The Times Observer

What Burns My Bacon

Campaign Brings Out
The Ugliness In People

Sadly, most presidential campaigns strongly bring out the ugly bias in voters and supporters of the candidates, but this election year, it just seems more so.

A John McCain supporter actually hung a ghost from his tree with “Obama” written on it.

And a Barack Obama supporter actually made a display with mannequin dressed as John McCain in KKK garb, chasing an Obama mannequin. And sadly, these are just two cases out of many.

To read more, please click here.

What Burns My Bacon

China’s First Spacewalk,
Who Cares?

This is getting some play in the media and I think the Associated Press quote down below gives it best in a nutshell:

“A Chinese astronaut on Saturday performed the nation’s first-ever spacewalk, the latest milestone in an ambitious program that is increasingly rivaling the United States and Russia in its rapid expansion,” the Associated Press reported.

Really? Is China’s space program really going to rival that of the U.S. and Russia because it finally had its first spacewalk?

After all, both Russia and the U.S. had their first spacewalk in 1965. But considering China’s love affair with restricting basic human rights and what not, I guess waiting 43 years to catch up to two other world superpowers would be consider “rapid expansion.”

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What Burns My Bacon

‘Tis NOT The Season

Do you know what burns my bacon? I’ve seen Christmas advertisements already and it’s not even September.

Really, are stores that desperate for the all mighty dollar that they keep pushing back the Christmas Season? Whoever the marketing “genius” is who thought this up needs to have a Nutcracker in his Christmas balls.

Advertising for Christmas when it’s still summer time makes about as much sense to me as shaving Santa Claus’ beard off and putting him on Weight Watchers and changing his name to Don Knotts!

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What Burns My Bacon

Stopping Men From Staring At Girls?

I can’t believe this actually happened. A 20-year-old Eastern Kentucky University girl was enjoying a Sunday trip at the mall when she was asked by a security guard to leave because older women were complaining that their husbands were checking out her short dress, according to The Richmond Register.

You know, this reminds me of the time that I visited my old high school, while new additions were being built onto it. I was given an impromptu tour by an old teacher and he showed me and my best friend, who was with me, one of the new classrooms.

The classroom had such a hideous color painted on its walls that my mind has prevented me from truly recall what the color was. I think it might have been a combination of black, purple and charcoal black, if it’s possible.

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What Burns My Bacon

No North Pole?
Run For Your Lives!

This burns my bacon and it has nothing to do with someone driving a huge SUV.

At the end of June, it was reported that scientists believe that the ice caps on the North Pole will melt away by this September, according to National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., as reported by CNN.

But this week The Times of India ran a story about a professor from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey saying that Santa Claus will have to trade in his famous red, warm coat for some Speedos by 2013. Huh?

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What Burns My Bacon

Body Language Experts Should
Zip Their Lips On Candidates

Do you know what burns my bacon? People who put too much attention to insignificant things like a presidential candidate’s body impression.

Body language experts believe that presumed presidential nominees Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are strong characters because of how they carry themselves.

For example, because McCain “stands firmly and holds onto the sides of a podium,” he represents stability, according to these experts, while Obama’s casual walk shows that he’s a strong leader.

But for all we know, McCain is hanging on to that podium for dear life because we all know that old people break their hips as often as they take bathroom trips during the middle of the night.

And Obama’s easy stroll? Of course he walks that way. A fast moving politician makes people nervous!

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What Burns My Bacon

Women Having Sex With Teens? No Big Deal!

Do you know what burns my bacon? When some people are honestly shocked and outraged when some teen-aged boy has sex with a woman and actually feeling this will scar the kid for life.

Angela Honeycutt, which sounds like a bad Bond girl’s name, is charged for allegedly exposing herself to teen-aged boys at a sleepover and having sexual contact with them.

So, yes, we can all see how this would scar a young, strapping male teen with raging hormones.

Now, let’s say Ms. Honeycutt allegedly did what police are charging her with. I can tell you now the police didn’t find out about her little Show-And-Do because Little Johnny woke up screaming in a cold sweat from a nightmare over the incident.

Just like many teen-aged boys, Little Johnny, or in this cases Johnnies, bragged about having some type of sex with a 38-year-old woman from Lower Makefield, Pa. And if you ever been to Lower Makefield, that’s actually one of the few highlights that are available there.

