Various and Sundry For The Week of March 15

 

So, New Pope.

Well, OK, he’s like five hundred years old or something, not exactly new new – but you knew what I meant.

Now, I’m not Catholic, or any religion for that matter, but apparently I’m supposed to really, really care about the new guy.  

Because it’s on every single damned news station and news paper and news feed and social media news site. 

New Pope is awesome! New Pope still has New Pope Smell! New Pope Hand Selected By God Himself! New Pope is First New World Pope! New Pope carries his own luggage! New Pope celebrates Mass (I didn’t even know the new guy was a fan of the Higgs Boson, but I suppose it sort of figures). New Pope  has no obvious resemblance to infamous Sith Lord – Catholics hopeful New Pope is a Trekkie or maybe even a Browncoat! New Pope begins first day by blessing stuff, New Pope blesses himself (don’t you go blind if you do that too much? I’m just asking. Popes are supposed to be experts on that sort of thing, you think he’d know better), New Pope blesses Old Pope, Pope blesses some random people for practice, New Pope blesses a pickle just to see if he can.  And so on. 

New Popes get to choose their Pope Name.

Popes are the only world leaders who get to do that, choose their own Superhero name. It’s a opportunity unique among the world’s big shots and not a choice to make lightly.

So, what name did this guy choose?

Francis.

Pope Francis?

It’s just me, right?

Pope: The name's Francis Soyer, but everybody calls me Psycho. Any of youse guys call me Francis, and I'll kill ya.
Random Priest [sarcastically]:  Ooooooh!
Pope: You just made the list, Buddy! [pulls a switchblade out of his cassock and flashes the blade at the offending Clergyman] And I don't like nobody touching my stuff. So just keep your meat-hooks off! If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I'll kill ya. Also, I don't like nobody touching me. Now, any of you… homos… touch me, and I'll kill ya.
Cardinals: LIGHTEN UP, FRANCIS!

This guy was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  Didn’t that suggest anything? Pope Jorge (pronounced in the Spanish, Whore-Hey). Because that would be totally awesome, and besides, somebody has to be the first of his name, right?  Or how about Pope Mario – and then we could rename the Popemobile to The Mario Cart, and it would blast that old 8-bit video game music from speakers on the roof, see, and it would make that power-up bonus noise when Pope Mario blessed people and the wahahahahahahaaaaaaa sound when …  

Oh, what?

See? This is why people are leaving the Church, no sense of humor.

Heck, the guy’s last name is Bergoglio for crying out loud, he could have been Pope Coolio!

Instead, he went with Francis.

Who the hell chooses Francis?  On purpose?

I mean Francis? You figure priests and bishops and cardinals must daydream about this stuff, right? For Christ’s sake, you’d think they’d be prepared.  I mean I’m not even Catholic and I was ready if they chose me. I would have totally gone with Pope Hammerscowl Ironbar The Unforgiving, Avenging Falcon Kick of the Almighty, Destroyer of Worlds, Scourge of Sin, Knight Commander of the Velociprator Army and Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla!  I mean, shit, you’re The Pope, right? Who’s going to tell you that you can’t?  Think of how cool his business cards would be – maybe with little smity embossed lightning bolts around the edges? Huh?

Look here, Pope Hammerscowl Ironbar The Unforgiving issues a Holy Edict, and for damn sure the clergy would think twice about any Shenanigans with the altar boys, especially if there are velociraptors involved – but get a memo from some little old guy in a dress with matching hat and red pumps named Francis and where are you?

See?

My point exactly.

Nobody would be telling Ol’ Hammerscowl to “lighten up.”

At least they wouldn’t tell him twice.

 

Meanwhile, speaking of a place that could use a few velociraptors, down in Mississippi they just passed an “anti-Bloomberg Bill” that makes calorie counting and portion control illegal in local restaurants.

Yes, that’s right, the state with one of the highest densities of per capita obesity, diabetes, and diet related health problems just passed a law making it illegal for restaurants to limit portion size or to post the number of calories and fat content in their food.

The bill’s author asked:

If we give government a little more control of our personal rights, where does it stop?

I think’s it obvious that Mississippians are afraid it will stop at the Golden Coral Buffet, I’m just saying.

I glanced at the Constitution to see which inalienable right was being infringed upon if jowly Mississippians  can’t get their pudgy hands on a Big Gulp, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe they meant the Mississippi State Constitution, Article Two, Second Helpings and other God Given Freedoms: Cholesterol being paramount to Liberty, the right of the people to shove as much fat and sugar into their gravy slathered country fried pieholes as is humanly possible, while simultaneously demanding the elimination of government mandated healthcare, shall not be infringed.

Sure, New York Mayor Bloomberg’s portion size law is idiotic and unenforceable and does absolutely nothing to address the growing problem of obesity and is very likely unconstitutional to boot, but is it really something that people are actually afraid of? 

Really?

