Quick Funny from a Friend’s Neighbor

The Veep debate will be quite the hoot. For you Dems, here’s a drinking game. If any Republicans have a matching game for Biden, please forward it to me and I’ll put it up alongside this one!

P.S. I made one fix: she had Gov. Palin’s son’s name as “Track,” so the line didn’t work. Mine’s snarkier.

SARAH PALIN DEBATE DRINKING GAME

  1. Every time Sarah Palin refers to John McCain as a “maverick,” chug a Red Bull while lassoing an unbranded calf.
  2. Every time Sarah Palin cites her executive experience, fix yourself a Bloody Mary.
  3. Anytime Sarah Palin gets lost in her “verbiage” (see Hannity interview), throw a lifesaver towards the TV to rescue Palin from drowning in her half-baked thoughts and unfinished sentences.
  4. If Sarah Palin mentions lipstick, apply enough lipstick to leave an imprint on your drinking glass.
  5. Every time “bailout” is mentioned, finish your drink, pour yourself an even stronger one and apply an icepack to your head.
  6. Every time Sarah Palin alludes to Alaska’s proximity to Russia, mix a Black Russian for your neighbor. If she includes a mention of “Putin rearing his head,” add cream to make it a White Russian the color of Putin’s skin.
  7. Whenever Sarah Palin mentions “not blinking,” toast your neighbor with “Here’s mud in your eye.” If “not blinking” is brought up when discussing how she would handle Russia, put on sunglasses that will help prevent blindness when the nuclear bombs start going off.
  8. If Sarah Plain mentions her recent speed-dating outing with world leaders, mix yourself a Cosmopolitan. Add an extra shot of vodka if this is when she mentions Russia.
  9. Every time Sarah Palin cites her record as a reformer, open a bottle of Sam Adams. If Palin describes John McCain as a reformer, try to think of something other than campaign finance that McCain has successfully pushed through Congress while downing your Sam Adams.
  10. If Sarah Palin denies that Global Warming is man-made, combine ice cream, sponge cake and meringue to make a Baked Alaska. Serve to all Debate Party guests.
  11. If Sarah Palin mentions her pregnant daughter Bristol, take of sip of Harvey’s Bristol Cream. If she mentions her son Trig, calculate the size of the (remaining) Arctic Ice Cap and pop open a cold one.
  12. If Sarah Palin mentions that she played high school basketball, dribble into your glass. If she adds that playing sports will give women economic empowerment (yep, she’s stated this), find the recipe to and then mix a Harvey Wallbanger.
  13. If Sarah Palin accuses the media, Joe Biden or Barack Obama of a cheap shot, down a shot of your own choosing.
  14. If Sarah Palin mentions Cindy McCain, knock back a Bud.
  15. Every time Sarah Palin does something that will be mocked by Tina Fey on the next Saturday Night Live, put on a pair of glasses to enjoy a good ol’ “Live From New York…” libation, be it a Manhattan or a Long Island Iced Tea.
  16. If Sarah Palin refers to her husband as “First Dude,” gag and spit out your drink.
  17. Clink glasses whenever you remember that Joe Biden is participating in this debate, too.
  18. If you are a teetotaler, the prospect of a Palin Presidency should make you start drinking copious amounts of alcohol during Thursday’s debate.

I’d love to see the Republican view of this: Please, bring ’em on!

The Anti-Christ is Here (Thank God!)

Wow. I didn’t know I was rooting for the antichrist. I mean, as a Jew with a sharp tongue, I certainly _hope_ I’m rooting for the other guy. Just not that one. Whatever he stands for. Our people have no connection to ‘The Rapture,’ a construct of 19th century umm, passionate people. I disingenuously paused, because, again, as a Jew, the whole thing is hooey to me. We didn’t have a 1st coming, so the second one makes no sense. We have no hell, only the absence of being part of God. There’s no purgatory. No wacky ‘what SHALL we do with all these unbelievers.’ No fire, no brimstone. [Full disclosure: while Christianity is fully Thanotic (death- and afterlife-focused), Judaism does refer to this life as the ‘prosdor’ (literally: the hallway) and the next life as the room. But we Jews get do-overs in the form of reincarnation, and a chance for our souls to make right what we failed in previous lives.]

The Obama = Nicholae Carpathia idea is hideous. It’s hateful, paranoid, and smacks of all the things for which the KKK was and is reviled. The Nazis used fear of the Jew, the unknown, the other to kill my family. And the hateful, prejudiced, zealots aligned with the McCain campaign are using the exact same tactics now, in 2008.

Debate is great. McCain certainly presents a different set of options to Obama. I welcome discussions of substance, of the priorities, strategies and even tactics of the two candidates in solving our upcoming problems. But bringing religion into this is a wedge designed to scare the Evangelical, the dim-witted, or those that bought the last lie: that Obama is actually a Muslim. Not that that is wrong in any way! (I’d love to see a Muslim President! He’d be just as fair as Kennedy was, as a Catholic, in a majority Protestant country.)

May His Name be Blessed

I generally regard ‘News Fleas’ as being replaceable and generally irrelevant, but Tim Russert’s untimely death has thrown a wrench into my asinine assumption.

Each generation has its cadre of honest, blunt, frank and otherwise weatherbeaten tellers of truth. Tim was one of them, and, especially in this charged election year, he will be missed. Perhaps more than in decades past, where the differences between candidates were accented, rather than blurred, Mr. Russert was a speaker to power, and an honest reflection of the vaunted and villified ‘man on the street.’ He asked the questions we would never be able to phrase, given candidate management systems and infrastrutures build specifically to keep their lauded ‘chosen one’ from having to respond to the direct spear thrust of the honest question.

Tim spoke truth to power, and, like the Jewish “Ethics of the Fathers,” was the one who asked the blatant questions where others feared to go. We need more like him, even more now that he is gone.

Baruch Dayan Emet. And may God help us see the truth from the lies this fall.