Archive for January, 2009

Of Hands and Feet and Disrespect

January 22, 2009

A recent headline on the Drudge Report reads, “Miss World Finalist Loses Hands and Feet.” And I thought to myself, “Wow! Now THAT’S an impressive performance for the talent portion of the competition.”

I clicked to read the article and was sad to read that this wasn’t an elaborate samputation (self-amputation) for purpose of winning the tiara, but a surgical removal to prevent some killer bug from taking her life.

Nothing funny about that after all. But when you think about it, she could, with four very convincing-looking, break-away prosthetics and an unaware audience, certainly blow their minds with an unbelieveable magic trick.

Now, let me digress.

Shame on the liberals who disrespect our country.

Living in a heavily liberal part of Texas, I encounter, on a daily basis, Obama supporters. This is nothing new for me. On my last job, among 20 close work colleagues, I knew of only one fellow conservative.

But I’m shocked and apalled at the willingness of liberals to spew hate speech against President Bush.

Feel free to disagree with his policies. I’ll disagree with Obama’s of course! But when a divergent view on political issues turns into a virtual spitting upon the former leader of our country, this becomes disgraceful.

Yes, I know free speech entitles anyone to make these disparaging remarks, and I find it highly ironic that they spit upon the man who so effectively protected their free speech rights for eight years.

On the evening of Obama’s inauguration, I happened upon a restaurant where an inauguration party was being held. A band, led by Austin singer Leeanne Atherton, was singing songs of celebration and victory. No problem.

But then Ms. Atherton pointed to a pinata hanging from the ceiling, with pictures of President Bush’s face on it, and announced that later that evening, everyone would have a chance at smacking him.

I expressed my displeasure to the manager, he alerted Ms. Atherton to the situation. Instead of quietly removing the pinata, she chose to announce to the crowd that “ONE PERSON HAS TAKEN OFFENSE,” and proceeded to rile the crowd to boos against this one person.

She then said, “I’ll take down the pinata,” and proceeded to growl and bark as she bashed the president’s face. At this point, I left.

In a later conversation I had with Ms. Atherton, she claimed to be a peace-loving person whose political activism dates back to the Vietnam War.

Peace loving? Using hate speech on the bully pulpit of her band’s stage, and encouraging others to violently attack an effigy of our former president is a show of peace? I think not.

Liberals have long been accused of disingenuity, and this is yet another example. Out of one side of a mouth comes accusations of conservatives engaging in hate speech and bigotry, and out of the other side of the mouth comes a tirade of hatred and disrespect.

You will never hear me disrespect President Obama, and if I hear it around me, I will stand up for decency. He’s my president, he’s our president, and he deserves respect.

He, nor any current or former president, deserves to be hung in effigy, the image smacked about violently. Shame on Ms. Atherton and shame on anyone who demeans our great country by disrespecting our leaders.

D x DI – SV/(A/AxPQ)=S%

January 9, 2009

This morning, I participated in an interesting conversation with some work colleagues about this seeming inability men have of successfully hitting the toilet when we pee.

I excused myself and sat down at my computer and came up with the following:

 

D x DI – SV/(A/AxPQ)=S%

 

Where:

D=Diameter of Toilet Bowl

DI=Distance from Subject to Toilet Bowl

SV= Stream Velocity

A=Age

AxPQ=Age Times Prostate Quotient*

S%=Likely Percentage of Success**

 

* – Prostate Quotient calculates the age of the subject and the likelihood of prostate enlargement, thus affecting the stream velocity

** – Success percentage is defined as the subject’s ability to deposit all specimen into the bowl without any collateral splash

 

So I created a macros which runs this formula through millions of configurations, and in EACH case, the likely percentage of success hits 17% or less.

 

The only time I was able to get a higher success percentage was when I modified the equation, adding in a figure for “months dating or married.” In those cases where months dating or married was less than six, the percentage of success hits in the upper 90 percentile range.  Go figure. 

 

I excitedly shared my findings with my co-workers, prompting one (a woman, of course) to ask, “Why don’t men just sit down.”

 

Sheesh.  For the same reason we men don’t ask for directions when we’re driving.  Because we can’t think when we’re sitting on our brains.  Any woman will tell you that!