I can't believe he said that...

2006-09-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

Just some quick shots....

The crocodile hunter is gone. Steve Irwin better known as the crocodile hunter was killed by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. Now, if he was killed by a crocodile I could say something clever, but since he wasn't I'll just say that he will be missed by nature lovers everywhere and the may he rest in peace.

I remember seeing illegal aliens walking around with signs that said "today we march, tomorrow we vote", and now people are surprised that there is not a higher voter registration rate among Hispanics and other minorities. Let me get this straight, you have people crawling across the border because they did not want to apply for citizenship legally but you think they will do the paperwork to actually vote? Not bloody likely. Illegal aliens only do paperwork to get checks, not vote. If illegal aliens wanted to vote they would immigrate to the U.S. legally and become part of the the democratic process. Don't let their cleverly painted signs fool you.

Paris Hilton has a new single out. In the words of Simon Cowell from American idol, I now hate music.

EA's perennial hit, Madden Football, has broken records with it's newest installment 'Madden 2007' which has sold more than 2 million copies in it's first week of sales. It has outsold other NFL games like...well...there are no other NFL games out. It's really easy to break records when you are the only game in town. I'm not impressed.

Enjoy your day

The Outsider

2006-06-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's Not Dangerous Until a celebrity Gets Hurt.

I usually don't curse in my blogs but sometimes I can't help it. When Ben Roethlisberger (Or Big Ben from now on) got hurt in his motorcycle accident and suffered injuries that could probably have been lessened by wearing his helmet, I remember thinking: what an idiot, and leaving it at that. But nowadays I see so many articles about motorcycle safety that have spawned from Big Ben's injury and I have to ask myself: Why is something only important when a celebrity gets hurt? You know how many asshole kids kill themselves every year in motorcycle accidents that weren't wearing helmets? And now since Big Ben got hurt some states are considering changing their safety laws. Maybe they are afraid that Big Ben may get hurt and ruin their fantasy football team.
People did a lot of drugs in the 60's and many overdosed but it didn't really raise the awareness of the country until Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison died of drug overdoses. Aids was always a hot topic in the U.S. but it really gained steam when Rock Hudson, Liberace and Magic Johnson got it. But I think we need more celebrities and public figures to get involved (or seriously injured) to help change a lot of what needs to be changed quickly.

For Instance...

We have a war going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and no end is in sight. Why not let the Bush twins enlist in the infantry. I'm pretty sure the war would end before you could even blink.

Rodney King taking a beating by the cops did nothing for their disposition despite a lengthy trial and a riot. Why not let Karl Rove take some stick time from the cops on film. It would not solve anything but it would be fun to watch.

The vote on the fate of our nations illegal immigrants has been pushed back till next year (after the mid-term elections of course). Why not let Vincente Fox illegally cross the border and run for president. Let his platform be that he'll do it for $50,000 a year and to save money he'll have MS-13 be his secret service. That ought to get those politicians working again.

Anyway, we shouldn't wait for some jerkneck celebrity to maim themselves before we take care of our citizens. That's all I was trying to say :)

Enjoy Your Day
--The Outsider--

2006-05-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Wonder What's Next?

Where do we go from here?
And should we even care?
The end is finally here
Lord have mercy...
--Megadeth:Ashes In Your Mouth--

In about 18 months, George W. Bush will be ending his reign of terror on the United States and I hope we'll all be there to see it. But what worries me is who will take his place. This will be a make or break time for the United States. The reason why they urge smokers to quit is because the lungs can recover from the damage of smoking and with the right President we can recover from the damage Bush has done. But now it's up to us, and while the presidential elections are far away, the Mid-term elections are around the corner. What I don't want people to think is that voting is useless since the Republicans will just cheat like they did when Bush took on Al Gore so we have to do this NBA style. For all us sports fans, we know who the refs want to win by the crappy calls that they make, so for a team to win without doubt they have to beat the other team so badly that there is no way the refs can change the outcome of the game. We as voters have to do the same thing, we have to vote these ghouls out of office in the Mid-term elections and we have to make such a showing at the polls that there is no way we can be cheated of our victory. If the Dems do well in the Mid-term elections, as much as I'd like Bush to pay for all his lies, I don't want them to waste valuable time impeaching a president with one year left. Instead they should do their best to stop the bleeding that Bush has caused and help heal our country. I am a registered Democrat but I will vote for whoever has our best interests in mind and baby, it aint the Republicans. Get ready to vote, if you're not registered then stop reading this blog and go register. Hopefully I'll see you in November...

