Sure-Fire Strategy for '08 Presidential Hopefuls....

Want to drop your cushy ass in the Big Chair this year? Wanna see what it's like to get oral in the Oval? Just follow King Rat's Easy Prez Plan, and your spot in American History textbooks is set in concrete.

1. Promise to treat celebrities like people.
---When Brit goes crazy, lock her ass up for more than an hour. We've all seen domestic disputes on COPS. We know you can do it.
---Money does not make the law. Neither do lawyers. When Lindsay Lohan gets drunk and chases people in her SUV, put her in jail for more than an hour. When her lawyers show up, toss them in the cell for being criminally retarded.
---Deport Paris Hilton. Just for fun.
---And for God's sake, arrest OJ.

2. Promise to treat rich people like people.
---Taxes are taxes. We all live in America. We should all pay American taxes.
---Just because you can afford Johnny Cochran does not mean you are innocent. With enough money, you can be caught with a dead hooker in the trunk of the car you dumped in a lake, and still hold a political office!

3. Promise to treat criminals like criminals.
---Make up your mind. Alcohol kills people who use it, as well as people who don't. Marijuana does neither. So, either bring back prohibition, or legalize marijuana. Either way, get all those small time pot violators out of prison and stop the ridiculously expensive and ludicrously ineffective War On Drugs.
---I'm not racist. I'm anti-criminal. Illegal immigrants are just that. ILLEGAL. Send them home. Relax immigration policies if you want. Make the process of applying for citizenship more streamlined. But please send the criminals home. We have enough of our own.

4. Promise educational reform
---I have family members who are teachers. I respect them. I do NOT respect the way the No Child Left Behind policies (among others) are castrating our public education system. There are people who have been ALLOWED to progress to high school who can not read. There are people who graduate from high school without being able to pass BASIC SKILLS TESTS. And all because we want to be able to show ON PAPER that more of our students are progressing and graduating. Good thing we're not telling whether or not they actually learned anything.

5. Promise to make SUV's illegal
---Okay, perhaps not. Maybe just slap on a monthly Idiot Tax, which will then be used to pay for crude oil.

6. Promise not to buy crude for $100 a barrel.
---I got news, guys. America has enough oil to last way past the standarization of alternate fuel automobiles. Open up the wells in Texas and Alaska, tell Exxon Mobile to suck a fat one, and roll out those fossil-fuel-free cars you've been spooking the patents for since the 50's. Even if it's not 100% successful, foreign oil will get TONS cheaper once Big Daddy America quits paying for it. Supply, demand, you know, the stuff we learned in high school? Oh, yeah, I forgot. Promise #4.

7. Promise NOT to try Bush and Cheney for war crimes and general breach of trust, treason, and a whole bunch of other stuff they did while we were all watching.
---We all know they did it. Promise instead to just skip the trial and publicly torture them to death on the White House lawn on live TV.

8. Promise sweeping mainstream media reform.
---We're tired of extremist, fear-mongering, totally uninformative/misleading news. Either release your stranglehold on the media and require Big Business to do the same, or abolish it completely. No news is better than fake news.

Well, there you have it. Any candidate who made even HALF of those promises would immediately win the election. We wouldn't even NEED an election, because all the competition would instantly drop out of the race in fear. Any opponents of such a presidential candidate would likely be immediately killed just so they couldn't accidentally win the election.

Video Games Attacked Once Again!!

And this time, McDonald's is directing the bombardment. Though it slyly owns up to it's portion of the blame, the fast-food giant that's been expanding waistlines one Big Mac at a time since 1940 is trying to blame video games for the increasing child-obesity issue.

“Then there’s a lifestyle element: there’s fewer green spaces and kids are sat home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside.”

Source

Hmm...ok, so what's really the issue here? It's the same issue we've been discussing lately.

Responsibility.

Mortal Kombat gets blamed for the death of a child, when we should be looking at the abhorrent home environment that produced these two murderous teens.
Dr. Phil makes history by having his first intelligent thought, and asking parents why they don't pay attention to the ways their children use or abuse entertainment media.
And now McDonald's says, "McNuggets aren't the only villain! Video games are fattening too!", in a statement that very strongly reminds me of the times when I would throw my younger brother under the bus by claiming that I shouldn't be punished because "he didn't eat his green beans either!"

