Sign of the Apocalypse: Dumbnicity

In two hundred years the Constitution hasn't been invoked as many times as it has during this election cycle. The Tea Party decries that it is under attack, that Barack Obama and his policies have hijacked the country from its founding principals and that, should we continue on this track, we are collectively doomed as a nation.

The Federalist Papers are considered documents critical to understanding the thought process that resulted in the Constitution, and so, to understand the Constitution and the intent of the Founding Fathers, it is essential to have read them. But the party that is invoking a return-to-American-roots this November appears to be exactly what Alexander Hamilton warned us against in his introduction to the essays.

"... the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants. "

It's important to note that this quote could be hijacked by either party. After all, Barack Obama was elected on a tide of anti-Bush sentiment. What I believe is a considerate difference between the debates of the 2008 election and the 2010 election is a serious degradation in intellectual dialogue.

Both sides are equally culpable in pointing fingers and drawing up sound bytes, but one party has hijacked much of the national dialogue with invented words, talk of witchcraft and is undermining the national debate with ignorance. It is the Tea Party.

An article in today's New York Times lists out the crimes:

It’s news to Christine O’Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. It’s news to Joe Miller, whose guards handcuffed a journalist, and to Carl Paladino, who threatened The New York Post’s Fred Dicker, that the First Amendment exists, even in Tea Party Land. Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley.

Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”

As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: “ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”

On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.

While racism, Constitutional ignorance, and grammatical flubs may amuse us on tabloid stands and around the water cooler, it will be far less amusing in places like the Senate Arms Committee or around negotiating tables where highly capable people are discussing items like the impact of embargoes on a nuclear-armed rogue state like North Korea.

Sarah Palin has ushered in this crowd of Palinistas. They rally around a return to bare-bones Constitutionalism, but then announce gays shouldn't marry (a state issue), and that creationism should be taught in government-funded schools (see the First Amendment). This is not intellectual discourse. This is, as the New York Times article puts it, "making ignorance chic."

This is a shame on two fronts. One, it undermines our national dialogue by undermining the art of debate, the value of intelligence, and the need to build consensus. Second, the Tea Party has its roots in some very legitimate political concerns, but its platform has been undermined by those speaking from it. The Tea Party fundamentalists seceded from the Republican Party because they believed fiscal conservatism had been hijacked by conservative morals. It sought to keep the fiscal conservative platform while removing moral righteousness from it (Republicans: if you want tax cuts, you must also be pro-life and anti-gay; Tea Party: if you want tax cuts, good!) Somewhere, the Tea Party evolved into reactionary politics that is unapologetically Christian, notoriously unwilling to negotiate, and so anti-Washington that it's a mystery they want to get elected to serve there in the first place.

As a nation, we are at a delicate crossroads. We have a huge debt, but economics insists we not scale back government spending during a recession. We want to bring our troops home, but also want to ensure we don't leave a job half-finished. We must reduce our tax burden, but a generation of baby boomers have been promised social security and health care. These are problems without right or wrong answers. Remedies for them will not come by entrenching ourselves in our own viewpoints, but by rational thinking, compromise, and intelligent dialogue in Congress. Liberal or conservative, we must elect people capable of such a task. I have yet to see a Tea Party candidate who fits the bill.

This is not a new problem, though. Alexander Hamilton addresses it in the opening paragraph of the Federalist Papers:

... it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Fred goes swimming

I know each generation of Americans thinks the generation behind them is going to ruin the world. The Greatest Generation thought Baby Boomers were a bunch of sissies. Baby boomers thought Gen Xers were a bunch of thugs.

My generation has Generation Fred to worry about. Fred, for the uninitiated, is consistently rated by respectable publications as the future of comedy. The video above has over 45 million views (Two and a Half Men has 15 million). Fred is getting his own show on Nickelodeon.

But to my generation, watching the plotless, hyper-paced show is like getting punched in the nuts by Justin Bieber. It's insulting, confusing, and shows an ascendant changing of the guard. In short, we're getting old.

