COMMENTARY - Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

I live in America. Last I checked, our national language here was English. Could somebody please tell me why we're bending over backwards for Spanish speakers then? I understand that citizens of many Spanish speaking craphole countries south of the border are exiting en masse, many of them illegally, to the U.S., but what makes them think we need to learn their language, and they can get off without learning ours? Now don't take me for racist in any form. If I lived in a craphole country like that I'm sure I'd do anything to get out to a better place as well. Consider that a criticism of their government, not of the people. But if I move into some other country, I recognize that I damn well better learn the language there if I hope to make it. Yet somehow all these Spanish speakers are getting away with it. I guess they figure if enough of them move to our country, they can push the English illiteracy rate high enough to force the widespread adoption of Spanish. Seems this ploy is working out quite well, in fact. We have Spanish T.V. stations, Spanish newspapers, magazines, and books, restaurants have menus in Spanish, and even government websites are now published in Spanish. Their language is infiltrating our country and slowly sucking the life out of English. What happened to America, the arrogant playboys of the world? Since when did we start catering to other people? What happened to our belief that since we sit on top of the world, everybody should bend over backwards, cater to us, and learn English? If someone were to walk into the Senate and propose that our national language were to be changed to Spanish, he would be laughed right out of Washington. America is very good at deflecting this sort of frontal assault. But as evidenced by our time spent in Vietnam, what we have a weak defense against are guerilla warfare tactics. This is exactly the sort of attack we are seeing on our national language. A covert infiltration is underway, quietly taking chunks of our nation at a time, until soon English speakers will be among the minority and the replacement of our national language becomes inevitable. So I'm probably exaggerating a bit and being overdramatic, but the issue in some form still remains. I think if nothing else it is a sign that our country is changing. I could not see our nation going to such lengths to accommodate immigrants some decades ago. Welcome them, we certainly did, but cater to them we did not. How this transforming America will affect our lives, for better or for worse, remains to be seen. Perhaps America is just growing up, or perhaps we are growing old.

COMMENTARY - News for the naive from Nigeria

I've heard about these fraud emails before, but this is the first time I have had the good fortune to recieve one myself. Yessir, it seems I'm heir apparent to $12 million! Take a look:

Dear Bailey, I am Mr.Benny Obaseki, the Manager funds release with Standard Trust Bank (plc), I am the accountant in charge of Mr.Anthony Bailey's account a National of your country, who used to work with a Multi-National oil Firm in Nigeria. Here in after shall be referred to as my client On April 21, 2000, my client, his wife, and their three children were involved in a car accident along Sagamu express way. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then I have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended Relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they Get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged, particularly the Standard Trust Bank (plc) where the deceased had an account valued at about ($12 million u s dollars) has Issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next ten official working days. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at ($12 million u s dollars) can be paid to you and then you and me Can share the money. 60% to me and 40% to you . All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with me by my email. Best regards, Benny Obaseki. Wow. I wonder how many idiots actually buy into this obvious fraud. Nevertheless, I think I'm going to play along for a bit, see how long it takes him to realize that I'm interested in nothing more than mocking him. So here's the email I sent back. I will hopefully be able to follow this up next week with his return reply, unless he's unfortunately quick-witted and catches on to my sarcasm after just the first round. My last name, in case you were wondering, isn't even Bailey.

Dear Mr. Obaseki, Thank you so much for contacting me in regards to my deceased relative and his unclaimed fortune. I am quite impressed with your investigative skills, to have tracked me down to this anonymous email account that I had opened no more than four months ago, especially considering how you were going off of nothing more than a last name that has no attachment to this address whatsoever. Your writing skills seem to lack the same level of proficiency however, as I would expect something a little more eloquent from someone holding the title of bank manager, but perhaps this could be attributed to English being a second language for you. I took the liberty of visiting the website for Standard Trust Bank to learn a little more about your company and verify that it was a legitimate organization. There was a notice on the site that read as follows: "It has come to our notice that some individuals have been impersonating Standard Trust Bank Plc and officials of the bank and making business proposals to the public. This is to advise the public especially our customers and prospective customers to exercise extreme caution in responding to all suspicious business proposals from these sources..." I'm sure this is just a precautionary statement though, and that your proposal is certainly genuine. So please tell me, what must I do in order to secure this inheritance? I eagerly await your reply. Cordially, TribbleHunter Bailey

