Yes! Yes! Yes!

Philadelphia Phillies, 2008 World Champions! YES! Congratulations Phillies!

Please please please please please

How awesome were the Phillies tonight? So awesome that their pitcher hit a home run. To be colloquial about it: Hell yeah!

Now, one more game like that, tomorrow night. Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Dear Netflix

I'm sure you have some terribly complicated program that comes up the list of "movies most like ____" that pops up when you add something to your queue.

But can we talk? I added Iron Man to my queue. You suggested X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Superman: The Movie, which are all extremely logical picks. You also suggested The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Italian Job and Kung Fu Hustle, which...I guess kind of work to certain degrees.

And then you suggested Oklahoma and Cat Ballou, which I must admit I find a bit strange. And by a bit strange I mean staggeringly incomprehensible.

And now, a picture of a puppy in a graduation cap

He's adorable, and a puppy school graduate! (though one of my parents needs to clean the lens of their camera or something.)

Dear sports community:

1. Indoor, air-conditioned baseball stadiums with artificial turf are not luxurious and comfortable, they are an affront to god. Have we not learned yet that baseball is one of those things that modern science is not helping?

2. The Rays are not a bad team. Nor are they a good team. They don't have any particular reputation whatsoever. Know what they are? A ten-year-old franchise. By contrast, the Philadelphia Phillies are a 125-year-old team. Please stop trying to legitimately compare 10 years of history to 125 years.

3. Game 1, top of the first, Phils are up 2-0. GO PHILLIES!

Attack of the ignorant, hypocritical jackasses

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Dr. White is a mentor at the seminary, charged with helping future pastors make the right decisions. But earlier this month, a repentant Dr. White addressed those students.

He confessed that he and his wife had employed birth control pill years earlier.

"The reason that we did it was my own selfishness," he said. "I wanted kids, but I wanted kids — not in God's timing, but in my timing."

Dr. White now condemns the use of birth control pills, saying, "It's murder of a life."

SERIOUSLY SHUT UP YOU WORTHLESS LUMP OF FLESH.

Okay. Now that the knee-jerk reaction is out of the way...How about you mind your own fucking business at least until you learn some basic biology?

For the millionth, billionth time, I would like to explain to all fundamentalist assholes that the pill does not prevent implantation. It is theoretical possibility, but there is exactly no evidence that any hormonal birth control prevents implantation of a fertilized egg. The pill prevents babies from happening because there is no egg. Ovulation does not occur. No egg is released from the ovaries. Get it? That means there is no implantation to prevent. No egg is being fertilized, because there is no egg.

If someone forgets to take their birth control and has otherwise-unprotected sex, then yes, a much higher than regular dose of hormonal birth control can prevent implantation. This is not the typical usage, because THAT IS NOT WHAT THE PILL DOES. THERE IS NO EGG TO DO ANYTHING TO. THE ABSENCE OF THE EGG IS THE POINT!

Unless you're a medical doctor doing cutting-edge research on the topic, this is not something that can be negotiable. You, Dr. White, have a Ph.D in divinity from a Baptist seminary. This gives you plenty of knowledge on divinity, but apparently is rather lacking in biological expertise. Or, for that matter, common sense, avoidance of blatant and stunning hypocrisy, minding your own damn business. And apparently, Dr. White never even bothered to take Not Being a Jackass 101.

Aaaaargh!

So that 'blue card' visa that I had when I went to Britain? Where I had an amazing time and fell madly in love with London? The visa I was in every way intending to get again for immediately after I graduate?

The British Government has killed the program. No more blue cards.

May I say, god damn it!

What the world needs

This makes me ridiculously happy.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

Want to see something beautiful?

Here it is:
The Philadelphia Phillies are going to the World Series, because they are awesome and wonderful and I am not exaggerating when I say that the last time I was this excited about baseball I was six years old.

Go Phillies!

*glee*

I absolutely, fully, and wholly forgive the Phillies for last night.

If they want to try something new on Wednesday and win without giving every Phillies fan a damn heart attack, they should absolutely feel free to do so. But really, as long as they win, I'm going to remain solidly in love with them forever and ever.

Brrrrrr.

First winter storm watch of the year.

Last night's Phillies game was a disaster, but more on that later.

Good news for once

Hooray Connecticut.

Oh, thank you!

Sometimes there is a teeny, tiny bit of justice in the world:

Richard Fuld, the disgraced head of Lehman Brothers, was punched in the face in the office gym amid the bank's collapse.

Whoever that man is, he is a true hero. I'm all for nonviolence, but sometimes, some people just need punching.

Americans hate themselves

A recent poll:

If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office.

...

Only half (49%) believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure (see crosstabs).