2006-05-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

One Last Time

I know I've been running this illegal immigration thing into the ground but I have one last thing to say about it (hopefully) I was looking through my usual daily political cartoons and I saw a disturbing trend: every time they displayed an American he was either a racist or really fat and lazy. Being an American I took offense to this, yeah I could stand to lose a few pounds but I'm mot lazy. I go to work on time every day, I rarely if ever call in sick and yet I'm seen by these cartoonists as a bigoted slob. Here is what I've learned from reading a week's worth of political cartoons on the subject of illegal aliens:

1) All illegal aliens are honest, hard working people who take jobs that lazy fat Americans are too good to do. They never steal, lie, kill, join gangs like MS-13 and all they want is a better life for their families. And thats it.

2) If we send all the illegal aliens back then our economy will collapse and the stock market will crash bringing about the Rapture and the End Of All Things To Come. Big Macs will cost $10, grapes will cost $15 a pound and oranges will be 3 for $20 and everyone's lawn will be 6 feet tall with poisonous snakes and raccons living in them.

Yeah, I think its a load of crap too...

Cartoonists, I still love ya but get it right. Don't stereotype us just to get your cartoon printed.

Enjoy Your Day
-The Outsider-

2006-05-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

America Survives...

I love how the AP writers described the "Day Without Immigrants" as the end of all things to come. Well guess what?, we're still standing! As an average working Joe this day without immigrants had no effect on me whatsoever, now for all those businesses who make it a point to hire illegal aliens, it sucks to be you. But the bad thing is those companies who feed our politicians greed will eventually force their hand as to the future of these 12 million illegal aliens. So today's protest could go either way: It could make these businesses who hire illegals turn the screws on thier Republican puppets or it could make the American people see that, while having all the illegal immigrants boycot for a day is annoying, it's hardly detrimental. Yeah, some people may have had to cut their own grass and the lines at McDonalds were longer and they had to pay a few cents more for onions but other than that it was probably business as usual. Maybe I'm being shortsighted on this issue but when the illegals decide to kick it up a notch and boycott for a week, then we'll really see the effect. Until then we'll wait for word from Washington...if they ever get around to it.

Enjoy your day
-The Outsider-

2006-04-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Something to Clarify...

Right now illegal immigration is the hot button subject and I won't really get in to it, although I do believe that there should be huge reforms for illegal immigration and that illegal immigrants already in the country should be sent home to wait in line behind those who chose to follow the law. But there is one thing I need to clarify for us Americans. I keep hearing Bush an others talk about "jobs that Americans don't want" and it makes me cringe everytime I hear it. It makes us look like a bunch of spoiled brats. People don't look down on jobs because of the duties, it's the pay that they look down on. Am I too good to pick lettuce? No I'm not but I can't pick lettuce for $6 an hour because I can't live off of that, I'd be on the streets in three months with that income. For example, lets say you work a janitor's job for $8 an hour. Well $8 an hour is $16,640 a year before taxes. If you pay $500 a month for an apartment, that's $6000 a year just in rent, that does not include food, utilities, transportation to and from work, clothes, necessities like toothpaste and soap, ect, ect. You get the point. The cost of living in the U.S. is way too high to take a job for $8 an hour (as an adult anyway) I mean, would you take a Administrative Assistant's job or an IT Manager's job for $8 an hour?, I thought not. I wish these politicians would think before they spoke out about what real Americans want and don't want.

