It's A Tough World, But We'll Always Have Bill

My article on the NIE report regarding Iran's uranium enrichment program, and the media's expected reaction to it, is being met with no small amount of hostility. My assessment illuminated that the report contained little new information, and only confirmed that Iran's uranium enrichment program was still in full swing, and their nuclear weapons program had only been suspended, not halted as the liberal chattering classes are so smugly asserting. The reason? The presence of the American military and their allies in the region has made it virtually impossible to acquire the necessary components to complete the project. The fact they intend to resume the program in 2010 should be a cause to raise alarm bells, and not a reason to celebrate.

Had my article fallen on deaf ears, it would have been less puzzling than the response it received from Ezine, who were considering publishing the article. They rejected it calling it "defamatory" and "inflammatory". Now, either these guys write speeches for Jesse Jackson in their spare time, requiring them to write rejection letters with lots of words that rhyme nicely, or they are adhering to the age old law that editors love the letter Y. Either way, defending President Bush and alluding to what I saw as a clear and overwhelming bias in the manner in which in the media handled the report is hardly inflammatory, nor did I defame anyone. But that's the nature of the beast when you're a conservative writer. Unless I adopt the childish mantras of the anti-war crowd, it's tough to make a buck in the world of editorial journalism.

My very own local paper, the Times and Transcript, are always quick to whip out a litany of semi-literate editorials by their resident paint sniffer in chief, Bill Belliveau, who, when he's not screaming about how George Bush is a war criminal, he's reminding us how we should be grateful to be paying taxes, or how Prime Minister Harper is a knuckle dragging neophyte for suggesting that we should be able to keep more of our money. I wrote a short letter to the editor outlining not only my views, but those of many others in this country who feel that the NIE report was a snow job. They chose instead to publish a letter from some guy who simply wrote in to inform us all that he was getting a busy signal at his doctor's office. It took all of two sentences. It seems that if I were to write in a letter about how very pleased I was with this year's entries in the annual gingerbread bake-off, I'm sure they would give me top billing.

I'd be less cheesed with Times and Transcript if their letters to the editor section was a-political, but it is not. Any nutcracker who wants to go on anti-Israel, quasi-Hebrew-baiting rant gets published. Any guy who doesn't like the fact that cops use tasers gets published. And of course, anyone who thinks that President Bush beats puppies and eats the souls of babies on the weekend definitely gets published.

Oh well, for all the caveats that come with this genre, thank the good Lord for blogs. At least for those who prefer wit over cleverness, facts over media fiction, and fresh perspectives over regurgitated talking points from the left, you can always click on the Hype. For the rest of you, there will always be Bill.

Anyway, I hope Mr. Belliveau has thick skin. Have a great week, and make sure you check out the Hype's artist of the week, the hypnotic Regina Spektor, singing her amazing song Fidelity.

Cordially

Joe

Slightly Less Annoying Than MySpace

Blue something or the other. It's a new social networking site, I think, and I don't intend to go out of my way to find out. Facebook is enough, which I guess is the new Myspace. I don't want to add the "Zombie Application" or the "Happy Flower Application". I took off my Funwall after I could no longer take 17 people bombarding me with Youtube videos every day of a dog who took in an orphaned raccoon as a baby, or some endless video clip of reasons I should grateful I don't live in Darfur. I'm fairly certain I don't need reassurance from well-intentioned people that I should be happy that troops of 12 year-olds armed with machetes aren't breaking down my door to lop my limbs off in a bloody mess and parade my head through the streets like some modern day Thomas Becket. Enough already.

Did you know that the mail service use to run up to 5 times a day in some countries, so people could be bothered to put pen to parchment, slap on a stamp, and write something substantive to their neighbors across town? Now people are strapped up like Tom Cruise in Minority Report with their Ipods and Blackberries so they can write in some cryptic language to text trivial things to half of their wired network. Yeah. TTFN. Do you know you're actually saying tata for now? Have we become a society of gay 19th century socialites? The last time someone said "tata" to me, I'm fairly sure I was 2 years old and was I being admonished for shitting behind the chair in the kitchen.

I know people far more skilled then I have tackled this topic before with much more wit than I, but good lord, IHMD! (I've had my druthers!)

But I'm 34, and maybe getting a little misanthropic with age. Facebook is fun enough, but it's a little like the cyber equivalent of showing up on someone's door step unannounced. I get a notification that some guy I used to work with, never spoke to, and am pretty sure hated my guts, wants to add me to his friend list. Gee. Why didn't you just actually try to be my friend when we worked together 13 years ago? That would have been a hell of a lot simpler.