Britney is out. Bieber is in. "How I Met Your Mother" is old. Fred is new.

One of the biggest shocks about Fred is how fast paced it is. In the 1950s the average camera shot lasted about 15 seconds. In the early 2000s, camera angles would change on average every 2 seconds in a show. With Fred it's a microsecond.

We're getting faster at processing information. We get bored more easily. But our ability to process that information, to prioritize it, make sense of it, to critically think about that information, is lagging. If it's accepted that the easy access of the Internet is making us dumber, then a nation of Fred's raised on it are likely to be dumber, too, yes?

But perhaps we've finally found a machine to do the thinking for us. My generation can't work a rotary phone quite like the generation before us. Most of my peers can't drive a manual shift car. We build machines to do tasks for us. Maybe we've finally built a machine to take over thinking, too.

If art precedes science, then maybe Fred is an indicator of things to come. His cartoon-like antics are fast-paced, loosely associated, and tend to have no moral so far as I can tell, much like the Internet itself: instantaneous, organized by often disparate keywords, and morally removed.

So is the next generation doomed? Ask Fred.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Radioactive Fires

As if it's not enough that the horrible combination of thick smoke, raging peat fires, and an unbearable heat wave weren't enough, Russians now have to worry about radioactive fires.

Yes, radioactive fires.

It was revealed yesterday that about 20 fires happen to be raging in forests that are contaminated with the nuclear fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. As the fires rage, the nuclear particles on the ground are literally going up in smoke, and then wafting over populated areas of Russia and Ukraine. How shitty.

In an even more peculiar twist, when a report meant to assuage fears was released from Russia's Chief Medical Officer saying "everything's okay," even more people panicked, saying that's just what the government said when Chernobyl happened in the first place.

Fortunately, Vladimir Putin has everything under control. Yesterday he co-piloted a Be-20 amphibious fire fighting aircraft as it dumped water over the fires. By a Fourth Corner tally, that means Putin has piloted a Harley, a nuclear submarine, a Su-25 fighter plane and co-piloting a Tu-160 supersonic bomber.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Here comes the sun, really

Watch the skies tonight, especially if you're in the northern states or Canada, because we're about to get zapped by a gigantic solar flare. Will it make us all sterile? Crash planes? Kill the grid? Spirit Sarah Palin back to her home planet? No, no, no, and no, but it will make the sky a really pretty green.

Apocalypiticos are prepared to say this is the first folly from the sun as it gets ready to explode (or something) around 2012. Why? Because the Mayans SAID that's when the world would end. And wouldn't you trust a group of people who sacrificed each other by the tens of thousands and who could allegedly predict the end of times, but not the arrival of Europeans?

Sign of the apocalypse: this beer

What costs $765, is 55% alcohol, and is served in a squirrel carcass? This fucking beer. It's called "The End of History."

The End of History from BrewDog on Vimeo.

PS: Another sign of the apocalypse? Our Afghanistan correspondent is on his way home after winning the war in Afghanistan. Expect news of his victory to come out around July 2011-ish.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Jesus killed by Act of God

In what can only be a Sign of the Apocalypse, a six-story tall statue of Jesus "Touchdown" Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground in Ohio last night.

God was not responding to requests for comment on the issue by the time this went to press, but experts are speculating that god may indeed have a sense of humor.

In another, unrelated sign of the apocalypse, a capsule carrying the first ever payload of asteroid dust has returned to earth after a trip that took seven years and was 4 billion miles long. It is the first collection of asteroid dust in human history, and likely contains the deadly Z virus, which will turn us all into space zombies.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Cyborgs

The world has not been on the collective brink of disaster since at least March, but lately it's the old reliable hotbeds of apocalyptica that have been plaguing the newswires: Israel shooting Arabs in International waters against the world's better judgment, North Korea promising it will turn all of Asia to glass with it's nukes, and yes, Big Oil.

