:: The Hate Project ::

Things that I hate #8: Lazy Beggars

2009-07-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

There may be nothing in this world that I both hate and resent more than street beggars who beg for money simply because they’re lazy. If you have both of your legs and both of your arms, then get off of your ass and get a job. True, in many 3rd world and developing countries, said job is highly unlikely to make you rich, but it is a job nonetheless and will provide you with the means to at least (A) feed yourself and (B) stop annoying me. That job may end up to be simply selling cigarettes street-vendor style as so many people in Southeast Asia do or working as a laborer in a rice paddy field -- but it is still a job.

For instance, in the Ermita district of Manila, Philippines where I am presently located at the moment, there are LOADS of street beggars, nearly all of whom are completely healthy and are capable of working as simple laborers or street vendors. For a reason which completely eludes me, they choose to sit around day after day, begging for money. I see no other reason for this apart from sheer and outright laziness. “Sir, please help me. I’m hungry.” Fine. I’ll help you with some free advice. Wash up a bit, comb your hair and then get your ass to work.

There are plenty of people in the Philippines (and indeed, many other countries) who make roughly the equivalent of several dollars a day. Many of these people cannot even read or write, but they work in any capacity that they are capable of and support themselves and their families. I see great honor and pride in these people supporting themselves. That being said, there is no honor or pride whatsoever in people begging on the streets for money when those people are healthy and capable of an honest day’s work. If you have both of your legs and both of your arms, then support your damned self!

Oh, and before I forget: if you are a street beggar with full limb functionality and are thinking of using the “look, I have a child here with me” angle, then you are the worst of a bad lot. You don’t work, have no place to stay, beg for money, and then you pop out a child or three? Even worse, you then train your children to run up and down the street begging for money so you can sit back and rake in their profits?? If that is your case, then I pray that a meteor falls from the sky and turns you into a foul-smelling smear on the pavement.

There is a simple formula that I use to determine whether or not I will donate a bit of money to street beggars. Feel free to use it anytime you wish:

As the number of healthy, functional limbs on a street beggar (L) increases, the percentage probability of me donating money to them (M) decreases.

Based on this simple formula, we can easily and accurately calculate the table below:

Example A:

Example B:

As a pre-emptive measure, I’m going to supply in this blog posting all of my responses to the whining comments that many will, no doubt, be sending to me:

Whine #1: You’re an ass! Don’t you know that in many 3rd world countries there are little to no social assistance programs to help homeless and poor people?

Retort #1: Of course I do – I live in a 3rd world country, and a fantastic way to make sure that social assistance programs for the homeless and poor are never founded by that respective 3rd world country government is for people to keep giving money to beggars, thereby negating the need for social assistance programs. Don’t do the government’s job for them, you flaming, moronic simpletons!

Whine #2: Hey, you mentioned people who are physically disabled but you failed to mention people with mental disabilities! What about the man down on the street corner arguing with the wall?

Retort #2: You can fake crazy, but you can’t fake a stump where your leg used to be. Duh!

Whine #3: What about people who are poor because their governments are corrupt and treated them unfairly, forcing them into poverty? Is that their fault?

Retort #3: No, and it isn’t my fault either. Fair play must be demanded and fought for by the citizens and victims of corrupt regimes. For a real-life reference of what happens when another country, military or other foreign power uses might to “force democracy and promote freedom”, please see present-day Iraq.

I will address any other gripes by appointment only. Until next time, cheers!

Things that I hate #7: PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PT PLN) - Indonesia's State-Owned Electricity Company

2009-06-15T23:51:00.000-07:00

Well here I sit using free WiFi, suckling off the fleshy, air-conditioned teat of one of my local establishments NOT serviced by PLN’s Bintaro Power Sub-Station in Jakarta, Indonesia. Would you like to know why? Basically (and this is putting it lightly), you’ll find no greater bunch of idiots outside of PLN which is Indonesia’s State-Owned Electricity Company. The Hater woke up this morning to discover that today his area of Jakarta was due for a blackout. While for the Amish amongst you (and I admit, that is unlikely) this would be an auspicious day, I am not amused. In fact I’m pretty damn irritated. In further fact, if one of my friends threw circuit breakers in my house and said there was a power outage as a joke, I would kill him with an electric bandsaw after I turned my power back on.

