| You Are Not Alone |
[Nov. 20th, 2014|12:00 am] |
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Be forewarned; there is no humor or insight contained herein. If you want humor, go here. If you want insight, get in line. Now get busy, and enjoy my latest polemic below. The sabbatical is over, and I can't possibly survive any more rest or relaxation, so prepare for more incoherent rants, on a semi-regular basis. |
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| 44 in 08 |
[Jan. 31st, 2007|01:23 pm] |
NEW 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SLOGANS
Biden: No plagiarism this time, all authentic racism
Hillary: Bush held up a carrot and when I ran towards it, he lifted it up and there was a war in Iraq behind it, honest.
Obama: On the one hand, maybe I am too even-handed, but on the other, I am black.
Edwards: My father worked in a mill, the rich are feasting on the babies of the poor, and oh yeah that carrot thing happened to me too.
Gore: Who the hell keeps putting my name in the polls?
McCain: I'm oldest. That doesn't help? Go fuck yourself.
Romney: I'm not that Mormon; Did you like the Olympics? No, no, not those Olympics. The last time they were in America. No, not Atlanta.
Gingrich: If you thought I was dead you should make it up to me with your vote.
Rudy: If you've been to New York since 1994, and weren't murdered, you have to vote for me. And if you were, I apologize.
Huckabee: I'll take the dead guys. Also, I was fat once.
ETL |
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| It Can't Happen There |
[Sep. 14th, 2006|05:08 pm] |
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060914/D8K4IIQG0.html
A student opened fire at his college in Canada. This event is an undeniable tragedy.
It was probably additionally shocking to a large portion of America. The portion that still believed school shootings were a uniquely American problem, caused by Charlton Heston poisoning a town's water supply with dangerous mind altering chemicals that cause such behavior. Or whatever they were told in Bowling for Columbine. If Canada, with its supposedly divine gun control laws and general social calmness can still have a school shooting, does that mean gun control should be even tougher?
Maybe it means teenage angst is universal in the modern world. Sometimes it will reach a violent climax. But whether that teenager grabs a gun, or gets behind the wheel of a car, or uses a knife, or engages in any number of other violent anti-social crimes that don't require firearms is mostly meaningless. A destructive temperament will produce destructive results.
Why should the fringe set the norm? Of course crazy people can't be trusted with guns, but I wouldn't give them a kitchen knife, a car, a plane, a bat, a crowbar, or anything else either, but that doesn't mean we need to ban those things. American gun control and Canadian gun control cannot prevent school shootings. Furthermore, people who want to be violent will always find a way. It's human nature. However, I believe the Canadian Government was, until recently, looking for a way to regulate that.
ETL |
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| Doctor, Lawyer, Atheist, Asshole |
[Sep. 8th, 2006|04:53 pm] |
The world is in turmoil. So I’ve come out of sabbatical to address a completely unrelated domestic issue. It’s been about 18 months since I said anything mean about Michael Newdow so I decided the time was right.
But it’s more complicated than that. I want to explain why I agree with him that the word God should be removed from public life, but I disagree with him that the word God should be removed from public life on his terms.
Here’s how it breaks down. The Establishment Clause of the first amendment reads in its entirety: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” I memorized it in 8th Grade to pass one of Mr. Muller’s history tests and it’s hard to forget. Just ten words after all. The authors of the Constitution remembered how terrible it was paying taxes to and being forced to belong to an established state-run church. The Church of England was evidently as much fun as a fully-funded government-controlled religion run by the bureaucracy of the 18th century English Empire could be. So our constitution says that Congress cannot create a state religion. Hurray! Everyone can have whatever religion they want, and not have to pay taxes to one they don’t follow! Hurray! What a great leap forward in religious freedom! Hurray! You might have to hear the word God spoken out loud or see it in print!
“What? Outrageous! I can’t believe I’m being forced to live in a theocracy! Separation of Church and State! Bush is a Nazi! Even though an opponent of the Iraq War admitted leaking Valerie Plame’s name I still think there is a conspiracy! Or how about Junta? That’s a cool word. Cindy Sheehan doesn’t seem like a deranged anti-Semitic lunatic to me. I actually dislike Bush, I’m not just doing it because it’s cool and fashionable to be rebellious and badmouth the president like all my favorite celebrities and entertainers. No I don’t like talking about Jack Abramoff since William Jefferson Jr. was caught.”
But seriously. The word God is not an established religion. It is a word. The founding fathers were very specific in the bill of rights about preventing the things they were worried about. They forbade quartering soldiers in people’s homes, and how often does that come up? Considering the same guys that wrote the constitution put the word everywhere and used it all the time in the government, I’m not entirely sure that’s what they meant.
Meaning is tricky though. Probably why we should ‘read’ the Constitution instead of “interpreting” it. People can interpret all sorts of weird shit into it. Like abortion. They had abortions back in the Founding Fathers’ day. If they wanted it prohibited, it would have been, and if they wanted it protected, it would have been. But it is neither. So does that mean it exists in some sort of limbo where hundreds of years later the Supreme Court is supposed to decide whether it is implied by the word privacy? (If privacy implies that, then it implies a whole shitload of things)
No, dipshit. The Constitution says that the states should decide that. Or anyone. It’s pretty much okay. If Congress wants to ban it, go nuts. If they want to fully fund it and dedicate September 22nd as national baby-termination day, they can. If each state can make its own laws and decisions regarding the practice so that local beliefs are represented, well hell, that almost sounds reasonable and deliberate, like something that some guys came up with over 200 years ago that we’ve been ignoring ever since.
If it isn’t actually in the Constitution, then we should make a law against it instead of asking our grandparents to tell all the other kids to knock it off. Seriously. People should petition their congressmen to get some legislation going that would remove the offending word off US Currency, and hell I’m feeling generous, whiny over-schooled assholes can exchange their old money for new money so that they don’t risk getting any of that nasty religion on their hands. I support that completely. That’s how new crap is supposed to get done. We shouldn’t interpret new things into old words because it’s the same thing as the pricks who read Nostradamus or Bible code or the DaVinci Code (That’s right, take that, everyone in the entire world but me). If it isn’t actually in there, then don’t pretend it is. You can amend the damn thing. In fact, I think it’s been done several dozen times. Have we just gotten lazy?
No. Devious. Congress is designed to slow things down and make it hard for things to get done, so that the only things that get done are the ones that we are really really sure that we want to get done. Getting something like the de-Godding bill I mentioned earlier onto the floor would be a monumentally difficult task. Think about how many people you would have to convince and persuade and bribe and threaten.
Or five. That’s it. Five out of nine people that literally cannot stay awake while you talk to them. That doesn’t really sound like a vanguard of democracy. Legislation through litigation occurs when people discover that no matter how slow the courts are, they are still faster than legislatures. People harp about lobbyists all the time, but they have to convince numerous officials and politicians to pass bills and make rules that simultaneously benefit them and still hold up to public scrutiny. Five invalids doesn’t quite seem like as much of a challenge.
Judicial activism has brought us many terrible things (eminent domain) and it has brought us many great things (desegregation) but I call spades spades. One unelected man deciding what is right for everyone else. Sniff Sniff. Smells like fascism, or religion, or family. Three things that our government should never ever try to imitate.
Critics complain that our democracy is dead and that the two parties dominate with only their nominees being able to win. But 60 million people are actually driving their asses across town and actually voting for each of the two people running. 120 million people need to use democracy at once before it, according to critics, stops working. How does this relate to the Supreme Court? Well, I can tell you exactly how many of those 120 million people got to pick their Supreme Court Justices. Just one. His name is George W. Bush. And even he didn’t get his first pick the second time around.
ETL |
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| 13 O'Clock |
[Dec. 20th, 2005|04:13 pm] |
Irregular updates must be forgiven. Updates with no definite focus must also be forgiven. Gimmicky updates can however be bitched about.
Tookie:
Which scenario is more likely?
A: Tookie's execution will encourage young men to murder innocent people during robberies.
B: Tookie's execution will discourage young men from murdering innocent people during robberies.
If someone claims to regret having founded a gang, it would be logical that they do not like the gang anymore. If the police asked them for help understanding and decoding the gangs’ methods and secrets of murder and robbery, the regretful founder would...
A: Offer help to destroy the gang that he now actively encourages children to not join.
B: Stay quiet, claiming he doesn't want to be a 'snitch.'
If your lawyers argued that your jury was unfair because it contained no blacks (despite containing other minorities) but then it was proven that one of the jurors was in fact black, should the lawyers...
A: Find a new issue.
B: Claim that he didn't look black enough.
I'm just glad there were no riots.
Hurricane Katrina:
A report this week suggested that more whites than blacks died as a result of the disaster. Kanye West, hopefully beating a path for the rest of the race-card-playing rabble-rousers to follow, has subsequently...
A: Withdrawn his remarks.
B: Claimed his albums will be in school history text books someday.
Let’s hope it’s not a multimedia textbook.
Snoopgate:
Four years ago, the president authorized domestic wire-taps without court warrants in an attempt to root out domestic terror threats from foreign nationals living in the US. The number of US citizens who were tapped and later convicted on trumped-up charges that have nothing to do with the War on Terror as a result of these taps is...
A: Too many to count, it’s just awful, it's like Bush is Hitler or something, I hate America but will never leave because it’s only here that my complaining is tolerated and acknowledged.
B: Zero.
It’s almost impossible to read a story about this that doesn't mention George Orwell's classic book 1984 and the concept of 'Big Brother.' Considering that the fictional government in that story did more than just wiretap people (kill, brainwash, ration meals) to find domestic terrorists who were operating on home soil because of a recklessly lax immigration and border policy designed to pander to recent immigrants in this country, have reporters covering this story...
A: Decided that the metaphor is more apt in cases regarding 'eminent domain', where the state may acquire private property for its own use, or the use of others in cases of corporate welfare or new stadiums, without the owner's consent; that's right, they can actually take your house so a mall can be built whilst you were too busy worrying that your phones were tapped and no, this doesn't just happen in very rural areas or in urban-decay slums, it can happen anywhere you've ever seen a big store or ball park.
B: Called Bush Hitler.
I hope my phone is tapped, for the same reason everyone else hopes that their phone isn't tapped: it makes me feel important.
ETL |
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| No More Halloween |
[Nov. 13th, 2005|09:36 pm] |
Two children were electrocuted in Paris whilst fleeing from Police officers who were asking for ID. The pebble produces mighty ripples, especially in a pond this scummy. Riots and civil unrest continue weeks after the incident, and the government of France appears weak and unarmed against this crisis. In Jordan, suicide bombers attack hotels, killing many. What do these have in common?
Everybody keeps thinking of the Muslim connection, but not very many people are saying it. It's not that hard to see Muslim suicide bombers attacking buildings in Paris at this point. France's ostrich strategy to avoid the problems of global terrorism and Islamo-fascism, mainly by opposing everything the US does and naming things after Yasser Arafat, has apparently failed (try to contain schadenfreude). Perhaps they shouldn't have banned hajibs in public schools, but on the other hand, they banned yarmulkes too and I don't think they're worried about Jewish suicide bombers.
France's religion problem is more serious than it sounds, although you wouldn't know it from the fact they're debating whether or not to mandate that the word 'Christ' be un-capitalized in writing. It's not just France's problem, it's the whole world's problem. But it's not every religion. Yes, Christians are trying to get Intelligent Design taught in schools in the US, but that's just a last-ditch sad and pathetic move on their part to reconcile damning evidence against creation, Eden, and original sin with the fact that they've already invested so much in bibles and fancy hats to wear on Sundays. Let's get our priorities straight. Christians won't admit they're wrong. Muslims will kill you in the street.
Which is more important: debating the legality of the word 'god' appearing here or there or anywhere in America, or asking why the Religion of Peace keeps blowing shit to pieces? Why are 46 of 47 majority-Muslim countries in the world classified as 'not free' by human rights groups? Why do whiny American activists care more about what Christians do in America than what Muslims do abroad? If France did everything right that America did wrong since 9/11, then why the hell are they under attack?
When it comes to international terrorism and the rising tide of Islamo-fascism, we might not be sure how this all started, but we need to make damn sure that we're the ones who decide how it ends.
ETL |
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| Taught Me to Weep and Moan: Part Two |
[Sep. 11th, 2005|06:02 pm] |
The legitimate criticism regarding the Hurricane relief is not based on race, but on response factors, funding, and planning. But there is also plenty of illegitimate criticism that is racially blind. It’s time to sort.
New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Louisiana’s Governor Blanco ignored their hurricane plan and cost lives by doing so. It is only necessary to point this out because they are doing everything they can to blame President Bush for this. Their deviations included telling people to go to the Superdome instead of telling them to leave the city, not asking FEMA for help until after the Hurricane hit and not asking anyone for help with evacuations but only with shelters and supplies, not connecting city emergency centers with state emergency centers, not declaring martial law whilst violent and sexual crime ran rampant, and having buses standing by to evacuate people but having them wait until after the hurricane hit when they were completely submerged. The city’s written disaster plan said that over 1 million people would need transportation to evacuate if something like this happened, but during a practice drill last year the city identified numerous problems in the evacuation of just 300,000 people.
Nagin and Blanco have suggested that a lack of federal funding, which many tie to the war in Iraq, was the cause of this disaster. Louisiana has received almost 2 billion dollars, more than any other state, whilst Bush was in office for the Army Corps of Engineers to complete civil works projects. They spent 748 million dollars on the levee that would later break, not on strengthening it but on building a massive new lock, even though barge traffic was steadily decreasing. The levee itself was only ever designed to resist category 3 storms, so category 5 Katrina made short work of it. There was no lack of money; there was an abundance of pork.
Failed evacuation practices were ignored, written plans were not followed, and for years the ACE has been porking its brains out on huge, unnecessary projects. Nagin and Blanco were not doing their jobs. They didn’t even ask for federal help until much too late. The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. They have even less authority to intervene in a city emergency. The people that were supposed to be watching out were completely overwhelmed because they completely underestimated the scope of the disaster despite plenty of prior warning.
Perhaps Bush was not somber enough when touring some of the damaged areas, but he responded the exact way people wanted him to where it counted, and in the exact way politicians always act when there is trouble. He threw money. He urged Congress to pass a relief package, and a gigantic relief package they did pass. Maybe this money will be spent more efficiently.
Okay, the disaster was not properly handled by state and local officials, and FEMA has had its share of mistakes since they stepped in, but can anyone possibly be blamed for the Hurricane itself? Here are 4 theories, see if you can pick out the real one actually being offered up:
1. Repent America, a Christian group, blames it on the gays
2. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, an Israeli Rabbi, blames the Gaza pullout.
3. Al-Qaeda, blames America for being the Great Lord Satan.
4. RFK Jr. and the Germans blame America for not being socialist.
Give up? Well it was a trick; they are all real people actually suggesting these ideas, but the only one I feel it necessary to discuss is #4. RFK Jr. blames the Hurricane on global warming, with the German government concurring, which you can pretty much blame anything on if you try hard enough, and suggests that the hurricane intentionally changed paths to hurt areas that did not support the Kyoto Protocol (what about most of Europe, that signed on to do it but is doing proportionally worse than the US?). Remember that old thing. I guess this means China and India are up next since they weren’t required to sign in. Maybe a disaster will strike RFK Jr. and his jet-setting friends as they tool around the country in private jets that use about a year’s worth of automobile fuel for each New York to LA flight.