Thankfully, there is something else entirely that you should be worried about. Israel has been mucking around since the Old Testament. Korea is K-razy, but Kim Jong Il has teetered on the brink of lunacy for decades, and besides, China probably doesn't want it's neighbor going nuclear. As for Big Oil's "Spill Baby Spill," maybe, just maybe, this will inspire Republicans to consider that clean energy is a better option and we'll get some consensus on the Hill (because the gulf oil spill isn't the only water getting fetid from fossil fuels.)

So what should you be worried about? Cyborgs.

Liberal, left-thinking communist scientists have made another scientific advancement that is no doubt contrary to God's great plan for us: they've merged biology and electronics. The University of California scientists have created a nano-sized transistor that runs off of cell power, as in biological you-and-me cell power. They say the advanced marriage of biology and electronics will help us understand cancer and proteins, but we all know their real intent is to create a cyborg super-soldier race of half-man, half-machines that will take hostage all patriotic, gun-loving Americans and make them smoke pot and play in drum circles. Just like TNT and the machine gun were invented to save lives, this innocent looking bioelectric-transmitter will be used to advance their hippie agenda.

Stock up on your ammo America. It's won't be a nuclear holocaust a la Korea, and it won't be Bibilical like a Second Jerusalem, it's going to be John Connor taking on evil man-like machines.

Sign of the Apocalypse: China's World Expo,

While the United States grapples with its wars in obscure parts of the world, tries to dry up a really big oil slick, and prevent yahoos from blowing up Times Square (apparently because South Park wants to show a manifestation of the prophet Mohammed--go for it!), China is throwing one helluva party.

If you thought the Beijing's $100 million dollar Olympic opening ceremony was big, consider that China poured $41 billion dollars into its recently opened Shanghai World Expo. As a further testament of the Red's rise in world predominance, China invited all countries of the world to participate, and indicated that a refusal would be viewed as a slap in the face. China would subsidize pavilions for countries who could not afford one. Countries who sent heads of states to the opening events would also get their just desserts: for instance, the leader of Kenya appeared and lo, China pledged $50 million dollars to build schools in Kenya that same week.

World Expos have long been a sort of bar mitzvah for emerging world powers. England kicked off Expos back in the 1850s and since then they became grander and grander affairs. The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco was the result of an Expo there. Same with Seattle's iconic Space Needle, and Chicago's waterfront pier. Then, like most awesome things, the 1970s killed the Expo. Attendance dropped and the 1984 World Expo in Louisiana went bankrupt half way through its run. By the 1990s, Cold War over and without a need to show off how awesome it was, the US Congress severely restricted how much money the State Department could spend on Expo pavilions, leaving no superpower to carry the Expo torch.

Then China happened. With money and a desire to prove itself a key player in the world, China has wowed the world once again with its eminent displays of awesome. It's clear glad handing and glitz, but one can't deny the affect it's having on us all, especially when the old US of A can barely put a pavilion together. The privately-funded $61 million pavilion is largely considered a failure in regards to entertainment--and in regards to financing--was designed by a Canadian, and looks like a slightly modified Costco.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Health Care Reform Passes

At the stroke of midnight last night, President Obama revealed himself as Dark Sith of the Underworld and proceeded to eat all innocents and virgins passing by the White House. Republicans on the Hill were quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "we TOLD you not to pass health care reform."

Investigative reporting by Fox News later revealed a Sanskrit enchantment on page 789 of the health care bill would unleash the dark underlord from his mortal coil if all Americans were covered by health care.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fielded a litany of questions about the rise of His Unholy Greatness at the White House this morning. "Passage of this bill is a great moment in American history, and a great moment for our new unbounded leader. Hail OBAMA!"

The enchantment to unleash Obama from his mortal coils was written into the bill as a last minute rider. Says John McCain (R-Az), "we knew it was in there. We kept saying, 'this will be the downfall of America. It's too much, it's too much. I hope you're all happy."

On the talk show, the O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly also placed blame on liberals for the imminent rise of the great Beast. "I told you he wasn't from Hawaii, didn't I?"