I hate power outages, and frequently in Indonesia my hate bladder is inflamed by the PLN simpletons at the helm of Indonesia's electricity industry and their perky little letters they send me announcing an impending blackout. "We're pleased to be able to inform you in advance that your area will be affected on Wednesday of BLAHBLAHBLAH during the times of WHATEVER and WHENEVER!" Yeah. I'm pleased you did too because now I have enough time to climb the mosque’s minaret behind my house with a Winchester .303 bolt-action rifle and blow the head off of the worker you're sending out to disconnect my area's power. You disconnect my power, I disconnect your soul from your body. Even-Steven.

Why the hell can’t PLN maintain their equipment like virtually every other electricity provider can? It is called “system redundancy”. In essence, you maintain two identical, functional sides to your power stations. Before you take one side down for maintenance, you bring the other side up and hot-swap over to it so your customers have reliable power services. I mean it’s almost as if PLN officials and employees have stolen funds over many years from PLN’s coffers so it can’t perform vital but simple upgrades like the one outlined above.

Oh, wait... That’s EXACTLY what has happened. Silly me.

During Indonesia’s great suck-fest known as The Suharto Era, the timeframe when President Suharto ruled over this massive archipelago with an iron fist for over 30 years, some $18 Billion went missing from PLN. Correct. That is a dollar sign, not Indonesian Rupiah. Corrupt officials, toadies and bootlickers within the stinking carcass of this monstrosity bled profits at record pace out of its financial femoral artery. Sadly, this beastly buffet of brazen blackguards and burglarizing bandits continue today to fatten their pocketbooks at the expense of Indonesians who simply accept this heightened level of corruption and thievery as the norm. Ask any Indonesian why PLN offers such shoddy, shaky service and they'll shrug and simply reply, "Oh well. Welcome to Indonesia". Well I say to hell with that! I'd be damn-well embarrassed to use that as an explanation in my own country!

Unfortunately, as is true in any country, it is up to its citizens to fix problems like this. Even more unfortunately, for every corrupt PLN official who eventually nicks a bit too much from the till and gets sent off to the monkeyhouse, there seems to be a dozen more ready, willing and able to take his place.

PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PT PLN), you are all a bunch of vacuous, pimple-arsed nimrods. Stop by my place sometime so I can hotwire your nipples into my house's electrics -- that is, if my damn electricity is working by then.

Things that I hate #6: Chain Emails

2009-06-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

If you like to forward chain emails to me, then you are an ass and I don't just hate you, your face or the annoying chain emails you send. I don't just hate that you have fingers and have learned to operate a computer. I actually hate the fact that you were born; I hate that in an act of cosmic humor, a great big lark played on the Earth and all of mankind, you became more than just a wriggling sperm cell. I even hate your father's testicles for producing you.

Your pompous, cavalier assumption is that I actually need the good luck charm benefits your chain emails claim to offer if only I'm willing to annoy the bejesus out of my friends by forwarding it to them. Well what if I am naturally lucky on my own on the worst of days? What if I'm knee-deep in poontang and champagne off the coast of some Mediterranean isle free from all troubles? Hell, my 401k gains this year are at 31.98% despite all the financial woes most are going through. What about that, Mr. Crap-Stain?

Next, and this is where it gets good: Your chain email then has the balls TO THREATEN ME. “If you don’t send this email to at least 10 of your friends or family, then *INSERT BAD THING* will happen to you within *N* hours!” Yeah idiot, well played. You win the prize! I’ll get right on forwarding your TERRORISTIC THREAT to all my buddies so I can end up like you, sitting in my Mom's basement with no friends, drinking warm Fanta & writing chain emails.

And why the devil do you always have to add some hokey, happy horsecrap story to your already horrible chain emails? Here's an actual chain email which a now ex-friend sent to me:

Subject: The daughter of a soldier

Last week I was in Atlanta, Georgia attending a conference. While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest act's of patriotism I have ever seen.

Moving thru the terminal was a group of soldiers in their camo's, as they began heading to their gate everyone (well, almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering. When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for it hit me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only red blooded American who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families.

Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school, work and home without fear or reprisal. Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He kneeled down and said "hi," the little girl then she asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her. The young soldier, he didn't look any older than maybe 22 himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Then suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek.

