Piece of SCHIP

Having accepted the fact that my expose on grammatically incorrect rock songs was, er, a little too fringe for mass consumption (read: the four participants of this blog), I thought it best to move on to other, more mature topics. Tomorrow, Congress will vote on whether to override President Bush's veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), a $35 billion subsidy that would be partially funded by federal tobacco taxes. In addition to increasing the price of a can of Skoal to upwards of $8 dollars - like I don't spend enough on my vices already - S-CHIP essentially would provide health care coverage to children and adults in families making up to 300 percent of the national poverty level, or about $81,000 a year. Rather than offer you my thoughts on the questionable wisdom of the S-CHIP proposal, I thought I'd instead refer you to these two articles at NRO by Michelle Malkin and Diana Ernst, which nicely summarize the pitfalls of this leftist pre-election legislation and do much to show why Bush's position is the right one. And while you're at it, if you have time, check out this little ditty about the Left's failed S-CHIP poster family, the Frosts. Like my old upstairs neighbors, their part-time employment is enough to support three vehicles and (unlike my old neighbors) two properties now valued at over $400,000. Awwww... doesn't that just break your heart?

Update: Override Fails

Congress failed to secure enough votes to override the President's veto of the expanded S-CHIP legislation on Thursday. Score one for fiscal conservatism. I'll refrain from discussing my observations or providing any further input on this subject, because no one actually reads this blog, which is fast becoming a failure.

Songs for You and I....

Okay, so I kind of took today off for family-related purposes (the good kind; no one died), so I have some time on my hands to post something completely and utterly frivolous. So I got to thinking: I've always loved Top Ten Lists, Top Five Lists, or any other "Top" lists, even when the subject matter of the list is completely uninteresting or inane. So it's probably fitting that I was struck with the urge to create a "Top" list that has crossed my mind intermittently for years, waiting for the proper forum in which to make its debut. I'm talking, of course, about the Top ___ List of Rock Songs With Egregious Grammatical Errors. The blank in the list's title denotes my hope that this list will grow with your contributions.

The criteria for inclusion are simple: to be eligible, the song must prominently feature an egregious grammatical error in one of its primary verses. Garden variety double-negatives do not qualify. After all, we're dealing with rock stars, here, so the odd "ain't got no," "didn't do nothin'," etc., are simply expressions of the artists' hard-life inspired passion and down on their luck perspective, and as such, are acceptable usage in the gritty world of rock 'n' roll.

Anyway, without further ado, here is a starting list of songs whose grammatical gaffes have irked this self-professed grammar monkey for as long as he can remember. As usual, they're in no particular order of prominence:

1. Paul McCartney, "Live and Let Die."

• Egregious grammatical error: "...But if this ever-changing world in which we live in... ." By needlessly tacking on a superfluous "in" to the end of this clause, Paul commits the oft-encountered error of ending a clause with a preposition. Granted, he needed that extra syllable to fill out the rhythm of that verse, but such a bush-league error should not appear in the bridge to the chorus where the discerning and grammar-conscious listener is forced to endure it repeatedly throughout this already mediocre song.

2. Paula Cole, "I Don't Wanna Wait..[something or other]."

• Egregious error: "Open up your morning light/And say a little prayer for I... ." This is just terrible. As with the overuse of prepositions (see #1, above), it seems like people are overeager to use "I" instead of the correct "Me" in order to sound more well-spoken. It's like using "myself" for anything other than the reflexive object... ridiculous! Anyway, even college sophomores from state schools who inexplicably pay to see Dane Cook perform know that "I" is NEVER an object. Paula's obvious willingness to sacrifice her grammatical integrity merely to round out a cheap rhyme is despicable. But she's not the only one to commit this cardinal sin:

3. Kenny Loggins, "Meet Me Half Way."

• Egregious error: "Meet me half way/Across the sky/Out where the world belongs/To only you and I." See comments to #2, above. However, because this is the same guy who brought us such Top Ten hits as "I'm All Right" (Caddyshack), "Nobody's Fool" (the only bright spot from the otherwise abysmal Caddyshack 2), "Danger Zone" (Top Gun), and "Footloose" (from the eponymous movie), to name just a few, I think I'll give Kenny a free pass on this one.

