Clint speaks!!!

No, I didn't chance to hear Clint Eastwood speak during the Grand Finale of the Republican Convention, though when they announced a surprise speaker his is the name I thought of first.  Why?  Because party organizers knew he would hit a home run right into the waiting gloves of all the young Republicans watching the final nights coverage.  Actually, that's not true at all.  A lot of young people, Republican and Democrat a like, will recognize the name but will not be able to put it to a face.  Their parents are the ones who went to see "Dirty Harry," not them.  If you say to them "make my day," they look at you clueless.  If they wanted these kids to vote, the organizers should have put as many young, vibrant Republicans on that stage as possible speaking as often as they could put a microphone in their hands.  Instead, they enlisted a quiet spoken, octogenarian who evidently spoke to an empty chair.

Every Which Way But Loose

Who knows what they were thinking?  Maybe they wanted to appeal to the loyal Senior Citizen vote.  Of course, in Pennsylvania the new Voter ID law is going to keep a lot of loyal seniors from voting because at a certain age they stop driving.  This means the Republican party will save a lot of money since they will no longer need to bus Seniors from their nursing homes to their polling stations.  Of course the real reason Clint was their was because he's white, and rich, and familiar to the 50 something crowd.

Chris Christie - porker deluxe

Well, the Republican convention is in full swing and conservatives, both young and old and far right and not so far right, are celebrating.  I don't watch conventions.  Too much of the hoopla is geared specifically for swinging Independent voters and because of that you get very little substance.  I did have to laugh the other evening when I saw a clip of Ann and Mitt Romney and she said he buys his shirts at Costco and "just the last night was ironing his own shirt."  Seriously, Mitt is in the 'upper class' and if his friends thought he actually went to Costco they would smirk at him silently, well, maybe not so silently.  And the idea of him ironing a shirt?  His walk-in closet is probably the size of a modest ranch style home and no doubt at least one room is completely devoted to shirts.  Evidently Ann spoke again last evening as well as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  His name was bandied about quite a lot as a possible Vice President.  Conservatives love his no nonsense approach.  He does have one flaw though, and it's a big one.  Chris Christie is fat.

Porker deluxe

I would not be surprised if that was the main reason he was not asked to be Mitt's running mate.  One can only wonder how many medications he is on:  blood pressure, cholesterol, probably one of the anti-coagulants because humans this size are more likely to have a stroke or heart attack.  Doesn't he know there is surgery which can help solve his problem?  If he ever wants to posture on the world's stage he's going to have to slim down, a lot.  Paul Ryan needs to get him excited about P90x!

Wanna be P90x spokesman

Well, it's probably going to take more then P90x.  When you're as fat as Chris Christie you've spent a life time building rotten eating habits and have never really bothered to exercise and, at this point in his life, it's probably way too late to change.  Just think, if he were 200 pounds lighter he might have been Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential candidate.

Is the RNC happy they're only going to have a 3 day convention?

I suspect so.  Sure, both parties love national conventions, they get a lot of news coverage to stoke up their bases.  We get speech after speech after speech with a lot of music and glitz thrown in to hype up the excitement.  A lot of liberal and conservative raw meat gets thrown on the grill to sizzle, energy food to fire up those sitting at home in front of their TV sets.  There is also the hope a lot of Independents and swing voters will tune in and find themselves sway either to the left or to the right.  I'm sure there is some consternation about the Republicans now because a little thing called a hurricane has whittled their convention down from four days to three.  Still, I wouldn't be surprised if there were not a lot of party officials aren't feeling a bit relieved.  Why?  Because it gives them only three days in which they might have to deal with the issue of Romney's faith.

That is going to be an issue among Christian voters, an issue they would like to bury under a rock.  I suspect there are a lot of Christians out there who think being a Mormon is similar to being a Lutheran or a Methodist and it isn't.  Mormons don't believe in Jesus.  They don't believe in the Crucifixion, the Resurrection or the Ascension.  Talk about taking the Christ out of Christmas.  While I am not the most religious person, I know a lot of people who are and they are not too happy about having a non-believer in the White House for four years.  At some point in time this is a discussion the Republicans are going to have to deal with and they don't want it to come up during the convention.

