Category: In the News

Is Obama part of the biggest practical joke ever?

I remember a discussion with some of my friends where we discussed ideas for the biggest practical joke in history.  The discussion was done just for fun, because these days you couldn’t pull off a huge joke without offending multitudes of people — so many people are just wusses when it comes to humor.

But after seeing Obama’s first 60 days in office, and especially the political events of the past week, I have to wonder: Is President Barack Obama part of the biggest practical joke in history?   I keep hearing unusual news stories about Obama, and I find myself wondering if people are just making it up or if Obama is really doing stuff that stupid?   It seems inconceivable that our nation’s leader could be this ignorant and incompetent.  Here’s a few examples:

* Obama was laughing incessantly about the economy on 60 Minutes, to the point that the host asked him, “Are you punch drunk?”  That’s not something you expect to have to ask the President of the United States!

* Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called him “ignorant”.  Well, that could probably happen to anybody.

* AIG execs get huge bonuses, and at first Obama’s administration said they didn’t know about it, then we find out they are lying.  For some reason, they decided to let the bonuses remain.

* Obama appeared on Jay Leno like he has nothing more important to do.  Has anyone told him the campaign is over and that he has a LOT of work to do?

* Speaking of which, Obama continues acting like a celebrity, thinking it’s all about him.

* Obama keeps filling leadership positions with people who don’t pay their taxes.  Don’t they run background checks?

* Obama said he wouldn’t put people in his administration who were recent lobbyists, then he did exactly that the same day, in the same speech.  You just can’t make that stuff up.

* Obama gave 25 DVDs to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and then the DVDs weren’t playable over there because they are region encoded to work only in North America.  Did that really happen?  Doesn’t our President have access to better gifts for leaders of other countries?

* Under Obama, our government seems to be spending a few more hundred billion dollars every other day, when our government is already over $10 trillion in debt.   Doesn’t he realize that it’s bad fiscal policy to spend more money than you have?  And that if our country ever runs out of available credit, we’ll go bankrupt?

* Obama claims he will cut the deficit in half, but then his policies call for unprecedented spending.  What deficit is he talking about, and how many expenses are excluded from those calculations?

I could go on, but you get the idea.  I realize Obama is an amateur when it comes to leading a country, but he’s hired a lot of Bill Clinton’s former people to report to him, so they have experience (for what that’s worth).  Plus, some of this stuff should just be common sense.  So instead of thinking that Obama is really this stupid and incompetent, this must be some kind of huge practical joke.  Surely, any day now he’ll say “April Fools!” and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and eventually have confidence in our government again.   Come to think of it, April 1st is right around the corner, so maybe that’s when we’ll find out if this is all for real or not…

the mystery of belly button fluff

One of my readers recently heard a strange news story on the radio, so they found the link and sent it to me.  The article is called “Revealed: The secrets of belly button fluff“.   They said it sounded like something that should go here.  (I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.)

Dr. Steinhauser, an Austrian scientist, has solved the “mystery” of belly button fluff.  He studied 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button, and ran chemical analysis on the samples.  He works at the Vienna University of Technology, which doesn’t seem to fit with the story.  He said that shaving your belly will result in a fluff-free navel, but only until the hairs grow back.  And he said body piercings, such as belly button rings, help sweep away the fluff before it goes in your navel.

You may be wondering who cares about all this…  But Dr. Steinhauser said, “The question of the nature of navel fluff seems to concern more people than one would think at first glance.”  So maybe some of you have wondered.  I’ve never cared, though.  A similar Australian study concluded that the typical carrier of navel fluff is “a slightly overweight middle-aged male with a hairy abdomen.”  So it’s mostly older, hairy, fat men.  (Fortunately that does not include me.)  That study collected 5,000 samples.  Can you imagine studying other people’s belly button lint?

The article says Dr. Steinhauser also works on other projects, such as monitoring the erosion of his wedding ring.  I suppose if you want a research project that will last you the rest of your life, that would be one.   That sure sounds boring, though.  Also mentioned in the article is Graham Barker, who has been collecting his navel fluff in jars every day since 1984.   He’s now in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s largest collection of navel lint.  I realize many people want to be famous, but there has to be a better way…

when to change your clock for DST

Daylight Savings Time starts tonight (or technically, 2:00am tomorrow).  I heard someone on CNN told people they should set their alarms to wake up at 2:00am so they can adjust their clocks.  Are they kidding?  Did someone really say that?  I hope not, because my method works much better — set the clocks before you go to bed, because it doesn’t matter anyway, and I don’t like waking up in the middle of the night.

BTW, I really don’t like losing an hour of sleep.   I understand why they do it, but there has to be a better way.  In fact, I’ve written before on this, with some suggestions that most everyone would vote for, if we had the chance.  Here’s my idea.  Let me know what you think.

preparing for the upcoming robot rebellion

I don’t know if you saw this in the news, but it’s scary that our world might soon be overrun by good-robots-turned-evil.  I know, some of you probably think this is another far-fetched imagination of mine, but here is the link to prove you wrong: Experts Warn of “Terminator”-Style Military-Robot Rebellion.  This report was funded by and prepared for the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research.  So this ain’t no joke!

It’s ironic that they’re warning us of this before such robots are even created and deployed.  But that obviously means that this is a very serious threat, one not to take lightly.  I think this calls for a constitutional amendment!  We currently have “the right to bear arms”, which is to protect us, but that won’t keep us safe from Terminator-style robots that will surely be bulletproof.  So obviously we need access to some high-tech weapons, such as ones designed only to combat robots.

Since our government moves at the speed of molasses and doesn’t care about our rights anyway, we need to design our own robotic weaponry, for our self-defense, of course.  Well, the testing would be fun, and until this apocalyptic robot war comes to pass, these robots could cook for us and bring us our food.  You don’t want them sitting around rusting away, do you?  🙂

Also, since these futuristic military-grade robots may possess some type of Wi-Fi mind control powers to “convert” our robots to the dark side, we need our own robotic exosuits, complete with full weaponry (and a tea dispenser).  (This has been discussed here before.)   That way, even if the robots malfunction, we can save the world ourselves.

This may sound too far-fetched for some of you, and that’s okay.  That just means you aren’t part of the solution.   Unfortunately, that also means you will be at the rebellious robots’ mercy until we save the day.  But never fear — I’ve had lots of practice saving the world.  Granted, it’s been with video games, but have you seen how realistic they are these days?  I’m sure my mad skills would translate well to real life.  (Have you seen the TV show “Aaron Stone”?  It worked for him.)