Robert Travers

10 posts

Born in a trunk at the Princess Theatre in Pocatello, Idaho, SaintPatricksYear has been called "America's Greatest Living Folk Singer" and a beacon of light to East Coast lighthouse. A collector of fine wallpaper he is traveling the Ukraine in search of the legendary lost "Cop Rock" episodes.

Picking Your Crass NCAA Bracket for Fun and Profit

Important note: The Grand Inquisitor does not follow college ball, so she is relying on the wisdom of Crassers Past (St. Patrick’s Year) to get you started. You can sign up for Crasstalk Funderdome brackets here. The team password is “indianasucks” (without the quotes).

Today is Christmas wrapped in the Super Bowl surrounded by endless waves of Kentucky Derby roses for gambling professionals, casinos, Hoboken wise guys, and offshore sports books. This is the day when the non-gamblers gamble, the day when grandmas, toddlers, the comatose and Nepalese Sherpas all gather round the television and fill out an NCAA basketball tournament bracket without knowing the difference between Duke and Duquesne or a chance in hell of actually winning the office, school or neighborhood pool.

And the pros –also that skeezy guy from Tech Support who runs this thing every year–are lining up to take your bracket and your money. The only time you’ll hear from them again is through a weekly email between now and Easter showing you and your colleagues just badly your bracket is progressing. Continue reading →

Crassballin’: How Not to Pick Your F*%#ing Bracket

Sex, Honor, and Basketball at BYU

BYU’s Brandon Davies, a 6’9″ 235-lb starting forward for the top five-ranked Cougars has been suspended for the remainder of the season for violating BYU’s strict Honor Code. Davies admitted to Brigham Young University officials that he and his girlfriend engaged in pre-marital sex. The suspension, announced Wednesday, will include the post-season conference and NCAA tournaments.

Davies had been averaging 11.2 points and 6.1 rebounds this year this for the Cougars and was a major force behind their 27-2 record and possible number-one seed in the tournament as well as a potential run to the Final Four. All that is in jeopardy now.

Thursday night, New Mexico dismantled the Cougars, 84-62, a possible sign of trouble to come for the suddenly undermanned BYU squad. Live by the Honor Code, die by the Honor Code.

“This is who we are, and most people that come to this school, hopefully all, understand that it is one of the reasons they come to BYU,” said Tom Holmoe, BYU’s Athletic Director, at a news conference following the suspension. “We understand that people across the country might think this is foreign to them, and might be shocked or surprised. But we deal with this quite often.”

The BYU Honor Code is a forbidding list of restrictions that every BYU student agrees to upon becoming a student. The Code applies to both Mormon and non-Mormon students.

“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men,” the Code states. “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things, the Honor Code states. It continues:

Be honest
Live a chaste and virtuous life
Obey the law and all campus policies
Use clean language, respect others
Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, and substance abuse
Participate regularly in church services
Observe the dress and grooming standards
Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code

Although it may seem Draconian, at least one observer of college ethics supports BYU’s handling of the situation. “I give the school credit,” Donald McCabe was quoted as saying in The Salt Lake City Tribune. McCabe is a professor of business and writer on issues affecting higher education. “They laid out their rules, they were violated and they stuck to their guns. The student was forewarned and he knew what the penalty would be, and he took his chances.”

While no definitive reports have yet surfaced as to how Davies was turned in to authorities, or even if he turned himself in, a variety of sources on Friday released the name of his girlfriend, Danica Mendivil, a volleyball player at Arizona State University, and like Davies, a native of Utah. Early reports indicated Mendivil might be pregnant, which her family has since denied.

Davies is part of a very small African-American contingent of blacks in the LDS church. As recently as 1978 the last formal bans were lifted against African-Americans who wanted to serve as bishops or in other LDS church leadership positions. Davies was born in Philadelphia and adopted by a white Mormon family who raised him in Provo as a member in good-standing of the LDS church.

While no hard data is available, church observers have said African-Americans comprise less than one percent of LDS church membership.

Image here.

Whether Davies’ punishment was more severe because of the interracial nature of his and Mendivil’s relationship will remain speculative, but this is the second major Honor Code violation in two years to rock BYU athletics.

In 2010, the Cougars’ all-time leading rusher Harvey Unga was kicked off the football team and withdrew from school for having a sexual relationship with Keilani Moeaki, a BYU women’s basketball player.