Whereas the German government uses the movie The Day After Tomorrow as its proof, RFK Jr. claims the science is there. Interesting. A little research shows that major hurricanes (categories 3, 4, 5) have been declining steadily by decade and their intensity has been declining as well. It’s down to an average of 3 per decade and under 110 mph winds.
But RFK Jr. insists that the Kyoto protocol would have saved us. All the damage we’ve done has apparently only been done in the last few years. By Bush of course. I guess Kyoto could have saved us. Except that a new study in England found that 300 times the amount of CO2 that Kyoto aims to prevent from being released into the atmosphere, is released into the atmosphere each year by, you guessed it, soil. Okay, maybe you didn’t see that coming. Soil releases carbon, millions of tons of it, when it is in the sunlight, so unless RFK Jr. becomes CM Burns, I don’t think we can stop that.
Blaming hurricane preparedness and reactions on people is natural, but it should be researched and cogent. Blaming the actual hurricanes on people is irrational, insane, and smacks of fundamentalism. Hopefully, those affected by the hurricane will be able to recover, the dead will be treated respectfully, and increases in awareness and planning will coincide with decreases in pork and jackassery to ensure something like this will not happen again. Or at least, happen only to RFK Jr. and the German Environmental Minister. Just kidding. The last thing that needs to happen is those people becoming martyrs. Its better that they live very long lives, filled with so much contradictory fear-mongering and unfulfilled predictions that eventually their own obsolescence crushes them and they fade away, a forgotten part of history.
ETL |
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| Taught Me to Weep and Moan: Part One |
[Sep. 5th, 2005|01:09 pm] |
Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy, not for any complicated reasons like those being bandied about in the news, but for two main reasons: thousands of people dead, injured or displaced, and people turning on one another during a dark time. I encourage everyone to donate money and to encourage others to donate money so it spreads through people like a virus. Except it's a good kind of virus.
Another shame about this whole ordeal is that for some reason it didn't take the jackasses long to try to exploit it for personal or ideological gain. It also didn't take long for people to be brutally honest or inhumanly logical. These things always happen after a tragedy; it just seems this time they happened very quickly. Eventually, you do need people to be honest and logical when dealing with something like this, but only a few days later seems a little too quick. As for the politicization, there's no reason to expect otherwise since everything is politicized, but now more quickly than ever.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert waited about a day before he suggested that "it looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed" and "it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level." There were still hundreds of bodies floating in the water, people were still shooting rescue doctors to steal their supplies, and murder and rape were still rampant in rescue shelters. Whether or not the plan is valid is irrelevant; it is tactless and cruel to suggest something like that so soon after. Just shut up and donate money.
Former first lady Barbara Bush told a radio show that "so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Yeah, I bet if you lost all your possessions and cultural legacies and your family and friends died but you got to move to a economically similar situation, then you'd be happy too Bar. Just shut up and donate money.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was visiting refuges in Houston, and he likened their experience sleeping on cots in a group setting to being at camp, and then asked them "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" They should have responded, "Remember when your dad died? Yeah, it's that fun." Nothing is more fun for children than having everything in the entire world that they know and believe in being destroyed. Just shut up and donate money.
Sean Penn actually went to New Orleans in a boat to help people. Other celebrities like Sean actually-doing-something-worthwhile Combs donated money in very public forums and encouraged others to do so, but Penn thought it would help to bring his entourage, including his personal photographer, and his leaky boat down to New Orleans to help. He ended up spending most of the time scooping water out of his sinking boat. He fell back on classic Penn behavior later after being criticized; no I don't mean visiting Iraq and writing Op-Ed pieces about how great it is, but going on TV, Larry 'Barely' King Live in this case, and bashing Bush for not preventing weather.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin remarked on the news that he believed the CIA would wipe him out because he criticized the Bush administration. You can get killed for criticizing Bush? Better warn Hollywood, The New York Times, and the entire anti-Republican Party (previously known as the Democratic Party.) Wouldn't want them getting wiped out by the CIA too. Whilst Nagin is concerned about being wiped out by the CIA, I can't help but notice thousands of people in his city were wiped out too. By a hurricane. Not the CIA.
During this period of time, Chief Justice Renhquist died and John Roberts was chosen to replace him. Hurricane and Roberts? Why am I bothering to mention this if there is no connection? Well according to the Advocacy Director of MoveOn, “the connection is obvious." Ben Brandzel believes that Roberts has a poor civil rights record and that a lack of civil rights caused the thousands of deaths in New Orleans. The black deaths. I don't think he's blaming Roberts for the white deaths. He's also certainly not blaming drowning. But he believes the connection is strong enough to use hurricane footage in MoveOn's newest commercial opposing Roberts's nomination. Considering FEMA estimated that 20% of New Orleans ignored or refused evacuation requests, and that FEMA had better things to do like alerting or helping others than to stay around and convince these people that the hurricane was really going to hurt, and considering that 67% of the population of the city was black, doesn't it seem likely that more blacks than whites would be killed? Not according to MoveOn, or Howard Dean who told a convention of Baptists that "race was a factor in the death toll from Hurricane Katrina." I guess because the Hurricane chose to hit a predominately black area, the hurricane could be called racist, but that doesn't seem likely.
It's not racism, its simple demographics. Statistics cannot be racist. If I set off a bomb in Boston and you set off a bomb in Detroit, you would most likely kill more black people than I would because of the number there. Is Boston racist because only 23% of its population is black and in Detroit it is 81%? I wouldn't say that, because it’s not true and because Boston is the sort of place that would bitch and complain and hold protests and marches and rallies and all sorts of other bullshit.
Other than the deaths, could racism be found in the tragedy? There is the well circulated story of the two pictures, very similar except for race of the hurricane survivors in them carrying boxes, the black group being referred to as 'looters' and the white group being referred to as 'finders.' The problem is that people were only looking at the pictures. The stories that connected with them offered more detail. The photographer of the first group had seen the couple wade into a shattered store front and then take things, whilst in the other story the group found the boxes floating in the water that they were traveling through. Also since the articles are from two different people, maybe one always refers to it as looting and the other always calls it finding. There is too much doubt to say that this particular discrepancy is a signal of rampant racism hidden in our country exposing itself every so often. If you want to find racism wherever you go, you will find it. If you want to find fluffy pink bunnies riding vespas wherever you go, you will find it in the same way that you can find racism: you will begin to imagine it.
Speaking of someone imagining things, the man who claims AIDS was invented by the US Government to exterminate blacks in Africa and that crack cocaine was designed to increase black-on-black crime is back, deciding that instead of convincing people to donate money to a national tragedy, he would use his time on a national telethon to deviate from the script and proclaim that not only did the federal government intentionally delay its reaction to the hurricane in order to let blacks die, but when they arrived all they were doing was shooting blacks. He ended his remarks with the YTMND phrase, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." I can't think of a better way to convince people to donate money than angrily polarizing half of them. Maybe this guy should head the DNC. If you care so much about the victims Mr. West, then why are you sabotaging the telethon efforts to raise money for them? Apparently, performing at a football game the next day, he was booed throughout his performance. Amazing really, that people would object to selfishly indulging paranoid fantasies at the expense of human lives. And shame on Mike Myers. All those years on Saturday Night Live and you don't know how to ad-lib well enough to cover for something like that.
Is there anyone or anything being blamed other than the hurricane itself that seems to be a likely cause of further death? Yes. Is there anyone or anything being blamed other than the hurricane itself that seems to have nothing to do with it at all? Yes. I’m sure it will be fun sorting through this mess.
ETL |
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| Ron, Jack, and Slim |
[Aug. 28th, 2005|09:48 pm] |
I made the mistake, again, of reading a rag I found on the seat next to me whilst I was waiting, and I've almost completely learned my lesson, again, about the dangers of reading. Almost. Again.
The offending article bothered me because it is the kind of petty, minor-league fascism that creeps around every corner sounding nice and pretty and well-intentioned but its just waiting for you to let your guard down and then BAM! its too late. As a wise, old man once told me, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wearing a white coat and carrying a stethoscope."
First of all, sin taxes are bogus. Picking on the weak kids is not a good domestic policy. If you really think its an addictive, destructive behavior that you need to tax in order to finance programs teaching you not to do it, then just ban it or otherwise you're exploiting their addiction for money; if you don't think its an addictive, destructive behavior, then leave these people alone. Sin tax? Come on; who wants to mix religion and government when they're bad enough by themselves?
Crapping all over McDonald's isn't going to make anyone healthier. You can search the web and find several examples of people who dined at McDonald's exclusively for a month and lost weight (here's one) in order to counter the film Supersize Me by Morgan "Dumb as a goldfish because apparently he'll just keep eating until he dies if the food is there and no one nannies him into not eating it" Spurlock. Can I be exempt from the tax if I run home from the restaurant? What if I'm buying 10 cheeseburgers for 10 people? That hardly seems unhealthy considering how small they are. Will McDonald's employees be required to ask how much food is going to how many people and how much exercise you will be getting that day? If they can't handle 'no pickles' then they can't handle this.
And when it comes to the grocery store, things get even more ridiculous. Last time I went to Albertsons, I bought approximately 30,000 calories worth of food. The woman in front of me shopping probably crossed the 250,000 mark. This may seem like lots of calories, but how long is it going to take me to eat all that food or the woman's family to eat all that food? Looks like Russell will have to start asking me how much I plan to eat each day. If I only eat 10 chips a day from a bag of Lays, its not really unhealthy is it?
Crapping all over poor people isn't going to help either. According to the article, the plan against junk foods is to make it so "fewer people can afford to purchase them". Lets price them out of the range of the working class so only the rich can afford decadence. Just like with alcohol and cigarettes. Considering how much people complain about the divide between the rich and the poor now, imagine how much worse it will get when only rich people can afford the food that poor people want. And about that rich-poor divide: no shit. Everything about you is divisive. Your race, religion, residence, and identity divide you from billions of other people. Believe it or not, people are different. Individuality exists no matter how hard you try to stamp it out. There are real divisions and there are self-imposed divisions, but one thing's for sure, there are a shitload of divisions so stop acting so surprised and especially stop acting like this is new.
If the government isn't going to trust you to eat properly, and you allow them to take away even part of that responsibility, then you're pretty much fucked. Eating is the simplest task next to breathing, and you're letting the government help you with that. How long before they help you mate, work, vote, speak and think? How long before they help you save money for your old age? Wait, scratch that last one. The article argues that you're not being denied your right to these items, but you're just being gently reminded that they are harmful. That's what they said years earlier about smoking taxes, and now you can't smoke anywhere but your own house, cigarettes cost approximately 40,000 dollars a pack, and lobbyist groups have been slowly moving towards their eventual goal of the total elimination of smoking. Honestly, how surprised would you be if in five years you heard of a major city banning the sale of cigarettes? In fifteen years, a major state? In twenty-five years, the country?
Smoking, drinking, and eating are harmful. They aren't really if you do them in moderation, but where's the fun in that? But harmful things are great. Cars kill thousands every year, but they are extremely vital to our economy and extremely important to our culture and history. Taxing something harmful in order to discourage it may seem harmless, but what if it doesn't work? If the consumption is not sufficiently discouraged, are those opposed to it going to give up, or are they going to push harder and harder until it’s banned completely? Personal responsibility is necessary, and it’s patriotic. The best thing you can do for your country right now is to have a nice cigarette, followed by a shot of whiskey and a double cheeseburger. You run your life. You run it straight into the ground.
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| Stomp It: Part Two |
[Aug. 21st, 2005|06:21 pm] |
Who's the winner of the big award? The biggest flaming paper bag of all?
Flaming Paper Bag that truly and deeply boggles my mind and makes me question my faith in human civilization: I have to type this carefully, because I am having trouble seeing straight. It's like that Twilight Zone episode where everything is different and only one guy knows it, and I'm that guy. Except instead of being different, it's just full of shit. So massively full of shit that it threatens to become a black hole of shit and destroy the universe. That almost seems like a pleasant opportunity to explore at this point. She's full of shit, anyone that looks at her and doesn't know it is also full of shit, and pretty much everybody but me is full of shit.
If you haven't figured it out yet, then you haven't been paying attention, and I envy you greatly. But, since I refuse to type or speak her name, you'll probably have trouble following the rest of this. Especially since it's a rambling sequence of questions with surprisingly obvious answers.
Stolen? There is no draft, and there is definitely no juvenile draft. Her son made his own decision, as a grown man, and was not coerced into it. Perhaps being browbeaten with her fanatical anti-American ranting all his childhood meant that his form of rebellion was to join the military and defend America, not from those like her who use their words as weapons, but from the real threats who use weapons as weapons. Perhaps. It could also be something completely different. The point is that despite her claims, her son was not stolen from her, and she still has to pay taxes for 2004. Not all that money goes to war. That road you camped out on? Angry, sad, ugly, unhappy people didn't will it into existence. Tax dollars built it.
Free speech? Okay, fine, no one has arrested you or duct-taped your mouth shut. But free speech means you have a right to speak. Not a right to avoid criticism or a right to have people help you speak. When her family calls her insane and asks her not to tarnish the legacy of her son, free speech is not a valid excuse; they are just using their free speech too. When a Utah TV Station refuses to air your advertisement, you cannot use free speech as an excuse. They don't have to help you and its a good thing they aren't, because you're getting enough free publicity from cable TV news that was just waiting for the next missing-girl-in-the-islands story that writes itself and requires little work to make provocative. Haters and lovers will watch just to see what happens next.
Murdered? The president doesn't murder people. It lets the real killers off the hook a little too much to shift the guilt like that. They didn't kill him because George W. Bush told them too. Their reason was probably financial, as it is with most low-level terrorists that are actually caught. Only the people on top actually believe it, everybody else just wants a buck. Saying things this outrageous distracts from the fact that some rulers in the world actually do kill their citizens. Rulers like Saddam.
Vacation? The president doesn't stop being president just because he moves his base of operations. He is still taking meetings, and receiving briefings, and accepting real guests. Thanks to modern technology, it doesn't matter where you are, you can still work, especially if the whole damn world with come to you if they have a problem. I'm sure he didn't do it for privacy, and if he did you made sure that didn't work. Oh I'm sorry, I heard your mother was sick and you want to be left alone. You'd probably hate it if someone came to your house and sat in your driveway cursing at you the entire time.
The Jews? Arguing that Israel should leave Palestine and that her son lost his life because of a Jewish Cabal forcing its will onto the world? Have we not yet reached a point where we stop taking people seriously when they blame the Jews for everything? You can't blame the Jews for everything. You shouldn't really blame them for much of anything. You should probably thank them for putting up with your abuse and giving you an easy target. Anti-Semitism is a bad sign for the movement when it’s the basis of a large part of her argument. I would compare her to a certain someone, but then I'd be reducing myself to her level.