-Enjoy Your Day-
The Outsider

2006-03-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

The Fire Burns On...

After weeks of this "cartoon jihad" thing I have to say one thing...I can't believe this goofy ass sh*t is still going on. I mean, how angry can one religion get over a cartoon. To the west, Islam is a pretty tough sell as far as the whole "peaceful" aspect and I don't want to hear about how the media has distorted the image of Islam because Islam has distorted the image of Islam. Now I know as a black man that we get the short end of the stick when it comes to the media, but the one thing that we have to remember is that even though the media will push a negative image down the throats of the public, they are not making up those negative things. If Paco and DeShawn rob a 7-11 and the media shows it on the news more than once and don't show when that same neighborhood has a successful block party with no incidents, I think that's a very one-sided view by the press. But the fact remains that Paco and DeShawn robbed the 7-11, no way you can deny that (unless they have good lawyers).
Islam is in the same boat with the rest of the world and I have to say (and this is not America's opinion but my opinion) that Islam has to be one of the most joyless and biased religions ever, bar none. Let me get this straight: In Saudi Arabia if I walk the streets with a crucifix around my neck or carry a bible on me, I can be arrested but everywhere Muslims go they have their own schools, their own mosques, their own everything just about. Muslims can burn flags, draw Jews with sharp teeth cutting up Arabs with swastikas, they can call us the devil, spit on our ideals but someone draws a cartoon depicting their prophet and it's Armageddon. Did I miss a meeting about Islam? Am I missing something here? I could not believe how gutless American newspapers were when it came to the Muhammad cartoons. Even the French showed us up, the FRENCH for chrissakes!!
As Dennis Miller said about the gays, you too can be poked fun of. You're not a faberge egg to be handled with care, you can be made fun of just like the Catholics, Jews, Mormans, Jehovah's Witnesses, Movementarians, whatever. And just like the before mentioned religions, if something offends you, you have every right to be upset and protest. Someone draw a cartoon of Muhammad that you don't like? Write a letter to the editor, or boycott the newspaper. Or better yet, tell your cousin Habib to stop blowing stuff up. Now if I can only get my cousin DeShawn to stop robbing those liquor stores....

All comments are welcome...

Enjoy Your Day
--The Outsider--

2006-02-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

The Cartoon Jihad Explained A Little Better

For this Blog, I decided to reprint something I read about the so-called "Cartoon Jihad". It kinda puts the whole thing in prespective and answers a burning question: why did it take 5 months for the outrage of the Muhammad cartoons to take effect? Let me know what you think...

Walid Phares is a Middle East expert and MSNBC analyst. He wrote this interesting column about the Danish Muhammad cartoons for my syndicate and I thought I would share it here.THE CARTOON OFFENSIVE...By Walid Phares

