___ ASSORTED ASSERTIONS ___

It’s time someone came out and said it: 'The Simpsons' has finally jumped the shark. It happened in the episode in which Mr. Burns hired Homer to be his prank monkey, precisely at the part where Homer was dressed up as a panda and a male panda mounted him. Subsequent episodes have been better than that one, but not of classic Simpsons quality.

The ubiquity of opportunities to win a million dollars is begining to have a real negative impact on quality of life. I can’t throw away butterfinger wrappers anymore.

It is important never to object to cloning in principle. One must only
object to cloning in practice. A good rule of thumb is to avoid objecting on religious grounds. Too often, the majority of objections on a given list all amount to either "If God had meant for man to fly, He'd have given us wings", or "I'm afraid that these babies would be born without souls". That, in current practice, human cloning would amount to lethal medical experimentation on unconsenting human subjects, has to be sufficient reason for prohibition. If the opponents of in-vitro fertilization had stuck to this line of arguement, they'd have had a chance.

How many substances exist that are dissolved by sugar? Do our teeth have to be made out of such substances?

Contemporary skateboarders suck. They have 8,000 words for "scrape the
bottom of the board against something." Back in my day, skateboarders did really cool tricks, like they'd jump up off of the board and over a car, while the skateboard went under the car, and they'd land right smack dab back on the board on the other side of the car. They didn't need a bunch of ramps and city-funded skate parks either. Occassionally, one would see a kid unobtrusively using his skateboard as a form of sidewalk transportation to and from school sans mayhem, desperate pleas for attention, or eXtrEmE histrionics. Now that's a neat trick. What really puts a sting in the tail of the new kids' suction is that they are getting laid, and not because they are good at something, but because some Time/Warner executive decided
that ATTITUDE (tm) is the only virtue society will celebrate, reward, and send to the head of the reproduction line. "I just cop'd a bling-blang ollie impossible wing-wang off the hoop-dee smegma hanger, plus, I have colorful plumage, and I breathe through my mouth! That entitles me to the hymens of your daughters, commoner."

The world is going through a sort of adolesence, with the only superpower stuck in the parental role.