GOP is the New NAMBLA

These guys are so creepy and hypocritical. Is there any wonder why they are fixated on legislating what's right and what's wrong in the bedroom? Self-loathing and denial are powerful emotions.

American Pop Culture Free

We Americans take our collective popular culture and the rich experience therein for granted. Take my wife, for example.

Blissfully free of Hollywood's pop culture influence, she was born in Italy, raised in Europe and the US by a strict Italian dressage instructor who had no interest in her daughter ever turning on the television, let alone seeing a single feature film (except The Apple Dumpling Gang which she was allowed to watch for 10th birthday present.) She did listen to music, so she was fully immersed in the late 70s-80s portions of that as a youth (Kool and the Gang; Michael Jackson; KC and the Sunshine Band; Earth, Wind and Fire).

Yes, she watched the occasional Starsky & Hutch during prepubescence when her mom was away from the house, but she was living in Germany at the time. Thus the hunky David Soul had the voice of Jürgen Heinrich, and Huggy Bear sounded an awful lot like Sergeant Schultz sucking helium - though she didn't know who Sgt. Schultz was, having never seen Hogan's Heroes.

Of course, over the past 16 years, I've helped catch her up on many films and television shows that have sculpted the modern American psyche. Jaws, Star Wars (which she thought sucked), H.R. Pufinstuff, Doctor Strangelove (which she thought sucked), Monty Python (didn't get it, any of it), and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (she said was an LSD trip, and not a good trip). Only recently she saw The Exorcist. She has still never seen Horton Hears a Who, Conan, 4 of the 6 Star Wars films, or Caddyshack. It's a crime.

She recently returned from business in Switzerland and last night she says, "I went to a chocolate factory. A real chocolate factory. There was no Willy Wonka. No candy rooms. No Ever loving God stoppers. Just a cranky old lady behind a counter, selling chocolate and coffee."

Ever Loving God Stoppers? I corrected her, then went to my room and shed a single tear for Charlie Bucket.

Chavez Crosses Line with Devil Statement

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling U.S. President George W. Bush 'the devil.' (Sept. 20)

How dare he call the President of the United States 'The Devil'? Everybody knows that Dick Cheney is the devil incarnate, dark lord of basalt and eater of souls. No two-bit, sponge-brained, ignominious hayseed from Texas/Maine can stake that claim, no matter how oval his office might be, nor how many outspoken communist leaders in the Western Hemisphere he enrages with attempts to assassinate them.

Pope Fails Reverse Psychology Test 101

al-Qaida is responding to the Pope's depiction of Muslims as ultra-violent by burning his effigy, declaring war on "the worshippers of the cross", and praying God will "enable them to slit (the Catholics') throats."

Go figure. He should have said they were peaceful as kittens, so they would react as irrationally as possible to prove him right by laying down their weapons, declaring all religions a path to heaven, and swearing to never use the sword again to spread the faith.

Nancy Grace is Kevorkian of the Airwaves

Dozens of parents with missing children are cancelling scheduled appearances on CNN's Nancy Grace television show, fearful she will drive them to kill themselves with her mystical powers of antagonism and deranged incrimination.

"She's like Jim Jones, Grigori Rasputin and Jack Kevorkian all rolled into one scary meat bag of pre-menopause false indignation. No way am I going on that show," said Walter Parker, father of a missing 18-month old girl.

Parker was planning on being a guest on Grace's show in the hopes of bringing attention to his cause. He wants to spread the word about finding the "average-looking black guy" who allegedly abducted his severely birth-defected daughter during a late night fishing trip Parker took alone with his daughter while the rest of his family attended a Fourth of July celebration. Parker is offering a $50,000 reward for the capture of the kidnapper, which will be funded from the $2 million life insurance policy he plans to collect.

Bush Body Language

The key to analyzing Bush's national address on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last Monday is to examine his expressions, posture, hand motions and other body language.

Being self-professed body language experts, Turner/Phelps watched the President closely and came to the following conclusions of what he was really saying:

1. North Korea, with its verifiable weapons of mass destruction, isolationist culture, sabre-rattling, and hatred of America and Japan, poses no threat whatsoever, should be approached with diplomacy, and treated with kid gloves.
2. Citizens of America: be afraid. You should live in fear and believe everything my handlers tell me to say to you.
3. The terrorists and culture of terrorism can be thwarted with overwhelmingly ineffectual military force and not through the efforts of experienced international civilian police efforts. Terror networks are religious-based sovereign nations without borders, not criminal organizations that can be dismantled with cooperative law enforcement agencies.

Analysis indicators:

The Women Are Less Hairy Here

Asiago has an internet café! I'm not sure what this is costing me, but like Greece, I'm going to be spending more time finding keys on the keyboard than actually writing.

We're in a house with no international TV, no internet, and the village (Roana) has no English newspapers, so I'm out of the loop on the headlines of today and will take a moment to check.

The Crocodile Hunter is Dead??? Geez, I'm gone for two weeks and the world starts falling apart? I loved Steve Irwin. He will be missed. We should start hunting and killing stingrays all over the world. No, wait, that's Mussolini's spirit (spiritus il Duce) trying to channel through me from beyond the grave.

That headline has ruined my day. More later if I can get back when there are stupid politicians to rail about.