Cheney in '08?
Wouldn't THAT be something to see? I'm salivating over the thought of Dick Cheney deconstructing and destroying Hillary in a debate. It would be no contest, and after it was all over, Mrs. Clinton would be lucky to walk out of the room with her sanity.
However, Dick is an older gentleman, and although he has looked bery healthy recently, there's no telling how that ticker would hold up under the strain of a campaign. Then again, if I was HIllary, I'd be dreaming of facing Dick on the off chance that he actually does have a heart attack before election day: the only way this woman could win the Presidency is if her opponent died.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Making my Skin Crawl...
Just a minor beef about that ubiquitous, scrolling text at the bottom of your television screen that let's you know everything else that's happening the world while the little newsbunny with fantastic hair regales you with nonsense concerning the Michael Jackson trial.
Three things about it:
1. It's annyoing. Despite my best efforts to often ignore it, I am compelled to read that crap and often miss what's being talked about on the rest of the screen. I have an excellent attention span (I hope) but sometimes, it doesn't fare well when I'm forced to split it.
2. I've noticed an awful lot of spelling and grammatical errors in the crawl in recent weeks. I hate to say it, but Fox News is the worst offender. You would assume that a news network would a) edit what it was putting on screen and b) that the means of putting that nonsense on the screen has a spell-checker.
3. This phenomenon started in the direct aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. For me, that day was incredibly painful and I hate to be constantly reminded about it. I associate the crawl with a terrorist attack (and it is an assault upon the senses, if you ask me).
Get rid of it, please. If you're not going to let the crawl go, then at least make an effort to spell everything properly.
Just a minor beef about that ubiquitous, scrolling text at the bottom of your television screen that let's you know everything else that's happening the world while the little newsbunny with fantastic hair regales you with nonsense concerning the Michael Jackson trial.
Three things about it:
1. It's annyoing. Despite my best efforts to often ignore it, I am compelled to read that crap and often miss what's being talked about on the rest of the screen. I have an excellent attention span (I hope) but sometimes, it doesn't fare well when I'm forced to split it.
2. I've noticed an awful lot of spelling and grammatical errors in the crawl in recent weeks. I hate to say it, but Fox News is the worst offender. You would assume that a news network would a) edit what it was putting on screen and b) that the means of putting that nonsense on the screen has a spell-checker.
3. This phenomenon started in the direct aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. For me, that day was incredibly painful and I hate to be constantly reminded about it. I associate the crawl with a terrorist attack (and it is an assault upon the senses, if you ask me).
Get rid of it, please. If you're not going to let the crawl go, then at least make an effort to spell everything properly.
For Your OWN Good...
What would you say if your employer came to you and presented you with the following proposition: as a term of employment I get to tell you how to live your life after working hours.
I know what I would say, and it has a whole string of four letter words attached to it.
There's a CEO out there, and I don't care what company he runs or where it's located, etc., these facts are not germaine to the argument, who has instituted a policy whereby if you smoke, you will lose your job. The policy makes no distinction between smoking in or around the workplace or whether said smoking takes place during or after working hours. Smokers will be terminated, period. This CEO defends his policy by throwing up a bromide that smokers cost the company more to ensure and that cost is passed on to non-smoking employees and that if the company cts it's healthcare costs, it benefits stockholders. On a strictly logical basis, the man might have a point.
But we live in a constitutional republic and logic doesn't often apply. People have the right to engage in behavior which does no harm to society and which has not been deemed illegal.
Spare me the arguments about second-hand smoke. All the "studies" of the effects of second hand smoke are rigged to begin with, having been slanted by a political or social agenda way before the first subjects were ever tested.
However, smoking (and Christianity too) are the last acceptible targets for social scorn. This is extortion -- do as I say or else something bad will happen. In this case, you'll lose you job.
Yes, we know that smoking contributes to heart disease and that heart disease is the biggest killer in the country. However, no is putting guns to people's head and forcing them to smoke, it's a choice they make. The CEO does not go after the obese, who tend to die from heart disease and siabetes, too. He does not make an effort to regulate the behavior of people who skydive, bungee jump or ride motorcycles. If he tried to do that, every court in the land would be lining up to defend personal rights. The smoker is a legitimate target.
However, let's trun the tables a bit and choose a politically correct target: let's say, for example, that an employee was a homosexual. According to some experts, homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, too. Homosexuals, of course, are prime candidates for AIDS, which is every bit as fatal (eventually) as a heart attack. If you can demand that employees not engage in a legal behavior because of it's health risks, then you have to apply the policy equally across the board. No hang gliding, no cliffdiving, no smoking, no anal penetration of memebers of the same sex.
If this CEO were to make that kind of pronouncement, I guarentee he'd be pilloried in the public square.
What would you say if your employer came to you and presented you with the following proposition: as a term of employment I get to tell you how to live your life after working hours.
I know what I would say, and it has a whole string of four letter words attached to it.
There's a CEO out there, and I don't care what company he runs or where it's located, etc., these facts are not germaine to the argument, who has instituted a policy whereby if you smoke, you will lose your job. The policy makes no distinction between smoking in or around the workplace or whether said smoking takes place during or after working hours. Smokers will be terminated, period. This CEO defends his policy by throwing up a bromide that smokers cost the company more to ensure and that cost is passed on to non-smoking employees and that if the company cts it's healthcare costs, it benefits stockholders. On a strictly logical basis, the man might have a point.
But we live in a constitutional republic and logic doesn't often apply. People have the right to engage in behavior which does no harm to society and which has not been deemed illegal.
Spare me the arguments about second-hand smoke. All the "studies" of the effects of second hand smoke are rigged to begin with, having been slanted by a political or social agenda way before the first subjects were ever tested.
However, smoking (and Christianity too) are the last acceptible targets for social scorn. This is extortion -- do as I say or else something bad will happen. In this case, you'll lose you job.
Yes, we know that smoking contributes to heart disease and that heart disease is the biggest killer in the country. However, no is putting guns to people's head and forcing them to smoke, it's a choice they make. The CEO does not go after the obese, who tend to die from heart disease and siabetes, too. He does not make an effort to regulate the behavior of people who skydive, bungee jump or ride motorcycles. If he tried to do that, every court in the land would be lining up to defend personal rights. The smoker is a legitimate target.
However, let's trun the tables a bit and choose a politically correct target: let's say, for example, that an employee was a homosexual. According to some experts, homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, too. Homosexuals, of course, are prime candidates for AIDS, which is every bit as fatal (eventually) as a heart attack. If you can demand that employees not engage in a legal behavior because of it's health risks, then you have to apply the policy equally across the board. No hang gliding, no cliffdiving, no smoking, no anal penetration of memebers of the same sex.
