Know what I think is hilarious? PETA. Dang, those people are funny. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes they’re not all bad. Take this PETA headline as an example.

FOLLOWING DOG’S CLOSE CALL IN HOT CAR, PETA OFFERS TIPS FOR SAFEGUARDING DOGS IN HOT WEATHER.

I could support education to keep dogs safe in hot weather. No problem. Some may argue that there are bigger problems out there (world hunger, oppressive political systems, determining the sexual orientation of that purple Teletubbie), but you’ve gotta follow your heart, right PETA?

But let’s face it. Most of what PETA does ranges from the silly to the insane. Let’s begin with silly, and work towards insane (isn’t that how it usually works?)

Sometimes PETA is merely ineffective. I found a headline that reads, PETA PROTEST DRAWS EXTRA CUSTOMERS TO KFC IN LOGAN. Here’s the whole story. Ohhh, you got ‘em good, Rusty Smith, you got ‘em good.

Or how about their clever protest against pet superstore Petco last year? And by “clever”, I mean “not clever.”  PetCo bought the naming rights for the Padres stadium, Petco Field. During construction, they had a fundraiser where you contribute $20 and get an engraved brick set in a plaza. Here’s the brick PETA donated…

Very nice… except for the HIDDEN MESSAGE!!!! That’s right, they utilized a little literary device know as an acronym. Take the first letter of each word, and you get “boycottpetco” Or Boycott PetCo. You bet I will!!

Here’s another headline, MINNESOTA GOVERNOR REJECTS PETA `FISH EMPATHY' REQUEST. Basically, they want the Gov’ner to outlaw all fishing in the state. For the love of everything pure and holy, will some body think of the… fish?

Some other PETA-related news,

PETA SAYS "NO CIRCUS"

PETA CROWNS SEXIEST VEGETARIANS

PETA DEMANDS JAIL TIME, PSYCHIATRIC INTERVENTION IF ALLEGED NAPLES ALLIGATOR KILLERS ARE CONVICTED

 The last one is a personal favorite. I understand getting up in arms over cute little puppies and kitties, but alligators? I’m sorry, PETA, but anybody who kills an alligator that’s not where it’s supposed to be is my hero.

They’ve got great advertising!

They pull these wacky publicity stunts!

But my favorite? Their signs. It’s true that some are a little inaccurate…

…and some are absolutely terrifying…

...but you’ve gotta admire their spirit. Right? Right guys?

I leave you with a bumper sticker and a question…

If we're not supposed to eat animals, then why do they taste like meat?

Remember the Save Karyn website? It made big news a few months ago. It’s about this shopoholic by the name of… well, Karyn (by the way, what ever happened to plain old Karen? Now it’s Karyn or Caryn or Cairyn. Meaghan and Kymburlee. Britni. Geniphur. I may start going by Geophoob, with a silent “b”, like in 'bomb' or 'tomb'.) Anyways, Karyn looks like this…

…and was somewhere around $20,000 in credit card debt. So she put up a website asking for donations to “save” her from her own uber-consumerism.

And it worked. Big time. She paid off all her debt, and made another $13,000 on top of it. Now she's got a book out and is reportedly working on a movie deal.

Some people hate Karyn. This guy does. Doesn’t he look like a pedophile? Now, you may be thinking that I shouldn’t say that, but would you let him baby-sit YOUR kids? Didn’t think so.

But I say good for her. She had the balls… wait, that doesn’t work. She had the nerve, guts, bravery, spunk, spirit, daring, courage, audacity (I used a thesaurus for the last few, and then needed a dictionary to spell 'thesaurus') to go after what she wanted. She’s even donating the extra $13,000 to charity! Karyn rules.

I decided (just right now) that I want to be like Karyn. Unfortunately, I don’t have $20,000 in credit card debt to pull on the heart strings of the masses. Which leads me to this…

Michael Bolton: You think the pet rock was a really great idea?

Tom Smykowski: Sure it was. The guy made a million dollars. You know, I had an idea like that once. A long time ago.

Peter Gibbons: Really, what was it, Tom?

Tom Smykowski: Well, all right. It was a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor, and it would have different... conclusions written on it that you could jump to.
__

I have decided that asking for a dollar from 20,000 people is old and tired. Instead, I’m going to ask everyone for a really great idea. I figure that everyone has at least three or four really great ideas in a lifetime. You only need to cash in on one to make a million dollars. Keeping all four to yourself would be selfish if you think about it. And to sweeten the pot, anything I make over… say, $10 million, I’ll give to charity, just like Karyn.

So, any really great ideas out there?

*** WARNING: Political Content Alert. Heightened blood pressure, soreness from clenched fists, and inexplicable rage may result by continuing to read. ***

I've always been taught that a good way to get readers immediately invested in a piece of writing is to begin with a dramatic, perhaps even inflammatory statement, and then follow it up with funny pictures. So here I go.