"In my religion" said Imam abu Laban, leading Muslim cleric of Denmark, "drawing images of Prophet Muhammad is forbidden." In my country, said the editor in chief of Copenhagen's Jyllands Posten newspaper, "there is a freedom of press." The BBC TV forum was attempting to educate its vast public worldwide about the cartoon drama.
Unfortunately, the debate left viewers in greater disarray. The anchor seemed to ignore why theological cartoons are offensive to Muslims to start with, but also missed why secular democracies are clashing with their antithesis.
World media and their respective governments have been reacting to television images rather than to direct knowledge. The crisis of the "offensive cartoons" has in fact become a "cartoons offensive." Here is why:
The Danish cartoons were published in September 2005. Why did it take five months for what Western media dubbed "instant reactions to the insult" to materialize? One hundred and fifty days and nights are too long for a mass reaction to be described as "instant."
Leaders of the Muslim community in Denmark said they attempted to resolve the matter locally by asking the newspaper or the government to apologize for it. We all know what the Danish position was: a matter of principle.
It was also known that a delegation from Denmark was touring to trigger a campaign of "support" for the protest. Imam Ahmed Abdelrahman abu Laban said on BBC TV that "many spiritual leaders in the region, including in Lebanon, were horrified by the caricatures." Some see a greater agenda: taking advantage of the harm made by the pictures to impose a new political order in Denmark and beyond.
Reaction time between the publishing and the outrage was too long, but it was a political time par excellence. For while the Danish Muslim delegation met with many leaders, including Hezbollah's Nasrallah in Lebanon and leaders from Hamas and Gamaa Islamiya (in addition to more mainstream leaders), the cartoons were indeed circulating.
Why didn't the protest explode until only few weeks ago? Because decisions were made, measurements were designed, and plans were laid out by the "Jihadi elites." The masses had to wait until the establishment decided to unleash the emotions. Every single regime and organization had to refine the expectations and project the dividends.
Would a generalized inflaming of the masses on the "cartoon matter" be better before or after the Palestinian elections, by Hamas standards? Before or after the Egyptian elections, by Muslim Brotherhood plans? Before or after the Iranian decision to rush to the nuclear race, by Ahmedinijad's planning?
A major coincidence was the fact that Denmark was to head the U.N. Security Council, just as its members were to take Tehran to task for its refusal to be forthright regarding Iran's nuclear program.
At first glance, there is no link between the spontaneous but violent demonstrations on the one hand and the complex calculations of the web of regimes and organizations. I argue otherwise.
Why would the Danish Muslims go beyond diplomatic circles as Danish citizens and seek assistance from religious authorities and militant forces in the Middle East? Because a decision to ignite an intifada had already been made by the architects of the overseas journey.
It was beyond the Danish cartoons. It was about a broader issue, something a representative of an American Islamist group called on CNN "a strategic change in world relationship after 9/11." Hence, the procedure - not the substance of the protest - had to be thought, devised and prepared.
Many voices are asserting that the Jyllands Posten and its journalistic sisters wanted to make a point - to affirm that freedom of speech is not selective. But many others are discovering that the group the journalists confronted was not the Muslim public, but political activists - the Islamists - who claim to represent about a fifth of humanity.
Islamists want to draw the limits of world freedoms, and Western liberals reject that limitation. Islamists refer to articles of Muslim faith forbidding any drawing of Allah and Prophet Muhammad, let alone satirical ones. Western liberals say they aren't bound by any religious law, let alone by fundamentalist interpretations.
In normal circumstances, the Danish cartoons would hurt the feelings of average Muslims. But the circumstances aren't normal; they have been modified by the Jihadi international machine and transformed into battlefields from Indonesia to Beirut, from Paris to Copenhagen.
Without the Jihadi-organized, anti-European intifada worldwide, the crisis would have resembled similar ones. When Jesus was depicted in degrading images or other deities insulted across the globe - including the bombing of the Buddha statues by the Taliban - the reactions were relatively peaceful.
But the cartoon crisis has generated another type of reaction - a war against the West led by the Jihadists, claiming that a war against Islam has warranted their Jihad.*****

Dr. Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington and the author of Future Jihad. He is on a European tour at the invitation of legislators and think tanks.

2006-02-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

Questions Without Answers...

I have some questions about Islam that have stemmed from the recent events following a French newspaper's reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist. Some of the questions may seem sarcastic but I mean no disrespect, just trying to get some questions answered here...

1. Can I ever disagree with Islam without being called a infidel or hate monger? Can I disagree with Islam without calling a Fatwa against myself?
2. Are there Muslims that are not religious fanatics and if so why aren't their voices heard? Is the U.S. media that powerful and biased?
3. Is it right to respond to the defiling of your god by burning flags and calling on Bin Laden to destroy innocent people? Do two wrongs make a right? And where do they get those flags? Do they buy them or make them themselves?
4. Does Al-Jazeera ever show anything besides kidnappings, beheadings, hostages and Bin Laden remixes? Do they have any sit-coms or an arabic version of CSI?