If this CEO were to make that kind of pronouncement, I guarentee he'd be pilloried in the public square.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Testing Your Knowledge of History...
Let's take a little quiz, okay? I'm going to give you several clues about a famous person and you try to guess who it is. Here goes. This famous person:
1. Subsisted on a vitamin-enriched vegetarian diet.
2. Disdained the use of alcohol, sex, tobacco, caffiene and sugar.
3. Advocated a return to mankind's natural state of living in harmony with nature.
4. Believed that humanity could be improved through the use of selective abortion, sterilization and selective breeding.
5. Was elected by the democratic process.
6. Believed that capitalism was an evil that could only be brought to heel by strict government intervention and regulation of free markets.
I'll give you three guesses.
No, it is not Michael Moore. Try again.
John Kerry? Sorry, you're incorrect.
Hillary Clinton? Close, but no cigar.
The answer is....Adolf Hitler. Very much the New-age-Metrosexual type that we now see slithering around Starbucks in hemp clothing, or arriving at Enviornmental gatherings in SUV's and then leaving behind massive piles of water bottles, human waste, paper, debris, cigarette butts and used condoms.
Yes, Adolf Hitler. The veggan abstainer, whose Nazi party was elected to a majority in the Reichstag in 1936, the human monster who indulged his vision of world conquest, extermination and a completely planned and controlled economy, all to the "benefit" of his "chosen" people, the German people.
Two days ago the world celebrated the end of Uncle Adolf's demented vision of the world, but while the old boy ate his pistol in Berlin in 1945, his vision has lived on. People carry on his vision in different ways: some still call for the purification of the human race by advocating the deaths of people they don't even know, but still dislike passionately. Driven on in their madness by ignorance, fear, and propaganda that has been with us for centuries, they advocate a world in which only they and their kind have a right to exist.
And what's amazing is that it isn't just blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryan types who hold to this belief. Muslims hold it vis-a-vis Jews and non-Muslims. The French hold it in that they believe that they are the only race that holds title to anything resembling culture. The Chinese still believe themselves to be at the center of the world. Fading communists like Castro and Kim still believe that they hold the keys to political bliss and mankind's salvation through "scientific socialism" while surrounding themselves with a police state.
Others adopt the less greusome aspects of Adolf's Nazi religion in terms of what's best for mankind: planned and regulated economies, regulation of personal behavior, subordination of the individual to the state. We call these people Democrats, Labourites, Social Democrats, Socialists, and College Professors (okay, maybe not all college professors).
These people try to regulate free societies by clamping down on free speech, by burdening individuals and businesses with exhorbitant taxes, by forcing people to engage in behavior they really don't want to on everything from integration of the races to mainstreaming obscene personal bveliefs and practices. Of course, the extermination of human beings continued, but now instead of massive industrial complexes, it's been reduced to the level of a simple medical procedure. The only difference is now you can volunteer for it; an abortion is voluntary. And in some countries in Europe, you can have an infirm or ailing relative put to death by medical professionals just beacuse, or you could merely tire of life and ask for a chemical cocktail to expedite your shuffling off of this mortal coil.
Hitler is dead but his legacy carries on.
Now, what gets lost in a lot of this "celebrating" is that, quite simply, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million human beings died in the Second World War through direct combat, privation, indescriminate bombing, the breakdown of medical and sanitary systems, infectious diseases (both naturally occurring and helped along by humans), radiation poisoning, being buried alive, random and aribitrary executions or plain-old-run-of-the-muck assembly-line murder. The ensuing Cold War cost an additional 100 million lives as Communism imposed it's rigid dcotrine by feeding the people a steady diet of terror and murder. Without a doubt, the 20th Century was the bloodiest in human history. Adolf certainly didn't start the process by which human life was considered cheap or dependant on the requirements and paranoia of the politically powerful, he merely helped it along and made it seem "normal" to others so inclined.
One tyrant died in a bunker in Berlin, but his ideas, even the bad ones, continue to thrive.
So yes, let's all celebrate the fact that the bloodiest single conflict in human history was but half over on May 8, 1945 (there was still more bloody fighting and much suffering before Japan finally surrendered), but let's give consideration to what really happened at that time. Young men from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas gave their lives either defeating or supporting brutal regimes. Millions of children grew up without parents. Millions of women never had husbands or had their husbands killed in the most violent ways. Six million or so people were herded up like cattle and sent to their deaths for their religion and heritage. Fledgling democracies were killed in the cradle, and made to suffer the repression and torment of systems just as brutal as National Socialism. The devestation and dislocation which stymied economic and material progress from half the globe.
Hitler was followed by others: Stalin, already in the major leagues of murders, merely sent his thugs into overdrive. Chairman Mao merely put a patriotic face on systematic murder. Pol Pot simply gave free reign to his delusions. The Kims, the Castros, the Khaddaffis are still with us. The Ayhotollahs merely put an Islamic face on fascism. Saddam Hussein may be behind bars and facing and all-but-certian death sentece, but many more of his ilk still skulk in the sewers of Baghdad just waiting for their opportunities.
And in the West, the cradle of democratic ideals and the pedestal upon which the individual is placed, many who abhor the violent and vile actions of the Nazis still cling to some of their ideas in a hypocritical belief thatthey are saving mankind from itself.
That war that they say ended on May 8, 1945 didn't really end --- the shooting merely stopped.
In the end, the war against Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini was merely the first act in a long, drawn out play in which ideas that had fermented for ages finally spilled over into action and in which progress had merely made it easier to kill people in the thousands, tens of thousands, millions, a much more practical exercise. It didn't begin with one man, it began with a thought.
We cannot stop individuals from thinking, nor can we keep them from thinking bad thoughts, but we can evaluate the potential effects of those thoughts, and when confronted by really bad ideas, we must continue the fight against them.
For the 80 million dead, my prayers. For the men and women who willingly gave up their freedom (and many their lives) to go and fight to save the rest of us, my thanks. To the people who continue to fight the good fight against the barbaric ideas of self-appointed saviors, my encouragement.
The Little Hitlers, practicing soft-Nazism, are visible to us every night on out TV screens:
Howard Dean - who castigates republicans and the religious and talks about them in the same way that the Nazis used to talk about the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and the infirm. This is a play right out of Hitler's book: when you have no real gripes, no real ideas, invent enemies and portray them as the embodiment of evil. Attempting to portray himself as the protector of the meek, defending his wards against the intrinsic evil of capitalism, rampant pollution, and promising them a worldly vision of free viagra and abortions, Dean merely plays to an extremem fringe of tie-dyed hippies who can't believe the 60's ended, in much the same way Hitler appealed to a bunch of extremists who believed Germany won the First World War. Dean is a continuation of the "Summer of Love" as Hitler was a continuation of the March To Paris.
