Comedy genius

Wouldn’t it be great if this actually happened? No more murder, war, rape, burglary, politics, gas prices or earthquakes/hurricanes/freak storms. Just a nice simple day.

Enjoy.

You sir, are full of it

George Bush gave his annual State of the Union address yesterday. It had the usual “God Bless America” nonsense, the usual spiel and all the sycophantic applause, despite his approval ratings being at an all time low. The part that has narked me is his thoughts on global climate change. Take a moment to read what he very righteously said:

Extending hope and opportunity depends on a stable supply of energy that keeps America’s economy running and America’s environment clean. For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence
leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists — who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, and raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.

It’s in our vital interest to diversify America’s energy supply — the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power, by even greater use of clean coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power. (Applause.) We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. (Applause.) We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol — (applause) — using everything from wood chips to grasses, to agricultural wastes.
We made a lot of progress, thanks to good policies here in Washington and the strong response of the market. And now even more dramatic advances are within reach. Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we’ve done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. (Applause.)

When we do that we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East. To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 — and that is nearly five times the current target. (Applause.) At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks — and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

Achieving these ambitious goals will dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it’s not going to eliminate it. And so as we continue to diversify our fuel supply, we must step up domestic oil production in environmentally sensitive ways. (Applause.) And to further protect America against severe disruptions to our oil supply, I ask Congress to double the current capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (Applause.)

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change. (Applause.)

Well gee, all of a sudden America are the stewards of the environment, confronting the challenge of global climate challenge. Why did the rest of the world realise this? If only there was some way that the whole world could bond together and act co-operatively to effect positive global action against climate change. Wow, I think someone should think up a protocol of some sort, I really do.

You can download the entire thing here: 24_01_07_sotu.pdf

Worst movies ever

According to an MSN Movies poll, the following are the 10 worst movies ever:

Here’s the Top Ten in full:

1. Spice World The Movie
2. Titanic
3. Grease 2
4. Waterworld
5. Hostel
6. Anaconda
7. Batman & Robin
8. Gigli
9. Catwoman
10. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

I was very surprised to see Waterworld and Hostel in there. They’re not great films, but there’s certainly a great deal of other films which are a lot worse. I agree that all the others listed are shocking films. I would probably have ranked Catwoman up there as the worst ever (saved only by the amount of time she spends in a leather jumpsuit).

Proof that the French are stupid

I don’t know if this makes them more stupid than Americans, or about the same, or a bit less, but it does at least prove that they are suffering from the same idiotic political-correctness bug by which most Western nations are currently afflicted. That of “you can’t do that because it may or may not offend some other group of people”. But the reason I quote this as proof of them being stupid, is they actually choose to defend the “oppressed” group of people ahead of their “own” people first. Anyway, read the story here.

OK, I don’t know the full details of the story and I’m probably totally over simplifying this, but it seems to me this is what happened: a group of nationalists decide to hand out some free soup, a traditional French soup made with pork, to the poor / homeless people in France. The police objected to this because the poor / homeless Jews and Muslims couldn’t accept that soup (because they don’t eat pork) and therefore requested that the handouts be stopped.

This is wrong on so many grounds:

1) It was a charity type handout – free soup to people who need it / want it
2) If the Jewish / Muslim won’t eat it, that is their decision, but people who will eat it shouldn’t be made to suffer as a result
3) The Police actually requested that this free handout be stopped – “Stop giving free food to the needy people!” on account of political/religious correctness
4) The jury said it was discriminatory in that it discriminated against Jews/Muslims. Since the people handing out the food were a nationalist party, presumably the Jews/Muslims they were discriminating against were immigrants. Surely the Mayor of Paris should be more worried about the fact he has homeless / poor immigrants in need of help in the first place and be considering the provisions he should be making for this rather than actually cutting the support to people who will accept it?

It’s just ludicrous. I do my best to not be racist or discriminate against anyone, but sometimes it gets a little difficult. The place I grew up is now full of Polish people, the area of the UK I now live in is rapidly filling up with Latvians, and a gutless immigration policy by our government is doing nothing to manage this trend effectively, it’s stories like this that just make you wonder what the heck is going on and it comes as little surprise that net migration in the UK is evening out, since so many UK residents are moving out of the country.

You’d think they could have waited

Figure skaters eh? If I was ever to run a “name that caption” compo on this blog, then this would surely be a worthy target. There are at least 3 jokes I can think of and all of them gratuitous.

I’ll leave it to your imagination.

And when you’re done with that, read about the best nominee for plank of the year.

Saddam to hang

I’ve started on Season 5 of 24. I had the DVDs on backorder from Play for months now, and is usually the case, I’ve received them a few days ahead of their official release in the shops. So far, I have to say it’s amazing. I remember when I first started watching 24. I had no idea about it, and had simply been given Season 1 as a gift. To say I was hooked was an understatement, and remember doing little else than watching Season 1 in not much time at all (well, about as much as time as it takes to watch 24 episodes of 24…). I quickly bought the remaining series preparing myself for weeks of 24 indulgence.

I have to admit, though, by the end of Season 3 I was getting bored, and I still had Season 4 to go. There was so much repetition, so many predictable events and what was it with Sherry Palmer never dying? That was irritating. By the end of it, I was more pleased I’d finished rather than in anticipation of the next series.

And now Season 5. On the basis of the previous 4, I might not have bought it, but I’m sad in as much as I have to know what happened, even if it has cost me £30. Nevermind- because so far, it’s awesome. Maybe it was the few months break from it all that has reignited my interest in it, but damn, it’s good. The same predictable things are happening, the same cliches, the same over-reacting (CTU has been infiltrated, again…) but I suppose there are only so many storylines. Nope, so far it’s good.

Oh yeah, Saddam Hussein is going to hang for generally being a nasty bit of work. About time.

Damp squib MotoGP season finale

There was a mouthwatering prospect in place for the MotoGP end of season race with the title open to two riders: 5 time champion Valention Rossi or Nicky Hayden. Hayden was trailing by 8 points going in to the race, which meant he had to finish several spots higher up than Rossi to clinch it. Everyone was quite liderally dribbling with anticipation at the thought of a hard fought race between the two.

Unfortunately, though, the dribble proved to be Rossi’s downfall, as he obviously hit a patch of it on lap 5 and skidded out after a shocking start. Although he made his way from 20th to 13th by the end of the race, all Hayden had to do was finish and he’d win his first title.

Which he did, and that was that.

Still, it was more exciting than Formula 1.