4. Boston, "Peace of Mind."

• Egregious error: "Yeah, yeah, yeah/I understand about indecision... ." As a huge fan of the late Brad Delp's powerful tenor pipes and the equally powerful guitars of this once-prominent band, it breaks my heart to have to point out this nonsensical verse-filler. Again, it's in the choral bridge, so the listener gets plenty of chances to spot this easily-detected error. This is yet another example of how a few seconds' worth of sober reconsideration could have easily yielded a grammatically correct alternative; for example, "I am familiar with indecision" would have filled out the verse nicely, and preserved Boston's grammatical street cred. Instead, Delp was forced to take this easily-avoided gaffe to his grave. Sigh.

5. I could only think of 4...

She's Making Me Dizzy

Saw this link on Rob Neyer's MLB blog on ESPN. I'm definitely a right brained guy. I've been trying like the dickens to reverse this broad, but she's only going clockwise for me.

Too bad I'm not reality based, I guess I can't be a Democrat. Impetuous and risk taking are fine with me though.

Chester in Da House - Word!

Huge hat tip to SI.com's Hot Clicks for pointing me to this list of rap songs white folks love.

I started bouncing while chopping the air and hugging myself immediately upon reaching The Humpty Dance, and it only got better from there.

Nobel Gore-iat?

Nobel Prizes ain't what they used to be. Word is that Al Whore may win the Nobel Peace Prize. What's unclear is exactly what Mr. Whore did to deserve this once lofty but now decidedly watered-down honor. According to the article, Big Al was nominated thanks to his "worldwide campaign to bring attention to the dangers of global warming." The lynchpin of that "campaign," of course, was "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore's stunning work of unscientific fantasy that warns of the imminent, glacier-melting apocalypse caused by modern civilization and first world economies, and more specifically, for which the conservative citizens of the United States are solely responsible.

There is much that is distressing about the prospect of this clown winning the Nobel Peace Prize and giving the Dems a world stage on which to sermonize their guilt-ridden and self-loathing message (of which the gospel of global warming is but one component). But let's not ignore the initial question: What the hell are those secretive scandanavians in charge of awarding the NPP thinking? Since when does someone get the world's highest honor for "Peace" for spreading a message about the global physical environment - a message transparently driven by a political agenda, no less? Could this - Al Whore winning the Nobel Peace Prize - actually signal the apocalypse that he so fervently asserts is nigh, and if so, would that be ironic, or paradoxical?

Discuss.

10/10/07 The Birth of a Blog

Welcome everybody to the newest blog in all the land. Oops, by this second sentence this blog is already old news, Oh well, it was fun to be on the cutting edge while it lasted. Since that's not a reality anymore, let's get down to the nitty gritty. This pseudo blog is a collaboration of a select group of assholes that are dedicated to some simple tenets, a partial list follows:

• The USA is the greatest force for good in the community of nations
• English is our national language
• Taxes are a destructive force
  
• Fart jokes are funny
• Hillary is evil

This list is likely to be updated and expanded over the weeks and months to follow, but for now at this late hour I believe it should suffice. Let me end by introducing the cast of characters who will most likely only serve to amuse themselves with this blog. I am Chester Quinn, faithful yuppy defender of a world that is not fair. I am joined by Messrs. Hoggin It, Jasper Jhons, Cal "Cochise" Crosby, and White Running Back.

I'd like to thank WRB for getting this group together. He is the glue that holds this fragile coalition together and I raise a glass to him and all God-fearing men this evening, especially the boys in uniform serving to keep us free to blather about nonsense on blogs.

God Bless America.

Let's rumble.