Pompous pundits that are hurting America

I used to watch the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced? HA!) and feel lucky that the left side of the political spectrum in our country didn't sponsor (or at least we didn't take them even semi-seriously) pompous windbags that skewed fact and manipulated emotions in order to spin their viewpoint in a way that makes them appear as not just opinions, but as facts that no red-blooded, flag-toting American would ever imagine questioning. Frequently they will bring on guests that have an opposing viewpoint, but when they do they make sure to have a couple right-wing hitmen of their own in the wings to properly gang up on the guy and interrupt him so often he has to yell in order to get a word in, which in turn makes him look like a douche.

So like I was saying I was feeling somewhat smug that liberals didn't support this type of pundit when I stumbled upon one: Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher. That guy is a Grade A Douchebag. His perches in his power chair and spouts off commantary that is aimed more at getting what turn out to be light chuckles from his audience as opposed to making any kind of sense. His solution to a guest that has an opposing viewpoint that brings up any evidence that he can't find an answer to is to yell and holler and call George W. an idiot. I used to like to watch him on Politically Incorrect on ABC when I was 15, but then I grew up. His comedy is drab when it isn't completely unfunny and is often borrowed and/or rehashed from somebody else. Hell, the guy can't even cause controversy on his own terms. In 2001 he said on air regarding the War on Terrorism: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Afterward companies pulled sponsorships and his contract was not renewed by ABC, and at the same time he was awarded received the President's Award (for "championing free speech") from the Los Angeles Press Club.

Seems pretty controversial right? It would be, except for the fact that Maher was only repeating what his guest, Dinesh D'Souza, had just barely said. On the other side he can take credit for another controversial remark where he said that "...dogs are like retarded children."

I know what the conservatives are thinking: "At least our pompous windbags are upstanding, moral gentlemen." To that I have three words: Those Who Trespass. None of these guys are perfect, so let's not try to justify and/or dignify anything here.

Nobody comes out clean in this argument. It's all a load of crap that just needs to go away. Why does the modern political landscape have to be so damned mean? We need open and honest debate in this country now as much as ever. So let's stop demonizing those that disagree with us. Let's stop questioning their mental state and patriotism. Let's compromise and actually try and find solutions to our problems. Let's get rid of all this hot air and start talking again.

My Gamertag

So I have an xbox 360. I don't play all that much, but here's my Gamercard.

Jesus will hate you if you pass this on

So the bulletin page on myspace has turned into a substitute for all those damn email forwards we all used to get. You know the ones where some cancer patient named Karen in Kansas has one week to live and if you pass the email on to thirty of the unfortunate souls in your address book the doctors will move her up the donor list and give her a new spleen that will save her life.

There's something you don't know about this story. First of all, there is no Karen in Kansas, and if there was, she'd be dead. It's okay, you didn't kill her. The chain letter has been wandering around the internet for seven years now, and because poor Karen only had one week to live she ought to be long gone by now.

Even if there really was a Karen in Kansas and the fact that her email had been forwarded all over the country somehow convinced a bunch of doctors to give her a new spleen she'd still be dead. Why do you ask? Because she HAD CANCER! So what she needed was a cure for cancer, not a new spleen, and thanks to your ignorance her parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a procedure their daughter didn't need, and now they have a dead daughter and a mountain of debt. I hope you're happy!

It's so nice to not get emails like that anymore, but now instead of emails the bulletin space is flooded with this excrement.

Don't even get me started on the bulletins that tell you at the end to pass it on or in two weeks your second cousin will suffer a stroke or your crush will dump his or her boy or girl and come over to your house tonight and make hot, sweaty, musky, passionate love to you. Do we really believe this crap!?!

Let me tell you something, over the last few months I've been conducting an experiment. Instead of doing what the bulletin said and passing it on for whatever reason, I'll tell you what I did, I ignored it! And guess what! None of my cousins, first or second or even third, have had any kind of stroke, and I haven't had bad luck for eleven years. I even took it one step further, I've gone out and stepped on several cracks on the sidewalk, and believe it or not my mothers back is not broken!

So I'm here to tell you it's safe to NOT pass on this junk to our friends. Nothing bad will happen and our friends will appreciate that we didn't waste their time. This goes for a lot of the surveys too, some of them are clever and interesting, but knowing who you last hugged isn't going to change the way I view the world. I know, crazy.

Tomacco! And other observations.

So I've been out here for about a month, and there are a lot of things that are different. Mostly small things, most of them I like and none of them are necessarily bad, but still they are not what I'm used to and requre a little bit of adjustment.