Why? Because there is something blatantly disingenuous about all this social networking. I used to repeatedly mock former CNN anchor George Bernard Shaw when he asked the former President Bush some 15 years ago whether the Internet would come with a price, the price being the loss of human contact, religion, and maybe our soul. Ok, maybe he was going over the top with the soul comment, but Mr. Shaw foresaw something the rest of us didn't. Funwalls and Zombie applications.

Cordially

Joe

Still A Threat

It didn't take long. The press copies from the NIE report supposedly downplaying Iran's nuclear capabilities were still warm to the touch, and the rabid Trotskyites from the major news networks were already pouncing on President Bush. CNN's Ed Henry threw all semblance of objectivity out the window, reporting that he was "shocked" that the President "showed not even the slightest admission that he was wrong about Iran's nuclear weapons program." Well, with all due respect to Mr. Henry, had he read the report in full instead of looking for "gotcha!" quotes, he would have found the report shed little light on anything new, and confirmed what President Bush has been saying all along - that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and has no intentions of stopping any time soon.

As Clifford May so eloquently pointed out in his recent column, there is vast difference between "suspending" a nuclear program, and "abandoning" it altogether. Iran, as the report clearly stated for those who bothered to read it in it's entirety, is only suspending the program until 2010, and would resume it much quicker if they had the capability.So through all the naive static and accusations of Anderson Cooper and the like, we are left with this fact. Iran is continuing to enrich uranium, and has said in the past that "a world without the United States … is achievable...We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization … We know how we are going to attack them.” Comforting huh? At least President Bush doesn't think so and neither should anyone else with a grain of sense in their head.

Of course, this will fall on deaf ears, as people like Keith Olbermann and his ilk prefer to conveniently turn a blind eye in the face of overwhelming evidence because they cannot see clearly through their almost bizarre hatred of the President. But if you choose to believe that the NIE report is actually saying that Iran has no dire intentions behind it's ACTIVE Uranium enrichment program, be my guest. Remember, these were the same guys who told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - now they are saying Iran has none. Where they wrong then, or are they right now?

Cordially

Joe

Random Blogging by Numbers

I promise that I shall touch on topics of a relevant or least semi-coherent nature in an upcoming blog at some point, but for the moment I am effervescing, and in these states of effervescence I am prone to pontificate on trivial things that seem like earth-shattering quandaries at the time.

1-Don't know if this is shared experience, but I went to the washroom today, and when I looked in the mirror I realized my tie was mid-crotch. Now that's pretty low. I mean, it was hanging just above where the sun peeks out over the mountain tops.

It's vastly better than having tied it too short. Finding my tie mid-nipple would have been much more of a fashion faux-pas, like the stapler guy from office space - but mid-crotch is still pretty 'tardo. I looked like an ape. It throws your body all out of proportion.

2-It's almost a certainty that someone has an Aunt Jemima, and I'm equally certain that there are countless people out there who have an Uncle Ben. BUT - if Crunch is an actual last name, is it possible that someone out there has a relative in the military who, by title, is called Captain Crunch? I think that would be rather interesting.

3-How come there aren't anymore TV shows or movies starring guys driving 18 wheelers with their chimpanzee sidekicks, criss-crossing the country solving mysteries? I'm rather glad that they've fallen by the wayside, as I don't like chimps, but I wonder why monkey side-kicks have lost their appeal. Part of the reason could be the traced back to 2001, when 3 hepatitis A-infected monkeys escaped from a lab and went on a rampage in California.

4-Did you ever almost flat line at the hospital because some doctor you wouldn't trust to babysit a hamster decides to diagnose your slightly elevated blood pressure and chest pains as angina, and then squirts you with two doses of nitroglycerin? I did. Not fun. My eyes got all big and glassy, I was sweating like a fat man eating tacos in a sauna, and my skin turned whiter than Michael Jackson's. I looked like Steve Buscemi after a night in a crack house. The Moncton Hospital is beyond redemption.

