Gotcha!

Sarah Palin was pranked by two Canadian radio jocks pretending to be President Sarkozy of France. Snowbacks aren't too smart, but then religious fanatics are seriously gullible. After all they believe in God.

For a transcript of their cold call, please go to this URL.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081101/entertainment/palin_transcript

You betcha.

WORK

My first job was at a small family-styled restaurant in my hometown. It was across the street from my neighborhood. I was a short-order cook. On my second day the manager gave lessons on how to cut tomatoes with the meat slicer.

"Why don't we use a knife?" I thought that his technique looked dangerous.

"I'm your boss." He was 25. I was 14. He expected obedience from his employees. "You do what I say."

"Okay." I did it the way he wanted and a day later during the dinner rush, I accidentally stuck my index finger into the circular slicer. There was a lot of blood, but little pain. My boss tried to staunch the blood with a towel. It turned red real fast. My mother came to the restaurant and drove me to the hospital. The doctor in the emergency room numbed the finger with a shot and closed the wound with 8 stitches. My finger was wrapped with a big bandage, so I couldn't work in the restaurant. I still got back thanks to workman's compensation and received $1000 for the injury from my employers.

It was the summer of 1967. I went to the beach every day and swam with the bandage in the sea. My finger recovered within a week. I stayed out of the restaurant for a month. My father finally send me back.

"You're no loafer."

he was only partially right. I don't like working. Not for other people, but sometimes I have to earn money, so forty-one years after my first job I've come out of semi-retirement to sell fine jewelry at Stepan Paul at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

No way we need to cut tomatoes with a meat slicer there.

I hate working, but it is nice walking into the Plaza.

My new name is Pierre.

Pierre of the Plaza.

Only the Worst Can Celebrate a Tie

Cambodia and Thailand have been disputing ownership of the Preah Vihar temple for the better part of this year and the stress of this tension has resulted in the Cambodian football team failing to beat the worst team in the FIFA ranks.

It wasn't a loss only a 2-2 tie with East Timor, whose national team had previously been beaten in every game during their six-year existence.

"It was the first game we didn't lose — we're all very proud." East Timor's coach was understandably happy to put their first point in the FIFA. Playing conditions are rudimentary in the impoverished country and skill levels a challenge and the coach recognizes the team has a long way to go. "We have no resources to keep this team together and we barely have grass to play on."

East Timor almost achieved the undreamable goal of winning this game, however a Cambodian player rescued the nation's pride with a late score.

Neither team is contemplating a World Cup in the foreseeable future, but then the same could be said for England.

The Fears

I get calls from my American friends overseas. They ask if Obama is going to win. I tell them that it will be a landslide.

"That's not the way it looks on the News."

"I know." Not really since I never watch the political gum-bumpers on TV. I'd rather misshape my opinions on my own.

"And I have so many friends who will not vote for a black person."

"That's because you're white and somewhere in your mind you know that you don't want to vote for him too. Don't worry. It's only subconscious and you won't go to Hell for thinking that." Anyone voting for McCain will be exiled to purgatory after Obama is elected president. "Trust me. This is going to be a breeze."

My confidence is based on the theory that in normal times most people do not want to change the status quo, however whenever the status quo threatens your way of life, then it is time for a change.

Anything is better than 4 more years of the GOP.

EVEN SOCIALISM

Million Baht Tee-lat

Everyone in New York knows my history. Most recent. Six years in Thailand. To most westerners the word spells out 'sex'. Mostly because they're not getting any and have to fantasize about someplace else where the world is free

Well, not free, because nothing is really free. Certainly not sex. In fact it can be very expensive, as my friend Vladtah, showed me his online sweetheart.

"She's the most popular girl on this website. She spends most of the time with other men in her chatroom."

"How can you tell if it's her?" I am a stranger to online relationships.

"Because you can see her on the webcam."

"Oh."

