Turkey Republic

We live in a third world country. It’s the only possible explanation.

How else do you explain:

An unelected leader taking power of a country.

A bureaucracy unable to respond to a humanitarian crises IN ITS OWN COUNTRY for five days.

A government so bumbling they can’t evacuate its own citizens from a war zone, but they’re willing to CHARGE for the service.

Or maybe we’re just nuts. Seriously.

This is from the LA Times regarding the American effort to evacuate US refugees in Lebanon:

The frustration has been intensified by news that other countries have already pulled many of their citizens out of Lebanon, efficiently and free of cost. A ferry chartered by the French government carried about 800 of its citizens and several dozen Americans to Cyprus on Monday. The U.S. military evacuated about 60 Americans by helicopter Sunday and Monday. Other nations have packed people into rented tour buses and driven them over the mountains to Syria.

Americans have been told to wait for a telephone call that could come in hours — or days. They've also been told they can't board a ship unless they've signed a contract agreeing to repay the U.S. government for the price of their evacuation.

My wife looks at the current administration and wonders why we just don’t rise up and throw the bums out. She’s working on it.

NOBODY LIKES THESE GUYS. If you are liberal, you wonder why we invaded a country that was of no real threat under very suspicious circumstances. If you’re a conservative, you wonder why we aren’t winning. If you’re a liberal, you wonder where your liberties went. If you’re a conservative, you wonder where your states rights went. If you’re a liberal, you wonder why we’re treating Mexicans with such racism. If you’re a conservative, you wonder why he’s opening the door. If you’re a liberal, you wonder why we can’t spend our tax dollars to help people. If you’re a conservative, you wonder why we’re blowing all our tax dollars away. If you’re a liberal, you wonder why he’s vetoing a bill that could save lives. If you’re a conservative, you’re wondering why he’s vetoing a bill that could have saved Ronald Reagan’s life.

I’ve occasionally played a computer game called Tropico. (Okay, if you ask my wife, the word “occasionally” would be questioned.) In the game, you are El Presidente, the leader of a small banana republic, and to succeed, you have to keep the people happy. If you fail, you wind up in a little rowboat out in the middle of the ocean with what little money you could secret away while the gamevoice tells you how the people didn’t understand you.

That’s what they do in third-world countries.

Free Turkey

They hate us for our freedom.

You are not allowed to:

Smoke whatever you want

Go through a red light even if no one else is at the intersection

Ride a motorcycle without a helmet

Drink in public

Flirt with a co-worker

Have sex with someone one day younger on your eighteenth birthday

Commit suicide

Observe a nipple while watching the Super Bowl

Buy birth control pills without a note from your doctor

Pick flowers at a municipal park

Sleep on the sidewalk

Raise your kid weirdly

Have a pet kangaroo

Ride a bicycle on the freeway

Be partially or entirely nude in public

Sell cigarettes on TV

Skip grade school without permission

Live anywhere you want

Open a store in your house (in a residential area)

Sell porn to the people who need it most – 15 year-old boys

Drive 85 miles per hour (except in Montana)

Drive without a seatbelt on

Marry if you are gay

Sleep with someone for money

Fish without a license

Bet in an office pool

Marry someone from another country for immigration purposes

Pay someone four dollars an hour

Live in a house made out of cheese (or anything else not up to code)

Burn trash

Let your dog run free

Shoot a cat

Out a CIA agent (unless you are the president)

Play loud music after 10pm

There's more.

Freedom isn't free. It costs a buck-0h-five.

Turkeyhead of the Week

On Monday, there will be a new Turkeyhead of the year for next week. Unfortunately, we do not know who that is yet.

Will it be –

M Night Shyamalan, supergenius?

Or

Nina Jacobsen, Disneygenius?

The current National Endowment for the Arts is $121 million annually. Sounds like a lot. I mean, I don’t have $121 million. $121 million is ALMOST a third of the Staples Center. It’s ALMOST 3 ten-thousandths of the US military budget for 2006. It’s ALMOST enough to buy a 100 BMW Z8s. That’s a lot of Beamers.

It used to be more. About 20 years ago, it was nearly $180 million, until some evil demented photographer snapped a shot of a woman’s tit, and a depraved novelist wrote about a sham minister and bam! You artists are out $60 mil, pals-o-mine. That’ll teach you to make stuff some of us don’t want to see.

