Ed Ranks Countries By Beer

10. Australia

I'm going to have to admit that I was torn when it came to rounding out my top ten list with a final country. Lots of countries have good beer, and they couldn't all make it. Austria (not a spelling error, you'll see where I'm going here) is nice, but let's just go ahead and call a spade a spade - Austria is just Germany lite. There is a cult of beer that exists around Denmark too these days. Not because of Carlsburg, but because of its emerging status with a number of great craft beers - including some of the top-rated beers in the world. Well too bad for Denmark, because I gave this to Australia. And lets get this out of the way now so there is no confusion - I have never seen an Australian drink Fosters in my life. I'm pretty sure Fosters is just the dregs that come out of their kegs, which they export as some form of uniquely Australian practical joke to the rest of the world. Like Vegemite. If you're going to Australia, you'll have a wide choice of delicious (or at least decent) commercial beers including VB, Tooheys, Cascade, XXXX, James Squire, Boags, and so on. But just like Denmark and so many other countries, amazing things are happening with microbreweries pumping out great beer. I have been to Australia and can speak first hand to these. If the government of Denmark would like to pay for me to come over and try their beers in order to give them another chance to crack the top 10 to surpass Australia, I'd be amenable. That offer extends to almost any country that's not war-torn.

9. The Netherlands

There is more to beer in the Netherlands than just Heineken, Amstel and Grolsch. Admittedly, not much more - but still more. Pale lagers, such as those three, make up 95% of beer consumption in the Netherlands. We can't judge the whole country for that though because it would be like judging the United States for its top four selling beers - Bud Light, Coors Light, Budweiser, and Miller Lite. So you can't judge a book by its frat boy kegger party cover. The Dutch export 50% of all the beer they produce, the largest export percentage in the world, proving that the rest of the world actually wants to drink their lagers. The Netherlands also has two Trappist breweries, although one of them was only founded a few years ago. A little bit of that Belgian monk Trappist magic, combined with their solid and notable lagers, is enough to escalate them up.

8. Ireland 

At first thought, Ireland almost seems entirely a one trick pony with Guinness in the way that the Netherlands is with Heineken. Even if it was, Ireland would still be a heavy hitter because Guinness just might be the best beer there is in the world, bar none. But when you dig a little deeper, you'll see that with Ireland you can also appreciate Harp, Smithwick's, Murphy's, Kilkenny, and a few other select gems. And we can't underestimate how important "pub culture" is to how your country should be ranked when we're talking about beer. Inside of Ireland, pubs are simply a way of life. Outside of Ireland, Irish pubs are unavoidable. Not that you'd want to avoid them because that would be stupid. Go pretty much anywhere in the world and you can find an Irish pub. There are over 7,000 of them around the globe, at varying levels of authenticity. No, the Irish pub hidden inside a Western chain hotel in a Muslim country is not going to be as authentic as one of the pubs located in a city like Boston which got an influx of Irish diaspora populations. But lets not overlook the fact that there simply ARE Irish pubs hidden inside of Western chain hotels in Muslim countries, which typically ban alcohol consumption. Even though the bars are off-limits to locals, they know that no tourists will ever come if they don't at least throw a few Irish pubs in the hotels. You won't find Australian pubs or Dutch pubs everywhere around the globe. It's always Irish pubs. And if you see a place that's called an Irish pub but doesn't actually have Guinness - walk out and consider burning the place to the ground. I'm fairly sure there is a loophole in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that allows you to do this while claiming immunity.

7. Canada, eh?

Beer is as important to the Canadian national identity as ice hockey, maple syrup, poutine, Rob Ford smoking crack, affordable healthcare, digging your car out of 15 feet of snow (4.572 meters), beaver hats, Timbits, and all of the famous comedians in the United States. Yes, you've got your typical Molson's and Labatt, but you've also got Steam Whistle, Alexander Keith's, Moosehead, Unibroue, Mill Street, and so many more. There is a lot of variation in the different Provinces of Canada... and like their Yankee neighbors to the south, Canada is exploding with tasty craft brews. Just like with Canadian food, the best of the best is probably in Quebec so you're going to want to try a La Fin du Monde or, like, anything from Dieu du Ciel. Canadian beers also run at a bit higher alcohol content than their brothers from a southern mother in the US-of-A. But the best thing about Canadian beer? It's always served ice cold simply because the entire country is a desolate frozen wasteland (of happy, friendly people). 


6. Japan 

Japan has vending machines for everything

Japan knows how to make them some good beer because they did what the greatest beer countries do - steal already proven ideas and techniques from other countries. Japan learned from the best. It opened its first beer hall on the artificially-built trade island of Dejima the 1600s to serve drunk-ass Dutch sailors. By the Meiji period in the late 1800s, Japan had begun to more actively open trade to the West and started importing Bass from England. They loved it so much that they hired a number of European experts to teach them more, leaning heavily on the Germans. While Kirin was developed using traditional Japanese techniques, they imported malted grains and hops from Germany and employed German brewers to oversee its production. The same German perfection came along with Sapporo, whose first brewmaster was the German-trained Seibei Nakagawa. In the first World War, Ashai also used German employees in their brewery to perfect their beer, if by "employees" you mean "prisoners" (they were on opposing sides that time). The Japanese love getting shitfaced and have a lot of other excellent alcohol options, including sake and whisky, but it hasn't come at the detriment of their beer - which is still excellent and extremely popular.

5. Czech Republic

In terms of per capita beer consumption, the Czech Republic ranks #1 in the world. I suppose another way to say that is, "Czechs are alcoholics," but that's a bit of a downer--so let's spin my Czech ancestors in a more positive light. Two-thirds of all beers produced and consumed in the world today are blond lagers. Blond lager is also known as "pilsner," after the town of Pilsen/Plzeň in the Czech Republic ("Czechia" is stupid and I refuse to call it that). Two-thirds of all beer in the world is just a copycat of the original: Pilsner Urquell. Whether or not they call themselves pilsners, pils, blond lagers, pale lagers, American lagers, helles, dry beer, strong lager, bocks, märzens - most of the beer you know of is just some variation on the Czech classic. Heineken, Amstel, Stella Artois, Jupiler, Grolsch, Beck's, Bitburger, Carlsburg, Jever, Flensburger, Holsten, König, Krombacher, Radeberger, Veltins, Warsteiner, Wernesgrüner, St Pauli Girl,  Löwenbräu, Hofbräu München, Spaten, Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Busch, Michelob, Molson, Labatt, Brahma, Harbin, Yanjing, Skol, Tsingtao, Asahi, Sapporo, Kirin, Peroni, Kingfisher, Corona, Pacífico, Zywiec, Tennent's, Tiger, Hite, Cass, Singha, Efes - the list goes on and on. These are all derivations of the original amazing Czech pils, whether they are pale lagers themselves or another lager based on the original Czech cold storage maturation process. Even the most [in]famous beer name in America - Budweiser - is nothing but a copycat. The Czech city of České Budějovice is known as "Budweis" in German, and  "Budweiser" simply means that something is from Budweis. Obviously, the American product (using an alternative maturation process that, I assume, uses horse piss) doesn't compare to either the original 1795 Budweiser, nor the very popular Budweiser Budvar, which due to complicated international trademark issues has to be called "Czechvar" in North America. Just how popular is the real Czech version of Budweiser? Well, it's actually the most imported beer into Germany. You know how good German beer is, so if the Germans are importing beer from somewhere else and drinking it, well, it must be amazing. Oh, and hey speaking of those guys...