Are We The People organizing over this?  Marching on Washington?  Pillaging health food stores?  Lighting yoga instructors on fire in effigy?  Are state governments and town councils sitting around hot airless conference rooms right now, pounding down stale jelly donuts and slurping whole-milk double lattes, bending to the people’s will, crafting laws to prevent the horrifying tide of Bloombergism from sweeping across American? My God, man, what if we can’t supersize? The horror! It’ll be the end of America as we know it! That’s how it started with Hitler! Not me, man, not me! The Nazi bastards can take my Big Gulp when they pry it from my cold dead sticky bloated ham-sized fist that had to be amputated due to the diabetes! Freeeeeedom!

Half the world is starving to death and in here America we’re arguing about the right to chug a gallon of soda in one sitting and Bloomberg’s city is home to events like professional hotdog eating contests and the World’s Biggest Burger.

No wonder most of the world hates our bleeding guts.

Our fat, fat bleeding guts.

 

While Mississippians are rallying for the right of all Americans to kill themselves with food, a town in Maine is taking a more direct approach.

In Byron, Maine, town residents will vote next week on a law that, if passed, will require all households within the municipality to own a gun.

The basic argument being that it’s overreach for the federal government to require that everybody buy healthcare, but it’s not government overreach to mandate that everybody must buy a gun.  Individual mandate = communism, mandatory gun ownership = Jesus. Write that down, kids, there’ll be a test at the end of the blog post, followed by a blessing from His Smitiness, The Pope.

Can’t afford healthcare premiums, can afford a gun. 

Can’t afford healthcare, can afford a daily Big Gulp. 

The sound you hear is Ben Franklin drowning a bald eagle in a vat of ketchup.

The law, if passed, of course, would be unenforceable.  

It’s an idiotic waste of time and money and the town council knows it.

Town Head Selectman Anne Simmons-Edmund, the council member who proposed the ordinance, says:

“It was never my intention for anyone to own a gun who doesn’t want to. My purpose was to make a statement in support of the Second Amendment…”

Because that’s what laws are for, right? Not to be enforced, only to make a political statement.

What? You can’t arrest me, officer.  Well, of course I just punched the Mayor in the face. But the laws against assault aren’t supposed to be enforced, they’re more of a statement on our First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of wrongs – and that bitch totally wronged me, so I redressed her right in the nose. Boyah!

This kind if nonsense isn’t confined to Maine.  Here in Alaska, and in a dozen other states, local representatives are busy bloviating on about wasteful government spending and parasites who take a government paycheck while producing little in return – and are busy penning laws and ordinances that they know right up front are unenforceable and unconstitutional and will be struck down in court after costing taxpayers even more money. Every small town pissant Tea Party state representative, for example, is home right now crafting legislation to make enforcement of any new federal gun laws illegal in their home states.  Like you can actually do that.  For a bunch of people who claim to hate the Europeans, these patriots sure do seem to like the idea of a federal model that resembles the European Union – or the long defunct Confederacy.

Honestly, if they really wanted to reduce the size of government and the average total tax burden most of the middleclass deals with, then they’d do what Business does when it’s too big and too complex and too bloated – they’d advocate for elimination of redundant functions. You want to downsize? You want to streamline? Then don’t get rid of Federal Government, instead get rid of fifty different state governments. That would be a start right there. Just eliminate an entire layer of redundancy and bullshit and bureaucracy. Blam!  We’d end up one country, with one government, with one set of laws, with one set of taxes.  Then we can start getting rid of underperforming divisions, starting with Mississippi. And do we really need two Carolinas? Two Dakotas? A Virginia and a West Virginia?  Look, I’m just saying, anywhere that the percentage of Big Gulp slurping Wal-Mart shoppers wearing pajamas pants in public exceeds a ratio of, let’s say, 1 per 10,000 then that state should be looked at for a quick fireside sale. There’s really no downside.

What? Yes, yes, I know, make sure they spell my name right on the Nobel Prize. They’ll probably have to invent like a whole new category – The Nobel Prize of Awesome!

 

Which reminds me: North Korea. A bunch of you wrote asking what I thought about North Korea’s recent threat to nuke us.

Folks, honest to God, Kim Jong Un, right? You can all start digging fallout shelters in your backyards if you want to, but have you seen this character? Talk about a guy who was voted most likely to win first place on the People Of Walmart website.  Frankly I just can’t take anybody seriously when their chubby pink ass is hanging out of a pair of pajama bottoms – or maybe that’s his head, it’s kind of difficult to tell.  

Kim Jong Un, it’s like being threatened by Crazy Smurf.  

 

Of course, I’m not exactly sure that we should be talking shit about anybody else’s government, given the silly bastards who’ve taken ours hostage.

It’s now been two weeks since Congress crossed its little pipe-cleaner arms and scrunched up its little red face and started holding its breath like a truculent child.  If I don’t get my way, I’ll just hold my breath until I die! Then you’ll see! Then you’ll be sorry!

