Bike Guy

to make the world a better place with very little impact on our day-to-day lives, wouldn't we do it? If each of us knew how to make the world more liveable with absolutely no personal sacrifice, who among us wouldn't act on this?

Well, boys and girls, there IS something you can do to make this world more liveable. It won't cost you any money, you don't need to join any clubs and absolutely no salespeople are standing by to take your information. This one little thing will lower blood pressure, promote happiness and tranquility, and potentially add years to your lives. For women, it will reduce symptoms of PMS, enlarge your breast size and take an inch or so off your hips. Men, you will increase the length and girth of your manhood - overnight. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!

So what, exactly, am I rambling on about? What can we all do to gain this state of enlightened happiness? Simple - learn the following mantra. Know it, embrace it, chant it - but most of all, practice it. The mantra? "Keep right, pass left".

OK, you try it now. I'll wait...

See? "Keep right, pass left" just kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Now, how exactly will this make the world a better place? Well for starters, it's about being aware of your fellow citizens and it's equally about common courtesy. Why do so many road rage incidents occur in the US? Simple - one driver does something to piss another one off. It doesn't matter how fast you drive, there are always those who choose to drive faster. Unless you're a member of the law enforcement community, it's not your job to set the travel speed in the left lane. The left lane, on any divided highway, is the PASSING lane. The right lane(s) are the travel lanes. Hence, you should drive (aka travel) in the center lane or right lane, and use the left lane to pass slower traffic.

The left lane should NOT be used to slow down traffic while you engage in cell phone conversation with your mother, broker, analyst or parole officer. It should not be used while you simultaneously drive and eat , apply makeup or pick your nose and eat it (don't think those around you can't see this, either). The left lane is for PASSING slower traffic; when you have done this, the proper thing to do is merge into the right (or center) TRAVEL lane. Now, what's the mantra again? "Keep right, pass left".

Why do I have such a stick up my ass about this today? Because I very nearly got waffled on Monday on account of a driver hogging the left lane. A car closed on the one blocking traffic and swerved into my lane - without bothering to see if the lane was occupied. Only good reflexes and the ability to threshold brake prevented me from a very nasty impact in heavy traffic at around 70 MPH. Had the women in question not been blocking the left lane (where she'd been for around 10 miles), the whole incident would never have occured.

We've become a "fuck you" society where civility and manners no longer exist. We do things in our four-wheeled armored cages that we would NEVER do to others face to face. We curse other drivers, flip them off, tailgate, cut them off and generally endanger their well being. When was the last time you walked up to a stanger on the street, flipped them off and arrogantly stepped in front of them? Now, how often have you done a similar thing while driving. See what I mean?

"Keep right, pass left" begins to take on a higher meaning when you ponder these other aggressive behaviors. It comes down to this - show your other drivers a little courtesy and a little respect, and don't be surprised when they do the same to you. What do you have to lose, except a longer, thicker penis, a few inches on your hips and a longer, happier life?

...that the very desire to hold public office makes you essentially unfit to hold that office. Politicians, in general, are self absorbed, obsessed with power and have the moral fiber of a sewer rat (with no disrespect meant towards sewer rats). No matter what office you hold, chances are you have greater ambitions and really don't give a shit about the people you're supposed to serve. It's all about getting to the next level - more money, more face time, more power.

Given that the President of the United States makes less than $100k per year and has essentially NO leisure time (well, GWB excluded), why would anyone in their right mind WANT to be president? Love him or hate him, but Clinton had the right idea - the ONLY valid reason to be president is to meet women.

I think it's time for a radical sea change in US politics, so here's what I propose: instead of electing the next US president (who will be nothing but a puppet controlled by big business and special interests anyway), why not hold a lottery to pick the president at random? Sure, we'd need some criteria to keep people like Geoffrey Dahmer, Courtney Love or Ralph Nader from getting elected, so let's start with these ground rules:

1) Education - must have at least a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university. I'll take BA or BS degrees; what we're looking for here is an indication that you've been exposed to education and (perhaps) multiple cultures.

2) Criminal history - no felony convictions, and no misdemeanor convictions in the last 10 years. Unlike Bill Clinton, many of us were actually smart enough to inhale in our younger years; no sense being punished for that years later.

3) Credit score - this is a tough one, since a lot of people will bitch that requiring a high credit score will eliminate too many candidates. Tough shit, says I - if you can't manage a checkbook, you damn sure can't run a country. I'm suggesting a minimum credit score of 700.

4) Age and nationality - I'm all for keeping it at 35, but why not open it up to anyone who's been a US citizen for 15 or more years. After all, aren't we a society of immigrants who've been kicked out of every civilized nation in the world?