4. Germany 

What is this? Germany all the way down at #4? OUTRAGE!!! I am very well aware that many people would rank Germany as #1. I mean they're supposed to be the best! That's why the Japanese hired (and/or enslaved as prisoners of war) all the Germans to make their beer, right? I mean no disrespect to Germany with this, as their beers are indeed quite awesome. While the Czechs may have invented lager - the Germans are without a doubt the masters of it (but be careful calling the Germans "masters" of anything, because they tend to get spun up and start goosestepping). Beer and Germany go hand-in-hand. An important moment in German history is the Reinheitsgebot ("purity decree"), a 1516 Bavarian beer purity law which set regulations for the ingredients and methods that are allowed for beer production. Those formed the foundations for many of the regulations that still exist today, and you'll find plenty of German beers halls (in Germany and around the world) that still strictly follow the 1516 decree with all of their beers. German beer halls and beer gardens are the only establishments which can give Irish pubs a run for their money. Germany is most likely the country that people would go to if the reason they want to go to another country is just to drink beer. If you go to Germany and don't come home with a stein then you legally haven't been. No other country can even compete with the Germans with their annual two week(-ish) orgy of beer - Oktoberfest. Kölsch, helles, märzens, pilseners, hefeweizens (and all the other weissbiers), bocks, dunkels, schwarzbiers, kellerbiers... holy shit, these are all spectacular! So why #4 again? First off, there isn't actually a huge variety despite the "varieties" I just mentioned. Germany is all about lagers, almost to its detriment. And while Germany's dedication to a 1516 beer purity law is admirable - just think about that. Following a set of rules laid out in 1516 means that you're still doing things the 1516 way, without much room for variation, innovation or evolution. Don't get me wrong - German beers are amazing and #4 is a great spot. The most commonly consumed beer in the world is, by far, blond lager. Germans make amazing lagers - the majority of them blond. If you only want to drink lagers, you should go to Germany. If you need some diversity in your beer though, you'll have to turn elsewhere.

3. United Kingdom 

So how in the helles (ha!) is the UK a better beer country than the mighty beer lords of Germany? For exactly the reason you should figure by now - diversity. The Celts were making beer long before the Romans ever showed up to Britannia, so they've been mastering this whole brewing thing for quite a while. And while the Germans are closely associated with their lagers, the UK is almost equally famous for their ales. Pale ales, brown ales, mild ales, dark ales, bitters, strong ales, stouts, and porters (yes, stouts and porters are technically ales, so now you know). Each of those categories themselves can be dedicated into a number of sub categories. For instance, within bitter you can have extra special/strong bitter, session, premium, light, golden... and within stouts you can have dry, milk, oatmeal, chocolate, oyster, imperial... you get the picture. Just how important is ale to the UK? Maybe you should ask yourself if your own country has a Campaign for Real Ale. CAMRA, as its known, is a 180,000 member voluntary organization formed in the 1970s to oppose the domination that mass produced shit commercial ales were having throughout the UK and Ireland. It is dedicated to preserving British pub culture and real cask ale - ale that isn't artificially carbonated and put in kegs. Cask ale is harder to make, transport and sell because its unfiltered, unpasteurized, and served from a cask without additional artificially-added nitrogen or carbon dioxide. Given this lack of pasteurization, the yeast in cask ale is still alive and its fermentation process is still continuing - allowing it to retain freshness (supposedly). And once you have a cask ale, you'll know why this campaign started and you'll want to use CAMRA's helpful pub map to find which pubs serve cask ale. Cask ale is draught beer at its very best. This is, unfortunately, where some of the uneducated jokes about English beer being "warm" come from - because cask ale isn't (and shouldn't) be artificially cooled to freezing temperatures. No, cask ale is not "warm" or "room temperate." It is served at cellar temperature - just like red wine should be. This means slightly chilled. Don't worry, if you like your beer ice cold - you still have plenty of options in the UK. Other beers are great cold (whether Guinness should be served ice cold or not remains a fierce debate, while I'm sort of on the side of enjoying it a bit colder). The UK isn't a one trick pony like Germany either. Yes, while it is certainly famous for its traditional ales - the UK has lagers as well. More than half the UK market is now lager. Although, a lot of the lager they drink is imported, the UK does have a few great homegrown lager choices. And for "UK" I am not only referring to England - just look at Scotland and you'll see some examples of  lagers like Tennant's, St. Mungo, Kestrel, and Innis & Gunn. The UK isn't held back by some antiquated purity law to tell it what it can and can't do with beer - so it has an amazing number craft beers and quality microbrews. The UK pretty much invented the microbrewing industry as we know it today in the 1970s.

2. Belgium

The people who say they like German beer more than Belgian beer usually start off with the argument that Belgian beer is "too sweet."  While I can see where that general sentiment is coming from, it certainly doesn't reflect all Belgian beers. That would be like saying that you don't like IPAs because they "taste like the grass removed from the bottom of a rusty-bladed lawnmower, soaked in Pine-Sol and concentrated human sadness, and blended with unfiltered swamp water and the half-rotten rind of a grapefruit." Yes, generally true - but there are exceptions. Beer in Belgium varies from those famous Trappist and abbey beers to lambics to Flemish (Flanders) reds to, yes, lagers as well (Stella, anyone?). Let's talk first about those Trappist and abbey ales. Trappist beers are specifically made by monks of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance within the walls of one of their monasteries. A number of these Trappist abbeys gathered together in the 1990s to create the International Trappist Association (ITA) in response to a growing number of abbeys that were becoming modern commercial for-profit enterprises without the same involvement of monks, which they felt was abusing the "Trappist" name. Westvleteren XII is frequently rated by beer snobs as the best beer in the world. You don't have to agree with beer snobs because you're allowed to have your own tastes, but you might just want to go ahead and try one. You'll also probably recognize Trappist names like Chimay, Orval, Westmalle, and Rochefort. That's not to say that other "abbey" beers that don't meet the Trappist criteria aren't good - here you've got options like Leffe, Grimbergen, Affligem, and St. Bernardus. Do some of these Trappist and abbey beers runs on the sweet side? Sure. The reason why is because they have residual sugars in them from the special yeast, which is still alive (like UK's cask ale). But these beers aren't necessarily a style in themselves, merely a designation of who made them, and the Trappist and abbey beers can vary greatly in color, taste, sweetness, and alcohol content (e.g. dubbels, trippels, quadrupels). But Belgium also has blonde/golden ales (like Duvel), Flemish reds (Duchesse de Bourgogne - which I've heard a friend describe as "like a bottle of vinegar," so to each their own), pilsners (the aforementioned Stella Artois, Jupiler, or Maes), wheat beers (Hoegaarden), ambers (Kwak), saisons, Scotch ales, a wide variety of special Christmas beers, and lambics. When people are talking about Belgian beers being too sweet, they're probably referring to the lambics more so than Trappist beers. These famously come in flavors like cherry (kriek), raspberry (framboise), peach, blackcurrant, and so on. Many of the popular ones are artificially flavored and have added syrups. I won't knock these because they can be quite tasty. On the right occasion they are refreshing and delicious, fulfilling the same function as a summer shandy or a German radler. But you can also get some true lambics that are fermented along with fruits (like krieks fermented with sour Morello cherries) and without added flavor. These might just blow your mind, and the words you would use to describe them would likely be "dry," "acidic," "sour," or "cidery," rather than "sweet." The lambic process actually involves using wild yeasts (rather than the carefully cultivated yeasts used for almost all other beer). Which brings me to gueuze, made from a young and old lambic blended together and fermented a second time. Oude ("Old") Gueuze will have no sweeteners added, and is something you should definitely try. If you go to the right bars around Belgium, you can also find Belgian-made microbrews (including even those grassy IPAs). A final protip for you - every single Belgian beer comes with its own unique glass. Although the world usually sees the Europeans as being anti-death penalty, if you drink a beer out of the wrong glass in Belgium, I'm pretty sure they'll start setting up a gallows for you.

