Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

Horses are for riding, not eating, according to the majority of representatives in the U.S. House, which voted today to ban the slaughter of horses for food. The story on ABC News says 90,000 animals per year will be spared from becoming meals in places overseas where horse meat is considered a delicacy.

I’ve always wondered why we here in the U.S don’t take advantage of all the different animals available to cook. Thankfully, the oh-so-eloquent representative from Kentucky, Ed Whitfield, was elected by the good people of that state so he could explain things to me:

Horses have never been part of the food chain. Horses are not like cattle.

“Not like cattle,” he says. Really? In what ways are horses not like cattle? And “because we don’t eat them” is not an acceptable answer.

Proponents likened horses to house pets and said horses, which hold an exalted place in American lore as intelligent companions and long-lived workmates, should not risk gruesome death in a slaughterhouse.

We can’t eat smart things, that’s true. Except pigs, which are widely considered to be very intelligent, trainable pets. We can’t eat workmates, though. Except cows, which have a place in history as draft animals on farms. But we can’t eat cute animals! Except lamb. And deer. Hmmm. What is it then? Transportation! That’s what he should have said. We can’t eat animals that we use as transportation. Yeah. I mean, one day there will be no more oil. I don’t want to have to explain to my grandkids that they have to walk everywhere just because some people overseas thought horse was tasty. Yay America, land of sensible moral dilemmas!

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At some point today the top headline on Google News, from Forbes, was this:

Conservative Group Airs Pro-Bush Ad

STOP THE PRESSES!

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Speaking of important news …

SFGate: Paris Hilton arrested for drunk driving

[Officer] Isabella claims Hilton was stopped because she was “driving erratically” in her Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.

She parties, what, every night? And they’re trying to tell me she can’t drive drunk like a pro? I’m not buying it. So I ask you, intelligent reader, what is this really about? But before you answer, read this:

Hilton called in to Ryan Seacrest’s Los Angeles radio show to explain the incident Thursday morning.

She said of her arrest, “You know what, it was nothing. I’d been shooting my music video for my new song ‘Nothing in This World.’

It turns out that her music video actually had nothing to do with the drunk driving. So cheap publicity, then? Get arrested, sell albums? That’s gotta be cheaper than your average traditional PR campaign. By Jeff, I think she has something! It’s was staged! product placement and all:

“I had one margarita, and I was starving ’cause I had not ate all day. I was on my way to In-N-Out, which is probably three blocks away, and I’m in my SLR, which is a little fast, so maybe I was speeding a little bit and I got pulled over.”

When Seacrest asked if she was driving erratically, as was reported in the police filing, she replied, “No, I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger!”

By Trevor Ryan

If you’re anything like me, you were shocked to learn that, yes, it happened: Barry Bonds broke wristband regulations. I guess we all should have seen it coming. It’s a slippery slope from steroid abuse. First you grow breast tissue, your testicles start to shrink, and then you fall into worse and worse habits.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: I hope Barry Bonds has hit what rehab people like to call “rock bottom.” Now, everyone’s rock bottom is at a different point. Mine was when I awoke in a pool of someone else’s vomit (Chet, if you’re reading, gimme a call bro!), but for Barry (can I call you “Barry”?) things got much worse. Before we knew it, he was showing up to practice in wider and wider wrist bands.

Now, even in what I like to call the “juicer circles,” which are of course the people who shoot anabolic steroids into themselves (and each other. Chet? You reading? Remember that one time …) wide wristbands are what many would consider a no-no. But not for Barry. He always has to be a rule breaker. Well, this time, it’s finally cost him. A lot more than that “over the shoulder boulder holder” that now cups his man-boobs in a whopping D, too. It cost him five G’s. That’s five large. That’s $5K, people.

Let this be a lesson to all of us. For the love of frickin’ god, people, know when to say when. If you’ve “previously run afoul of baseball’s uniform regulations” (yup, that’s a quote), then be careful not to do it again. Is this all a cry for help, Barry? If he shows up in a clown suit next game, how will any of us feel?

By Trevor Ryan

There are few things more difficult to come to grips with than the recent debate over whether the tyrannosaurus rex was a cold-blooded killer, or a warm-hearted … eater of carrion. Some say it was the ferocious carnivore we all know and love, but others think it was nothing but a gimpy-armed scavenger.

The T. rex (I can barely call it by its pet name anymore, but in the interest of space, I shall do so) has occupied a special place in the imaginations of young boys, and since I used to be a young boy, this troubles me. I can’t quite decide if this debate feels more like watching your parents get divorced, or maybe (kids, stop reading here!) … learning that the Easter Bunny isn’t real. I guess the best analogy is to someone who’s racist and religious, and learns that Jesus Christ was in all likelihood not blonde-haired and blue-eyed, unless he was albino, (which … I don’t know … does seem sort of son-of-god-ish to me). But you get the point.

