Man I hate the Olympics. 
And I think the fact that I used to like them makes me hate them even more.  I mean it is still great to watch the dear old USA beat up on other countries and watch them have to stand at attention during “The Star Spangled Banner” in another totalitarian dictatorship but that ain’t good enough anymore.  Women’s beach volleyball almost makes it worthwhile… but even that isn’t enough!  Add on women’s swimming though…..
See it always bugged me that they had to be “amateur” athletes when everyone knows that anything worth doing is worth getting paid for (ahem, ahem, *donate button* excuse my cough).  And it really bugged me when I learned that the only people who ever wanted to support amateur athletics was blue blood types what didn’t want no poor guys who had to work for a living playing against them!  Plus not a one of these guys are really amateurs!  Somebody is taking care of them!
Then, oh this really steams me, the way the International Olympic Committee sues the pants off of anybody who even imagines the Olympic rings or anthem.  Come on you big-hearted, high-minded buraeucrats, you ain’t looking to make that big old pile a dough you’re denying to your athletes are you, ya jerks? 
Also all of this bull about sport transcending the worlds problems and uniting really hacks me off.  How can they say that when you just look at who they give these things to to host!  Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and now Red China!  Wait…. Two totalitarian dictatorships hold the Olympic games and then cease to be within ten years?  Hooray Beijing 2008!!!
And what is with all of these competetions?  Cut it down to two dozen competitions so somebody has a chance of giving a flying rip about what half of the athletes are up to, I say!  And hey maybe make the competitions interesting.  Sports like boxing are reduced to point contests while noble sports like Mixed Martial Arts, Demolition Derbies, Lacrosse, Bull Fighting and Competitive Pole Dancing aren’t even allowed!
Now how is it that the IOC can track down any college charity tournament that puts five rings up on a table but they can’t stop the steroid use that rages in every sport?  Come on.  I heard this year that they are actually doing inspections of the athletes naked to make sure they aren’t doping and are actually the sex they claim to be.  ‘Roids tend to make guy’s bits more ladylike and lady bits into guy’s bits.  That, to make sure about gender, was one of the mythical reasons that the ancient Greeks performed naked.  That and because they wanted to, ughhhh…. eroticise the male body. 
Actually checking them out before hand for weird stuff and tract marks is a good idea.  HEY! Even better! They could make the Modern Olympics like the Ancient Olympics and require everyone to perform naked!
No, I don’t want that just because it might make some people not want their steriod ravaged nether regions exposed to the world.  I also think it would be awesome because some of the chicks are hot and then they’d be naked.  And then they be off the air in America.  And the Olympics would lose a ton of revenue and close up.  And then we’d all win!
Unfortunately, if the Olympics did shut down there would be a power vacuum in the world of international competition.  And, as today’s strip teaches (hey I referenced the strip for once!), power vacuums will be filled, often by much worse organizations.  I’ll bet whoever would wind up replacing them would get rid of boxing and wrestling and hockey for being “bloodsports”.  Probably even make everyone stand on level ground at the awards ceremony.  Man that’d suck.
So I guess it is for the best that the Olympics are around.  At least they aren’t going to get rid of wrestling.  And who knows maybe they’ll take out the ChiComs!  If so, I say Tehran 2012!
–Bob

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1.) Kids, even though I didn’t vote for Obama let me say this: I have had a feeling for a while that regardless of who won the election that within the space of a year we all, as a nation, were doomed to wind up just like Oliver Hardy yelling at Stan Laurel, “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!” 

So to all of you fellow McCain toleraters/supporters lets us all just be happy over the next four years to be the skinny guy stuck in four foot deep water getting yelled at by the fat guy who flooded the basement.  And to all of you Obama supporters may I issue a pre-emptive “Sorry, Ollie.”

2.) Is this a freaking third world banana republic or something?!  I understand that voter fraud has a grand and storied past but come on!  When I know people who are friends with admitted fraudulent voters, when anyone even thinks they can get a voter card for Mickey Mouse, or when you’ve got folks standing watch outside polling places then how can anyone have any faith in the voting process?!  I know that, against the Framers intentions, we limited the size of our Congress to allow easier fraud and the two parties tighter control over the political process and to make our representatives less accountable but this is getting transparently corrupt.

And with this bull about pre-voting and absentee voting you practically are inviting people to vote multiple times!  Lord forbid that somebody vote two weeks early and then the voter change their mind or that candidate drop out (I am looking at you this primary season!) There is a reason that we have an election day!  It so that we have a point in time when everybody is able to hear the whole argument and then finalizes their decision based on the info available to everyone!  Early voting encourages fraud and requires uninformed voting.

So I propose this:

First, We make Election Day a Federally mandated holiday.  Kids out of school and everyone off of work for a full 24 hours.  Anyone who has to work gets triple overtime and a minimum of twelve hours off.  It’s only every two years, and one of those is on a leap year.  And America could use more holidays.  Plus now kids can grow up watching their families participate in civic governance. 

Second, Voting occurs during the whole 24 hour period.  That way even people who ain’t paid attention can still figure it out and we don’t have to see grown reporters making fools of themselves trying to declare a winner at 4PM Eastern!

Third, Everyone gets a blue thumb!  Worked to stop the al Qaeda in Iraqi from cheating, it’ll stop Acorn.  But that means no more Absentee voting, ‘cept for overseas military and state department.