1. The United States of America

Did I stutter? Twenty years ago, you would have laughed so hard at this because I was obviously joking. Fifteen years ago, you would have thrown a punch at my face and called me a stupid, uncultured, Bud-chugging redneck or fratboy. Ten years ago you would have understood where I was generally coming from because the growing microbrewery industry, but still disagreed with me that we were anywhere close to the Germans or Belgians. Five years ago - ehhhhhh. Even now you might still disagree. No country in the world has made a bigger turnaround with beer than 'Murica. We were a joke, internationally. I may have mentioned before a certain American brand with a Czech name maybe tasting like "horse piss." That's unfair and not quite true, because it actually tastes like nothing. A combination of factors including (but not limited to) the temperance and prohibition movements and the beer industry's profit margins led to American beer having less alcohol and less taste. The beer industry spun the less alcohol and less taste as "less calories," which actually meant "so you can drink more, so that we can sell more." After decades of this, the average American just accepted that tasteless ice-cold lager was the only way beer could be. The microbrewery and craft beer movements have changed that all, and now the United States is a beer paradise where you will want for nothing. American beer is now great for the very reason that America is great - diversity. American breweries make every type and style of beer I mentioned in all of the countries above. Every type. I'm not kidding. How could America possibly make Trappist beer too, if one of the requirements is that it has to be made by monks in a Trappist abbey? Well guess what! The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance have St. Joseph's Abbey in Massachusetts that's been recognized and certified by the ITA to make Trappist beer. The spread of the UK-style microbrew industry into the United States in the 1980s was the big turnaround. Now let's get a few things straight here. Sam Adams gets a little credit here for being the first big name, but it wasn't the only one. And I know that the whole American microbrew/craft beer scene has become completely entwined with hipster culture. Let's not mince words here - I believe all hipsters should be grabbed by their fucking handlebar mustaches and thrown into a giant blender, where they are liquefied and poured into cans of PBR. So let's avoid the whole pretentious "beer culture" thing and instead talk about the beer itself rather than the goddamn bearded "Beer-istas" wearing flannel, thick-rimmed glasses, and a slightly askew hat while telling you about the subtle differences between the organic hops varieties used in their various Session IPAs. Like I said, American beer is about diversity. So you don't like IPA? You're absolutely not alone. Maybe you'll instead like the stouts, porters, farmhouse ales, lagers of all kinds, lambics, APAs, wild ales, strong ales, wheat beers, malt liquors (just kidding), barleywines, amber ales, cream ales, etc. And I won't even judge you if you do like the somewhat tasteless mass produced blond lagers. You like what you like and if you want to have the occasional Bud Light Lime then don't let any beer elitist shame you. But wherever you are in the United States, you have amazing and unique choices. Some of those have gone national like Flying Dog, Goose Island, Dogfish Head, Lagunitas, Abita, Founders, Oskar Blues, New Belgium, Allagash, Brooklyn, etc. Chances are you probably have even more smaller operations around you that aren't national, but produce great beers. If you go to bars pretty much anywhere around the world these days - you'll find American craft beers and/or American-style craft beers on draught. The rest of the world wants and craves and loves American beer. That would have been unthinkable years ago.

Ed Ranks 10 Better Candidates for President than Donald Trump

I don't try to do too much "politics" stuff here, because it's stupid and annoying. But hey! What about that debate thing, huh? And please note - these aren't the only 10 better candidates for President than Donald Trump. There are many more. About 7.4 billion more. But enjoy this sprinkling of selections as a sort of canapé.

Yeah, what does the Department of Energy do anyway?
I mean, other than secure all nuclear materials.

10. Rick Perry - In the 2012 election cycle, Rick Perry wanted to get rid of three federal agencies, but couldn't remember which ones they were. That's pretty bad, but at least he wore glasses in the 2016 election cycle and looked smarter. Despite the fact that his strategy for cutting government spending is "Oops, I forgot," he would unquestionably be a better President than Donald Trump.

9. John Kasich - The governor of Ohio was generally viewed as one of the "moderate" or "establishment" candidates running for the Republican nomination in 2016. If the Republicans had selected him as their nominee, he would have been better than Donald Trump. But then again, if you held some sort of Hunger Games-type lottery selection process where you randomly drew a name out of a hat - that person would likely also have been a better candidate. Even if the names in the hat were only those of prisoners in Arkham Asylum.

The bigoted ghost President was Franklin Pierce all along!

8. The Ghost of Franklin Pierce - It's clear Donald Trump has never read the Constitution and has absolutely no understanding of it - so why should I bother to look into those boring details of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 (as well as the relevant text in Article I, Section 3, Clause 7; and the Twelfth, Fourteenth and Twenty-second Amendments) to determine what the eligibility requirements of being the POTUS are either? I'm pretty sure, again - without actually bothering to read anything - that there is no text that says that a ghost can't be the President. The founding fathers likely didn't foresee such a development, so it got left out. Just like how they didn't ban AR-15s because that wasn't a thing in 1789 when they were agreeing to the Constitution. Franklin Pierce was a terrible President. He saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to the Union, fought to preserve slavery, and violently enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. He is frequently cited as one of the worst Presidents in history, and his actions led directly to the Civil War. He would probably be an even worse President now as a haunting specter from beyond the grave, returned from the fiery pits of hell. But he would still be better than Donald Trump.

7. A Crusted-Up Booger on the Underside of a Desk - And while I'm disregarding whatever clauses define the eligibility of our President, I might as well go ahead and suggest inanimate objects as well. Remember back in school when you'd be sitting at a desk, and your hand would brush the underside of it and you'd run into a disgusting crusted up booger that some filthy kid left there a few days ago after picking their nose? Gross, right? Now I'm not saying that a crusted-up booger is an ideal candidate. Far from it! In fact, it's an awful Presidential candidate. But if you asked me whether it would do a better job than Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces, I would unequivocally respond, "yes."

6. A Man Who Has Been in a Coma for 30 Years - Okay, let's say I was lying and I do actually know the eligibility requirements of the President, because I have a Political Science degree. I am very aware that the President has to be over 35 years old, a natural-born citizen who has resided in the US for at least 14 years, who has not been previously elected twice, has not been barred from holding federal office via impeachment procedures launched by the Senate, and is not someone who had previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and afterwards rebelled against the United States. I could see a circumstance (admittedly unlikely) where a 5 year old American boy who fell into a coma for 30 years (and would thus now be 35 years old) would be nominated by his party for the Presidency. He would make a better President than Donald Trump. Notice I did not say that he had to wake up from that coma. He could still be in it and would be a more effective leader of the free world. It is highly unlikely that a 35 year old man who has been in a coma for the last 30 years would say something super sexist to a female head of state during an important diplomatic meeting. But I can guarantee that would happen every single time Donald Trump meets a female head of state, assuming the American people collectively lose their minds and vote for him.

5. Jeeves, From the Defunct Website AskJeeves.com - Just because AskJeeves.com no longer exists and has been rolled into the more mundane ask.com doesn't mean that we can't nominate Jeeves, a search engine presented in the form of a fictional butler, to be Republican Party's next nominee for the President of the United States. As technology continues to move forward, we're going to have to ask ourselves the hard questions about artificial intelligence and whether or not it counts as sentient life. Even if the AI is just a basic, stupid 1990s-era search engine. Want to know something else basic and stupid? Donald Trump. And don't worry about the whole "British" thing. Jeeves is only supposed to be a British butler, but is based on search engine algorithms and codes written in Berkeley, California. That makes Jeeves as American as apple pie, baseball, pickup trucks, planting the flag on the moon, and slightly half of the country seriously thinking about electing an opportunist sociopath authoritarian narcissist who doesn't actually share any of their values.
  

4. O.J. Simpson - O.J. Simpson is over 35, was a natural-born citizen, has resided in the U.S. for well over 14 years, has not previously been elected President twice (or any times for that matter), has not engaged in insurrection against the United States, and has never been impeached from a federal office. On the flip side, he has murdered two people. Even with that deep character flaw, I am absolutely sure that he would do a better job of fulfilling his legislative obligations under the Presentment Clause of the Constitution than Donald Trump would. Orenthal James "The Juice" Simpson would surely have more common sense to judge which bills from Congress should be signed, vetoed, or pocked vetoed from 10 days of inaction during a Congressional recess. But then again, so would a brain-dead walrus (which barely missed out on this ranking by coming in at #11).

Pictured: Someone who has not proposed a database to track all Muslims.

3. Pretty Much Any Firefighter - If you just grabbed any firefighter off the street (usually look around Fire Departments, you'll have better luck), put him or her in a suit, and ran that person for President of the United States - you could pretty much guarantee yourself a more qualified and suitable candidate than Donald Trump with a deeper understanding of (at the very least) politics, international relations, and use of military force. And as a bonus, if the White House ever catches on fire again like it did in 1814, the President would easily have the knowledge and experience to extinguish the flames. It wouldn't matter if it was a Class A fire (solids such as woods, plastics, etc.), Class B fire (flammable liquids), Class C fire (flammable gas), or so on. I'm not trying to make this ranking about fire safety, so I believe I've given enough examples to suitably argue my point without going into more details about metal, electrical, and oil/fat fires; nor do I feel it is necessary to explain what types of extinguishers (e.g. water, foam, dry powder) are best suited for which of these various fires. However, you should look into these matters further yourself if you are interested and worried about fire safety. Better safe than sorry.

2. A Flaming Bag of Feces Left on Your Doorstep - If there was no Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution then we'd easily be able to nominate a brown lunch bag filled with a substantial heaping of dog or human feces that was left your doorstep and set aflame. This flaming bag of feces on your doorstep would almost certainly show more jurisprudence when making selections for ambassadors, cabinet members, and federal judges than Donald Trump would.