5-And how's this for a lead to my next blog post? If you've been listening to CNN or CBC or any of the news sources consumed by the pseudo-intellectual intelligentsia, or those aspiring to be, you may be snorting overpriced brandy with your equally liberal sycophantic friends over the latest NIE report that seems to indicate that Iran abandoned their Nuclear program in 2004. You are, no doubt, also smugly asserting that President Bush is a knuckle-dragging war monger. If you are amongst these sorry souls previously alluded to, then you are A - completely wrong...again... and B - soon to have a bit of egg on your face (oh how I hate that expression. Look what you've reduced me to).

6-Finally, I am happy to report that my lovely girlfriend is back from being trapped on a rock in the middle of nowhere (Newfoundland) due to a snowstorm. She is now back from St. John's and we are getting ready to head to my hometown for a quick over-nighter to deliver some illegally imported cans of Diet Dr. Pibbs to some man named Cletus who lives in a trailer, doing nothing but watching re-runs of the Cosby show, and drinking sweet, sweet, Diet Dr. Pibbs.

New post to follow. Enjoy the weekend.

Cordially

Joe

Coast to Toast

I just got back from a business trip to Vancouver and Seattle with some of my colleagues. Now, being relatively new to working for a company that affords such luxuries as jet setting around the country on someone else's dime, I was somewhat dismissive about the cautionary advice from colleagues who had previously embarked on the same trip, about how exhausting and fast paced it can be. Come on. Really. 5 star dining, everything taken care of, strolling around in exotic cities with a limitless sense of entitlement on someone else's corporate credit card? How hard can it be? I checked the itinerary...it looked manageable. The problem? I didn't consider the variables, like flight delays, traffic, jet lag, and rabid monkey attacks (well, there weren't any monkey attacks).

Nothing ever goes according to schedule, and that's where your walk in the park business trip starts getting shot to hell. You can have 5 meetings penned in for one day, at say, 3 different locations...but suddenly, your flight/bus shuttle is delayed. Miss X from marketing is going to be an hour late for the meeting. Your air has been delayed because a passenger on your connecting flight decided it would be smashing fun to start reading his favourite passages from a dog eared copy of Penthouse forum as loud as possible. Your day was supposed to start with a leisurely breakfast at 8:30, but it's bumped up to 8:00 to make up for lost time, with a warning to shovel down your eggs benny in 20 minutes or less to meet in the lobby. Once you get there, you realize that Deb from department A is missing - by missing, I mean somehow managed to pass out on her bed from exhaustion when she ran up to the room to grab her jacket which was making everyone late already.

Once dishevelled Deb makes her harried appearance in the lobby, everyone breathes a sigh of
relief because though your boss is trying her best to give off the facade of being unflappable,
you can see that underneath the pearly white grin she is about 30 seconds away from smashing
her fist through the mahogany concierge desk. Now you're ready to be on your way, until
you realize that John is missing because he went looking for Deb, which wouldn't be so bad
except John thought Deb went to grab coffee at the Starbucks 5 minutes down the street.

When everyone is finally assembled, you're on your way, albeit an hour late. The buffet
lunch at Chez Wazzhisname has been cancelled to make up for time, so your boss has
instructed everyone to pilfer anything edible left over from breakfast and stuff it god knows
where.

After 6 hours of non-stop meetings, which curiously never seem to involve sitting, you arrive
at your last stop, to inspect company X's facilities. It's 7pm, you haven't eaten at all since 8:00am, and you haven't sat down all day. The people at company X are extremely gracious but don't know this, nor do you want to burden them with the pedantic details of your day. So the tour commences. The very long tour commences, and the pretty company rep in the designer suit could be talking about the merits of Keynesian vs. Supply Side economics and you would have barely noticed, because the day is starting to have the feel of a Batan death march.

Finally you settle down to eat, and as you sit there surrounded by your friends and colleagues,
you realize that a neat bond grows between the people you go on a business trip with. You
see each other outside of the cubicle, and for good or bad, there's something special about that.
And of course, when your employers deem that they can trust you to fly across the country
without breaking, stealing anything, or screwing everything up, there's a sense that you've done
something noteworthy in your professional life - and that's something too.

Cordially

Joe

Not So Sleepless in Seattle

Sorry for the lapse in posting, but I'm preparing for a trip to Vancouver and Seattle, getting ready for my driver's exam, procuring documents to annul my marriage from ten years ago with the Catholic church, and waging a tireless campaign to return toast to it's rightful place as the mid-afternoon snack of choice.

Actually, I've been more than a little lax, but between root canals and my job as a diuretics tester, I've been a little busy. I shall try and make a commitment to re-double my efforts to keep up to date with the latest in politics, bizarre news, and my usual conservative quasi-libertarian rantings.