Armstrong's dirty bed

So, he says he's had enough, he's going to be a martyr, right.  I'll honestly say I've never been an Lance Armstrong fan.  Even when he was attempting to be cordial he always came across as just a bit too aloof for me.  Did he dope to win the Tour de France?  I suspect so.  Sure, a lot of cyclists were caught and penalized, but a lot got away with it.  I first began to believe the charges when Hincapie wasn't picked up by Team Radioshack.   George used to always be watching Armstrong's back and all of sudden he wasn't.  Very, very odd... but maybe not if Lance new George was going to testify against him.  Hhmm.  In fact, I spent some time this afternoon trying to find some sort of support from his other cycling buddies and couldn't find so much as a snippet.  what happened to all of those buddies of his?  Why would they leave him high and dry?  Of course maybe Lance is only the friendliest person around when he wants to be, when there something in it for him.

You made it Lance, you sleep in it

And then there was his retirement.  Superstars do not go quietly into the night, they like to linger and bask in the glory, not Lance.  He retired and began to put as much distance between himself and cycling as he could.  That's odd.  People who are guilty do odd things because they're using some different rational to which you and I have no access.  I do have to laugh at some of the comments people have been making about how he has a family to support.  What bozos.  Do any of these people have an inkling of how much Lance Armstrong is really worth?

Verizon Douches America

Can I really be serious?  Of course.  I recently opened my monthly bill to discover Verizon had increased the cost of my HD Set Top Box Rental by $2.00 per month.  That's a big increase!  So I called their customer service to investigate.  I was told I had been notified on my July bill the increase was going to take place, not that I could have done anything about except pay to break my contract.

Put on your hard hats, you're about to get slammed!

The Customer Service agent informed me this increase applied to all rental boxes. I asked if this was across the country and her reply was "yes," as though that made it fair.  Don't just screw one person, or one district, or even one region, screw the whole country.  What a wonderful thing to do when the economy is in slow recovery mode.  But, of course, Verizon doesn't really care about the country, their main focus is their bottom line and how Wall Street reacts to it.  If Wall Street likes what they've done their stock will go up and their investors will be happy.  So, how big a bump will this be to their bottom line?  Say there are 5 million Americans with Fios rental boxes hit with this $2 increase Verizon gets to put $10 million to their bottom line.  In these financially difficult times Verizon is going to douche America because they can, because very few people are going to complain.  Those who use Video on Demand to get the latest movies will probably not even notice the increase, shame on them.  And, of course, the Customer Service rep I dealt was not the most cordial, but then she gets paid to deal with unhappy people day in and day out.  Actually, she was rude, which seems to be quite common with Verizon Customer Service.  I informed her that when my contract expired I will be changing to another provider, which left her unfazed, but then she, like Verizon, doesn't really care.

Chortling at the GOP

Ever since Reagan's re-election the GOP has wanted to rule the United States, unfortunately that same landslide win was a curse in disguise..  During his second term all sorts of shit hit the fan:  Nancy employing mediums to set his calendar, the bottom started falling out of the economy because Reagonomics was a failure, and there was a little thing called the Iran / Contra Affair.  Instead of taking a step back and re-evaluating, they went into attack mode. and they've been there ever since.  Any and every movement, not matter how odd or radical, they embraced and called it conservative.  They enjoy membership in something called the "birther movement" because it's a weapon of attack.  What they failed to comprehend is these crazy groups don't jive well with Independent voters and there is no way you cannot win an election with out those votes.  Now they have to deal with this asshole named Akins who is proving that the evil the GOP has embraced is buried just beneath the surface.  So, I'm chortling at the the GOP because they need to step back now and re-evaluate.  They need to stop lying and say the stand for America, because in truth they only stand for themselves.

Verizon's sneaky, stinky price increase

Awhile back Verizon announced they were going to charge their customers an additional $2 if they chose to pay online, the charge would not effect those who set up auto payments or those who paid by check.  The outcry against this was voluminous and Verizon backed down.   I can understand why they would want this, when people pay on their own those payments arrive when ever the decision is made to pay the bill, with auto payment that revenue arrives on a specific day.  More important, however, was that this increased their bottom line, what a kick to their P & L.  That decision had not been something which spontaneously occurred to a group of boneheads at Verizon, it had been calculated out well in advance.

