Modern Failure

Some of our readers may remember a while back we wrote a piece about how the state of economy was contributing to a decrease in shark attacks worldwide. Well, now the recession is giving rise to another trend, and this time it’s in our pants.

Vasectomies!

That’s right, men across the country are going under the knife to avoid having anymore children, children they can’t afford. Somewhere, the “Every Sperm is Sacred” guy from Monty Python is weeping silently. There’s a very logical explanation for why men are willfully mutilating their own genitals; babies are expensive. Families can’t afford anymore kids, so Daddy is getting the snip-snip. It’s a simple as that. Or is it.

If these men actually stop to think about their situations for a moment (and applied some rather creative thinking) they would realize that their children don’t have to be a burden after all, and in fact can be a blessing. Jonathan Swift proposed, in 1729, that the poor of Ireland sell their children as foodstuffs to the rich. While this is generally considered to be a satirical work, which attempts to address many of the societal problems facing Ireland at the time, he brings up a very interesting and lucrative concept. Now just to be clear, I am not advocating the eating of babies, such consumption is generally frowned upon in most modern American states (you should keep an eye on any youngsters you might be fond of in certain parts of New Mexico). What I’m suggesting is that families in need sell any unwanted children into forced corporate slavery.

This would be an entirely new type of bailout, one that directly benefits both the average American and the struggling corporate giant. Joe Sixpack will be able to make his mortgage payments thanks to the nice check he’s getting every nine months or so, and the corporation will be able to function without significant budget cuts thanks to a new generation of workers who won’t require pesky things like compensation or health care.

Seriously, I don’t see how this could fail.

I just read a really interesting articleabout the history of American involvement in Afghanistan by Stephen Kinzer in the Boston Globe. After doing some serious investigative journalism, I found this lost Pentagon memo from the late 70’s. It reads:

“Don’t invade Afghanistan. Seriously don’t. Okay, if you absolutely have to, for the love God, please don’t prop up an Islamic extremist government. Seriously, don’t do that.”

I feel like maybe someone should have read that.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard, insurance giant AIG has succeeded in totally pissing everyone off. They recently received $173 billion in federal bailout funds and then turned around and gave out $165 million in bonuses.

Now, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has come out saying that the Obama administration asked him to include language which would allow AIG to hand out bonuses that had previously been agreed upon in contracts.

An Obama administration spokesman had this to say, “Chris Dodd is a big fat stupid head… with farty pants. This is all his fault. We had nothing to do with it.”

Senator Dodd responded, “No way, Jose! This is totally not my fault. I didn’t even know what I was writing when I was writing it. Obama made me do it. He made me!”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi weighed in on the argument, “Don’t even look at me. This was a Senate thing, 100%. We never even saw it in the House. We never even heard of it. We never even heard about seeing it, or thought about hearing about seeing it. So don’t even try.”

New York Senator Chuck Schumer said, “I thought it was a good idea, well, I mean, I thought it was a good idea before it was a bad idea. I thought the good parts were good ideas, but the bad parts were bad ideas. No ever listens to me though.”

Finally, Republican Congressman Eric Cantor said of the whole ordeal, “Clearly the Democrats are a bunch of moron nincompoops, so can we not agree that Oasis is greatest band since the Beatles?”

I hope this has renewed your faith in the federal government as much as it has mine.

Yesterday, in his address to congress, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the Queen’s intention to knight Senator Ted Kennedy. This is quite an honor for the man who is currently the second-longest serving U.S. Senator. In America, the Kennedy family has always been considered something of royalty, so many see this a very fitting tribute.

I disagree with these people completely.

Now, I’m not trying to be harsh here, but let’s call an invalid old man, an invalid old man. Ted Kennedy is an invalid old man. I’m not saying he isn’t a great American, because he certainly is.* I’m also not saying he isn’t a man of virtue befitting knighthood, he very well may be that (jury’s still out). But being a knight is really hard work. You have to wear heavy chainmail armor, carry a sword, ride a horse, slay dragons, de-virginize princesses in towers, and oppress Scotsmen.

Is Ted Kennedy really up to that challenge? In his younger days, sure, he was in the Army and played Division 1 college football. If you gave 1972 Teddy a sword and a fifth of Jameson, I would straight-up poop my pants in fear. But 2009 Teddy? Not so much.

It’s not his fault though, the man is 77 and has terminal brain cancer, he just wouldn’t be my first choice for defender of the realm. If you really wanted an American politician as a knight, I would personally choose Rahm Emmanuel (that guy seriously scares me).

While we’re on the subject, here’s a few other knights that just don’t seem to fit the bill to me; Ben Kingsley, Laurence Olivier, Sidney Poitier, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Michael Gambon, and Ian McKellen. Although if those last two actually have the magic powers they claim to, I would find them acceptable. The only current knight that I would actually want to defend my kingdom is Sir Sean Connery, because he kicks ass. Period.

*Side note: Maybe he’s not. I’m just saying, if he’s such an American patriot why the hell does he want to be a British knight? Seems fishy to me.

It was recently brought to my attention by our good friends over at the Huffington Post, that the current economic downturn has had some surprising ancillary effects on other aspects of our lives. Specifically, a dramatic decrease in shark attacks.

I repeat, shark attacks.

In fact, shark attacks are currently at lowest they’ve been in five years world wide. Apparently there is some very simple logic that can be used to explain this phenomenon; when the economy is bad, people go to the beach less, therefor less of them get eaten by sharks. The simplicity of it all is astounding, yet I never would have come to that conclusion on my own.

This got me thinking, what other seemingly unrelated occurrences could be attributed to the economy. After some good ole thinkin’ time, I created the following list. (Note this list was not made with “science” or “facts” but my own brain logic)

- The global disappearance of bees is actually due to the housing market crash and that many of bees homes have been foreclosed.

- The cancellation of ABC’s Pushing Daisies was in fact caused by a lack of government subsidies for the American Association of Daisy Farmers.

- The reason we’ve yet to invent Cylons is because of budget constraints, not that we don’t have the technology, or that creating intelligent killer-robots is a bad idea.

- My parents kicked me out of their house because they couldn’t afford to support me anymore, not because I was stealing their prescriptions and selling them on eBay.

- The real reason TV networks picked up crap shows like Night Rider for a second season is because creating new pilots is expensive… that’s actually true.

So remember, the next time you find yourself thinking, “Why is my dog biting the mailman?” or “Why is my toast burnt?” just blame the economy.

Well it looks like President’s Day came and went once again and I still have no idea what I was supposed to do. I got off work, which was sweet, but I didn’t know what to do with my day.

On most days when I don’t have to go to work it’s because there’s something else I’m supposed to do. Examples being honoring our veterans on Veterans’ Day, honoring fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, and honoring… laborers? on Labor Day. This is usual done with Red Tag Auto Sales and some sort of Dateline Special.

Yet today I found myself lost.

I assume I wasn’t suppose to honor the current President because I’m pretty sure that’s what the Inauguration was for. And it can’t be that I was supposed to honor the last president because well… I’m just not going to do that. My best guess was that I was supposed to play Skate 2 on Xbox and eat Chinese food.

So congratulations presidents, consider yourself honored.