Rudy Giuliani seems to be keeping a comfortable 10 point lead ahead of Fred Thompson, who - though it's early - just isn't living up to the part. Giuliani made a gutsy move by appearing in front of a jam packed auditorium of social conservatives. Giuliani received a positive reception from the crowd after a shaky start, and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council noted that "He won simply by coming. He helped himself, he certainly didn't lose any ground". The pro-choice Giuliani has come under much criticism from social and religious conservatives, but assured the audience that he would work to reduce the number of abortions, and reminded them of his record of ridding New York of porn merchants and defending religious freedom. Social conservatives are warming to the idea of Giuliani as an acceptable candidate in a general election.

And of course, what weekend update would be complete without some entirely unrelated and bizarre story that seems to be the main attraction of this site, aside from my weekly whipping of CNN's resident Christ off the Cross, saviour of the world, and self-proclaimed "journalist" Anderson Cooper. Anyway, if last month saw a spate of strange elephant related deaths, October saw a rise in fatalities due to drunken urination. A 40-year-old man, somewhat inebriated, attempting to urinate into the River Bulbourne in Hemel, Hempstead, England, fell in and drowned. A 58-year-old man stood up in his boat to urinate while fishing and fell into a lake near Farmington, N.M. He also drowned. And finally, a train driver in Berlin, Germany, apparently attempting to urinate out of a door at 70 mph, fell to his death.

Have a good weekend, and watch where you piss.

Cordially

Joe

(PS - I don't know who the drunk guy in the photo is, but for those of you who are worried, it's not me. I haven't fallen off the wagon - but many years ago, I'm sure there were lots of nights when I looked like that poor fool)

Asleep At the Wheel in Michigan

Katherine Jean Lopez commented on National Review Online that had Fred Thompson been unable to name the Prime Minister of Canada, it would have hardly caused a blip on the radar screen outside of the beltway. After all, the debate was held at four in the afternoon, and a Republican debate on economics is far from what I would call high octane action. The debate was about as exhilarating as listening to Al Gore drone on about polar ice caps, and listening to Ralph Nader extolling the virtues of air bags could conceivably be the only other possible scenario that could have created such intellectual sedation. Mitt Romney's CEO of America shtick was an almost insurmountable obstacle in the belly of a union card carrying Democratic enclave such as Michigan. His performance was passable, if somewhat over scripted, and he can thank his lucky Mormon stars that the other candidates did not verbally cannibalize him for uttering the sand-poundingly stupid remark that he would consult with lawyers prior to exercising his executive privilege under the War Powers Act. The other camps tried to play catch up on Romney's flub the next day in a flurry of press releases, but it was too late to capitalize on the momentum.

Thompson's trepidatious toe-dipping in his first presidential debate proved that, thus far, he is not living up to the conservative media's hype that he is the second coming of Reagan. Perhaps it is to his advantage that the debate provoked little interest, so he could have the opportunity to stretch his political sea legs outside of the glare of a larger and more engaged audience that surely will follow in a debate with a broader forum broadcast on CNN or Fox.

Though many pundits opined that Thompson had won the debate on substance, Giuliani once again won on style and sheer presence. Giuliani exudes the ease and confidence of a winner and a veteran of the ruthless New York press core, though some of this can be attributed to Chris Matthews' almost sycophantic adoration of Rudy that was - at best - unprofessional, and - at worst - blatant favoritism. At times it seemed that he and Giuliani were discussing the value of baseball cards over beers at the local pub.

McCain seemed grumpy, and at times almost annoyed. The acoustics in the building were so unfavorable that several questions had to be repeated, though he partially redeemed himself from seeming old and senile by being self-deprecating and managing to squeak out some of the few laughs of the night.

As for the rest of the field, they are slowly but surely being pushed further to the back of the pecking order, and even the folksy and engaging Mike Huckabee seems to be realizing that his admirable and well fought grassroots campaign is running out of steam.

The only standout amongst the Last of the Republican Mohican's were the incoherent and bizarre ramblings of Dr Ron Paul. Paul came off like a crazed mental patient who had escaped from a seniors day trip to the bowling alley and had somehow stumbled onstage. At times he appeared so agitated that he stuttered like Porky Pig after spending the night in a crack house. Judging by his quasi-populist left-leaning rhetoric, he will no doubt soon be begging about the current crop of Democratic contenders looking for a VP spot as a token Republican on a Democratic presidential ticket.