Just a meeting? In case you really are that stupid, you already had a meeting with him, and in case you really think that we are all that stupid, it was covered by the media. He gave you happiness? You think he is a man of faith? You laughed and joked with him? There's a well-circulated picture on the web of him hugging you and kissing you on the cheek? I thought he was the world's biggest terrorist, a murderous asshole, in league with the Jewish conspiracy, and candidate for the most evil man ever. No one seems to care about this sudden change of heart.
But there's an even bigger issue here: you don't get a meeting. Why should you? Any claim to absolute moral authority because your son died is absurd. You didn't do jack shit; if anything, he should get the moral authority, but unfortunately, he is dead. If the authority lies with the parents, what would you say to all the parents of dead soldiers who support the war? If they have the same authority as you, how can they be in agreement with a murderous, asshole terrorist who gives the evil Jews everything they want? When someone starts telling you that they have absolute moral authority because of a very exclusive qualification they have decided on that you don't have, the person is insane, dangerous, stupid, evil, and definitely not to be listened to.
If every random anti-Semitic, hate-filled, rabid fanatic that wanted to meet with the president was allowed to, then the country would grind to a halt. And if they started getting two meetings? The whole world then. The wackos aren't allowed to make demands, that's how society works. They are allowed to exist as long as they don't cause trouble, and if they do, they get beat down. When we let the wackos start running things, the country comes grinding to a halt. It seems everything she wants in this world would cause it to come grinding to a halt. For someone who wants to destroy the world, she gets a lot of press. Me? I'm anti-destroy-the-world and I get the exact amount of press that I deserve and the exact amount that she deserves: none. I sure as hell hope I have something more cheerful to write about next week because I can't take much more of this.
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| Stomp It: Part One |
[Aug. 14th, 2005|08:25 pm] |
It's been a banner week for flaming paper bags, so lets give out some awards. We have five runner-ups and a grand prize winner.
Flaming Paper Bag in Black: US District Judge John C. Coughenour sentenced Algerian Ahmed Ressam to 22 years in prison. Ressam is better known as the 'Millennium Bomber' although a better name would be 'Attempted Millennium Bomber' (for the same reason we don't call John Kerry or Al Gore or Bob Dole president, but I digress). He was planning on ruining Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve with nitroglycerin. The Judge indicated that this sentencing was evidence that the Bush administration's anti-terror tactics are unnecessary and dangerous, and that traditional law enforcement techniques will suffice. This might be true if this story occurred in 2001. But it occurred this year. A five year turn-around since the guy was captured, considering he confessed and cooperated, is nothing to write home about, let alone base your criticisms on. Going by this methodology, I guess we can wait until 2008 to see Saddam Hussein sentenced, and who knows when to see justice brought to the rest of the terrorists and tyrants of the world. It's a terrible truthful shame about human existence, but in war, you don't run into the enemy's trench, force him to lower his gun, and then run back to your trench. In war, you shoot him because he will shoot you.
Flaming Paper Bag Across the Pond: Veteran BBC Newsreader Michael Buerk launched a tirade against what he sees as an omnibus control of life by the fairer sex during a radio interview in London. That's right, Johnny English believes women are secretly ruling the world, and men have been reduced to "sperm donors." Since every government in the world is overwhelmingly controlled by men, and in many places worldwide women not only lack protection and rights from their rulers, but are abused, marginalized and treated as vastly inferior, they must have one hell of a conspiracy. Somebody call Lyndon LaRouche. What's Buerk's explanation? Several high-up positions in the BBC are currently occupied by women, he asserts, which means that to follow his argument you must also assume that a few women are powerful enough to control any organization that they slip a few agents into, and that the BBC's Administration Offices represent the entire world. A bit of a stretch. Poor us, Michael says women are destroying the male characteristics of "reticence, stoicism, [and ] single-mindedness." Let us hope they also destroy his characteristics of recalcitrance, stupidity, and self-centeredness.
Flaming Paper Bag, MD: My old friend Howard Dean was back in the news recently, proclaiming "New England Republicans are different than most. They are more reasonable and thoughtful. You don't get as many right-wing wackos." I thought he "hated them and everything they stood for" but apparently he can make exceptions for those homegrown in his own backyard. He was busy this week, also finding time to announce that "women will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq." There is plenty of legitimate criticism of the war in Iraq, mostly from legitimate sources like experts, politicians, soldiers, congressmen and a variety of other sources. There is also a lot of illogical, counter-productive and ridiculous criticism of the war, mostly from film-makers, entertainers, radio show hosts, coffee shop clerks and a variety of other sources. When these two streams start to mix, and Party Chairmen start ranting and raving extreme exaggerations, and people making my lattes (poorly) make more sense than a doctor who is an attempted-president, there is a serious problem with the structure of discourse in this country. If RNC Chair Ken Mehlman declared that if the US hadn't invaded Iraq, then there'd be no more unicorns, he would probably be forced to resign following the outrage and ridicule over his statements. But Dean is different. He is a classical politician, interested in elections and being on stage, whilst most people that have held party chairs are the puppet master type, wielding power behind the throne, being more concerned with shaking hands and arranging conference photo-ops than ever running for a national office. He was much better suited for his previous job of being an ex-governor of a state that no longer exists thanks to a stiff breeze.
Flaming Paper Bags Go Primetime: NARAL Pro-Choice America created an advertisement that CNN agreed to air which attacked President Bush's Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts. The spot utilized Moore's Law, which states that if you can show two things on camera at the same time then they must be related. The ad claimed that Roberts filed papers supporting abortion clinic bombers, and their proof is a picture of a memo and a picture of a building on fire. What do the two have to do with one another beyond that? Actually, nothing. At least that's according to the non-partisan Annenberg Political FactCheck Organization of the University of Pennsylvania, which is so careful and concerned with accuracy, that 99% of the time it makes accusations of "misleading" and "not being clear" against ads that you wouldn't believe for a second. What did they say about this ad? They actually referred to it as plainly and simply 'false', something they rarely do. Why? Because the memo was from years before the bombing, and concerned the issue of federalism, with Roberts writing about protesters blocking clinic's entrances; he argued that since it was illegal under state law, no federal law needed to be invoked, and that the one in question didn't apply. When the bomber occurred years later, Roberts said that those involved were criminals who should be fully prosecuted. Doesn't really sound like their ad holds water if you, I don't know, read the memo in question or know when the bombing actually happened. Minor details to these people, who have managed to get pressured by their fellow pro-abortion groups to remove the ad and have managed to draw sympathy for Roberts as being wrongly attacked by extremist lies. In keeping with my excellent track record for predictions, I see Roberts passing the 70-vote threshold when he is confirmed.
Those are the four runner-ups for this prestigious award. Who is the winner? If she can wait, then you can wait to hear about her...
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| Firefighters |
[Aug. 7th, 2005|06:59 pm] |
War as it used to be known in the bad old days is gone for the foreseeable future. It’s really just conflicts, whether they are prolonged or short, isolated or rather large. Countries are no longer vying to take over the world. India and Pakistan may be fighting and the Israelis and Palestinians may be fighting, but those are regional conflicts basically. Nobody is concerned that the president of Pakistan wants to take over the world. Only villains in James Bond movies try that anymore, and it still isn’t working.
Even with all the trouble in the world today, no one is really worried that Islamo-fascism could grip the world, are they? It’s not really a convincing ideology (totalitarianism rarely is) and even more so is far too specific to really attract converts. The American way of life is very convincing, especially in comparison. Poor people can be fat and own TV’s, everybody can vote and everybody gets protected by the government regardless of gender, religion, or race, and most importantly everything is gray. We are a land of averages, compromises, sameness from differences, overwhelming blandness, and a serious case of don’t-take-it-too-seriously-dude.
The terrorists that are proponents of Islamo-fascism can only hope to blow up enough stuff that we’ll leave them alone. Probably not very likely. They might do something really stupid like try to nuke us, which would result in the end of a large region of the earth (and the US finally arming its borders like we should have a long time ago). We’d invite Israel over for tea, and then drop the big one on the whole Middle East. We tried our best, but getting nuked is way too much; our hospitality only goes so far, and then we go nuts. Ask Japan.
What’s pissing them off so much? What’s the penicillin to their vile global infection? What is preventing them getting what they want? No, it’s not the UN (Underlings of Neville) but plain and simple democracy. Democracy, when done properly, tends to weed out the crazies and it keeps them from forcing their will on others. It also tends to prevent the old style war that we’ve almost forgotten, because real democracies don’t fight other real democracies. Just think of all the paperwork it would take to get that sort of thing off the ground.
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| Sonny Bono Said It Best: Part Two |
[May. 29th, 2005|11:11 am] |
We've come as close as we're going to get to Batman, or more accurately since we're dealing with a group, the Justice League, and we have rebuked them. The Minutemen patrol the Mexican-American border and report any crime they see. I know what you're thinking; do they report any crime other than attempted illegal immigration? I'm sure that if there was other crime to report out there, they would, but since in that remote area there is none, it’s a moot point. It’s against the law to enter the United States without going through the proper channels, and when they see someone doing so, they report it. Although they have no duty to report a crime, they have the right.
So why has the President condemned unspecified "vigilante" justice in reference to them? Why is every major newspaper full of editorials blasting them as racists? Why is the US Border Patrol making a substantial effort not to increase arrests in the area they patrol for fear of making them look effective?
People want to have it both ways. They want the law on the books so our country doesn't look weak and unprotected, but they don't want it enforced, because that would make us look mean. Maybe even racist. Nothing is more preposterous. The reporting of a crime is racist? That's hard to believe. Are they under-reporting the Asians, whites, and blacks that sneak across the border and over-reporting the Mexicans that do so? I don't think so; something tells me that all of the offenders that cross the border are Mexican.
Furthermore: is the crime itself racially motivated? Because if it is, then of course the reporting of it is going to appear the same way. If it isn't, which keep in mind means that there is a proportionate chance of someone of any race attempting this crime, then how can the reporting of it be so? It’s obviously a matter of Nationality, not one of race. But Americans are always quick to blame themselves as racist when something bad happens to a minority; keep in mind however that Mexican President Vicente Fox said that the US needs illegal immigration because "Mexicans do the jobs that blacks won't."
Differing from President Bush's vote-pandering strategy, Governor Schwarzenegger supported the group early on, and was met with cries that he was an immigration Uncle Tom, who had forgotten his roots. His roots as a legal immigrant. He has stood by his remarks as of yet, trying to articulate the difference, but he just keeps accidentally screaming in German. What I think he wants to say is that the problem with unmonitored immigrants that we can't keep track of is that they are unmonitored immigrants that we can't keep track of. Who are they? Why are they here? Maybe it’s to have a new and better life, maybe it’s to blow up buildings and people. We need to know. We also need to make sure they are in the system. Paying taxes, obeying laws, and receiving what they deserve, both in the terms of protection and regulation.
I still haven't heard of anyone who opposes the Minutemen argue that we should have unlimited immigration into this country, so then I wonder what their beef is. If the Minutemen are helping to enforce a law that everybody pretty much agrees on and that we've had for years, you'd think they wouldn't be derided publicly so much, but those are the breaks. I just wish people would realize that this is what they always wanted: a vigilante that acts completely within the confines of the law. A Batman for the rest of us.
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| Sonny Bono Said It Best: Part One |
[May. 22nd, 2005|10:22 pm] |
How would the real world react to a superhero? An ultra-realistic portrayal of Batman, focusing on the intensity of years of preparation necessary for such a pursuit, is due in theatres next month. Batman is the kind of superhero, the most common one, who for one reason or another, acts outside the law. Very few superheroes are officially sponsored. The vigilante ideal that has become so thoroughly an American idea through our cultural creation of the "Superhero" as well as the "Western" genre is inherited through western tradition, specifically Anglo-Saxon as in the case of Robin Hood, but because it is American is subject to another of our virtues: self-doubt (which often unfortunately leads into self-loathing).
Bernhard Goetz is a famous American vigilante, who doesn't look as much like Charles Bronson as he should, and he sharply divided the nation on issues of racial tension, gang activity, mass transit safety, gun control, and most recently his new cause, vegetarianism (yes, really). It seems that you can get away with being a vigilante once, as long as you don't continue your behavior. America will tolerate you enforcing the law once, but most likely only once. If Batman ever got caught, he'd have to stop being Batman.
Is there a middle ground? Can you be a vigilante and not be derided, persecuted and ultimately defeated? Perhaps a middle ground approach. I can imagine Batman patrolling Gotham City, and using his bat-phone to call Commissioner Gordon whenever he saw a purse-snatching or a surprisingly colorful ne'er-do-well on a street corner, and then after alerting the proper authorities, flying back to his mansion. If he wasn't fighting crime, but merely reporting it, everybody would love him, and he would stop brooding so damn much. He could even inspire me to do the same thing, but on a much smaller scale. I could sit on my front porch and call the police whenever I saw a drunk driver speed by (way too often) or if I saw a shoplifter sneaking out of Rite-Aid. You could do the same. But what if we decided that not only would we report crimes that we could see from our front porches, but crimes that we saw during the day during our normal business?
Although you have no duty to report a crime, you have the right. So what if you had plenty of free time, and you decided to read your newspaper, find out which neighborhoods had the most crime, and then hang around those neighbors waiting to duck into a phone booth, not to put on a costume, but to call the proper authorities? What if you lived near a desert? In the south-western United States? Near a border to another country? Suddenly, I realize why Batman does so much brooding.
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| Sean Connery is Not Welcome Here |
[May. 15th, 2005|02:38 pm] |
The pen is mightier than the sword. This doesn't mean that it's easier to stab someone with your pen than it is to slash them with your sword. It means that it's easier to convince someone else to do your killing for you. By using a pen. The written word is very powerful, not something to be toyed around with, and despite the fact that they reviewed it, I don't think the editors of Newsweek have seen Spiderman.
On May 9th they made a report that soldiers at Guantanamo Bay were flushing copies of the Koran down the toilet whilst interrogating Muslim prisoners. Well, this seems like a relatively minor offense consider that the Islamo-fascists of the world burn effigies of US political figures and American flags daily, not to mention being dismissive of other religions (what the US is being accused of here) by murdering people in the streets. Flushing a book down the toilet, blowing up Christians and Jews because they contradict the law of the Koran, whatever apparently it’s all the same to some people. To show how mad they were at the US, they rioted across several countries, managing sixteen deaths and over 100 injuries. Seems like they were overreacting to our supposed 'intolerance' considering their view of tolerance is stoning a woman to death if she is raped, but I'm not opposed to anything that makes terrorists wipe themselves out. Imagine if in 1940, Churchill had mocked the works of Goethe and Wagner as sophomoric and trite, so the Germans rioted all over Germany destroying property and killing German citizens. Something tells me that there would have been weekly German culture bashing sessions on the BBC after that. But despite that extremely bizarre and tangential notion I just entrained, there is something else that makes this whole situation seem even more trivial.
It didn't happen.
Newsweek has issued an apology but not a formal retraction yet, because they aren't exactly sure how much of and how wrong the report is. Apparently, they didn't verify their sources carefully enough. Almost like they were over-eager to break the story about more 'abuse' at Gitmo. Last time someone was this eager, his name was Dan Rather, and now he spends most of his time at home, watching news that he isn't on any more. A desire to harm the president or the current administration should never cloud journalistic integrity, but I guess it does sometimes. Funny, Newsweek didn't have any problem sitting on the story of a presidential affair back in 1998, which was instead revealed to the world by Matt Drudge. I wonder why they waited to verify sources then but couldn’t contain themselves this time.