COMMENTARY - Say Good Morning to my FIST

I propose that the term "good morning" should fall into disuse for its lack of political correctness. I feel the word "good" is entirely too subjective to be tossed about so lightly. Going around spouting "good morning" throughout the AM hours only spreads dissention and ill will among everyone you come into contact with. It's a simple fact that most people's mornings are not, in fact, good. What's good about having to wake up, drag yourself out of bed, and drive in rush hour traffic to get to your lame boring job? That's right, NOTHING. This is why most people are NOT in a good mood in the morning, and why they don't appreciate your salutations of "good morning". By saying such you are insinuating that you are in fact having a good morning yourself, for why else would you wish someone else to have a good morning if you are not even having one? Your flaunting "good morning" is then interpreted as boasting your cheery disposition in the face of the unhappy populace around you, who will then loathe and resent you for it. So if you are one of those annoyingly cheery morning people, I suggest you keep your calls of "good morning" to yourself in the future so as to curb any further unnecessary animosity towards you from those around you who do not share your disposition. Instead, I suggest the simple greeting of "Morning" be adopted. This statement conveys the simple fact that, yes, it is morning, without inflicting your cheeriness upon others who want nothing to do with it, and just want you to leave them alone to their coffee until lunchtime.

NEWS- What do you do when a Floridiot throws a grenade into your house?

Pull the pin out and toss it back. It sounds like a bad joke, but read this latest article on Floridiocy. Apparently someone threw a grenade into this family's home, which they immediately threw back out the window, where it landed in the front lawn, and didn't blow up. When the bomb squad got there, they discovered the pin hadn't even been pulled, and that it was in fact an old grenade that someone had put a pin back into to make it look active, so it wouldn't have done anything if the idiot had thought to pull it before he chucked the thing anyway. I don't go out of my way to pick on Florida natives, they just make it so easy...

NEWS - Uh... Stuff and things...

New site of the day definitely worth a mention, Intellectual Whores is the home of "Ladder Theory", which explains exactly how men and women think, and how these differences in gender specific cognitive reasoning account for virtually all instances of men getting mentally kicked in the face by women. If you're a guy who's been screwed over by a chick and still bitter about it, you'll love this site, and most likely be able to determine where you went wrong. If you're a guy new to the dating scene, you should use this site as your bible, it'll save you a lot of future heartache if you do. Oh, and if you're a chick, yeah, you could go read it too, and then tell yourself that you're different and shrug it off, just like every other chick who reads it does. Also, the latest Deep Thought from Danny: "You know how pretty much everything in the night sky we see has already taken place many many many many years ago? I HATE that. I hate being the last one to know what's going on." You should go check out his post on the evils of ice cream as well.

COMMENTARY - War Happens. Get Over It.

I'm tired of hearing everyone lament about war. Yes, it's bad. Yes, people die and things blow up. It's all the elements that make a good action movie, but it seems to suddenly lose its appeal when it's happening on the evening news instead of on HBO. Go figure. I have a simple mathematical explanation for all you people sniveling about the evils of war. You might recognize it if you managed to make it through so much as junior high. If A=B, and B=C, then A=C. What's this got to do with war? Well, let's add some names to these variables. We'll assign the word happens to A, B will be sh*t, and C will stand for war. So adding these variables into our formula, A=B stands for happens=sh*t, or put into plain English, "sh*t happens". This is a common universally accepted truth, and is the foundation for the rest of our formula. Next, B=C would represent sh*t=war, or in common terms, "war is sh*t". This is also widely accepted as a factual statement. So that brings us to A=C, happens=war, or "war happens". As you can plainly see, if the previous two statements of sh*t happens and war is sh*t are true, then the declaration that war happens must also be true. That's right. There's no way around it. War happens. So get over it. A study was done on rats, where the rodents were placed in a utopian environment with more fresh food and water than they could use. Yet interestingly enough, as the rat population grew and their environment became overcrowded, the rats started to break into distinct packs and began hording the food, even though there was more than enough to go around. They then became extremely violent and began killing each other. All as a result of overpopulation. I think we see a similar phenomenon with humans on a global scale, and while typically overlooked, it is still likely a playing factor in the instigation of wars. Honestly, I think we should welcome war as a form of population control. While it's true there are civilian casualties, wars are really fought by and large by soldiers. In many countries these soldiers may not be offered the choice to serve as they are here in the U.S., but whether they were drafted by force or joined up by choice, the casualties of war are largely refined to the specific demographic of males of reproductive age. Eventually the war ends, the population has been cut back, and human reproduction will have been deferred for a generation or two. This seems to me a more favorable form of population control than many. Most other forms of limiting the population lack the controlled nature of war. Take disease as another example. Disease is far less discerning about its victims, and kills without the discretion of war. So would you want to be a candidate for population control yourself via some strange and exotic jungle virus, or would you rather someone willing to sacrifice their lives go out and die for you in a more controlled method of population management instead? Puts it in a different light when you look at it like that, doesn't it? I'm still not saying you have to like it, but come to grips with the fact that war is an inevitable event, and is not as evil as you may think. And please, quit your pansy sniveling and show your appreciation to those soldiers who are willing to sacrifice their lives to prevent the animalistic instincts of man from destroying us all. You owe it to them.