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What Burns My Bacon

No Mercy For Killers

Do you know what burns my bacon? Death row inmates who complain that the method of their execution is cruel and unusual.

Take Richard Cooey for example. Old Richie was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two women in 1986. He’s supposed to get a lethal injection, without the lollypop, on Oct. 14.

However, Cooey is 267 pounds soaking wet in meat gravy and he claims that the lethal injection process would make it hard to find his veins because of his fatness. He also claims that he’s taking a drug for migraine headaches and that could affect the lethal injection process.

Let that sink in for a second. He’s worried that his headache medication would affect the lethal injection. I figure the lethal injection would be more effective in ridding his migraine headaches than his medication.

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What Burns My Bacon

Barbie's S&M Headline Misleading?

Do you know what burns my bacon? Media sensationalism just to sell a few newspapers and extreme Christian groups that try to suck the fun out of life; so yeah, there’s a double-bonus of bacon burning in this edition’s column.

First, the headline from the U.K.’s The Sun reads, “S&M Barbie lashed by public.” But once you read the story, you find out that Mattel is really releasing a Barbie doll that is dressed like the DC comics superhero Black Canary. They have previously released a Barbie version of fellow DC comics heroines Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Supergirl, just to name a few.

Granted, Black Canary does dress in leather and fishnet stockings, so it’s really not a real S&M look she has, but more of a biker-stripper look going on. This may not ease a lot of parents, but considering that Wonder Woman has been parading around in her star-spangled panties for more than 65 years, Black Canary’s outfit is an improvement and covers more.

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What Burns My Bacon

Voting Goes To The Dogs

Do you know what burns my bacon? Idiot voters who only support a candidate for stupid reasons.

For example, an AP-Yahoo! News poll found that pet owners support presumed Republican Presidential candidate John McCain because he has two dogs, a cat, two turtles, a ferret, three parakeets and a lot of fish. I believe this is known as the Noah Complex.

But on the other side, the poll said that non-pet owners, or also known as “liberators” according to PETA, favor the assumed Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama because of his lack of fuzzy beasts.

What really burns my bacon is what Janet Taylor of Plymouth, Mass., said about this issue.

“I think a person who owns a pet is a more compassionate person ― caring, giving, trustworthy. I like pet owners,” she stated.

Who can make that giant leap of illogic? McCain has seven children. In my book, having children trumps having pets. You would think that caring for small human beings would make you more trustworthy and compassionate.

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What Burns My Bacon

Muslims Outraged Over Puppy?

Do you know what really burns my bacon? Diversity.

Let me clarify that. I hate how we’re told we’re supposed to be accepting to other people’s cultures, but these same cultural people don’t do the same.

Over in jolly old Scotland, the police at a local town made an ad announcing their new phone number, which features a cute puppy on a police officer’s hat.

Local Muslims were upset because they consider a dog unclean.

Wow, no kidding? You mean an animal that sniffs another animal’s butt, drinks out of the toilet bowl and licks its own testicles is unclean? Well, pick my nose and call me snot finger, I didn’t know that!

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Monday, May 19, 2008

It’s Vacation Time!

Hello faithful readers. It’s that time of year again when yours truly will be going away on vacation.

Just like in years past, I’m going to visit my wife’s parents in Japan. It’s always nice and quiet in Tokyo and always something to do. It would be nice to get away for awhile from the madness of work.

But trying to take a vacation away from The Times Observer might not be too easy for me. I won’t be updating my blog with columns or editorials while I’m gone.

Although, since I’m a news junkie and while fighting jetlag at 3 in the morning, I might just post something on here. After all, it’s a 13-hour flight to Japan and a 13-hour time difference for me, since I have to be doing something during the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping.

So, don’t expect too much around here from this Wednesday, May 21, until the second week of June. But don’t be surprised if during a sleepless night I publish something on here.

If anyone needs to reach me, please feel free to e-mail me at: timesobserver38@yahoo.com.

Sayonara!

A Mini Rant

Tis The Summer Season …

Tomorrow is the official day that summer begins. And there are many signs of summer, such as men fishing, kids swimming, women sunbathing, and the nice warm weather.

But we also see some seasonal creatures, such as fireflies, mosquitoes, and global warming alarmists.

