War of a Different Kind

So much to talk about these days... gas prices are on the rise again, Dick Cheney's jetsetting all over Asia threatening seemingly every other country on this planet, the Oscars were last night...

But I want to talk about hockey. Why? Because I like hockey.

And what I've seen over these last few nights, were it to happen in any other sport, would be all anyone can talk about. Alas, it's hockey, running a distant 4th among the professional team sports these days (and in danger of falling behind pro lacrosse or TeamTennis), so nobody cares. What happened over the last few nights wasn't the start of a rivalry, it was almost an international incident. You see, a U.S. border city and the capital city of Canada are now officially at each others throats.

Let's set the scene: Buffalo's HSBC Arena... mid-2nd period of a game between the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators, the top 2 teams in the NHL's Northeast Division. And here's what happened...





It should be noted that Ottawa's Chris Neil was thrown in the penalty box for fighting, NOT for the hit. Drury has a concussion and needed 20 stitches to close the gash on his head. He is out indefinitely as the Sabres try to maintain the best record in hockey leading up to the playoffs. Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said after the game that he was proud of his guys for standing up for their injured star. He also admitted that when he sent his fourth line out for the ensuing faceoff, he said, "Go out and run 'em." In baseball, the equivalent would be telling your pitcher to "stick it in his ear." The next day, both teams and coaches were woofing at each other about everything that happened. Saturday dawned with word that the NHL had dished out its punishment for the whole affair... a $10,000 fine on Ruff. NO PUNISHMENT FOR NEIL. They declared his head-shot a "clean hit."

Sabres owner Tom Golisano apparently disagreed, and he sent a letter to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman decrying the lack of discipline for cheap shots. "It's called respect," Golisano put it, saying that yes there is a place for hitting and fighting in hockey, but never a place for going after a guy's head. Meanwhile, hockey fans everywhere were choosing up sides, some siding with the Sabres for sticking by their player, some calling Ruff and Sabres fans a bunch of "whiners."

As fate would have it, the Sabres and Senators had to play each other again the very next game, Saturday night in Ottawa. Ottawa coach Brian Murray put Brian McGrattan in his lineup for the first time in ten games... just to have an extra goon in the lineup. McGrattan proceeded to dog the Buffalo players during pregame warmups, trying to get one of them to throw down before the game even started. Neil played the first period like a crazed lunatic looking for someone to drop the gloves and fight him. In the first 24 minutes, he got called for THREE penalties. In the first intermission, the Buffalo studio hosts interviewed an Ottawa TV commentator about the whole situation, and the Ottawa commentator declared that when he read Golisano's letter, he thought "the whining has reached a new low." Then the Buffalo studio host cut him off and the next thing we know, THEY'RE yelling at each other.

And then, midway through the second period after Ottawa scored 3 quick goals to go ahead 4-1, Chris Neil took another shot at a Buffalo player's head...



Neil was again given 5 for fighting, not ejected, and will likely not be fined, even though Colin Campbell, the so-called "head of discipline" in the NHL was at the game. Incidentally, Neil and McGrattan played a total of 9 minutes and served 15 minutes combined in the penalty box... and Buffalo's the ones who play dirty?

Golisano was right, Ruff was right, and everyone taking Buffalo's side on this matter are right. Ottawa in my eyes is a dirty team playing for a dirty coach (who once ordered his player to run an opposing goaltender when he was the coach in Anaheim), and the fact that their fans lap this stuff up speaks very ill of the supposed "nice" people of Canada's capital city. Now you all know from reading this blog that I am very much into all things Canadian, but even I find fault with what's going on here.

And now these two cities, Buffalo and Ottawa, officially hate each other. Buffalo's fans are taking up collections to pay Lindy Ruff's fine to the NHL. Each of those YouTube videos I posted here come with a comments section featuring hyper-jingoistic Canadians and Americans trash-talking about each other's country.

So after all this, I turned on ESPN's "Sports Reporters" show Sunday morning expecting to see the "holier-than-thous" do their obligatory condemnation of all parties involved in the fracas. I expected them to decry the very existence of violence in hockey and say that this is why hockey will never be accepted as a popular sport in America... right, the same country whose redneck population whoops and hollers over a sport involving violent car crashes and drivers occasionally beating the crap out of each other (otherwise known as NASCAR). Instead, they didn't even bring it up... and that silence may be more telling. The fact that this didn't even make the national sports radar may show just how far hockey has fallen. I don't know how to bring it back, but perhaps if the NHL could control its sport a little more and spare us the chance of another on-ice tragedy like a Steve Moore or a Donald Brashear (both of whom suffered serious head injuries as the result of such on-ice headhunting), that might be a start.