And if it had been true, does the public have a right to know? This is the debate that looked like it was going to form regarding this issue, but thanks to the new developments, it has been pushed to the wayside. I however still think it warrants attention. Most people seem to think that anything and everything is fair game for the news. But what about divulging confidential military secrets? Yeah, I know, sometimes there is abuse or corruption and this is disgusting, deplorable, and worthy of reporting. But sometimes, the military is doing things it has a reason for keeping secret. Like invading Europe. Or developing atomic weapons. Or anything else that would hurt its chances of success if the enemy found out. And yes, we have enemies, not just friends we haven't met yet, but people we haven't met yet who believe they are rewarded in heaven for all eternity with virgins (or raisins) if they kill us and that their families will also be compensated for the loss. Letting everybody know what we're doing all the time is not a good idea. Believe it or not, Islamo-fascists read Newsweek. In fact, all things considered, it’s probably their favorite magazine, as they are standing by it and refusing to acknowledge that the story is false. Good for them. I hope they riot some more. But next time, they had better invite some hippies.
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| The Rifle |
[May. 8th, 2005|11:11 pm] |
Have you ever gone out do dinner with friends? Like, 150 of them? And they order lots of really expensive stuff, but they order you a kick to the balls? Then when the check comes, they make you pony up 1/5 of it, and you have to bus the table?
The US provides 22% of the United Nations budget, and also gave up a perfectly good slum so that it could have a headquarters. In return, the UN makes corruption, genocide, and rape around the world much more convenient. Sure, they add loads of red tape like any massive extra-national bureaucracy, but they're doing the best they can. While helping organize wide scale bribery in the 'Oil for Food' scandal, where Iraqis were starved to death whilst China, Russia, and France received huge drilling contracts (I thought drilling for oil was morally wrong?), they also found the time to make any god that might exist shudder at the tragedy in Rwanda by sending peacekeeping forces that now have hundreds of rape allegations against them. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his son received millions of dollars earmarked for starving, diseased war orphans. But that's not what frustrates me the most.
What's frustrating is the idea some people have that there's nothing wrong with this. As long as it isn't the United States, any other country or group can get away with anything it likes. Because we're the big kid on the playground, we have to behave whilst watching some smaller kids murder and rape one another. And come after us too. Is there any hope?
There is. His name is John Bolton and if you look cockeyed at his anachronistic mustache, he'll kick the shit out of you. I mean just look at this guy. He looks like he wakes up with a scowl on his face, and he beats up his neighbors on the way to work just for good measure. If he becomes the new US Ambassador to the UN, he'll get to kick the ass of new and interesting people from around the planet. He's hitting a few roadblocks though, which can be classified into two categories.
1: He doesn't like the UN. Well I'll be damned. You can't be a part of something if you criticize it. Fascinating. Apparently the entire American electoral tradition of seeking any office elected or otherwise by promising to reform it is totally null and void. From Carter who ran as a Beltway outsider against Watergate corruption to Reagan who ran as a government-shrinker against Carter's bloated stagnation, our history is filled with people who were apparently unfit for office. I guess from now on, when people like John Kerry run for president, they won't be doing any criticizing or complaining or critiquing. And furthermore, I guess anyone who ever criticizes the United States has to renounce their citizenship. If you call misappropriating millions of dollars and overseeing massive crimes against humanity 'corruption' then you're out of the running. He also made the mistake of saying "The UN doesn't exist" which can only be interpreted one way, according to Barbara Boxer. He couldn’t have been speaking metaphorically, or theoretically, or philosophically, or in any other way other than denying the existence of a 33-story building that he has been inside countless times. She wanted to know why he would want to work for an organization that he doesn't think exists. So while he is explaining his position, using his PoliSci 1 notes from college, she looks on, humming to herself, content that she has assembled a strong enough pretense for her partisan vote against him.
2: He yelled at some woman. This guy gets mad, yells at people, throws things, and chases them through hotels threatening them. The woman making the bulk of these claims also happens to be a founding member of MAB (Mothers Against Bush) but giving her the benefit of the doubt, cool. This guy won't take any crap from his employees. If they don't listen and listen well, they might not get the chance to listen ever again. What do you tell one of Bolton's former employees with two black eyes? Nothing, Ol' Bolt Action already told them twice. Yelling at one employee seems like a relatively minor infraction when you're dealing with millions of lives on an everyday basis. If he did, good for him. If he didn't, good for him.
On a more serious note, this guy is a middle-aged, pudgy, dumpy lifetime bureaucrat with a goofy mustache who probably couldn't even kick his own ass. But when it comes to the UN, he's the perfect man to act as sheriff in the most corrupt consortium of countries ever. Come on, isn't it a bad sign that countries like Iraq and North Korea like the UN? Shouldn’t we be a little worried? Bolton doesn't like the UN because he thinks it attacks sovereignty and promotes corruption. Good. People who don't like crime are the people you want to be the cops.
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| Earth VS. Earthlings: Part Two |
[May. 1st, 2005|11:57 pm] |
What good can come of our shaky relationship with this rock?
We can tame it, and improve the quality of our lives. We can do this by using the natural resources that it has to offer. Why not? Well apparently some people don't like the idea of not dying. Fundamentalism or ignorance? In the case to which I will refer, I believe it is a mix of the two.
ANWR, also known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is a place you will never go. Guaranteed. I could give this guarantee to everyone I have ever known, or anyone I will ever meet, and probably only be wrong twice. Maybe three times. It's a big expanse of ice and dirt in one of the pariah states that's filled with caribou and not much else. It had been known for quite some time to have oil underneath it, but until recently this was not acted upon. Now that action is proposed, people are up in arms.
That's weird. I also noticed that people drive cars. Cars that don't run on good intentions or PBS bumper stickers. People complain about record gas prices, but consumption of gas isn't down at all. Apparently, people are willing to pay more for their gas as long as they can complain about it. Wouldn't it be great to stop the complaining and lower gas prices? That's the point of drilling for oil, but some people are still opposed.
Dangerous? Well there's oil drilling all over the continental United States, including in places actually close to where people might live. ANWR is probably the safest place you could want. Far away from people. Don't know how much oil is actually down there? I have an idea of a way to figure that out. Its called drilling. Don't want to hurt any cute little animals? Fuck caribou. If they haven't learned how to crap solid gasoline yet, then they aren't giving this their best effort, evolution-wise. People live near where oil is drilled for all over the continental United States, and they do just fine. The only danger is to the workers. Caribou will just have to make due. Or maybe they can be gently relocated to another part of the refuge where there is no drilling. Either way, arbitrarily valuing an animal's life over a human's is called being insane. Don’t want to hurt all the pretty icy dirt that you’ll never vacation to because you’d rather go some place that isn’t the closest depiction of hell that earth has to offer? Let me pose this question. I’m sure you have an opinion of what to do in this matter, but do you know how much land is actually in question up there? The acreage of the ANWR? Without looking it up.
Someone told me that the ten million acres was too valuable and important to drill on. I explained to her that under the proposed plan, not only would those ten million acres be safe from drilling, but additionally over five million more would be safe. She looked at me puzzled and explained that she was pretty sure the proposal involved drilling. Oh yes it does, I explained, but only on 8% of the total nineteen million acres.
Nobody cares about the number. When you’re dealing with a number this high, its all abstract. It isn’t a real functionary amount, its a statistic. Where is the cutoff for people? Do they have an amount? How many acres must be saved and how many can be utilized? There isn’t any amount. People are opposing this plan on principle; they aren’t considering any of the numbers. Fundamentalism trumps logic. Always. What if it were 100 million acres, and only 1% had to be drilled, and there were no animals? Would that be okay? I think most people would agree to that.
There’s a story that Mark Twain, near the end of his life, was at a dinner party, and approached a female socialite, and asked her in his must unassuming, disarming drawl, “Madam, would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” She was slightly taken aback, but the humor shone through, and she wryly replied that “Yes, I suppose I would.” He then said to her, “Madam, would you sleep with me for ten dollars?” She was seriously taken aback, and replied indignantly “Of course not sir, what do you take me for, some sort of prostitute?” Mark Twain answered “Madam, I believe we have established that fact, and are now merely haggling over your price.”
Listen up whores. When we actually run out of oil on the planet, I predict a sudden rise in the development, sale, and use of electric or other-wise-powered vehicles. Until that day, when we are actually out of oil, lets use the oil. I’m pretty sure people are already getting on board. I see over a thousand cars a day at work, and every time I see a green party sticker on a very old and inefficient car, I know that people are giving in. Either that, or they’re hypocrites.
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| Earth VS. Earthlings: Part One |
[Apr. 24th, 2005|12:54 pm] |
In case you didn't notice, Earth Day was last week. Hopefully, you didn't. Or you would have noticed the staggering arrogance of the people of the world patting themselves on the back and calling it world-changing altruism. Earth Day is much like the earth itself, big and mindless, except the earth doesn't get swept up in its own magnificence. Don't get me wrong, I think the human race kicks ass. More ass than any other loser species on this planet. But lets call a spade a spade here. What kicks ass is when we conquer the barren and inhospitable landscape, when we unlock the secrets of our own existence, and when we send crap into space (which we should be doing more of). What doesn't kick ass is when we think we have reached enlightenment, but we're really killing millions of people for no good reason.
The modern environmentalist movement, and the insipid Earth Day, can be traced back through the book Silent Spring and the whole concept can be thus tied together. The author, Rachel Carson, argued that the pesticide DDT should be banned because it weakens the egg shells of some birds. President Nixon creates the EPA, the EPA investigates, and the EPA decides that fuzzy numbers and fear/sympathy mongering make an inconclusive case. They were forced to hold more hearings on the matter, but eventually owing to public outcry, DDT was banned. The birds were now safe.
Fuck birds. DDT was used to eradicate malaria from North America and Europe, where it was surprisingly common in the first half of this century. Typhus was nearly eliminated worldwide. People were being saved by DDT. When they tried feeding monkeys 33,000 times the allowed average daily human exposure, nothing happened to them. 33,000 times. It has never killed a single human ever. You know what has? Malaria. In 1996, South Africa wanted to join the club of big important modern nations, so it banned DDT. Surprise! 400% increase in malaria deaths. The only country in South America which has seen a decline in Malaria deaths recently? What a surprise, Ecuador, the only country that didn't ban DDT. DDT represents human industry, the creation of something from nothing, and banning it comes from a fear of the power of man; a just fear, as men are capable of many wicked acts, but one taken too far in this case, as preventing disease is surely one of the noblest acts of man.
And about those damn birds, it was never even properly proven that they were being hurt. But everybody cares so much about birds. Caring more about birds than people is called being insane. Because people want to look 'cool' and 'hip' and impress strangers with their global conscience, a child under 5 dies every 30 seconds. It would have been a lot more fitting and would have helped the world greatly if Rachel Carson had died of malaria. Imagine that. I think people would have wised up then. But instead she died of breast cancer, and everyone had to lament the loss, and wonder how much more she could have done if she had lived longer. Yeah, I wonder how many more Africans would die if she had lived just another 5 years.
Being an 'environmentalist' is the same thing as being 'religious.' The earth used to be better thousands of years ago when things were simpler and men lived in peace with nature and there was no technology or civilization? Sounds like the Garden of Eden. Its all the same crapshoot; being a self-hating member of the human race for whatever reason fits you into a narrow category. You have to believe things that you know aren't true because they fit into the preconceived narrative that someone has inside their head. It's called 'faith.' Just like religion, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. People act by a code or morals, or people clean up trash and prevent pollution. But when you go too far. Islamo-fascist Jihadists and Green party members look the same to me. Osama bin Laden is probably a great admirer of Rachel Carson
What good can come of our shaky relationship with this rock? Here's a hint: it has nothing to do with Sadat...
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| Noxzema |
[Apr. 17th, 2005|01:19 pm] |
I made the mistake of reading a rag I found on the seat next to me whilst I was waiting, and I've almost completely learned my lesson about the dangers of reading. Almost.
The offending article bothered me because it reflects a refusal to acknowledge an elephant sitting in the living room (pardon the cliche, but it fit). Cuba? Socialists? The Swedes are Socialists, and I can stand them, mostly. I don't think they'd like being lumped into the same category as Cuba. Furthermore, most of Europe is Socialist, but somehow, they don't seem the same to me as Cuba. Now these people might have actually been to Cuba, and I have not, but if they told me that the sky was green and it rained candy every night there, I wouldn't believe them. Well, they basically told me the equivalent.
Since I have been to Europe, maybe I can twist that experience into a coherent explanation of the difference between Socialism and Communist-Dictatorship (I know, its redundant). First of all, I was allowed to travel there, since it is not banned. When I landed, I was not bound, gagged, tortured, and interrogated because of my beliefs. I did not see any homosexual death camps, where gays are sectioned off from society and left to die. I didn't hear about anyone in prison for the rest of their lives because they hung an American flag on top of their house. When I visited a beach, I didn't see thousands of people trying to flee on inter tubes because almost certain death on the high seas was a better fate than their current lives.
Enough of what I didn't experience, what was there? I seem to recall hearing something about upcoming elections when I was there. Apparently the people are allowed to choose new leaders every few years. I went to a bank, and I was allowed to exchange money without being shot. I took that money to a store to buy something, and there was a whole line of people, using money to buy things and they weren't being shot. I bought something, and I was not shot. It was great! Between people being allowed to have and spend money and control their own lives and the lack of fear or being shot to death at any moment, I couldn't decide what I enjoyed more.
Imagine waking up one morning, with a big, vile, festering boil on your face, that spits burning acid all over you and digs in deeper and deeper every day. Now imagine that a bunch of spoiled, rich college kids tell you that its really pleasant and interesting to observe. Should this make the world hold onto it? It already has a huge boil on its ass that can't be removed quite so easily because of its nuclear capabilities, so I don't think there's any reason to hold onto another one so long that it becomes irremovable. It's hard enough keeping a clear complexion, we don't need to start empathizing with the blemishes.
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| My Label Gun Shoots Bullets Instead Of Making Labels |
[Apr. 10th, 2005|09:39 pm] |
The Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God, Pope John Paul II is still dead. And yes, that's actually the official title.
Who will be the next man to assume this weighty position? Will they have as great an impact on the world as the unassuming Pole? John Paul II shot out of the starting gate years ago, fighting communism, having the Soviets try to kill him, and filling the next couple decades with more accomplishments than many other popes combined. It's unlikely that the next pope will change the world as much, or even try to. After a particularly long serving or world changing pontiff, the cardinals tend to pick someone more low profile to follow, and vice versa. I'm putting some odds down on the biggest race since last November.
Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi = 2:1
Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship, Nigeria, Cardinal Francis Arinze = 5:1
Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga = 7:1
Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels = 10:1
Jonathan LeGaux, Write-In Candidate = 2750:1
Tettamanzi has all the makings of a nice, quiet, non-boat-rocking pope. He's old, 71, so he wouldn't serve for as long. He doesn't speak very many languages, so he wouldn't be an international jet setting missionary. And he's Italian, just like all the popes that proceeded John Paul II for 435 years. This guy's the biggest shoe-in since The Aviator at the Academy Awards. Most of the media has been bandying about these facts. Another common description of him that I keep reading? "Conservative."