I guess what all this boils down to is that these days even facts that are 65-million-years-old are not to be trusted. That which we hold not only as sacred, but as really cool, can be called into question any time, and I for one am sick of it. I used to despise the old practice held by the church of beheading those who called into question divine knowledge of the universe and its workings. At a certain point though, I can begin to relate.

I first heard of this new debate about the T. rex while driving home from work. Some guy on the radio was talking about it. My gut reaction? “You can f&%$ with a lot of things, but leave the T. rex alone. It’s not even alive anymore to defend itself … or to scavenge … whichever it would prefer. So why not let sleeping dinosaurs lie? If we keep throwing old truths into question, we risk the extinction of something of far more value. We risk the death of curiosity. Without curious youngsters becoming interested in science, we may never meet our full potential. I mean, of course, cloning dinosaurs and riding them into battle.

So how do we strike a balance between science that’s used for good (cloning dinosaurs) and science that’s used for evil (bashing our kick-ass modern myths)? For starters, I would like to suggest two approaches. One, we devote more funding to researching the more deadly dinosaurs that were recently popularized, such as the velociraptor. With time, this will pave over the more (potentially, for nothing is certain) disappointing thunder lizards. Two, I would like to suggest that from now on we take the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. This would mean not investigating the deadliness of cool, Jurassic creatures, nor questioning the healthfulness of red meat.

With these provisions in place, I think science can once again become what it was originally intended to be: a means by which kids can confirm what we already suspect. Thank you.

From the people that brought us the U-2 comes a fancy-shmancy, all-new and way creepy new plane! This new plane is called the “Cormorant.” “Why?” you ask. Good question.

The answer to your good question is that this sucker will be launched from the missile tubes of submarines, float to the surface of the water, and then take off like some beautiful, yet callously murderous bird of prey. Or like some … curious … bird of watching stuff happen. See, it can also be a spy plane! This ability to launch from underwater is why it’s called the Cormorant in the first place. It is named (for you non-birders) for the aquatic bird of the same name. That’s about where the analogy ends.

The actual bird is not outfitted with Al Qaeda-hating missiles, which is why Lockheed had to make a fake one. Also, they can’t be flown by remote control, like the existing predator drone. They are really only good for fishing, and nets work better anyway. Long story short, while considerably more expensive than even the finest hand-raised cormorant (bird), the Cormorant (plane) is arguably more strategically useful.

On the other hand, the actual bird sends out more of a message of peace, and this might be the way we should be leaning anyway. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you lend a man your cormorant, he could eat for, like, a week or something. It depends on how long it was leant for.

Maybe the Bush Administration is being a little too hasty when pursuing these wicked-awesome, but potentially deadly replacements for the (granted even more deadly) Trident missiles of the Cold War. But what if, just what if, we could make a dove-shaped plane that launches from those same missile tubes, and instead of dropping bombs, they drop … fish. Wouldn’t we all be a little better off? Wouldn’t we be the proverbial “bigger man”? Plus, we would kill off our enemies with the much more insidious mercury poisoning, over the course of several generations. Now that’s “a new kind of war.”

By Trevor Ryan

Ok, so over a week has gone by since Dick Cheney shot that Judge friend of his. Wow! It’s even been more than a week since he told the public about it, too! Time really flies when you have birdshot next to your heart like I do. Well, as I imagine I do, because I think, deep down, that a part of all of us died last weekend. Did I say “died?” No, I mean got shot in the face and chest with birdshot and had it migrate (does anyone else think it’s funny that birdshot migrates, too?!) to that cozy place next to our hearts. But the thing is, I for one would like to see this sort of thing happen more often, since all parties handled it so well.

Judge what’s-his-face was a good sport about it, even apologizing to Cheney! What a sport! I love it. But now I’m crashing off that high that is the hilarious news of our second-in-command almost killing a Texas judge, and I want more. I just wish Cheney would shoot someone else. I don’t want it to be fatal or anything morbid like that. I just want some consistent amusement from my Vice President.

It will be sort of like when Quayle (not even gonna make a bird joke here) was in office, and we could always rely on something stupid coming out of his mouth. Well, Mr. Vice President, let me bounce this off ya: “An Afternoon With Cheney.” It’s an hour-long interview show where YOU, Dick Cheney, interview another member of the domestic or foreign power elite, discussing the inner workings of government and business, and how your guest fits into it all, and the tag ending is that you shoot them in the face with birdshot! Don’t answer now. Just sleep on it, chew on it, shoot it with your 12-guage. Do what you need to do. But give me a call. We’ll sit down, have lunch, and you can shoot me in the face. OH! Be thinking of catch phrases, like “It was a blast talking with you this hour. I’m your host, Dick Cheney” That’s still rough of course, but I want YOU to come up with whatever YOU feel is the most “Cheney.” Ok, great. Cool.

Ciao,
Trevor