Odds-Making: The Veepstakes

Another new feature of this blog is "Odds-making", in which we predict the likelihood of whatever topical nonsense comes to mind. This week's focus:

The Vice Presidential Debate
Odds that Senator Biden laughs out loud at something his opponent says: 1:5

Over/Under on number of incomplete sentences from Governor Palin: 12

Odds that Sen. Biden reminds us that he takes the train to work everyday: 2:3

Odds that the McCain campaign tries to have the debate delayed/canceled once again due to the economic situation: 1:4

Over/Under on the number of times Gov. Palin attempts to mask the fact she doesn't know how to answer by turning up the old folksiness: 4

Over/Under on number of times Sen. Biden put his foot in his mouth: 2

Over/Under on number of answers Gov. Palin gives on her own without relying upon an obvious talking point: 3

Odds that Gov. Palin bursts into tears: 1:150

Odds that Sen. Biden goes to facepalm at some point: 1:6

Odds that both sides declare victory afterward: 10:1

Odds that Gov. Palin attempts to field-dress Sen. Biden: 1:20,000

Odds that the disastrous Katie Couric interview was actually all a plan to lower expectations, and Gov. Palin impresses in the VP debate: 1:20

Odds that things go even worse for Gov. Palin in the VP debate than in the Couric interview: 1:2

Odds that Gov. Palin will again make the case that her state's proximity to Siberia constitutes foreign policy experience: 1:3

Odds that Sen. Biden brings it up for her: 2:1

Over/Under on number of erroneous statements by Sen. Biden corrected by factcheck.org: 5

Over/Under on number of erroneous statements by Gov. Palin corrected by factcheck.org: 6

Odds that Tina Fey will make her third straight appearance on SNL mocking Gov. Palin's performance: 2:1

Odds that Gov. Palin makes reference to Sen. Biden's hair plugs: 1:151

Odds that the debate causes an IGW contributor to cry himself to sleep: 1:9

Eclexia Strikes Back

I'll be writing a bi-weekly column on IGW entitled Eclexia, with topics ranging from electoral math to Boston Red Sox theories and beyond. Today, a short column on my new job:



This year, I'll be working at a residential school that serves 8-12 year-olds with extreme behavioral problems. Basically, I'll try to stop six of the worst kids in the state from killing each other. During the orientation, I asked if there were any success stories. The answer:

"Well, I ran into a former resident a few years back. He works on and off changing people's oil. Still lives with his mom when he's not kicked out, on and off drugs, in and out of jail for a range of smaller crimes. But he hasn't molested anybody yet. It's a world of small victories, here."

The Great Debate: Paulson's Bailout and the Economy

Point: It is important that Congress pass Secretary Paulson's economic bailout plan, and that they do so quickly, before more damage can be done. 

A financial crisis is upon us. Many of our largest financial institutions have built upon the foundations of mortgages, fueled by the housing boom that happened earlier in the decade. As these foundations have collapsed, so too have the institutions. Lehman Brothers, Freddie and Fannie, Countrywide Financial, and AIG have all succumbed to the domino effect. As other companies try to sell off assets to pay off their mounting debt, these assets become less and less valuable. This creates a positive feedback loop pulling the whole market farther into the vortex. Secretary Paulson's plan is intended to counter this trend before it is too late. The government will act to buy up these assets, thus saving the institutions and restoring security to the market. 

It is vital that we act now on this plan so that more companies do not fall while we debate the particulars. Furthermore, there must be no punitive measures thrown in against these institutions, or they will be disinclined to take part in them. If Paulson is not rapidly given the authority to act with no obstacles to impede him, the consequences to our economy may be disastrous

Counterpoint: This plan smells of bullshit to me. This financial crisis has been brought on, to some degree, by these companies themselves, who have been managed by people too stupid to realize that the housing market would not boom into eternity. Now we are supposed to throw billions of taxpayer money at them to cover for their mismanagement. And fiscal conservatives fail to see the hypocrisy when they denounce welfare. Wonderful. We can help people out during tough times, just as long as they're rich.

Bailing these big corporations is unfair to every other business in America. A mom and pop store goes down? Aw, that's too bad. You get nothing. Another investment bank collapses next week (and I'm looking at you, Morgan Stanley)? Shucks, if only you had failed sooner, we could have given you money too, but, well, you also get jack squat. That seems totally fair.

Plus, we're supposed to just give these people the money without any stipulations? I suppose lack of regulation is what made big banks like these so wealthy in the first place… And then led to their spectacular failure.

Obviously, a lack of oversight is one of the driving forces behind our current economic collapse. So even if we are to bail out these behemoths, we're going to have to put some rules down to prevent these circumstances from happening in the future. Either that, or we could skip the buyouts, grant their initial wishes in keeping government out of business, and let them die by their own sword.

Incontinent Point: Economy-sized jugs of pineapples always confused me—what economy are they talking about? Isn't our economy way bigger than those by like trillions of dollars? But maybe the pineapples are the bigger one because economies are theoretical, and therefore something tangible is infinitely bigger? 

Nevertheless, a lot of times I find the savings at Costco to actually not be all that great. You figure a $50 buy-in for a membership is going to get you some serious deal-age, but then you end up leaving the store every time with $200 less is your pocket, and you say to yourself, WTF? When are all these great savings going to happen? 