Well, no shit, the guy is a 71 year old priest. The words 'liberal' and 'conservative' have been so mangled and twisted that it's almost impossible to discern any meaning from them. Imagine a 99 year old great-grandmother who goes to Church every Sunday, has never worn pants instead of a skirt, bakes cookies for the local neighborhood children, has never cursed in her life, and still calls her T.V. a 'television set'. Okay, now that you have that picture, imagine that she is Eugene Debs's widow, she opposed WWII on grounds of pacifism, she sent Fidel Castro a box of congratulatory cigars in 1959, she has an autographed copy of Steal This Book (that she stole), and she moved across the country just so she could vote for Bernie Sanders. Would you describe her as liberal or conservative?
Okay fine, so there are definite distinctions in political beliefs and personal affairs. But even in politics, things are gray, and by gray, I mean stupid. The great wave of ‘liberal philosophers’ in the 17th and 18th century would be called conservative, or maybe libertarian today. They were liberal for thinking outside of the realm of Monarchies, but what they thought of wasn’t a giant centralized state power with departments regulating everything from the price of milk to what your children learn in school. More on that point, they probably would have thought public schools to be the biggest affront to liberty and freedom since slavery. Make me pay to send my kids to school? What if I don’t send them, do I get my money back? WHAT?!? I still have to pay, and I’m required to send them? WHAT?!? I have to pay even when my kids are out of school? I have to pay even if I never have kids? Hobbes and Locke would have teamed up Double Dragon style and kicked asses across the sceptred isle if anyone tried that on them.
In economic matters, the father of modern free-trade capitalistic theory, (something enthusiastically championed by today’s conservatives) Adam Smith, was called a ‘liberal’ because he opposed the Mercantilist system. Liberalism meant openness and freedom, which is what he thought made economies function and grow, as opposed to large gold reserves and restrictive tariffs. A conservative at the time would have stubbornly supported that old ineffective system.
Even in social matters, where it might seem things would be clearer and more easily tailored for convenient labels, they are not. Catholics are usually called ‘conservative’ but fundamentally they oppose the death penalty, oppose almost all military action, and support vast expansions of welfare projects. Those are widely referred to as ‘liberal’ beliefs. And what on earth would you call someone who supports the death penalty and supports abortion? Other than lonely.
The problems with these terms is that liberal means open to change and conservative means opposed to change. Those don’t really work much of the time, or most of the time, or ever. Everybody wants something to change. That’s also something stupid about the word ‘progressive.’ Does it mean you want change? Or at least, significant change? Well, the Republican Party wants to reform Social Security, restructure national intelligence, rewrite the tax code, and make other massive changes to government, but they are almost never described as ‘progressive.’
It would be ultimately better to avoid using these terms, and to focus on each issue if possible. I think X should be done to Y about Z etcetera etcetera. I don’t see this catching on any time soon. People prefer the shortened, easy to use, one size fits all labels that make sectioning people off quicker. Hopefully, new and more accurate labels will emerge. Since labels are used mainly to attack that which you dislike, I would like to propose a few.
Hippieism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by people that wear suits.
Collegeism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by anyone older than 24, except Jon Stewart, who is God.
Berkeleyism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by people who don’t drive Volvos, or don’t watch PBS.
Godism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by people who don’t believe in god, or your god, or your god properly.
Earthism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by the fact that humans messed up the earth which was perfect before we evolved.
Protestism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by people who aren’t carrying signs, or chanting.
Angryism: The belief that all the trouble in the world is caused by SHUT THE HELL UP OR I’LL CRACK YOUR FUCKING SKULL OPEN!!!
Lets hope by the time there’s a new pope, instead of getting a label, we’ll get to hear about how he feels on all the major issues: giantess/ridiculousness of hat, use on infallibility to win at Trivial Pursuit, favorite passage to use at Red Sox games, and whatever the hell else the pope does.
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| What Bill Munny Said To The Schofield Kid |
[Apr. 3rd, 2005|11:11 pm] |
Even if you're a legendary litigator, or a hilarious humorist, or a pontifical patriarch, or a brain-dead bulimic, you're going to die. What have we learned of death recently, other than if you're lucky enough congress will pass a bill that mentions you by name, or that if you're unlucky enough your darkest days will become a media circus that divides your friends, family, and the nation? That everyone needs a living will.
Terry Schiavo slipped into a permanent vegetative state years ago, and her husband Michael had been trying to starve her to death for over seven years (yes, that's what removing a feeding tube is). He became a licensed nurse so he could better care for her, and in all the years she lay in bed she never developed any bedsores because of his constant attention. But at some point, the Renaissance man who was given the award from her malpractice case and has since fathered children with a new woman whilst still being married to Terry decided that because she could never recover, now would be the best time to mention that she told him to unplug her. He should have had the right to do so, as her legal guardian, but her entire extended family fought him to the ends of the earth to prevent it. He tried to work around their opposition by having a court declare in February of 2000 that it was her desire to be unplugged. A woman in a permanent vegetative state, who was diagnosed mentally ill before slipping into it, was able to have "her" wishes regarding the end of her life verified in court based on hearsay. And it still took another 5 years for her tube to be removed long enough so she could shuffle off this mortal coil.
During that time, she became a national media fixation. Most recently, people were getting very excited, and acting very irrationally. Someone called in a phony bomb threat to the building. Someone called Jesse Jackson. Someone tried to rush into her room with a bottle of water. I'm wondering what their well thought-out plan was. Pour it down her throat so she drowns? She needed a tube to do anything, Crystal Geyser would not have helped.
It seemed as though all the chips were on the table. Millions of people who didn't know her were very passionate about the matter. People who wanted to keep her alive feared that if she died religions across the land would crumble, pagans and atheists would be elected to major offices, abortion would not only stay legal but become mandatory in many cases, and somebody would shoot Toby Keith. People that wanted her dead hoped that if she died religions across the land would crumble, pagans and atheists would be elected to major offices, abortion would not only stay legal but become mandatory in many cases, and somebody would shoot Toby Keith. In this case I have to take sides. Which do you prefer? Wackos who want you dead or wackos who want you alive?
But it seems as though both sides were wrong. There probably won't be many political consequences of her death. Partially because her death is being overshadowed by Karol Wojtyla’s, the fallout is not as great as expected. The implications on this case regarding the ethics of euthanasia, the responsibilities of legal guardianship, the scope of civil rights, and the wavering powers of federalism will fall to the wayside, and all that will be remembered is that many religious people have strong contempt for the non-religious and that many non-religious people have equally strong if not stronger contempt for the religious. Also, I think there will be a significant rise in the number of people getting living wills, but that’s neither here nor there.
Poor Terry Schiavo. I guess she had it coming...
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| R.E.M. Sucks |
[Mar. 13th, 2005|07:49 pm] |
In troubling times I find myself questioning my faith. What was once a sturdy rock to serve as a foundation for my life is now an institution that I feel needs me more than I need it. What does one do, when they are not sure if their church has abandoned them or they have abandoned their church? I would like to think that I would never part with something I once held so dear unless it had made steps away from me in the first place. When I had to choose between two conflicting passions, I chose a new love over this old one, that no longer could sustain me. But recently I engaged my old friend for the first time in a very long while, when circumstances permitted. I was still troubled, yet I felt I could understand the nature of our separation much more clearly. It was in fact, they who had left me.
When a television show has been on for many years, there are enough episodes that surely you can identify strides in greatness. Sometimes a show starts out on a bad foot and needs many episodes if not seasons to recover, possibly because of the shuffling of cast members, or writers, or producers. They can hit their stride right away and slowly devolve into imperfection. More commonly, a show's popularity amongst its fans and critics will resemble an arc. The best years are usually somewhere in the middle, like the delicious filling in a jelly donut. Mmmmmm...... Donuts......
Where did The Simpsons go wrong? Since I've seen every single episode of the first 13 seasons, and several in each of the most recent seasons, this is something I care about, and feel compelled to examine. The quality of the writing doesn't appear to have diminished greatly in any obvious way, and no major shake-ups have occurred in the cast or crew. So what's different? Well, I've noticed two big problems in the recent episodes I've seen. Firstly, too many of the jokes are extremely obvious and linger on screen for far too long to make sure that everybody gets them, especially the political jokes. Secondly, the show has betrayed its realist roots in order to pander to the Family Guy audience.
The subtlety that made the show such an insidious treat is long since gone. You can never go through an episode and miss a joke. I remember watching the show years ago with my mom and afterwards she would still be laughing about the show, but about jokes I had missed. Not jokes that I hadn't understood, but simply jokes that I hadn't even noticed. There were also jokes that were over my head but they were done, again, in such a subdued and innocuous manner than my missing them did not detract from the joy of the show. If a joke isn't funny, it cannot be fixed by making it bigger and longer and more in-your-face, but this appears to be a common solution. When it comes to politics, the show was also rather tame, with time-specific jokes and mild mocking of things that they clearly understood, tolerated, or secretly were a part of.
In the first few seasons, President Bush was featured rarely, and in one episode, favorably and non-comically. When Clinton took over, they seemed to find a way to lampoon him monthly, if not weekly. In one episode, he declares "Well, I'm a pretty lousy President." Even after his term was up, he still popped up on the show, serving as a caricature for rampaging hormones and poor policy making. He was definitely the show's most frequent political target. Although there were others, most notably the Springfield Republican Party headquarters being a castle atop a perpetual stormy mountain, his appearances were the most frequent. Since George W. Bush's election and reelection, he has yet to be featured on the show, although there have been jokes about his administration, like a school principal being forced to rob a rival school for computers blaming "Dick Cheney's America."
But most recently, the clever, pointed, occasional jabs have turned into a barrage of weak, overdone, and obvious punches, from start to finish. In episodes where I agreed with their commentary, such as the most recent where Homer taunts the Communist rulers of China, I did not laugh. In episodes where I disagreed with the commentary, such as the recent episode where Homer works for a Wal-Mart-esque employer that abuses him, I did not laugh. Lack of opportunity? No, I was pummeled with jokes about both throughout the episodes. But each one fell flatter than the one that proceeded it. The show has forgone subtlety, and employs an in-your-face attitude, which I blame on the same factor as the second problem.
In the early seasons of the show, it was basically an animated version of a family sitcom. There was nothing that couldn’t have been acted out in an equally plausible manner. Slowly, the show evolved, and although it still obeyed the laws of physics and gravity and reality, it would bend the rules of dramatic and comedic convention. But the transition went a little too far. In one of my favorite old episodes, a monorail is built in Springfield practically overnight, Homer becomes its captain, and various other improbabilities occur. In the most recent episode, Homer has his heart ripped out and reinserted by a Shaolin monk.
I blame this on Family Guy, the show for which there are no rules. Even though it was continually canceled by Fox during its prime, they realized its potential when they sold the old episodes to Cartoon Network (which also shows Futurama, although I doubt that show will get a second chance, sadly) and they were extremely well received by the most coveted of demographics, and when the DVD box sets flew off the shelves, again at the hands of the most coveted demographic. But is a nihilistic formula sustainable in the long term? Family Guy only had 3 short seasons. Most recently, American Dad cast a shadow of doom over the potential legacy. I don’t think anarchy can last for very long, and I don’t think it has improved the quality of The Simpsons.
Given all this, you might be surprised that I like Family Guy. It came and went, and although there are only a limited selection of episodes for the time-being, they are enjoyable. I don't think it could have lasted, and when it returns I don't think it will be as good. Even if the new episodes are entertaining, I doubt the show will last as long as, say, The Simpsons. But the show is hilarious in its own right. I just wish it hadn't tainted my most beloved animated series.
Because of syndication, I can enjoy Homer meeting his arch-nemesis, his half-brother, and his mother on the lam everyday of the week. The new episodes, that have inhabited the same 8pm Sunday time slot for over a decade, are a different story. Although they are still more entertaining than most of the other drivel currently being produced for network TV, they are not what they once were. They have slipped into a comfortable and sustainable mediocrity. At this rate, they could last for another 15 seasons. But will anybody be watching? I mean, of course, anybody other than me.
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| I Wasn't Born This Year |
[Mar. 6th, 2005|11:56 am] |
At a recent press conference in Russia, President Bush decided that it would be a good public venue to playfully chastise his Ruskie counterpart, Vladimir Putin, about the decline of democratic freedoms in Russia. I don't think anyone was quite prepared for Putin's comeback:
"We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS"
He was referring of course to the memo-vetting debacle that led to CBS management cleaning house, and (many speculate) to Dan Rather's retirement. Sadly though, he had a few of the facts mixed up. Maybe more than a little mixed up. He doesn't seem to have a real concept of what a free press is. This is startling for a less obvious reason. Its one thing when a leader deprives his people of something he knows about, like political power or enfranchisement. But given the fallout from this gaffe, its clear that Putin didn't know that we have a different press system in the western world. A free one, specifically. He doesn't know that he's not giving them one. And because the Russian government operates under a super-presidential system, in which the executive has law-making powers, instead of our presidential system of the more European parliamentary system, it really does come down to him.
Should we be worried about Russia? According to a recent poll, 25% of Russians would vote for Josef Stalin if he were still alive and running for office. Either they don't care that he'd be 125 years old, or they don't really appreciate his murder of over 20 million of his own people. Either way, we're lucky that being dead is a major vote turnoff. But being named Vlad isn't, and Putin will be the leader of Russia for a few more years, until term limits catch up with him and he'll have to make a choice. Leave quietly? Line up a successor as Yeltsin did to him? Go crazy and seize power forever? He probably won't make the last choice, but he is a wild card.
Why is the domestic policy of a relatively stable nation a big concern? Well I think it is because we expect more of Russia. For years, the dueling superpowers waged a bipolar cold war, implying that although they didn't regard each other as moral or theoretical equals, they were clearly closely matched in political power and military might. Sure, with the dissolution of the USSR, much of that was revealed to be smoke and mirrors, but that kind of deception takes massive dedication. And the stuff that wasn't smoke and mirrors was pretty intense as well. They were able to keep children quaking under desks and disarmament peace rallies crowded with their nuclear program. Wouldn't it be great to have all this on our side?
Our Allies need to be less like your friends that you have over for beer and pizza, and more like the Justice League. Fighting crime, building space stations, and happily bickering over whose powers are the coolest. In this case, it would be fighting Islamo-fascism, building space stations that don't suck, and happily bickering over whose culture is coolest. But before any of this can happen, they need to clean up their act a little bit. Free the press, and establish some other long overdue democratic reforms (too many to discuss here). Then they'll be ready to suit up, and fight the great worldwide menace that is... Canada.
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| We Will Fight Them At The Skyscrapers |
[Feb. 27th, 2005|03:37 pm] |
Ward Churchill is, at the time of this writing, a Professor of Ethnic American Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, whose speciality is Native Americans. Until recently, when his life became mired in more controversy than usual, he was the chair of the department. The source of this recent controversy? An essay he wrote in which he compares the victims of the 9/11 attacks (specifically those in New York, oddly enough) with Adolf Eichmann. He is no stranger to controversy, but this is his first real foray into national attention.