Knowing this, it should have come as no surprise when, upon opening my bill yesterday, I discovered that there was a price increase of exactly $2.  The rental feel for my HD Set Top Box went from $9.99 to $11.99.  I received no notification from Verizon this increase was going to take place.  Imagine all of those customers out there who are signed up for auto pay, will they notice the increase, and if they do will they complain because it's not just a surcharge on the way they pay their bill?  People need to remember that Verizon is a business, a very successful business, run by a successful CEO who gets paid very well to make sure the bottom line is always increasing.  He doesn't care how they make the increase, just as long as it hits the books.  Tough shit to the average person who has to pay more in this very slowly improving economy, we are not his problem.

Not what Fox News would like to hear

Since 2002 the number of people in the United States who believe the news they see on TV, on the Internet, or in newspapers has been declining.  Except for local news, evidently about 65 percent of the country still believes most of what they see of local coverage.  It's the National Coverage the people are not believing.  How do I know this?  The Pew Research Center has polled a number of Americans to get their views.  One thing about Pew, they seem to be very unbiased, all they really seemed interested in doing is putting out hard facts leaving it up to you to accept their findings or not.  Surprisingly it seems to be the cable news shows which seem to be the least believable.  I suspect this is because these purported news shows include quite a lot of entertainment.  While they're not as trashy as The Sun, The Daily, or even the National Enquirer they do tend to report a more People like, upscale version of the same gossip.

            Cable news has the same shit, just not as dirty 

Even more surprising is that Fox News has the lowest ratings when it comes to believability.  Well, now that I think about it, I don't think it's quite that surprising.  When it comes to regular news Fox can be very good, but when it comes to their political reporting they throw out integrity, aiming for what they consider to be the conservative base.  Check the link about and you'll see Fox News gets a 49% believable rating.  The poll also shows Republicans tend to believe Fox more then Democrats or Independents.  What this tells us about our Conservative brothers and sisters is that they want to hear what they want to hear.  No matter how inaccurate, they want to be able to say "see, I knew I was right."  Will this poll change viewing habits?  Hell no.  I would say that as far as market share, however, I would rather have a higher rather then lower rating.  If people don't believe you they're not going to watch you and you're wasting Ad money.

CNBC Guest Idiots & Phone whores

I was just watching CNBC where they were discussing what the conversation would be a cocktail parties this evening.  One of the commentators asked a Guest Idiot "if you're at a cocktail party this evening and your 401K goes up $10,000 are you really going to be talking about volume?"  And of course the Guest Idiot said, "most certainly."  How out of touch with reality is this guy?  Doesn't he know 99% of all Americans are not going to cocktail parties this evening?  He's making a generalization that most people are like him, and I sure he will be discussing volume.  By far, the vast majority only pay attention to their 401k's when they get their quarterly statements, unless the market drops, then they may go online to see how much they've lost.  He needs to understand the audience of CNBC is miniscule which, in an odd sort of way, may give his idiocy some minor credibility, but not much.  What he really needs to be is a little less presumptive in his comments and qualify them with statements such as "of those 1% of Americans going to cocktail parties this evening, a large proportion will be talking about the volume of the 401k's."  Of course, that will never happen.

On to the phone whores.  Prior to turning on CNBC I went to my local supermarket.  Walking towards the dairy section I saw a well dressed young woman talking on her cell phone.  Normally, this is not unusual, this afternoon it was.  Her conversation was very personal, I could tell because she was staring into the corner of a meat cooler, her back turned towards her shopping.  This was bad because trying to stand up on the seat of that grocery cart was a two year old girl.  What kind of mother turns her back on her children?  I say children because 8 feet away her son, about 5 years old, was bouncing a large red ball he'd pulled from a toy bin.  Passing her I said, "you need to keep you eye on her."  Her response was to smile at me as though I was some fool.  I was going to make a smart ass comment something like, "don't you think you should be a mother first and a phone whore second?"  I didn't because I knew that would make her angry and she'd most likely take that anger out on the kids.  Unfortunately she is a phone whore because she was more concerned with the person on the other end of the phone then she was her own children.  We've all seen people like this, who fail to comprehend that their phone is a tool, not an added limb.  They rely on peripheral vision to get them around safely because their eyes have been hypnotized by the phone in their hand.