5) Compensation - if ball players can make tens of millions of dollars, we can certainly afford to pay the president a few sheckles more. I say start with a base salary of one million, with bonus opportunities for balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, creating jobs, negotiating world peace, fixing social security and improving healthcare. It's a shitty job, so you might as well be amply compensated while you're doing it.

6) Psych evaluation - yeah, if police need to pass a basic screening, it's probably a good idea that the president should pass one, too. Of course this would have prevented LBJ, Nixon, GWB and a host of others from ever holding office...

7) Passport - ABSOLUTELY mandatory. If you've never traveled abroad and experienced other cultures, then you have no business as a world leader. I say the minimum criteria here is maintaining a current passport for at least 20 years.

I'm sure I'm missing some important screening criteria, but this seems like a good place to stop. Could we really be worse off electing a random, educated American than we are with the bozo currently in office? Personally, I don't think so.

Japan was inventing the perfect toilet seat.

Now don't get me wrong - I appreciate the bravery of our astronauts and the benefits derived from our space program (even if I can't name very many off the top of my head), but we've lost the race for bathroom perfection to the Japanese.

If you've never experienced the "Assmaster 5000" (or whatever the name translates to), allow me to describe what a five speed toilet seat does. First, you get to select your heat setting from "Off" to "Leave Charred Flesh Sticking To The Seat". If you've never sat on a heated toilet seat; well then - you really haven't lived.

I'll spare you the details on bodily functions (since we all do pretty much the same thing), but when you're done the Assmaster allows you to select several functions: bidet, for the ladies or "Assblaster" for the men. You can adjust water pressure, water temperature and duration until your ass is minty fresh. When your done, the handy "Deodorize" button removes any offending odors for the next user.

After two weeks in Japan, I'm in no hurry to return. The beds are small and uncomfortable, the food quickly grows old (I never thought I'd be sick of eating sushi, but there can indeed be too much of a good thing) and it's amazing how much you miss being able to read street signs. For me, the culture was a little TOO foreign - I fit right in in Europe, get along fine in the UK, but always felt like I was on another planet in Japan. Still, I'm already missing the "just washed freshness" provided by the Assmaster toilet seats. Maybe I can become the first US importer....

I'll be traveling overseas on business and won't have anything resembling free time. I'll be back mid-month with tales of intrigue and adventure.

Stay well, amigos and amigettes, and I shall catch you on the flip side.

- Bike Guy

...that the current Bush administration has never hosted a state dinner? Now, let me clarify one thing - this news came from a rather unique source. I took a cheese and bread making class at a local dairy yesterday, and it turns out that they have supplied cheese to the White House chef for the past two administrations. Since the Bush's have the same chef as the Clinton's did, nothing has changed. Except entertaining.

Now, stop and think about this for a moment. Every president has allotted a certain amount of time for entertaining at state dinners (Bush Sr. was a BIG fan of hosting dinners). Yes, they're political and I'm sure they're as much fun as your company Christmas party; still, they build and strengthen necessary bonds between allies and potential allies. They put a human face on politics and (I'm sure) lead to many "behind the scenes" deals.

If you were a card carrying Republican, I suppose you could argue that we are a nation at war, and hosting such unnecessary events as dinners is a frivilous luxury we can't afford. I'm not buying it. Could it be that we host no state dinners because:

1) We're running out of allies to attend? "Hey Laura: the German, French, Belgian, Canadian, Greek, Austrian and Mexican ambassadors all have dentist appointments and can't make tonight's soiree. That leaves us and the Blair's again; wanna do the usual take-out Chinese and rental-porn-wife-swap thing?"

2) George Bush really can't be trusted to interact with world leaders without his handlers? Think about it; in times of crisis, it's not Bush deep inside the bunker - it's Dick Cheney.

And vacations - don't get me started on vacations. Has any president had as much down time as Bush? Where is he awaiting the election results? You guessed it; Crawford, Texas. Do you get the feeling that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, et. al. want him out of sight and out of Washington as much as possible? Can't let the president get in the way of running the country, now can we...

My wife's got a great theory, and it's probably the only reason I'm not moving to Canada if Bush gets re-elected. She thinks that a year or so into the administration, Cheney will resign for "health reasons". The guy's got a bad ticker and knows he'll never be president (which is, anyway, a step down from his current position as dictator). She thinks that the ace up the Republican's sleeve will be Rudy Giuliani.

The irony? I'd vote for Giuliani in a heartbeat. He's tough, he's fair and he's intelligent - all the things I want in a president. It's a damn shame he's not running this year, because I'd feel a lot better voting for a candidate I admire instead of one that just sucks less than the other.

Think it's too late to start a grass roots write in campaign for Rudy?