John Kerry - who would have you believe that while he considers himself to be a good Catholic, wrestles daily with the problem of maintining his own perceived morality and imposing that morality upon the rest of us, vis-a-vis abortion. This is HItlerian as well; it's called "do as I say, not as I do". The fortunate part when it comes to Kerry is that the man takes himself so seriously that he doesn't notice his contradictions, his obvious falsehoods, his false modesty -- were merely expected to believe his heart is in the right place. However, you can't fake concern when you're afraid your mask might crack. As far as the new Hitlers are concerned, this is the least dangerous because he's so plastic.
Hillary Clinton - who continues to "re-invent" herself every day, becoming more and more conservative in her "positions" in a transparent effort to achieve the goal of President of the United States. As Adolf would say "the bigger the lie, the more easily the people will swallow it". Radically altering her appearance to be "all things to all people" in much the same way that Hilter declared himself to "be Germany", Hillary (or shall we say Hit-lery) would have you believe that she actually cares what happens to Americans. That she and only she, can fulfill the destiny of America, and that in order to do so she may have to lie to you, she may have to appear to change her mind, but we're expected to accept such things as markers on the road to our Highway to Utopia. That staged "Nuremburg"-style rally in Minnesota eight years ago (which was supposed to be amemorial service for a dead man) merely whetted her appetite for adoration which she believes she can transform into absolute power.
Usama Bin Laden - Self-proclaimed savior of Islam, protecting the Islamic people from the ravages of modernity and the dangers of Western Civilization, much as Hitler saw himself as the Savior of the West from the menace of Communism. The ultimate advocate of advancing ideology beyond the means to actually do so, all in the name of a phantom world in which he is the center of the universe. Septmber 11, 2001 is to Usama, and his legions of followers, what Stalingrad was to Hitler; he has bitten off far more than he could chew.
Al Gore - the staged speeches with the phony paroxisms of rage, the sweat flying, the fist pumping, the carefully-incubated air of the Lonely Sentinel on the Ramparts, the Singular Voice of Reason in the Desert of Humanity. The style and the desired effect remind one that Hitler routinely practiced his speeches and gesticulation in a mirror for years on end until he believed he could transform himself from screaming lunatic to religious icon.
Ward Churchill - who despite the unfortunate last name (unfortunate for Winston, that is) considers capitalism a poison that wrecks the very soul of humanity, but who has no problem making a living from the very system he despises. All that matters to Ward is his ideas, which are the only correct ideas, and which he believes, religiously, entitles anyone he feels affinity with the knock down office buildings with airliners in a show of pure symbolism. If they happen to kil a few thousand capitalists and their lackeys, all the better. Churchill, and lot of people like him in the university systems across the West, are the new Stromtroopers who do everything from rioting at world trade meetings to disrupting the free exchange of ideas and rationality in the very place where it's supposed to be sacrosanct: the university. Hypocrisy in the name of achieving his goals was also a Hitlerian trait: The Munich Agreement, The Tripartite Act, the Non-Agression Pact with Russia, were all merely expedients in Hitler's march to war. Much like a university chair and it's accompanying paycheck is an expediency to Churchill's idea of socialist utopia, where he is the center of the universe and the only realistic spokesman.
Hitler is dead. The war is over. Guess again.
Let's take a little quiz, okay? I'm going to give you several clues about a famous person and you try to guess who it is. Here goes. This famous person:
1. Subsisted on a vitamin-enriched vegetarian diet.
2. Disdained the use of alcohol, sex, tobacco, caffiene and sugar.
3. Advocated a return to mankind's natural state of living in harmony with nature.
4. Believed that humanity could be improved through the use of selective abortion, sterilization and selective breeding.
5. Was elected by the democratic process.
6. Believed that capitalism was an evil that could only be brought to heel by strict government intervention and regulation of free markets.
I'll give you three guesses.
No, it is not Michael Moore. Try again.
John Kerry? Sorry, you're incorrect.
Hillary Clinton? Close, but no cigar.
The answer is....Adolf Hitler. Very much the New-age-Metrosexual type that we now see slithering around Starbucks in hemp clothing, or arriving at Enviornmental gatherings in SUV's and then leaving behind massive piles of water bottles, human waste, paper, debris, cigarette butts and used condoms.
Yes, Adolf Hitler. The veggan abstainer, whose Nazi party was elected to a majority in the Reichstag in 1936, the human monster who indulged his vision of world conquest, extermination and a completely planned and controlled economy, all to the "benefit" of his "chosen" people, the German people.
Two days ago the world celebrated the end of Uncle Adolf's demented vision of the world, but while the old boy ate his pistol in Berlin in 1945, his vision has lived on. People carry on his vision in different ways: some still call for the purification of the human race by advocating the deaths of people they don't even know, but still dislike passionately. Driven on in their madness by ignorance, fear, and propaganda that has been with us for centuries, they advocate a world in which only they and their kind have a right to exist.
And what's amazing is that it isn't just blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryan types who hold to this belief. Muslims hold it vis-a-vis Jews and non-Muslims. The French hold it in that they believe that they are the only race that holds title to anything resembling culture. The Chinese still believe themselves to be at the center of the world. Fading communists like Castro and Kim still believe that they hold the keys to political bliss and mankind's salvation through "scientific socialism" while surrounding themselves with a police state.
Others adopt the less greusome aspects of Adolf's Nazi religion in terms of what's best for mankind: planned and regulated economies, regulation of personal behavior, subordination of the individual to the state. We call these people Democrats, Labourites, Social Democrats, Socialists, and College Professors (okay, maybe not all college professors).
These people try to regulate free societies by clamping down on free speech, by burdening individuals and businesses with exhorbitant taxes, by forcing people to engage in behavior they really don't want to on everything from integration of the races to mainstreaming obscene personal bveliefs and practices. Of course, the extermination of human beings continued, but now instead of massive industrial complexes, it's been reduced to the level of a simple medical procedure. The only difference is now you can volunteer for it; an abortion is voluntary. And in some countries in Europe, you can have an infirm or ailing relative put to death by medical professionals just beacuse, or you could merely tire of life and ask for a chemical cocktail to expedite your shuffling off of this mortal coil.
Hitler is dead but his legacy carries on.
