At The Dreupelkot

I spent the early part of this week in the Belgian town of Gent, a wonderful historic city in the Flanders region. Of course, I spent most of the time in meetings, but we did have a couple of good dinners along the way. One of the problems with Belgian dinners, as I've noted before, is that in upmarket restaurants they tend to last about four hours. During this time I lose all feeling below the waist, along with the will to live. This week's dinners were only about three hours long, but even so, I was delighted to get up at the end and restore the flow of blood to my legs.

It was therefore not hard to persuade me to take a short walk to the Dreupelkot, for a couple of genevas. This place is a famous bar, about the size of a suburban living room, tended by its white-haired owner, Pol, who dispenses more than two hundred versions of the Belgian hard liquor called geneva. It's a tiny place, already crowded with only fifteen people in it, just round the corner from the Hot Club, where they play excellent jazz. This is a place with character, just a few tables and a bar, most people standing up (because that's the only option) and a sign asking people to use the toilet (which appears to be in a cupboard) rather than the alley out the back.

Geneva is an excellent end-of-evening drink. It's taken neat, in small glasses which Pol fills to the brim, so that there's a positive meniscus on each one (look it up in your kid's science book). He has all sorts of frou-frou genevas with vanilla, chocolate, cream and stuff like that in them (which attracts drunken students) but real geneva is either clear or slightly brown, like diluted whisky. Some purists maintain that only the clear stuff is truly authentic but they both taste good to me.

Anyway, about four of us wandered in and squeezed up to the side of the tiny bar. We worked our way through five glasses, along with some blokes from Ecuador that we struck up a conversation with. Along the way we noticed that amongst the group of studenty types in the center of the room there were two girls giving a lesbian kissing display. You could tell they were real lesbians and not just two drunk girls showing off, because one of them was ugly.

The thing about geneva is that it stimulates the brain cells. It got me thinking, and I have to say that it led me to revise one of my theories about lesbian couples. I used to believe that the reason one of the lesbians is always bloke-like is that the other one really wants a bloke. She's therefore losing out because she gets all the boot-faced hairy ugliness of a bloke, but without the benefit of a penis, necessitating the purchase of strap-ons, etc.

It occurred to me, though, that I was missing the point - it was the ugly one who was the "aggressor" and it suddenly became obvious - she knew she was a boiler and her decision to go with women had to be based on one of two subconscious drivers:

1. She resents pretty girls because she'll never be one, so she picks them up to vicariously experience prettiness.

2. She resents blokes because they like pretty girls and not her, and so she picks them up to reduce the number available for us, thus pissing us off.

Personally I tend towards theory number 2, but in either case the implication is that the "blokey" lesbian is motivated by spite and bitterness. This would lead you to expect that manly lezzas would be bitter, moany, resentful creatures; well bugger me if that isn't exactly what we observe in nature. Quod erat demonstrandum, as they say...

Well I'm glad we sorted that out. Now can someone pass me another geneva?


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Bucket Of Women

I'm proud to say that no-one has ever "tagged me with a meme" or any other such blog shite, which may represent my triumph in distancing myself from the common herd, or might just signify that I'm a miserable cunt who has no friends. I've seen those things on blogs from time to time, though, and one of the old standbys is the bucket list - the things you'd want to do if you only had x months to live.

I've never tried to make such a list but I can see how actually having a year to live would focus your mind on what you wanted to do with that time in a way that pretending just can't achieve. Most of the lists seem to be from people trying to imagine what they'd want to do.

What always gets me is the absence of the one item that should show up on any man's list (and, for all I know, might be on many women's lists too, albeit in reverse). The item is "Have Sex With Two Women At Once". The world neatly divides on this subject into two camps: those who want to have sex with multiple women at once and those who already did. (Those who already did and who want to do it again are only a subset of the latter group.) And on this subject homosexuals don't count.