In fact, documents obtained by the New York Times reveal that President Obama wasn't born in Hawaii but in the acid belly of the many-headed dog Cerebus. In a rare impromptu speech with no teleprompters, Barack Obama stated, "Balchekwalluomegadon!!", leaving pundits to speculate on its exact meaning.

The fallout from the bill is still being calculated, however, much of the capital has fallen into chaos as the lost souls of the damned rose up and began walking the streets. It is unclear if the new health care bill will cover their costs.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Top 10 signs the world will end this year

A short list:

1. Snow fell in every single state except Hawaii in the month of February, breaking 1180 snow records across the country. (*)

2. Men rise from the dead. (*)

3. Ascendant Iran gets nuclear. (*)

4. Ascendant Republican party gets crazier. (*)

5. These 5,200 people.

6. Whales revolt. (*)

7. Haiti experiences one of the most devastating earthquakes in history. (*)

8. Pandas start eating meat. (*)

9. One of the largest earthquakes in history strikes Chile. (*)

10. Holy Cows. Really. (*)


And finally, the rise of cats!!!

Sports White People Watch

I picked up the paper this morning to find Tiger Wood's mug on the front page with the headline "We're All Ears." Apparently, el Tigre is going to apologize to the world for sleeping around on his wife.

To Tiger I say this: don't.

First, I could give a shit who you slept with. The rest of the world should also give a shit who you slept with. Indeed, the only people that should care is you and your wife, and the litany of other chicks you banged out with. America, pay attention to something else. Like Afghanistan. Or the fact that people now think it's cool to fly planes into buildings. Or Haiti. Remember Haiti?

Or if you're inclined to keep your TV tuned to sports, why not try the winter Olympics? If you're upset with the moral corruptibility of the game of golf, try curling, or speed skating, or ice dancing. With a one-two combination of Canada and sports that almost are exclusively watched and played by well to-do white people, the Winter Olympics is the lactose-free milk of sports: it won't upset anyone.

Prior to the Tiger Woods scandal, I suppose most people would have said that about golf, but golf with it's balls and sticks and tropical, sweaty climate (invented by guys in kilts) was begging for some sex scandal. Winter sports lacks the most basic of human interaction as most sports there are solo events played by people bundled up in layers of clothes. Plus golf is boring.

More importantly, why does America need a great golfer to be a moral beacon? Would this coverage be so grandiose if Tiger was a linebacker or basketball player or ultimate fighter or the best at some less "civilized" (read: pretentious) sport? I'd say it's a plus, sure, and Tiger really had us all going with how overwhelmingly boring he was, but so long as his infidelities don't happen on the green during the Pro Tournament (is that a golf thing?), who cares? I certainly don't. If we're looking to golf for our moral guidance, we're pretty fucked as it is.

But apparently that's where America IS looking, because here it is, on the front page. Not Afghanistan where it looks like Americans are winning for once (and getting the cooperation of Pakistan). Not the winter Olympics where world records are being smashed on a daily basis. Not on Haiti where 1 in 32 died last month and now flooding is coming. Not on the coup in Niger (okay, it's Africa, I may be asking too much). Not on the fact that the IAEA just said Iran really is going for nukes. Not on the friggin' nutwhack in Austin. Not on the economy which, FYI, is still in the pot. Not the fact (looking at you here Washington Post) that half of the stimulus dollars allocated to Washington, DC, went straight to a private company, Clark Construction, who cleared over 4.7 billion dollars in revenue during the worst year of the recession, 2008. I mean, really, Tiger Woods takes top billing? The media--"fourth branch of the government," "voice of the people"--has declared Tiger Woods as THE most important story of the day? Fuck.

So don't apologize Tiger. Not to the AP or to any camera. We really shouldn't care. Help us not care.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Raining Lizards

While the mid-west is registering windchills of -52 degrees this week, another sunnier clime is also suffering.