For one, EVERYBODY FREAKIN' SMOKES! I'm not any stranger to being around smokers, and for the most part it doesn't bother me, I used to suck on the cancer sticks a little bit back in my rebellious teenage years, but the residents of North Carolina have taken it to a new level. Maybe it has something to do with tobacco being a major crop out here. I'm all for supporting our local farmers, but I'd rather buy a US Cotton shirt or drink soy milk or eat lots of sunflower seeds or not shop at Wal Mart, but I'm not exactly willing to sacrifice a few dozen years from my life and place a severe burden on the healthcare system for local pride. Call me an ass, but I wont do it.

I'm not against smokers, it's your body, do whatever you want to it. I have friends that smoke, it wont make me like you any less, but if you're a girl don't ask me to kiss you (another lesson from the rebellious teenage years) because I'm not too attracted to smelly-haired chicks that taste like ash trays. Sorry.

That said, there are a lot of little things out here that I really like, they include, but are not limited to: sweet tea, humidity, hush puppies, fried food, rain, decent weather, trees, liberal politics (compared to Utah), nice people, and southern accents.

On that note, it's 6 PM and I need to get ready for the day.

Hold on, I'd like to whine for a minute

So I've decided that looking for a job that doesn't completely SUCK and pays decent... well... sucks. Oh well. If I can't find anything decent there's always Harris Teeter. The complete lack of a social life SUCKS also. I have no job, no school for schooling, and I don't know anybody. Sometimes I go to Wal Mart and talk to the cashiers (not really). People always tell me I should go out and try and meet people. Problem is I don't have anybody near my age to go out and try and meet people with. There's my 17-year-old brother, but he hates places and would much rather hang out at home and play computer games. Plus he's already convinced that he hates North Carolina, whereas I'm at least trying to give this place a fair shake. I suppose if I were brazen/drunk enough I could go out to meet people on my own, but then I wouldn't know where to find these "people" anyway. Everybody I see around here is 30+ and has at least one spouse and at least one child. Anyhow, I'll quit bitching now. Before I go, one last thing bleh Okay I officially feel like a 14-year-old girl, minus the menstration. I'm done now.

Oh my goodness Yancey!

Welcome to muh new blog site. Nothing really amazing or incredible and new is here yet, but maybe if you play your cards right and visit around here every so often you'll find something worth reading. At the moment I'm just adding a few of my old blogs that I'd like to keep published because myspace (where I used to blog) seems to like to delete them after a while (which is why I'm here in the first place). So check back soon!

What's going on!?!

Some people have it all figured out. They've picked out their school, married the love of their life, mapped out their career and picked out names for their future children.

I hate those people.

Okay, so I don't really hate them. I have a really hard time getting mad enough at somebody to actually hate them. In my opinion it takes just as much effort to hate somebody as it does to love them, so why waste all that energy on somebody you don't like anyway? So because of that philosophy I only hate three people in this world. One of them being that bastard Alex Trebek, but I digress.

I am 20 years old and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

I don't know what happened. I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I was seven. I wanted to be a professional baseball-football-basketball-hockey-tennis player that was also a lawyer in the offseason. I don't know what happened to that dream. My mom would probably say that I got lazy. I would have to agree.

I have no idea where I am going to be one year from now, hell, I don't know where I'm going to be six or even three months from now. I don't know where I'll be living, what job I'll have, which school I'll be going to, what my major is going to be or who my friends will be. I don't know a damned thing, and the crazy of it is I'm really not all that concerned.

Does it bother me that I don't know this stuff? More than anything. I think about it every day. A month ago I was ready to get out of Utah so fast the door wouldn't have a chance to hit me on the ass on my way out. Then I come back from school, hang out with my old buddies again and meet some pretty awesome new buddies (I'm looking in her direction... and she knows who she is, and it's not just her, the rest of y'all know who you's are) and it makes it that much harder to leave. I can't stay. I've made promises that I wont break, so I will be leaving in August, but I'm trying at the moment to figure out how to fit you all into a box so I can take y'all with me.

Ah, I hate thinking about stuff like that. So most of the time I don't. Right now I'm just going with the flow. I don't know what the next day will bring me, but I'm just going with it. I'm trying to focus on the things I know: My job blows, I'm right-handed, I drink too much coffee, I like a certain somegirl (I'm still looking in her direction, and hopefully she still knows who she is), I suck at Guitar Hero, I want to go to the Death Cab concert in August, Anchorman is a sweet movie, so is The Pink Panther, and I heart my friends. When I think that way it lets me think I know lots, and that makes me feel better about all the crap I don't know. I'll figure that stuff out when it comes time to figger it out, and not a moment sooner, because damn it, I'm lazy like that.