COMMENTARY - New! Warped Core PREMIUM BLEND!!! (a.k.a "Shameless plug for money")

I'm cheap. That's why I host this site at Blogspot using Blogger, because they're free. I have free email accounts, free hosted stat trackers, free polls, and am now looking into a free discussion board or commenting system for the site. I am a big fan of the word "free". But with every one of these free services I have, there lurks its premium counterpart but a click away. You will inevitably at some point take a peak at these premium services during the course of your usage of the free model, and be enticed by the new and upgraded features for just a meager few dollars a month. Many of you may even buy into it and shell out the money for the benefits that come with that title of "premium user". While, as I said, I much prefer the word "free", I can see how this model is effective. The people who want something for nothing have the free service, those with too much money to spend get their title of "premium user", and many of the free subscribers may be convinced to upgrade their services later, making the retailer happy. Everybody wins. So I got to thinking, since this model is used on about everything else even remotely related to my blog and seems to work so well, why not incorporate some sort of premium pay model into my blog as well? I gave it a good deal of thought, and have instead only managed to come up with a list of reasons NOT to do this. It'd be too much work to manage subscriptions, I don't really have many visitors to begin with, and I'm sure most of my regular visitors are as cheap as I am and wouldn't pay for it anyways. Oh, and there's also the fact that I have about nothing to offer paying subscribers that would be worth their money. Since I'm a big fan of the word "free" myself, I have a hard time coming up with content or incentives that I feel warrant your money. So while I may have decided that a premium pay model such as this certainly wouldn't work out too well for my blog, I still want people to give me their money. Then I thought, hey, why not just provide people with the opportunity to simply give you their money for no good reason? That's what PayPal is for, right? Enter my PayPal donation link.

Here's another scenario where everybody wins. You still get all of my content for free, and I will continue to maintain the site as I do currently, as I don't seriously expect anyone to actually donate any money to me. But, should you choose to make a donation, you can take pride in the knowledge that you are aiding in the betterment of my humble little blog. How, you ask? Well, for starters, I may one day be able to afford a computer of my own, so I can type my articles from home rather than writing it all at work when I should be working. This will also ensure that I get more work done at work, as it will cut down on the time I have to spend messing with my blog from there, thus decreasing the chances that I get fired and am left with no means with which to update the site at all in the future. With enough donations, I may even be able to afford an internet connection with that new computer, and I would be able to update the site on the weekends, instead of just on weekdays as I do now. Think about it, if I were to post seven days a week instead of a mere five, that would represent a 28.6% increase in new site content per week, all thanks to your donations. But wait, there's more. I often come up with thoughts or ideas throughout the day that would make great posts on my blog, but since I have nothing on which to jot these ideas down on the spot, I often forget them, and what may have become a precious editorial gem is lost to the swiftly flowing sands of time. Your donations could help fund the purchase of a Palm Pilot, so I could not only jot down these thoughts on the fly, but even write entire articles while I am on the go, improving both the quality and quantity on the site. And after that, I could use donations to buy a digital camera, to improve the aesthetic quality of my site with new photos and graphics. Donations would also allow me to buy more toys and games, see more movies, and go more places, giving me a plethora of new topics to write about, ensuring new and exciting content far into the future. So as you can see, if you enjoy my blog, giving me your money is really in your best interest. So donate freely and often! This is the end of my shameless plug.