This Is What I Can't Stand About Government

Just thought I'd use this space today to inform you all about some current events that DON'T involve Anna Nicole Smith, Britney's shaved head, or Charles Barkley racing that senior citizen referee. Although the video of both of them falling down over the finish line was pretty hilarious; I've watched it a half-dozen times and it still makes me laugh... *ahem*

Anyway, our wonderful elected representatives are at it again, proposing laws that seem to be nothing more than an excuse to give them something to do. I'm sure by now, most of you have seen in some form or another, one of those e-mail forwards that include the list of stupid laws passed sometime in the 1800s that are still on the books in their respective states. Here in New York, these include such gems as: "A person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket" and "Citizens may not greet each other by putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers". It's funny when you think that legislators thought such behavior was worthy of being outlawed once upon a time; it's not so funny when you find out that people in government want to pass laws that are just as stupid TODAY.

Take, for example, the law recently proposed by New York State Senator Carl Kruger of Brooklyn. He wants to ban people from using an MP3 player, cell phone, Blackberry or any other electronic device while crossing the street in New York City and Buffalo, New York's two largest cities. Apparently, he doesn't care if Syracusans do that. Kruger's reason is that three pedestrians were recently killed because they walked out into the street in front of a car, and they were all apparently lost to the world due to the electronic devices they were using. Kruger explained, "Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry."

Ah yes, the old "the government has to save people from themselves" argument. Now I don't own an iPod, nor do I see much need to own one, but I for many years did own a walkman and then a discman. Yes, I enjoyed my music while walking, but I also made sure I was crossing safely at intersections and such. Joggers use walkmans and now iPods religiously, and unless they're just jogging in the park, they're gonna have to cross a street eventually, and just about all of them are able to do this safely and cautiously. And how, pray tell, do you enforce this law? I can tell you one thing, the police aren't exactly spending all their time looking for jaywalkers, so I doubt they're going to go on "high alert" looking for some businessman or jogger crossing the street with a bud in his or her ear.

To quote a Buffalo-area blogger who beat me to the punch on responding to this proposal: "I'm glad to see, however, that every other problem in Brooklyn and Buffalo has been solved and that we can now turn our attention to the very urgent issue -- nay, scourge -- of iPod wearing pedestrians." Which brings me to my point about all these silly laws: we have much more pressing problems in our world, and certainly in Albany, to be wasting our time on going after people who like to listen to music while they walk.

Or going after drivers who "drive while drowsy." Yeah, here's another one of those "how the heck do you enforce this one" laws that have been proposed. This time, it's a state senator from Queens named Toby Ann Stavisky, who wants New York to join New Jersey as the only states to ban driving while you're tired. Now I have been told by my mother in the past and I'm sure moms say this to their sons and daughters all the time, not to go too long driving without a break or if they're driving late at night to pull off to a motel if they're getting tired. However, now Stavisky wants the government to play the role of "Mom". Her bill defines "driving while drowsy" as driving without sleep in 24 hours. In other words, if you haven't slept in 24 hours, you shouldn't be driving. On the surface, that makes sense. However, how on earth do you prove this? It's not like there's a breathalyzer test that measures how long it's been since you last slept. And as someone who used to make a living out of rolling out of bed at 5am and hopping right behind the wheel to drive to work, I can tell you that driving groggy will cause you to feel the same as driving drowsy.

If you're drifting back and forth in your lane or hitting the rumble strip frequently and a cop sees it, he's gonna pull you over anyway just to ask if you've been drinking. If you're just tired (and you pass the breathalyzer to prove it), is he then going to ask if you haven't slept in 24 hours? No, he's going to ticket you for reckless driving and be done with it. In other words, the laws we have on the books are ENOUGH. I understand that a significant percentage of fatal accidents have occured when the driver was fatigued, but the threat of being pulled over and fined $500 is NOT going to stop it from happening, much like people with clean records still get behind the wheel after having a few drinks even though they can get pulled over for that.