The mother of the little girl, who said her daughters name was Courtney, told the young soldier that her husband was a Marine and had been in Iraq for 11 months now. As the mom was explaining how much her daughter, Courtney, missed her father, the young soldier began to tear up. When this temporarily single mom was done explaining her situation, all of the soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen pulled out a military looking walkie-talkie. They started
playing with the device and talking back and forth on it.

After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to Courtney, bent down and said this to her, "I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you" He then hugged this little girl that he had just met and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying "your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon."

The mom at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier stood to his feet he saluted Courtney and her mom. I was standing no more than 6 feet away from this entire event unfolded. As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, their were very few dry eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of selflessness, turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it's good to be an American. If you love America and support our troops, then forward this on to 10 people.

Here's a nice idea. You can use this template below completely free of any ownership rights or claims by myself. Every time you get a chain email sent to you, respond with this:

To my dearest mate...

This is the hardest letter I’ve had to write. I must admit to a life where I’ve been quite selfish, having never really given our friendship more than a fleeting thought and quite freely taking for granted what is truly most important during our short lives on this planet:

FRIENDSHIP

Three days ago I was diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the brain. Due to the tumor’s location, specifically that it is quite near a massive complex of blood vessels, the most that can be done for me is to allow me to wait for the inevitable conclusion of my life.

The pain isn’t too unbearable yet but I am told that will be changing for the worse day by day. I just hope that in the next 4 to 6 weeks I have left, I can see you perhaps just once more before I’m too weak and incoherent to know the difference.

Mate, I truly hope you can forgive me for not being a better friend to you. If you could find it within your heart to forgive me my shortcomings, you’d certainly be a better person than I am BECAUSE I SIMPLY REFUSE TO FORGIVE YOU FOR FORWARDING ALL OF THE CHAIN EMAILS I’VE GOTTEN FROM YOU OVER THE PAST GOD-KNOWNS-HOW-LONG.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE! I DON’T LIKE CHAIN EMAILS! ANYONE KNOWS THAT CHAIN EMAILS ARE ANNOYING BUT APPARENTLY GOD WAS FRESH OUT OF SPARE BRAINS WHEN HE MADE YOU. HERE’S ANOTHER ONE THAT’LL WOW YOU. I ALSO DON’T HAVE CANCER BUT I CERTAINLY WISH YOU DID. MAYBE THAT WAY I’D GET A BREAK FROM YOU AND YOUR ANNOYING ABILITY TO SEND ME THIS CRAP. FRANKLY, I WONDER WHAT I EVER SAW IN YOU AS A POTENTIAL FRIEND THE FIRST TIME WE MET. I HOPE YOU SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST AND BURN IN HELL.

That'll stop it.

Things that I hate #5: Purposefully Misspelled Advertising Slogans and Product Names

2009-06-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

On Jl. Ciputat Raya the other day I witnessed one of Jakarta’s 8 million motorcyclists doing what appeared to be a fantastic mockery of someone smashing his face into asphalt with amazing success. “Jesus,” I said to myself. “That guy’s X-treme!” Even more amazing was the moment he picked himself up, dusted himself off and shot down the road completely unphased. “Man that’s phat!”, I thought as I pulled into a fast food joint; I had only some Krazy Ranch-flavored Cheez Doodles as a snack earlier so I was a tad peckish and scored some Amigoz Chicken Tacos, the tastiest around. They were particularly nice when washed down with a tall, frosty Kode Red X-Treme Kool Blast soda.

That’s all of course a total fabrication. I would never buy anything marketed as being X-treme, nor would I buy any said X-treme product from what seems to be a crack-cocaine addicted, jive-talking cheetah in shades named “Chester”.

After the revolution, the very first on the gulag-bound boxcars will be ANYONE who has ever been guilty of using the following adjectives:

1. X-treme (including Xtreme, X Treme, etc)
2. Kool
3. Kreamy (including Kreamee, Kream-ee, Cream-ee, etc)
4. Cheez (also applies to Cheeze, Cheezey, Cheez-ee, etc)
5. E-Z (including Eazy, Ea-Zee, E-Zee, E Z, etc)
6. Krazy (also applies to Krazee, Kraze, Kra-zee, etc)
7. Hi Tek (and all possible incorrectly spelled variations)
8. Phat (or, may God help you, Phizz-at)
9. Any word that would normal end with an “s” but has a “z” substituted (X-treme Cheez Bitez, Super Phat Chili Dogz, etc)

When did it all of a sudden become such fun to misspell words in product names and advertising slogans? Christ! Anyone dumb enough to consume the crap that uses these heinous advertising tactics can’t be terribly bright in the first place, but this “culture of X-treme advertising” quite frankly is more educationally detrimental than Down syndrome. Can you imagine your son or daughter turning in “My Phat-Azz, X-treme Summer Vacation: An Essay” for a homework assignment? I can, and I can also imagine me beating him senseless with a Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary, each strike accented by each letter in the correctly spelled version of the offending words. That would be quite X-treme indeed.