Multi-player not for me

One of the draws for both Xbox and Playstation is the ability to go online and participate in multi-player games.  This format is not for me, I play for fun not to be competitive that's one of the reasons.  Rather then sitting back with a cocktail, I find playing games is a good way for me to release stress at the end of the day.  The main reason I don't participate in multi-player is I don't want to have to listen to some smart ass 12 year old telling me he's going to kicky my "motherfuckin ass."  What?  You don't think they talk like that?  Too many parents think (in a squeaky voice) "they're just playing with their friends."  Sometimes, yeah, but not all times.  If you are trying to actually play a game you don't want some idiot cursing you out in NC-17 language, because he can, because you are somewhere else in the world and not in his room.

ME3 is a great game, however it's rated for mature audience since it contains, blood, language, gory violence and adult sexual situations. This is not a game for 12 year-olds it's for adults, or at least those with the maturity level to realize it is just a game.  For too many parents video games are baby sitters.  At one time baby sitters were television sets, for some parents they still are, but now there's another baby sitter in town.  Monitor you kids, you don't want them taking attitudes learned playing video games out into the world, unless, of course you want them to get smacked back real hard. 

Patience... is a virtue

At least this is what I was taught growing up, and I practice it unlike so many millions of other people.  Everybody seems to need to get what they want 'right now,' which seems to be how they are being raised.  This is, whether we want to admit it or not, the backbone of American Capitalism and is drummed into the heads of our children starting at  very young age.  Just think what would happen to the economy if people starting waiting... just a little bit.  Nothing.  Well, it might grow at a slower pace then Wall Street wants, they, like everybody else, wanted it to rebound from the recession with a "BAM" not to slowly build itself back to where it was.  You need to think about it the same way you think about the teeny, tiny tomato plant you put into your garden in the spring.   No matter how much you would like to go out two weeks later and find plump, juicy tomatoes hang from the vine, it ain't gonna happen.  Everybody seems to have a plan to 'jump start' the economy because so many want the jobs we lost to come back fast, but it ain't gonna happen.

No one has ever snapped their fingers and added a couple hundred thousand jobs, yet that doesn't stop  politicians from both parties from spewing out a lot of bullshit.  We got into this mess because too many people didn't have the patience to wait, they wanted it and it had to be now.  Back when I was young the tag line on commercials aimed at children was "be the first on your block."  Unfortunately that philosophy has stuck, for too many becoming second nature.  As a result we stepped into a shit hole we ourselves had dug.  Patience is a virtue, it's about time we started practicing it.

Trickle Down Economics explained

Why does Trickle Down Economics need to be explained, you ask?  Because there is a lot of misconception here.  Most people think that when the wealthy spend money it trickles down to the middle class whose income increases.   In return, they spend more money which trickles down to those less fortunate who, in return, also make more money.  Or, they foolishly believe that when large corporations spend, the same thing happens, creating jobs.  Quite often when people speak about the propensities of Trickle Down Economics they like to illustrate their point by using rain hitting the branches of a tree and trickling down.  In a way they are correct, rain water does trickle down but as it does it moves outward, away from the trunk and the roots.  You see trees have a drip line.

" The dripline of a tree or shrub, which runs around the perimeter of the canopy, outlines much of the root zone. Focus water there."

This means that if you're a root on the inside of that drip line you're not going to get too much drippage, it's those roots on the outer edge's of the canopy which make out.  The next time you have a rain shower go out and stand under a tree and see how wet you get.  This is how Trickle Down Economics really works.  The idea would work well if we were living in the 1950's when almost everything bought in the United States was made in the United States.  However, the minute we began importing a majority of our consumer goods that drip line started moving farther and farther away from the trunk.  In the world of 2012 it's is not just consumer goods which effect the drip line, out-sourcing jobs has taken that line and moved even farther from the trunk.  When International Paper / xpedx shut down my department and outsourced 28 plus jobs to Krakow, Poland that trickle went with them.  It's only when there is a long, steady soaking rain that the ground around the trunk of a tree gets wet.  For Trickle Down Economics to work the wealthy need to start spending money like it's going out of style; throwing a party in South Beach once a month doesn't do it.  One party a month is the equivalent of me walking into a drought stricken Oklahoma corn field and pissing on a corn stalk.  Does this give you an idea as to how many parties the wealthy need to begin throwing?