I'm not trying to suggest that all those other worthy bucket list items shouldn't be considered. By all means watch the sun rise from a mountain top, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef or hot air balloon over the Serengeti; just don't pretend for a moment that you wouldn't put all this on hold for a two-hour long romp with three "willing and able" girls in a hot tub of your choice. Did this really not occur to you when you made the list? Or do you just lack the honesty to admit that, yes, you'd like a four-breasted encounter just once before you shuffle off this mortal coil? Maybe you don't want to appear shallow.

Well, let me tell you, you're not shallow. Your desire is a manifestation of your basic masculine humanity, as natural as wanting to watch football, eat steak or scratch your nuts. When you blow out all the candles on your cake and people ask what you wished for, you might pretend it was "world peace" but we know better, don't we.

All you women out there, when you get done reading this why don't you go and ask your bloke if he'd be interested in s three-way. I swear his eyes will light up like he's just won the fucking lottery. And I guarantee that not only has he considered the possibility but he's already planned who it would be. In fact, you might be neither of the people he had in mind, but unless he's a certifiable moron with less intellect than a ham sandwich he's not going to let on to you.

Many years ago a girlfriend and I were discussing the subject and she stated that she didn't understand the big deal - what was so great about two women? I was a bit taken aback by this question - it was akin to asking what was the attraction in breathing oxygen, almost too obvious to answer. I think my response had something to do with many breasts and the ability to have certain things at eye level and crotch level simultaneously, but it wasn't a well-reasoned position. Now that I think about it, the answer is obvious.

Music is good - this is an indisputable fact. But music in stereo is better. Much better. When people used to listen to records in Mono sound I'm sure there were those who asked what was the big deal with stereo. But once you've listened in stereo you appreciate the world of difference. It's a treat for your ears. So, in much the same way, sex with multiple partners is a treat for your penis. Which is reason enough for it to be in any man's bucket. Just bear that in mind next time you're tagged.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Reasoned Political Discourse

Based on what I see of the Presidential candidates, I'm starting to despair of the political future in this country. I've written enough about that wanker Obama already, and how he's only in the position he's in because he's black. Any other candidate with a similar lack of track record, who'd spent the last few years associating with racists and terrorists, and whose idea of politics is to simply take money from those who earned it and give it to those who didn't, would have been subjected to some serious examination by now. Admittedly he's a socialist liberal cocksucker, and as such is considered "off limits" to the left-leaning TV networks and media weenies, but in spite of it having been pointed out many times that a man who'd been hanging out at the church of the KKK, and who'd been associating with convicted right-wing terrorists, would have been chased out of the presidential race on day one, the media persist in giving Obasshole a free ride.

What really amazes me, though, is the idiocy of the Republican party. I proudly belong to the section of society in the middle - the people who don't blindly sign up to the doctrines of either party, and who make up their own minds. Let's face it, neither party would have me:

I like low taxation. I believe that Congress is incapable of managing money, and for that reason should be given as little as possible. I believe trial lawyers are the scum of the earth, and do little but extort money to line their own pockets, pushing up costs for innocent working people. I support the death penalty, and only wish it could be imposed for many more crimes, and much more quickly. All multiple repeat offenders should be executed as the utter worthless scum and leeches on society that they are. I support gun rights, and secret ballots for unions. Affirmative action is bullshit. Therefore I must be a Republican.

I support abortion (within reasonable limits) and don't believe that victims of rape and incest should be forced to carry a foetus to term just to satisfy some religious Group's hang-ups on conception. I believe in separation of church and state, and that creationists are functionally retarded and should be locked up. No-one should be running around with bazookas based on some ancient text about well-armed militias. The financial community must be regulated or they'll cheat us every chance they get. Therefore I can't be a Republican.

Clearly I'm not a Democrat either, since I haven't had my brain surgically removed, but it really doesn't matter what I am because, quite apart from the fact that I can't vote, it doesn't make much difference who gets in. Policy is made by organizations that buy the votes of Congressmen - it's that simple. Bet they don't teach that in your fucking civics class, do they? But it's true. You think you can call up your Congressman and ask them to help you? Dream on. Unless you've written them a big check they won't even talk to you. Some places they even specify (although it's never written down) how big a check is required. How did some bullshit tax change for toy wooden arrows get included in the bailout bill? In any functioning democracy there would have been absolute bloody outrage about the bare-faced corruption implied by crap like this, but here it just slides by. We're immune to it - it's just the way things get done in Washington.

