Current Affairs

So, are you willing to pay $9.95 to see the seance at which it was claimed the spirit of John Lennon was reached? I'll think I'll let John answer for me: Imagine there's no heaven/It's easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us only sky.

I am told by a source I trust that a rumor spread like wildfire* through the Hispanic community yesterday to the effect that "the government" was going to do a sweep through Fort Wayne to round up Mexicans -- not an unreasonable rumor given the raids nationally over the last several days. People stayed home and called in sick -- one family apparently even hid in their basement. A couple of restaurants had to close over lunch, and several others spent most of the day trying to find people to cover their hours.

Concerning the Duke lacrosse team rape allegations:

1. Dumb idea No. 1: Inviting strippers to your drunken debauchery and thinking nothing could possibly go wrong.

2. Dumb idea No. 2: Stripping in front of drunken college students and thinking nothing could possibly go wrong.

3. Dumb idea No. 3: Using your position as prosecutor to keep shooting your mouth off before there were any charges or the grand jury had even convened and assuming no one would ever think badly of you for it.

Good lord! It appears that drivers who are distracted are involved in the most -- gasp! -- automobile accidents:

Those sleep-deprived, multitasking drivers - clutching cell phones, fiddling with their radios or applying lipstick - apparently are involved in an awful lot of crashes.

Distracted drivers were involved in nearly eight out of 10 collisions or near-crashes, says a study released Thursday by the government.

I didn't think anybody could write more vehemently about eminent-domain abuses than Leo Morris or Mike Sylvester. But George Will, in his back-of-Newsweek piece, gives us a run for our money:

Well, duh:

Around the world, middle-aged and elderly men tend to be more satisfied with their sex lives than women in the same age group, a survey released on Wednesday said.

Young men, too, don't you suppose?

Oh, for God's sake, McDonald's, just keep producing your unhealthy but tasty food and charging us a reasonable price, and we will keep patronizing your restaurants. If you're going to panic every time a vegetable-loving health freak like Eric Schlosser or Morgan Spurlock comes along, we'll just take our money and spend it on Hardee's wonderful Thickburgers (three sizes, you quarter-pounder wimps -- 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound and 2/3 pound).

OK, let met get this straight. This is the year 2006, correct? So even if we call it 2006 A.D. (Anno Domini, the year of our lord) or 2006 C.E. (Common Era), our calendar is still based on what it has always been based on. We still mark our time as being before or after the birth of Christ, however imperfect our understanding of when that exactly was, and all we are doing is trying to bolster the self-esteem of those who still can't handle living in a mostly Christian nation. Did I get that right?

I know I said in a recent post that Sharon Stone might be sneaking in to fill that special place in my heart once committed to Jane Fonda, but here comes Jane to win me back again:

Jane Fonda says she would like to tour the country and speak out against U.S. involvement in Iraq, but her controversial history of Vietnam War protests leaves her with "too much baggage."

While I was getting snarky about Rocky Mountain High Environmentalism, I almost overlooked the "humanity is going to receive the plague it deserves" school of thought.