Now, what gets lost in a lot of this "celebrating" is that, quite simply, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million human beings died in the Second World War through direct combat, privation, indescriminate bombing, the breakdown of medical and sanitary systems, infectious diseases (both naturally occurring and helped along by humans), radiation poisoning, being buried alive, random and aribitrary executions or plain-old-run-of-the-muck assembly-line murder. The ensuing Cold War cost an additional 100 million lives as Communism imposed it's rigid dcotrine by feeding the people a steady diet of terror and murder. Without a doubt, the 20th Century was the bloodiest in human history. Adolf certainly didn't start the process by which human life was considered cheap or dependant on the requirements and paranoia of the politically powerful, he merely helped it along and made it seem "normal" to others so inclined.
One tyrant died in a bunker in Berlin, but his ideas, even the bad ones, continue to thrive.
So yes, let's all celebrate the fact that the bloodiest single conflict in human history was but half over on May 8, 1945 (there was still more bloody fighting and much suffering before Japan finally surrendered), but let's give consideration to what really happened at that time. Young men from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas gave their lives either defeating or supporting brutal regimes. Millions of children grew up without parents. Millions of women never had husbands or had their husbands killed in the most violent ways. Six million or so people were herded up like cattle and sent to their deaths for their religion and heritage. Fledgling democracies were killed in the cradle, and made to suffer the repression and torment of systems just as brutal as National Socialism. The devestation and dislocation which stymied economic and material progress from half the globe.
Hitler was followed by others: Stalin, already in the major leagues of murders, merely sent his thugs into overdrive. Chairman Mao merely put a patriotic face on systematic murder. Pol Pot simply gave free reign to his delusions. The Kims, the Castros, the Khaddaffis are still with us. The Ayhotollahs merely put an Islamic face on fascism. Saddam Hussein may be behind bars and facing and all-but-certian death sentece, but many more of his ilk still skulk in the sewers of Baghdad just waiting for their opportunities.
And in the West, the cradle of democratic ideals and the pedestal upon which the individual is placed, many who abhor the violent and vile actions of the Nazis still cling to some of their ideas in a hypocritical belief thatthey are saving mankind from itself.
That war that they say ended on May 8, 1945 didn't really end --- the shooting merely stopped.
In the end, the war against Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini was merely the first act in a long, drawn out play in which ideas that had fermented for ages finally spilled over into action and in which progress had merely made it easier to kill people in the thousands, tens of thousands, millions, a much more practical exercise. It didn't begin with one man, it began with a thought.
We cannot stop individuals from thinking, nor can we keep them from thinking bad thoughts, but we can evaluate the potential effects of those thoughts, and when confronted by really bad ideas, we must continue the fight against them.
For the 80 million dead, my prayers. For the men and women who willingly gave up their freedom (and many their lives) to go and fight to save the rest of us, my thanks. To the people who continue to fight the good fight against the barbaric ideas of self-appointed saviors, my encouragement.
The Little Hitlers, practicing soft-Nazism, are visible to us every night on out TV screens:
Howard Dean - who castigates republicans and the religious and talks about them in the same way that the Nazis used to talk about the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and the infirm. This is a play right out of Hitler's book: when you have no real gripes, no real ideas, invent enemies and portray them as the embodiment of evil. Attempting to portray himself as the protector of the meek, defending his wards against the intrinsic evil of capitalism, rampant pollution, and promising them a worldly vision of free viagra and abortions, Dean merely plays to an extremem fringe of tie-dyed hippies who can't believe the 60's ended, in much the same way Hitler appealed to a bunch of extremists who believed Germany won the First World War. Dean is a continuation of the "Summer of Love" as Hitler was a continuation of the March To Paris.
John Kerry - who would have you believe that while he considers himself to be a good Catholic, wrestles daily with the problem of maintining his own perceived morality and imposing that morality upon the rest of us, vis-a-vis abortion. This is HItlerian as well; it's called "do as I say, not as I do". The fortunate part when it comes to Kerry is that the man takes himself so seriously that he doesn't notice his contradictions, his obvious falsehoods, his false modesty -- were merely expected to believe his heart is in the right place. However, you can't fake concern when you're afraid your mask might crack. As far as the new Hitlers are concerned, this is the least dangerous because he's so plastic.
Hillary Clinton - who continues to "re-invent" herself every day, becoming more and more conservative in her "positions" in a transparent effort to achieve the goal of President of the United States. As Adolf would say "the bigger the lie, the more easily the people will swallow it". Radically altering her appearance to be "all things to all people" in much the same way that Hilter declared himself to "be Germany", Hillary (or shall we say Hit-lery) would have you believe that she actually cares what happens to Americans. That she and only she, can fulfill the destiny of America, and that in order to do so she may have to lie to you, she may have to appear to change her mind, but we're expected to accept such things as markers on the road to our Highway to Utopia. That staged "Nuremburg"-style rally in Minnesota eight years ago (which was supposed to be amemorial service for a dead man) merely whetted her appetite for adoration which she believes she can transform into absolute power.
Usama Bin Laden - Self-proclaimed savior of Islam, protecting the Islamic people from the ravages of modernity and the dangers of Western Civilization, much as Hitler saw himself as the Savior of the West from the menace of Communism. The ultimate advocate of advancing ideology beyond the means to actually do so, all in the name of a phantom world in which he is the center of the universe. Septmber 11, 2001 is to Usama, and his legions of followers, what Stalingrad was to Hitler; he has bitten off far more than he could chew.
Al Gore - the staged speeches with the phony paroxisms of rage, the sweat flying, the fist pumping, the carefully-incubated air of the Lonely Sentinel on the Ramparts, the Singular Voice of Reason in the Desert of Humanity. The style and the desired effect remind one that Hitler routinely practiced his speeches and gesticulation in a mirror for years on end until he believed he could transform himself from screaming lunatic to religious icon.
Ward Churchill - who despite the unfortunate last name (unfortunate for Winston, that is) considers capitalism a poison that wrecks the very soul of humanity, but who has no problem making a living from the very system he despises. All that matters to Ward is his ideas, which are the only correct ideas, and which he believes, religiously, entitles anyone he feels affinity with the knock down office buildings with airliners in a show of pure symbolism. If they happen to kil a few thousand capitalists and their lackeys, all the better. Churchill, and lot of people like him in the university systems across the West, are the new Stromtroopers who do everything from rioting at world trade meetings to disrupting the free exchange of ideas and rationality in the very place where it's supposed to be sacrosanct: the university. Hypocrisy in the name of achieving his goals was also a Hitlerian trait: The Munich Agreement, The Tripartite Act, the Non-Agression Pact with Russia, were all merely expedients in Hitler's march to war. Much like a university chair and it's accompanying paycheck is an expediency to Churchill's idea of socialist utopia, where he is the center of the universe and the only realistic spokesman.