Anyway, back to the Republicans. They could have put up any one of a number of compelling candidates against Obarmy - personally I would have liked to see Giuliani, since he's actually had experience running something big and being a statesman - but who did they choose? A grumpy old coffin-dodger who's got about as much personality as a dead hedgehog, and a woman whose one and only qualification for the position of Vice-President is the possession of a vagina. Yes, in response to the "only there because he's black" candidate they came up with the "we managed to find a woman" one. But not a qualified woman. Not Condoleeza Rice, for instance, but some moose-humping nobody from fuck-knows-where USA, whose only contribution to the debate is experience shopping at Wal-Mart. They fucking deserve to lose.

Is there another option? Well, Ralph Nader is running, but you wouldn't know it, would you? And why is that? The aforementioned left-leaning TV networks have been warned off giving him any publicity whatsoever in case he attracts their vote away, again. You'll hear NOTHING about what he stands for, which is a shame, because he's one of the people who see the corruption in Washington for what it is. You're not really supposed to vote for him though - just shut up and tick the box for one of the established parties so Congress can get on with pissing away trillions more...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Toilet Traders

I was reading a news article from the UK about a bloke who stabbed a gay accountant to death in a public toilet which was described as a "well-known venue for homosexuals who would meet there for sex". What caught my attention was not the knife attack, or even the claim by the killer that the dead man had previously accosted him in the toilet, but the fact that gay men are still apparently hanging around public lavatories looking for people to fuck in the arse.

I could probably understand why, many years ago, with no way to meet other gay men and maybe no possibility to "come out", homosexuals would be drawn to places like that, although I'm buggered if I can see why any bloke would want to shag another bloke. What gets me is that we're now in the twenty-first century. The internet allows people to hook up practically anywhere they want, with anyone they want, to do pretty much anything they want. At the same time homosexuality has progressed from a taboo to practically being compulsory. Governments are bending over backwards to pander to the "rights" of this militant and demanding minority. (Which, to be fair, is probably better than bending over forwards.) Just look at this example of political correctness - a fire engine takes a detour to shine flashlights on gay men fucking each other in the open air (a criminal offence, by the way, whether you're gay or straight), presumably for a laugh. Oh no! You've infringed on their "rights" so you have to be punished. Hang on a minute, no-one has a "right" to break the law. If people don't want to be ridiculed for having sex in public then there's a very simple solution - don't have sex in public. Go home, or get a room, for fuck's sake.

The excessive "sensitivity" to the "needs" of the "gay community" has resulted in them apparently being given a free pass on criminal activity. If this public toilet was so well-known as a place for homosexual sex, why weren't the sex criminals who operated there arrested. Yes, people who have sex in public toilets when the law says it's forbidden are sex criminals. No-one in their right mind goes to a public toilet unless they have to. Maybe it was those six pints of cheap lager at lunch time, or that ill-advised chicken vindaloo last night which is now threatening to melt away your sphincter, but when the call comes, the object of the exercise is to get in, get done, and get the fuck out ASAP.

No-one wants to find themselves perched on the cracked porcelain reading graffiti invitations to "suck my huge cock", or wondering if anything is about to be thrust through the hole that someone has made in the cubicle wall. No-one wants to hear some bloke getting one up the Gary Glitter in the adjoining stall. At least no-one who I'd want to meet. Let's face it, if your idea of a good time is ending up balls-deep in some other man's arse, on a cracked and piss-soaked floor, as he bends over a shit-stained toilet bowl then you've got real problems. Is it a victimless crime? I think not. Just imagine some bloke hanging around the Ladies toilet, drilling holes in the wall and asking girls if they'd like a fuck; he'd be arrested in a heartbeat. So why is it OK for blokes to do that to other blokes?

There's no excuse for it now. It's not done out of a "need" as a result of gay men being unable to "find ways to meet each other". There's fucking parades of them in major cities, and thousands of web sites dedicated to them. So why does George Michael want to fuck strangers in the bog? And, more importantly, why should he be allowed to get away with it?

