Hollywood Riot

Last week, a rampaging donkey was placed in a Mexico jail until he calmed down. Now the Mexican Navy (who knew that existed?) is on the hunt for a giant killer fish that devoured two swimmers and injured a third. One local Mexican fisherman estimated the shark was “as big as a house.” We later confirmed he meant his house, which puts the size of this beast at between 15 and 20 feet.

The Mexican Navy ran into some serious trouble, and called on G.W. Bush and the CIA for help. The embarrassed Mexican Navy may have embellished the threat. The following video explains everything… in a way.

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I can’t decide whether to feel bad for this guy or laugh at him. Seriously, it’s just so sad. I mean, every little kid who has ever been to a birthday party knows you can’t let go of a helium balloon and expect it to stay put. It’s filled with helium for crying out loud.

French skydiver Michael Fournier was mortally embarrassed this morning as his high-altitude helium balloon - the one he was supposed to skydive out of in the stratosphere (the real stratosphere, not the ride in Vegas)- escaped the grasps of his obviously-retarded flight crew. I mean, didn’t he check these guys out before he handed his multi-million dollar space balloon over to them? Didn’t he make them read this?

Fournier was supposed to set a bunch of world records with his 40,000 km jump from the edge of space. He spent his life savings, sold all of his possessions, and spent the last 20 years preparing for this. But all he managed to do was watch the balloon float up, up, and away without him in it. He was supposed to be in it! At least he didn’t stake all his hopes and dreams on that little bitty space balloon. Oh wait, he did. Fournier has made the jump his life’s work at a cost of nearly $20 million.

It’s probably just as well. If anything went wrong up there, which it undoubtedly would have, his blood would have boiled for crying out loud. Let me repeat that - his blood would have boiled. Boiled, like soup, or some old guy’s ass.

Maybe the balloon’s escape was God’s way of saying, “Hey moron, you don’t belong up here. Stay on the ground where I putcha.”

Or like I said before, maybe his flight crew was just retarded.

Either way, Frenchy is pissed.

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Let me guess, he wrote his own speech?

Memorial Day is a sombre time of remembrance, especially while we wage two wars and lose young men and women almost every day. George W. Bush, the Commander in Chief responsible for the most costly military blunder in U.S. history, had these moving words to share with the grieving family members of fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery:

“On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the commander in chief and try to tell you how proud I am,” Bush told an audience of military figures, veterans and their families at Arlington National Cemetery. Of the men and women buried in the hallowed cemetery, he said, “They’re an awesome bunch of people and the United States is blessed to have such citizens.” 

That’s it? They’re… awesome? The brave men and women who have given their lives to this country deserve a better accolade than that. Are you the President of the United States of America or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? The scientists and engineers at NASA, who successfully touched down the Phoenix Mars Lander yesterday, are an awesome bunch of people. Maybe he just got confused and thought he was congratulating the scientists. Soldier and Scientist both start with S, after all. Wouldn’t surprise me. 

For a very moving Memorial Day story, check out this NPR story concerning Sgt. Merlin German, the “Miracle Man”. And thank you to all the soldiers and their families.

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Political opinion certainly isn’t a modern invention, but we do have a few new novel systems in place to deliver the stories. Newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, internet. The boom in 24 hour news coverage on channels like CNN, MSNBC, FOX News etc. is unprecedented. Most of the personalities on these shows are opinion-based, with a few facts thrown in for gravitas. It’s entertaining, but has it gotten out of hand or what? Take this current election season, and specifically the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The pundits had stayed on the fence, for the most part, until one night after Bumfuck Primary #42 when Tim Russert outright declared Obama the Democratic nominee:

First of all, this guy is taking himself way too seriously. Secondly, there’s something else going on here, an air of acceptance. “Oh, well, if Tim Russert said so… then it’s OK for me to think the same thing.” I don’t mean to single Russert out, but that clip gives me the shivers. And I’m not even a Hillary Clinton supporter. Welcome to 1984, children. That proclamation, and the subsequent snowball effect that made it safe for the media to start openly referring to Obama as the nominee, despite the fact that Rev. Wright might still hop out of the bushes and mow everyone down with his white rage, is almost scarier than wiretaps. Warrentless and warrented wiretaps, illegal or legal. Big governments have been doing that since the technology was invented and spying itself has been around for as long as we sneaky humans have. If you’re worried about snoops, play death metal really loud and communicate via carrier pigeon.

However, this brave new media world we live in has never occurred before. Information has traditionally been passed down slowly via stories and cultural performances and then eventually through the written word and then, much later, the printing press. Because the process of relaying information was so time consuming, people didn’t have the resources to expound on every point. Stories were boiled down to their essence. Nowadays, programmers and producers have the opposite problem. There isn’t enough hard news to fill a 24 hour cycle, but there is plenty of hot air to go around in the form of pundits. Stick one of these self-important windbags in front of a camera and they’ll easily give you an hour of whistlin’ Dixie. We have been conditioned to give credence to these “talking heads,” as we tend to think of these people as experts. Yet, most of them are just really loud.     

Not to mention WRONG. Oh-so-certain Tim Russert made his Obama declaration nearly a month ago, but Clinton still hasn’t dropped out. What an incredible underestimation of Hillary’s grit, her determination… her delusion. So why are these media pundits even on the cable? Why do we believe them? Remember, these are the same people who failed to get the word out about WMD’s and Iraq before the war. The information was there, but it wouldn’t have been very popular, especially to the cabal of rednecks in the Oval Office. Which appears to be the same reason Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the war in Iraq, and the same reason why she comes across as very un-Presidential today. Convictions are easy to throw out when you’re faking them to begin with. 

Let’s look at how France does it, as I believe they have an enviable system. Those nuclear powered, riot-lovin’ French get to watch Melissa Theuria every morning on the French equivalent of CNN, called LCI. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but for some reason I feel better about the world after watching her. Bill O’Reilly and his hideous mug make it easy to change channels, but Melissa is… hard… to… ignore. Great crepes, she’s the beautiful face of Big Brother that Orwell never saw coming! 

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Many people find it hard to believe that we’ve explored space more thoroughly than the deepest depths of our oceans, but it’s true. And there’s a pretty good reason for that (besides the fact the water pressure down there will snap you like a twig). Everything down there is so damn ugly. Ugly with a capital F.

Have you ever seen photos of deep-sea creatures? Stephen King couldn’t imagine scarier-looking life forms. For real… check it out. Here are a few bottom dwellers I’d rather not ever encounter. Ever. The last two even bear an uncanny resemblance to celebrities…

The Rattail. No, not that hideous looking strand of hair that used to hang down your brother’s back in the 80’s. Although that was ugly, the rattail fish is even worse. How’d you like to run into this thing in the swimming pool?

The Sabre Tooth. Guess what? Sabre Tooths are not extinct. They just live miles below the surface. And they have fluorescent blue eyeballs now.

Alien Fish. I don’t know if that’s this thing’s real name, but it’s fitting don’t you think? Original, no. Fitting, yes.

Cucumber Fish. Looks a little like Rocky from that Cher movie ‘Mask’. Remember that movie? These guys never see the light of day, and I bet Cher and her biker boyfriend are pissed about it.

Tentacle Fish. Hmmm. Delightful. What’s all that crap coming out of its body? Looks like Amy Winehouse after a night out with Pete Doherty. Like I said, it’s not pretty.

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