Monday, July 07, 2008

Did We Just Have a Full Moon During the Holiday Weekend?

Hope everybody enjoyed the long 4th of July Weekend. I never thought my idea of a Wimbledon Mens Final/Met game twinbill would turn into a 12 hour rain delayed marathon. The most exciting story was the rescue of those hostages in Columbia - the most daring and miraculouos rescue since Entebbe back during The Bicentennial in 1976. During the long rainy weekend, I have been catching up with the news, Now that I look at all the craziness going on, I am starting to wonder if there has been a full moon for the last few days. Here are a few reasons for this theory:

*Nathan’s – We’ll start with my name sake and the great hot dog eating contest. I ran into this guy I knew from college a few years ago and he told me that he had launched a side career as a competitive eater. I actually did the Carnegie Deli Knish Eating Contest approximately 20 years ago and after meeting Henny Youngman and hearing him say “Take My Knish Please” and having Vic Miles stand over me as I took an early lead… I knew this type of craziness was not for me. I blew my lead, but not my lunch… lost to a skinny guy and finished in the middle of the pack. This other guy from college subsequently won a knish eating contest on Jewish Night at a Brooklyn Cyclones minor league game.

The hot dog contest has turned into a national event, and is broadcast live by ESPN. The 10 minute contest didn’t commence till 40 minutes into the 60 minutes of coverage which included lengthy eater introductions along with some heart warming Olympic-esque features about the competitors. They also made a big deal about the fact that the competition had been shortened from 12 minutes down to 10 and compared it to other sports which instituted major rule changes such as baseball going from 154 games to 162 games. Uh… hot dog eating is not a sport… its entertainment… so I wouldn’t quite go as far as to equate it to baseball or football. It was also quite entertaining to see the little graphics about other contests won by the competitors. It was also interesting to note that a contestant is eliminated if he or she pukes. And maybe if ESPN wouldn’t have had so much pre game filler we would have had a chance to see Joey Chestnut's post game celebrating after his overtime victory.


*Christie Brinkley - We went into the long weekend with headlines blasting about A-Rod splitting with his wife just a few short months after she gave birth…. And blaming the Kaballah wackos for it. I actually stumbled into a crazy Kabbalah service one Friday Night in Manhattan and this was no Friday Night Service… it was a bunch of malarkey. They did have a lot of very good looking babes dressed totally in white for this so called service. Now the big questions are is ARod with Madonna and is Mrs. ARod with Lenny Kravitz. And if they do get divorced, will it be as crazy as Christie Brinkley’s bizarre trial??

Brinkley’s divorce case has become a hot topic on the local newscasts… The stunning revelation came early on when she testified that she found out her husband was having an affair with a teenage girl when the girl’s step dad spilled the beans as the one time supermodel was about to deliver a commencement address at a local high school. Not such a great idea on the husband’s part to make negative comments to the media about Brinkley’s testimony, considering how bad this whole thing is making him look. And he pays for porn? Hey save your shekels.. there is a TON of free porn out there – at least that is what I have heard. I would think that this is only such a hot topic since Brinkley was a former model who has aged quite well now that she is in her 50s…. I woulda thought she would have started to look like David Brinkley by now…



*Belmar Finger Ban: Back in my knish devouring youth.. Belmar, NJ was the big party headquarters at The Jersey Shore. They had this big McDonalds right on the boardwalk, On non-Subway nights, Angelo’s Pizza which burned down many years ago was the spot for a quick dinner break before and/or after trips to Tropicals Pub. The powers that be that run the town however have never been thrilled with all the problems associated with young whippersnappers cavorting around, so laws were passed to minimize the seasonal visitors. According to Saturday’s Star Ledger, there are now approx. 300 summer rentals there… as opposed to 1990 when there were approximately 1200! Not good news for the rental agents there.

