A lot of good baby names suggestions in the baby name thread. Here’s what I’m thinking: I’ll eventually pick my favorite, and then we’ll have a vote. The winning name will be the IMAO baby’s official blog name to hence be referred to on the blog.

So keep submitting baby name ideas (you can do that in this thread now). Frankly, though, I’ve really started to warm up to the idea of having a daughter named Cheney.

“Now, Cheney, I’m going to teach you how to use a BB gun– Argh! My face!”

“Little Cheney, what did you just tell me to do to myself?!”

“Cheney, I told you your doll won’t speak because it’s broken. Waterboarding won’t force it to talk.”

“Cheney, we have to shop around. You can’t sole-source contract your doll house to Halliburton.”

I read this article and was like, “Wow, suicide sure is popular in Japan.” Apparently, the popular kids are jumping off cliffs and everyone else is following along. And it’s certainly not a good commentary on your country when people really enjoy suicide. Of course, if you hear of what working in Japan is like and all the overtime they do, it’s not much of a mystery.

Still, it sounds like Japan should do some sort of anti-suicide campaign; I mean they already have a negative population growth. I’m not sure how you’d do an anti-suicide campaign, though, because the usual way you warn people about things like drugs, drunk driving, obesity is to threaten death. You can’t do that with suicide.

“Suicide Kills!” — that’s kind of a tautology. I mean, how do you scare people out of suicide? Now, if I know Japanese culture — and I’ve convinced myself I do — there are a few things they are scared of: Godzilla, giant mecha, ninjas, atomic bombs, dolphin, dishonor, and rogue samurai.

Oh, I know: America can help out. We can threaten to drop another atomic bomb on Japan if they have a certain number of suicides during the year. The Japanese hate — hate — atomic bombs. So maybe someone might think suicide is fun and dandy for himself, but does he really want to be responsible for America dropping another atomic bomb? That will make everyone think twice, and they can go back to a long life of excessive overtime and ultra-violent, porn-filled cartoons.

Do you get worried that they’re going to basically pass the health care bill unseen? No one is sure what’s in it; Pelosi said we’ll find out when it’s passed, but what if we don’t like what we find? For instance, the bill could be passed and we’ll finally read it and be like, “Wait a second; this doesn’t say health ‘care’. It says health ‘bear’. The bill mandates that angry grizzly bears go in every hospital!”

Man, that will sure change a waiting room. No longer a place of annoyance, it will be a place of fear as you have to sit out in the open, exposed to bears. And things will only get worse for those scared of MRIs, and now you have to lie still while bears claw at them and try to get inside.

Call your Congressman and tell him you don’t like bears and you vote.