The Maverick drinking game takes some casualties

On the down low, on the Q.T., word on the street is, a friend of mine had to go down to Brackenridge hospital to get his son (who goes to the University of Texas) after suffering from alcohol poisoning from playing the "Maverick" drinking game. He and his friends had been taking shots of tequila for every time Sarah Palin said the word "maverick" during the debates. I felt bad for him until I saw this on SNL. I once passed out after playing "Hi Bob" while watching the Bob Newhart show. It’s a nasty hangover.




Olbermann rules:



This is one of those times when I get to say, my son is better than your son. Instead of drinking himself into a stupor my 16 year old finished his assignment in creative writing:

New Age Hippies

While walking past the capitol one day I was affronted by a man in a red shirt. He handed me a flyer, telling me that I should believe in peace. Behind him the others in his group chanted: "Iraq for Iraqis! Iraq for Iraqis!"

Now, I didn’t disagree with the sentiment, although that chant is really lame, but as soon as I looked at the flyer I saw the man’s disguise fall apart and underneath was nothing but a dirty hippie, preaching free love and drug abuse.

"Now exactly why should I believe in peace?" I asked, warily, trying to play devil’s advocate. Of course I believe in peace, only Republicans don’t want peace.

"Because peace is love man." He said, clearly believing he was being deep.

This statement made my head hurt. I rubbed my forehead where the pain was concentrated and closed my eyes for a long moment. "N-no… its not… peace is not dropping bombs on your neighbors."

"And the only way we can do that is to love our fellow brothers on this earth." He said, clearly insulted by my rebuttal to his meaningless statement.

"Love has nothing to do with peace! Just like hate has nothing to do with war!" I shouted, now his group stopped chanting and looked over at us. Peace groups probably don’t get many counter-protesters here in Austin.

"Hate is the reason for all wars, and the only thing that can combat hatred is something more powerful, it has to be love for everyone else that changes the world."

"Love is nice but it isn’t the strongest force in the world, greed is. Greed creates war, and it’s the only thing that can stop it!"

They were now thoroughly confused. "Look the only solution that can fix the world’s problems is more free trade and interdependence among nations."

"Free trade isn’t fair trade." The man repeated the slogan and then explained. "Capitalism creates nothing but strife and pain for the rest of the world."

I knew it! They are hippies!

"Yeah cuz the Soviet union really promoted world peace." I said sarcastically. "Look, here’s an example, for hundreds of years the British and the French hated each other, but recently, within this century they began to trade heavily. They might have still wanted to claw each other’s eyes out, but they didn’t, because it was more convenient for them not to."

They consider this. Then how do you explain all the wars we fight over land and money, those are all caused by greed, greed can’t be our salvation if it causes all our problems."

"Greed is a problem, but like anything else it can be redirected to be beneficial… Perhaps I misspoke, greed isn’t what’s going to save the world, but people wanting to have a better life will."

The man, now emboldened by catching me in a hyperbole, (which I am very bad about using) pressed his advantage. "And a better life for everyone can be found through love and sharing. That’s what Socialism is."

"That’s an opinion, and a poorly based one, often in Socialism, people end up in abject poverty, freezing to death in breadlines, that doesn’t seem to be a better life to me."

"Just because it didn’t work in the past doesn’t mean it can’t work in the future."

"I believe one of the definitions of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

"If Trotsky had won Socialism could have been great and just."

"Trotsky was a general, he was a warrior and a communist. Socialism or communism doesn’t cut out hatred or greed. You can tell that because Stalin lusted after power and nearly doomed his nation because he was willing to do anything to get it. Castro’s the same and so is every other communist leader.

And do you notice that there aren’t any pure Socialist nations? That’s because Socialism doesn’t work if you have more than five people."

"The hope of Socialism is still better than Capitalism."

"If you hope for something that means it’s not guaranteed to work. Socialism is a beautiful Idea, but it’s retarded, because it requires people to look out for each other. Capitalism is a horrifying Idea, but it’s brilliant because it requires that people only look out for them selves.
You should rely on what works at the time and try to improve it, rather than scrap it to replace it with something that may or may not work."

"But Capitalism doesn’t work for everyone. You can’ justify a system that works to make some people rich and other people impoverished."

"Of course you can, because every system from the beginning of time has done that. The only logical way to approach it is look at how many each of them sacrifices for the greater good."

"You’re heartless man, you don’t even care about the people who are starving and in pain."

"I’m not heartless I’m a pragmatist. No goal will ever be accomplished through love and caring. You have to use logic and strength of will and hard work. Ideals will always fail if they’re not backed up by cold hard facts and insight. The only way we can end the problems of the world is through trade and interdependence. Make it so hard to live without each other that it’s foolish to even think about wiping the other guy off the face of the map."

He was about to say something, but I cut him off, tired of arguing. "Love is dead man, get with the times, this is the new peace symbol." I said, and walked away, behind me a dollar bill fluttered to the ground where I had dropped it.