The town also passed the usual laws to keep debauchery to a minimum. Public pishing laws were passed among other things… they will actually give you a ticket if your pish ends up in a place other than the appropriate location. They also passed a law that forbids you to give someone the finger in public… but now, the law has been repealed… They apparently felt it was impossible to enforce… Now they figure this out?? What happens if someone scratches their nose? Or picks it? How about people who use the middle finger to press buttons when they do debit transactions at the grocery store? And what happens if they use the middle finger while ticked off about high prices? Is that an illegal use of the finger? Or… what happens if you flash someone fingers 2-4 and implore the recipient to read between the lines? Ultimately, they couldn't enforce the law for freedom of speech reasons, so use of the finger is now legal.



*Governor of FL falls in love! – I saw this story about Governor Charlie Crist on the news and thought – well good for him. The middle aged governor met a stunning young woman in her late 30’s last September and now he is planning to get married. But before you start finding out where the lovely young couple is registered – the rumor mongers are already tossing out some allegations about this love affair.

Crist is being hailed as a possible VP for those evil Republicans. So is Minnesota Governor Pawlenty who I talked about more than a year ago on my mortgage podcast about his idea to get rid no document and no income verification loans for residents of his home state. That decision could come back and bite him when retirees and the temporarily unemployed find themselves in adjustable rate mortgages that they can’t refinance.

Well according to the comments on a few of the news sites such as The New York Daily News and Wall Street Journal – Crist has to get himself “in order” as a potential GOP Veep. And the gossipers are saying – Holy McGreevey – that Governor Crist is gay… not that there’s anything wrong with that…. Could that mean he would actually hide his gayness because Republicans won’t accept that lifestyle?? Kind of like Dennis Prager who claims that gay marriage is a bigger issue than the economy that George Bush wrecked. I really don’t know one way or the other what the deal is with Governor Crist.… but I do know that my friend McG the musical genius who wrote the McGreevey song might have to put together another song if this is actually true! Either way… I’ll have to ask former Floridian DAS about these rumors next time I speak to him… (or next time he comments here)



*Terrorist Mentally Ill? Speaking of Das…. Hey it’s Bicentennial Boy’s birthday today, so I thought I would write about something that would tick off him and his fellow wacky liberals. I gotta credit the Israeli government’s decision to tear down a now dead terrorist’s family’s home, after he used his construction vehicle to kill three and injured dozens of others. Let’s gas up the bulldozers, and send them over to Hussam Dwayat’s house….. now that the Israeli government has temporarily halted their home demolition program.

This latest attack though comes with a bizarre twist right out of TMZ. An Israeli woman who won’t reveal her true name claims she had an affair with Dwayat many years ago and he is the father of her 7 yr old kid. While this so called mystery woman says that Dwayat would not kill Israelis...but would knock one up. The terrorist’s family say he had “mental issues” and drug problems. I’m surprised Jimmy Carter didn’t try to open a Betty Ford clinic while he was over there negotiating with those terrorists…. Unless there is still a grudge that Jimmy beat Gerald Ford in the ’76 Bicentennial election.

This woman said she was willing to convert to Islam for her man… I guess Madonna couldn’t reach out to her with her Arod Kaballah rap…. But she was forced to leave him because he was beating the crap out of her. This woman’s family also apparently intervened and convinced her to leave him…. I guess the welts on her face from the ass kickings he gave her wasn’t enough reason to leave this creep. Maybe he wasn’t too thrilled by the Jewish family that was not so accepting of their daughter’s baby daddy. She also pressed charges against him – he spent time in jail for beating her. The woman also says the child doesn’t know who his daddy is. Personally, this sounds to me like a big lie.

So I guess the next time a terrorist violates the cease fire in the Middle East they will play the ol’ TMZ – mentally ill Hollywood star card. Maybe we can kill 2 birds with one stone and send the home materials from the torn down terrorist buildings down to New Orleans so we can finally finish (or in some cases start) rebuilding the homes down there. And gas up a 2nd bulldozer because they’re also gonna tear down the home of the terrorist who bombed that Jewish seminary back in March.