Hillary Clinton is a stupid, hypocritical idiot.

Now it's time to back up my seditious statement (and provide more silly pictures.)

As an aside, and hopefully to head off superfluous objections, I am fully aware that I could have included Joe Lieberman in my ramblings.

However, while I'm perfectly content to be seen as a male chauvinist, I am unwilling to risk being labeled anti-Semitic...

So back to stupid Hillary. In order to fully justify my claim, I need to break it into its composite parts and defend each part separately and fully. There are three elements that I need to speak to. First, that Hillary is stupid. Next, that she is hypocritical. Last, that she is an idiot.

Alright, we begin. The issue at hand is the current hullabaloo over Rockstar Games’ latest release, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Previous Rockstar games, including Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto, Vice City, have caused similar pandemonium. All these games have excessive amounts of profanity, violence and crime, and are very fun to play (… or so I’ve heard… from others.)

San Andreas in particular has received attention because apparently there is programming hidden in the game. If one uses a code (or mod) available on the internet (called ‘Hot Coffee’) to unlock this hidden programming, one can control the game characters as they engage in explicit sexual activity.

Clinton has decided to declare war on these games. Now, keeping kids away from sexually explicit content is good. But I would argue that she is stupid because of her action plan. According to CNN, Clinton is pushing for the game to be re-rated, and is introducing legislation to make voluntary retail restrictions mandatory (i.e., stores would be fined for selling games with adult ratings to children.)

There are a few assumptions here. The first is that kids need their parents’ help in the purchase of these games. Kids have money. Some get huge allowances. If the retailers won’t sell the games directly to kids, they can get older friends to buy for them. If nothing else, they can buy them from Amazon or Ebay.

Let’s say for argument’s sake that a kid DOES need parental help to buy the game. Under this scenario, the assumption that Clinton makes is that parents are going to look at these ratings and make different choices based on what they see. Hmmm…

Here is what the front of the game looks like.

We’ve got at least five guns here, including three that are shown being used in a drive-by shooting. A girl posing provocatively. Poker chips. Gang references. The game title is the name of a felony, for crying out loud!

And Clinton thinks that if the postage-stamp-sized rating symbol in the bottom-left corner of the box looked like this…

…instead of this…

…that suddenly parents will say, “Wait a minute, is the game suitable for my child?”  

I don’t think so. I don’t even think Clinton thinks so. I think she is intentionally pushing a plan that she doesn’t think will work. That’s stupid.

But why would anyone do something like this? Ah HA!!! Now we are getting into the part of my argument that says that Hillary is hypocritical. If her action plan is not intended to make a tangible difference in terms of children’s access to objectionable material, then I maintain that it must be intended to create publicity.

Her name is in hundreds of news articles right now. Think I’m exaggerating? Go to Google News. Search for “game Clinton”. I just did, and at the bottom of the first entry, there is a link that will take you to “all 1,050 related articles.” All of which are related to her stance on Grand Theft Auto.

So she’s accomplishing her goal. People are seeing Hillary Rodham Clinton as a leading champion of family values in America. Only problem? She is also creating HUGE publicity for the game. Rockstar had only to issue a simple statement, “"So far we have learned that the 'Hot Coffee' modification is the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game," and they were essentially off the hook. And they have millions of people hearing and talking about the game.

Don’t just take my word for it. I easily found this commentary here,

“In all truth, I would almost think that the content was left in solely for the purpose of stirring up controversy. Rockstar Games is certainly made up of fairly shrewd individuals, and they know that whenever they whip up controversy, they sell more games. They did it with GTA3, they did it with GTA: Vice City, they did it with Manhunt, and they're doing it with this. As long as this receives coverage, it's money in Rockstar's bank.”

So my take on this is that Hillary is willing to help Rockstar, a company that she officially opposes, in order to improve her image. In my opinion, this is hypocrisy.   

Last point....

Ummm…

Anyone who will do something stupid and hypocritical is an idiot?

Sorry, I ran out of steam.

OK, time to wrap it up. Am I saying that nothing should be done to protect kids from negative influences? No. I am not. I feel that parents need to step up and invest in their kids. They need to know what their kids are involved in, and what they are doing. I think that the politician’s job is to help create an environment in which parents have the time, energy and resources to be involved in their kid’s lives. The single mom working 3 jobs to pay the bills doesn’t have these things. But this is a bigger, harder, more complex problem. So I guess it’s natural that some politicians would opt for cheap, ineffective theatrics to further their own political careers rather than doing the hard work of helping their constituents.

Wow. That was mean.

Even for me.

Maybe everyone should play this game instead.