All in all, after an hour and twenty minutes of, at times, nauseating pandering to union Democrats, I think little was gained for any of the front-runners, except for the fact that they did themselves no harm. And in politics, sometimes that's more than enough to pay the bills.

Cordially,

Joe

Skunked

Ever get sprayed by a skunk? We did, meaning Claire, myself, and Sammy the
wonder dog who caught the worst of the little bastard's spray bomb.

The dog smells like an egg that's been sitting in the sun all week, the house smells like a Pakistani pay toilet, and Claire and I smell like tomato juice and poo. Really pleasant.

I failed my driver's exam, so you can allow your children and the elderly to roam freely
about the neighbourhood until the next time I attempt to write it. The problem was that
I studied the "required distances" portion in feet, and they asked for the answers in
meters. Now, because I am A - mildly retarded, and B - a liberal arts major, I "skunked"
the exam - even though there was a conversion chart pasted on the wall directly in
front of me. I completely neglected a useful piece of information that was obvious
to everyone - kind of like Anderson Cooper.

More to come

Cordially

Joe

Driving Miss Crazy

Tomorrow I'm going for my drivers test. My beginner's license, which means

should I pass the Provincial Government's written test, I will have my class

7.1 licence, permitting me to drive whilst in the company of another passenger

with a valid driver's licence for the period of one year, at which point, I

will take the next step of attempting to pass final the driver's exam.

Now you may ask; "How come you're 34 and don't have your license?

Are you retarded, lazy, or both?" To which I would respond, yes, yes,

and absolutely. Really, considering I was perpetually drunk for a large

portion of my life, I'm grateful that I was never careening wildly behind

the wheel of a motor vehicle, 3 sheets to the wind, blasting Eva Cassidy

CD's and whooping like a banshee.

Anyway, am I dreaming, or did I hear something on the Situation

Room regarding Russian bomber jets violating US air space multiple

times today? I was passing by a TV set at work, and I'm sure that's

what I heard Wolf Blitzer saying, but I can't be sure. I tried to check

all the major network news websites, but apparently Britney Spears custody

woes are of more pressing concern to national security. If the story

is true, this is an extremely foreboding incident. Ex-KGB honcho

and current Russian President Vladimir Putin has been slowly turning

back the clock to the days of the Gulag and violent crack downs on dissidents

(some of this is happening already). If you know anything, post a comment

or email me so I can do some follow up on the blog.

Happy hunting, and after 10 tomorrow, stay off streets, sidewalks,

parking lots, and your front lawn. I'm going to be driving for the first

time in 34 years. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Cordially

Joe

What Was That? A New Blog Post?

Missed going to an AA meeting this week, through nothing but my own
laziness. Not that I'm craving running out to the nearest liquor store to
buy 12 bottles of Malt liquor and re-enact scenes from Gladiator
in my living room using a spatula for a sword and a spaghetti strainer
as a cod piece (my props to Jonah Goldberg). Nevertheless, I have
to hit a meeting tomorrow.

Spent the weekend at the cottage (as mentioned earlier), where I lived
it up Hugh Hefner style, parading around in PJ's and a bathrobe, napping
in the afternoon, reading, and smoking constantly (minus the hot tub and
the games room - but there was a stand up shower and a scrabble board with
some of the letters missing).

A got a few big links this week. They were brief but noteworthy, including
Foxnews, and some dude from XM radio. Who thought that taking a few
pot shots at everyone's favourite, vacuous bobble head Anderson Cooper,
would generate so much traffic to the site? It's like you just whisper the name
Anderson Cooper, and you get plastered all over Google. Not that I would
connivingly paste the name Anderson Cooper all over a blog post just to get web
hits. I mean, it's the blog that's important and not Anderson Cooper.

Anyway, an interesting debate is to be had over how early the election campaign
gets into swing, and my friend and former Co-Editor, Ace Smith, has apparently
gone so far as to refrain from consuming any pre-election news (this is similar
to a period in 1997 when he decided to react violently to anyone who sported
facial hair, and beat the living bejesus out of David Suzuki).

Have some exciting news to announce! My girlfriend Claire has officially
accepted the unofficial title of associate editor, meaning she has the
thankless job of picking through my atrocious punctuation and egregious
spelling, so everyone give her a big Hype welcome.

Have a good week, not sure what's on deck for the coming days, but
keep checking in.

Cordially

Joe