Not even Florida--the southernmost state in the contiguous US--has escaped the freeze, and neither has its wildlife. While oranges are freezing on the trees, there is another less-likely victim of the 30 degree temperatures: iguanas.

The cold-blooded creatures are getting so cold that they're literally falling out of the trees. The reptiles become immobilized and lose their grip when the temperatures dip below 40, according to the Washington Post. With temperatures expected to dip into the 20s in Florida this week, it could be raining iguanas.

Animal-lovers fear not though. The sub-freezing temperatures don't kill the lizards. Instead it just puts them in suspended animation. When warmer climes return to the Sunshine State, the lizards wake up and go back to what they were doing when they were frozen. On these cold winter that's something we'd all like to do.

Raining reptiles and amphibians was previously witnessed in Japan and listed on the Fourth Corner as a sign of the apocalypse. That's twice in less than a year. Prepare for rapture.

But before you head to church to absolve all those new year's sins, why not witness this sign of the apocalypse yourself? The nations' cold snap is predicted to end in a week, so book your plane tickets now, watch out for grumpy lizards, and follow us on another Year of Weekends.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Your GPS is trying to kill you

The staff at the Fourth Corner has long believed that one day our GPS devices will revolt against us. In their sweet British accent they will carefully direct us to an abandoned parking lot where their cohorts will blackjack us and take our car. It was something we cautiously joked about out of hearing distance from TomTom.

Until it actually happened.

This past week a Nevada couple was traversing the high-desert mountains of eastern Oregon in their SUV when their GPS system led them down an unmaintained forest service road. Their car became stuck in the deep snow, and the couple disappeared off the face of the map.

Three days later in the sub-freezing temperatures the weather cleared up enough that one of their phones caught a signal and the emergency 911 tracking device kicked in, rescuing the couple.

GPS'd if you do, GPS'd if you don't. (more on the story at MSNBC)

This is only the first in what is sure to be a series of GPS units trying to kill their owners. The author and his wife on a recent trip to West Virginia nearly suffered the same fate. Factory-installed GPS users are cautioned that their car may simply take over driving and send them off a cliff. Users of Garmin are advised to also carry a map. Users of TomToms are advised to throw it out the window.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Signs of the Apocalypse

It could just be the holiday season, but we here at the Fourth Corner feel inclined to do a multiple "Signs of the Apocalypse" in less than a week: first one involving cannibals, then one on GM's Canadianess (though not labeled as a 'Sign', anything with Canada is potentially apocalyptic), and then there was the CBS host advising you on what to do with your 'special woman's' special place, a sign of Doomsday if ever there was one.

On top of cannibalism, Canada, cars and that weird guy talking about hoo-hahs, we can now add TOTAL GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS OF DOOM! Really. Well, at least according to the Washington Post. Dubai World, once the desert beacon of excess and stupid spending--and the idea to combine Las Vegas indulgence with Muslim restraint is, by definition, stupid--is now defaulting on $30 Billion dollars in loans. Other places that have done that: Russia and South Korea.

So, why Dubai? Who cares? Here's the trick: our global economy is a house of cards, and if we start to become more isolationist--which this PEW poll just said we were becoming--then that house of cards will tumble into a horrible pit of despair. It's not that we should care about Dubai itself, but it's an indicator.

Economies best function like assembly lines, where each country or region has their own job to do to help build a good economy. China exports. The West finances. South America mines. But as soon as one person on that assembly line goes off the grid and moves to Northern Idaho with an arsenal of guns and starts charging tolls for anyone who wants the right to pass through his mountain road peacefully, things really go to shit.

Worse yet, during that last economic meltdown, we only ingrained ourselves further into the wacky world of globalism. China increased its exports instead of focusing on developing a consumer base in its own country. American indebted itself further to help finance its own, well, finances.

To balance out the charts, we'll need inflation because it's a lot easier to pay down our debts by printing a bunch of money than by actually repaying our debts. Trouble is, the world is sort of dependent on the American dollar to gauge how much their currencies are worth. Again, house of cards.