Baaaaa! Mexicans are rapists. Baaaaaa!

1. A Racist Goat - Since this goat is a horrible racist, at first you might think it would be just as bad of a choice to be President of the United States as Donald Trump would be. But note that I only stated that this goat was racist. I did not state that this goat was also misogynist. This goat has healthy emotional feelings about women, and has not said any antiquated things about their role in 21st Century society. Equally I did not say that the goat was a habitual liar, nor that it encouraged its supporters to beat up people at rallies who hold opposing views. This goat also does not promote frequently disproven conspiracy theories, nor did it celebrate how its goat building in New York became the tallest goat building after 9/11. This goat has strongly supported the American military and thus has never implied that POW's aren't heroes because they were captured, nor questioned the loyalty of the parents of soldiers who died fighting for America. The goat hasn't set up any scam universities, now the subject of class action lawsuits, to bilk people out of millions of dollars. This goat has never publicly stated any support for torture or a policy supportive of first use of a nuclear weapon, which would violate international treaties that the United States has ascended to, as well as violate basic human (and goat) dignity and morality. This goat, being generally sensible on a number of matters despite his deeply ingrained racism, has never publicly stated that it would be a good idea to kill the innocent family members of terrorists and criminals as a form of revenge. Once this goat saw a bully mocking a disabled reporter, and was really offended by it and asked the bully to stop. And even though this goat is truly racist, it was never in a position in the goat real estate industry which allowed it to systemically refuse to rent apartments to black goat tenants. This goat doesn't necessarily like Chinese goats, but hasn't gone as far as accusing Chinese goats of inventing global warming as a hoax to get a competitive advantage in goat industry - because that doesn't make any sense. Look, this list could literally go on with about 500 more examples as I continue to list a number of other stupid things that this goat hasn't done, but by now I think you've pretty much gotten the point that a racist goat would probably be a better President than Donald Trump, despite being a hooved Bovidae with a general tendency to forward chain emails that use the N-word, much like that one uncle you have. And just for the record, this goat has also not repeatedly talked about wanting to have sex with his own goat daughter.

Ed Ranks Old Pictures From His External Hard Drive

I was backing up my computer the other day onto my external hard drive, which I haven't touched in years. It was just time to do it because I have a lot of pictures from travel and other documents that only exist on my computer. And if my computer were to crash or be destroyed or stolen - I'd lose all of that. Makes sense, right?  What didn't make sense were hundreds and hundreds of pictures I had collected over time from all over the internet. These are things I had on my computer from college, as well as the one from after I graduated.  After looking through these insane pictures, I have picked ten of them and decided to rank them. Here they are, with no explanation or context. Sometimes because I can't remember the context for why I had those pictures on my old computers, and sometimes because I can remember but it's funnier without any context.

10. A Back Alley Cat Doctor

9. Hal Jordan's Little Known Super Power

8. Cookie Monster Doing Something Retroactively Horrific

7. A Hologram of Adult Film Actress Jezebelle Bond In Front of the Millennium Falcon

6. Japanese Wrestler Shoichi Funaki Serenading a Baby One More Time-Era Britney Spears

5. Medieval Bro Code

4. Ronald McDonald Enjoying a Lads' Mag

3. Samuel L. Jackson Playing Guess Who

2. A Feline That Somewhat Resembles Captain Jean-Luc Picard While Being Interrogated by the Cardassians in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode "Chain of Command."

There are four meows.

1. This Picture That Still Makes No Sense

Ed Ranks the Top 10 Reasons Brangelina Are Getting Divorced

Ah, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - we thought you'd last forever! Wait, what's that? We didn't? You're a Hollywood couple, so everyone assumed all along that you'd break up? Well, never mind then. Let's throw some darts at a board and come up with a few possible reasons (of varying dubiousness) for why things didn't work out for you two hepcats.

10. They Slowly Grew Apart Over Time and Barely Saw Each Other Due to their Busy Schedules

This sounds like a press statement that will soon come out. It sounds like every press statement released by divorcing celebrities who are trying to avoid prolonged custody battles. It is the least interesting possible explanation. I shall speak of this no more.

9. Angelina Revealed to Brad that She Plans on Voting for Trump 

You know how Angelina Jolie's father is Jon Voight? Jon Voight has, among other things, said that it's un-American to criticize the President (when the President was George W. Bush) and then said that Obama's religion is "pseudo-Scriptural" and "toxic", and that Obama is arrogant, a false prophet, causing civil unrest, slowly taking away our freedoms, a liar, anti-Semitic, etc (so, uh, forget the it's un-American to criticize the President thing - that only applies if the President completely agrees with your worldview). He's stumped for Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and, yes, Donald Trump. Angelina and her father were estranged for several years and never agreed about a lot of things, including politics as far as we know. But in 2007 they reconciled. Angelina is one of those famous Hollywood liberals though, right? Not necessarily. Interest in humanitarian work and aid to those in need isn't a liberal/conservative thing. In 2008, she was quoted as saying "I think people assume I’m a Democrat. But I’m registered independent and I’m still undecided. So I’m looking at McCain as well as Obama."  Maybe, over the course of the last nine years of being reconciled with her father, he's slowly convinced her to share a conservative world view and vote red this November. And she hasn't adopted any Mexican children, so maybe she hates Mexicans too. Look, I'm not saying this is likely, it's only ranked #9.

8. They Realized their Marriage was Just as Terrible as By the Sea

By the Sea (2015) is an awful film. It stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt together and was directed by Jolie. In its debut week, it came in 38th place in the box office. It holds a 33% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and got bad reviews. Films with celebrity power couples never work. Remember Tom and Nicole in Eyes Wide Shut? Remember Ben and J-Lo in Gigli? "But what about Mr. and Mrs. Smith?", you say. That one doesn't count. They weren't together yet when they started filming that. But they sure were during and after. Maybe Brad and Angelina themselves decided to pop in their By the Sea Blu-ray and gave it a watch. They saw that the story was about the slow decline of a marriage. They gave awkward gazes to each other before sighing into their palms.

7. They Finally Realized that Marriage, in General, is Just a Giant Sham

Brad was all like, "Marriage is an antiquated concept that has no place in today's society." Then Angelina was like, "Yeah, marriage wasn't even originally created because of love or religion. It was just a way for men to claim ownership and control over women." "That's right," replied Brad, "No other animals in the animal kingdom need to have a sheet of paper saying that they're married." Angelina nodded again, "True Brad, the way the world works changes. The institution of marriage was different a thousand years ago from how it was five hundred years ago and those are both different from how it is today. Time changes all things and even now the existence of marriage is becoming unnecessary. There are so many divorces. In today's day and age, it's just unrealistic to believe that two people can be together for the rest of their lives. Even if they can, it's not like a sheet of paper or a court saying they're together is the driving factor that keeps them together." Brad replied, "Absolutely honey, the only reason people even get married these days is for tax purposes. The government has pretty much incentivized marriage for financial reasons in order to get people to still do it since it was dying off. Maybe the government should leave its hands out of marriage and just let it die the natural death it needed to." And then Angelina said, "Let's get divorced."

6. Brad is a Shallow Bastard Who Really Misses Angelina's Breasts 

Angelina Jolie got a double mastectomy as a preventative measure, given a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Now, I'm not saying that Brad Pitt is a horrible, shallow, monster of a human being who only married Angelina Jolie for her physical appearance and to motorboat her glorious 36C breasts. But if he is a horrible, shallow, monster of a human being who only married Angelina Jolie for her physical appearance and to motorboat her glorious 36C breasts - then the fact that she got a double mastectomy would have really upset him. And if he is a horrible, shallow, monster of a human being who only married Angelina Jolie for her physical appearance and to motorboat her glorious 36C breasts - then Brad is likely also the type of guy who would be like, "No man, the replacement implants aren't the same. I like 'em natural!" Again, this is all speculation. I have no specific information that Brad Pitt is a horrible, shallow, monster of a human being who only married Angelina Jolie for her physical appearance and to motorboat her glorious 36C breasts.
 
5. Brad Has an Unquenchable Thirst for Methadone which Angelina Can No Longer Tolerate

Fun fact! Okay, not so fun for Brad Pitt. While filming a scene in Se7en where he was running in the rain, Brad Pitt slipped and his arm smashed through a car window. The accident severed a tendon in his arm and the injury was worked into the film (the cast on his arm was totally real). Brad Pitt would have likely had to be given a lot of painkillers when that happened and throughout his recovery process. Maybe he got hooked on his pain killers and for the last 20+ years, has been a total methadone junkie getting high all the time on opiates. Angelina never really liked his addiction, but tolerated it because of her love for him. Until now. That would be a pretty interesting reason for a divorce, no?

