Let me rephrase. SOME tv is watchable again. Obviously we are on the brink of the beginning of Americas’ real pastime, football. The NCAA season started yesterday and the pros start next week. Friggin’ finally. I can’t even watch Sportscenter anymore because all they want to talk about is lame-ass baseball, lame-ass Nascar, and lame-ass tournament Basketball (USA vs. Angola? Who cares?). It always seems like forever and three days between football seasons, and weekends are especially pointless without my football fix (Saturday AND Sunday, bitches!). I’ll probably have to focus more this season on college football, because my Chiefs are looking quite shaky heading in to the regular season. I’m always going to be a fan, but I hope that they don’t turn into a perennial loser that can’t manage to notch more than 5 in the win column (see: Lions, Browns, Cardinals, Raiders). I’m concerned about that every season, but I suppose I’ve gotten used to a solid offensive line and an effective QB. This year? Not so much.

In what has recently appeared to be a gift from the gods, MMA has stepped up to the plate and provided people with something exciting to watch year-round. Last week, we got together with a few of my peoples to watch UFC 74. That shit was awesome. Randy “I’m your dads age” Couture thoroughly dispached Gabriel Gonzaga, who is nearly half Randy’s age and bigger, stronger, faster. I don’t think many people realistically believed that Randy could pull it off, but he did, and in convincing fashion. Great entertainment. Plus George St. Pierre won, and I like that guy (even though he’s from Canada, i’ll let that slide…..this time.) Next week (UFC 75, Sept 8th) has several fights on one card that I’m willing to sleep through the entire week so I can see immediately:

#1 Rampage Jackson vs Dan Henderson: I love Rampage’s ridiculocity, humor, and fighting style–and I hope he wins this one. Henderson is a seriously dangerous fighter, and a tough guy to root against because he seems like a respectful and pleasant dude. More importantly, he beat the hell out of Wanderlei Silva in PRIDE. Silva, as most MMA fans know, consistently whoops Rampages’ ass. I’m glad that the UFC is openly courting fighters from PRIDEFC, which I feel has the most talent in MMA right now (sorry Vale Tudo and K1..people want that UFC paycheck apparently).

#2 Mirko Cro Cop vs. Cheik Kongo: I really thought Cro Cop invincible in the UFC until he caught one of the most brutal kicks ever courtesy of Gabriel Gonzaga. Regardless, he’s still an extremely powerful striker with the serious task of reviving his reputation. I haven’t seen much of Kongo, but the dude is a 6′4″ 240 lbs chunk of concrete with excellent striking. From what I’ve seen from both fighters, they prefer to avoid ground fighting and submissions–that translates into someone is getting knocked the hell out, and quickly. I think Cro Cop will take this one but everyone has a punchers’ chance.

#3 Houston Alexander (pic) vs. Alessio Sakara: It may seem weird, but I’m actually the most anxious about this fight. Alexander came out of nowhere and embarrassed the hell out of Keith Jardine in what had to be the biggest upset of recent memory. This dude has bricks for fists and a mean streak. I’d like to see if he can continue to pummel people or if he’s just a flash in the ring. I think the key for Alexander is the fact that people continue to underestimate his handspeed and power. We haven’t seen much in the way of his ground technique or experience defending grapplers, so this should be interesting. Sakara is a decorated striker, in fact he’s an Italian boxing champion with some impressive hands. Gonna go with Alexander on this one.

PS. I heard a rumor that the UFC was openly trying to work out a contract with Fedor Emelianenko (pic), who’s been at the #1 ranked heavyweight in the the world for 4 years–in everyone’s polls. I’ve never seen this Russian robot (think Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, only bigger, stronger, and real) hurt, knocked down, or panicked. Besides that, he’s never lost a professional fight and has zero known weaknesses. I’m quite sure that he cannot be beaten in the UFC, but we’ll see what happens.

1) As if there weren’t enough annoyances at the airport, the TSA has unleashed a new squad of ‘Behavior Detection Officers‘ that are supposed to be looking for erratic behavior that CLEARLY people that have terror on their minds exhibit flagrantly. I could go on and on explaining to you how fucking dumb this idea is, but I won’t. I could draw some insanely easy parallels to ‘1984′, but I won’t insult your intelligence. This should stand by itself as a testament to what the government does when you give an entire department zero oversight and an unlimited tax-funded operating budget.

“Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny. A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler’s going. If more alarms go off, officers will “refer” the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning. Jay M. Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, said in May that he wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions”

What exactly are they going to look for? Sweaty, tired, annoyed, disheveled passengers? Isn’t that everyone who tries to take a flight these days? I wonder how they’re going to explain themselves when they still ‘randomly select’ Arab-Americans for….um..interviews.

2) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and Guantanamo Prison, according to a new tracing program. The changes may violate Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday. The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches. The program allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to the popular Internet encyclopedia where anyone can submit and edit entries. WikiScanner revealed that CIA computers were used to edit an entry on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A graphic on casualties was edited to add that many figures were estimated and were not broken down by class.