I have been told by my a good friend of mine that I am being closed minded on the subject of Islam. He told me that, being a black man, I should be ashamed to think that was about muslims since Blacks are still being judged by what people see on television and that I should not do the same. But every time I turn on the television I see hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the world foaming at the mouth over a cartoon I can't help but feel a negative trend in Islam. Im not saying that the newspaper that reprinted the article did not know what they were getting into or that Muslims should not be offended by it, I'm just saying that there are reasonable limits. The Jews were outraged by Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ". The Catholic Church was enraged by a recent episode of South Park. Both groups expressed their displeasure with said parties without a single bomb threat or masked gunman raid (as far as I know) and were even able to get some results (the offending episode of South Park was never re-aired). I know my statements may add fuel to the fire and the one thing I wish I had was an answer to all this senseless violence. A new U.S. President would be a great start...

Enjoy Your Day
-The Outsider

2006-01-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

Taking Candy From A Baby...

Advocacy groups and parents are suing Kellog Co. and Viacom (Parent company to Nickelodeon) in Massachusetts state court for it's excessive junk food ads during children's programming. I can kind of understand the concern by parents but then again I can't. For one thing, I was born in the early 70's. There was no cable television and cartoons only came on from 2pm to 5pm Monday through Friday and from 5am through noon on Saturdays. Now there are dozens of channels dedicated to children's programming and they run 24 hours a day. So the number of ads and the frequency that children see them have risen dramatically in the last 30 years or so. But I remember something else: if my parents served it, you better eat it or else. My parents bought junk food as snacks, not as meals. I was lucky enough to have a mom that cooked every day and I was an outdoor child, I always played outside whenever I could and stayed active even throughout High School. There are a lot of kids nowadays who are very sedentary, mostly staying indoors and playing video games and watching television instead of playing outdoors and seeing those ads constantly can alter a kid's idea of what they want to eat. But at the end of the day it's the parents who buy the household's food who has the last say. I've never been in the supermarket and seen a 7 year old in front of me in line with a shopping cart full of junk food pay for it with his credit card, shove them into his mini-van and drive off. I never remember telling my mom that I want Frosted Flakes instead of meat loaf (mostly for fear of my life). I think it's a double edged sword here. More responsibility should be shown when choosing advertising for children's programming, especially with childhood obesity on the rise, but at the same time parents should not always give in at the supermarket when buying food for their kids. Sure it may make them upset to not get what they want, but when they become healthy adults they'll thank you for it later.

Enjoy Your Day
-The Outsider-

2006-01-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Circle of Hate...Football style.

I am a Giants fan, even after their embarrasing loss this past Sunday I can still say that. Considering that we were nowhere close to the playoffs last year I consider a winning season a good thing. I live in Maryland by way of NY and I have been taking an acid bath over the fact that the Giants lost miserably and the Skins won (even though it was a truly ugly game). Just talking about the people I know I found out that you either love the Skins or hate them with every fiber of your being. We get some Carolina fans out here, Some 49er fans held over from the Jerry Rice era, we even get some Green Bay and Jet fans but most of the football fans I know in Maryland are from the NFC east: Redskins, Giants, Eagles and Cowboys. I found one thing most interesting...Aside from the Redskin fans, the rest of the NFC East rivals have some sort of respect for each other and one thing in common...we all hate the Redskins with a passion.
You would think that all us NFC East types would hate each other but when I see a Cowboys hat or a Eagles jacket and I mention that I'm a Giants fan, the most I get is a respectful nod. Those same fans run into a Redskins fan and the battle lines are drawn and the fangs come out. I think that there are two reasons that Redskin are hated so much by the rest of the division:

1) Redskin fans are really obnixious. Yeah, we give some good natured ribbing when we beat the Skins, but when the Skins beat us I almost want to call in sick at work. I don't mind hearing about the loss from 10 different people but I dont want to hear it from 10 different people for 4 days straight.
2) The local press never admits when it's wrong. When the Skins were 5-6 the local press was talking about the Reggie Bush lottery. Now that they are in the playoffs the press acts like they knew it all along, there's no sense of "well, things looked bleak but they turned it around". And that's just the headlines since I never really read the articles.