Supreme Court Decides in Favor of Wesboro Baptist

The United States Supreme Court this morning voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church in a case brought by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral Westboro picketed in 2006. The majority opinion, only Samuel Alito dissented, determined whether Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, was entitled to monetary damages due to his suffering emotional damages as a result of Westboro’s protest at his son funeral in Westminster, MD five years ago.

Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was 20 years-old when he died in Iraq in a non-combat-related vehicle accident in Al-Anbar province on March 3, 2006. Westboro Baptist church members staged a protest at Snyder’s funeral in his hometown of Westminster. The elder Snyder has claimed emotional distress and physical problems related to the protest, and has said he cannot separate memories of his son from the hate-filled protest.

The Court, however, found that Westboro was engaged in protected public, not private, speech “in a public place on a matter of public concern” and therefore Snyder was not due any damages.

“Simply put, the church members had the right to be where they were,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, writing for the majority. “Westboro alerted local authorities to its funeral protest and fully complied with police guidance on where the picketing could be staged. The picketing was conducted under police supervision some 1,000 feet from the church, out of the sight of those at the church. The protest was not unruly; there was no shouting, profanity, or violence.”

Roberts, however, went on to note the Court was not deciding on the larger Constitutional question of whether protests at funerals are protected. This ruling only affected Albert Snyder’s rights to compensation in this specific instance.

“Our holding today is narrow,” Roberts wrote. “We are required in First Amendment cases to carefully review the record, and the reach of our opinion here is limited by the particular facts before us.”

Roberts pointed out, as the Court has said in the past, that even reprehensible speech that the overwhelming majority of Americans disagrees with must be protected under the right to free speech. “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” Roberts wrote in today’s decision.

Left unsettled by the Court in this decision, however, is the larger of question of whether a state can block a person’s or group’s protest at a funeral. Maryland and 43 other states have passed laws in recent years barring demonstrations at funerals because of the Wesboro protests.

In an impassioned dissent, Justice Alito wrote that the right to free speech does not allow for “the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.” Alito believes the Westboro Church member “brutally attacked Albert Snyder” and that he is entitled to damages as compensation for his suffering “severe and lasting emotional injury.”

Photo here.

Are You Smarter Than a Football Player?

I have spent much of the past two days in front of the television watching sturdy and well-formed young men run around an empty stadium in Indianapolis dressed in nothing but skin-tight biker shorts and muscle shirts. I haven”t seen so many bulges since that morning at the Provincetown Pride Parade. But that’s a story for another day. No, I’m not watching Spring Break on the Logo Channel, it’s the NFL Network. That can only mean one thing, America. It’s Combine Week in the NFL.

The NFL Combine is basically an audition for hundreds of prospective NFL football players. These are incoming players, eligible for the draft for the first time. They run, throw, block, hop, skip, jump and do everything but sing show tunes in front of scouts and coaches from all 32 NFL teams and a national television audience. Off the field, players are examined by doctors, interviewed by general managers and taken apart mentally by staff psychologists. Last year in a notorious Combine moment, wide receiver Dez Bryant of Oklahoma State was asked by Miami Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland if it was, in fact, true that his mother was a prostitute. Ireland, who later apologized, was either looking for a quick lay after the session ended or just wanted to see how Bryant reacted to sudden stress.

For the average football fan who is not actually going to make any selections in the upcoming draft , the Combine is at once as dull as watching articial turf grow and as fascinating as brain surgery. Hour after hour, day after day, 300-lb linemen defy several laws of physics and run 40 in 5 seconds, 200-lb running backs lift twice their weight 18 consecutive times and quarterbacks throw perfect spirals all the way to Chicago.

But the most intriguing part of the Combine is, sadly, not on television. The good stuff takes place behind the scenes in closely guarded classrooms, where players are given a raw intelligence test called the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test, written, scored and evaluated by the Wonderlic Corporation of Vernon Hills, IL.

In today’s ultra-competitive business environment, thousands of employees in a variety of professions have at some point taken a Wonderlic-type test as a condition of employment. It makes sense if the applicant is a CPA or a HVAC repair-person. A business wants to know it’s not hiring Paris Hilton. But what does an IQ-style test have to do with the physical ability and the commensurate willingness to remove a quarterback’s head from his shoulders in the hopes of gaining a Wild Card berth or gain one extra yard only to have James Harrison drive his rocket-fuel-propelled body into your chest, sending you hurtling into the club seats. The heart and motivation to sacrifice self for team cannot be measured on a 50 item multiple-choice test.

