This Place Really Bugs Me

That's right folks, this place bugs the Dickens out of me. And by this place I mean the world itself. Let us delve into another edition of Jewbacca's Four Questions. And no double dipping the bitter herb, if you know what I'm saying....

1.Has anyone noticed the double standard in effect with media coverage of the various wars and the Virginia Tech tragedy?

I read an article in the paper today about an Army Staff Sergeant serving our country in Afghanistan who questioned why flags over there were lowered for the victims of the VT shooting but they aren't for soldiers killed there. I cannot agree with him more. There is no reason why the flags shouldn't fly at half staff for fallen soldiers as it did for the victims of VT. I have no quibble with this.
But that got me to thinking about the general media coverage of the two. Repeatedly, pictures were broadcast and printed showing victims of the shootings in various stages of bloody disrepair and distress. But long ago the president who has offered various justifications for an unjust war decreed that the media could not broadcast images of the flag draped coffins of those killed in the "just" war. So even though the soldiers coming back in coffins had died fighting in a so-called justified and blessed war, we as media consumers can't handle seeing flag-draped coffins.
Why is that? Probably because it would more rapidly mobilize opposition to the war.
The soldiers who died and are sent back in boxes deserve to have flags flown at half-staff and deserve to have pictures of their return broadcast to remind us of the tragedy that is the bungled mess we've made of the middle east just as much as the innocent victims of the Blacksburg shootings. And that is the double standard of which I speak.

At the very least, we could remember that people are actually dying in Iraq and Afghanistan

2.Why do Philly sports fans feel the need to boo EVERYTHING?
Now, I am one of them. I am a Philly sports fan. Have been my whole life. And I've done my share of booing. I've booed the mites between periods of the Flyers and I've booed bad calls. But why do we do this? I was listening to the Phils tonight on the radio on the way home and heard the "faithful" booing both Ryan Howard for striking out and a dude who had the audacity to drop a foul ball hit to him....in the stands. By the way, the Phils won. And the season is less than a month old. And the Phils have won four straight. Yep...it's time to boo!
On a side note, it may not break the Curse of Billy Penn, but the Kixx did win the MISL (or whatever they call it) Championship. Congrats.

I swear on all that is holy, put "Philly Sports Fan" in a GIS and this is what you get. Got your backs FFMatt and Sweaty.

3.How are the oil companies allowed to charge what they do for gas?
I'm soooooo very tired of the standard reasons: plant maintenance, Hurricane Katrina, expensive additives, unrest in oil producing regions, etc. Why not just level with us: They charge what they do because they can. We have no choice. The CEOs of the oil companies have gotten used to record breaking profits quarter after quarter so why stop? They could charge the mythical $4.00 per gallon tomorrow with no actual justification and we'll keep paying. We are sheep, the oilmen have no incentive to develop vehicles that run on a renewable energy source and we'll pay whatever they say.
And don't give me corn based fuels as a panacea. The amount of energy and fertilizer that will go into producing the volume of corn we'll need will probably pollute the planet beyond if we just kept using fossil fuels.

An American Beauty pumps her own gas??

4.How does one explain the existence of Dick Cheney without the accompaniment of the actual Apocalypse?
No seriously. Someone please explain this to me. I don't get it.

And that concludes the Seder. Good luck finding the afikomen!

Find this puppy and my Nana was good for at least a buck.