Hillary For Homecoming Queen

You've got to be kidding me. She's the first viable, female candidate for the presidency in the history of the union, and her campaign sign displays only her first name in the lead type, as if she is running for Homecoming queen instead of trying to be elected the leader of the free world. There's even a section called, "Hillary's Story." Maybe her husband should take the cue and change the name of his foundation to the "Bill Foundation," whose Web site now hosts the biography of William J. Clinton.

Yes, I know her last name has some negative connotations for some, or many, many, people. And there could be people who would confuse her with that other Clinton who was recently president. It was a big problem for George W. Bush.

What if she wins? Are we going to call her President Hillary? I wonder what President Bill or President George would think about that. It's an outrage.

Two faces are in fashion

Yup, those are two snouts. I know from experience that piglets are about the cutest organisms around. I also know from experience that mama pigs get real outraged if you try to come near them. This month seems to be the one for animals born with extra, uh, things.

Throw me a bone. Please.

A couple months ago I added an interactive feature to "It's an outrage." in order to create an outlet for all the other outraged people out there. Apparently, I seriously underestimated the amount of wrath floating around in the world because "itsanoutrage@gmail.com" has received, count it, ONE electonic message since its inception. And it went straight through the spam filter into the spam folder:

TARGETED EMAIL LIST - 679704

Development tools:

- Provide e-mail list in accordance with your need.

- Custom list, then mailing your email message for
you.

* We provide also mailing Server.

Berke
Marketing Team
Marktinga@tom.com

This mail is for kansasbob@gmail.com.

Kansasbob is outraged. Where's your outrage, people? It's an outrage.

I pee on toilet seats

Lately, urine has been the topic of some conversations. So for my good friend Beth, and others who will remain nameless, I'd like to express outrage at the people who have an obvious lack of respect for humanity when pee is left on toilet seats. Clearly, all the poems in the world taped to the inside of bathroom stalls aren't working. We need a new approach. Anybody? Anybody?

Well, at least Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up is fighting for the cause.

I'm mostly super pissed I didn't think of these products first. I could be lying on a Bermuda beach and peeing in the ocean. It's an outrage.

Oh, for the love of God

New episodes of Grey's Anatomy are running now, so I have to crib from the show's catch phrase: Seriously? Seriously? From The New York Times:

The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein and two lieutenants in Iraq by its Shiite-led government has helped to accelerate Sunni-Shiite sectarianism across an already fragile Middle East, according to experts across the region ...

The depth of suspicion, and the readiness among Sunni Arabs to blame the United States for everything grim in Iraq, was reflected in interviews conducted in neighboring countries after the hangings.

“The U.S. is 100 percent guilty,” said Turki al-Rasheed, who heads an organization promoting democracy in Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Egypt on a Middle East tour, joined the recriminations. “I would be the first to say that we were disappointed that there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances,” she said, referring to Mr. Hussein’s execution and the two carried out Monday. “I think that passions run high after years of turmoil, under dictatorship, and that is apparently what happened. But it shouldn’t have happened and I think that it did not reflect well on the Iraqi government that it came out that way."

When officials from Mr. Maliki’s office appeared at the Baghdad Convention Center with the video of the hangings, they were at pains to offer a minutely-detailed account of their procedures. Their accounts were about equally apologetic and assertive as they explained how Mr. Ibrahim had come to have his head severed, and how sympathy for the condemned man and his family should be attenuated in the light of the brutalities he had committed when serving the regime of his brother.

Seriously? Seriously? We can't trust Iraqis to quell its own civil war, but we trust them to carry out the executions of high-profile former political figures, which, when muddled, do nothing but sever the U.S.'s position on just about everything, including our apparent hypocritical belief in human rights. Even Saudia Arabians, who won't let women drive cars, are saying so. It's an outrage.

You know what I hate?

I hate visitor centers. So, it might or might not come as a surprise that nothing makes me want to punch the computer more than a little project called the United States Capitol Visitor Center.

A couple days ago, The New York Times printed an update on the still-under-construction, $540-million-and-counting project that remains a hole beneath the Capitol. Despite the hole, the Times has already proclaimed the visitor center a "grand hall" that will allow visitors "to stroll through interactive museum presentations devoted to the history of the building and to Congress," and boast two theaters that will show a 12-minute orientation film. Because, as the millions of people who have visited the Capitol have learned, you have to be orientated to experience the Capitol in all its grandeur. And who would just want to go into the building itself to just see it? We need the grand hall to prepare us to enter this great symbol of democracy.

And, the happy news continues:

“We are not cutting corners,” said Tom Fontana, a spokesman for the project. “All these things have to be just right.”

So, the Capitol Visitor Center is a "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" sort of thing. No matter that U.S. soldiers fighting an urban ground war in Iraq might or might not have proper training or body armor, or that veterans are on months-long waiting lists to see doctors.

The displays in the center will teach people about Congress and democracy, something many Americans don't know a lot about because we don't fund our schools well. And there will be space to exhibit artifacts from the Capitol that have been in hiding, instead of being displayed in museums built very near the Capitol for this purpose. A tunnel from the Capitol to the Library of Congress is being excavated so visitors won't have to walk across the street.

We will spare no expense to build a new entrance to this already-grand building, which came pretty close to being destroyed by a Boeing 757 that didn't plan on going through the metal detectors inside the Capitol's front doors on Sept. 11, 2001. But, because of terrorists who never walked up those front steps, neither can we ever again. How's that for a celebrated symbol of democracy? What an outrage.

P.S. Don't miss the masturbatory Times slide show about the center's construction, which makes it sound like Americans have been standing in line since the beginning of time, braving the elements, just to get inside the Capitol. They have not. In fact, it has only been a handful of years since the Capitol's front steps were cordoned off, and citizens forced to take tours of two or three rooms in the building if they hope to see it at all.

This is not an outrage

But, you have to know about it.

When the perfect becomes the enemy of the good

"Bob James, a professor in the dairy science department at Virginia Tech, says that such births are unusual. James said the abnormality could be caused by a developmental problem or a genetic quirk."

Two-faced cows aren't born everyday? No, it couldn't have been a developmental problem or a genetic quirk. That would be crazy. And it would be even crazier that people are flocking to Rural Retreat to see the freak show. And it would be an outrage.

So let me get this straight

It's four days into 2007, and here's what we have so far:

• President George W. Bush has decided that he can open any mail he wants to, a direct contradiction to a new postal law he just signed.

• We handed a man who was once one of the most wanted men on Earth over to people who apparently did not follow, or did not receive, directions on how to appropriately kill a former dictator. One general admitted we "messed up" the execution. And Bush said, "I wish, obviously, that the proceedings had gone in a more dignified way." He seems to have forgotten that he is the leader of the free world, and if he can open any mail he feels like opening, he can do more than wish for dignity. But, why bother? There's no chance at all that Saddam Hussein's flawed execution could inflame Iraq's sectarian and brutal violence, or cause other tragedies.

• The deceased Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was doped up on sedatives for the better part of a decade. No wonder he always looked so grumpy.

• A congressman not only opposed allowing Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison to take his oath of office on the Quran, he believes Muslims shouldn't hold public office at all. He also thinks this has something to do with immigration laws that allow some Muslims into the country.

We're off to a grand start. It's an outrage.