His resume for national-controversy-figure of the month is rather impressive. It included coming under fire for: his inability to verify his heritage or link himself credibly with any tribe (many tribes and organizations have publicly disowned him or renounced his actions and just recently he admitted he is not actually Native-American), his sloppy scholarly work (he wrote of an American plan in the 19th century to exterminate Native Americans with smallpox when it was actually a British plan conceived but quickly discarded 100 years earlier), his artwork (suspicious similarities were found between his recent artwork and some obscure pieces by another artist from the 1970's), his travel plans (In 1983, Churchill met Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, during a travel ban to that country), and other various shenanigans.
The story came to the national forum when Bill O'Reilly wielded his vastly underestimated power and told his viewers that they should e-mail the school with their feelings on the matter. When thousands of e-mails from people of every state in the Union flooded the school overnight, the University decided it might need to address this issue. It has apologized to the country and approved the Chancellor to conduct a full review into Churchill's tenure. Discounting past acts of treason (yes, technically) do his recent actions warrant his expulsion? It seems as though is tenure might have been a mistake in the first place, but now that's he got it, can he hide behind amidst recent events? Murky issues indeed.
Colorado Governor Bill Owens has raised an interesting point, that I think is at the heart of the matter. Considering that Churchill has called those who would work for U.S. companies as guilty as the man who made the death camp trains run on time (never mind that Churchill technically works for the government, and that his employer receives money from the federal government as well), that he has said that "many more 9/11's are necessary to ensure the end of the U.S." and that he said he wants the U.S. "out of existence altogether", should the state have to subsidize someone who espouses its immediate destruction?
If Churchill has his finger of the pulse of society and millions of people throughout the country agree with him, then wouldn't he surely be able to find a job teaching at a private university, like Noam Chomsky has, where he can freely criticize the U.S. and call anybody and everybody a Nazi if he feels like it? If this is true, then let him find that job. If it is not true, then people don't agree with him, and he doesn't have his finger on the pulse of society, and taxpayers shouldn't have to foot him 6 figures a year.
In honor of the Oscars tonight, I will offer a prediction. Churchill will leave the University of Colorado, whether he resigns or his contract is shamefully bought out Mariah Carey style (forcing Colorado citizens to pay to not pay for things they don't want to hear) and he will be brought onto the faculty of a private school. He will carry out the remaining years of his life in a fashion similar to the previous years. He will die long since forgotten, and will be buried on U.S. soil. Clutched in the hands of his corpse as his casket is lowered into the ground will be his Stupidest Professor From A State That Starts With 'C' Award.
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| What Would The Statuettes Look Like? |
[Feb. 20th, 2005|12:49 pm] |
It's been a banner week for stupidity, so lets give out some awards.
Stupidest Country: Proving the point I tried to make a few months ago, that there is no such thing as a famous Canadian because they become Americans at some point, Alanis Morrissette has become an American Citizen. Apparently, instead of people who bad-mouth the U.S. and hate Bush moving away to Canada in disgust, people who bad-mouth the U.S. and hate Bush are disgustingly moving to America. This is exactly why I'm in favor of immigration of every kind, except Canadian. We should only let 100 Canadians into America every year. The best and the brightest. We can even put the finalists on ballots during elections. Each state could pick two, just like Senators. President, check, senator, check, congressman, check, Canadian, check. If they get the most votes, then they can move on in. Otherwise, they can stay in Canada fighting moose for scraps of food and Anne Murray records during eleven and a half month blizzards.
Stupidest Now-Unemployed Person: You think a professional journalist would know something about what you can get away with saying, but C.N.N. Chief News Executive Eason Jordan apparently did not. On January 27, 2005, Jordan claimed that American troops are intentionally targeting journalists in Iraq. He made these charges during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, during an event in which tapes were not supposed to be distributed to the public. Unfortunately for him, the story leaked onto the internet, and like urine in a swimming pool, there's no way to get it out. First employing the Clinton tactic, and quibbling with the definition of "intentionally" (it can also mean unintentionally, according to him) he finally resigned last week. Why did he think he could get away with this? Read below.
Stupidest Person Who Amazingly Kept Job Until Recently: Nominated and winning in two categories is... Eason Jordan. In 1997 he had gifts delivered to the Palace of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il because he was requesting exclusive access for C.N.N. He received it. In 1999 he thanked Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro for his help in creating C.N.N. International during a speech at Harvard. In 2003, he admitted that C.N.N. knew about atrocities committed in Iraq by Saddam Hussein since 1990, but the company refused to tell the public so that it could gain better access to the government. And in a prelude of what was to come, in 2004 at the News Xchange conference in Portugal, Jordan claimed that United States armed forces were arresting and torturing journalists in Iraq. I have fewer regrets about all the times I slacked off at any of my various jobs over the years.
Stupidest Politician From A State Starting With "V": At the final meeting before the vote for the new Chairman of the D.N.C. the candidates gave speeches. Some people expected ol' Howie Dean to get excited and start screaming again. According to some of his supporters I know and articles I've read, his outburst in Iowa last year was "uncharacteristic" and that he was simply "excited" about the rest of the race, and his recent demolishing loss. He's not some sort of radical or extremist, but more of a "centrist" actually. Lets see what reasonable remark the calm and cool doctor told the crowd at the Manhattan hotel in New York last week: "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for" What a rational thing to say. I guess he's calmed down since the primaries when he was very upset that President Bush was "polarizing the nation."
Stupidest Cartoon Posse: The Looney Tunes that millions of children for generations have grown up on and loved have been taken out back behind the barn and shot. The new replacement is "The Loonatics" and there are some slight changes from the classic gang. All but 6 characters have been retired, and one of the remaining was created for the 1996 visual-and-aural-gang-bang Space Jam, they fight crime 700 years in the future in space, they are now all only 2 colors each, they all have new names, and worst of all the Tasmanian Devil is now a little taller. I am not making this up. Instead of taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque, "Buzz" Bunny will take a wrong turn at the Crab Nebula.
Stupidest Person Nobody Knows Except Me : This one goes out to my T.A. who just returned one of my papers. She had crossed out the word 'aural' (which I was just reminded of because I used it earlier) in my opening sentence and replaced it with the word 'oral' and written in the comment 'spelling.' Then, she had circled the entire sentence and written in 'doesn't make sense.' And, for the coup de grace, she had written at the end that the paper starts out on a bad foot with a complete non-sequitur. I had two options: 1, point out the mistake or 2, slap the crap out of her. Since we have another paper in the class that she will be grading, I went with diplomacy and chose option 1. But next time...
Stupidest International Contract: A bunch of socialists get together and try to cook up a way to make the rest of the world stop making them look so bad. They decide the best way to do it is to limit their industry and manufacturing so they'll be poorer. Flimsy unproven pseudoscientific pretense? Global warming of course. And so the Kyoto Protocol was born. If countries like China and India don't want to participate that's okay, but if the U.S. tries to back out, there'll be hell to pay! At least we have Australia on our side, they know how to kick a little ass, and since we're going up against Canada, it might come to that. Hippies keep complaining about this, and about outsourcing. Nobody sees a connection. If we can't produce as much because of these limitations, we won't have as many jobs. Guess which countries that don't have to obey the rules would be happy to absorb those jobs? I'll give you a hint, call the tech support number for any of your electronics. It's not unrestrained capitalism that's causing outsourcing, it's the restrictions on capitalism that are causing it. Raising minimum wage laws, requiring employers to provide insurance, raising taxes on businesses and regulations like those make it more profitable to move jobs overseas. Companies are supposed to do what's profitable. Imagine if there was a phone company that promised not to have tech support phone banks outside the U.S. Would you subscribe? What about when your first phone bill was $378.45? Not so much? Well then it would go out of business and those people would be out of jobs, again.
Stupidest Person I'd Be Terrified To Be In The Same Room With: Imagine if everywhere you went, a mob of people followed you. And everything you did, they started cheering you on. WWWWWOOOO!!!!! Deposit that check!! Yeah!! GO! GO! GO! Order that sandwich with no tomato!! YEEEAAAAHHH!!!!! You'd get pretty excited, wouldn't you? It would definitely give you high self-esteem and high self-confidence. You'd probably think that you could do anything. Would you start molesting children? Well Michael Jackson did, and no matter where he goes or what he does there is the crowd of people behind him, pledging obedience and fealty to him in the form of chants and sign-waving. Jacko suddenly became ill this week during the jury selection phase of his trial, and went to the hospital. I used to fake sick to skip school when I was a kid, but never to skip jury selection. Jackson really should have tried this in 1982, when Thriller had just come out. People might have been willing to let it go. Now his chances aren't looking so good. And having a mob follow you everywhere you go probably isn't helping.
Well that's it for this Stupid Awards. Hopefully people will dummy up and I won't have to give out so many of these things anymore.
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| Why There Is A Pyramid On The Dollar Bill |
[Feb. 13th, 2005|11:20 am] |
I was having lunch the other day when I came to a realization. The realization was about Social Security and the lunch was sushi. Nothing makes you start thinking abut the future like eating discount-buffet-uncooked-seafood miles from any ocean. Even though I survived that meal, delicious and non-deadly, I still thought about the golden years of my life, and how I would finally be getting back that money that the government had been stealing from me every paycheck.
Why do the feds take money from me and then give it back to me later? Maybe I'll invest the money and have a nest egg, maybe I'll buy sushi with it. Shouldn't it be my choice? Seems to me that they're probably hoping I die at 65 so they don't have to give anything back. Since when are they in charge of my better judgment? They don't make me eat broccoli at dinner, they don't stop me from sleeping until noon on weekends, and they don't make me do the dishes if I want to have dessert. Those are jobs for parents.
Come to think of it, this whole plan sounds like something your parents would try to talk you into to doing. They would say "Hey son/daughter, send us part of your paycheck every month for 45 years and then we'll give it all back when you retire." The response of every child in the world? Get bent, mom and dad. First of, I can save my own money if I want to, and secondly, I know you'll spend it. I don't trust them to do anything I don't trust the federal government to do, which is limited to securing law & order, providing infrastructure, and securing borders.
The only two facts you need to know about social security? 1. When it was created the average life expectancy was 64 and the retirement age set by it was 65. Now, the retirement age has stayed the same even though life expectancies are up over a decade. 2. When it was created there were 16 workers for every retiree, and now the ratio is down to about 3:1 and slipping fast. Too many damn old people. The boomers lived longer than expected. All those drugs in their system from the 60's must be preserving them from the inside.
It would seem that with those two facts not in dispute, everybody would agree that the system needs to be changed, and the debate would be over how it is changed. But some people are reluctant, claiming that to alter it would be dismantling FDR's legacy. Apparently winning WWII and serving as president longer than anyone ever will isn't enough; he needs an ineffective, fiscal hemorrhage in order to be remembered properly.
Hopefully, this mess will get sorted out soon and I'll start getting a bigger share of my paychecks. I can start paying my PG&E bill on time, since they probably already have it in for me after all the mean stuff I wrote about them. Then, when I'm older and have a better paying job, I'll save my own money for retirement. Not that I don't trust legislation authored by Charles Ponzi, I just trust my own judgment more, discount sushi purchases notwithstanding.
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| It Was A Close Call, But I Don't Eat People |
[Feb. 6th, 2005|10:56 pm] |
I made the mistake of reading something I saw on a bulletin board the other day, and I'm still recovering. My instincts overruled my judgment and my attention was attracted to a bright red flier, stapled haphazardly amidst a sea of white. In bold, capital letters instructed me to "BOYCOTT TACO BELL". This alarmed me, as I had eaten Taco Bell twice for breakfast that week and was considering having it for dinner that night. What ever could be the reason? I read on: "TACO BELL KILLS FARM WORKERS". I was worried. If I was about to find out that they've been grinding up people and serving them to me inside their tacos and burritos, then I would have to seriously consider limiting my Taco Bell intake to no more than once a day. I had to read on, to discover if there was a terrifying soylent twist to this sordid tale. The surprise? Bruce Willis is dead and a super hero, aliens fear water, its really 2004, and "THEY PAY THEIR WORKERS JUST $50 A DAY".
My outrage was uncontainable. You live your life every day thinking that things will be righted and that there are no real monsters out there. Suddenly, everything you know to be true can come crashing down around you. I will remember this moment for my whole life, as it will echo through all my future actions. It was the moment I discovered that I make less a day than people who have protests on their behalf.
I couldn't stop thinking about all the things I could do with 50 dollars a day. Think of all the Taco Bell I could eat! I'd never have to settle for a sub-standard microwave Mexican dinner again. And maybe people would protest for me. Probably not. I don't think I'd make a good lunatic fringe cause. Either way, it seems to me the boycott would hurt the people at the bottom end first. Less business means fewer tomatoes and few tomatoes means fewer tomato pickers.
I don't think there is much I could learn that would end my patronage of Taco Bell, certainly not this bombshell, so if they want some restitution, they should probably lobby for increased minimum wage, otherwise they're just demanding charity. You can't really do that, it doesn't match the definition of the word charity. It’s rough to say that if people are paid very little for their work its because the work isn't worth that much, but that's the sad truth. Everybody learns the rules of supply and demand at some point in their life but most people don't realize that the harsh truths of reality apply to people too. Too much supply with not enough demand doesn't translate to more than 50 bucks a day.
Ultimately, Taco Bell is supposed to please the consumer in order to please the stockholders. Every employee from the CEO's to the tomato pickers is in theory working to this ideal. If an employee feels he is underpaid, he should quit. If Taco Bell is the best job he can get, then he should stay with it. It can only be one of those 2 things. As for me, I've decided to eat at Taco Bell more, so maybe with all their increased business they'll have to hire more tomato workers and I can reduce unemployment. The only lingering doubt in the back of my mind is whether I should have ordered the Nachos Bel Grande or the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
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| Oscars, By The Grouch |
[Jan. 30th, 2005|04:55 pm] |
This week, the nominations for the Academy Awards were released, and much to everyone's surprise, there was little controversy. Fans of "The Passion of the Christ" were disappointed that their film only received a few technical award nominations, nothing major, and fans of "Fahrenheit 9/11" were shocked that their film received zero nominations. Well, considering Mel Gibson's film was adapted from the Bible and from the visions of a nun centuries ago, features only two actors who have ever made another American film, is the highest grossing R-rater film ever, and is one of a few films to ever retake the #1 spot at the box office after losing the honor, it does seem an odd choice. Best Picture nominees are usually 'prestige pictures' which means they don't make any money and don't open outside of New York and L.A. until they win Academy Awards, but critics love them even if people don't.
As for Michael Moore's magnum opus, since he removed it from the Best Documentary film category by showing it on TV, that pretty much killed it. It's not eligible for any acting awards for obvious reasons. Since its basically a guy narrating stock footage, its not eligible for any writing awards, or really for any technical or directing awards. So that leaves Best Picture. A film that isn't, and can't, be nominated for any other awards is very unlikely to receive a nomination for that. And by very unlikely I mean never.