Well, gosh, I'm shocked. There was overwhelming, very possibly unprecedented protest from constituents everywhere, across party lines and with no real regard for geographic location, on a bill. And in a fairly stunning turn of events, Representatives listened to their constituents and said, "No, this is not what the people want and therefore I'm not going to vote for it," and it was enough to shoot down the bill.

And then pretty much all of Congress turned around and spat on the people who put them into office, saying "screw you, we're doing what the rich people's lobbyists tell us to we think is right, because of course we don't have any obligation to listen to you guys."

We're involved in two wars that are as astonishingly pointless as they are costly, we're watching our economy self-destruct, our civil liberties rot away. We've seen a 300+ page bill signed into law three days after it was proposed*, be found to be largely unconstitutional, almost expire only to be re-authorized over the screaming protests of anyone who cares about protecting the Constitution.

This country has been grotesquely mismanaged for a long time. The problem did not start with the current President, though he's probably done more than any one individual ever has to harm the country**. Through it all Congress has been asked to jump and their collective response has been "how high?"

For the love of god, call your senators and representative and tell them, not just some pollsters, how pissed off you are and why. And if you don't do that, at the very least, VOTE. If you won't even take the effort to vote in a general election, you're ruining any credibility you may otherwise have.

Now I'm going to go weep tears of bitter sorrow into my copy of Tocqueville.

*The PATRIOT Act. Proposed Oct 23, 2001, signed into law by Bush on Oct 26, 2001.

**In my not-so-humble opinion he should be tried for treason. Then again, I also think that most people who held high-ranking positions in the government and military during the Cold War should also be tried for treason.

A regression to being six years old

And with a very nice 3-to-1 series against the Brewers, the Phillies move onto the NLCS, someplace they haven't been since 1993. I'm very excited about this.

Go Phillies!

(Also: my condolences to any and all Cubs fans. Someday, guys.)

Personal Responsibility

Jesus christ, yes, the lenders and banks were very bad and are very hold a lot of fault for this economic problem. You know who else was responsible? YOU.

Yes, you. American Consumer, get up here, front and center. You, Joe Average, Madam Hockey Mom, whoever you are. Did you run up a lot of credit card debt? Did you buy a house that you weren't absolutely sure you could afford? Did you take out a personal or business loan that seemed too good to be true?

Congratulations, you dipshit, you were part of a massive team to sink the American economy!

Here's what needs to happen for a national-scale economy to work: People need to have money to loan. That means that the people who take out those loans need to be able to repay it. In the past, if you took out a loan that you couldn't afford, you were an idiot and/or scumbag living above your means. Recently it seems that doing so is not a stupid, scummy, irresponsible thing to do, but rather your own little slice of the American Dream.

If you took out a mortgage, you signed a contract saying that you accepted full responsibility for it. That means for one that you should have done your damn research before signing it. But that also means it is your responsibility. No, you cannot just walk away from it and expect the bank to write it off as a loss. No, you cannot expect a government bailout to make everything better*. No, you cannot blame the banks. Yes, they are partly culpable, but you know what? YOU SIGNED THE AGREEMENT. You saw the numbers you talked about it, you did it anyway.

Of course they told you it was a good idea and a great investment! Jesus christ, of course they told you that! You know why? They're selling it! If I go to a car dealership they're going to try to talk me up to the absolute peak of my price range. If I go to a realtor they're going to try to talk me up. Why? Because that's how they make their money, you ignoramus! That's like people who are stunned, absolutely horrified, to find out that their doctor is trying to tell them that tests X, Y, and Z are in fact neccesary and that you should really be on this and that drug. If you do it they get more money; if you don't they don't get the money. I was under the impression that this wasn't a terribly complex idea, but apparently it is.

I don't think I'm going to be able to watch the entire VP debate; it's going to make me too angry.

*Can someone *please* explain to me how this is going to solve anything long-term? We need regulation, not for our representatives to ignore their constituents and vote for a bill that's more pork than anything useful.

Aw yeah, you know you love it.

Honest to god, I think we're inching ever closer to the ESPN writers needing to say nice things about the Phillies. So far they're sticking with their general "uh, no, it was just the other team choking," but if tomorrow's game is anything like yesterday's awesomeness they're just gonna have to suck it up and admit it.

Instead, what October served up was the most disastrous outing of Sabathia's Brewers career -- all 18 starts of it.

Hell yeah. Go Phillies!

Hey, well done, Texas!

It seems not everything in Texas is worthless.

It's absolutely soul-crushingly depressing that we even need to say that, but if you've got to fight for what's right, then you've got to fight for it.

Hooray!

Let's go Phillies!