The bloke with the knife in the story I read didn't seem to be the most stable of characters, and who knows what the truth was there, but it used to be assumed that if you accosted a stranger in the khazi you were justifiably risking a good kicking. Nowadays you'd probably be arrested and branded a homophobe for punching out a bloke who approached you in a public toilet with his dick in his hand.

What I really can't understand, though, is that gays are supposed to be so much more classy than the rest of us. That whole Queer Eye For The Straight Guy thing played on the stereotype of the gay man who was better dressed, better groomed, and better at interior decor than any heterosexual bloke. So if they're going to hang out in the public bog, why don't they clean up in there, hang some drapes, upgrade the toilet paper, provide good quality hand-soap, use pastel colors to create the illusion of space in each cubicle, and improve the atmosphere with some pot-pourri? A couple of uphill gardeners lurking by the sink with a hopeful look in their eye might be a small price to pay for a bog in which you'd atually look forward to parting company with that chicken vindaloo.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

It's The Economy...

Brace yourselves for a rash of blame-shifting related to urban crime. In the face of an economic slowdown precipitated by people borrowing money they couldn't afford to repay, defaulting and then whining about how it's not their fault, the economy will become a ready excuse for just about anything. A case in point is the news that homicides in Kansas City are up this year. In this article there is the usual hand-wringing and speculation about the causes.

What struck me was the case of the young man who was killed holding up a convenience store, and the easy way his "mentor" characterizes him as a "victim" rather than "criminal". It is pointed out that he dropped out of high school unable to read, write or do math, and somehow he was unable to get a job. Really? Who'd have thought that it would be tough to get a well-paid job if you can't read or write? Even the wife of the taxi driver who was murdered later in the article falls into the trap of sympathizing with the kllers, as though they are victims of circumstance. That quote, "They feel like all of their opportunities have been snatched from them" is pure bullshit. No-one snatched their opportunities - they chose to piss them away all by themselves.

Here's a newsflash to all the "it's not their fault" whiny liberal bastards out there: if you drop out of school and can't do shit you'll probably end up with no job and no money. There are consequences to choices, and choosing to fuck up at school is not an option without implications for later happiness.

Of course it's not entirely the fault of these kids that they drop out of school. Kids are stupid - left to their own devices they might choose to eat Big Macs and dick around on the Playstation all day. You can't trust them to make informed choices to study hard at school at the age of ten; even if they eventually do work out that they should have paid attention, it'll be too late. We would almost certainly have done the same without guidance (don't kid yourself) and that has to come from parents. So where are the parents? While I don't have any statistics to hand (that would be a job for a proper writer) I can be fairly certain that the family circumstances of many of these "disadvantaged" kids is far from ideal. I'm guessing a lot of them are in single-parent households, and not the "good" kind either.

I know there's some Biblical saying about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the sons even unto the whatever generation, and maybe this is what they meant. Without parents to impose discipline, kids won't get an education or learn to act intelligently. They then grow up to father another round of bastard offspring, which in turn has no hope of ever getting guidance from non-existent or negligent parents. And then the whiny do-gooders make out that they commit crime because "society" doesn't give them options. Bullshit. Did you see that comment from the "community leader": "It seems like everything is falling on these black males 17 and up." Well if it is, it's because of the black males 33 and up who fathered them. No-one held a gun to their heads and made them hold a gun to other people's heads.

Until people have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that we have so many scum kids because we have so many scum parents there's no point papering over the problem. Especially when the paper is all colored green and was earned by people who bothered to pay attention in school. Still, if we're not lucky, in a few weeks we'll all be living in Obamaland, a world without consequences or responsibilities, where there are no criminals, only victims. Why bother getting a job? You can just sit around and wait for handouts from other people. Unless they want you to have to turn to a life of crime...