4. Angelina is a Vicious Spousal Abuser Who Frequently Beats Brad in Violent Fits of Rage 

Does anyone remember this story? Brad Pitt "accidentally tripped on the stairs while wearing flip flops and smashed his face in." Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, Brad. Whatever you want to tell us. Look, there is no shame in being a victim. Being abused doesn't make you any less of a person. It doesn't show that you're weak or inferior. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates that 75% of abuse goes unreported. In the United States, an average of 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. This equates to more than 10 million abuse victims annually. What excuse will you use the next time you show up to a movie premier with scratches all over your body and a black eye? You accidentally tripped on the stairs AGAIN? You ran into a door? Angelina might have told you that she was going to change and would never do it again. She likely said it again and again. Every time. I'm glad you've finally seen through that lie and are breaking free, Brad. Be strong. Leaving your abuser is the strongest and most empowering thing that you can do.

3. Disagreement Over Which Countries the Next 17 Children that they Adopt Should Come From

Angelina and Brad both want 17 more refugee children. Angelina wants the children to come from Somalia, Burundi, Malawi, the Central African Republic, Niger, the Gambia, Madagascar, Liberia, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Kiribati, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Uganda, the Solomon Islands, Ukraine, and Honduras. Meanwhile, Brad thinks that Angelina is wrong and the children should instead come from Liberia, Iraq, Guinea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, El Salvador, Togo, Afghanistan, Benin, South Sudan, Paraguay, Guyana, Azerbaijan, Botswana, Palau, Romania, and Gabon. They got into a big fight over it, with neither side willing to compromise and Angelina walked out the door.

2. Angelina Caught Brad Sexting Jennifer Aniston

It was late at night. Brad was drunk. He started sending dick pics to his ex. We all hope this is the reason, right?

1. Brad Finally Realized that Angelina is Completely Insane

One morning, Brad Pitt woke up and was like, "Wait a minute. Why did I marry a woman who (1) engaged in knifeplay with her boyfriend as a teenager where the two would cut each other while having sex; (2) gave a sensual deep French kiss to her brother at the 2000 Golden Globes and told the media, 'I'm so in love with my brother;' and (3) regularly wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck like that was something that normal people just do?" He thought about it for a few minutes, then just took his hat and coat off the rack and walked out the door, never to return.

Ed Ranks Other Things WNBA Teams Could Be

12. Atlanta Dream - This could be a Georgia-based Neo-Confederate secessionist movement, set on rebelling against the North and gaining independence for the South once more. New members go to Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis and spit on the grave of William Tecumseh Sherman as an initiation ceremony. And for these reasons, it ranks the lowest.

11. Los Angeles Sparks - This could be referring to the initial starting of fires that led to the destruction of several buildings in Koreatown during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Which would be kind of depressing, so I'm glad it doesn't refer to that.

10. Chicago Sky - This could be a term we all use to describe the horrible dark clouds that seem to permanently sit over O'Hare and delay the flights of every inbound, outbound, and transfer at this major international airport. Chicago Skies ruin the vacations and business travel of millions of people a year.

9. New York Liberty - This could be an ironic term used to describe New York City's racially-biased stop-and-frisk policing policies. In fact, it probably should be. The "liberty" part needs to be in quotation marks though, so that people who are a little slow picking up on sarcasm can get it.

8. Phoenix Mercury - This could be a worshiped deity in  the ancient Peloponnese, combining aspects of the Greco-Roman gods Hermes (Mercury) and Phoenix. Just like how in the New Kingdom of Egypt the god Amun rose to prominence and was fused with Ra to become Amun-Ra. Phoenix Mercury likely would have combined Mercury's aspects as the "keeper of boundaries" (referring to his role as bridge between the upper and lower worlds) with the Phoenix's association with resurrection and rebirth. But he didn't, because he never had a cult in the Peloponnese, never existed, and was never worshiped.

7. Indiana Fever - This could be the name of a mysterious late 19th Century disease that killed millions of cattle, thus ravaged the South Bend, Indiana meatpacking industry and allowed Chicago-based Philip Danforth Armour to gain a near monopoly over the livestock trade in the Midwest. It could be, but it's not because I made that disease and historic event up.
 

My amazing Photoshop skills

6. Seattle Storm - This could have been the superhero name of X-Men member Ororo Munroe, if her backstory was that she was from the corner of Spring Street and 34th Avenue in Madrona, rather than being a Kenyan witch-priestesses.

5. Connecticut Sun - This could be a cranberry-flavored drink from Capri Sun. Unfortunately, Ocean Spray has totally dominated the cranberry industry and they won't let Capri Sun get into that sweet (but tart) cranberry action.

4. Washington Mystics - This could be a Kennewick-based Wicca community which engages in the duo-theistic worship of a Horned God of fertility and a Mother Goddess. Instead, it is just a basketball team in the District of Columbia.

3. Dallas Wings - This could be a knock-off restaurant located in the Stemmons Quarter of the Big D, which has received numerous cease-and-desist orders and lawsuits from Buffalo Wild Wings© Company for deceptive advertisements, logos, and menu items that make the restaurant appear to be affiliated with the national chain.

2. San Antonio Stars - This could be a show in a similar vein to Americas Got Talent that airs at 3PM on Saturday afternoons on PATV (digital channel 99-21), the 24-hour Public Access channel managed and operated by the City of San Antonio. On this show, San Antonio's minor celebrities would judge up-and-coming local singers, dancers, and other entertainers. A really controversial episode of this show would have been when former San Antonio mayor  Phil Hardberger got into a fight with True Blood actor Kevin Alejandro over whether a magician was worthy to move on to the finals. If it had existed.

Louis Armstrong, not Minnesota Lynx (because he doesn't exist)

1. Minnesota Lynx - This could be the name of an old time Jazz musician who played trumpet on the 1945 album "Charlie Parker and His Re-Boppers" from Savoy Records. Unfortunately, it isn't because the trumpet players on that album were Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.

Ed Ranks Your Horrific Oregon Trail Deaths

Sure, go ahead and look around. You need something to do before drowning.

Based on the Apple II version of the  Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) game The Oregon Trail, there were ten ways to meet your horrible and inevitable death while attempting to settle Oregon. In doing some research, people seem to also claim that there were additional ways to die such as starvation, Indian attacks, yellow fever, and gunshot wounds while hunting. However, I'm unable to verify these legendary methods of dying. There were a lot of versions of the game though, so people might be mis-remembering or remembering some other version of the game. The Apple II version is the most iconic, so I'll stick with these 10.

10. Exhaustion - Really? You died of exhaustion? That's the thing that the public relations managers of celebrities tell the press that their clients have when they actually are checking into rehab for rampant narcotic abuse. Maybe you should just adjust the speed at which you're pacing those oxen, buddy.

9. Broken Arm - I'm not saying that nobody dies of broken arms, but this is pretty weak sauce here. I suppose an infection you got after breaking your arm could kill you.

8. Broken Leg - Like the arm above, but a little more understandable. If you have to travel across half the country but can't use your legs, I can see at least some justification for why you'd just lay down and die at Independence Rock instead of going on with this futile journey. What's so special about the Willamette Valley anyway?

7. Fever - You're going to have to be a bit more specific than just "fever." When people tell me they have a fever, I don't assume they're about to die. I assume it's Friday and they want to have a three day weekend.

6. Measles - Okay, now we're starting to see some actual defined medical conditions. But still... measles? Maybe it's just my bias speaking though the lens of someone living comfortably in the 21st Century, but this one doesn't seem all that fatal. Most people don't die of measles, right? I dunno, I guess things were different in 1848.

5. Typhoid - Now we're REALLY getting legit with some scary sounding stuff. Typhoid fever is caused by a Salmonella bacteria and we all know that's no good at all. It's generally spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person. Gross. Nobody wants to get this, because it means that you ate shit.

4. Cholera - Cholera is horrible. Your entire body is in pain and you have watery diarrhea. As above, this is generally spread by consuming feces. There were lots of ways to die of horrible diseases in old times and many of them involved consuming feces and likewise unstoppable diarrhea. This will not be the last diarrhea-related death on this list, alas. It's treatable today and only kills about 1% of people who get the said treatment for it. Unfortunately, it still kills massive numbers of people - because many in poor countries don't get that treatment. 3 to 5 million people worldwide get it every year, killing between 58,000 and 130,000 of them.