And what, pray tell, happens if both these laws pass and some guy who is crossing the street while listening to his iPod gets hit by a guy who was driving while drowsy? Do we call this a wash? Or do we charge and convict both of them and make them share a jail cell?

What we as a people need to do is to think a little more, to be smarter on the roads and while out and about. A little more concentration does a world of good. However, you cannot legislate "smart". You cannot pass laws requiring people to be smarter. You're just going to have to continue to get the word out that their behavior is unsafe, however futile a pursuit that may seem, and hope that they get the message and wise up.

And while you're at it, Albany, how about you actually start trying to reform your ways of doing things, rather than electing an unqualified member of your own ranks to replace the convicted Alan Hevesi as comptroller. And it would also be nice if you not accuse the governor of meddling in your affairs and issuing threats like "this will not happen again" and calling the governor "tyrannical" and "a bully" and "abusive." Yes, Bill Magnarelli and Joe Bruno, I'm talking to you. 61% of those polled in a recent state survey LIKE the fact that Gov. Spitzer is forcing you guys to change your ways, and oh by the way, Senator Bruno, right after you got done saying that being tyrannical won't get things done, didn't you propose changing the state constitution so that the people can vote on a successor for attorney general or comptroller? Sounds to me like the governor got you to roll over and make the changes he wanted. But I forgot, it's much more important to try to ban crossing streets with an iPod in your ear or driving while drowsy...

Rock the Hall

Maybe it’s a sure sign you’re getting old when bands who you’ve loved and listened to for years, whose albums you either own all of or are pretty close to owning all of, are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. That is one place I’ve never been in my life, and it would certainly be worth a stop this summer if I’m out that way. Anyway, your inductees this year include Van Halen and R.E.M., two of the best bands of the 1980s, but almost polar opposite in terms of what they were all about. I own all the albums from the David Lee Roth years; in other words, all the relevant Van Halen albums. Van Halen was not Van Halen after he left. There’s a reason we “Diamond Dave” fans refer to the years that followed as “Van Hagar”; they were a different band… and for the most part, they sucked. Which is why it was pretty exciting when in a stroke of great timing, the band announced that David Lee Roth will be back with Van Halen for the Rock Hall induction ceremony, with a summer tour to follow. Very nice… but not perfect. You see, original bassist Michael Anthony will not be there. This is because after 25-30 years of service to this band, through good times, bad times, and Gary Cherone, Eddie Van Halen fired him… and gave the job to his teenage son, Wolfgang.

Excuse me? Were it not for the fact that this band was more than a decade removed from its last hit song, this might go down as being one of the STUPIDEST lineup changes in the history of music. Not just firing Michael Anthony, not just going back on the road this summer with DLR but NOT the full original lineup, but we’re gonna have 50-something Dave, 50-something Alex, 50-something Eddie… and a 15-YEAR OLD KID on bass? Hopefully the attendees to the gala induction event will be able to not bust out laughing when they see THAT lineup.

As for R.E.M., well, they too haven’t had a hit in years, and my CD collection of theirs pretty much runs from the beginning to “Monster” and no further, but it’s good to see them get the gold watch as well. As the antithesis of Van Halen, not throwing a hissyfit over green M&M’s, not subjecting us to different lead singers or teenage bassists (the only lineup change being caused by drummer Bill Berry leaving after suffering an aneurysm in the mid-90s), they get a lot more respect for what they’ve done lyrically and stylistically. Michael Stipe is, in essence, a poet who sets his thoughts to music, in the same vein as Jim Morrison. As such, they were pretty much out of place in the 80s world of hair metal and party bands that Van Halen represented. They were more like the geeks in the corner at the high school party who then wind up becoming big-time CEOs and making more money than everyone else could have dreamed. When indie and alternative rock took over in the early 90s, you could go back to the early R.E.M. albums like “Murmur” and “Reckoning” and you could get what Stipe was trying to do… even if it seemed like he was hiding behind long hair and unintelligible lyrics. Well, male pattern baldness took care of the hair and the lyrics became more resonant, and they got the critical acclaim they deserved.