Nina Jacobsen wanted to give M Night Shyamalan $70 million to make ONE of his movies. That’s not even the whole NEA BUDGET! She only wanted one small thing. She wanted a say in its production. What’s the matter with these Disney people, anyways? Don’t they know GENIUS when they see it? They’re actually WORRIED about their money!

Of course, Shyamalan didn’t see it that way. So he told Disney to keep their $70 mil. He said he could get it from the Bros. (Warner). Wasn’t enough, though. That’s why there’s a book called, “The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale” (Gotham, $27.50 hardcover). Shyamalan wanted to make sure everybody would PAY him MONEY to hear him complain.

Most of you out there have at one time or another wanted to publish a book on YOUR boss. I know I have. Here’s the difference: Shyamalan’s bosses pay him a truckload of money, plus they entrust him with another 10 truckloads of money to invest in a movie. And (Oh, how horrible), they want a RETURN on their investment. So, yes, they want a say in the project.

Disney's representative, Nina Jacobsen, read the script and said, EWWW. Where’s the scary? Where’s the creepy? Where’s the MONEY? Maybe this one's TOO weird.

Shyamalan doesn’t WANT the input of these people. He believes his vision of the project is better. He believes he’s right. He believes he’s a GENIUS. He may EVEN be right. But if he wants 10 truckloads of money, he’s going to need a patron.

Take The Village. Cost $70 mil, gross $114 mil (source IMDB). Winner, right? You’d think so, but here’s the problem. The cost is just for production. There’s also prints and advertising (in the business - P&A). They don’t spread that number around but it’s not going to be cheap. Could be as much as $35 mil total, maybe more. So overall costs are $105 mil. Still a winner? Don’t forget the theaters. They take about half gross, so that $114 mil is now $57 mil vs. the $105 mil laid out. Ouch! Well don't worry, they’ll probably make it back on DVD.

The man who’s complaining that Disney won’t leave him alone just lost $48 million of Disney’s money theatrically.

Or look at it this way – you’re paying somebody $2k to paint your house. You want your house painted yellow. He tells you should paint it blue. Blue’s better. He may be right, but it’s YOUR money. Bet you get a yellow house.

Lady in the Water opens this weekend. If it wins, Shyamalan is a genius and the bean counters lose. If it misses, then the studios win and artistes lose. Shyamalan has bet his reputation on it. Or at least your ticket money on it.

If it fails, and M. Night Shyamalan wants to make the next movie HIS way and only HIS way, I suggest he take the profits from his bitch book and sink it into his next film. Or better yet, apply for a grant from the NEA. They’ve got $121 mil.

Turkey on the Pitch

Zinedine Zidane - Turkeyhead.

But what a great turkeyhead he was. In order to achieve this level of turkeyhead, you have to be magnificent. You have to build a lifetime of goal, then have it all destroyed for some level even greater and infamous than you had ever imagined.

SOME people had said (before Sunday) that Zidane belonged with the immortals. Pele. Maradona. Ronaldo.

Zidane was three inches away from achieving that immortality. Thirteen minutes into overtime, he struck a header that seemed certain to net the winning goal, certain to cement Zidane as the greatest player of the last bunch of decades -- two cups for France in the last three. Instead, Buffon managed half a hand on it and sent it just over the goal.

Zidane screamed with the agony of a soul destroyed.

And eight minutes later... He is immortal. But not for the reason he intended. After plowing Materazzi into the ground with the single greatest headbutt in the history of sport, Zidane zoomed into a new stratosphere. He is in a place never before occupied by any athlete. He's not just a goat. He's the greatest goat who ever lived. He is the goat of the heavens.

For that, he gets the Turkeyhead of the Year award.

At least until next week.

Turkey Writers

This link won’t last long - http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-newspress7jul07,0,6468917.story?track=mostviewed-homepage. It’s an LA Times story, so after a couple of weeks, you have to pay to see it. News is free with advertising, but old news costs money.

The story is about how five editors and a columnist quit the Santa Barbara News Press. You read the News-Press, don’t you?