As I'm finishing this, the Skins losing 14-3 even without Shaun Alexander who went out with a concussion. Let's see if I'll have to call in at work or not.

Enjoy your day
-The Outsider-

2005-12-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

Human Experimentation

I was talking with a young lady from work the other day and she was telling me that she paid 2.25 for a tank of gas in her neighborhood and she was happy to pay it. It kinda made me wonder a bit though, because in my mind paying more than $2 for a tank of gas is highway robbery. When you think of the price of gas during the past year, I can fully understand why my co-worker would be ecstatic about paying what she payed for gas. But remember that the national average for a price of gas was 1.79 at this time last year, the current average is 2.18...a 39 cent per gallon increase. This past September, the national average for a tank of regular gas was 3.05, the highest it's ever been. I know Big Oil has blamed the high gas prices on everything from hurricanes to gremlins but my question is this: now that the 'crisis' has passed, why aren't gas prices going back to under $2 a gallon? My answer is that since people are happy to pay 87 cents less than they did last fall, why should they go back to normal? Big Oil's experiment worked and the current prices are here to stay, hopefully I'm wrong about this.

Big Oil is not the only ones who tinker with prices, anyone lucky enough to get a Xbox 360 for the holidays are quickly finding out that most of the games that come out for it are $60 brand new. Now, all the gamers reading this may ask "how can they get away with that?" More than a year ago the major video game companies ran a little experiment: special edition games. Madden Football and Halo 2 among others put out $60 special editions of their games. Most of the 'special' features most people could have lived without but the main purpose of this experiment was: will the average consumer pay $60 for a video game? The answer was yes.

There are probably many more 'experiments' going on right now that we don't know about and may not know about until it's too late. Hopefully one day we can have a government that will look out for the interests of the common man and not side with Big Business. But since we cant match their bribes then I guess we'll have to do the best we can

Enjoy your day -The Outsider-

2005-12-11T06:34:00.000-08:00

My first blog...So much to talk about but I'm gonna keep this one a bit lighthearted. Don't be afraid to tell me what you think...

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has been asked to play Johnny Depp's father in the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean. This would be a logical choice since the studio would save countless thousands on make-up since he already looks like an undead pirate. Richards hasn't decided as of yet but he was quoted as saying that "the thought of working for Disney gives me the shivers." Well Keith, the fact that you are still alive gives me the shivers. How can we tell kids that drugs are bad when you're still walking around?

Speaking of the Rolling Stones...they have been slated to do the Super Bowl halftime show. Ever since Justin Timberlake exposed Janet's boob on national television we have been cursed with an ever aging Super Bowl show every year (Paul McCartney performed last year) Look for Pat Boone and Tom Jones to do the show next year if this trend continues.

Richard Pryor died on Saturday of a heart attack, he was 65. Even in his passing he's still funnier than I'll ever be so I wont sully his memory by trying to say something clever here.

Through the miracle of science, Island records has managed to make another Bob Marley collection of music that we more than likely have, especially since he put out a 4 disc box set about a decade ago. This set has some remixed tracks and two unreleased songs on it. If you don't own any Bob Marley albums but are curious about the Marley legend, pick up the 2 disc set entitled "Gold."

Since I'm in the minority of people that think 50 Cent has the talent of a backup dancer, I may as well just say that I think he's a moron to boot. He has a new video game out that he says is "kid friendly" yet has more guns, killing, drugs and sex than a John Woo box set. Hey 50, you want some advice?, get a publicist and stop making a jackass of yourself. 50 also caught a proverbial shot to the ribs when members of his entourage were denied entry into Canada since they have criminal records (Canada is very strict about that) and he and Dr. Dre are being sued for plagiarism by female rapper Jah Jah. I know turmoil sells rap records but there is a limit...

Enjoy your day.... -The Outsider-