...AND WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH BLACKMAIL?

People have been sleeping with their interns since the creation of the internship position. I actually wouldn't be surprised if internships were in fact created so that bosses could have someone new to sleep with every three to six months. So really when I heard that David Letterman has been giving his own special "Late Night Show" to a couple of his interns I was not really surprised. What I am more bothered by is that Joe Halderman is being charged with blackmail and could face up to 15 years in prison. Say What?

Now I understand that most people automatically conclude that blackmail should be an illegal action. But is there really anything wrong with it? Let's investigate:

Imagine if you are this guy:


and you catch this guy:


playing hide the kielbasa with this:


After taking one of these:

to your eyes, so you never have to see something like that again, you proposition Mr. Letterman and say that you are protected under your 1st Amendment Right to tell the public about his affair.

At this point you have done nothing immoral or illegal, you are simply stating your human rights protected under the Constitution.

Now let's say you request $2 million to keep your mouth shut and forgo your Constitutional right. It is now up to Dave to decide whether if it is worth having the public and his wife know about the affair or just pay you the money.

Blackmail is simply a voluntary exchange of goods. Everyone has the right to tell a secret as long as they have obtained that information legally. Sure they might be seen as a gossip or some creepy old white guy with bad facial hair but nothing is illegal about it. Now on the other hand Dave can go up to Joe and offer him money to not say anything and there is nothing illegal about it.

A CLEVER ANECDOTE:
You have a God given right to sleep and watch TV all day, and I would say most Americans are pretty damn good at it. But when you are offered a job you're employer says: "If you don't exercise your right to be the bum that you are, I will give you x amount of money per year." No harm no foul!

But if Joe initiates it, it becomes blackmail, but really it is only a voluntary exchange where both parties benefit. In this case it wasn't worth the $2mil to Dave so he "topsy turvy-ed that motha f@#ker" and told the world.


(Jump to 1:42 if you want this clip to make any sense)

Back to my point, if there ever really was one. In this scenario David Letterman never faced jail time or any loss to his personal freedoms and liberties. If he did, this of course, would be a forced exchange, and should be illegal. But what is ironic is that the government gets away with this every day, while Joe Halderman faces 15 years for exercising his Constitutional rights.

If the government is good at anything it would be coerced exchanges, where one party benefits and the other does not. Such examples are drafts and taxes, where people are forced into conceding to the government's terms and if they don't face jail time, and loss of their individual freedoms. But I could ramble about this for days, but instead I will leave you with this short lesson on governmental policy:

DON'T STEAL THE GOVERNMENT HATES COMPETITION.

SEAT HOGS

Watch out John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and that other guy. There is a new vigilante in town...the Seat Hog.



Young people with strong backs and a good set of legs BEWARE! New York City is waging war on people who will not give up their seat to the elderly, pregnant and/or the disabled. Those who decline to give up a seat on request face up to a $50 fine and repeat offenders can face up to 10 days in jail.

Oh great! So now it's illegal to be an @sshole. That's what New York is known for and if they take that away from us, we might as well be one of those filthy Canadians. And if that's not enough they are wasting tax payers money putting up these ridiculous signs as warnings.


The posters also explain that “not all disabilities are visible.” The disabled include people who are legally blind, have congestive heart failure, are being given chemotherapy or have epilepsy. Even someone with a cane is eligible to ask for a priority seat. Similar posters appeared on subways and buses in 1999 and 2004, but didn't mention the legal ramifications.

This is as ridiculous as the Good Samaritan law Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were arrested for...and we all know how that turned out.



And as a final thought I would love to see any elderly handicapped pregnant person ask the homeless man I saw last night, who was sleeping on the subway with filthy bare feet taking up three seats as he laid face down into the hand rail, for his seat. I think it would be a good fight.

ARTIST OF THE MILLENIUM

Well okay it turns out that he wasn't but to Britney Spears and a lot of people he was!!...despite all of his...hmm hmm...eccentricities. But lets look beyond everything that made him Wacko Jacko and ignore the plastic surgery, the purchase of the elephant man's bones, the mid-afternoon naps in his hyperbaric chamber, Bubbles, the plastic surgery, the sex allegations, Lisa Marie Presley, the plastic surgery, the skin bleaching, Neverland ranch, his catcher gear outfits, his crazy swine-flu masks, the balcony incident and lets not forget the plastic surgery...but let's remember him for who he really was...A PATENT GENIUS!!!