Now if you’re wondering how this Hall of Fame thing works, it’s not like the baseball inductions where the media votes on it and people quote numbers until they’re blue in the face trying to make a case for somebody to get in. Rock historians decide on the nominees, then a panel of 1000 experts votes. So maybe in a way, it does kinda work like in baseball; it’s the people who KNOW what they’re looking for. It’s not about how many albums you sold… in fact it says on the Hall’s website: “Criteria include the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.” Take, for example, Bob Seger… he got in a few years ago after not getting enough votes a few times. The average rock fan looks at him and probably says, “Well yeah, he was good, but he was no Springsteen, didn’t sell 80 bazillion albums, etc.” But when you consider that artists as diverse as Kid Rock and Prince cited Seger as an influence… bingo, he belonged, and got his due.

A band or artist becomes eligible 25 years after releasing their first album, so if you’re looking ahead to figure out when the “legends” of today will become eligible… Metallica will be eligible next year, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be eligible in 2009, the Beastie Boys in 2011, Nirvana and Green Day in 2014, Pearl Jam in 2016, and Fall Out Boy in 2028… okay, I threw that last one in for a laugh. Although it does make you wonder, what’s going to get in and what won’t in coming years, as more and more the term “Rock and Roll” is being used to encompass many different styles of music. Consider they’ve inducted the Bee Gees for their role in disco, Michael Jackson and Prince for R&B and pop, Miles Davis even though his realm was jazz, and this year we have the first rap inductee, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. And that’s really where the “influence and significance of their contributions” will come into play. Do you put in Eminem? What about Madonna, who will be eligible next year? Whitney? Mariah? Where do you draw the line?

All this makes for much more interesting conversation than the past few years, when it was about the merits of whether Lynyrd Skynyrd belonged in the Hall of Fame. At least with this vote, we don’t have to worry about whether or not we should keep someone out for drug use… that would have eliminated the majority of the bands and artists who are in there…

So Is This Entry Number CXLIII?

Well here it is, folks, the biggest day on the football calendar. The day of the Big Game. The game that millions of people throw parties for, the game that millions of people put money down on... and the game that I can't say the name of. You see, with this blog I'm practically a member of the media, and when I was in radio, every year we would get a directive from the NFL prohibiting us from using the two-word name of the game being played today, as it is trademarked. That's why if you've listened to the radio lately, you've heard numerous references to "the Big Game", but never the actual name of the game. Which is about as stupid as it gets. I mean seriously, the NFL makes a TON of money every year; do they really lose sleep over lost revenues caused by media types referencing the name of their championship game and parties or promotions associated with it? It's one of the dumbest things on the planet.

However, I really don't wish to get sued... so for the rest of this column I shall be referring to today's game as the S**** B***. Thank you for understanding...

So the pregame show has already begun for tonight's game. No, I'm not kidding. CBS started at Noon. For a game that is advertised as starting at 6, but really doesn't kick off until about 6:40 or so, and that's if the national anthem isn't really long and drawn out like Whitney Houston's at S**** B*** XXV. Ya know, back in her pre-drug days. They replayed it the other night at the West Genesee basketball game, and it's pretty sad that when I hear it now, my first thought isn't of love for my country... now my first thought is of Whitney snorting coke with Bobby.

Anyway, I'm really not interested in watching endless player profiles or numerous dissections of the game between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears (yes, I CAN say the team names without fearing legal action). Back when I was a kid, I used to stay up all night the night before watching the old highlight films on ESPN. That's what made the S**** B*** the S**** B***, what made the NFL what it is today. The raw, gritty footage, the dramatic orchestral music, the "voice of doom", John Facenda, narrating the action. Of course, now you can get those on DVD (more money for the NFL), so staying up all night isn't really worth it anymore. I don't own those DVDs, just old VCR copies from one year that I taped the marathon, so I'll just recreate tradition in the hours leading up to the game.

Incidentally, anyone know what number we're up to now? It's S**** B*** XLI, which if I know my Roman numerals right from endless crossword puzzles I've done, means it's 41. This is the only major sporting event that uses Roman numerals (no, the MLS Cup and the Arena Bowl don't count). I mean it was cute at first, but now it just seems like another in a series of endless sequels, like Friday the 13th, Part IX or Rocky V. You're not gonna see next year's World Series (incidentally, note how trademark-free that championship is) called World Series CIV... that's 104, by the way... but I guess it's the best way to summarize a championship played in February for the season that ended the previous calendar year. I get confused enough from college bowl games, like if you hear about SU in the 1993 Fiesta Bowl and immediately think, "We didn't play in the Fiesta Bowl that year. That was '92... we sucked in '93..."