Hitler is dead. The war is over. Guess again.
Enviorn-MENTAL-ism...
There was a quick report during Brit Hume's show last night that made reference to the fact that scientists have discovered that air cleanliness and quality is improving on a world-wide scale. I did not get the names of the enviro-whackos and scientists mentioned simply because a) you've never heard of them and b) you wouldn't really care (neither did I, truth to tell).
Now, clean air is a nifty thing, if you ask me, and i have no problem with the report of cleaner air planet-wide. I think that's a testiment to mankind's (and the free market's) ability to respond to a major problem in a pro-active way. After all, thanks to technology, reformulated fuels, and mroe efficient uses of existing energy sources, we're managing to roll back the tide of dirt that was threatening to one day choke us all to death. Of course, the greenie meanies will take credit for all of this development, but I will give them credit, at the very least, for bringing it to everyone's attention. After they did that, buisness, governments and private citizens did the rest.
What was even more surprising is that he report cited amazing increases in air quality over China and the former Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Russians are two-steps-removed from coal burning stoves and that China is the fastest-growing user of fossil fuels in the world. Both of these facts fly in the face of propaganda perpetuated by the tree huggers that you could not increase usage of fossil fuels and still maintain a clean enviornment or get cleaner emissions from facilities and equipment that were the most modern of their type in 1965 or 75, but which still operate today.
Now normally I would expect a dyed-in-the-wool enviornmentalist to be happy with such signals of progress. However, that would be wishful thinking on my part. Of course, no matter how much better things get, the eviornmentalist is never happy. I give you three examples:
One of these idiots actually claimed that the cleaner Chinese air must (must, mind you) be the result of the Chinese utilizing some unknown, new technology. It has to be that way because there's scenario known to him in which you could burn that much coal and oil and still maintain a healthier enviornment. Because the fact that the increased Chinese use of fossil fuels and the cleaner air fly in the face of the Green agenda, there must be some super-secret-scrubbing-bubbles-whiz-bang technology that the Chinese have developed and haven't shared with the rest of us. This leads us to the first premise of enviornmental "science": When facts contradict, make up a conspiracy theory. The guy who came up with this one should be taken away to a rubber room and taught to knit potholders with his feet.
Another interesting tidbit came fromt he mouth of another moron, who postulated that all of this cleaner air presents yet another dilemma: cleaner air lets in more sunlight which triggers gloabal warming. I'm sorry, but I don't get it on several levels;
1. Part of the Greenhouse Theory postulates that it's dirty air (full of soot, lead, extra ozone and fluorocarbons) that causes the phenomenon in the first place. Now we're expected to believe that if we clean the air up, we'll only increase the scope and depth of the problem. In other words, we want clean air, but now the question of how clean can it be before clean air becomes as dangerous as dirty air? So now we're expected to figure out how to balance the amount of clean and dirty air in order to keep them in proper proportions like we would check the Ph rating in a swimming pool. Does this mean if someone decided the air was too damn clean that it's my civic duty to go outside and go nuts with an aerosol can?
2. Global warming is a fallacy. According to these people, if it's too hot outside, global warming is blame. If it's too cold outside, global warming is to blame for that too. People wh believe in global warming as athreat are sorta like your paranoid, suspicious ex-wife, who never believed you went out bowling with the boys even when you come home with a trophy and your picture appears in the local newspaper because you bowled a perfect game All because you were five minutes late. IN her psycho eyes her illusion becomes the truth and your truth becomes an illusion. You can never convince her, and you can never reassure her. I remind these folks that science has reliably figured out that the Earth has gone through several epochs of severe weather changes. In fact, New York City has been proven to have been under a mile of ice as little as 10-12,000 years ago. Something had to happen to remove all that ice from Donald Trump's real estate, and that had to be some form of warming. Since there were no automobiles, factories, smelting plants, aerosol cans, garbage incinerators or toxic waste to cause the warming, it had to be something else. A natural process. And there's no reason to believe that a) the process has stopped dead in it's tracks or b) that the cycle does not repeat itself every several million years. The planet was here for 4-billion-plus years before we showed up and it will be here long after we are all long gone. Nature does what nature does, despite human intervention.
3. What drugs are these people taking and where can I get some?
Which brings us to the final points of this little screed; first point --- enviornmentalism is not so much concern for the planet as it is a cult of conservatism. In this case, the conservatism revolves around creating the best possible enviornment we can and then freezing that moment in time forever. Which is impossible when you consider all of the changes the Earth has undergone in it's development. It's nonsense to believe that one can stop the natural process of an evolving planet. yes, human beings can and do affect certain aspects of nature, but they cannot fundamentally alter it. "You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she will always return". That maxim is as valid today as it was when it was uttered at the height of the Roman Empire. The second point is that enviornmentalists really just have a problem with human beings --- they hate them. According to them, human beings were wrecking the planet and now that a positive sign of reversal has been recorded, now we're going way too far in the other direction. They're issue is not clean air or water it's that human beings utilize them. Better to let the grizzly bears, the fire ants and the tilefish have the planet to themselves and human beings with their progress and their engines go to blazes. The thrid, and final point; it seems that no matter what we do these people can never be satisfied.
I'll bet all of the idiots who got quoted still believe that Kyoto was a good idea.
This is not reasoned discourse, nor is it fanatical devotion to a point of principle. It hypocrisy and it's an illness elevated to the status of a religion. But of course, the goal was never a clean eviornment or protecting the planet from an imminent disaster; it was always about controlling people and regulating progress in an extreme manner. It still is.
So, let's all enjoy our clean air, for now. Ket's all go outside and run around like little kids, breathing in all that fresher air, until some Green moron comes along to tell us that fresh air will kill us. Or perhaps it'll be that the common use of water filters and bottled water puts us at risk for cancer or kills some obscure insect who really needs rice-patty-quality filth to thrive in. I guranetee you that day is coming real soon.
There was a quick report during Brit Hume's show last night that made reference to the fact that scientists have discovered that air cleanliness and quality is improving on a world-wide scale. I did not get the names of the enviro-whackos and scientists mentioned simply because a) you've never heard of them and b) you wouldn't really care (neither did I, truth to tell).
