I wish John McCain was my friend...

...in high school. We all remember the tough times in high school: brutal gossip, exclusive cliques, baseless rumors, and continuous popularity contests. That's why I wish I had someone like John McCain at my side for those tender years of my life.

Just look at his uncanny ability to forgo all logic and relevance in the name de-popularizing his political rival.

This notorious McCain campaign ad against Barack Obama suggests that Obama shouldn't be elected because he's too popular. That's a very common image-destroying tactic in high school - it's called "The Slut Technique."

Example: Christine is head of the cheerleading squad, the most popular girl in school, and is about to be elected prom queen. How does less-popular Michelle prevent Christine from becoming prom queen? Tell everyone in school that she's a raging whore! It's completely untrue and has nothing to do with anything...but who cares!?! Now everyone hates Christine. Mission Accomplished.

Or consider this recent John McCain campaign ad, aimed at bringing Hillary Clinton supporters to the McCain camp. Now that Hillary Clinton is no longer a presidential threat to John McCain, McCain is saying that everything she said in her campaign against Obama is completely accurate.
The beauty of this age-old, McCain-era high school popularity trick, called "The Pit," is that it can turn any two friends into mortal enemies.

Example: Bobby and Harry are friends. Bobby and Harry both want to date Penelope. Mickey, the weird looking munchkin, wants to date Penelope too, but Penelope thinks Mickey is a freak. Penelope decides to date Bobby. Harry understands, and remains friends with Bobby and Penelope. This happy circle of friendship enrages Mickey. So Mickey makes up blatantly false rumors to pit Bobby and Harry against one another. "Harry said that Bobby has cat AIDS!" Next thing you know, Penelope hears this baseless nonsensical rumor, and decides she doesn't want to date either Bobby or Harry. So she ends up dating munchkin Mickey, the only other single guy in her class. Mission Accomplished.

I know that was a bit of a complicated analogy, so here's a key:
Penelope = The People
Bobby = Barack
Harry = Hillary
Mickey = McCain

So can you imagine having John McCain on your side in the trenches of a high school popularity battle? His intelligent, underhanded and conniving tactics would have made me and him the most popular guys in school! Irrelevant, nonsensical, and false claims like "she's a slut" and "he said you have cat AIDS" really carry a lot of weight for high school kids.

Unfortunately, equally irrelevant, nonsensical and false claims such as "Obama is too popular" and "Hillary Clinton doesn't support Obama" can carry a lot of weight for many easily-influenced-and-easily-confused American voters.

One more thing. Just to be clear, Hillary and Obama's policy goals are 95% the same. The two of them struggled during the Democratic primaries to differentiate themselves from one another on policy issues. Their largest disagreement was about how to administer universal health care. As much as Hillary wanted to win, her and the rest of the Clinton's fully support Obama's bid for the White House. Not to mention that Hillary would most likely be a part of Obama's cabinet, considering their extremely similar policy goals. So I'm just gonna outright say it: If you voted for Hillary in the primaries, and are now going to vote for McCain because you can't vote for Hillary, you're a FUCKING IDIOT. There is not a single thing that Hillary and McCain have in common other than the color of their skin.

Mission Accomplished.

Fucking Bullshit.

This pre-teen, He Kexin deserves a gold medal in the uneven bars about as much as Bob Costas does. Even if she was 16 years old, the minimum age required to compete, (which she clearly is not) she in no way, shape, or form won this event.

If there's one thing that everyone knows about gymnastics, (except for Australians, apparently) it's that falling down on your landing is a bad thing. That's the whole point. Anyone can swing around on some monkey bars and land on their face. Or anyone can jump off a spring board and collapse onto their hands and knees. Oh wait! That's exactly what China's Fei Cheng did in the vault finals! Not to mention that her hand positioning on the vault was so terribly uneven she she lost 7/10ths of a point. But somehow her blundering disaster of a vault scored higher than Alicia Sacramone's well-executed and perfectly-landed vault, thus bumping Sacramone out of the bronze medal position. Really? Really?

Getting back to I'm-five-years-short-of-puberty He Kexin. She made two technical errors on the bars, and then fumbled so much on her dismount that she actually crossed her legs. Crossing your legs in gymnastics is like screaming "bomb!" on an airplane - you just don't do it. But the judges from Australia and South Africa don't know this....no shit! Nastia Liukin, on the other hand, made one technical error, and had a flawless landing. But somehow they were both given the exact same score, at which point the nonsensical tie-breaking system awarded the gold to the person who performed worse, and who isn't old enough to be in the Olympics anyway. Spec-fucking-tacular.

After the $300 million opening ceremony in China, I was all giddy and excited. But between the murder of the father of a US volleyball player, and the blatant robbery of medals in women's gymnastics, I'm not quite as keen on China anymore.

I would normally turn my hopes for U.S. gold to Track & Field, but apparently the weed in Jamaica makes you run 28 miles per hour.


Thank God for Michael Phelps and his insane dolphin-esque double-jointedness, and his my-fingernail-is-1/100th-of-a-second-longer-than-yours awesomeness. Because if it weren't for all of the U.S. wins in swimming, the massive sleep deprivation from watching all the Olympic events combined with the Chinese bullshit would have sent me off a cliff by now..

Based on True Events

This would make a great movie: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/fbi.opens.probe.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Police in Arizona spotted a 32-pound box of marijuana being shipped from Los Angeles to Maryland. Prince George's County police in Maryland picked up the box and set up a sting at the home of the recipient. Turns out the box of pot was being shipped to an innocent and unknowing victim. Also turns out that the recipient is the mayor of a small Maryland town called Berwyn Heights. Cops raid the house, killing their two dogs and scaring the shit out of grandma.

So far this is only a crappy Lifetime original movie. Here's where it becomes a real flick.

The FBI is now going to investigate the Prince George's County police department. The police are going to protect their own, as always, and try to debunk the FBI investigation. The FBI hotshot who is on the case will have a seniority complex, and a massive power struggle between the departments will inevitably ensue.

The film would be packed with intense face-to-face dialogue-showdowns between shouting actors with veins popping. I would recommend Chris Cooper as the recently-promoted FBI agent heading the investigation, and Robert Duvall as the seasoned and old-fashioned police chief who planned to retire after this last big drug bust. They'll stand uncomfortably close to each other and sternly shout witty and intricate dialogue that no one could actually come up with in real time. And it will be interlaced with lines like "The cat's out of the bag!" "Not on my watch!" "Don't test me, Sergeant." and “This is WAY beyond your pay grade!"

Taylor Nichols would be perfect as the mayor (because he makes a great victim), and Laura Linney could play his wife.

In the real world, the Feds are eventually going to out-muscle the Prince George's County police department, and the whole thing will go to a long and drawn-out trial.

But in the awesome movie, it turns out the FBI agent was really in cahoots with the mayor, who actually knew that the drugs were being delivered to him. They were sick of their low-paying government jobs, and had planned to make millions with the total of 417 pounds of pot they were bringing in from Mexico. But with the CIA headquarters only 20 miles from Berwyn Heights, Langley's newest recruit (played by Matt Damon) cracks the case before this heavy-hitting Washington scandal gets leaked to the public.

And the movie would still open with: "Based on True Events."