Yes, very much like a bastardized version of Punxsutawney Phil, as soon as it gets hot, these people poke their heads out and scream that it’s man’s fault for a heat wave. Never mind the fact that it’s summer and it’s common.

While we don’t see these alarmists during the winter months when it is 20 degrees and a foot of snow outside, we do hear their counterparts saying how cold it is. Fortunately, for us we don’t hear the winter moaners blaming man for the snow and ice. Yet.

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A Mini Rant

Stupid Teachers Strike Again

Last month, school officials at El Camino High School and highway patrol officers decided to use their lack of collective wisdom and lied to students that several of their peers died in car accidents.

Several students at the Oceanside, Calif., school were shocked and hysterical when told the “news”. However, they didn’t learn the truth until hours later that it was a scare-straight exercise to show the dangers of drinking and driving.

Their grief turned into outrage when they discovered the idiotic ruse when their “dead” friends did a Lazarus impression.

Obviously, school and police officials are defending their thoughtless actions and students and parents are outraged.

And instead of driving home how dangerous drinking is, these idiots furthered the popular teen belief that adults can’t be trusted.

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A Mini Rant

Stereotypes And Hypocrisy

Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II wrote a great little column today about race and misunderstandings in The Politico today. He says that there should be more open discussion about something that is quite taboo in not only political circles, but in most of our professional lives.

Because for the most part, when we talk about race, we talk about stereotyping. And we all know that stereotyping is wrong, but there is truth to it. Yes, it’s a generalization that has some truth to it.

Here’s a popular stereotype: The Mafia. There. It’s said. Now, how many of you thought of Tony Soprano? The movies “Godfather” or “Goodfellas” pop into anyone’s heads? Sure they did. It’s a popular stereotype that Italians and the Mafia go hand-in-hand like olive oil and wine, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra or a snitch and cement shoes.

It’s ingrained in us to think of Italians when we heard “mafia.” If we’re forced to think of any other nationality, we always hear: The Russian Mafia or the Chinese Mafia. Because the fact is, when we hear “Mafia,” no one thinks of Eskimos.

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A Mini-Rant

What Does An Obama-Clinton Ticket Mean?

According to recent news reports, the junior Illinois senator beat the junior New York senator for the Democratic Party’s title of presidential nominee.

And now, people in Hillary Clinton’s camp are saying that she is considering to “withholding a formal departure from the race partly to use her remaining leverage to press for a spot on the ticket,” according to the Associated Press.

How well will this settle with Americans, particularly the Democrats? Some Democrats have despised Clinton so much that they would rather see someone else to be Barack Obama’s vice president. Some listed other Democrats for the spot, such as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, just to name a few.

And with the never-ending attacks between Obama and Clinton during the campaign trail, it would be a hard sale to Democratic voters and Republicans, who are not pleased with presumed GOP nominee John McCain, by these two juggernauts.

After all, how believable would it be for these two to tell America that they are the right choice for this country after the backstabbing that they have done towards each other?

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

Candidates Don’t Inspire Supporters

Personally, I just don’t get it. On the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, waist-deep in the political mud, hashing it out with fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama tells a Pittsburgh radio station that he doesn’t think he’s going to win tomorrow’s big election.

“I’m not predicting a win,” he told Pittsburgh radio station KDKA, as reported by FOX News and the Associated Press. “I’m predicting it’s going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect.”

Unless this is some type of pity ploy by the Illinois senator to have a big voter turnaround for him, Obama might as well throw in towel. But what’s really interesting is that he’s not the only candidate who has not really inspired his supporters when the chips are down.

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

Hating Reality TV

When the “reality” TV show “Survivor” came into our lives in 2000 and similar shows followed, I told a friend that I couldn’t wait for this fad to be over with.

After all, these are just game shows with drama. With a lot of heavy editing, maybe creating drama that isn’t there such as a producer tells Contestant A that Contestant B said she was fat, and catching the right moment when someone burst into tears (and they always burst into tears), all this allegedly makes good TV, especially when you add the ingredient of excitement.

And most are just game shows, because there is a prize to be won. Even like “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette,” where you can win love and a fellow human being in only a matter of weeks while millions watch.

But now most of the major stations have their own variety of reality TV. Over on E! we have “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which is about the supermodel and her family.