Things that I hate #4: The American TV Sitcom Show “Friends”

2009-01-11T23:19:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while, I’ve been busy and The Hate Project has certainly suffered. But for those with enough hate in their hearts to read my blog, I am happy to announce that the hatred within me is still alive and well. In fact, it has grown.

Take one part flat-out bad, lazy screenwriting, one part cheesy laughter track and two parts spoon-fed, muppet-minded audience, mix well and you have “Friends”, a stomach churning, nightmarish pantomime of a television comedy. If you are feeling adventurous, you can further add to this equation me and a bottle of cheap scotch and you would very quickly have a broken television and possible felony domestic violence charges.

“Friends” was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, both of whom I hope are dead after a painful lost battle with some horrible, limb twisting wasting disease. This damnable sitcom represents everything that is wrong in today’s bleak choice of quality television. If you are among the lucky who’ve never seen this stinking pile of three day old crap, then today is your unlucky day because I’m going to rant about it.

It is a “comedy” (and I use the word in a completely sarcastic sense) about a group of friends (hence the stupid name) who live more-or-less together in Manhattan. The show outlines the ins, outs and delicate intricacies of their relationships with each other. By delicate intricacies, I mean to say that the characters bounce about cracking retarded jokes that wouldn’t entertain the retards they are seemingly written for. Oh yeah, and they try to hump each other in every episode. That’s about it in a nutshell.

Let’s take a look at the show’s characters and the evil bastards who portray them:

"Rachel Green" is played by actress Jennifer Aniston. "Monica Geller", another of the show's characters, is her best friend. Neither of them are my friend. Rachel is a fashion enthusiast and is in an on again / off again relationship with one of the other characters on the show named "Ross Geller". I hate Ross Geller more than I hate AIDS.

Courteney Cox Arquette portrays "Monica Geller". She's obsessive-compulsive and argumentative. She's also regularly ridiculed for having been an extremely overweight child by the others, especially her brother Ross, which makes me happy. She works as a chef and I've often found myself wishing that she would bake herself into a giant mince pie. Monica is also in some kind of relationship with another character named "Chandler Bing" played by Matthew Perry. I hate Chandler Bing more than I hate Hitler, AIDS and Ross Geller combined.

Lisa Kudrow plays "Phoebe Buffay", the loveably lovable ditzy masseuse and musician of this band of television demons. The problem is that she's not lovable at all. She's stupid and annoying and I would pay good hard-earned money to see her beaten without mercy. The Phoebe character became homeless at the age of 14 and is known for being street-smart while being ditzy and sort of a dirty whore. Amazingly, she's not really in a lasting relationship with any of the other show's characters, instead choosing to whore about outside the clique.

"Joey Tribbiani" is some Italian idiot played by Matt LeBlanc. He's a failing actor best known in the show's background history as once being in an American soap opera, although I'd like to see him in actual soap after being rendered down in a giant vat. He also whores around a lot and has a crush on the Rachel Green character. He's sort of the ditzy male equivalent of the Phoebe Buffay character and is equally offensive to me. He roommates with Chandler Bing across the hall from the others in the same apartment building. Their apartment building would look wonderful as a smoldering heap of ashes, timber and blackened corpses.

Matthew Perry portrays "Chandler Bing". He's an executive in some big, fancy corporation, but that's just his day job. His regular job is being probably the most annoying sitcom character I've ever seen and the most suitable target I can think of for termination with extreme prejudice. He's best known by fans of the show for his sarcastic sense of humor, but I'll always remember him as the person I would most like to slap in the face with a bucket of feces. He's the other half of an unholy union with the Monica Geller character, but I'm pretty sure he's a whiney little closet queer.

