Archive Listing
March 30, 2007 - March 23, 2007
Thursday, June 15, 2006
PSAYINGS.5A.30. So it's the World Cup... Where were we? Uh, yeah. The big international championship of soccer. Also called futbol. By people who don't know what football is.
As usual, the Americans have a team. A bad one, of course. This is a big part of why we're so not liked around the world. We have the best athletes, and somehow we can't field a soccer team that can measure up to the best of the Czech Republic. Maybe we should learn something from the fact that the children of all those Clinton-loving soccer moms aren't automatically good at soccer just because their doting mothers drive them to practice in Range Rovers and cheer their pathetic attempts to KICK THE BALL.
Which brings us to the biggest reason why Amerians suck at soccer. American moms don't understand any game, period, and since they're the only ones in this country who pay attention to soccer, the sad fact is, nobody in this country knows anything about the rules of soccer. Today we're going to correct that.
Soccer. It's a European imitation of hockey, played without violence (on the field) and on a much bigger scale, in order to insure that nothing ever actually happens in the course of play. The soccer field, for example, is the largest arena in sport, 340 yards long and 135 yards wide. Teams use 25 players on the field per side, and they play three halves of forty minutes each. The action consists of players in short pants KICKING THE BALL back and forth, up and down, hither and yon, to and fro, etc, for hours at a time, in front of hundreds of thousands of drunken spectators who assault one another with bottles and brickbats as a kind of homage to their team's ability to KICK THE BALL.
Despite the violence among the spectators, soccer is essentially an aesthetic experience, akin to a bullfight, in that there's an ideal, more important than mere winning or losing, to which all teams aspire: the nil-nil tie. Nothing inflames the soccer fan like hours of frenzied KICKING OF THE BALL that ends with no result of any kind. For true afficianados, this particular outcome is more satisfying than a sexual orgasm.
Nevertheless, on rare occasions, scores do occur. This happens when the ball inadvertently leaves the field of play and falls into a zone called the Goal. All soccer teams work very hard to make sure this happenstance is avoided, but even the best athletes make occasional mistakes. One in four soccer contests are marred by the instance of at least one goal. When the calamity transpires, soccer announcers express their disappointment by bellowing the word "Goal" for some five minutes at a time. Generally, players are so chastened by this verbal denunciation that they prevent any subsequent reoccurrence: 90 percent of the games that do not end in the preferred nil-nil tie conclude with a 1-0 score. Teams that consistently fail to achieve the nil-nil outcome are eliminated from competition.
It's a shame that Americans can't quite get on board with this, the most popular sport in the world. If we could, we might have more appreciation for not only soccer, but the incredibly important role played by the U.N. in keeping the peace (a.k.a. KICKING THE BALL), which we really should learn to think of as a nil-nil tie, regardless of how many hooligans perish during the fighting in the stands.
Got it? Good. That's our G-O-O-O-A-A-A-A-L!
posted at
5:51 pm
by
The Replacementz
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Signs, Signs...
Reuters
snapped Rove, and Instapunk snapped Fitzgerald. Dumb luck.
PROFESSIONALS. Now that Karl Rove isn't going to be indicted, some of the conservative bloggers are kicking ass and taking names. Michelle Malkin has a nice review of the more over-optimistic stories and images promulgated in the liberal media when they were trying to convince everybody, including themselves, that Rove was going down. Yeah, they were pretty over the top, but there's no point in getting mad about it. Even lefties have imaginative fantasies, and the tools of make-believe are available to everyone. So what if Reuters likes to play tricks with PhotoShop. It's not as if anyone takes what they do seriously anymore.
We'd like to take this opportunity not to be nasty but to recall some of our favorite media image jokes of recent months.
Remember the picture of Cheney featuring the word 'retire'? We liked it.
And what about the famous CNN "X'ing" of Cheney? We liked that too.
We also have a confession to make. We've done some subliminal PhotoShop work ourselves. Does the name Huey Long ring a bell? We even made up a story or two about Karl Rove, complete with phony images. Just like the liberals.
Everybody should relax... and get their own copy of PhotoShop. The news is what we make it. Isn't that the slogan of the New York Times? Well, it will be, any day now.
posted at
11:22 pm
by
The Replacementz
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Anti-U.S. Forces Mourn
Passing of Al Zarqawi
Passing of Al Zarqawi
Sen Joseph Biden blinks back tears in interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien.
SPECIAL REPORT. As news
of the death of insurgent leader Musab al Zarqawi sped around the
world, expressions of grief and anger poured in from those who oppose
American colonialism in the middle east.
French President Jacques Chirac cancelled his first two appointments with his senior mistresses to publicly announce his sorrow over the loss of "a great leader, a great man, and a great friend."
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited a spontaneous gathering of grief-stricken citizens at the Brandenburg Gate and sang hymns in the nude to protest "the outrageous U.S. military strike against the noble forces of resistance to the American Occupation of Iraq." Merkel also called for a worldwide "Day of Mourning" to honor the fallen leader.
Back in the U.S., Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid held a joint press conference to acknowledge what Pelosi called "a grave setback in our effort to unseat the illegal puppet government the Bush administration has imposed in Iraq."
Senator Reid vowed, though, to "keep fighting for what the American people so clearly want -- the total, humiliating defeat of George W. Bush and the U.S. military in this disgraceful war."
Both leaders expressed their personal sadness about the death of Zarqawi and offered their condolences to his surviving family.
