Breaking News: Michael Jackson Is Still Dead

Michael Jackson died on Thursday, in case you've been under a rock... on Mars ... with your fingers in your ears and your eyes firmly slammed shut. I'd like to preface my comments by stating I am a fan- I heart MJ's musical prowess, dancing ability, and all around icon status. He was awesome. But come the fuck on. The media is acting like it's 1983 and the man was at the height of his fame. And they're also acting like there's absolutely nothing else going on in the world that they could possibly be covering- from the worst recession since World War II down to the never-ending conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I've had to glean the "important" news from the goddamn CNN news ticker, which is like reading a televised version of Twitter. You try piecing together the recent developments in Iran via choppy, sentence-fragmented, tiny font bullshit while "Billie Jean" blasts in the background... while waiting for the coveted interview with the L.A. County Coroner who personally handled Jackson's decaying corpse. Long live the 24/7 news cycle and the pointless filler that comprises it.

NRA 4Ever

There was a shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. today. Apparently, some white supremacist entered with a rifle and began opening fire on visitors, killing a security guard and injuring two others.

Where to even begin with this story? First of all, lol @ the notion of white supremacy in the United States. I do believe this continent was populated by natives who, you know, weren't so white centuries before white Europeans even knew this half of the world existed. Some of these not-so-white natives, like the Inca and Maya, were light years more advanced than the Europeans of the day. And lol @ the notion of white supremacy in general, seeing as how the human race began in Africa. White people are the mutants, having all the melanin sucked out of our skin by living in cold, rainy climates in northern Europe. We're the freaks! lolz, anyway...

Secondly, I hope the shooter realizes that not everyone who visits the Holocaust Museum is a Jew. I'm just sayin'. And how ridiculously ironic will it be if it's revealed his victims are white?

I was sure this would just be another in a long line of rampage shootings that dominates the headlines for a news cycle and then just goes away without us having applied what we learned from it, if anything. But I was wrong, at least so far. On the MSN website, the article about Miss California losing her title has more views that the article on this story. Anywayz, I'm sure the NRA is already planning a rally at the Holocaust Museum and state legislatures in the South are prepping to undo the few gun control measures they have because if there's anything random shootings should tell us, it's that we need less gun control in this country.

I'm Not A Cynic, I'm Just A Realist

Well, today was an interesting day. I woke up to find General Motors had filed for Chapter 11, so now the failed auto company is basically owned by the U.S. government. Obama and his economic people plan to make the company viable again but in the immortal words of Bill Maher, "presidents aren't magicians, not even Chocolate Jesus." (hehe) I'd hate to see the U.S. auto industry go down- this depression has lasted long enough- but I drive a Toyota with a 10-year/100,000 mile warranty. I won't be shedding any tears if the Hummer gets discontinued. Or the Yukon. Or any of the other expensive, inefficient, shitty SUVs that ran the company into the ground in the first place. GMC is just another relic of the fading American Empire that was crushed by its own avarice and excess. Having the government take it over for a while is what it deserves.

My other favorite story today was that the Taliban kidnapped, like, hundreds of kids in Pakistan. Which is impressive and horrifying, when you consider the Taliban have been annexing large tracts of land over the past few weeks and are a mere 60 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, which is where they happen to house the nuclear weapons that country possesses. OK, I thought the Taliban were soooo 2001. I thought al-Qaeda, swine flu, and Susan Boyle were the big foreign invaders we had to fear now. Oh yeah, then there's North Korea testing a-bombs and shitting all over ceasefire treaties. So thanks, Bush, for being too morally upstandin' to negotiate with terrorists. But hey, at least they haven't followed us home. Of course, they won't need to since most nukes are remote controlled.

All this and it's only June 1st.