Fourth, We increase the number of representatives back to about one per every 30,000 people.  Make your neighbor the guy the President has to talk to, not some schlemiel trucked in from Florida because he’s “electable” I say.  That also means your cousin might get to be an Elector!  And that means we might put an end to the rubber stamping of candidates by the Electoral College! 

Fifth, Voting takes place at one location per Congressional district.  One giant fair per district where people will all watch each other vote.  Inside the bounds of the grounds voting, outside, campaigning and fun!  There was a reason why early Americans loved politics, and a voting festival with friends, food, grog, and fun was no small part of it.  If we gotta think about politics may as well make it bearable.  Also that means no one can control a polling place by force, ‘cept the coppers.  And that is probably a good thing.  Maybe.

3.)  I never did like Obama.  His whole “Yes We Can!” shtick struck me as being a hackneyed emotional appeal to place a blind faith in him personally that Jesus Himself never asked.  It stank of that ridiculous notion that people are basically good, and that mankind is not doomed to destroy itself, and that government is not damned to become tyrannical unless ruthlessly watched by patriots.  But that’s just my opinion. 

Until two hours ago.   I hadn’t seen the 1979 cult classic “The Warriors” since I was a kid.  But I just watched it again.  And can I say that if Barack Obama had used Cyrus’s unifying chant of “Can You Dig It?!” instead of “Yes We Can” then 95% of Americans would have voted for him.  That is a catch phrase people can get behind!  That is a phrase that is full of both substance and style!  A phrase Americans can rally behind!  CAN YOU DIG IT!

Can you dig it, President-elect Obama?  I am certain you will be running for President for the next four years, so be certain you can, lest in four years we Republicans begin to dig it ourselves.

You Commie.

-Bob

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Isn’t it great being human?  I love it.  Look at us, we should all be so dead from exposure to the elements, being turned into snacks by actual animals, and poisoning what has to be the second most pathetic digestive system in the world.  (Award for most pathetic digestive system going to the Giant Panda, whose ridiculously restrictive diet of pretty much only bamboo shoots is an inspiration to every college guy who has found himself eating frozen pizza four time a day three weeks in a row.) 

But instead of dying everyday, like we as an entire species would if thrown to “Mother Nature’s” “mercies”, we rule this Earth.  All creatures are subject to our iron-fisted rule!  In fact our domination for this world is so complete in most eyes that many people are worried about what we are doing to the world.  We are constantly warned that our carelessness could destroy the entire planet.  If I had a nickel for every time I have been told that a failure to recycle was going to damn this rock to a hellish dystopian future I’d be rich enough to burn the whole rain forest down.  And while that would be oodles of fun to do, I think that there are even more fun ways to show the Earth just who is walk around on top and who is getting walked around on.

We could remind dear old Gaea to mind her place and keep her filthy vermin out of our fair cities would be to domesticate every animal species we could find.  We’ve done it already with dogs, cats, horses, pigs, llamas, cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats, alpacas, camels, and even have kind of domesticated reindeer, elephants, and jackals.  If we really tried we could domesticate most any other animal.  Given enough time and money we could breed them to all kinds of sizes and dispositions, perfect to most any job we humans give the brutes.  How great would it be to finally have a decent helper monkey in every home?  Or to have hunting tigers to fetch deer that have been shot, just like a dog fetches ducks?  How about a trained guard rattle snake that was twelve inches around in diameter?  That’d show any would be burglars.  And think of how delicious some fresh tender Texas raised baboon would taste on the family table.  Mmmm-mm-mmmm!  I can taste it now.

I gotta be honest, half of the reason I love to eat is just to know that somebody put a cow or a pig or a chicken or all three to good use.  Nothing is sadder than seeing a good young beef walking around in perfectly good shape, knowing all of that delicious marbled meat is just going to waste.  Especially because they just get this gleam in their eye that says “Yeah I know I’m supposed to be satisfying your hunger as a delicious rib-eye.  But I’m taking a day off.  What are you gonna do about it?”  I will not tolerate such insolence!  Your job, Mr. Cow, is not to be looking at me!  It is to be feeding me.  That is your job and if you are not doing it you are being wasteful!  And the only thing I hate worse than insolence is insolent wastefulness!

Not only would putting some of these no good lazy animals to work in our homes and on our tables remind all Nature who is in charge but I am certain that eventually some of us (read: women) would even begin to degrade all of our animals by breeding them to be, ugh, “cute.” 

Just look at this horror!  This was once a wolf.  It’s ancestor was a terrifying vicious timber-wolf that brought down musk oxen and then fended off the last saber-tooth tigers to defend its kill in a long lost frozen taiga.  And look at what we have done to it.  If there is a Wolf God out there this… “thing” will never be accepted into the Heavenly Pack.  Tragic.  Even before someone dressed it up.

This poor chap to our left is a direct descendant of the wolf-dog that killed the last Colombian Mammoth.  Crippled for life, that dog gave his all holding onto the Mammoth’s trunk, so that his masters could feast one last time before moving to new hunting grounds.  His descendant, the dog to our left, is currently trying to swallow his own tongue in a vane attempt to end his own cloudy, unthinking, beastly life.  We did this to him.  And it is certain that the unending torture we have inflicted on dogs and cats alike, and even some farm animals, will be extended to all other creatures we shall domesticate.  We will make them tiny, yippy, annoying, and pathetic.  The purebreeds available in any pet store for children to taunt and coo at, but ultimately as disposable to those children as any toy.

And that’ll really show Nature. 

Plus I’d love to have a grizzly bear I can put in my backpack.    

PS As always feel free to comment here or on our brand new Forums!

-Bob

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