If we’re lucky, we get to see a lot of crying and cursing, Kim Kardashinan in a bikini and her stepfather, former

U.S.

Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, who had so many facelifts he looks more like a corpse who walked out of his own viewing.

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A Mini Rant

UK Releases UFO Files

Here’s something interesting. Because of a great many Freedom of Information requests to the United Kingdom to release cases of UFOs, 1,000 pages of formerly secret UFO documents were released this week by Britain’s National Archives.

Some of these cases were just misidentified commercial airplanes or others. But there are some truly interesting cases that defy Earthly explanation. Such as this case:

In 1984, at around 4 in the afternoon, “a bright circular object, flashing different colors” was seen by two experienced British air traffic controllers at a small airport.

“Everyone became aware that the object was unidentified,” the report stated, as reported by the Associated Press. “SATCO [codename for a controller with 14 years’ experience] reports that the object came in ‘at speed,’ made a touch and go on runway 27, then departed at ‘terrific speed’ in a ‘near vertical’ climb.”

It certainly doesn’t sound like the planet Venus or swamp gas too me.

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

Intelligent Design In The Classroom?

Funny man and economics guru Ben Stein’s documentary, “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed” has once again shined the limelight on intelligent design and if it should be allowed to be taught in the classroom.

Many supporters of the proposed new course believe that students should be made aware of different notions of how man came to be besides evolution. And one can almost see why there needs to be an alternative to evolution, since it has one glaring problem.

The problem with evolution, as well as its many supporters who claim there is scientific research to back it up and de-evolves intelligent design, is that many forget the real name of it: The Theory of Evolution. Yes, it is a theory.

No human, to my knowledge anyway, hanged around the Earth for 4.6 billion years and actually witnessed an ape turn into a man. (Of course, if one is truly interested in researching de-evolution, one only has to go to a local college frat house on a Saturday night to see a group of young males quickly turn into a bunch of drunken monkeys.)

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

Dems Using Religion
To Shift Focus

Today is the day Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama discover how much their mudslinging and negative ads will help them in the Indiana and North Carolina Democratic primaries.

And Obama supporters, particularly the elected kind, have been trying to help the Illinois senator by battling the Rev. Wright controversy by shifting the focus of Heavenly-prejudiced men of God to Republican (most likely) presidential nominee John McCain and his relationships with bigoted pastors.

There is John Hagee, who said that God brought Hurricane Katrina as a punishment to the residents of New Orleans for homosexual sins. And then there is Rod Parsley, who has called for a war on Islam.

And that’s not all of the things these men of God have preached.

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

A Real Misspoken Moment

While Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was giving a speech at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., he accidentally called Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama “Osama.”

And not only did Ashcroft got a lot of moans of shock and awe from the students at the liberal arts college, he is getting it over the Internet as well. The real misspoken moment happened when he was speaking about the Patriot Act.

“All I’m saying about the Patriot Act,” Ashcroft began, “is that the elected representatives of this country, including Osama ...” He then quickly recovered and corrected himself and apologized after the audience was shell shocked.

Now, this is a true case of misspeaking, not like a few weeks ago when Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “misspoke” to an audience about being under sniper fire but really wasn’t when her plane landed in Bosnia in 1996.

To read more, please click here.

A Mini Rant

Honors Student Suspended Because He Bought Candy

Once again, school officials are not as bright as they appear to be.

Sheridan Communications and Technology Middle School honor student and class vice president Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title, banned from going to an honors student dinner and suspended.

It wasn’t because he was caught with a bottle of Jim Beam or doing drugs. He wasn’t even caught fooling around with a pretty, young female teacher, which seems to be a very popular after school activity nowadays. Sheridan simply bought candy from a fellow student.

Yes, apparently there is some asinine-militant wellness policy that bans candy sales on school grounds since 2003 and young Sheridan didn’t realize it.

Folks, when kids get into the real world there is going to be a lot going against them from the word “go.”

And with what some of these kids are doing today, from drugs to creating their own little hit lists of who they’re going to shoot, you would think common sense – a wise, unused teaching tool it would seem – would have prevailed in this case before it became national news.

Well, it didn’t but thankfully after a meeting with the superintendent, the school principal and the student’s parents, Sheridan won’t be suspended and he got his title back.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

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