This is a video of a lecture by Howard J. Hall, a professor in the business school of Florida University. Oh, excuse me, former professor, because as you’ll see in that video the good prof was apparently smoking the reefer before classes.

I’m not sure if the guy is actually stoned or not, but it’s a damn loopy lecture, and supposedly he was dismissed this week. It’s really funny at the 28 and 33 minute marks. Here’s a YouTube link to some of the highlights, but watching the whole video is well worth your time.

God, I hope one of my freak-out sessions in front of my students never becomes the subject of a viral internet video.

If you see something, just know that they were taunting me…just sayin’.

• Ellie’s Christmas Present
  Don’t tell her…she’s gonna love it.
• Borat Comes to Washington - via washingtonpost.com
  Dear God, this movie is getting the best press ever. Now he’s getting Uzbekistan into it. I hope Sacha Baron Cohen doesn’t start WWIII with this movie.

Celebrity news doesn’t really interest me, unless of course it’s bad celebrity news. Then I’m all over it.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as bad news or not, but Dustin Diamond, he who played “Screech” on the insufferably saccharine “Saved By The Bell,” is starring in a soon-to-be released porno.

Yeah. Let that sink in for a second.

On a list of people from “Saved by the Bell” that I’d like to see in a porno, Screech rates right underneath Mr. Belding. I remember right before “Showgirls” premiered in theaters everyone was all a twitter because Elizabeth “Jessie” Berkley was not only naked in it, but stripper-naked. And by that I mean not just appearing in a few fleeting scenes sans clothing, but shaking her nudity all over the screen as often as possible. I think we all remember what a let-down that was, don’t we? The novelty of nudity wears off pretty damn fast, and at least Berkeley had the advantage of beauty on her side. That made the excitement of watching her “adult” movie last for, oh, I don’t know, three maybe four minutes?

Unfortunately, Mr. Diamond does not possess that advantage.

Rumor has it that Mr. Diamond, who by the way, already has an awesome porn-name, performs the dreaded and much maligned “Dirty Sanchez” on one of the unlucky women in the video. And yes, Screech has two women in the video, which clearly illustrates that fame is a more potent aphrodisiac than Spanish Fly.

I can sense some of you wondering, “But Mark, we don’t know what a ‘Dirty Sanchez’ is. Will you explain it to us?”

No. I most certainly will not. There are certain lines even I do not feel comfortable crossing, and that’s one of them. I will, however, link to the Urban Dictionary definition of “Dirty Sanchez,” but click that link at your discretion. Don’t worry, it’s a normal dictionary entry and there aren’t any dirty pictures or anything. The words alone are enough.

You will never look at Screech the same way. You’ve been warned.

• ¡Viva Border Volleyball!
  What better way to make a political statement than to crack open a few Tecates and play a little game of v-ball?
• Austin is so weird
  A group of zombies decided to protest city hall in Austin. Of course, the pirates had to go protest the zombies. When did everyone get so damn PC? Well, at least the ninjas didn’t show up…or did they?

Bullshit vs lying—is there a difference?

According to Wikipedia, “Philosopher Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The bullshitter, on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress.”

I’m sure we all can think of examples of both bullshitters and liars. When I was a kid my best friend was an accomplished bullshitter. Man, he could come up with some impressive lines of bullshit, and it didn’t even seem to bother him that no one believed a word he said. One fall he tried to convince our classmates that he had broken his back during the summer while bullriding, and it had miraculously healed in time for the first day of school.

I always secretly admired his imaginative fearlessness, but no matter how much I tried to emulate it I was never as successful as my friend. The thing is, he never tried to bullshit anyone about anything very important. He tried to tell people that the FBI was tailing him, that he had once killed a bear with a large bowie knife, and that he had conjured ghosts with an Ouija board. But he was completely trustworthy, selfless, and his shoulder was the one I looked for when times got tough.

I also knew a guy who lied all the time. Everything he told you was a ruse meant to conceal some bit of nefariousness on his part. That bastard would steal the shoes off your feet if you stood still for too long. If he was being nice to you it probably meant that he had done something to you, or was setting you up for something. But because he was consciously trying to conceal truth, his lies were subtle and believable, and you had to be very careful of everything that guy told you.

The sad part of this whole thing was that all the adults hated the bullshitter. He had a bad reputation, and anytime something bad happened he was one of the usual suspects. On the other hand, the liar was pretty slick and he was usually pretty successful at avoiding any kind of real trouble with adults or authority figures.

After think about it, the bullshitters in our society seem to find their way into Hollywood, while the liars find a use for their talents in politics. When people say that we need to get rid of all the bullshit in Washington, just remember that the bullshitter can be your friend, but it’s those conscious liars that you have to watch out for.

• Man wins javelin throw by a foot.
  Literally–He actually hit a judge in the foot. Warning-depending on your level of perversity the picture is incredibly disturbing or side-splitting hilarious.
• Flying Spaghetti Monster SPOTTED- via YTMND
• Why the US Office is just as brilliant as the UK version
  This was the most politically incorrect show I think I”ve ever seen. This was also in that episode.
• Guys offers reporter a dollar- via YouTube
  Well, he kinda does more than offer…

I’m sure you’ve seen the Chris Wallace interview with Bill Clinton by now. The blogs were already talking about it last Friday, it was on-line as soon as it aired on Sunday, and the Daily Show wasted no time in lampooning it tonight. The press have tried to paint the picture of Clinton as out of control and irrational. They’ve used terms like “crazed,” “meltdown,” and “irrational.” Make sure you watch the video before you make up your mind about the whole thing.