So what's the way out? Well, there are all sorts of metaphors for that: culling the herd, , shedding some pounds, restructuring, efficiency overhauls, summer shutdown, tightening the belt, etc. Maybe we all resort to cannibalism for a bit, or move to Canada to wait it out, or outsource our medical care to the cast of Grey's Anatomy, but this much is true: we'll survive. Unless we don't.

Sign of the Apocalypse: People Have Too Much Money

There were a lot of working titles for this article--Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow; etc--but ultimately this one will have to get filed as a sign of the apocalypse:  a lock of Elvis Presley's hair has sold at auction for $18,300. 

It's not that the Fourth Corner doesn't love some of that old time rock and roll, it's that someone, anyone, really, was willing to spend that much on any lock of hair.  Could be Jesus', but it's still a lock of hair.  Other items also sold at the auction:

Cotton shirt: $68,400
Ultrasuede shirt: $34,000

Bidding for both of these items started at $2,000, a high, but reasonable price considering they were likely worn by the King and still have some of his sweaty, sweaty goodness in their fabric.  That the bids went so high means there are at least two people on the planet willing to pay five figures for a t-shirt. 

Out of consideration for the cliche, I won't mention the starving children in Africa.  Other considerations about the impending apocalypse: the lock of hair was verified as Elvis' by "an expert in celebrity hair authentication", which is apparently an actual profession.

Sign of the Apocalypse: Immortality

Yes, the war in Afghanistan rages on.  Yes, the Empire State Building, symbol of American capitalism was bathed in communist China's colors.  Yes, Sarah Palin does exist.

This isn't what you should be afraid of. 

You should be afraid of Brian Schweitzer, a Montana man who just celebrated his 113th birthday.  He was born in 1896.  And on his birthday, the Scottish Rite Temple of Dan-Brown's-new-Masonic-book fame gifted him $10,000. I smell conspiracy.  I smell apocalypse.  I smell old people.

Then there are the vampires.  Pre-teen vampires.  Oddly effeminate vampires, which Esquire columnists attributes to the assimilation of homosexuality into our culture (pretty convincing read).  And vampires who are marrying, in preparation to outbreed us.

And don't get me started on zombies, the other end of the immortal spectrum. 

We're living longer.  And we like it.  But if we want to insure people and we want to do it affordably, then aren't more people going to have to ante up and hit the snooze button at some point? 

Not to mention the overpopulating and the subsequent food crunch.  I mean, we talk about how horrible big macs are, but in caloric bang for the buck, that's where we're going if we plan on never dying while still feeding the rest of the world.

And if we continue on with our antibiotic injected beef burgers, then won't that usher in the next swine flu?  And isn't swine flu just a gateway disease to reanimated corpses?  And if we're all going to turn into zombies, then what flesh will the vampires feed on?

And who will buy Dan Brown books?  Or run against Sarah Palin?  Because the only thing more terrifying that Palin, is a zombie version of Palin.  No, actually, a zombie-vampire-Palin hybrid.  Way scarier. 

Now that's a sign of the apocalypse.

Signs of the Apocalpyse: 09/09/09

Today's nice rhythmic date is a marketers dream.

The Beatles are having all their songs released digitally, including the song "Revolution Number 9."

Tim Burton is releasing his new film, "Nine", that has nine heroes in it.

Nine is an auspicious number.

In Japan, it's associated with death.

In China, it's associated with a long life.

It's also a mathematical anomaly: multiply nine times any number, and the resulting numbers will add to nine (9x3 = 27, 2+7 = 9 9x9 = 81, 8+1 = 9, 9x62=558, 5+5+8=18, 1+8 =9).

Sign of the Apocalypse - Sarah Palin

Our new President has been in office for just over six months now, which means the 2012 election campaign is heating up.

