Gambling

I put a dollar into a slot machine and get five dollars back. I am lucky. I take that five dollars and put it on the number 11 on the roulette table and the ball lands on the number 12. I am unlucky. I take the ball from the roulette table and throw it into the left eye of the large, perspiring gentleman who put $50 on number 12, thereby winning $1,800. The large, perspiring, half-blind gentleman cries out in pain and thrashes his arms, knocking a pile of chips over, one of which lands at my feet. It's a $100 chip. Amazingly, at the moment I throw the ball into the eye of the perspiring gentleman, a fracas erupts nearby, something to do with a person of Middle Eastern origin tripping over a discarded coin cup and screaming something that sounds like a terrorist threat. The Middle Eastern-origin person suffers permanent injuries when a guard puts his knee into his back. The large, perspiring gentleman loses an eye. I pick up the $100 chip and walk away. I am lucky, but am I a moral being?

What say you?

Terrorism

Does anyone besides me think that the so-called "War on Terror" is too poorly defined to be effective? As the French Philosopher Hugo LaOolah put it, "I am afraid of bumble bees." So are we to go after bee hives next? I recall hearing, as a child, that the famous motorcycle racer Barry Sheen once had a bee inside his leather jumpsuit while he was travelling at 150 mph. Is it a coincidence that he was roaring along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border when this incident occured? And what, anyway, is the French word for "bumble"? It's quite possible that LaOolah was simply mistranslated. My point is, if we are to find Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Sirhan Sirhan, and the rest of this terrorist bunch we'll need to do a lot more than pander to the fears of effete French philosophers, even the ones who race motorcycles for a living.

What say you?

Sex vs. Censorship

Flicking through the TV channels last night, I happened to press an elaborate combination of buttons that led me into Cinemax's "After Dark" menu. At this very moment, the cat jumped up, balancing artfully on the remote control "play" button, thus causing a movie called "Bikini Tax Adjusters" to begin. Let me just say that after multiple viewings of the first fifteen minutes of this movie I have failed to find any social or aesthetic value. For shame!

What say you?

Sexism

As everybody knows, women are capable of acts of super-human strength as well as acute emotional insight. It's well documented: Women have been known to lift cars off of the ground when their children are trapped underneath. Less well documented is what these women do once the car has been lifted. Figures put out by the National Organization of Made Up Statistics (NOMUS) reveal that children who have found themselves underneath cars suffer more injuries than those who haven't, including flattening. I think studies need to be done on whether lifting a car when your child is underneath is a waste of energy, and therefore detrimental to the furtherment of women in society. Also: Kids, stay away from the undersides of cars!

What say you?

The Nuclear Issue

Why the Bush administration hasn't yet thought about this is beyond me. Instead of wringing our hands over the nuclearizationism of North Korea/Iran, we do something about it. My proposal is to "photoshop" an image of Kim Jong Il telling his Politburo members a joke with the punchline, "I said pulled pork!" Meanwhile, we mock up a "speech" given by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he calls large-scale synchronized military parades "silly." In the resulting conflict between the two countries, their military capabilities will be depleted and their people will practically beg for a US "liberation" force to come along and drop a few cluster bombs. Problem solved!

What say you?

The "bad" gene

It doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that the Republicans are bad and the Democrats are good, but what made them this way? Do Democrats have a "good" gene that makes them do things like hating wars and giving stuff to the poor? Are Republicans merely raised from birth to pander to corporate interests at the expense of the polar ice caps? The answer to this question could determine the future of the planet.

What say you?

The Obesity Issue

Naturally, this is going to be a touchy subject for people who are deemed "fat" (that is, unable to ride a mid-sized dog like a horse without killing it). But this is an issue that needs to be addressed. According to the WHO there are 3.2 billion overweight people in Missouri alone. It has been argued that the obsese not only eat more food than the rest of us but breathe more air. Clearly, something has to be done. But what?

What say you?

Cats

I think we should start phasing out cats by mid-2007. From that date forward, anyone owning a cat should be fined. Anyone caught in possession of cute pictures of kittens should be imprisoned. With the money we save on cat litter and tuna casserole in a can, we invade North Korea.

What say you?

Argument No. 1

Okay, pick a topic. Anything. I'll argue you under the table.