Now, clean air is a nifty thing, if you ask me, and i have no problem with the report of cleaner air planet-wide. I think that's a testiment to mankind's (and the free market's) ability to respond to a major problem in a pro-active way. After all, thanks to technology, reformulated fuels, and mroe efficient uses of existing energy sources, we're managing to roll back the tide of dirt that was threatening to one day choke us all to death. Of course, the greenie meanies will take credit for all of this development, but I will give them credit, at the very least, for bringing it to everyone's attention. After they did that, buisness, governments and private citizens did the rest.
What was even more surprising is that he report cited amazing increases in air quality over China and the former Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Russians are two-steps-removed from coal burning stoves and that China is the fastest-growing user of fossil fuels in the world. Both of these facts fly in the face of propaganda perpetuated by the tree huggers that you could not increase usage of fossil fuels and still maintain a clean enviornment or get cleaner emissions from facilities and equipment that were the most modern of their type in 1965 or 75, but which still operate today.
Now normally I would expect a dyed-in-the-wool enviornmentalist to be happy with such signals of progress. However, that would be wishful thinking on my part. Of course, no matter how much better things get, the eviornmentalist is never happy. I give you three examples:
One of these idiots actually claimed that the cleaner Chinese air must (must, mind you) be the result of the Chinese utilizing some unknown, new technology. It has to be that way because there's scenario known to him in which you could burn that much coal and oil and still maintain a healthier enviornment. Because the fact that the increased Chinese use of fossil fuels and the cleaner air fly in the face of the Green agenda, there must be some super-secret-scrubbing-bubbles-whiz-bang technology that the Chinese have developed and haven't shared with the rest of us. This leads us to the first premise of enviornmental "science": When facts contradict, make up a conspiracy theory. The guy who came up with this one should be taken away to a rubber room and taught to knit potholders with his feet.
Another interesting tidbit came fromt he mouth of another moron, who postulated that all of this cleaner air presents yet another dilemma: cleaner air lets in more sunlight which triggers gloabal warming. I'm sorry, but I don't get it on several levels;
1. Part of the Greenhouse Theory postulates that it's dirty air (full of soot, lead, extra ozone and fluorocarbons) that causes the phenomenon in the first place. Now we're expected to believe that if we clean the air up, we'll only increase the scope and depth of the problem. In other words, we want clean air, but now the question of how clean can it be before clean air becomes as dangerous as dirty air? So now we're expected to figure out how to balance the amount of clean and dirty air in order to keep them in proper proportions like we would check the Ph rating in a swimming pool. Does this mean if someone decided the air was too damn clean that it's my civic duty to go outside and go nuts with an aerosol can?
2. Global warming is a fallacy. According to these people, if it's too hot outside, global warming is blame. If it's too cold outside, global warming is to blame for that too. People wh believe in global warming as athreat are sorta like your paranoid, suspicious ex-wife, who never believed you went out bowling with the boys even when you come home with a trophy and your picture appears in the local newspaper because you bowled a perfect game All because you were five minutes late. IN her psycho eyes her illusion becomes the truth and your truth becomes an illusion. You can never convince her, and you can never reassure her. I remind these folks that science has reliably figured out that the Earth has gone through several epochs of severe weather changes. In fact, New York City has been proven to have been under a mile of ice as little as 10-12,000 years ago. Something had to happen to remove all that ice from Donald Trump's real estate, and that had to be some form of warming. Since there were no automobiles, factories, smelting plants, aerosol cans, garbage incinerators or toxic waste to cause the warming, it had to be something else. A natural process. And there's no reason to believe that a) the process has stopped dead in it's tracks or b) that the cycle does not repeat itself every several million years. The planet was here for 4-billion-plus years before we showed up and it will be here long after we are all long gone. Nature does what nature does, despite human intervention.
3. What drugs are these people taking and where can I get some?
Which brings us to the final points of this little screed; first point --- enviornmentalism is not so much concern for the planet as it is a cult of conservatism. In this case, the conservatism revolves around creating the best possible enviornment we can and then freezing that moment in time forever. Which is impossible when you consider all of the changes the Earth has undergone in it's development. It's nonsense to believe that one can stop the natural process of an evolving planet. yes, human beings can and do affect certain aspects of nature, but they cannot fundamentally alter it. "You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she will always return". That maxim is as valid today as it was when it was uttered at the height of the Roman Empire. The second point is that enviornmentalists really just have a problem with human beings --- they hate them. According to them, human beings were wrecking the planet and now that a positive sign of reversal has been recorded, now we're going way too far in the other direction. They're issue is not clean air or water it's that human beings utilize them. Better to let the grizzly bears, the fire ants and the tilefish have the planet to themselves and human beings with their progress and their engines go to blazes. The thrid, and final point; it seems that no matter what we do these people can never be satisfied.
I'll bet all of the idiots who got quoted still believe that Kyoto was a good idea.
This is not reasoned discourse, nor is it fanatical devotion to a point of principle. It hypocrisy and it's an illness elevated to the status of a religion. But of course, the goal was never a clean eviornment or protecting the planet from an imminent disaster; it was always about controlling people and regulating progress in an extreme manner. It still is.
So, let's all enjoy our clean air, for now. Ket's all go outside and run around like little kids, breathing in all that fresher air, until some Green moron comes along to tell us that fresh air will kill us. Or perhaps it'll be that the common use of water filters and bottled water puts us at risk for cancer or kills some obscure insect who really needs rice-patty-quality filth to thrive in. I guranetee you that day is coming real soon.
More Runaway Bride Shyte...
I really didn't want to delve any further into this stuff than I had to last week, but it just keeps getting weirder.
We're talking Dennis Rodman weird. The Outer Limits weird. Hillary Clinton taking a Conservative position weird.
Thanks to the Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, I now know that I can have my virginity restored by God. I kid you not...
It seems that Jennifer and her fiance (we'll call him Doofus from now on) are possessed of the belief that not only can God forgive sins (which is an underpinnning of my own Catholic faith), he can now totally erase our pasts, if we only ask him to and make the proper devotions, no matter how egregious.
Apparently, the branch of Christianity Jennifer and Doofus are aligned with advances as an article of faith that someone can completely and permanently erase sin due to the healing power of prayer. Now granted, God's a pretty powerful guy, but where I come from the sin always exists, you merely just owned up to it. God may forgive, but it is never forgotten.
So, the Runaway Bride and Doofus were engaged (no pun intended) on a quest to restore themselves to a totally pristine state, in all areas of their lives, and one of the bedrock foundations of this agenda is a process called "re-virgination". In re-virgination, as far as I can follow it, the Almighty returns you to that pristine state when you pray enough for it. (I'm still waiting to find out how much this costs, btw. Where there's a church involved, the...ahem...contibution, is not far behind). Extending this line of thought a little further, I wonder, if I prayed enough, would God not only restore my virginity, but also perform the following laundry list of things I'd like to have a do-over on:
- Could God erase my credit card debt?