 

Eureka's gone, Aaron's back, Syfy channel may be doing something right

FWhy do I say the Syfy Channel may be doing something right, because they dumped droll Eureka, a show I once enjoyed.  The producers of Warehouse 13 have also chosen to bring back the character of Steve Jinx.  Hope fully they will not do something horrendously stupid and try and put him into a relationship.  That's what killed Eureka as far as I'm concerned.  By putting everyone of the characters into relationships they lost sight of what the show was supposed to be about.  In the early episodes minor characters died but slowly those incidents faded away.  Carter became more concerned with Allison then he did with investigating and no matter how many gimmicks they tried, there was no chemistry between the two of them.  In fact, there was no chemistry in any of the relationships but then who the hell cared.  Sadly, this last season, I think I only watched 2 episodes.  Warehouse 13, on the other hand seems to be taking chances.  They have a gay character, Steve Jinx, as played by Aaron Ashmore.

Aaron Ashmore

From what I've read a lot of people were upset when they killed him off, whether that is the reason he was resurrected or not I don't know.  What he does seem to be is good for the show, let's hope they don't try to straighten him out in order to put his character into a relationship.  They need to remember this show is about finding artifacts not falling in love.

Mass Effect 2

Since I've already played Mass Effect 3 I figured I might as well play the two previous parts of the trilogy, which it isn't since there is DLC on the way for ME3.  I already owned the first part but I can definitely remember popping it into the xbox and thinking "this music sucks."  It sounded like some guy had been locked away in a teeny, tiny little room with a Casio keyboard for way too long a time.  Needless to say, I popped that baby out of the xbox.  Last week I was reading in one of the gamer magazines I get on my notebook that ME 2 was the best game of all time (maybe it was Gamestop).  This decision, they claimed, had been reached by a common consensus of universal game players.  So, I ordered a copy from Amazon.

Due in 3-5 days

And, of course, I'm trying to wade through the first installment.  Besides the shitty music, I find it amazing at how far graphics have come. You have to wonder how it became so popular they decided to use it to launch a trilogy (which isn't really a trilogy since there's more DLC on the way).  Now you know what I'll be doing instead of watching the closing ceremonies.  Someone said the Spice Girls are going to be performing.  Isn't that enough to make you want to vomit.

The Bozo on CNBC

That's what I heard last PM on CNBC.  Some unremarkable man said the number of pet owners in the United States was down 20%.  I stunned! My first thought went sort of like this "it's the economy, stupid."  I know Vet costs can be expensive, I take my full sized Boxer for a yearly check-up and, if I let them give her all of the shots they want to, my bill runs about $190.  Of course my Vet likes to practice elective vaccination, they want you to chose to vaccinate for every thing they say.  I say no to things like the one they feel she should have just in case she gets exposed Kennel Cough.  I don't plan to ever put her in a kennel.

Gertie resting on a Home Depot drop cloth, at 9.99 cheap and washable

Anyway, I started checking to see if this unremarkable man was in the least be correct.  To my surprise he was remarkably wrong.  I don't know why this Bozo thought he could pull numbers out of his ass like that, doesn't he know people 'fact check?'  The number of pet owners in the United States is growing, and when queried about whether the economy effected their decision to get a dog or cat, their answer was 'no."  Thanks to my bit of timely investigation I also know that dog owners outnumber cat owners by about 10 million and that about 28% of dog owners have two.  I own a Boxer and a 19 year old cat named Max.  I did not see a statistic on the number of Americans who own one of each.  What else did I find out?  The average Vet cost per year for a dog as $212 so I'm getting away kind of cheap.  A side note on my dog and cat:  I told the Boxer that when the 19 year old cat dies we'll get another puppy.  As a result, a day doesn't pass without her whispering to the cat "die, cat, die."  

Bye Bye to Discover credit card pigs

Yesterday was a big day for me, I paid off my Discover Card.  Why was this a big day?  Because I truly despise this credit card and the company which runs it.  About three years ago I received my monthly statement and, to my chagrin, found a late charge which was odd since the card was always paid on the same day of every month.  When I call them up to question the charge, I was told my due date had been changed, it had been moved up, enabling Discover to collect 13 monthly payments from me that year.  Complaining works, the customer service rep removed the late fee and reverted my account to the original due date.  Everything was hunky dory until about a year ago when my interest rate went up not because I was a bad risk, or had missed payments, but because Discover card was allowed to charge me more.  So, I closed the account.  The reaction from Discover?  Talk about a frigid bitch on the end of the line, she went into robot mode as soon as she learned my intentions.