David Schwimmer is "Ross Geller" and Monica's brother on the series. He's supposed to be a paleontologist working for the National Museum of Lame Television or something to that effect. His face alone makes me want to empty a 9mm magazine into it. He's Rachel's boyfriend from time to time; the star-crossed lovers can't seem to make their relationship last more than a few episodes which I am somewhat indifferent about for some odd reason. He's been married I don't know how many times and one of his ex-wives turned lesbian after being with him. Can't really fault her for that.

I’d be doing my hatred a disservice if before closing this rant I didn’t attempt to summarize the 10 God awful seasons of this stinking bowel movement of a sitcom.

SEASON ONE: All the characters are introduced and a bunch of dumb crap happens.

SEASON TWO: The dumb crap continues and about 13,859 ridiculously lame jokes are made. Some of them try to sleep with each other. The others whore around somewhere else with other people.

SEASON THREE: The dumb crap becomes retarded vitriol and I died a little inside with each episode released.

SEASONS FOUR TO TEN: I didn’t watch any of this, but from what I gather it was horrible. I only saw pieces of the first three seasons because my evil harpy of an ex-wife watched it religiously. I also hate my ex-wife.

Things that I hate #3: Nonsensical Ramadhan Rules

2008-09-29T03:05:00.000-07:00

Bitten by a spot of the cabin-fever bug, Saturday night saw me popping over to Vin +, a popular wine lounge in the Kemang area of Jakarta, for a taste of liquid sin. This particular upscale groghouse is quite the rage with young, neo-preppy Versace-clad hipsters with their USD $700 hand phones, their heads full of pocket lint, fluttering moths and unfinished thoughts.

Despite the inaccurate assurances my wife and I received when we phoned this fashionable abode of the rich and the clueless, the wine lounge portion of the establishment was in fact not open for business, but the storefront where wine is sold by the bottle as well as the restaurant portion was. Oh well. You can’t win them all I thought as I purchased a bottle of Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir and headed for an open table in the restaurant.

Down I plonked at a table with wife and newly purchased bottle in tow. Up toddled a waiter with a couple of menus, two wine glasses and what looked like an oversized, clear glass Erlenmeyer flask with remnants of God-knows-what kind of wine in it. I promptly told the waiter that I only needed one wine glass as my wife doesn’t drink, and I certainly didn’t need his laboratory gear as I prefer to pour my wine from the bottle, into my glass, and then into my gob as nature intended.

His reply set my irritation bone to twitching. “Sorry Mister. You must use the decanter. It is Ramadhan.” My irritation bone snapped in two and my tolerance bladder felt positively deflated. The unofficially official rule of the establishment is that alcoholic bottles must remain out of sight during Ramadhan.

Never mind the entire storefront of the building stocked with thousands of bottles of wine in plain view, all for sale during this holiest of holy months. Never mind the more than 50 Indonesian Muslims in the restaurant, all glugging various wines and stuffing their gullets with numerous culinary delights. Please take no notice of the fact that the wine decanter is clear glass and, as such, will clearly contain wine after a hearty pouring. Pay no heed to the very French name of the place, Vin +, which simply means “Wine +” in English. And may the numerous heavens and their host Gods and Goddesses forbid that you should notice that the very flesh of the devil, pork, is offered in more than just a few dishes available in the chic looking menus of Vin +.

And then of course there’s the fact that the waiter poured half of my bottle of wine into the wine decanter, re-corked the bottle, and then walked away after setting the bottle back down on my table in clear view of myself, my wife, a restaurant full of Muslims and Allah himself. The small and somewhat seldom-used logic lobe of my brain immediately registered TILT on its display screen.

Every year during Ramadhan in Jakarta, a plethora of silly, illogical rules come into play. Visit any watering hole here during the fasting month and you will notice that all bottles of hard liquor are taken off of their display shelves behind the bar. This is not particularly effective in a bar with numerous framed Jack Daniels and Skyy Vodka mirrors on the wall every 6 feet and it is most certainly not effective when patrons are shooting Tequila down their throats.

People will be sipping their draft beers out of ceramic coffee mugs because obviously coffee mugs in Jakarta are coated in an Allah-proof thin shield of lead that the big Guy cannot see through, not unlike Christopher Reeve’s Superman.

The staff will be nervously watching the streets in anticipation of the inevitable law enforcement individuals who will waltz in and invariably discover heinous Ramadhan offenses, each of which the staff will receive a “fine” for – a “fine” which when paid will be deposited directly into the pockets of said law enforcement individuals, making it not so much a fine as it is indentured tipping, or “uang rokok” – a cute little slang term here for bribes which means “cigarette money”.