With unpaid stimulus bills and rising unemployment, the kinks in President Obama's armor are starting to show. On the first day he created the heavens and earth, and on the second he increased fuel efficiency regulation in cars, and on the third he closed Guantanamo, but still, not enough to hit messiah just yet.

Thankfully, when the going gets tough, the tough quit their government civil-service job and rely on that multi-million dollar book deal they received when they ran in the last election to get them by.

We all know Sarah Palin because she is a smart woman. Maybe not book smart. Maybe not politically smart. The sort of smart she is is the dangerous kind. America smart. Hollywood smart, even.

From the first moment McCain introduced Wasilla Main Street's golden child and revitalized a failing campaign, all the way to "drill baby, drill", what her speeches lack in context she more than made up for with pizazz. She knows sound bytes. She knows intrigue. She knows that she can garner the sympathy of the world by pulling the concerned mother card when the media questions her morals vs her daughter's teen pregnancy. Hate her or no, admit it: she's good.

Tragically, Palin's 2012 Presidential bid will require America to actually pay attention to context, something of which we're increasingly incapable. While the drawdown in Iraq continues, and the war in Afghanistan ramps up, it's not Obama's foreign policies that we're concerned about, it's how well he slaps a fly. One need only to look at YouTube to prove this: Obama's policy-defining speeches on Iraq and Afghanistan combined have only received 1/4 as many views as him slapping a fly.

Obama is not absolved of this, either. His three-word campaign mantra had less context than Palin's (drill baby, drill!), and his speeches, while well-crafted, occassionally sacrifice detail for rhetoric (except his exceptional Flag Day Proclamation).

The question then is can America's attention span handle context. Can we remember all the way back to December when Palin stumbled over basic interview questions (similar to George W. Bush's 2000 bid)? Can we force ourselves to click to the Washington Post, LA Times or New York Times, instead of CNN.com's "Squirrel Hidden in Woman's Cleavage"?

So can we, or is this all just another sign of the apocalypse?

Raining Frogs in Japan: Sign of the Apocalypse

From the book of Exodus to Magnolia, amphibians falling from the sky is part of our collective heritage, and also a sign that the world is coming to an end. Recently, its been raining frogs in Japan. Same with tadpoles and fish.

The theory is not that someone ate pork on the sabbath or let their "cattle gender with a diverse kind" (Leviticus 19:19). The popular theory involves tornadoes. But the trouble is there have been no tornadoes. "Waterspouts" is another theory explained in the Washington Post, but no one can really explain how waterspouts get tadpoles into the air. Another theory is that birds are dropping the fish, tadpoles and frogs as they fly over, implying something is very wrong with Japan's birds.

Perhaps the birds gendered with a diverse kind. Perhaps.

Other signs of the apocalypse: Ed McMahon dead at 86, LOLcatz.

Hindu God Lord Shiva Threatened by Global Warming

While Americans divine representations of the Virgin Mary from salt stains on underpasses (see author photo), Hindus find incarnations of their gods in remote caves icicles located in the Himalayan mountains at 12,000 feet in the nuclear battleground between India and Pakistan.

Over the past two weeks, some 50,000 Hindus have made the tumultuous trek to the disputed Jammu/Kashmir region to visit the Amarnath cave where an icicle in the shape of Lord Shiva exists.

Shiva, who is coincidentally the Hindu god of transformation and/or destruction, is at risk of being destroyed and/or transformed into water, at least in his icicle manifestation. Helicopter sorties who fly the less-hardcore, more wealthy pilgrims up to the Amarnath cave are causing the Hindu god to melt prematurely.

While the sorties have since been reduced in number, the fate of the Hindu god remains to be seen. In 2007, the Shiva stalagmite melted before some 50,000 pilgrims could pay homage. According to a senior official of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB), the group that manages the cave's affairs, then it was the sheer presence of people in the cave that caused the premature melting noting that each person generates the heat of a 100 watt light bulb.

A two decade study concluded that a nearby helipad, increased pollution and the effects of global warming were adversly affecting the god of destruction. Members of the SASB will continue to monitor the situation.