Speaking at a breakfast reunion of pardoned Vietnam-era draft fugitives, Rep John Murtha of Pennsylvania called the strike on Zarqawi's safe house "yet another example of cold-blooded murder planned and carried out by U.S. troops." He demanded a public apology for the crime by the President and repeated his earlier demands for the immediate ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, reached by phone at his villa in Cannes, said, "The quagmire keeps getting deeper and gooier, or I should say, more gooey, with each passing day. It is time to bring all the criminal U.S. troops home and let Saigon, er, Baghdad negotiate the just peace with their opponents that all Iraqis want."
Taking time out from his promotional tour for the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Former Vice President Al Gore told reporters that the Zarqawi slaying was, "one more proof the end times have come. If we look clearly at the rubble of Zarqawi's house, we can see that parts of the sky really are falling. How can Bush's crony government continue to deny such incontrovertible evidence?" After concluding his brief remarks, Gore offered to give reporters tickets at a 20-percent discount to the next showing of his movie. "We all have a responsibility to get the word out," he explained.
Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean declared in a quickly arranged speech, "Today, all Americans - except for the evil Christian Republican ones -- are mourning the death of a courageous fighter for Iraqi rights. Our great party joins with those grieving Americans wherever they are, in Massachusetts, in New York, Rhode Island, California, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire... AAAARRRRGGHHH!"
On the CNN Morning Show, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware spoke movingly about Zarqawi's tragically premature death experience and announced that one of his committees would be scheduling immediate hearings to determine exactly where Iraq is on the map. "When we find that out," he promised, "we'll do something really serious about it."
Oscar-winning actor George Clooney gave an impromptu press conference in Hollywood to announce that he will be producing, directing, and starring in a movie about Zarqawi's inspiring life. "Obviously, we can't bring him back to life," he said, "but maybe we can give some meaning to his death by focusing on his many wonderful accomplishments." Clooney also called George W. Bush a boob for the 403rd time.
Activist Cindy Sheehan offered the Zarqawi family a grave lot next to that of her son, so that "two of George Bush's murder victims can rest in peace together." She called for an immediate end to the war in Iraq and suggested that maybe the Iranians should drop one of their nuclear bombs on U.S. troops there.
"And they can get Israel, too, while they're at it," she said.
Among the mainstream media, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time, and Newsweek are all planning special telecasts or print editions to honor the memory of the martyred insurgent.
"It's the least we can do in response to this terrible event," said Publisher Pinch Sulzberger. "That's the responsibility of a journalist, to do the least we can do in support of the people we serve."
French President Jacques Chirac cancelled his first two appointments with his senior mistresses to publicly announce his sorrow over the loss of "a great leader, a great man, and a great friend."
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited a spontaneous gathering of grief-stricken citizens at the Brandenburg Gate and sang hymns in the nude to protest "the outrageous U.S. military strike against the noble forces of resistance to the American Occupation of Iraq." Merkel also called for a worldwide "Day of Mourning" to honor the fallen leader.
Back in the U.S., Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid held a joint press conference to acknowledge what Pelosi called "a grave setback in our effort to unseat the illegal puppet government the Bush administration has imposed in Iraq."
Senator Reid vowed, though, to "keep fighting for what the American people so clearly want -- the total, humiliating defeat of George W. Bush and the U.S. military in this disgraceful war."
Both leaders expressed their personal sadness about the death of Zarqawi and offered their condolences to his surviving family.
Speaking at a breakfast reunion of pardoned Vietnam-era draft fugitives, Rep John Murtha of Pennsylvania called the strike on Zarqawi's safe house "yet another example of cold-blooded murder planned and carried out by U.S. troops." He demanded a public apology for the crime by the President and repeated his earlier demands for the immediate ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, reached by phone at his villa in Cannes, said, "The quagmire keeps getting deeper and gooier, or I should say, more gooey, with each passing day. It is time to bring all the criminal U.S. troops home and let Saigon, er, Baghdad negotiate the just peace with their opponents that all Iraqis want."
Taking time out from his promotional tour for the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Former Vice President Al Gore told reporters that the Zarqawi slaying was, "one more proof the end times have come. If we look clearly at the rubble of Zarqawi's house, we can see that parts of the sky really are falling. How can Bush's crony government continue to deny such incontrovertible evidence?" After concluding his brief remarks, Gore offered to give reporters tickets at a 20-percent discount to the next showing of his movie. "We all have a responsibility to get the word out," he explained.
Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean declared in a quickly arranged speech, "Today, all Americans - except for the evil Christian Republican ones -- are mourning the death of a courageous fighter for Iraqi rights. Our great party joins with those grieving Americans wherever they are, in Massachusetts, in New York, Rhode Island, California, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire... AAAARRRRGGHHH!"
On the CNN Morning Show, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware spoke movingly about Zarqawi's tragically premature death experience and announced that one of his committees would be scheduling immediate hearings to determine exactly where Iraq is on the map. "When we find that out," he promised, "we'll do something really serious about it."
Oscar-winning actor George Clooney gave an impromptu press conference in Hollywood to announce that he will be producing, directing, and starring in a movie about Zarqawi's inspiring life. "Obviously, we can't bring him back to life," he said, "but maybe we can give some meaning to his death by focusing on his many wonderful accomplishments." Clooney also called George W. Bush a boob for the 403rd time.
Activist Cindy Sheehan offered the Zarqawi family a grave lot next to that of her son, so that "two of George Bush's murder victims can rest in peace together." She called for an immediate end to the war in Iraq and suggested that maybe the Iranians should drop one of their nuclear bombs on U.S. troops there.
"And they can get Israel, too, while they're at it," she said.
Among the mainstream media, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time, and Newsweek are all planning special telecasts or print editions to honor the memory of the martyred insurgent.
"It's the least we can do in response to this terrible event," said Publisher Pinch Sulzberger. "That's the responsibility of a journalist, to do the least we can do in support of the people we serve."