So I guess this just isn't the year to be a controversial movie. What a great relief to people who didn't warm up to either of those films, you know, the non-Christian Bush-supporters who had no movie to stand behind or champion as a rebellious solution to America's problems. They have the five movies that actually did get nods for the biggest award. The story of a man who triumphed over adversity to make planes bigger and better, the story of a man who triumphed over adversity to mix gospel and R & B, the story of a man who triumphed over adversity to write a play about magical children, the story of an old-timer who comes back to help a new up-and-comer, and the story of two guys hitting on two chicks.
My prediction? Scorsese will finally get his little gold dude, and his movie will rake in the statues as well. Also, expect a few celebrities to act like they're better than you, and someone will be wearing something shockingly unusual. Also, somewhere, Quentin Tarantino will be sobbing quietly.
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| I Blew My Entire Paycheck On Thursday |
[Jan. 23rd, 2005|07:48 pm] |
Did you feel it? Last week sometime, the great depression that struck for a day. Business owners were panicked, people were rioting in the streets, and there was general chaos as people struggled to understand what was going on. A group of dissidents who were probably feeling guilty about forgetting to vote on election day because they were too busy pushing their van up a hill got together and engineered quite a scheme.
It was Not One Damn Dime Day, a protest organized to coincide with the inauguration, which according to the Washington Times was actually cheaper than the 1997 inauguration, and to force politicians, especially the President, to pull troops out of Iraq. Nobody was supposed to spend any money that day, and Bush would be bawling by 5 o'clock, calling back the troops and letting the Middle East self destruct, quickly engulfing the entire world and destroying human civilization.
The main idea behind this protest, and by "main" I mean "Hey man lets do shrooms and then make a website against Bush", is that the immigrant down the street who escaped persecution in his home country and came to America for freedom and liberty doesn't deserve to have you shop at his store. If this protest actually worked, and that's a big if, small business owners like the immigrant mentioned previously would have been hurt much more than multi-national corporations that are large enough to survive losses much greater than anything that a couple of hippies with access to a computer at the library can do.
The website contains lots of articles about itself that were featured in many magazines and newspapers over the last few weeks. Apparently the media either hates Bush so much that they'll feature any group working against him or they felt like humoring these guys who might actually believe what they're saying. It's funny they don't seem to have much press now, after their master plan went into effect. Almost like a plan that wouldn't have helped their goal even if it had worked, didn't work at all.
If you dig through the website enough you can almost find some semblance of a reasonable idea that mutated into this idiocy. They have a link to a site that lists companies that are major financial bakers of politicians and advocacy groups so you can avoid those stores if you disagree with their politics. How about that? If enough people stop shopping somewhere because of the money they donate, maybe they'll change their practices. Or at least you can sleep soundly in the back of your VW Van knowing that "the man" isn't using your money for stuff you don't like. Unless you pay taxes. If that doesn't get you to support tax cuts, I don't know what will.
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| Inconsistency is Surprisingly Consistent |
[Jan. 15th, 2005|07:48 pm] |
Apparently, some people have forgotten the events of early November, and are outraged that President Bush is being inaugurated. It seems like a natural progression, following his election, but alas, there is contempt.
The first outraged party is Mike "Pledge" Newdow, who filed a lawsuit to keep Bush from using a bible and having a minister at his inauguration. He tried this last time but they told him he had to be at the ceremony to file suit, so this time around he coughed up the cash and bought a ticket. He says it violates his first amendment rights to pay to voluntarily go to an event where a prayer is said. At least that's what he's claiming. Never mind that the 1st Amendment concerns Congress and what laws they are and aren't allowed to make. Seriously, read it. It doesn't mention the president at all. So it's my guess that by the time I finish typing this sentence his case will be thrown out.
The other outraged group says that extravagance like this is not appropriate following the earthquake and tsunami in Asia. They say this is the most expensive inauguration ever, and that's not okay! Well, in politics, everything gets more expensive over time. Both campaigns in the last election spent more than any other campaign ever, adjusting for inflation. So its not surprising that this is the most expensive. Most of that money goes to security anyway. Even before it's happened, some guy parked a homemade bomb in his panel van a block away and the police had to deal with him. The nutjobs are coming out of the woodwork like its a sinking ship.
Is it not okay to spend money when a tragedy just happened somewhere in the world? I'm not going to debate that, exactly, but it must be because there are always tragedies happening somewhere and money is always being spent. You don't think there were worthy causes in 2001, or 1997, or 1993, or any other inauguration ever? Just because there is an especially large one right now doesn't mean that there aren't always horrible things happening the world over. AIDS, cancer, famine, plague, war lords, political oppression, genocide and death are happening all the time, even during inaugurations. If this inauguration is despicable because the money could be spent on better causes, then every inauguration ever has been despicable, because the money could have been donated to a worthy cause. There's always a worthy cause out there.
The only reason this theory is being presented is that critics of Bush's administration are always grasping at straws for more and more things to accuse him of, and the arguments get thinner and thinner every time. It's always something though. If he misspeaks, it must be evidence that he is too stupid to be president. Never mind that Teddy Kennedy referred to Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden last week on the Senate floor. (Well I guess it's not his fault, he was probably drunk. At this point Barack should be thankful Kennedy butchered his name instead of accidentally killing him.) There's always going to be some new outlandish, inconsistent allegation against Bush, like that he shouldn't have an inauguration even though every other president got one. The important guiding principle, which can provide clarity in times of confusion, that should be remembered amidst all this is to never, under any circumstances, get into a car with Teddy Kennedy.
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| Name Your Son "Oeste" |
[Jan. 9th, 2005|10:47 pm] |
I'm back from my sabbatical, which means that I'm done hibernating and eating fresh salmon from the river. Because its a new year, I wanted to write something about all the interesting and important events that occurred during 2004, but there really weren't any. So instead I have a simple story.
Imagine a movie, a fantasy-comedy, with some reasonably well known actors who haven't done anything big yet but are still famous. It has a silly premise that's stretched into a full 90 minute movie and then everybody goes home content. At some point in the movie, the female lead needs a fake name, so she quickly picks one off a street sign. The running gag is that it is the last name of a president, and not a real first name, male or female. So that's the movie. 20 years later, the actors have won Oscars, done nothing, or died. But the comical name picked off a street sign has now become the 2nd most popular girls name in America, steadily climbing during the last two centuries and likely to reach the top any year now. Pretty soon, if anybody actually sits down and sees the stupid movie again, if its on TV late at night or if they're being tortured by captors with an especially humorous sense of cruelty, they won't get the joke. Chances are, if they're female, they'll have the same damn name. The delicious irony is that the movie, by popularizing the name, is responsible for making the joke obsolete.
Okay. So why did I have you imagine that movie? If you haven't figured it out already, the point was to soften the impact when you find out that its a true story. In 1984, Ron Howard made "Splash", a movie about a mermaid in Manhattan, with Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah and John Candy. Whenever Daryl Hannah speaks her name, people cover their ears, dogs fall over dead, and all the glass in the surrounding area shatters. So she picks a slightly less awful name off a street sign in New York.
Madison.
And that's the joke. Madison? Why, that's a famous street and less famous dead president. Hahaha! Why would some woman have that as a name? Hahaha! Oh, it's because she's a mermaid, that's wacky!
But it didn't end there. Now, only Emma is more popular as a girl's name in the United States, and that probably won't last. How could this have happened? Does Daryl Hannah have this much power? Yeah, right. Do we need new names because there are more people than ever? Doubtful, because old names keep getting phased out, like Roy and Ethel. Could it be that people subconsciously associate the name with the power and privilege of the presidency and the wealth and prosperity of the avenue? Probably. It must be the combination of those two things, the presidency and the avenue, because nobody is naming their darling baby girls Monroe, or Wall. Maybe they will be in 20 years, but not now.
So goodbye and cheers to 2004, the 20th anniversary of a movie nobody remembers but everybody is named after. Lets hope the momentum dies down or by 2024 it'll be federal law to name your daughter Madison.
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| The Real Rise of the Machines: Part Two |
[Dec. 13th, 2004|12:03 am] |
When we last left our hero, he was cold and dirty. He is now warm and clean. The repairman from PG&E showed up at 9:30 AM on Monday morning, saving me from another 10 1/2 hours of waiting. And most importantly, my back door has returned to its post, safe and sound. I guess everything turned out okay.
Or did it? After railing against technology for its plot to destroy me last week, I was met with several days of internet failure, which suddenly and inexplicably vanished today. Perhaps my internet knows that Sunday is the day that I usually update my journal. I guess I'm being offered a chance to make amends here, and maybe my internet will continue to work.
So technology is great; sure its a little unreliable sometimes but overall I'm definitely a big fan. Without, I would be a hunter-gatherer, fighting for food against the neighbor's dog, and losing. Because of it, I can walk to AMPM, which is truly the greatest pinnacle of modern civilization. Fresh hot meat-like food, every possible form of sugar imaginable, and an entire display case of jerky. The best item in the jerky display? The All-American Snack Pack. A stick of jerky side by side with his old friend, a log of cheese, each the exact shape, size and length of one another, to insure that you get equal cheese with your meat and vice versa. After eating the product I had an epiphany, which had nothing to do with contracting scurvy, that this definitely was an All-American product.
You couldn't get this in any other country in the world. Nobody else would sell this hyper-processed oil-based cheese-like substance coupled together will an ultra-nitrate-infused mega-salted meat-byproduct. I mean honestly, look at the expiration date on this thing, it says And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. After ingesting this tasty tandem treat, I decided that I wasn't going to be one of those people that curses technology and tries to live a simpler life like his ancestors could have. Lets compare. When my ancestor Ericus was hungry 2000 years ago, he starved to death. When I was hungry 2 days ago, I walked to AMPM and bought jerky and cheese in one package.
Advantage: Eric.
Even after that decision, people still mistake me for some sort of Luddite. Why? Probably because I don't have a car, use a 5 year old computer that crashes if you hit two keys at the same time, and didn't own a cell phone until last year. That's just me being slow to adopt new things. I like to see if they're going to pan out before I invest. What if I had bought a laserdisc player or stock in the XFL? I know I'm not the only one who thinks way.
When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged California voters to pass proposition 71 giving state funding to stem cell research, I knew something didn't seem right. I couldn't have sworn he was against this. But when had I heard him make this clear? I did a search for "Arnold", "Human", and "Cloning", and discovered that I was right. His cautionary position on this murky subject was well represented in the documentary, The Sixth Day. Why the change of heart? Well, I think like me, after waiting a while and seeing that it was serious, he decided he could throw his weight behind it, knowing that it wouldn't go and Dreamcast him.
We should all exercise this kind of restraint from the temptation of new developments. Let your jackass friend buy a flying car before you do, and see if he kills himself or gets bored with it or goes bankrupt buying dilithium crystals. After a couple years, see if you still want one. And if not, just get some jerky and cheese.
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| The Real Rise of the Machines: Part One |
[Dec. 6th, 2004|01:15 am] |
When someone hates someone else, they hope the feeling is mutual, or else its as if their feelings are meaningless. The same is true when people hate things. They secretly hope, and sometimes imagine, that the things hate them back. Its why you hit your TV when the reception is poor; the damned thing must be doing it on purpose.
No matter how many times I tell myself that, I'm convinced machines are out to get me, and everyone I know. Why else would my hot water heater choose to break down when ten of us were standing around it? And what does it do when its broken? It gushes boiling water everywhere, of course. Sure, we managed to hook a garden hose up to it and drain the water safely into some ivy outside, but that still means we don't have any hot water. And the pilot light went out, so its not about to start making any more. The last of it was used when someone washed a spoon.
The next day, we were reminded of the lack of hot water when showering was attempted. Enough of this. I'm calling PG&E. After navigating their horribly cluttered webpage, I found the number and called. I've used enough automated help lines before, dealing with computers and internee and phones and whatever else, that I thought I could breeze through this. But no. Instead of being touch tone operated, this help line is voice activated.
That's right, some computer was supposed to understand what I was saying. After listening to the list of choices, I sat up straight, prepared my best speaking voice, and repeated the phrase I had heard near the end of the list, Pilot Light. "I'm sorry", the soulless voice told me, "I don't understand". I tried repeating the phrase numerous times, because I have poor pattern recognition skills. Then I tried yelling and screaming. There was no hope for this option.
I tried saying all the commands that sounded even close to being able to get me on the line with a human being. Nothing. It could tell I was speaking, but it couldn't match any of my words to anything. Then, out of nowhere, the disembodied voice asked me to confirm the number I was calling from. I crossed my fingers that it wouldn't want me to do this verbally. Thank the maker, I was instructed to enter my number in, then hit pound. The voice from beyond the abyss then told me that an operator would return my call in approximately... two... minutes.
That's an unusually low number, I thought. I better not wait on the edge of my seat. But sure enough, approximately... much longer than two... minutes later, my phone rang. And it was a human being! 'Mike' wanted to know what the problem was. I told him, and he said someone could come out the next day to fix it. I wasn't really expecting them to fix it at 6pm on a Sunday, so this was no big deal. 'Mike' then asked me, "Will someone be home tomorrow from 8am to 8pm?"
Pardon? That's not even a workday, that's 50% longer. I know that service companies have reputations for providing ample windows, but a half day? Why not be safe, and ask me to be home on Monday. Period. Don't even bother with the window. It's already at twelve hours. Might as well take it to its logical conclusion. Forget it. I can do twelve hours. It's a request I can meet. The next one threw me for a loop though.
"Can you make sure your door isn't locked?" Are they planning on breaking in after they confirmed that I would be home? Do they not trust me to answer the door when they knock? Do they question my commitment to getting the part of my house that shoots boiling water at me fixed? I decided to voice my concern and confusion. I said, "Can't I just open the door when you get here?"
Silence. For a short while, I panicked and thought 'Mike' had hung up on me because I refused to play by the rules. But thankfully, he was still there. He ignored my question, pretended I said yes, and moved on to the goodbye portion of his script. Well that ordeal was over. But will I survive the relighting of the pilot light? Will I learn that inanimate objects are incapable of emotion? Will the toaster stop laughing at me? Will the repairman show up at 9am or 7pm? Will a cold shower cause me to fly into a homicidal rage? And most importantly, who the hell stole the back door off my house?
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| The Dog Was Granted a Full Pardon |
[Nov. 28th, 2004|07:04 pm] |
Grab your Madonna decoder rings, and gather around the radio, children, its time for a special message from Miss Ciccone herself. On a BBC radio show, Madonna gave an interview in which she called upon US and UK troops to leave Iraq because "Global terror is in California." Let that sink in.
I did, and I realized I owed Miss Ciccone a great debt. She had opened my eyes to the reality around me. I thought my neighbor's dog had dug that hole in my lawn. Nope. Global terrorists. They probably also took that dump that's in the hole. Now that I knew global terror was running rampant in my great state of California, I figured there was something I could do to help. But more than just track down the enemies of freedom that desecrated my grass. I would have to find the mastermind, the man behind the scenes controlling all of the terrorist activity in between Oregon and Mexico.