We all know the man has more moves than a box of Ex-Lax on the dance floor but I am and will be continually blown away by his 45 degree lean in the smooth criminal video. One might say that it was all cable tricks but he was also able to replicate it on stage. AMAZING!!!

If you're impatient you can just jump to the 7:15 marker.


So what's the trick you might ask. Well here it is but be forewarned IT IS a

SPOILER ALERT:

Michael Jackson and two of his costume designers obtained a US patent (US5255452) in 1993 on "Methods and Means for Creating Anti Gravity Illusion". The invention outlines how a special pair of shoes attaches to a stage to allow leaning forward beyond the centre of gravity of the wearer of the shoes. Makes perfect sense right? The heel of the dancers’ shoes featured a triangular cut out that could be hitched onto the peg, anchoring the dancers to lean much farther forward, and thus blowing the world’s collective mind. The simplicity IS the genius!

THE SEPARATION OF SPAGHETTI AND STATE

In the beginning there was Kansas, a state that we all know has nothing going for it besides the Wizard of Oz and the occasional tumbleweed. Oh and let's not forget about their religious fanaticism. But in 2005, out of nothingness came the great noodly appendaged god...the Flying Spaghetti Monster.



Now Kansas is one of fifteen privileged states that falls inside the bible belt. So it may not surprise you that in 2005 there were still people fighting for the schools to teach creationism as science. But this was proving to be difficult since the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that the church and state go together like water and oil. They just don't mix.

But instead of giving up, what the religious PR reps did was repackaged creationism and started selling it as intelligent design, the ASSERTION that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. (I always did find Darwin to be a little bit slow...and Mendel was practically inbred.)

With this new look to creationism the Kansas State Board of Education decided to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. I mean who can resist a book with a panda eating bamboo on the cover.



But with the threat of church and state being once again stirred together, Bobby Henderson, a concerned American citizen, rose from ambiguity to reveal to the world that there is another theory that will answer all of our life long questions. The answer was within a box of Ronzoni...it was the FSM.

Since the intelligent design movement used ambiguous references to an unspecified 'Intelligent Designer', this left open the possibility that any imaginable thing could fill that role. And fill that role the FSM did.

Followers of this new religion were Pastafarians. Their saints were pirates, their major holiday is called "Holiday," and their heaven consists of beer volcanoes and a stripper factory. (Hell is similar but the beer is stale and the strippers have STDs) Some might say they are poking fun at Christianity with their "Eight I'd Really Rather You Didn't"s instead of the Ten Commandments and concluding their prayers with "RAmen". But I think it is all just a big coincidence. Either way if I can find room on my calendar for Festivus than I can find room for Holiday.



But I digress I think it is best to let Bobby Henderson tell you what the Flying Spaghetti Monster is all about. In fact you should have read that link instead of wasting your time here. I apologize.

TSO WHAT?

Well its Monday night, you're not in the mood to cook so you pretty much have two options. Chinese or Pizza. You might fool yourself into thinking you have more choices, but you had (insert closest fast food chain here) for lunch and every other ethnic cuisine is an extra 5 minutes in the car. God bless the lazy American lifestyle.

I, myself, usually go for Chinese in the beginning of the week because pizza has a liberating feeling to it fucking with my mind to make it think its either thursday or friday. (I don't need that kind of dissappointment on a Monday night.) My personal favorite dish is General Tso's Chicken. I've probably consistantly ordered the dish for about half of my life and I still have no idea how to pronounce it. I've tried Tiso, Sow, So, and any other combination between the three. I looked online and I've come to realize the rest of America is as clueless as I am. (However, not as cluelass as Canada...they sometimes call it General George's Chicken. Idiots.)


DELICIOUS

While on my quest for the perfect pronunciation, which by popular majority and wikipedia is "General So's Chicken", I've come to realize that General Tso was a real guy. His actual name being, Zuo Zongtang, spelled Tso Tsung-t'ang in Wade-Giles and known simply as General Tso or General Tsuo to us whiteys.