3. Drowning - You should have saved enough money to pay for the toll bridge, you stupid ass. Why did you have to buy so much meat at Fort Bridger and go broke? You could have gone hunting instead and saved a few bucks for the toll. But no. Now you have to think of something witty to put on your tombstone so that everyone in the networked school computer lab can laugh at it. Don't put down "pepperoni," that's so cliché.

2. Snakebite - Goddamn snakes are just the worst, right? There you are, just walking along by Chimney Rock and a prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) bites you. No problem, right? You'll just take a quick hop over to the Morrill County Community Hospital in nearby Bridgeport and get an antivenin treatment. Well I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but first off didn't I just say above that this year is 1848?  The Morrill County Community Hospital wasn't established until 1970. And secondly, the first antivenin for snakes wasn't developed until 1895 by French scientist Albert Calmette. The hemotoxins just injected into you will begin tissue necrosis throughout your body. I would include a picture of what this looks like as part of this ranking, but you'd have nightmares. But you might not have to worry about that for too long, as the venom is also neurotoxic... so you might not even feel your horrible death after all the nerves in your body shut down.

1.  Dysentery - This one is just so iconic. Why does everybody remember this one for The Oregon Trail more than the others? I'll tell you why. Because unlike the typhoid and cholera above, which also include violently shitting yourself to death, dysentery ALSO famously involves the shitting out of blood. Lots of blood. Still, this is one of these old time diseases we can laugh about now because it doesn't effect anyone anymore, right? Sorry, no! The bacterial form of dysentery causes the deaths of 74,000 people a year (30,000 of which are children under five) and the amoeba-based form of dysentery still causes 50,000 deaths a year.

Ed Ranks 8 Classic Books that are Horrible

Some things become "classics" for absolutely no reason at all. They are horrible trash that should have been forgotten long ago. The burning of the Library of Alexandria is a famous metaphor for the loss of irreplaceable human culture and knowledge. If these 10 books had been thrown in a fire before anyone read them, we'd be all the better off for it. Why do schools force children to read these terrible books? No wonder kids don't actually read them and turn to SparkNotes or Wikipedia instead. Going three pages into any of this drivel will instantly make you jealous of those who are illiterate.  These are the eight most horrible classic books, with #1 being the most horrible of all.

8. The Scarlet Letter - This book opens with a clumsily-written, 44-word run-on sentence. It doesn't get any better from there. I mean the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities is super long too, but at least it's iconic and people only remember the "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" part. Nothing memorable here. I honestly think teachers just assign it because it's relatively short. I guess it's supposed to include "symbolism" for children to learn about, but The Scarlett Letter beats a dead horse with its symbolism, finds a magical resurrection potion to bring the horse back to life, and beats it to death again. 

7. Great Expectations - Don't get your expectations too high. Sorry Dickens.

6. The Iliad - The Trojan War is a famous story about, among other things, (1) the birth of an almost-invincible demigod and the un-changable prophesies about him; (2) the Judgement of Paris, where a man hosts a beauty pageant with three goddesses and is given the world's most beautiful mortal woman as his prize; and (3) the 10-year war that said beauty pageant sets off, eventually ending with the Greeks sneakily breaking into Troy (through the famed Trojan Horse) and massacring everyone inside. The Iliad is famous for being "the story of the Trojan War." Guess how many of those things that I mentioned happen in The Iliad? None. The Iliad is a boring piece of shit about a couple of weeks during the war when Agamemnon and Achilles were feuding with each other about women who they kidnapped as war prizes and constantly raped. I can see why Brad Pitt wanted to take his movie version in a slightly different direction.

Go ahead, read all about this for 400 pages

5. Moby-Dick - Ever wanted to spend about 70 hours reading an encyclopedia of whaling terms because you want to know all about the various equipment associated with 19th Century whaling and the respective differences of oil yield between the blubber of different species within the Infraorder Cetacea? You're in luck! This book exists, and it is awful.

4. Don Quixote - "Such a classic!" says everybody. "Remember when he fought the windmills?" If you talk to anyone about Don Quixote, they will mention the windmills fight thing to you. Why? Because that happens near the beginning of this 1000+ page novel (technically two novels - with a Part 1 and Part 2). I'm not sure anyone has actually made it all the way to the end. About two chapters after the windmills, most readers will be like, "Oh, I give up. He's stupid and he thinks he's a knight even though that hasn't been a thing for hundreds of years. Hasn't this just been the same joke over and over again every single chapter?" Well, it is the same joke, over and over again. After a while it just feels like we're making fun of a guy with autism.  Some readers might skip a few hundred pages forward to see if the joke has changed at all, or if the story has moved on. It won't and it doesn't. Don Quixote would have been an excellent and funny 3,000 word short story. Instead, it's a 400,000+ word mega-book, usually with additional citations and footnotes just as long as the text itself explaining all the obscure references.

Behold, an asshole who wrote three novels about himself

3. The Divine Comedy - Dante is a petty asshole. This is actually three books instead of one, and this is how it goes: "I'm Dante, I'll make myself the main character in my own novels. Everyone who I dislike or who disagrees with my beliefs is in hell, and everyone who I like is in heaven. My guide through heaven is a dead girl named "Beatrice" who I had a crush on but who friend-zoned me. I have an incredibly unhealthy fixation on her." Who would you guess the primary residents of hell are? According to Dante, it's pretty much just Popes. Hell is, like, PopeTown, in Pope Provence, in the Country of Pope. And what are the chances that Dante DIDN'T dig up this Beatrice girl and have sex with her dead body? Come on, you know he did.

2. Atlas Shrugged - Summary: "Poor people are terrible, rich people are good." Hopefully you were never actually assigned to read this book in school. But who knows? Maybe your teacher was just as awful as this book. I think writer John Rogers' analysis is the most succinct: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." But then again, John Rogers' actually wrote that quote on blogspot, so you have to take quoting blogspot for what it's worth. If the co-writer of Transformers and Catwoman calls you a bad writer, well, it's over.

Man's deadliest instrument of suicide - apparently a sled

1. Ethan Frome - Reading this book will make anyone want to sled into a tree and die. Oh wait, is that absolutely the stupidest method of suicide conceivable? Yes it is, which is why it doesn't work. This is the literary equivalent of an emo kid talking about how suffering and pain is the only thing that they can feel anymore. I am almost certain that "Edith Wharton" is the pen name for a 12-year old girl who locked herself in her room and wrote about wanting to die after she learned that the lead guitarist of My Chemical Romance had a girlfriend, and therefore wouldn't be able to marry her. "I want these characters to be in love, but they can't be together because the world sucks, so they go to kill themselves, but even then they can't kill themselves right and live as cripples for the rest of their life! Just like my heart has been crippled by you, Ray Toro!"

Ed Ranks things that "DNO" Stands For

I hit the shift key and randomly typed three letters into Wikipedia without paying attention to what those letters were. I figured I would get a Wikipedia disambiguation page for an acronym. I was correct. This is a definitive ranking of the seven things that Wikipedia says that DNO stands for.

7. Distribution Network Operator - These are companies licensed to distribute energy in Mediocre Britain (formerly known as "Great Britain," prior to the Brexit). Can you get any more boring than that?

6. Dno (air base) - A former air base should be more exciting because jets and stuff launched from there. But this is a Russian airbase, and Russia is just the worst.

5.  DNO ASA - A Norwegian oil company, focused on oil and gas extraction from the Middle East and North Africa. See? Even the Nordic countries are raving capitalists trying to take all the oil from the brown people and destroy the world with pollution.

4. Drang nach Osten - This is a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. Damn Germans and their continual demands to expand! The rest of the world needs to keep their eyes on these lousy Hun bastards.

3. Dutch National Opera - Dutch Opera isn't as famous as Viennese Opera or anything, but I'm sure it's just as interesting. That is, if you're interested by people singing nonsense in Italian for three hours. Still, doing absolutely no research to confirm this, I will assume that Dutch Opera is all about weed and hookers, right? Maybe windmills and wooden shoes too.

2. Director of Naval Ordinance - A British acronym that doesn't suck, this is an official in the British Navy that is in charge of all of their munitions. That includes large guns, gun-mountings, magazines, torpedo apparatus, electrical fittings for guns, etc. Pretty awesome.

