Day: April 4, 2012

Take it from Snee: Explaining U.S. branches of government to foreigners, children (Part 1)

Greetings, non-citizens and/or future voters! As you may recall, I recently explained to (at, whatever) foreigners and children how the United States’ political parties work. Since that was a rousing success – mostly because neither of you have command of my language to voice your objections – I’ve been tapped to now explain the three branches of our government.

The three branches are the executive, legislative and judicial branches. These were delineated all the way back in 1789, when a group of self-selected landowners (mostly lawyers) met to secretly and kind of/sort of illegally overhaul our existing government as outlined in the Articles of Confederation. This was the now legal framing of our famed Constitution. Perhaps you’ve seen it on your tour of Ron Paul’s breast pocket?

To reflect this spirit of open contempt towards our law of the land, they intentionally set up a lawyer-driven three-way deathmatch between three equal branches. This cage fight is called “checks and balances,” which was based on the use of elbows and fleet footwork in Senate-floor cane brawls.

Because of the amount of information involved, and because every element of our government is ripe for jokes, I’ve divided this into a three part series. This week, it’s the executive branch. Continue reading Take it from Snee: Explaining U.S. branches of government to foreigners, children (Part 1)

It’s like M.A.S.K, but probably safer

Guys that were kids in the 80’s, you remember M.A.S.K, right? It was the cartoon that had the F1 car that turned into a jet and a jet that turned into a copter. The one you probably remember the most is the Camaro that turned into a jet, the doors opening up gull-wing style to allow it to fly.

The Transition is like that, except infinitely safer.

See, the Transition’s doors don’t open the car up, thereby preventing the risk of the driver from tumbling out the car while doing a barrel roll in mid-flight. Terrafugia will present the flying car this week at the New York Auto Show. The vehicle can fly up to 100 miles per hour for nearly 500 miles and with premium unleaded gas, can get almost 35 miles per gallon. Private pilots are saying it’s not so much a car as more something you might be from a super high-end Sharper Image. Or Sky Mall.

Frankly, I don’t care, as long as I get to fly. FINALLY.

Some methy business

The 2001 national Sheriff of the Year, Patrick Sullivan, has plead guilty to trading meth for sex and will serve 38 days in the Arapahoe County, Colo., jail bearing his own name.

The only setting more ironic is The Guys’ screenplay where a time-traveling teenage Ronald Reagan is forced by 2012 truancy laws to attend a high school named after him. (He plays a minor role in the school play and ends up elected senior class president.)

Sexiness is whiskey

Are you sexy? Your answer says a lot about you — namely, how much you’ve had to drink.

Researchers at the University of Grenoble in France (of course) found that the higher the amount of alcohol in their blood stream, the higher they would rank themselves in terms of attractiveness, intelligence and sense of humor. On top of that, those studied who were not drinking alcohol but thought they were, rated themselves higher, while those who didn’t think they were drinking alcohol but actually were, rated themselves lower.

The lesson, the only sure way to feel sexier is to drink. You look better to us the more we drink.

Also, and this is true, those hard-working scientists titled the study “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.”