In his early life he flunked the court exams (a glorified civil service test) more times than Vinny Gambini flunked the BAR exam. But Zuo I guess had that certain je ne sais quoi, and was given command of 5,000 volunteers and helped drive the Taiping rebels out of Hunan. I'm guessing this was a good thing because he was appointed Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang. Other key highlights were overseeing the erection of a shipyard (hehe) and stopping another uprising. This all happened in the 1860's, while we were busy dealing with our own Civil War.


General Tso
or

Vincent Gambini...you decide

So what does he have to do with chicken? No one knows for sure. Some say his wife made him the meal after a victorious battle and he was so impressed with it that he had his wife make it for his commanding officers after every victory, but not likely. I only say this because no one in China really knows about this dish. Its pretty much an American food that may or may not have been created by Hunan cuisine chef Peng Chang-kuei in New York City in 1973. The dish was originally prepared without sugar, and subsequently altered to suit the tastes of non-Hunanese people. Can we say "sell-out." Ironically, when Peng opened a restaurant in Hunan in the 1990s introducing General Tso's chicken, the restaurant closed without success because the locals found the dish too sweet. Oops.

And after you read all of this, you are still left thinking "So What?"and I say to you good sir, "Tso What? Tso Let's Dance!!!"

LET THEM EAT FISH!

To secede or not to secede, that is the question. South Carolina tried it…twice. Sure everyone knows about the Civil War, but 30 years before that in 1833, they tried to leave while the US was under the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Jackson's reaction was pretty much "you try, you die," and needless to say South Carolina backed down, but only until James Buchanan took office. James Buchanan, our first "homosexual" president, put up little to no resistance to keep South Carolina part of the union. Sure you can look at James Buchanan as a weak president, but don't states have a right to secede?

WARNING:
LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO.
Since secession isn't discussed in the constitution, the right to secede falls under the Tenth Amendment. Any power not delegated to the federal government by the states, and not prohibited to the states by the Constitution, remains a right of the states. This defense, along with a clause in the ratification of the Constitution that permitted states to withdraw from the Union if the government became oppressive was the justification that let James Buchanon allow the Southern states to leave in peace. With that said, I think it's about time to let Northwest Angle leave the Union and become a member of America's National Park. A little place I like to call, Canada.



Northwest Angle, Minnesota, with population maxing at 152 people, is trying to secede from the union, not because of slavery or taxes but because of fish. Fishing is Northwest Angle. That is what they do. That is who they are. Hell, kids fish there at recess. Sadly though the water surrounding ol' Angle is Canadian water. So when Ontario passed a new law saying Americans staying at Northwest Angle can no longer keep fish they catch, it meant disaster for the Angle's residents. And since the fish dilema is no slavery issue America pretty much ignores them.

But fishing can be dangerous:


So come on people, lets cut the umbilical cord and let them go. Technically speaking, the Angle is only a part of the union because of a mapping error made after the war of 1812, when we agreed with Great Britain that the American border would end at the 49th parallel. We accidentally took the Northwest angle, who's whopping 500 square miles of land, falls a shade north of the border. Good job David Thompson!

BEHOLD THE ANGLE CUSTOMS OFFICE:

HAPPY NEW YEAR…PSYCH!

"This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four."-Mark Twain

I would have never realized how lame the origin of April Fool's Day was unless I read it for myself. I always pictured April Fool's to have started because of some kind of crazy act, like the British aristocracy releasing plagued rats into a peasant's house as a lark or a French King maybe inviting a peasant to dine with his royalty only to send him to the guillotine. You know, something lighthearted. But sadly my findings just brought me back to the Christian church, the calendar and that damn vernal equinox. Oh yeah...and let us not forget…the French.

Basically, Julius Caesar's calendar (the Julian Calendar) had a few flaws to it that screwed up the timing of Easter and the vernal equinox. So in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar cleverly titling it, the Gregorian Calendar. This is the calendar that we know and live by today. Pope G's decree was that New Year's Day would be celebrated on Jan. 1st, not April 1st. (Technically it was March 25 but the celebration lasted from then until the beginning of April. They knew how to party back then.) In France, apparently not everyone got the memo and this led to some confusion and people celebrating New Year's on the wrong day. (insert laugh track here) The ones who made the mistake were laughed at by their peers and had dead fish sneakily placed on their backs. Seriously. The French can be so cruel!!