Next week – the Baseball All Star Game Report – then we’ll have our next James Bond review, and then it’s time for our summer blogging schedule as McG and I will be putting together the video for his McGreevey song.


CLIP OF THE WEEK:

3 comments:

alberich said...

I’ll have to ask former Floridian DAS about these rumors next time I speak to him… (or next time he comments here)

Alas, I am still a Floridian for another month and a half (and I'm at work on my birthday).

The rumors about Charlie Crist have been flying for some time here in FL (FWIW, I didn't know McGreevy was gay until he came out of the closet ... appearently I was the only person with my level of political connectedness/awareness in NJ not to know this), and it's a widespread belief here in FL that ol' Chain Gang Charlie only got himself a trophy fiancee so he'd be a possible GOP VP candidate for exactly the reasons you describe.

Of course, Crist has been denying he's interested in the post, and the word on the street in FL has long been that not only was Crist not interested in playing second fiddle but that, despite what you'd hear elsewhere, McCain had no interest in a Crist VPship because it wouldn't gain McCain anything (not even FL which likes itself some Crist but ain't gonna change its voting for that reason ... so even with FL being close, it'll be hard to really do anything -- other than massive voter disenfranchisement, to really have an effect on this cesspoll of low information voters known as FL).

***

As to the demolition of the house. What's the point? All Israel is doing is making sure that all the family members of the dead terrorist have no home (even though they may have been perfectly innocent*). All this destruction does is give credence to those who argue that Israel's into bulldozing Arab homes for the hell of it or for sheer vengeance.

And if the Israelis build a home for a Jewish family on that area (thus giving credence to the lie that Israel is all about mean-spiritedly kicking Arabs out of their homes to give land to Jews), I don't wanna ever hear a single pro-Israel person complain about "Israel's hazbara problem" ever again. Just because people are inclined to be prejudiced against Israel doesn't mean Israel should throw up its hands and say "nobody likes us anyway, so screw it" (or if they do, they can't complain about bad publicity because of that choice). Such a fatalistic outlook has no place in Judaism now, does it?

If there's a strategic reason to bulldoze that home, that's one thing. But Israel is supposed to be a Jewish state in some form and Torah specifically condemns (**) punishing children for their parents' sins (and collective punishment by we mere mortals) and seeking vengeance.

We are commanded to pursue justice, not punishment. And how is bulldozing that home just?

(* -- I know enough family members of some truly dispicable people to know that you can't judge a person by his family and visa-versa ... sometimes the people themselves -- a former Ustasha higher-up who's family I knew growing up -- once you remove them from the context of their hatred are no longer bigoted, but that's another whole series of kashas)

**outside of the Herem against the Canaanites -- and, despite claims to being natives of the land, the Palestinians are not Canaanites ... moreover, we can discuss historically where that Harem came from and who really were the Canaanites anyway given the etymology of that word, etc ... but maybe that's a discussion for later

Nate said...

Happy Birthday DAS and welcome back to the NJ NY metro area 6 wks in advance!

Since it's your b'day I wont argue w/ you about the lefties vs righties when it comes to the Middle East.

However...

Not bulldozing a home because innocent people are punished? What happens if a criminal is a breadwinner? Should he not go to jail because his innocent family members will suffer financially? Since these terrorists end up killing themselves - there is no prison - it would seem like gassing up the bulldozer would serve as a deterrent to think twice before they blow themselves to smithereens since their survivors will have to pay for their crimes. Fair to those innocent families? Im more concerned with the terrorists victims families and how unfair it is to them.

alberich said...

BTW ... Nate, you and your readership might be interested in this discussion of to what degree left wing anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. Alas, even in this discussion, there is the usual display of "anti-Zionist" left wingers who don't even see their own anti-Semitism for what it is (inspite of it being pointed out to them as the subject of the thread), but there are also some interesting and cogent critiques of left-wing anti-Zionism from, more or less, the left.