This year's halftime show will feature Prince, which shows that the NFL has recovered from their bout of FCC-inspired paranoia after the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" 3 years ago. Even though some people in this country actually like "Up With People", I was not looking forward to returning to lame S**** B*** halftime shows. Plus, I don't think we have to worry about "Erotic City" or "Darling Nikki" making the Purple One's set list; I think he knows what he can and can't get away with. I like Prince, so I'm actually looking forward to the show. In addition, this year's halftime show will also feature a lot of flushing toilets... by Americans who waited until halftime to hit the bathroom. It's estimated that some 90 million households will all hit the bathroom at the same time once halftime arrives; it's even been dubbed "The Big Flush" (dun dun DUNNNNN).

Now that another column has gone directly into the toilet... I'll turn our attention back to the actual game. I have to say I really have no rooting interest in this game. My team is the New York Jets, who last won a S**** B*** in 1969... and last made a S**** B*** in 1969. Most years, I do have some sort of rooting interest for a team that I do like, such as Baltimore or the Eagles, but this year we have Peyton Manning finally making it to the S**** B*** and Da Bears. Now it would be really easy to root for Da Bears, after all, my friends and I love that old "Bill Swerski's Superfans" sketch from SNL so much that at trivia night when we don't know the answer to a question, we used to guess "Ditka". However, it would be nice for Peyton to get a ring.

That being said, I'm going on record and saying the Colts will win, 24-17. If you're wondering about my record for such picks so you can bet accordingly, I would say don't follow my lead. Lifetime, I am 11-8 with my S**** B*** picks, which is a good enough record to get you in the playoffs, but hardly a model of consistency. And then there's the fact that I picked Buffalo ALL FOUR TIMES they made it, and we all know what happened there. I'm just hoping it's a good game, cuz that's all we're really hoping for. That and a lot of good commercials...

Our Panicky World

I really wonder how we can all live our day-to-day lives without spending all our time cowering in fear. I mean the news media is bad enough, using their sweeps period to tell us that "what's in your sock drawer could kill you" and talking heads always going on about the latest ways terrorists could kill us all. Worse yet is when the news media takes an event that already on the surface sounds like bad news and amplifies it to the point where you just wonder if people are now just going to spend the rest of their lives rolled up the fetal position, afraid to do anything or go anywhere. And maybe that's why we've gotten to the point where ANYTHING can cause people to get hysterical, whether it's real or not.

And so it was that an advertising campaign for the movie version of a cult favorite cartoon caused an entire city to shut down in panic last Wednesday. I'm sure you've all heard about this by now... Cartoon Network did a "viral" marketing campaign for the movie version of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", one of their popular late-night "Adult Swim" cartoons. The campaign involved light-up signs of what looks like a "Space Invaders"-type character giving the finger. These things were placed in visible high-traffic areas in 10 major cities, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And Boston. Aside from hitting their target audience, these signs didn't amount to a nanosecond worth of media or civic attention in nine of these 10 cities for the couple of weeks they've been up. But someone in Boston saw one of these things, thought it was a bomb, and the whole city went apeshit. Traffic shut down, bomb squads called, two people who helped "plant" these signs were arrested.

Once it was discovered what this was really about, civic leaders in Boston became irate and immediately demanded harsh penalties from Turner Broadcasting, the owner of Cartoon Network... something to the tune of "every penny they have." They said that since this "device" had lights and circuitry and wiring, it could easily be mistaken for a bomb. Funny thing is I see "devices" like that everyday, with lights, and circuitry, and wiring, and they're "planted" on highways where they could cause a lot of destruction.

They're called "Amber Alert boards", normally used to display traffic conditions, but also used for missing child alerts.

As a result, a lot of people are laughing at Boston right now, which a lot of us probably needed to do since there hasn't been much reason to laugh at Boston since the Red Sox finally won a World Series 2 years ago. Fans of the show think it's hilarious. I think it's hilarious, and I don't understand the show at all. I watched it one time with my roommate (who loves the show, incidentally), and I was completely lost. Plus, it got even better when the two guys arrested for this stunt, upon posting bail, proceeded to hold a press conference... where they limited the discussion to the subject of 1970s hairstyles. You can't make this stuff up! I watched this during my lunch break at work on Thursday, and it was the funniest thing ever. The CNN anchors absolutely flummoxed at what was going on, having no idea what to say about this. The reporters trying to ask questions about the case, only to be rebuffed by responses like, "That is not a hair question... that's not a hair question either..." Apparently, these guys are performance artists, which just shows that they know how to get in on a good joke.