I would think that not screwing up in the first place would’ve been a better solution that attempting to limit the amount of egg to wipe from your face afterwards. Just a thought. Also, if you’re going to edit a HISTORICAL EVENT–you should probably make it clear that your version of events might be slightly bias since you’re on the Department of Defenses’ payroll.

hy·poc·ri·sy n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

2. An act or instance of such falseness.

1) Bob Allen

[Republican (obviously), Florida State Representative]

Allen, who is also the chairman of John McCains’ presidential (yeah, right) committee, was spotted by police in Titusville, Florida on July 11th ‘acting suspiciously’ at the men’s public toilet in a park. Police sent an undercover cop, and within minutes he had offered $20 to the cop to allow Allen to give him head action. Allen was arrested on charges of solicitation to COMMIT prostitution.

BEST PART: Here’s the explaination offered by Allen for trying to dome up a Federale: “This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” he said in a taped statement, and added that he was worried he would “become another statistic,” meaning that he was concerned he would be assaulted. Interesting…I’ve been in plenty of ’scary black people’ situations, but I never thought of blowing my way to safety.

Now it wasn’t his black dong fantasies that make him a hypocrite, nor the common ’scary Black man’ defense, nor the fact that he’s married with a daughter. Those just make him a gay bigoted adulterer. Take a look at some of the bills that he sponsored last year:

HB 1475 Lewd or Lascivious Exhibition
CS/CS/HB 41 Sexual Offenses
CS/HB 269 Lewdness and Indecent Exposure
HR 597 Sexual Solicitation and Abuse

2) David Vitter

[Republican Senator (of course), Louisiana]

This one’s a little older, but still funny to me. Vitter was one of the people who were found on the ‘DC Madam’ call list last month. The list supposedly has 15,000 names on it. Now we ALL know that most of the wrinkly old men in the capital have probably frequented their share of interns and escorts, but this one was special because of Vitters’ track record. Once his name was released as being on the list NUMEROUS times, Vitter said that he ‘had already asked God and his wife for forgiveness’ and ‘wanted to keep the discussion only between those two.’

BEST PART: In 2004, when Vitter was a congressman running for a seat in the Senate, Vitter campaigned with a promise of “protecting the sanctity of marriage.” He went on to become a co-author of the “Federal Marriage Act” that sought to prohibit courts from interpreting same-sex marriage laws, and said of marriage, “I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one.”

Vitter once compared same-sex marriage to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The first line of his biography reads, “David Vitter is dedicated to making life better for his young family and all Louisiana families.” But then, hypocrisy runs across Vitter’s “young family.” After extramarital affairs were exposed by Louisiana rep and Speaker of the House Bill Livingston were revealed, Vitter’s wife was asked how she would react if her husband had been caught in an affair, like Livingston and Bill Clinton. “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary [Clinton],” she said. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

No lady, we don’t trust you. Nor should you trust your wayward husband, nor should voters trust anything he says about the ’sanctity of marriage.’ By the way, Vitter is also the Southern Regional Chair of Rudy “Thrice married, notorious adulterer, married second cousin” Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

Bottled water HAS to be one of the greatest con jobs of all time.

It will never cease to amaze me when people hold their noses up to an offer of tap/fountain water and will only drink this shit if it’s bottled up and sold by companies like Aquafina Pepsi or Dasani Coke . Nevermind that neither company uses either of their ‘water’ for their other products…but I guess that doesn’t matter to sheeple much. I guess it also doesn’t matter to people that Pepsi recently had to admit that Aquafina isn’t made from some magical pure water stream, as they would like sheeple to believe, but instead it’s made from regular-ass tap water. Few things annoy me more than these people that really believe that they need to drink exactly what the people who sell this stuff tell them. I guess some people really enjoy having clear piss because they’ve flooded all their brain cells away–rendering rational thought nearly impossible. Bottled tap water is an 11 BILLION DOLLAR industry in the United States. Really? In the fattest, most gluttonous country on Earth, people are consuming 26.9 BILLION liters of bottled tap water per year. Why?

Ask a water addict, and they’ll tell you “Well I’m just making sure that I get my 8-10 glasses of water per day.” Promptly slap these persons. If this is you, (sigh), grow up and help yourself to a science book. One of these water nazis actually argued with a chemistry professor I had in college who hasn’t drank water in 40 years, and thinks this whole phenomenon is ridiculous [i loved that guy, (no homo)]. You’ve seen these people, walking around with gatdam water back packs, canteens, and half gallon bottles–like they were on a trek across the Sahara. All this because it ‘looks’ healthy.

Quick fact: Your body is smarter than you. Water is in everything you eat and drink, and your body can separate what it needs. Take a look at the water content in packaged meats.

Remember that this ‘8 a day’ figure didn’t reach prevalence until they started selling this stuff. Nevermind that you already pay a water bill, and that bottled water has NEVER been proven any healthier than tap water (assuming you don’t live in Calcutta, of course). Is there a reason that bottled water costs more than gasoline per gallon? In addition to that ridiculous fact, the most commonly used plastic for making water bottles is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is derived from crude oil. Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year. Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year. Nice.

Drink up and spend up, idiots. Remember, Evian is ‘Naive’ spelled backwards.