Since I have no life, I often ponder lots of random questions. Here are 20 that have been on my mind lately:

1) Now that he’s led the Giants to a SuperBowl and another dominant season, will people finally admit that Eli Manning can play?

2) Aren’t you surprised as hell that President Bush pardoned rapper/producer John Forte?

3) Could the Knicks have handled the Marbury sitation any worse?

4) With all of these Clinton-era throwbacks in the Obama cabinet, doesn’t it feel like Hillary won the election?

5) Speaking of Hillary Clinton, didn’t Obama trash her foreign policy credentials 6 months before choosing her as Secretary of State?

6) Does anyone believe women on a first date when they pretend to reach for their wallets to “pay the bill?”

7) Isn’t it hard to feel sympathetic for the automotive industry after they thumbed their noses at environmentalists and consumers for decades?

At the same time, isn’t everyone being tougher on them compared to the equally unscrupulous banks?

9) Who the hell keeps casting Cuba Gooding Jr. in ghetto roles?

10) After getting outshined on the Ludacris new album, shouldn’t Jay-Z stop appearing on tracks with Nas?

11) Isn’t it a shame that T-Pain is getting credit for the current synthesizer craze, when Roger Troutman did it decades ago?

12) If Plaxico Burress was really worried about his safety, why not hire a security team instead of carrying an illegal weapon?

13) Has there ever been a less funny television show than Tyler Perry’s “House of Payne?”

14) Why do people take MySpace and Facebook so damn seriously?

15) Why do people always pretend that the seat next to them on the train is occupied?

16) Before Michelle Obama, would Salon.com have written an article about any First Lady’s butt?

17) Isn’t Charles Barkley right to say that Lebron James is being disrespectful to the Cleveland Cavs by talking about his 2010 free agency?

18) Why do people look in the tissue after they blow their noses?

19) Does anyone believe a boxer or a rapper when they say they’re going to retire?

20) With all other Philly teams underachieving, is it baseball season yet?

Blame the Takers, Not the Makers
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
[col. writ. 11/23/08] (c) ‘08

When multiple media outlets put out the same story line, these companies, seemingly separate, establish a media narrative that quickly congeals into an apparent popular opinion — even when such views actually reflect a narrow slice of elite opinion.

We saw this at work in the now infamous run-up to the Iraq War, when almost all corporate news outlets united to cheerlead the war, based on lies.

More recently we’ve seen a profound political distaste for the auto companies, with a special vehemence for the United Auto Workers (UAW) who are portrayed as greedy, lazy ‘ne’er-do-wells’, who are paid far more than they’re worth.

Rarely are executive compensations questioned, but men and women on the line are repeatedly pointed to, quite unfairly.

This is the psychological fruit of decades of wars on workers, which really comes from the turn of the last century, when law and corporate opinion criminalized unions as ’syndicalism.’

Through decades of bitter labor struggles, these laws were overturned, but business never really agreed to the core idea of workers’ rights, and bided its time until a better season.

That season arrived with the election of Ronald Reagan, who, although he ran on the feel-good nationalism of “Morning in America”, waged an old fashioned war against unions by breaking the Air Traffic Controllers — literally putting them in chains to break their strike in 1981.

No matter which party won an election since then, they placated business and hit labor.

One need look no further than the Democrat, William J. Clinton, who fought for NAFTA, which, because it supported businesses when they went offshore in search of cheap labor, severely weakened union power across the board.

Isn’t it ironic that media reflects such an anti-union bent when many corporate (at least newspaper employees) reporters are members of the Newspaper Guild?

But union membership isn’t determinative; company ownership is.  And media is often a small part of a much larger corporate conglomerate.

When the  UAW was strong, it strengthened the hand of labor almost all across the board.

The UAW fought long and hard for the wages they’ve earned. They shouldn’t be dogged for this.

They are the makers, not the takers.

The media narrative should be, why aren’t all American workers paid a more decent wage?

That’s the story that should be the lead on the front page.

–(c) ‘08 maj

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Cancer Rate Declines For First Time

For the first time since statistics on the disease have been tracked, the cancer rate in the United States has declined. What do you think?

Rich Samuels,
Unemployed
“I think we owe this in large part to many states banning cancer in bars and other public places.”

Shana Young,
Attorney
“Cancer rates are going down? Great, I’ll cancel my mammogram right now.”

Paul Notarile,
Research Analyst
“This is really great news for our statisticians. You should have seen how depressed the place was when we got our 2008 rape numbers back.”

Today’s photo of the day shows Gary Coleman, who recently reached an out-of-court settlement on his bowling alley assault charges. More importantly, I just think pictures of Gary Coleman are funny.

Today’s video of the day shows the worst rapper in the history of the universe. How do people not know that they’re this bad?

These fools made a video too!