Of course, that’s what happens when you elect twits like the freshman republican Representative from Oklahoma, Jim Bridenstine, who was apparently off throwing tea into the harbor or something on the day his high school government class explained how America works.

“Just because the Supreme Court rules on something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s constitutional.”

Um, yeah, Dude, that sort of is what it means, that’s what we pay them for.

But Bridenstine wasn’t finished, the crux of his complaint is that Democrats have stacked the court in their favor – the Supreme Court, the one dominated by conservatives five to four, conservatives appointed by conservatives. That court. Yeah.

This is the same guy whose website says he’s a veteran of “Operation Shock and Awe in Iraq.”  Operation Shock and Awe? Hmmm, I was there and as I recall there was Operation Southern Watch, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, but I don’t remember any “Operation Shock and Awe.”  Shock and Awe was a strategy, a form of fast moving warfare that formed the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom – sort of an American version of Blitzkrieg, a snappy catch phrase tailor made for the news media.  But, hey, man says he was part of Operation Shock and Awe and the Supreme Court is made up of tofu eating liberals who don’t know about the Constitution, who the heck are we to argue, right? I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.

Left and Right remain far, far apart on spending and taxes.

Paul Ryan says he can balance the budget in less than ten years – all we have to do is let old people die and turn the poor into tasty Soylent Green.

President Obama is supposed to release his budget idea next week, republicans already proactively hate it.

Guy says to me this morning, “Obama? Jesus, somebody needs to tell him ‘you can’t borrow your way out of debt!”

We were standing at the urinals.  Now, look, there are rules. Men don’t talk to men in the restroom, not while they’re doing business – maybe a brief “howsitgoin’” while washing hands, but not during the business phase of the operation.  That’s the only part of the day that’s entirely mine, I don’t want to talk to anybody while I’m emptying a supersized Mountain Dew out of Pope Hammerscowl, if you understand what I’m saying here.  The only way to irritate me more than talking to me when I’m blessing the masses is to say something stupid.

You can’t borrow your way out of debt?

Right.

Except for that part where you actually can borrow your way out of debt – and, in point of fact, borrowing is the most common way people, corporations, and countries actually get themselves out of debt.

It happens a thousand times a day.

Take a doctor for example. Or a lawyer. Or any other highly paid professional with a graduate degree – pretty likely they borrowed themselves into debt in order to get advanced schooling which they then used to get a series of backbreaking internships where they wracked up more debt while working to improve their situation which eventually led to a decent high paying job which then allowed them to pay off their debts and start making bank.

Take GM. They borrowed a shitload of money from the government, they used that money to reorganize, reinvest, and retool – and they’re turning a profit again and working their way out of debt right now. If they hadn’t borrowed their way out of debt, they’d be bankrupt and out of business and several million American workers would be on the street.

Any new business typically starts out by acquiring debt. People and organizations borrow money all of the time in order to get out of debt by creating or improving infrastructure, hiring talent, to get past a bad patch, to fund research or construction or any of a thousand other things that improve their lot.

It’s sort of the entire basis of our economy.

You can borrow your way out of debt, what you can’t do is use empty platitudes and idiotic sound bites to achieve the same.

We’re two weeks into sequestration and there’s no end in sight. The full effects haven’t been felt yet, but they’re coming.

A number of folks, like my soon to be furloughed Urinal Buddy, have suggested that we just stop paying Congress until they start doing their jobs.

Uh, no.

Sorry, but that would be unconstitutional.

See, the 27th Amendment requires us to pay them. Period. Whether or not they do their job, whether or not we like it, we have to pay them. It’s the law.  Sequestration will eventually impact just about everybody in the United States, except for the people who created it.

Congress came up with that. Cute, eh?

Which brings up an interesting idea: Turn it around.

See, I figure it’s only poetic justice, Congress wrote a law that says we have to pay them no matter what, so I think it’s only fair that they should have to work – no matter what.

Here’s my idea: we herd the whole goddamned disagreeable bunch of them into the United States Capital Building, Senators into the Senate Chamber, Representatives into the House – and then we lock the doors.

That’s right, we lock the doors, from the outside. And post guards. Big guards, with bad attitudes and tasers – federal police, the guys threatened with furlough. Those guys.

And the Congressional sons of bitches can stay in there until they’ve earned their paychecks.

No pages, no aides, no phones, no internet, no TV cameras, no catering, no breaks. One Port-O-Potty per chamber – with one roll of toilet paper each.

Good luck.

Let us know when you’ve all agreed to a budget.  Slide it under the door and if we like it, we’ll send it over to the President for signature. If he vetoes it, then that’s on him.

Sequestration, as you’ll recall, has several definitions, one of which is to “seclude or lock away.”

I suggest we do exactly that. Sequester. To Congress.

Congress thinks sequestration is such a spiffy idea?

Let them live with it.