May the same Allah who so disapproves of your spirits-swilling help you should you be foolish enough to be found smoking a cigarette in a public place during the dawn to dusk fasting hours, my friends. I promise you will at the very least receive some very hard stares and shouts of disapproval regarding your infidelic, Islam-insulting behavior. Closer to the mark are the possible physical confrontations you will be faced with at the hands of angry fasters.

Well, I call shenanigans on your ridiculous Ramadhan rules! I do not respect any particular religion per se, but I certainly do respect your right to believe in your religion so long as you keep in mind that your rights end where mine begin. While Muslims represent 86.1% of the population in this country of roughly 237,512,352 people (those figures are from the Central Intelligence Agency so take it up with them if you disagree), 33,014,216.928 of them are not Muslim. Keep in mind that Indonesia is a loosely secular country. Why on Allah’s green Earth should over 33 million people be FORCED to pretend they respect a religion by falsely emulating the behavior of its adherents?

If those are the rules by which we are playing, then fine. I have a few rules for you. During Christmas, I expect to see Muslims wearing Santa Claus suits, fake beards included, singing door-to-door Christmas carols. And no faking on the lyrics, either! During Buddhist Lent, I expect to see the faithful followers of Islam to be lined up, ready for a cleanly shaven head and a set of crisp orange monk’s robes. During the Hindu holy day of Nyepi, a day where even electricity may not be used, if I detect so much as a whisper of a Sinetron (low quality Indonesian soap opera) coming from the house of a Muslim, watch out!

And with that, I bid you a Happy Ramadhan and a prosperous Eid-ul’Fitr. I’ll see you next Ramadhan if someone doesn’t track me down and behead me after this blog posting.

Things that I hate #2: Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Louise Heath Palin

2008-09-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

Bible-waving, gun-toting conservatives have their new darling, and its name is Sarah Palin. If you are in the unlucky position of living under a rock, I am here to tell you that this inbred tundra hillbilly, born February 11 in the year of our Lord 1964, is up for the job of serving as Vice-President of the United States of America under the possible administration of Republican Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain.

On August 29, 2008, Senator McCain both made history and clenched anuses all across the world when he announced that his running mate was none other than Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. You could not be faulted at the time for thinking “Who the hell is Palin?” because 49 of the 50 US states (and probably the rest of the world) were thinking the very same thing.

Well, please allow me to introduce you to her by mentioning some of her attributes, hobbies and landmark “achievements”.

Having moved from Sandpoint, Idaho to the bone-chilling state of Alaska as an infant, young Sarah Palin enjoyed moose hunting with her father before school, which I personally suspect planted early seeds of the GOP in her then-innocent little brain. Nothing gets the politically conservative juices flowing like blasting a moose with a .30-06 before first period English Comp. Other young girls at that time were enjoying hopscotch, playing tea party and discussing the latest rage in doll fashion. No sirree Bob, not our girl Sarah! Hopscotch is for commies. Only those liberal pommes drink tea. Doll fashion is for homos and the French.

Her competitive spirit unquenched by early morning moose-blasting, Sarah joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Wasilla High School where she dunked b-ball for Jesus. This is not surprising to me. What is surprising to me is that a public High School played host to a Christian organization. Separation of Church and State? Pffft! Not in Wasilla, apparently! It was around this time that she was given the nickname of “Sarah Barracuda”, reportedly because she was an intense player and not because she is an altogether fishy person. The jury is still out on that one.

In the early 80s, Palin flew off to warmer climes and enrolled in the Hawaii Pacific College -- for one single semester. Then it was off to potato land where she enrolled in North Idaho Community College – for a then record two semesters. Community college probably had too many minorities attending it for our girl’s tastes and so exactly one airline ticket later, away we go to the University of Idaho for, yet again, only two semesters. Not satisfied with three different schools in 2½ years, Palin scrambles to Matanuska-Susitna College in the state of Alaska for a single term. Had enough? Not Sarah, folks! Off she goes back to the University of Idaho to finally finish off her racetrack education.