- Could God perhaps see his way clear to stopping me from buying that Chevy Chevette in 1987 and allow me to go back for the Camaro Z28?
- Will God correct all those punchcards that showed me as being late for work all those times?
- Can I have another chance at deciding whether to go straight to work or to college after leaving High School?
- Can I have September 11, 2001 back, without the crashing airliners and the 3,000 deaths? Or the subsequent mental trauma and years of medication and professional help?
- Can he give me back all the money I spent in topless bars in my youth?
- May I please have the opportunity to remake every decision I've ever had to make?
- Can I ask for a better physique?
- Might I ask for a world in which my hockey team always wins the Stanley Cup?
- Is it possible for God to eliminate the Designated Hitter rule?
- I have a few ex-girlfriends I can't believe I dated. Could I have some hotter girls?
And I'm not being facetious...
The idea that God is all-powerful, that he can defy time, space and all the physical laws that we know of, is not a new idea. What is a new idea, as far as I can see, is that if we can merely wish something hadn't happened, and then have some minster tell us God said it didn't after enough hours are spent in prayer and repentance, then, well, it hasn't happened.
Chalk up one more point for the pussy-fication of religion. This is not a religious doctrine as I understand the meaning, but seems more like an attempt to make an individual feel better about him or herself. One more way in which pap psychology, in which how you feel trumps how you behave, or maybe even excuses it, has invaded every nook and cranny of our daily lives. Now religions are concerned with the psychological and not the spiritual well-being of the flock. And yes, I do believe the spiritual and the psychological can be separated.
We've now gone from Separation of Church and State to Separation of Church from Reality.
It's also been revealed that Jennifer has a minor criminal record and may have had a psychotic episode at one point in time. Yep, Doofus was getting a quality filly here, wasn't he? Then again, God would have erased the past, so it wouldn't matter much to him that Jenny was a few fries short of a Happy Meal and had a rap sheet, would it? After all, we're erasing the past here.
Now I'm not the most religious person on the block, for sure. But, I have seen enough people who walk into churches simply because they have no place else to go, and they walk out as fanatics. Usually it's because finally someone has listened to them. More often, the regimentation involved in the following of a specific faith appeals to people who lack any discipline at all. In either case, it's a crutch.
I'm going to go out on a limb here: Jennifer and Doofus probably had very sad lives in one way or another. He's just too high on life to have been born that way and she's too nuts to have been normal before she signed on to this thing. Judging from my own imperfect experience, I'd say they both gravitated towards this nonsense because it provided something they never had before in one way or another, probably psychologically. Perhaps it was the lack of judgment (on behalf of the church) towards them. Maybe it was the idea of perfection that appealed to them. Perhaps, like most Born-Again folks, they were tremendous fuck-ups in their previous lives and are wracked by guilt that cannot be assuaged. I don't know. I really don't care. It all seems too fucking weird to be real to me. I still can't figure out why Doofus can't seem to take a whiz on his own without his pastor by his side.
I smell cult...
So, the more I hear, the more I understand why she ran off. If I was marrying a man who was apparently surgically attached to his pastor, who told me I could become a virgin again by simply praying, and who somehow convinced me that everything I ever did could be magically erased from the Great Celestial Ledger of Bad Deeds, and who obvioulsy believed that to the point where he became a non-sexual, always-smiling-but-on-the-verge-of-drooling idiot, then I'd run like hell too.
I just wonder if God will erase the whole episode for the rest us so that it never happened. Oh, and can I do that without wearing out my knees?
I really didn't want to delve any further into this stuff than I had to last week, but it just keeps getting weirder.
We're talking Dennis Rodman weird. The Outer Limits weird. Hillary Clinton taking a Conservative position weird.
Thanks to the Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, I now know that I can have my virginity restored by God. I kid you not...
It seems that Jennifer and her fiance (we'll call him Doofus from now on) are possessed of the belief that not only can God forgive sins (which is an underpinnning of my own Catholic faith), he can now totally erase our pasts, if we only ask him to and make the proper devotions, no matter how egregious.
Apparently, the branch of Christianity Jennifer and Doofus are aligned with advances as an article of faith that someone can completely and permanently erase sin due to the healing power of prayer. Now granted, God's a pretty powerful guy, but where I come from the sin always exists, you merely just owned up to it. God may forgive, but it is never forgotten.
So, the Runaway Bride and Doofus were engaged (no pun intended) on a quest to restore themselves to a totally pristine state, in all areas of their lives, and one of the bedrock foundations of this agenda is a process called "re-virgination". In re-virgination, as far as I can follow it, the Almighty returns you to that pristine state when you pray enough for it. (I'm still waiting to find out how much this costs, btw. Where there's a church involved, the...ahem...contibution, is not far behind). Extending this line of thought a little further, I wonder, if I prayed enough, would God not only restore my virginity, but also perform the following laundry list of things I'd like to have a do-over on:
- Could God erase my credit card debt?
- Could God perhaps see his way clear to stopping me from buying that Chevy Chevette in 1987 and allow me to go back for the Camaro Z28?
- Will God correct all those punchcards that showed me as being late for work all those times?
- Can I have another chance at deciding whether to go straight to work or to college after leaving High School?
- Can I have September 11, 2001 back, without the crashing airliners and the 3,000 deaths? Or the subsequent mental trauma and years of medication and professional help?
- Can he give me back all the money I spent in topless bars in my youth?
- May I please have the opportunity to remake every decision I've ever had to make?
- Can I ask for a better physique?
- Might I ask for a world in which my hockey team always wins the Stanley Cup?
- Is it possible for God to eliminate the Designated Hitter rule?
- I have a few ex-girlfriends I can't believe I dated. Could I have some hotter girls?
And I'm not being facetious...
The idea that God is all-powerful, that he can defy time, space and all the physical laws that we know of, is not a new idea. What is a new idea, as far as I can see, is that if we can merely wish something hadn't happened, and then have some minster tell us God said it didn't after enough hours are spent in prayer and repentance, then, well, it hasn't happened.
Chalk up one more point for the pussy-fication of religion. This is not a religious doctrine as I understand the meaning, but seems more like an attempt to make an individual feel better about him or herself. One more way in which pap psychology, in which how you feel trumps how you behave, or maybe even excuses it, has invaded every nook and cranny of our daily lives. Now religions are concerned with the psychological and not the spiritual well-being of the flock. And yes, I do believe the spiritual and the psychological can be separated.
