ages and warm eras in the Earth's history. We know about coastline changes over time. It is documented that there was once lush vegetation in areas that are now covered by tundra. See, there's this little thing called the sun, and the amount of energy it emits is not constant, but subject to fluctuation. Here's a question for the anthropomorphic global warming believers: what caused the warming period the Earth experienced in the Middle Ages? Automobiles?

14. High taxes on beer.
This one just speaks for itself.

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I guess I ought to stop now...that's probably enough.

And to those of you scratching your heads in mystification over this post, I offer you this question: after you've been offline for several months, what better way to reappear than with a long serious of random complaints?