Let's get our priorities straight, Mr. Bohner

John Bohner said in an interview with the Pittsburgh-Tribune:

"Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system".

That's a pretty shocking declaration. He followed it by proposing raising the retirement age to 70.

Using the same math, one could instead say:

Ensuring there's enough money to take care of our seniors requires reforming the country's stance on the war.

If paying for the war is more important than taking care of our seniors, what are fighting it for in the first place?

A statement like that could be the death of him in November. Seniors love to vote. Let's see if he next proposes eliminating Medicare.

It's not Obama's language

Some fool is saying that Obama's speech was written to too high a grade level for his target audience. I say bullshit. Anyone who watched that speech, from a Nobel Prize winner to a sea turtle, understood that BP is paying for the spill. We all understood that because that's the only thing he said. The end. No one understood the rest of the speech because it contained no content. It seemed too professorial because it was a word balloon.

If Obama had declared that we will invest 100 billion in wind turbines, or tax gasoline consumption starting in 2012, or introduce a new energy bill next year, or pretty much any specific action, you can bet your Hummer everyone in America would have understood what he meant, no matter how he worded it or how many words he used per paragraph.

When everyone talks about wanting a president they can have a beer with, I don't think they mean someone uneducated. They mean they want a president that has their best interest at heart, tells the truth, and makes his intentions clear. Those are the people we like to have beers with, be they truck drivers or physicists.

Why Americans Don't Care About Soccer

Americans don't like soccer because we like points, and soccer has no points. The rules allow for the scoring of points, but it rarely occurs, and when it does, it's a fleeting moment created seemingly by chance. The game instead consists of a continuous back-and-forth of the soccer ball over a vast field, punctuated occasionally by fouls, players pretending to be fouled, or the ball going out of bounds. When a goal does occur, if you're reaching into the popcorn bowl at that moment, you have nearly no warning and you miss it.

As Americans, we simply can't concentrate that long. We need satisfaction. We need something we can hold onto. We need points. Even in an American football game, which to me is boring as dirt because it stops and starts every three seconds, the ball gains or loses yardage, which feels like points. Also, that it starts and stops every three seconds means that we only need to concentrate for a few seconds at a time. Baseball is the same - the action only occurs for a few seconds at a time, and players advance around the bases, which gets you measurably closer to winning a point. This is the opposite of a soccer game, which is one continuous blur of running and kicking, signifying nothing.