1. Danish Nurses Organization - Denmark's trade union for nurses. Danish Nurses. How hot does the membership of this organization have to be?

Yes, it's just a Blink 182 album cover and she's American, but you get the gist.

Ed Ranks 12 Dudes with "Oscar" or "Isaac" in Their Name

12. Oscar Pistorius - A filthy murderer. I looked at all the evidence and he didn't have a leg to stand on (I stole the joke from my own Facebook page from 2013, so it's okay).

11. Isaac Mizrahi - This guy's pretty annoying too, but he hasn't killed anybody (that we know about). He did molest all those actresses at the 2006 Golden Globes though. Remember that? No. Okay, moving on...

10. Oscar de la Renta - Not to be confused with Oscar De la Hoya. You could box this guy and win easily. Especially because he's dead. RIP

9. Isaac (bible) - All other Isaacs are named after him, so you think he'd be ranked pretty high. But Isaac didn't really do anything. Other than his dad almost sacrificing him, there isn't much of his own story told. The bible quickly moves on with more begat-ing and forgets all about him. 

8. Oscar Bluth - Man that Jeffrey Tambor is funny, right?

7. Isaac Hayes - In the end, the whole Scientology thing knocks him down a bit, but you can't discount all those years that he was the king of cool.

6. Oscar De la Hoya - Not to be confused with Oscar de la Renta. Do not try to box this guy. You will lose, unless you are already a boxer yourself.

5. Chris Isaak - Yes, technically it's spelled slightly different. Big deal! It's not like Bible Isaac guy was actually spelled the English way. This guy had that one song, remember? Yeah. Pretty good. And he was on Twin Peaks or something, right? Look, the 90's were a while ago, I forget.

4. Isaac Asimov - Ever seen a good sci-fi movie? It's probably based on a book written this guy, either an outright adaption or just via lazy stealing of ideas.

3. Oscar the Grouch - This dude loves himself some trash. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. Anything ragged or rotten or rusty.

2. Isaac Newton - The most influential thinker of the scientific revolution.  Formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that finally explained ancient mysteries including comets, other celestial bodies, the tides, and the equinoxes. Laid the foundations for classical mechanics and optics. Helped develop calculus. Built the first practical reflecting telescope. Developed the theory of color based on his studies of prisms dividing light into the many colors of the visible spectrum. These are just a small sample of the things he did. What the fuck have you done with your life?

1. Oscar Isaac - This whole ranking was really just so I could post this:

Ed Ranks James Bond Films

Non-Eon films don't count. Obviously.

Why?

24. Moonraker - Star Wars came out in 1977, so logically it made sense that in 1979 James Bond should have a space battle with an industrialist who wants to repopulate the world with the Aryan race. Logically.

23. Octopussy - The worst named movie is also the second worst overall. This is a story that involves Fabergé eggs, sound samples from an old Tarzan movie, and has the entire climax featuring James Bond dressed up as a clown. This movie is absolutely not an all time high.

22. A View to a Kill - Noticing a pattern yet? Yes, Roger Moore is horrible. And by the time this movie came out, I'm pretty sure he was already 89 years old. The scenes of him trying to woo young Bond girls in this movie comes off more like Herbert the whistling pedophile from Family Guy trying to get Chris into his house. This movie could easily be the worst but, hey, Chris Walken!

So... who knew Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was such a babe?

21. Live and Let Die - Just so terrible. Did we really need a James Bond remix with a Blaxploitation film? Was anyone convinced by the Mr. Big disguise that Dr. Kananga was going with? He just looked like Kananga with leprosy. And was the racist Southern cop really an interesting enough character that they needed to invite him back for a second film after this? This is clearly a rhetorical question because we all know the answer is “no”.

20. The Man with the Golden Gun - The general concept of Christopher Lee being an amazing assassin with a golden gun (that he can transform into everyday objects to sneak through security with) is great. The concept of him wanting to kill James Bond is okay. Although, I can never figure out why James Bond is world famous when he's also supposed to be a secret spy. The way this entire movie is written and pulled off... is not okay.

19. Die Another Day - Hooray! A Pierce Brosnan movie finally terrible enough to be worse than a Roger Moore movie. Wait. Why are we celebrating this terrible thing? This one was so bad it ended Pierce Brosnan's time as Bond. Yes, we can all agree that Halle Berry is nice to look at coming out of the water. But a Korean villain in whiteface? An invisible car? And OH MY GOD that horrible ice tsunami surfing scene with special effects that are neither special nor effective. 

18. The World is Not Enough - Sophie Marceau is great, and I have no problem with the twist where they made her the villain (sorry if that was a spoiler, but the film came out in 1999, so by now it's your own fault). But I have six damning words which will mean that this movie has no way of redemption: Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist.


 

Didn't I tell you not to trust anyone, Dr. Jones?

17. For Your Eyes Only - Julian Glover (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Game of Thrones, The Empire Strikes Back, Doctor Who) is a great villain. But watching Julian Glover feud with a Mediterranean smuggler and coach a jailbait ice skater is not the epitome of a great film.

16. Tomorrow Never Dies - Some people rank this one a lot lower. And Jonathan Pryce is absolutely hamming it up in this film, almost as a parody of a Bond villain more than an actual Bond villain. This movie is instantly date-able to the 90s with its fascination with the rise of cable breaking news and it's casting of Teri Hatcher. Remember when Teri Hatcher was a thing?

15. The Spy Who Loved Me - Time Out Magazine called this the 5th best bond film, and Rotten Tomatoes names it as the 8th "freshest." I don't care. This is as high as Roger Moore is going to get in my rankings. There is no Roger Moore film that is as good as a Connery, Craig, or even Dalton film. The Spy Who Loved Me is the best Roger Moore Bond film, and that seabase thing is pretty cool. But other than that, it's still just Roger Moore.

Essentially, the good guys in TLD. Oops!

14. The Living Daylights - More simply forgettable than terrible, The Living Daylights features the Afghan mujahideen as the good guys. You know, the guys who would eventually transform into the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20! Still, that milkman with the exploding bottles was pretty cool, huh? And that cargo aircraft scene at the end? And what about that Czech cellist?

13. Diamonds are Forever - This is the worst Sean Connery film (Never Say Never Again is non-Eon and doesn't count), but it's still better than the best Roger Moore film. I don't care about diamonds, I don't care about Mr. Crunch and Mr. Munch (or whatever their names were), I don't care about Las Vegas, and I don't care about the Jimmy Dean Sausage guy pretending to be Howard Hughes. And why is the villain Blofeld? This guy is nothing like Blofeld. Can't we just give him another name and not make him Blofeld?

12. SPECTRE - SPECTRE is a giant bag of wasted possibility. After decades of an inability to use the SPECTRE organization or its characters due to complicated legal issues, Eon Productions finally secured the rights back. There was no way this couldn't kick ass, right? Wrong. We all knew Christoph Waltz was going to be Blofeld, so why even bother to hide it? And the "I want to kill James Bond because I was jealous of him as a child" just went and destroyed everything that might have been interesting - almost undermining the entire Craig reboot. There were two good things about this movie - the opening in Mexico and that car chase with Mr. Hinx.

11. License to Kill - Timothy Dalton did a pretty respectable job as Bond. But he was only given two chances and he can only soar as high as #11. A villain who refreshingly didn't want to take over the world or steal nuclear weapons, Sanchez just wants to be a billionaire drug lord. In a way this movie wanted to be Miami Vice or Scarface, but it works enough to still be enjoyable. With another actor this could have been near the bottom, but Dalton and Law and Order girl elevate it.

"I think he got the point."

10. Thunderball - This one isn't even all that amazing, so I'm not sure why they made it twice. Still, it's got underwater action scenes, pools with sharks, beautiful island locations, and all that good stuff. Sean Connery kicks enough ass to move this one up the ranks, and the whole "facial surgery to look like someone else" plot that begins the story is okay enough. When TBS used to do James Bond marathons all the time, the scene from this film with Bond using the spear gun on the guy on the beach was in every single commercial they ran, and it is a pretty iconic scene. But overall, it's not as successful as others because it seems like we're just having another SPECRTE mid-management villain thrown at us, when all we really want by this time is a Blofeld reveal. Which we will get in the very next film.

 

Nice jabot, Australian Pirate Bond.