After a short stint in TV anchoring, Palin was elected to the city council of Wasilla, Alaska after running on a platform of “progressive, competitive attitude”. Competitive? Perhaps. Progressive? We’ll see. Little Sarah soon moved on to become the mayor of Wasilla where after just three short years she racked up nearly USD $20 million in long-term debt. Now that’s progress! The massive $20M dollar debt Palin left Wasilla with is certainly not her only crowning achievement. While in office as Wasilla mayor, she:

1. Demanded updated resumes and resignation letters from top city officials, the city librarian and chief of police included. When pressed on this, she claimed it was to “discover their intentions” and to “learn whether they supported her” or not. What an ingenious plan! Demand resumes with letters of resignation from people so that when a particular resume doesn’t quite tingle her secret no-no place, well hell’s bells, it’s not a problem because they’ve already resigned! Easy-peasey, lemon-squeezy!

2. Required department heads to get her express, personal approval before talking to any reporters, anywhere. One always must look out for the commie press waiting to tear down the very foundations of noble and blessed Wasilla.

3. Reduced her own $68,000 salary by 10%, or $6,800 yearly. What a top sport she is for saving taxpayers money! Not really though, because she had her city council reverse that decision and give her back those same funds. Very clever indeed to cut her own pay and then have her city council give it right back, allowing her to claim truthfully that she reduced both her pay and taxpayer burden while not actually costing her a single dime or reducing taxpayer burden at all. Is your head spinning yet?

4. Asked city librarian Mary Ellen Emmons to investigate library books suitable for banning. After all, Russia is close to Alaska and it is common knowledge that during the cold war loads of communist propaganda creeped into Wasilla’s city libraries.

5. Fired city librarian Emmons four months later, but then reversed the firing the next day. Obviously Palin’s point had been well made after Emmons’ single day of unemployment. Nothing says “burn them books!” like “you’re fired!”

6. Fired Police Chief Stambaugh because he “didn’t support her”. Stambaugh filed a wrongful termination lawsuit which was dismissed from the court. The court, erm, I mean Palin’s court concluded that she could fire any city employee for any reason at all, including a political reason, or even for no reason if she so desired. This decision’s wording was quite the buzz seeing as how one cannot be fired “for any reason at all”, including race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so on.

7. Successfully blocked the construction of a new library. What the hell does this woman have against books?!?

8. Hired lobbyists Robertson, Monagle and Eastaugh to lobby for earmarks funds for Wasilla. Ready for a blast of irony? These earmark requests that Palin requested were strongly criticized by Senator John McCain, her future running mate, on at least three occasions while she was mayor of Wasilla!

9. Required that victims of rape pay for their own rape kits. At upwards of $1000 for each kit, I suspect the moment the nice officer handed the poor lady the bill for a cool grand was when the real rape occured.

That’s quite the track record, Sarah! Color me impressed! And the best part is that our story doesn’t end there. In a stroke of cosmic humor, the gods then blessed our champion of ethics and fair-play with the GOVERNORSHIP of the state of Alaska. Do I really need to cover any highlights of her run as High Dark Overlord of the Northern Badlands after her fantastic mayoral bulletpoints listed above? No.

But I’m going to anyway. After all, it was a big time for her:

1. She received her first passport ever in 2006. Better late than never, I suppose. She’ll need it when she becomes Vice-President and handles our nation’s foreign policy. Oh, wait...

2. Governor Palin began an aggressive campaign of promoting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Tundra beavers be damned, I smell me some black gold down thar!

3. Actively sought federal pork barrel funds for the “Bridge to Nowhere”, a bridge linking Ketchikan on Gravina Island to the Ketchikan International Airport. Palin greatly resented the term “nowhere” being used to describe Ketchikan as it has a population of 50 people – and each one of those 50 people have feelings, too.

You’re right, Sarah. Ketchikan isn’t nowhere. It’s just next to nowhere, and you don’t need a $442M earmark to build it a bridge, either.

4. Then she was against the Bridge to Nowhere.

5. Then she was kind of sitting the fence on the subject, not so sure anymore, but still enjoyed the occasional nice cup of chamomile with a wee dash of vanilla before bedtime.

6. Then she was definitely against it, killed the entire project, and decided to keep the $442M earmark that the State received.

7. Then she declared an end to Alaska relying on federal pork barrel support in January 2008. Unfortunately Palin was in some obscure, metaphysical way not present for her own State address speech because at the time of writing this, Alaska still remains the largest single per-capita recipient of federal earmarks; over $750 million clams in two years. An even odder twist is that Alaska’s own state revenues have shot skywards to $10 billion -- yet the federal pork rolls in.