Indeed, a major academic study completed at the University of North Carolina in 2007 concluded there was no correlation between high Wonderlic scores and success in the NFL. So why take this test at all? Who knows–why take the SAT? Perhaps the problem is that football is just asking the wrong types of intelligence questions. The Wonderlic’s questions are fairly straightforward, by-the-book IQ type questions, such as:

A train travels 20 feet in 1/5 second. At this same speed, how many feet will it travel in three seconds?
When rope is selling at $.10 a foot, how many feet can you buy for sixty cents?
The ninth month of the year is…

You can take an entire sample test here.

Despite its reputation as a Neanderthal ThugFest, football at its highest levels is by far our brainiest and most intellectual game. It’s true that baseball players are frequently required to both scratch their balls and spit tobacco at the same time. And then guess curveball. But that’s pure hand-eye coordination–as is having the innate ability to consistently miss your shoe with your spit.

Basketball and hockey are mostly athleticism, grit and instinct. And yes, the very best players see the game as it will be three seconds from now not as it is in our reality. That is more than raw intelligence for a sport–it is a gift of timing, intuition and physical creativity. Kinisthetic and athletic geniuses like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Kobe Bryant literally play a different game than we do.

But football is on a whole other level when it comes to complexity. A typical play call on offfense might be:

“Scatter-Two Bunch Right-Zip-Fire Right-273-Pivot-F Flat.”
“Duece Right 19 Slot on 1 and Dice Right Ice Cream Alert 654 Jose”
“Trips Right 255 X Block Slant H Disco Alert 12 Trap”

If you are a quarterback, a position which only a kind of football savant can play, not only do you have to know your play and know where all your backs, linemen and wideouts will be and when they will be there, but you also must determine what the defense is doing. And this despite the defense doing everything it can to disguise its intentions.

And the incoming and data must be processed and communicated to ten co-workers in less than 30 seconds, again and again, under extreme physical and mental pressure in a setting where the decibel level is often as high as at a Clash concert. All this and it suddenly seems a 50 question IQ test is not enough. If you’re going to be my quarterback, I’m going to want transcripts, letters of recommendation from your sophomore English professor and that research paper you did on the Civil War. Oh, and I’ll need your Calc final.

Most of all, I’m gonna want to see how you react when I ask if it’s true you’re sister’s a whore while we’re both standing on train tracks at high noon with the Acela bearing down from the east, Ray Lewis coming from the west, and Larry Fitzgerald open down the road for six easy points. And right now you’re down to four seconds to figure out how long ago the Acela left Detroit. Do all that correctly and a hundred million dollar, seven-year deal is yours. And I’ll tell you I was just kidding about your sister.

Photo here.

DUI Stops Tiger in His Tracks

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Three days after his epic DUI arrest, hard-drinking slugger Miguel Cabrera was a no-show as the Detroit Tigers opened spring training workouts for the entire club today. It’s unclear when, or even if, Cabrera will join his teammates this spring in Lakeland, FL, according to The Detroit Free Press and a number of other sources. Cabrera is expected to enter an alcohol rehabilitation center within the next several days, which could keep him away from baseball until just before the start of the regular season in early April. But Tigers management and Cabrera’s teammates were more concerned about Cabrera the person than Cabrera the ballplayer and today and universally voiced support and concern for their missing teammate.

“He’s going to be welcomed here with open arms by his teammates,” Tigers skipper Jim Leyland said to reporters. “And they’re going to want to see him hit that ball over the right-centerfield fence with two men on, and he’s going to do that.”

Cabrera, a native of Venezeula, was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Fort Pierce, FL late Wednesday night as he was making his way to spring training from his winter home in Boca Raton. Cabrera, driving a black 2005 Range Rover–a definite undercar for a guy who signed a $153 million contract in 2008–was pulled over by a St Lucie County deputy who saw the SUV swerving through traffic. Arresting officer Deputy Peter Lamborghini–yes, that’s his name– wrote in his arrest report that Cabrera not only declined a breathalyzer test, wandered frequently onto the road and refused several requests to get in the back seat of the officer’s car, but at one point Cabrera also reached into his own car and “picked up a bottle of James Buchanan’s scotch whiskey and started drinking it.” Well, why not? It’s not like he was going to be driving anymore that night.