You don’t? I wonder why that is. Could it be you don’t LIVE in Santa Barbara? Even if you do, the circulation is 45,000. The population is about 90,000, but if you include the entire metro area, it’s more like 400,000. So about one in nine of the region read this paper.

I’m pretty sure none of those people live in LA, so why is the story in the LA Times? Well, the Times IS trying to be a national paper, so they attempt to broaden their story base. We get stories from Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Nevada, Des Moines, Nova Scotia, East Jesus Tennessee. They don’t mind writing about things that don’t have anything to do with them.

However, there’s another issue at work here. Here’s another quote from the Times:

“WHEN two CBS journalists were killed and a third was critically wounded this week, the war in Iraq officially became the deadliest ever for combat correspondents.” 6/3/06

On the same day, 4 US soldiers died in Iraq. So far, 71 dead journalists, 2766 dead coalition soldiers. That’s about a 39/1 ratio. And somewhere near 40,000 dead Iraqis, but we don’t count them because they’re brown. I bet the ratio of featured articles on dead soldiers to journalists is NOT 39-1. I’m not counting the obituaries.

Why do we care about the journalists? I admire journalists, especially the good ones. These are courageous people. They tackled Nixon, exploitation, and corruption. Our food is safer, our bureaucracy is better, we are more informed. They are my heroes. Woodward and Bernstein are my heroes. Upton Sinclair is my hero. Hunter Thompson is my hero. Lou Grant is my hero.

What’s my problem? Journalists are NOT NEWS. Yes, the first amendment is important. Yes, journalists are important. But it’s NOT important which turkeyhead wrote the info. Good guys, and thank you, but the minute you make them stars, you miss the message and start listening to Fox. The problem is that US Soldiers are ALSO my heroes. And they don’t do it for the press.

I’m sorry they’re so wigged out in Santa Barbara. These guys left over a principle. They hate their boss. The LA Times never writes about what kind of moron is running THEIR show.

So stop telling me Joe Boardpicker the journalist has problems on the SAME DAY Bill Joan Bob Don Rick Phillip Ronald and Gordo died from being gutshot in Iraq. In fact, stop telling me about Joe Boardpicker at all. He signed up for anonymity. He’s NOT news. He WRITES news.

Except for me. If I’m dead, there better be a front page story in the LA Times about how my prostate. I’m so damn important.

Turkeystickers

There’s a bumper sticker in front of me, says, “War is Not the Answer.”

This is why Democrats can’t beat turkeyheads like W and Arnold. I mean, think about it: War is Not the Answer. Imagine if you were in school and Mrs. Grippachalk asked for the square root of pi, and you answered, “5 is not the answer.” She probably would not give you a lot of class credit.

Of course, a Republican would simply invade the classroom and declare mission accomplished.

Those are your choices: no answer and wrong answer.














WHAT’S SO HARD about coming up with something like “Education is the Answer,” or “Communication is the Answer” or “Fairness is the Answer?” Hell, even something sappy like “Peace is the Answer” would be preferable. Those are just the ideas of some minor blogger in the universe. Imagine if the Democrats put their BRAINTRUST into it.

No, we get, “War is Not the Answer.” Can you imagine if Clinton had said, “It’s not the foreign policy, stupid?” Or if Reagan said, “It’s not mid-afternoon again in America.”

Actually, the OFFICIAL slogan of the Democratic Party is “Together, America can do better.” Classic bleak world view from the Dems. Let’s vote for these guys, it’s party time.

Here’s more:

Woodrow Wilson: He kept us out of war (sad that’s a good measuring stick)
Jimmy Carter: Not Just Peanuts (Wow! MORE than PEANUTS?!)
Walter Mondale: America Needs a Change (she pooped in her diaper)
John Kerry: Let America be America Again (Sounds like they’ve been using the West Wing writers)

This new one, however, is just flat out dumb. Look, here’s a picture of America.

There are three of them: North, Central, and South. We’re not even the only ones in NORTH America. There are over a dozen countries in North America, depending upon where you want to draw the line. SOME of these people don’t even vote in the USA. Hell, we’re trying to keep them OUT.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe the Democrats' plan is to make states out of them all and let them vote TOGETHER in the next election. Well, if that’s the case, they’re too late. W is invading next week.