At a simplistic level, people aren't unemployed because they live in crappy neighborhoods; people live in crappy neighborhoods because they are unemployed. And not getting any education is a pretty safe way of ensuring that outcome.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Money For Nothing

Having been away for more than a week, I was not surprised that there was some mail awaiting me on my return. However, since Mrs Bison had already binned all the obvious junk mail, there were only two things left - a statement which showed that my investment portfolio was now worth fuck-all, and a letter from the University where I got my MBA. The basic thrust of this letter was that they would like me to give them some money. Preferably lots of money, and on a repeated basis. In fact, they would be only too happy to deduct the money from my credit card if I would be so kind as to give them the number.

I simply do not understand the concept of giving money to colleges and universities. Sure, if you're a billionaire who has an ego with its own zip code, and they're going to name an arts center after you, you may as well write a big check. (After all, you can't take it with you.) But for the rest of us this is a transaction with no upside.

Let's imagine, by way of analogy, that you just bought a new car. A few weeks later you get a letter from the dealership asking if you'd like to make a donation so that people less fortunate than you can also buy a car, and so that they can build a new showroom with more comfortable seats an a coffee machine. You may be inclined to bin the letter with a snort, and an exclamation such as "They must be fucking joking!" So why is a university any different?

To put this in perspective, 4-year college tuition rates rose by 7% in 2007, and have consistently risen by 50% more than the inflation rate. While automobile prices continue to fall in real terms, even as more features are added, college costs continually increase, while they find new ways to screw you. If they want to build a new school of architecture they can bloody well pay for it themselves. Colleges are incredibly wealthy - Harvard has a $35 billion endowment. If they gave away college educations for free they'd be hard-pressed EVER to run out of money. In fact they'd be able to do it entirely from the interest on their portfolio, without eating into the principal.

Universities like to whine about how they use your money to help out poorer people. But how does that work? You pay for a college education not on the basis of what it's worth, or on the basis of supply and demand, but on some socialist principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". If their program is too expensive why don't they reduce the cost? If the car dealership wants to help poor people get into a car they should sell cheaper cars, or cut their prices. In business we have to continually strive to cut costs in order to stay competitive. Not in the world of higher education though - they can just stick it to us with ever-higher prices while putting their hand out for more free money. The key thing is that they already have MORE than enough money to help out poorer students without guilting the rest of us into doing it for them.

It won't be that long until Bison Daughter is old enough to go to college. When that time comes I know for a fact that my alma mater will swiftly move from "We love you, please give us some money" to "You earn too much, here's your giant bill". So in joyful anticipation of that moment, here's my response to your donation request: You Can Fuck Right Off.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Make My Day

The high spot of the travel schedule this week (arrived home three hours ago; leaving again in twelve hours for Europe) was the chance to go to the Smith & Wesson range in Springfield again and shoot some targets. We took some colleagues there for "team building" Monday evening and engaged in a little healthy competition. The winning team received Smith & Wesson hats while the losers got a copy each of People magazine - you know, the edition with the picture of Clay Aiken on the cover with the giant headline "Yes I'm Gay".

I won't bore you with the details - you can always recap on my last visit here - but as a special treat they arranged for us to shoot the Smith & Wesson 500. This is the .50 caliber revolver that re-established S&W as the manufacturer of the most powerful production handgun in the world (according to them - it's not as though I checked).



This beast is loaded with five gigantic cartridges, but the range officer was only putting one round in the chamber in case the firer panicked and dropped the gun on experiencing the recoil. Bear in mind that Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum produces about 900 ft.-lb. of muzzle energy while this gun produces almost 2600 ft.-lb. with its heaviest load. A single factory round costs about $4, apparently.



I didn't even realize the thing was there until late in the session and, of course, I had to have a go. The range officer put the one round in and instructed me to fire double action (without pulling back the hammer), since the trigger was sensitive. It was indeed a beast, but not hard to fire, although it's definitely not for the nervous. I put in a fresh target and loaded up with five rounds. This time I fired single action (cocking before firing) simply because it's automatic for me to do it and I forgot not to; the trigger sensitivity was fine.

Below is the target - I was pretty happy with that. And I'm fairly confident that this gun would, in fact, be capable of "taking your head clean off". So go ahead - make my day, and buy me one. Please.



Copyright ©: 2008 Edward Bison