Cabrera, notes the police report, also pulled the Fame Card and and at one point said to Deputy Lamborghini, “Fuck you…do you know who I am.” While no audio has yet been released of the arrest, almost certainly the exchange sounded more like “Faaaaa uuuuu, nooooo who ayemm?” Excellent work by the deputy translating Drunk English into Standard English so quickly.

In October 2009, Cabrera was arrested, but never charged, on a domestic disturbance report at his home in suburban Detroit. His blood alcohol content was .26 when measured by police after being taken into custody. Cabrera reportedly went through an alcohol counseling outpatient program following the 2009 season. No off-the-field incidents involving Cabrera occured in 2010, a season in which he hit .328 with 38 home runs. The Tigers still owe Cabrera over $100 million.

Photo: Flickr

Who Will Star in the Crasstalk Movie?

87 comments

Maybe this is being considered in other threads by other people, but is there any thought of holding an organizational meeting for all the crasstalk stakeholders? Like now, before it gets too big and too out of control? Let’s just maybe meet each other and really do some work on what each of is willing to bring to the table, which of us is good at x, y or z. Oh, and just as importantly, who among us knows the people who can get the word out and get a bright light shined on this little space? And then of course, there’s money and owenership and copyright and first use and and all of that legalsese mumbo jumbo that would be much better discussed now and have agreements in place and responsibilities delineated and compensation spelled out. What????
Yeah, well ya never know, this funky joint could be a real comer one day I’m just saying it seems like it is going great and has had a wonderful first week. But we are all potential right now. We are not where we could be if we don’t mess this up. And to me that requires a few givens: a number of great writers to pump out the content. Space and love and respect for thCommenteriat Community that uses the posts as the bricks and mortars of the permanant site community. So–quality writers and quality commenters.
Maybe this is being considered in other threads, but is there any thought of holding an organizational meeting for all the crasstalk stakeholders? Like now, before it gets too big and too out of control? Let’s just maybe meet each other and really do some work on what each of is willing to bring to the table, which of us is good at x, y or z. Oh, and just as importantly, who among us knows the people who can get the word out and get a bright light shined on this little space? And then of course, there’s money and owenership and copyright and first use and and all of that legalsese mumbo jumbo that would be much better discussed now and have agreements in place and responsibilities delineated and compensation spelled out. What???? Money? We’d get paid for writing this? Yeah, well ya never know. This funky little joint this way-way-way off-Broadway bash could be real big time one day. I’m just saying it seems like it is going great and has had a wonderful first week. But we are all potential right now. We are not where we could be if we don’t mess this up. And to me that requires a few givens: a number of great writers to pump out the content. Space and love and respect for the
Commenteriat Community that uses the posts as the bricks and mortars of the permanant site community. So–quality writers and quality commenters.
Beyond that, we need a couple marketing types, a business manager, an administrator or two, and a comuter tech guy or two. And some cheap space, unless everyone works remote. In the end that’s not a lot of seed money crasstalk would need to get going. The biggest expense might be advertising, and so much of that would come free because of the “war” with the Nick Denton gang over at Gawker. Media would eat up a story like that. Pageviews would come and ad rates would follow—but only if we are crystal clear on quality of the writing and the protection and support of the Commenteriat, who would be the true essence of a site like this. They are its breath, they are its air. A site goes mad and decays without its most loyal followers. the Commenteriat.
But, yes, shouldn’t someone write all this down? Don’t we need a business plan, a constitution, a way forward

Yeah, well ya never know, this funky joint could be a real comer one day I’m just saying it seems like it is going great and has had a wonderful first week. But we are all potential right now. We are not where we could be if we don’t mess this up. And to me that requires a few givens: a number of great writers to pump out the content. Space and love and respect for thCommenteriat Community that uses the posts as the bricks and mortars of the permanant site community. So–quality writers and quality commenters.

Maybe this is being considered in other threads, but is there any thought of holding an organizational meeting for all the crasstalk stakeholders? Like now, before it gets too big and too out of control? Let’s just maybe meet each other and really do some work on what each of is willing to bring to the table, which of us is good at x, y or z. Oh, and just as importantly, who among us knows the people who can get the word out and get a bright light shined on this little space? And then of course, there’s money and owenership and copyright and first use and and all of that legalsese mumbo jumbo that would be much better discussed now and have agreements in place and responsibilities delineated and compensation spelled out. What???? Money? We’d get paid for writing this? Yeah, well ya never know. This funky little joint this way-way-way off-Broadway bash could be real big time one day. I’m just saying it seems like it is going great and has had a wonderful first week. But we are all potential right now. We are not where we could be if we don’t mess this up. And to me that requires a few givens: a number of great writers to pump out the content. Space and love and respect for the
Commenteriat Community that uses the posts as the bricks and mortars of the permanant site community. So–quality writers and quality commenters.