I found him. His name is Jeff Morrissette, and he is more than likely Alanis with a short hair-cut, bad soul patch, and broken jaw. He started a website that appears to have the goal of using the word 'dialogue' as many times as possible without actually having any content. Jeffy wants to 'explore' the idea of California secession, because apparently, two elections in a row where California's pick for president didn't make it is too many. That's right. Gore and Kerry didn't make it, so this guy is hopping mad about the 'theocracy' he is living under. I wonder if he knows that before the last two elections, you can go back 100 years and California got its way all but three times. And those three times, it was for Republicans. Roosevelt in 1912, Nixon in 1960, and Ford in 1976. Those are the kind of guys that give Jeffy nightmares.
I don't want to say that Jeffy's jumping the gun, because he's probably very opposed to owning guns, but doesn't this seem a little early? There are numerous other states that have now and have had in the past worse streaks than that, but according to Jeffy, the problem is that this government is a 'theocracy'. It ruined Jeffy's morning when the government forced him to attend church services. It also peeved him when the government made him baptize his children. But it was the religious federal holidays that really pissed him off.
Oh no wait. That last one is actually true. Christmas has been a federal holiday for hundreds of years and I'm sure Jeffy takes it off every year. He has been using money with the word 'God' on it for years, and whenever he goes to court he swears on a bible. Not that I'm slanderizing his good name by claiming he's been in court, but I'm betting he got arrested for protesting something at some point in his life. He seems like that kind of guy.
So Jeffy has a crappy website where he shares stupid, empty opinions. What's the big deal? Lots of people do. Many people tell me that I do. Well, at least I'm not trolling for donations, like Jeffy is. I do this out of the goodness of my heart. And because there is no way in hell that I'd get any donations.
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| Purple Reign |
[Nov. 14th, 2004|11:35 pm] |
Looking for some clever post-election commentary to share with the world, but not smart enough to analyze anything beyond differentiating between two different colors? Fear not, there is hope. Shortly after the election was finalized, many pundits began pointing out that electoral college map with each state shaded for how it voted is the same as a map from the 1860's that divides slave states and free states. Therefore, Bush voters support slavery. See? The colors look the same on these maps so it must be true.
I immediately noticed a discrepancy. My old friend, Ohio, was sticking out like a sore thumb. According to their state website they do not now nor have they ever allowed slavery. But beside from the Buckeye state, was there anything else wrong with this argument?
Firstly, just because a state did not allow slavery did not mean it was against the practice of slavery, or even remotely fair or friendly to blacks. California, a non-slave state, had laws against interracial marriage until the twentieth century, and didn't ratify the 15th Amendment until 1959. A little bit later than most other states. California also tried to discourage blacks from immigrating there during the gold rush. Freed slaves were just told to move to a northern state, or better yet, Liberia. Furthermore, it was treated as an economic matter. Railroad companies didn't lobby congress to admit California as a slave state because they determined it would be more expensive to buy slaves and bring them to California than it would be to hire Chinese immigrants. In the Midwest, farming is drastically different than in the South. No big plantations, no need for slaves. They weren't enlightened about the immorality of slavery, they were cutting costs.
Secondly, why this election? The former confederate states, once back in the union, voted reliably Democrat for over 100 years. In fact, in 1976, all the former confederate states minus one helped elect Jimmy Carter, whilst Gerald Ford was defeated, despite carrying many numerous states including California. That's right, California. Believe it or not, California was a reliable Republican stronghold from 1952 to 1988, wavering only once in 1964. That's nine out of ten elections in a row. Texas isn't even that reliable. States change between red and blue from each election to the next. It doesn't make much sense to just use the results of one election. Trends and patterns of state voting would be better. But nobody uses that. Why? Because its inconclusive. Some states change their color from each election to the next, and some states vote reliably one way for years and then switch at a certain point and never look back. And then there are your land slides. Can you compare the Electoral College map of the 1972 election with any other map and have them match up? Only if the map designates which states are Massachusetts and which states aren't.
Thirdly, the problem with this comparison that really bothers me is that it is an attempt to divide the nation geographically. This is foolish. If you look at the map with each individual county shaded red or blue, you can see the incredible diversity. Little tiny red and blue blobs scattered in no apparent pattern. If the map has each county shaded darker to indicate its intensity in voting for their candidate, you can see how few counties are actually that dark. Even Texas and Massachusetts didn't vote completely for their native sons; there are blue counties in Texas and red counties in Massachusetts. There were only three states that were completely red and only three states that were completely blue. Those six states have so few counties that it wasn't difficult for them to vote that way. But even in those states, if you look at the popular vote, the winning side never topped 2/3 of the total. That is an overwhelming majority, but it still means that they are diverse. In California, a state that both candidates hardly bothered campaigning in because of its current reliability, 45% of us voted for Bush. That's no small crowd. That's millions of people through out the state. My point with this is that the division is ideological, but not geographical in any way. Even in my reliably blue state, in my reliably blue county, in my reliably blue city, exit polling indicated that my house had a 50-50 split. Half of us red, half of us blue. Dissecting the matter further reveals that my room had a 50-50 split. Its a good thing we weren't deciding the election or else we would have had to battle to the death, Thunderdome-style.
So, what then? We're geographically diverse and dynamic, but ideologically divided? Well, maybe not so much. The election measures who people voted for, but not what their ideologies are. You might agree with the candidate on most issues, but not all of them. Maybe you barely support them. Maybe you only agree with them on 55% of the issues, but that's enough for you to vote for them. If you met someone else who voted for your candidate on the same 55% basis, you could potentially only agree on 5% of the issues. No harmony there. If someone else opposed your candidate on 55% on the issues, you could potentially agree with them up to 45%. Make a new friend in a surprising place.
It comes down to the principle of winner-takes-all. If you agree with a candidate on most of the issues, you'll vote for them. You can't give 55% of your vote to one candidate and 40% to another and then 5% to some third party candidate. Just like the Electoral College. If most of the state supports a candidate, then the state will vote for them. It can't give 55% of its vote to one candidate and so forth. The rounding up quality helps assure legitimacy in elections. Even in landslides like the 1984 election when Reagan got 900% more electoral votes then Mondale, he was only ahead by 25% in the popular vote.
My point is that our divisions are self-imposed. They can change, and break down. Don't mend the wall. Just because two different people voted differently doesn't mean that they are polar opposites. And just because you voted the same way as someone doesn't mean you're similar to them at all. The same applies to the states. States are just big people, but only in this one metaphor.
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| The Neighbor Who Lives Above a Really Good Party |
[Nov. 8th, 2004|12:33 am] |
A few people talked about it last time around, but it seems that after this election many people are actually considering the idea of moving to Canada. According to an article from Reuters, thousands and thousands of people began visiting the Canadian Government's Immigration webpage. Who wouldn't love this news? If you're anti-immigration, you have to love people leaving America, and if you're pro-immigration, then you can't mind people immigrating, wherever it may be. And if you're me, you know that a ton of people you don't like are thinking about leaving this country.
Now, most of these people aren't going to follow through, but if some of them do, it will be a unique event: a mass political exile. And for those who do emigrate, I've compiled a short wishlist of those I hope will considering heading north. This is like an early Christmas list for me, and like a Christmas list, you don't expect to get everything on it, you expect to get some things that aren't on it, and you start acting good early to make sure you do get something:
-Puff Daddy
-Michael Moore
-Vermont
-Paul Krugman
-Taco Bell cashier who gave me a Canadian penny in my change and then claimed he didn't when I tried to make him switch it for an American one
-Hippies
I'm having trouble understanding the motivation of these potential escapees. If they're really that mad about the election, and probably the last one as well, wouldn't they want to make sure that the next one, which is sure to be close like the last two, tilted in their favor? How does removing yourself from the electorate further your cause? Curious and curiouser. Seems like the logical course of action would be to attempt to increase the value of your vote. And there's a perfectly legal way of doing this. How you ask?
Move to Ohio! That's right, this year's Florida is just waiting for you. The 17th state has only 11 million people, and the with election results this year, your vote, and the vote of your friends and family if you can drag their sorry hides to the Buckeye state with you, will be even more important. After all, no Republican has ever become President without the votes of Ohio, so there's no better place to strike. You can learn more about the home state of the Blue Jackets here.
Seeing how great Ohio is made me wonder why more of the dissatisfied citizenry didn't flood the Ohio Government's Immigration webpage. Then I noticed that they don't have one. That explains that one. But why Canada? The answer lay in the article. Canada wants people. They have a large scale immigration policy. But unlike ours which is basically a giant fence, their's is more like a giant billboard. Ottawa alone wants over 200,000 people. Imagine if New York had to advertise that it wanted to increase its population. Why does a country that size with that many resources and capabilities have only 32 million people and an intensive campaign to attract immigrants while we have to beat them off with a stick?
Employing Occam's Razor, I deduce that Canada is a crappy place to live. A little research proved this fact. Ludicrously high taxes, French people, crumbling government healthcare run like the DMV so you have to wait in line when you have a headache, moose running rampant everywhere, nothing special, notable, famous or cool at all, 11 months of snow each year, and the ever present feeling that your entire border is a 3000 mile fence across which greener grass can be seen. All the best Canadians leave when they're really young too. Whenever you hear about someone famous who happens to be Canadian, you can bet that they moved to America when they were young and that they became American citizens at some point. Its pretty much a given.
People I don't like are considering moving to a place I discovered is a crap-hole? It's Mill-uh Time! It's not every day you find out that your enemies are defeated, and that they defeated themselves. Only time will tell how many people will make the trek upstairs, and how much elbow room it will leave for those of us who stay at the party and decide to have another drink.
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| Davis Could Kick Your Ass |
[Nov. 3rd, 2004|11:40 pm] |
First of all, let me congratulate myself on a job well done with my secret plan. I wanted to get enough people not to vote so my vote would count more. Although I didn't succeed in convincing enough people not to vote, I was able to get California down to a 9% gap and the national popular vote was better than expected. So here's to me and everybody that listened to me.
Secondly, I must congratulate myself again on my defeat of Puff Daddy. He spent months and months and millions of dollars telling you to vote or die. I spent twenty minutes and zero dollars telling you that he was lying. Lo and behold, the youth vote increased by a statistical factor known as none. It just goes to show you that if you're a jackass who never voted in your life and you can't even spell "ballot" without a posse, latching on to the idea of utilizing enfranchisement to sell albums and t-shirts won't get people to vote. You will however get a huge return on your investment with album and t-shirt sales, but you won't get people to vote. So there.
But now I must address you out there. Yes, you. No, not Puff Daddy. You. You who goes around saying "Not my president" and smiling because you're certain that you're the first person who's thought of that. That's an interesting decision. The only way this could be true is if you renounced your citizenship, so I guess you already did that. But I notice you're still living here, driving on the roads, being protected by the armed forces, and utilizing countless government services and programs. You're also still paying taxes. That's funny. It appears you haven't done anything at all except waste people's time by telling them "Not my president." Sorry, man. But he is. Clinton was my president, and yours for 8 years, and now Bush will be too. You can say that you don't like anything that he does and you're ashamed that this country elected him, but he's still your president. And no, you're not doing anything symbolic or important. You want to know what you would do if you really cared?
Jefferson Davis said "Not my president" just like you, but he backed it up by having his state and 10 others secede from the Union and began an incredibly bloody 4 year war that killed over 500,000 Americans, more than World War II, and changed the entire course of US and world history. Now that guy really meant it. I'm not saying you need to kill anyone or cause anyone's death, but you could at least show you mean it. Maybe move away. W.E.B DuBois decided he was sick of America in 1961 and moved to Ghana. He was 93. If he could handle, anybody can. And he didn't exactly pick the Ritz Carlton of countries either.
Put up or shut up. Talk is cheap. Put your money where your mouth is. Additional relevant platitude. My final thought is, given the kind of people that publicize it, shouldn't it be known as Hip-Hop the Vote? I mean, given my tastes in music, I rocked the vote. I have some friends that jazzed the vote, and I know a bunch of people that punked the vote. Oh well. Just giving my fallen adversary a little helpful advice. Like Bush telling Kerry how to make a mean beer chicken.
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| "Vote or" Fraud |
[Nov. 1st, 2004|07:43 pm] |
Isn't it great that no matter what you do, people will always offer you helpful criticism of how you could have done it better? I only just started a journal, and already I have suggestions pouring in. Here's one:
-ManImSoBored: u should enable anonymous posting so i can post how retarded u are for having a livejournal-
Well sir, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Seriously though, I'm not doing that. If you think I'm retarded, send me a message saying so. But if you want to post that on the internet, get your own damn journal. They are free.
Now on to what I wanted to say. Tomorrow is an election, if you weren't aware. Now if you think that you have a choice between 1, voting or 2, dying, I'm here to offer you an alternative: not voting. I know, I know, who am I to disagree with the great prophet Puff Daddy, but hear me out. First of all, you're not going to die. He doesn't have time to kill everybody that doesn't vote. Maybe if you're friends with him and you tell him you didn't vote, then you'll die, but other than that, just don't mention it to him and you'll be fine. So now its between voting and not voting.
Come on, you know you don't want to. It's just a pain in the ass, and its not even worth it. Your vote is just a drop in the ocean. I know what you're thinking, "But what about really close elections?" No. They're never that close. Even when an election is fantastically close, its still a matter of a couple hundred votes, meaning that if you happened to be in that particular area for that election, your individual vote still only counted for a fraction of a percent. Is that really worth it? I think you know the answer. You can still have opinions, strong ones that you share with the world by wearing a button or a patch on your backpack, but do you really need to take those beliefs to the most outlying extreme by voting? That sounds like crazy behavior to me.
So now that you're not voting, you can spend that time on something more productive. Get your car washed. Go to the dentist. Help an old lady across the street. Have a long lunch break. Read the paper. Take up smoking. The possibilities are endless, now that you've broken the vicious cycle. Since I've opened your eyes today, maybe when April rolls around I can convince you not to pay your taxes. Pay mine instead. Or nobody's. Whatever.
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| First Entry |
[Nov. 1st, 2004|12:11 am] |
Whenever I have something really important to say, it always gets screwed up. I have to tell everybody I know, but I never see everybody I know all at the same time, waiting to be addressed. So I have to tell people as I see them, remember it when I run into them, send them messages, call them, or some other method. This prolongs the process. The first people that get told, usually aren't the most important people, they just happen to be nearby when I think of it. They get the good version. The thoughts are so fresh and vibrant in my head that they get everything I'm trying to say perfectly presented to them. But they don't care, because its usually just whoever's taking my order at Taco Bell. By the time I start telling important people, I'm already second-guessing myself and can't exactly remember the cool crap that I had to say. The story changes, I add stuff, I forget stuff, and its just revisionist junk. By the time the last people hear about it, I'm already sick of it and I don't really care. Most of the time, I'll just say 'screw it' and won't bothering telling them. If they come to me and say they heard about it from somebody else, I'll just deny it and claim I've never met that person. This system was working fine for me, but then I realized, I'm too busy and important to take the time to tell people what I think. The only way I could keep this up, is if I could tell everybody at once. Thank you, livejournal. Now, instead of talking to people, I can just say "Hey check out my journal" and then walk away. This works especially well with running into people I don't have time to talk to, or people I don't like talking to. I can just direct them here. If anybody asks me a question, I can lead them here. If they claim this didn't answer the question, I'll deny it and claim I've never met them. A perfect system. Finally, a technological marvel that can limit human interaction. Do we need this now or what? Maybe just me.
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