And how the hell am I going to eat 40 pounds of shrimp before it goes bad? I mean, I know from Forrest Gump there's like a million ways to prepare it, but we really only hear like eight in the movie, and I secretly think they're mostly the same thing anyway. I mean, one of them is shrimp-on-a-stick. That's not a separate recipe, it's a separate utensil! Am I right? And I heard that shellfish can give you hepatitis, or Asperger's, or something? Shit! I probably should have gotten an economy-sized bag of cocktail sauce, too. Maybe I can just use this barrel of ketchup? 

So anyways, that's why I think the economy is confusing.

WTF, World: Special Toilet Edition

This week, on a very special "WTF, World"...

Scott spends his evening shoving a plumber's snake down a toilet to try to unclog the fucking thing and is therefore unable to write. 

Except for, you know, what I just wrote.

The Newsmaker Minute: Béla Károlyi

One of the shiny new features of the revamped I Got Words is the Newsmaker Minute. Every other Tuesday, the IGW staff will sit down with a topical celebrity and pick their minds on a range of issues. This week, the IGW staff interviewed Béla Károlyi, former Olympic gymnastics coach and current commentator for NBC.



I Got Words: Hi there, Mr. Károlyi. How are you adjusting to life since the Olympics ended? Do you feel a little like a kid on the day after Christmas?

Béla Károlyi: Hello there. I had recovered, but now my dreams again have been trampled by a thousand enraged rhinoceroses.

IGW: …You still feel that the women’s US team was robbed of the gold?

BK: No, no. This very morning, I discovered happiness once again. A magnificent halo of glorious wheat and rye fit for Zeus himself, sprinkled with heavenly bits of succulence! And gracing its crest, a rich and wonderful substance that must have come from the greatest bovines the world has ever seen!

IGW: … Béla, are you talking about a sesame bagel with cream cheese?

BK: But such a bagel with cream cheese! That first bite, I thought I was in heaven. An epic moment in eating, reminiscent of the greatest moments of your life, like the birth of your first child, or your first sniff of cocaine.

IGW: Wait, what—

BK: But then, tragedy! Oh, has anyone ever known such pain? My arm was cruelly bumped, and that heavenly hemisphere flew forth from my hands and fell to a terrible landing upon the floor. Had it landed on the other side, the performance might have been salvaged, but no! It came to rest face down.

IGW: Stuck the landing?

BK: Ah, I weep to remember--

IGW: Here’s a tissue…

BK: What might have been… What heights it could have climbed, we will never know!



At this point, Mr. Károlyi became inconsolable and we elected to terminate the interview. Hopefully, this segment will go better next time.

SLoth Speak: Montana, Land of Sci-Fi Victims

So tomorrow is Monday. I get to sleep in because I am off tomorrow. I am off because I worked the whole weekend. 

Not on this article. I worked the whole weekend sitting in a hole in the ground watching TV. The SciFi network had some great films on this weekend let me tell you. From the female forest ranger getting terrorized by a predatory devil creature to haunted mansion trying to kill the people inside to the family somehow trapped in an underground cave full of giant beetles I was overwhelmed by the shear idiocy of the characters in the movies. Time after  time some stupid person walks away from the group, only to get their head bitten off while they pour themselves a slushie. The lesson here is, if you are in an abandoned mall chasing a time-traveling dinosaur, with 3 other people and you're the only one without a gun, you DO NOT WALK OFF from the group for any reason! Why would you do that? What bloody sense does that make? Your body in multiple pieces in Footlocker is the bloody sense it makes. Where are the writers of these movies from? How do they think that people could be this dumb when faced with ridiculous situations? 

Well I'll tell you. The writers of these esteemed movies could possibly be from Montana. Well maybe not all of Montana, but Great Falls, Montana. If an aspiring SciFi screen writer grew up in Montana, his or her experience with "normal" human logic would revolve heavily around the behavior of the people he observed. The other day I personally witnessed a woman outside, just off her porch, using a shop vac to vacuum her grass. Yes that's right...she was vacuuming her lawn. To what end I wonder, I do not know; but I can imagine her going down into a basement all alone during a power outage after rabid mutant rats have escaped from the local animal control center. That just seems like something she would do. After watching her vac her grass I continued down the street wondering how she answers her children's questions on life. Little Billy Bob probably has asked her where babies come from and been told "well your mom goes to the corner of 27th and 4th and......yada yada yada." That being the location of the next stop down this journey, Universal Semen Sales. This store specializes in all your animal husbandry needs. What, you though Billy Bob was asking about humans? 

Back to my point, at any point on this road Montanans can and will drive by on 4 wheelers. Yes, that's right, ATVs are street legal here. And nobody wears helmets. So the next time they are fleeing El Chupacabra in the suburbs, SciFi screen writers will have their poor unfortunate characters jump on motorcycles and ATVs instead of heavy vehicles with hard roofs that can't be pierced when the thing jumps on back. 

Oh, and the ill-fated idea of going out into the lake or river in a dingy in order to hunt the giant snakehead fish that ate the legs off your aunt? Montana. Not that using a grotesquely under sized boat is the root problem here, it's the going out in the dingy at night, by yourself, with nothing but a pistol, pocketknife and a flashlight that's not waterproof that will get you in the end. Of course you're going to slip and and accidentally swallow the pocketknife, come on!

We're Back!

"I Got Words!" has returned with ALL NEW FEATURES, including the following:

• 3 new writers
  
• More weekly features
  
• That new website smell
  
• Possibly some sort of cockney rhyming slang, even though the only thing I know is that "apples and pears" means stairs, I think.
  
• Run-on sentences
• AND MORE!

Today we start off with a look inside our nation's military by the mysterious SLoth, who is so deeply imbedded in the armed forces that he has been forced to use an alias to write here. Either that, or he has three toes. Or both.

Enjoy.