Try to remember that FoxNews invited Clinton to discuss the Clinton Global Initiative, his philanthropic, nonpartisan organization. The mission statement for the Clinton Global Initiative reads, “The Clinton Global Initiative is a non-partisan catalyst for action, bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.” From what I’ve read, the Initiative has made some real and meaningful contributions to those in need around the world, and ‘ole Bubba has been traveling around the globe organizing supporters from all walks of life.

So FoxNews tells Clinton that the interview will be about his organization, and out of nowhere Chris Wallace asks him why he didn’t do anything to catch Osama. In my mind, he was perfectly justified in addressing Wallace contemptuously.

I think the thing that shocked people the most was the fact that we just aren’t used to seeing politicians display genuine emotion. They project a stoic façade, and even in debates they rarely loose their cool. Clinton doesn’t have to play that stupid role anymore, so he reacted as a human being and not like a robotic partisan-puppet.

Predictably, the Republicans have desperately tried to combat Clinton’s refutations. They first resorted to their go-to defense in any tumultuous situation and attacked his character. They called him crazy and tried to dismiss him as a crazed and bitter Democrat. Some of the more brave ones have futilely tried to attack him by going through Richard Clarke’s book and finding contradictions between Clark’s words and Clinton’s assertions in the interview.

Byron York, a National Review White House Correspondent, wrote an article attempting to do just that. He finds that mostly Clinton told the truth in the interview, and he did in fact attempt to go after Osama. But his partisan bridle demands he place blame for 9/11 firmly on Clinton, so he concludes his article by saying;

But the bottom line is that Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief, could not find the will to order the military into action against al Qaeda, and Bill Clinton, the head of the executive branch, could not find the will to order the CIA and FBI to act. No matter what the former president says on Fox, or anywhere else, that is his legacy in the war on terror.

That’s his concluding paragraph. And why couldn’t Billy Boy get the CIA and FBI to act? York explained that earlier in his piece:

So Clinton couldn’t get the job done. Why not? According to Clarke’s pro-Clinton view, the president was stymied by Republican opposition. “Weakened by continual political attack,” Clarke writes, “[Clinton] could not get the CIA, the Pentagon, and FBI to act sufficiently to deal with the threat.”

Republicans boxed Clinton in, Clarke writes, beginning in the 1992 campaign, with criticism of Clinton’s avoidance of the draft as a young man, and extending all the way to the Lewinsky scandal and the president’s impeachment. The bottom line, Clarke argues, is that the commander-in-chief was not in command.

How can any rational person not see the hypocrisy between that statement and York’s conclusion? How is 9/11 Clinton’s fault if he tried his best to convince the CIA and FBI to hunt down Osama, but was stymied because the Republicans were too busy attacking his personal life?

How is it Clinton’s fault that the Republicans allowed irrelevant activities to affect their job performance? Maybe, just maybe, the Republicans should have worried a little bit more about international affairs and a little less about chubby interns and sloppy blow-jobs.

• Tough Guy Compliation- via YouTube
  Tornado kicks and backwards somersaults are not for the inexperienced. But they sure do make for some good video.
• Dear Madam, just a short note to say you died
  “A WOMAN recovering from major surgery returned from a doctor’s appointment to find a letter telling her she was dead.”
• Liquid Ban Relaxed On Planes- via FoxNews
  Who didn’t see this coming? The only things you can bring on the plane are the over-priced items at the airport? Gee, what a surprise. And Haliburton got those contracts because of their impeccable work ethic.
• PETA Upset At Six Flags Roach-Eating Contest
  I’d just like to say “fuck PETA” one more time. That is all.

Can we please all calm down about the spinach? Geez. Americans are the biggest group of alarmist nitwits on the damn planet. Only three people have died. THREE! One of the three was seventy-something, the other was an infant, and I think the last one actually choked to death because the spinach clogged up his feeding tube.

I’m only guessing on that last one.

Some people just don’t seem happy unless they’re under the impending threat of total annihilation. Not me. Don’t tell me about the dangers, because I don’t give a shit anyway. You know why? Because I’m smart enough to know that my normal, daily life holds more dangers than a stupid bag of flora.

I drive every single day, and three hundred people are killed in car accidents every second (I made that up). I live each day with the knowledge that the Al Qaeda Iraqi-Islamofacist-terrorist-evil-doers will eventually blow my infidel-ass right into the sky. Hey, don’t contradict me; I listen to the news and I know I’m only on borrowed time. I bathe—people drown. I walk—people fall and break their necks. I sleep—some people never wake up.

Look, life only leads to one thing—Death. There’s not a helluva lot we can do about that. We’re all scared of the big D, which I find a bit ironic since 90% of the country professes to be Christian, in which case we should all be rushing off to the pearly gates, but whatever. So live life to its fullest, because in the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Have an extra helping of salad; order that hamburger rare; go swimming right after you eat. When Death comes for your soul do your best to feign melancholic acceptance, and when his guard is down punch him right in the throat and Melvin him as hard as you can.