Here's the deal, America. Video games do not make us fat. McDonald's does not make us fat. We make ourselves couch-wrecking lard-asses. We take things that are meant to entertain, and we abuse them. Ronald McDonald does not put a gun to your head and force you to Supersize. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo do not tie you to your couch and force you indulge in their digital wonderlands until your muscles atrophy. We make these decisions on our own.

What really gets me is that so many parents are jumping on the video-games-are-evil bandwagon. Here's a thought: Make your kids play outside. Stop letting entertainment media raise your family for you. When I was young, my dad bought an NES. When we played it, we played as a family. It was a treat, something we all did every other evening or so. That's the way it ought to be, folks. Something to do in between a few rounds of front-yard football and a home-cooked meal. But this is the generation with no parents. They're at work, they're on business trips, and the oven is used more frequently to re-heat last night's Domino's pizza than it is to cook a casserole. And if today's shining examples of parenting ARE home for the evening, they spend their quality time glued to the tube watching American Idol or Survivor or Dr. Phil, or some other such nonsense. Now, there's nothing wrong with television (in practice...I think there are a million things wrong with today's TV programs, but that's another rant entirely), there's nothing wrong with Netflix, and there's certainly nothing wrong with some good old Goomba smashing or alien blasting. I also believe that you can have a few alcoholic beverages, and even smoke a little of the green green grass, if that's your thing. But, remember what the good Lord taught us, kiddos.

All things in moderation.

There IS such a thing as "too much of a good thing". But here's what we must remember: it's up to us. Go ahead and blame video games if you want. Blame McDonald's. Every time you do that, you're giving up the responsibility that you have for your own life, and saying, "Here, video games/fast food/booze/sex/addiction of choice. I am going to allow you to run my life. I can't be held responsible for my own actions, so I'm going to allow you, no, I'm going to invite you to take over for me."

Take back your life, America. Take some freaking responsibility. Or take a flying leap, and let the rest of us live in peace already.

(As an aside, it has been shown that obesity may actually be a switch that gets thrown in the womb. In today's "thin-is-in" society, image-obsessed expecting mothers try to put on as little weight as possible whilst preggers in order to keep the dream of post-baby-smuggling single digit pants-sizes alive. This does have an effect on the baby, however. During the developemental stages, the baby figures that mommy is starving, and therefore the world must be in famine mode. When the baby is born, it has adapted to a foodless existence, and has mutated into a fat-storing prodigy. Its little body is programmed from conception to stock up any available nutrients, just in case famine strikes yet again. We're training mommies to be skinny, and babies to be fat. So, take heed, moms-to-be. Stuff your face! You can work it off later. But if you don't feed Junior enough in utero, he'll make up for it once he's eating on his own.)

Video Games are Evil (MK Part 2)

In a shocking development, one of my least-favorite people on the planet finally managed to score some awesome points.

Dr. Phil Supports MMO, Scolds Parent

While television personality and actor Dr. Phil has come out against violent video games and their influence on children in the past, in a show that aired Monday entitled "Shocking Teen Trends", the good doctor actually comes out on the side of social MMO There.com. After questioning 13-year-old Lexie and her mother Lezlie (awww, their names are so kyoot!) about Lexie's There.com addiction and speaking to There.com CEO Michael Wilson, Dr. Phil actually jumps to a reasonable, well thought-out conclusion.
"The problem is not with the game; the problem is the use of it," Dr. Phil tells Lexie and Lezlie. "The game is very creative and it's there for you to use or abuse. Are you abusing it?"

Source

The nice thing about this is that the terminally brain-dead segment of America that watches and reveres Dr. Phil just happens to be comprised mainly of those individuals who will believe that video games (as well as T.V., movies, Dungeons & Dragons, and basically fun in general) will cause anyone who touches them to become a depraved, violent, child-raping lunatic cannibal.

And so Dr. Phil speaks directly to the ones who need this insight the most.


Go Dr. Phil!!