Beyond that, we need a couple marketing types, a business manager, an administrator or two, and a comuter tech guy or two. And some cheap space, unless everyone works remote. In the end that’s not a lot of seed money crasstalk would need to get going. The biggest expense might be advertising, and so much of that would come free because of the “war” with the Nick Denton gang over at Gawker. Media would eat up a story like that. Pageviews would come and ad rates would follow—but only if we are crystal clear on quality of the writing and the protection and support of the Commenteriat, who would be the true essence of a site like this. They are its breath, they are its air. A site goes mad and decays without its most loyal followers. the Commenteriat.

But, yes, shouldn’t someone write all this down? Don’t we need a business plan, a constitution, a way forward?

This is what I’m thinking, anyway? What do you all think?

Five Coolest Things You Get To Do After Winning The Revolution

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Thousands of peace-loving, courageous and ultimately victorious Egyptian protestors have left the city’s squares and streets to go back home and refuel on traditional Egyptian meals like koushari and Kentucky Fried Chicken. As they eat, bathe and especially brush those their revolutionary teeth, it’s time for them to think about what comes next. To the victor goes the spoils, they say, and I say it’s time to get spoiled, Cairo-style.

So, where does one begin after taking power in such dramatic fashion? Sure, the military is calling the shots at the moment, but in a few short months they’ll be back in the barracks and on the golf course and you’ll be in charage, the New Founding Fathers of Tahrir Square, the Che’s of the Nile, the Solidarity of the Sahara, the Pancho Villa’s of the Pyramids.

To help get you started, I have compiled a list of the Five Coolest Things You Get To Do After a Revolution. Do these first, then worry about the UN, finance, Isreal and all that boring crap. In fact, hire your parents for those jobs. You won a revolution. I say run with it, baby! For most of you, these are your reckless collegeyears. You toppled a government and changed history. Your American peers merely got wasted in Lauderdale and barfed after the Duke game. Indeed, this is the plan, a handy, step-by-step list of priorities for the new government, in Egypt, Tunisia or China. Oh, sorry, they don’t know about that one yet. Anyway, here you go:

1. Stautes, Statues, Statues–Look, in Washington, DC, you can’t swing a corrupt Congressman without hitting a statue of a Founding Father. Advantages: They’re stone or bronze, chicks will dig you if you show her a statue of yourself on a first date, and as we’ve seen in Iraq, they are a bitch to pull down when the fun stops.

2. Money and You–No, no, don’t steal the money. That’s for small-timers. Tin-pots who don’t last the decade. You want to be on the money. Your mug. On the twenty. How’s a maitre’d ever gonna screw you over when you pull yourself outta your pocket? That’s right, he won’t. The waiter will, but not the maitre’d.

3. The Naming of Names–In addition to scoring a higher grade of babes and dudes now that you are the best-selling flavor at the Ben and Jerry’s, it is time to continue the time-honored way of the revolutionary and rename the world. In your image. St. Petersburg? Bullshit–it’s now Leningrad. Mexican revolutionary Emiliana Zapata has both parks and Metro stops named after him in Mexico City. Imagine–your own metro stop! But why end there? Trailer parks, cities, mountain ranges, states, all you, buddy. Airports, highways and rest stops. National Parks, rivers and sewage treatment facilities. Entire albums by The Clash, for chissakes, named for you. And in Egypt, you have a special opportunity. After all, what are the names of the individual Pyramids? That’s right, nobody knows. Pyramid A, B and C? Not anymore…

4. Holidays–In your honor. Whenever the hell you want them. Personally, I’d keep a few floating so whenever I needed a long weekend, I’d just call up the, um, national holiday people, and say, hey, this Friday is gonna be “Jarvis Fincus Day” and we’re all off work. But I’d only do that if my name were Jarvis Fincus.

5. Your Children and Your Children’s Children–Would so not have to study your country’s Revolution chapters when they come up in school. Bing! Easy A. You’d be telling them your same old bullshit stories from your glory days from the time they talk so they’s know this crap inside and out. How do you think Jefferson’s kids got into UVA? OK, he built the place. Not a good example, but you get the point.

