The Pizza Principle

There are three people who want to order a pizza for lunch. We, I mean, they have a coupon for a single large pizza with unlimited toppings. I, I mean, one person says, "I want a meat pizza: sausage, Canadian Bacon and pepperoni. If it has feet, I want it on the pizza." One person says, "Have you tried the pepperoni and pineapple pizza?" I, I mean, the first person says, "That's cool." The third person says, "That's cool."

The second person says, "Do you like olives?"

I, I mean, the first person says, "If olives have feet, I like olives."

The third person says, "That's cool."

The second person says, "What if we have them make a pepperoni and pineapple pizza, and put olives on half?"

The third person says, "I don't care."

I, I mean, the first person says, "Okay, but I don't like olives."

The pizza arrives. It is cut into eight slices. Four of the slices have olives, four do not. Persons two and three order a salad from another restaurant, and split it. I, I mean, the first person declines the salad.

When everyone has eaten their fill, two slices each, the two slices left both have olives. That means that the olive hater had two non-olive slices, and each olive lover had one olive slice and one non-olive slice. I, I mean, the olive hater is now incapable of eating the last two slices, and the olive lovers are full!

Here then is "The Pizza Principle:" If there are more people who like vegetables on their pizza than people who don't, and they order pizzas with vegetables and without vegetables in the same percentage, there will be no left over slices of pizza with no vegetables but several slices of left over pizza with vegetables.

An example: There are three people in my household. We order two medium pizzas: one supreme, one Canadian bacon and pepperoni. At the end of the meal, there are four slices of supreme pizza and no slices of the Canadian bacon and pepperoni left. The Pizza Principal in action!

Dan Cook - 1927-2008

When I was growing up, the mid 1960s to 1975 BC (Before Cable), we could get 4 channels on TV. The Austin CBS affiliate, now a FOX affiliate, KTBC; and the San Antonio stations: WOAI (NBC), KENS (CBS), KSAT (ABC) and KLRU (PBS). We watched the Channel 5 KENS news every night, and I remember Dan Cook doing the sports.

Dan Cook passed away at the age of 81, and another piece of my childhood is gone.

Dan is the man who came up with, or at least popularized the expression, "The opera ain't over til the fat lady sings," while trying to cheer up Spurs fans during a 1978 playoff series when the team was down by three games.

Dan worked at the San Antonio Express-News for 51 years as copy editor, writer, sports writer, sports editor and columnist. He also was the KENS weeknight sports anchor from 1956 to 2000. When Dan finished his last newscast on November 29, the fat woman came out to sing.

She's singing again.

Michael Turner 1971-2008

Micheal Turner blasted onto the comics scene in the mid 90s. He was one of those artist whose work I admired but didn't love, if you know what I mean. Sometimes, all of his women looked the same (says the pot to the kettle). And often his work appeared over-rendered. But I couldn't deny his talent.

A few years ago, Micheal developed cancer in his hip, requiring three pounds of bone to be removed and extensive physical therapy. Naturally, he had to take some time off from work. That he came back at all is astounding

He spent the last few years running Aspen Entertainment, his own company, and drawing covers for Marvel and DC, becoming one of the most in demand artists in the industry.

Unfortunately, Micheal passed away this weekend after the cancer came back.

George Carlin - 1937-2008

"Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”

Fortress AmeriKKKa - Day 758

In order to prevent meskins from voting in elections and stealing benefits from legal Americans, Arizona passed a law in 2004 requiring several types of ID to register to vote. The logic of the law is: if you do not have the required ID, you are not a legal citizen.

Enter stage left: Shirley Preiss.

Shirley was born in 1910 in Clinton, Kentucky. That was before the issued birth certificates. She gave up her driver's license and has never had a passport. That makes Shirley illegal.

The state did say she could get a delayed birth certificate if the witnesses to her birth will sign it. But everyone who witnessed her birth 97 years ago is dead. Her family tried to get her school records from Tennessee, but that school no longer exists and all the records are gone.

So, for the first time since 1932, Shirley cannot vote in the Presidential election.

Thank you, Voters of Arizona, for protecting us from Women's Sufferage!

Fortress AmeriKKKa - Day 754

Arthur Mkoyan, 17, has been in the country illegally since he was two. His parents fled Armenia on a four-month work visa and settled in Fresno, California, and just stayed, taking jobs from Americans and sponging of our social services. Now, everyone is shocked and appalled that this upstanding, intelligent young man--valedictorian of his class--is going to be deported.

Wait a minute! Why are they shocked and appalled? According to the moral watchdogs of our country, Mkoyan is a criminal. He is in the country illegally.

Could it be that he's, I don't know, white?

Yep. A white illegal alien is okay. We like them. Brown skinned illegals, aka meskins? We fucking hate them and should run them all back to Mexico.