I was at one of those health food stores earlier today–you know, the ones with dietary supplements and organic everything. Anyway, I was persusing the wall o’ energy bars that is required in all such stores when I spotted one that caught my attention:

My family owns a cabin in northwestern Pennsylvania that I have been going to for as long as I can remember. I was just there this weekend, and I took note of a few signs I had never seen before. The first was in the nearby town of Brookville, PA where I spotted a new store that caught my attention:

Now granted, that’s not my best photography. I took it using a cell phone camera while traveling at close to 50 mph. So for those who can’t quite make out what the sign says, that’s an “adult supercenter.”

Hi, how are you doing? Good? That’s nice. But I don’t really care. You see, if you were an outside observer, such as one of those Martians who seem bent on conquering all such hypothetical situations in the known galaxy, you might think that I was expressing concern for your well being. As anyone who has lived in our society long enough to learn how to speak has come to realize, however, is that “How are you doing?� is not in fact a question. It is a greeting. Or at worst, a pick-up line for people who spend their days watching re-reruns of Friends, the show that proved that it is indeed possible to be about-nothing-er than Seinfeld.

Your comic, AOL Keyword: the funny.

…I guess that’s actually two words…

So Microsoft announced their new MSN Search Engine today. I actually haven’t used it yet, but being as it’s from Microsoft, I can’t imagine it being any good. After all, these are the same folks who brought you the crash and the computer virus. These guys make their living off of making crappy products and making a profit off of them just by putting them everywhere. I’m not sure how exactly they would pull it off, but I wouldn’t be surprised they managed to find a way to have a internet search take you to a blue screen of death.

Well, it’s that time of year again. TIME magazine is once again deciding on it’s person of the year, the person, group, or idea that “for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year.” The feature has been a yearly tradition for TIME since 1927 when Charles Lindbergh became the first “Man of the Year.” Already, there is quite a bit of buzz concerning who should be chosen as there is every year. So I thought it would be only appropriate to offer up my own suggestions for the person who has most influenced the events of 2004. So here it is. My top 10 picks for Anthropik’s Person of the Year.

As somebody who watches television news more than any reasonable person should, there is not a doubt in my mind that The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is easily the best nightly news show on American television. It is more professional than the CBS Evening News and ABC’s World News Tonight; and much more professional than NBC’s Nightly News. It is more substantive than CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360� or Paula Zahn Now. And comparing it to FOX News’ FOX Report is just an insult to Jim Lehrer’s ability as a journalist. So what makes NewsHour different from the rest of the competition? Well, one big difference is that the show airs on PBS.

Who can forget about the controversy caused earlier this year when Justin Timberlake pulled off a part of Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her right breast during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII? Seriously, if you’ve managed to forget it, please let me know how you did it. For weeks afterward we were forced to watch as outraged commentators raced to see who could be the first to work themselves up into having a stroke right there on the air. Because when you’re watching an event that serves as the number one advertiser for sex drugs and chauvinist beer commercials, it’s obvious that the biggest moral issue is a fleeting glimpse of a person’s nipple. Well, those responsible for policing broadcasts of football games are bringing us the same sort of moral guidance we have come to expect from them and 8-year-olds afraid of getting cooties. This time the controversy is over ABC’s opening to this week’s Monday Nigh Football game.

Bad news for the Bush-Cheney campaign came this week in the form of, surprisingly enough, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. In an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, Robertson said of a meeting with Mr. Bush, “I met with him down in Nashville before the Gulf War started. And he was the most self-assured man I ever met in my life. You remember, Mark Twain said, he looks like a contended Christian with four aces. He was just sitting there, like, I’m on top of the world, and I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties. Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties. Well, I said, it’s the way it’s going to be. And so, it was messy. The lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy. And before that, I had deep, in my spirit, I had deep misgivings about going into Iraq.” As if on instinct, the White House immediately went into attack mode. Senior campaign bitch advisor Karen Hughes was the first to respond to Robertson’s comments on CNN’s Inside Politics. “Judy, I cannot imagine that that conversation would ever take place,” Hughes said. “I’ve never heard the president say anything of the sort. Of course he knows that wars result, unfortunately, in the loss of lives. That’s one of the reasons it makes it such a difficult and agonizing decision for a president to decide to commit troops. And of course, at the time that conversation took place, we had already lost casualties in Afghanistan, in the war against terror. So I just can’t imagine what — whether he misunderstood, or what happened. But I’m certain that the president did not say that remark.” White House fall man press secretary Scott McClellan later added to that by saying, “Of course, the president never made such a comment.” Nobody in the Bush campaign came out and called Robertson a liar. But they came startlingly close. The implication here is clear. Either Robertson is lying, or he just has no idea what he’s talking about.

In the last few weeks of the campaign, the draft has finally come up as a real issue that the candidates are talking about. It started in the second presidential debate when Mr. Bush for the first time gave a straight answer as to whether or not he would reinstate the draft. Said Bush, “We’re not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works.” Yet given Bush’s excellent track record for honesty, there are those still questioning his intentions. Chief among those is his campaign rival Senator John Kerry, saying last Friday, “With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft.” Bush so far has been dismissing such accusations as “scare tactics,” even saying that voting for him is the best way to prevent a draft. He made a bit of a Freudian slip on Saturday saying, “After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain: We will not have an all-volunteer army.” He soon realized what he had said and corrected himself. But the question of Bush’s plans for a draft remain.

“I don’t think he’s funny. And I know he’s uninformed,” blasted an angry Robert Novak in his slurred, drunken-old-man voice. He was responding to the now widely talked about Crossfire appearance by Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Stewart set the tone for the discussion early in the show when he said of the debate show, “It’s not so much that it’s bad, as it’s hurting America.” He went on to use his time to criticize Crossfire and the media in general. Said Stewart, “I’m here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they’re hurting us.” A full video of the Stewart’s appearance can be viewed here.