8. She fired the State’s Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, after Monegan refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten. Reads a bit like a soap opera, I know, but the sinetron-esque theme here is Palin’s clear penchant for mixing the righting of personal grudges with abuse of her government power. Just days ago Palin publicly declared her refusal to respond to subpoenas from an investigation into the firing of Monegan. She has also ordered all of her aides to refuse to comply with these subpoenas, even though doing so is illegal.

Dearest Mrs. Palin, after the last nearly eight years of the current US administration, we really do need and deserve a break. I don’t doubt that there is some good that you’ve done during your career as Councilwoman, Mayor and Governor, but any of those positive achievements you’ve established have been blown off the map by your constant economic waffling, your astounding lack of any single sliver of foreign policy experience, and your outright frightening tendency towards abusing your political power to settle your little schoolyard Mexican standoffs. Please don’t think that you can ask me to trust you to uphold the law and, in the next breath, illegally refuse to comply with a subpoena. Your recent bleatings to an economically shell-shocked nation are incredibly broad to the point of being completely transparent – and there’s nothing on the other side.

Kindly stay in Alaska and freeze your head.

Things that I hate #1: Parents who don’t control their children. And their children.

2008-09-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

You and your fancy lady friend are seated in a posh restaurant hoping to enjoy a romantic meal and each other’s company. The mood is sultry, some light, classy jazz music is playing softly in the background and your menus are filled with what could prove to be some darn fine vittles.

Distracted by your partner’s breasts, the faint sound of the establishment’s doors opening do not attract your attention. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the banshee-like wail which issues forth from the throat of the small child who has just entered the eatery with its parents. Almost as if daring you to commit infanticide before your appetizer has arrived, the mother and father don’t spare the noisy little thing anything so much as a disapproving glance.

Oh yes. Blood will spill tonight and it will be the blood of babes.

Before I continue, kindly allow me to expound on the word “control” I am using in this incipient, neolithic blog posting of mine. I do not mean to imply that parents should not allow their children to guide themselves through life as they may (or may not) be perfectly capable of doing, developing their own interests, likes, dislikes and whatever else it is that children develop.

What I mean through the usage of the word “control” is that parents must, absolutely must, guide their child’s behavior so as to raise a well-rounded, well-mannered, responsible member of society. Children who are not taught manners, respect and a tad-smidgen of self-control are doomed to become burdens on society’s shoulders as opposed to becoming collective, social bienfait.

Now that I have cleared that up, set phasers to full-on rant.

Since when did it magically become MY problem just because some lazy hag and her thick-headed sperm donor farted out a whining little brat whose understanding of the word “behave” is that it is a strange, rarely-used inflected form of the word “behoove”?

Certainly in every culture and in every country of the world there are parents who simply cannot be bothered with raising their children, a task which of course brings with it the occasional need to scold and yes, gasp, perhaps even punish their children when they’ve broken the envelope of naughtiness. My personal experience is that many parents in Indonesia are particularly at fault in this respect. There. I said it. Indonesia, your spoiled brats are of a notably poisonous strain.

Lazy and irresponsible parents here and abroad, please take heed of the following:

No, your children are not cute, and they are most certainly not cute when they run screaming at special-needs-child volume levels up and down the aisles of the supermarket I am shopping at.

No sir, your son does not strike me as particularly clever when he crawls across my lap in a game of knee-the-groin as I am trying to enjoy my meal at this previously serene restaurant.

Pardon me, madam, as I present you with two choices. You can either silence that petulant little knee-biter of yours or I can promptly beat you in the face with a sack of hot nickels. The choice is yours.

And to the Cuban couple who recently sat behind me on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Miami: your child is a horribly spoiled little troll and will no doubt be given obligatory room and board at some fancy state prison of a judge’s choice should you continue to let her do whatever pleases her black, foul, rotten little heart. Please also keep in mind in the future that children fit quite easily through airplane emergency exits, especially when said airplane is pressurized and is flying at 30,000 feet.

There is an African proverb which goes something along the lines of “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. I would like to append this proverb with some wisdom of my own. “It takes a whole village to raise a child, but it takes exactly one burlap gunny sack and exactly one river to get rid of that horrible little brat of yours.” You gave birth to it, now shut that damn kid up!