Discover credit card pigs

You see the problem is Discover, like all credit card companies whether they be Visa, Mastercard, or American Express, are in the credit business to make a profit.  My interest charge went from 15.5% to 18.8% and that increase made me furious because my credit rating is excellent.  That's a hell of a chunk of change so I said "no" to Discover (actually, I told them to screw themselves).  There is no such thing as inexpensive credit anymore.  Too many Americans are greedy.  Since they think they "need it" now, they have no problem buying that 56" 3D Flat Screen TV for as much as 26% interest on their credit card.  They don't do the math.  They don't understand that for every $500 on their card they're paying approximately $130 a year in interest.  In spite of all their catchy commercials, credit card companies offer no deal to the American consumer.

Lochte - oops

As far as I can see, the biggest controversy coming out of the 2012 Olympics has got to be anything and everything dealing with Ryan Lochte.  While you would like to put a positive spin on what he and his family are saying and doing, they are up against Michael Phelps who is definetly the kind of ambassador America wants to send to the Olympics.  Phelps is well spoken, sounding educated and he shakes the hands of his team members even when he comes in second, Lochte doesn't.  The fact that Lochte needs to be told not to wear his grill on to the podium is an embarrasment.  He doesn't seem to understand the games are not held to show the world he is 'cool.'  I've seen him interviews and he can not help he sounds like Rocky Balboa, but he needs to learn to conjugate his verbs when speaking in public.  He needs to say "Michael Phelps and I are," not Michael Phelps and I is."  One can only wonder if he wants to sound stupid on purpose; maybe that's part of the 'cool' thing.

Do a search on his name, pull of the article and start reading, even those most positive mention the negative aspects of his personality.  His mother doesn't help.  When I read in a sports headline that she had said his schedule only allows for him to have one night stands I was flabbergasted.  She's dumb as a box of bricks and perhaps the apple didn't fall far from the tree.  Evidently he's been trying to backtrack from that comment, his lifestyle up until a few days ago will limit just how far he can go.  Maybe what he really needs to do is pop his grill in his mouth and grin because maybe he wants to be remembered as a douchebag. 

Vertigo = Number 1

Since 1962 (a long time ago) Citizen Kane has been considered the best movie of all time.  In this classic, Orson Welles made cinematic history with innovative camera shots, unconventional story telling, and set a precedent by thinly veiling an unauthorized biography of William Randolph Hearst.  Over the years, however, other films have slowly inched their way either up or down that ladder; time always tells.  Now, Citizen Kane has been knocked down a rung and finds itself in the number two position.  What replaced it?  Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

I have to say I am in full agreement.  While I've liked Citizen Kane and have seen it 3 or 4 times I have always seen it as a demonstration of innovative genius rather then cinematic genius.  Vertigo, on the other hand, has fascinated me ever since I saw it on TV as a child.  Back then I thought it was just "wow" without any understanding of the psychology involved.  In my twenties, I watched it again and realized it was not just about one man's fear of heights.  I began understanding the psychology involved.  The word "obsession" began entering my vocabulary when I talked about it with friends, while we postulated the differences between obsession and mental illness since this film is about both.  I watched it again a few years ago and must say there are times in it when I felt truly uncomfortable most especially the scene where James Stewart dresses up Kim Novak as the dead Madeleine.  

This scene creeped me out so badly I almost got up and walked out the room because at that moment  I realized just how crazy James Stewart's Scottie had become and like the police officer who falls to his death in the beginning, Scottie has stepped off the roof of reality.

Congrats to Michael Phelps

Yesterday and American swimmer became the most decorated Olympian of all time, of course, everybody knows who Michael Phelps is and they have for years.  I remember back when a photo of him surfaced taking a hit from a bong and the out cry was immense - from people who sit around with self-righteous sticks stuck up their asses.  They did not want a human being representing the United States, they wanted a robot, some one who aspired to demonstrate the qualities they choose.  I suppose they believe they are striving towards perfection when in reality they want to strangle to death any aspect which imparts individualism.  They want a Stepford populated not just with perfect wives, but with perfect husbands and perfect children not realizing the only thing in their future is failure.  "Nature always wins out," Jeff Goldblum said that in Jurassic Park. You can take the human out of nature but you can't take the nature out of human, that's me.

Here's a hearty congratulations to Mr. Phelps for becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time in spite of smoking a little pot.  It's also a finger shake at all those boo hissers - don't you just love being wrong.