Vladtah opened her page. The Thai girl was stunning, although not 19 as advertised. I figured her for 27-28. I can't recall the site right, but I'd recognize her on a go-go stage in a second. At least before I drank a couple of beers.

"I can't understand why no one had married her." Vladtah was smitten with this girl. Her name was Pai.

"Maybe she hasn't met the right guy." I knew nothing about this woman yet everything at the same time, since I had seen this scam before. "How much does it cost to call her?"

"$3/minute." To Vladtah it was a bargain. He had several real GFs in New York. Dinner costs $150 at most good restaurants or 50 minutes with Pai.

"Really." It was cheap considering that the deposed governor of New York was paying $1000/hour to hookers. President Clinton was lucky to get it for free. At least from Monica Lewinsky.

"Next time you're out in Bangkok maybe you an look her up for me." Valdtah wanted me to bring her a present. He wouldn't say what it would be.

"Sure." I had a ticket for Dec. 30, 2008. "I'll tell her you love her long time."

"Thanks." Vladtah was actually grateful for this promise and I wondered whether the clock would be ticking if I met Pai in Bangkok. Of course $3 is only 6000 baht per hour, which might be expensive for punters in Pattaya, however cheap in comparison to the price charged to a Kon Yai politician to contact an A-List Thai actress as mentioned in this Sunday's Bangkok Post.

700,000 baht to look at her breasts and millions for anything else.

I won't be bringing her any presents.

Being near-sighted beauty is a little wasted on me, but not wickedness.

For story in bangkok post go to this URL

http://bangkokpost.com/261008_News/26Oct2008_news11.php

79th Anniversary of Wall Street Crash

In 1929 Wall Street crashed dramatically on October 28 and 29 with the Dow Jones dropped 11% and 13% on those two days then sunk to 198.7 on November 13 completing a 50% decline in value. The slide continued throughout the rest of Hoover's presidency, as he relied on the forces of the Free Market to recover the lost gains. Instead the real bottom was reached in 1932 at 414.32 or a nearly 90% wastage of wealth.

Poof.

The millions were gone and in 2008 we have seen a similar decrease in value from 14000 to 8200, as President Bush and his economic staff said the economy was fundamentally sound. Obviously these capitalist shills were hearing an echo from the empty shell as was John McCain, the GOP hopeful. These guys don't get it. America is in trouble and like a beer belly this problem didn't get there in one day and won't go away in one day either.

The Free Market has failed and now the GOP has raised the threat of communism. The same communism beaten back by Ronald Reagan and its messiah is Barack Obama and his plan to spread the wealth rather than rely on the trickle-down theory of Alan Greenspan, who recently admitted to Congress.

"We might have made a mistake."

Opps.

Nothing sets up a panic like the guru telling the king that his robe is not invisible to the people, but that it doesn't exist.

You can't base an economy of service industry or selling potato chips.

Forget the R-word.

And start talking how to avoid the D-word.

Put your faith in beer.

Even the hangover is more valuable than Goldman Sachs and this is going to get a lot more ugly before it's pretty again.

"Ride 'em cowboy."

Is Communism A Word Doomed Forever

Alain Badiou heads the International Center for the Study of Contemporary French Philosophy (CIEPFC) at the Ecole Normale Supèrieure, Paris. For many years a Maoist, he remains a committed political activist. In addition to several novels, plays, and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works, including Being and Event, Theory of the Subject, Manifesto for Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze: The Clamour of Being and Handbook of Inaesthetics. In 2006, Badiou published Logics of Worlds, a sequel fifteen years in the making to Being and Event. The English translation by Alberto Toscano will become available in November. After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new French president, he wrote De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom?, a polemical book that sparked much heated debate in France and elsewhere.

Alain Badiou enacts a return to full-blown philosophy, striking as a thunder into the morass of postmodernist sophisms and platitudes. His work aims at the very heart of politically correct radical intellectuals, undermining the foundations of their mode of life!

— Slavoj Zizek


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