So, as you can see, when you put down the KFC, the real work begins. Good luck. And you might want to write a Bill of Rights in there somewhere. But not until after you name the good freeway for yourself and the one that gets jammed up at 5 am and stays that way til midnight for the asshole in your Poli Sci class who was always flirting with your girlfriend.

Singer Black Madam Allegedly Kills Patient: Butt Surgery Gone Bad

14 comments

Philadephia-area police have launched a manhunt, as it were, for a transgendered self-proclaimed musical visionary calling herself Back Madam. The singer, whose real name is Padge-Victoria Windslowe, and who does underground plastic surgery on the side, is charged in the murder of 20-year-old British student and medical tourist Claudia Aderotimi. She died Tuesday morning after undergoing the procedure performed by Windslowe at a suburban Philadelphia Hampton Inn. This is why you don’t get a hip-hop singer to perform your surgeries or get a skateboarder to fly your airplanes.

The British woman flew to Philadelphia for silicone injections designed to improve and enhance the shape of her buttocks. According to police, Aderotimi began complaining of chest pains shortly after the injections and was taken to a nearby hospital where she died of acute liver failure several hours later.

On a website used by Black Madam to promote her surgical skills, a previous patient said the singer-slash-surgeon would make your ass look like an apple “and everyone wants their ass to look like an apple.”

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, Aderotimi wanted to improve her buttocks because she hoped to appear in more hip-hop music videos.

Black Madam’s website contains a rambling, mostly incoherent biography which includes the statement “I want so bad to do the right thing, however, when I hit my knees at times, it just doesn’t seem like the creator hears me…thus I am tortured to make these tough decisions when it comes to the comforts of my life here on earth or glory after death.”

Police searched Windslowe’s apartment for a number of items that could be used in a medical procedure, including silicone, bandages and, of course, Krazy Glue.

John, Paul, George, and Sarah. Oh, and Their Loyal Dog Glenn

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This second week in February marks a very curious and twisted week of birthdays, anniversaries and milestones in our nation’s history. Particularly the week of February 9-16, 1964. The week began with Americans suffering through an especially cold winter on the East Coast, and the nation still in deep mourning over the astounding death of President John F Kennedy two months before. But the night of February 9, brings a cultural watershed to the nation as intense and groundbreaking as any artistic moment could be when The Beatles do two songs on Sullivan and guitars anhair and suits are never quite the same. The Earth itself seems to spin on a bit of a happier vibe perhaps. Here comes the sun, indeed. But, wait! What do we hear? The sound of an infant’s cries. Could it be–yes it is–it’s Baby Glenn Beck born on February 10 in Everett, WA the very day after the Beatles are on Sulllivan. It is noted he wants to see the Birth Certificates of all his nursery mates. It is noted on his chart he will suck only an American-born teat. But that is not all that would shake the Earth this epic week. Oh no. Why a scant 300 miles to the east a straight-shootin’, grizzly baby was making her own way out of that there birth canal on February 11, hours later and coming on like a true American to have a look-see at the conditions and talk about how she could end the health care coverage that paid for her own delivery. And maybe see if the doctor could get himself a tax cut. Her first wink came seven minutes after birth. It was at the hospital’s CPA. So there it is. Within 24 hours on roughly the same distant American outpost in the far Northwest cameth Sarah and Glenn, born mere hours apart and required by some Jor-El of the Right to wreak havoc and lower the aggregate intelligence scores of Americans well into the 21st Century.

Finally, I could not let the waning hours of February 11 pass without a special birthday shout-out to the Once and Future Governor of My Heart-Shaped Box, Miss Sarah Palin. A humanitarian, a patriot, a thinker, a wise stateswoman, and except for the first three kids, a wonderful mother. Your work towards gaining economic freedom for billionaires has inspired us all. Your spare, humble lifestyle in these tough economic times has been a true model of selfishness. Your hypocritical and unquenchable devotion to God and money is something we will never forget. So on your birthday, you reload, girl! You put targets on Todd and the lamestream media and anybody else who questions your delusions. Who are we to shatter the illusion of a small-town, not-very-bright, but prettier-than-average, girl from the Great North Woods turned multi-millionaire on the twisted fantasies of your disciples. This is your day, SP! The one freakin’ holiday you don’t have to share with those folks who aren’t true Americans cause they’re gay or Muslim or Navajo or something.