And Boston apparently doesn't get the joke... because the video of this press conference is on WBZ-TV's website with a headline declaring that these guys are "making a mockery" of what happened. No Boston, you are making yourselves easy to be mocked by your self-righteousness. The reporters screamed, "You made this city spend $1 million because of this!" No, Boston... you CHOSE to spend $1 million on this because you panicked. On "24", does CTU panic whenever some "threat" gets called in? No, they're the standard of professionalism, picking through the intelligence and then determining what action needs to be taken. Boston, your citizens are embarrassed today; your city is the laughingstock of the country right now. I think it would be best if you just meekly retract your dumb legal threats and let this all blow over.
If New York City, the city where 3000 innocent people lost their lives to terrorism on 9-11, can look at something like this with barely a blink, you should be able to as well.

Meanwhile in Paris, hysteria of a different kind was happening in the form of the international report on climate change. Now I am no climatologist and I don't profess to know a lot about the subject, but I do know when something doesn't make sense, and global warming and all the things people blame it for does not make sense to me. Reading through news stories on the report, which may as well have been titled, "We're Doomed," I see that the average temperature of the world has risen a little more than a degree in the last 100 years. Based on this data, these scientists have declared that the world's average temperature in the next 100 years will go up by... UP TO 10 DEGREES? Excuse me? Forget to carry a one somewhere? I mean you guys seem to think that this is all caused by greenhouse gases, which are being curbed by many countries (and U.S. states), so theoretically, would that not mean that continuing to do this will slow down global warming, rather than make it INCREASE TENFOLD?!?

Meanwhile, they claim that this phenomena will lead to more lake-effect snow for us hardy souls in Central New York, but there will be less snow cover. Huh? Usually, when more snow falls, that means there's more snow on the ground, not less. And then there's the one that makes the least sense to me... there will be more droughts because of the higher temperatures, but because hot air can hold more moisture, there will be more rainfall and stronger storms. Apparently, these people need to be introduced to something called a "contradiction."

Now reading the nuts and bolts of this report and all it entails is bad enough, but when it is slapped on the front page of the Sub-Standard, errrr, Post-Standard with the headline, "Climate Report: It's Your Fault", well that's enough to make the average local tree-hugger have a complete emotional breakdown. "I knew I should have stopped more of my friends from buying SUVs, I knew I should have helped the Earth Liberation Front torch more housing developments... now WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" Oh, and there's the helpful item from this report that the Sub-Standard chose to print in one of the lead paragraphs so it made the front page... global warming will continue for centuries even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized because the process has already begun and cannot be stopped.

Well, I guess that makes all this whining over passing the Kyoto Protocol and whether or not the president is doing enough to curb emissions rather moot, doesn't it? I mean if there's nothing we can do because the snowball's already rolling down the hill and we can't stop it, well geez, that's one less thing I have to worry about. Forgive my selfishness, but we're all going to die someday, regardless of whether the Earth's temperature goes up half a degree or 10 degrees by the time we do. We learned the hard way that our industrial process had some built-in mistakes that caused damage to the environment, and we're already taking steps to remedy those mistakes. No radical environmentalist agenda is going to stop global warming, so we may as well be calm and rational about this.

But of course, when a story like this breaks, calm and rational goes out the window, so I'm sure instead you're going to see a lot of letters and protests blaming not all of humanity for this, but one human... President Bush. Despite the fact that the warmest year on record occured in 1998, when Clinton was president (must have been all the hot air from people talking about Monica), despite the fact that greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have been on the decline for some time, and despite the fact that China and India continue to belch greenhouse gases all they want, because Kyoto doesn't apply to them. So I'm gonna make a prediction here... look for this to be a new flashpoint for liberals to try to (here we go again) impeach Bush. In fact, that may have already started before the report came out: earlier in the week, many government scientists testified that the White House allegedly tried to make them keep their global warming predictions on the downlow, so to speak. Well there ya go, folks... a Watergate-style cover-up, high crimes and misdemeanors at their finest! (note: intense sarcasm applied by the author of this blog)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go prepare for my Super Bowl party (and blog entry) tomorrow... although I really feel like I should just go hide in a closet somewhere...