9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service - OHMSS is just weird. An Australian James Bond is weird. The fact that Blofeld and Bond just ignore continuity and and appear not to know each other in this film is weird. The fact that Lazenby jokes about "that other one," acknowledging an actor replacement, is weird. And this film is at the height of the trippy, psychedelic late 1960s. This is almost an Austin Powers film. The "joke" of Austin Powers was Mike Myers essentially over-doing all of the clichés of James Bond - but he didn't even need to. An overly-clichéd 1960s free love trippy James Bond-esque film already existed - and it was this one.  Still, Diana Rigg is great. Telly Savalas is great. So this one's still good.

8. Goldeneye - Pierce Brosnan knocked the ball out of the park with his first James Bond outing. It had been the longest stretch in history without a new Bond film, and the Cold War had ended in the middle of that. Goldeneye had to reinvent James Bond for the post-Cold War world and prove that a James Bond film series could still be relevant and interesting without it. Goldeneye did that, becoming one of the best Bond films there was. And how about that video game, huh? Each one of Brosnan's repeat appearances got progressively worse though.

7. Quantum of Solace - This will absolutely be my most controversial ranking. I didn't even necessarily love Quantum of Solace when it first came out. But if you marathon the Daniel Craig movies all in a row, and watch this directly after watching Casino Royale, it's a great and logical follow-up. I know water rights in Latin America don't sound as sexy as they could be, but this is not a bad or boring bond film. It's 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is an absolute farce. The film had great action and was gritty, psychological, and dark, which was everything that made Casino Royale great. So the name of the film isn't great? So what! The villain is kind of boring? Pfft. Like Le Chiffre the banker/card player was such a super badass. 

There was a time when it was OK for a movie poster to feature a man being
scrubbed down erotically by Japanese girls. That time was 1967.

6. You Only Live Twice - I really like this one, although it shall not be winning any awards for cultural sensitivity. Let's put some tape on Sean Connery's eyes to make them slanted. BY GOD! What happened? Where did James Bond go and how did this Japanese man magically appear here? But beyond that, James Bond being killed at the beginning was amazing, Donald Pleasence's version of Blofeld is THE DEFINITIVE Blofeld. The evil secret lair in the volcano is super iconic and often-copied, and the "let's pit the Soviet Union and United States up against each other and cause war!" is SPECTRE at the height of their awesome SPECTRE-ness. If the SPECTRE film was just an obvious remake of this with a little politically correct updating of the Hong Kong and Japan stuff, and with Daniel Craig's grittiness and realism added, then it would have been the greatest Bond film ever.

5. Skyfall - When Skyfall came out, everyone was immediately like "Greatest Bond film of all time!" No, it's not. It's pretty damn amazing, but it's not the greatest. For one, we have the all-too-convenient "the bad guy wanted to get himself caught!" plot device, which is just the worst and became so over-used. For some reason, every single screenwriter of this era added it to their movies and audiences and critics ate it up. The Joker wanted to get caught in The Dark Knight. Loki wanted to get caught in The Avengers. Khan Wanted to get caught in Star Trek into Darkness. Look, I'm not saying that these films are bad (okay, Star Trek into Darkness is bad), but enough is enough. Other than that - great film with great acting, a great villain, great imagery, and great everything. Bond on the boat to Macau is iconic. The whole Scotland fight is iconic. The ending of the movie transforming so that James Bond walks into the 1960s Sean Connery films is iconic. It's iconic.

4. Dr. No - You've got to start a series somewhere, and this was a good start. Things weren't quite 100% James Bond yet, but Sean Connery needed to ease into the role with this film first before he really mastered it over the next several films. Still, even not at 100% Bond, this was still Sean Connery at a solid 97% Bond. Everything iconic about the film series started with this film and was because of this film. If it had been any other actor, it would never have been as popular and the legacy would have not lasted beyond a few forgettable 1960s spy films. All adaptations of Bond which came after were based on this portrayal. Nobody wants to play the James Bond as written in the Ian Fleming book series. They all want to play the suave "Bond, James Bond" motherfucker from this film. SPECTRE isn't even in the novels, its first mention is here. Bond's introduction in this film is both a seminal moment in the history of cinema and a seminal moment in the history of pop culture in the UK, US, and around the globe. Just as the British empire was waning, this dude came along and proved that the UK had its shit together. Once we realized that we had James Bond on our side, it was a given that the West would win the Cold War.

Honestly not the worst way to go.

3. Goldfinger - Goldfinger is a great and iconic James Bond film. There is no argument there. Look how high it is ranked! If someone asks you to name a James Bond film, this might be the first one you say. It's the one with Goldfinger and Goldfinger's awesome Rolls-Royce Phantom III. It's the one which introduced Bond's Aston Martin DB5 (the most famous Bond car, by far). It's the one with the lil' Asian guy who throws the hat that kills people. It's the one with "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!" It's the one with breaking into Fort Knox. It's the one where they kill the girl by painting her gold. It's the one with Pussy Galore (the most famous Bond girl, by far). So why isn't it ranked #1? Okay, it's got a couple of problems - the main one of which is that we are starting to leave behind some of the "realness" of past films like Dr. No and From Russia With Love and venture into a realm where James Bond villains get plans that are a little cartoony. Contemporary reviews of the film included terms to describe it such as, "preposterous," "hokum," "absurd," "garbage," and "impossible." And those all came from POSITIVE reviews of the film, because it did get overwhelmingly positive reviews and still holds up as a great and well-paced action film. Nobody can honestly say though that the twist at the end where all the soldiers "wake up" because the nerve gas was fake makes any damn sense at all.

2. From Russia With Love - In the second Bond film, Sean Connery has already mastered who James Bond is and will be for the rest of time. From Russia With Love is the greatest Cold War film of all time (sorry Dr. Strangelove) and has everything a great Cold War film should have. Although SPECTRE is mentioned and supports the backstory of Dr. No, they finally show up for real here and everything about them is iconic. We get the unseen Blofeld stroking his cat, and devious henchmen including Rosa Klebb and Quint from Jaws. It's hard to imagine in today's day and age filmmakers having the patience to slowly pay off a Blofeld reveal like they did starting here. Blofeld appears in this film but we never get to see his face, and we also have to sit through all of Goldfinger and Thunderball before finally getting a reveal in You Only Live Twice. That's a four film arc. The new SPECTRE film couldn't even hold off on a Blofeld reveal for the duration of the movie, and even then messed it up because the name carried no weight comes in a continuity where the name means nothing to Bond (just like Khan in Star Trek into Darkness, which, did I mention, was terrible?). It's also relatively gritty and real, and avoids the comic book-ish villains, action scenes, and gadgets that would show up later (although Q does finally show up here - so we have some gadgets - and an appropriate level of subversive Connery humor is added). Did I forget to mention that the whole James Bond pre-title sequence thing comes from this film? Because that didn't exist yet in Dr. No.

1. Casino Royale - After every single Pierce Brosnan film got progressively worse, it was time for a fresh start. And in this case, it really was a fresh start. While every Bond actor up to the this point was seemingly playing the character in the same continuity (with no explanation of why his face changed and why he wasn't 80 years old yet), Casino Royale left no doubt in our minds that this was a 100% reboot of the franchise and all continuity from before could be thrown out. This angered a lot of people, while others were just enraged that Bond would be blonde. Such supposed blasphemy could have made the film go wrong in a lot of ways, but it didn't. It went so right. Sean Connery might be the best Bond, but Daniel Craig has the best film and is at least in Sean Connery's league. The over-reliance on gadgets, ludicrous plot devices, and unbelievable action scenes featuring computer graphics is all wiped away for the most gritty, real Bond film ever. Just because it's gritty doesn't mean that they wiped away the humor. There are still a lot of fun, charming things in the film... but they didn't need to go cranking the volume to 11 with cheesy puns and gags. No, a bunch of assholes playing a poker game isn't quite the same as a cackling maniac stealing nuclear weapons to hold the world ransom. But it purposefully wasn't supposed to be. The way the film opens with Bond getting his first kills to become a 00 is incredible, and if Craig hadn't won you over by then - the way he asks for his martini absolutely should have won you over. If you saw that scene and didn't think it was the most awesome thing that ever happened in a James Bond movie, then you are a tool. And I'd rather watch that realistic Madagascar parkour chase scene 100 times over than any stupid blue screen of James Bond windsurfing an ice tsunami or fighting in space even once. Do I even need to mention how awesome Eva Green is as Vesper Lynd? Yes? Well, she just is.