We've now gone from Separation of Church and State to Separation of Church from Reality.
It's also been revealed that Jennifer has a minor criminal record and may have had a psychotic episode at one point in time. Yep, Doofus was getting a quality filly here, wasn't he? Then again, God would have erased the past, so it wouldn't matter much to him that Jenny was a few fries short of a Happy Meal and had a rap sheet, would it? After all, we're erasing the past here.
Now I'm not the most religious person on the block, for sure. But, I have seen enough people who walk into churches simply because they have no place else to go, and they walk out as fanatics. Usually it's because finally someone has listened to them. More often, the regimentation involved in the following of a specific faith appeals to people who lack any discipline at all. In either case, it's a crutch.
I'm going to go out on a limb here: Jennifer and Doofus probably had very sad lives in one way or another. He's just too high on life to have been born that way and she's too nuts to have been normal before she signed on to this thing. Judging from my own imperfect experience, I'd say they both gravitated towards this nonsense because it provided something they never had before in one way or another, probably psychologically. Perhaps it was the lack of judgment (on behalf of the church) towards them. Maybe it was the idea of perfection that appealed to them. Perhaps, like most Born-Again folks, they were tremendous fuck-ups in their previous lives and are wracked by guilt that cannot be assuaged. I don't know. I really don't care. It all seems too fucking weird to be real to me. I still can't figure out why Doofus can't seem to take a whiz on his own without his pastor by his side.
I smell cult...
So, the more I hear, the more I understand why she ran off. If I was marrying a man who was apparently surgically attached to his pastor, who told me I could become a virgin again by simply praying, and who somehow convinced me that everything I ever did could be magically erased from the Great Celestial Ledger of Bad Deeds, and who obvioulsy believed that to the point where he became a non-sexual, always-smiling-but-on-the-verge-of-drooling idiot, then I'd run like hell too.
I just wonder if God will erase the whole episode for the rest us so that it never happened. Oh, and can I do that without wearing out my knees?
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
On Runaway Brides and the Psychobable Legion...
I have refrained from writing anything about this until now because I originally divined that something about the story of Jennifer Wilbanks did not add up. I also didn't give a rat's behind about the story either, since I've become immune to all this news about missing women and little girls. Sad truth to tell, it's becoming easier to ignore since it seems to be an everday occurrance here in the south. It's Man Bites Dog.
However, in the case of Ms. Wilbanks, what makes the story even more annyoing is because the media considers it sexy: pretty woman, girl next door, seems about to get everything a woman could want from the nice-guy husband from a prominent family to the Cindarella-600-guest-wedding. And then she just dropped off the face of the planet.
I figured out that someting wasn't right just as soon as the fiance got on TV to make his appeal to the public for help.
Jennifer Wilbanks represents a sizeable minority here in the south. One that is easy to find in just about every town. They're so common as to outnumber kudzu, in some parts.
Jennifer is a victim (God, how I wish I didn't need to say that) of that segment of Southern Society that still believes in appearances, and that appearances trump everything.
Okay, her fiance is obviously a nice guy, but he's also about as interesting as toast. There's nothing about him that doesn't smell of church and "Aw-shucks-golly-gee" Opie-Taylor-ism.
Guys like him, from prominent families who have to keep up appearances, have two major issues just simmering under the surface: a) they're sexually repressed, and b) check everything they do with their pastor before they do it. He's a dweeb. He also seems the type to invite the pastor over from dinner every goddamned night, seemingly attached to the hip to his spiritual leader. Her life would be a daily hell of pollyanna husband and the microscope of his pastor and family.
Okay, she was going to have the spectacular wedding, but that was more of a display for the family than it was for her. Once one reaches a certain stratum of polite south'ren society, one is expected to throw elegant galas at weddings and such. Complete with lawn jockeys and mint julips. Tradition dies hard, even the more ridiculous ones. And it would have been more of a trophy wedding for her husband than it was for her. Such events are intended to reinforce someone's social status here, letting everyone know that so-and-so is a player. The purpose was not to join two people in holy wedlock, but to give the who's-who of Georgia society an excuse to get together and play Tara.
Okay, she was wrong for doing what she did. After all, she could have easily spoken up and let someone know how she felt. Then again, women here are not especially encouraged to speak up. I can easily see how peer pressure, the pressure from her family and her fiance, could have driven this woman to accept the ring and then conspired to keep her from expressing her doubts. Here again, once you reach a certain stratum of society a woman is expected to be a dutiful wife, in all respects, and then shut the heck up.
So, I can see why Jennifer Wilbanks escaped a fate worse than death: she was about to be sentenced to life as a dilligent southern wife, deferential to her dweeby-but-wealthy husband, to spit out children and sit on the church board, the PTA and the Executive Committe of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Doors would be opened for her by her social-climbing new family, whether she wanted them opened or not, and she would be pushed through them against her will. Her image would have to be spotless and squeaky clean in order to protect her husband's reputation. Her reputation means diddly squat in those circles so long as none of the dirt gets on hubby. And she would be expected to do all of this when she wasn't flinging fried chicken and grits or secretly buying sex toys or having an illicit online affair because her husband is a dead fish in the sack.
Just look at how the family closed ranks around her. Yes, I know that is expected, but these people built a veritible fortress around her. She hasn't spoken or issued a statement that I'm aware of and it's almost as if they're all perfectly capable and willing to speak for her. The poor child ain't right, ya know. They call this "protection"; what it really is, is "damage control". God forbid she gets close to a TV Camera or microphone and tells her story. They'd all be mortified.
Trust me, I actually know women like this.
So yes, despite the guilded cage, I would have run off too. What makes it newsworthy is that she's done this before which leads me to believe that she either has a serious problem or her family has been pushing this woman off on every man in town. I know women that's happened to as well. The impulse to have your daughters married off around here is every bit as powerful as the survival instinct. Occasionally parents go off the deep end. It's almost as if you are considered a failure as a parent if your daughter hasn't found herself a husband the day after high-school graduation. Again, it's all about perception.
So, in the end, if Jennifer broke any laws, then by all means prosecute her to the fullest extent.
But I can see why she did it.
Now, as for the psychobabble, which started just a soon as Jennifer turned herself in (I'm still wondering where Fox News gets a psychiatrist at 4 am to make a pat diagnosis without knowing the subject's complete medical history) the dissection began. There has been endless speculation on her motives, her state of mind, whether or not there was premeditation, the endless angst of the why's and wherefore's. There are psychic scabs to be picked at on television, you know.
My theory is just that, a theory, but I've seen the situation enough to know it exists. I don't particularly care whether or not I'm right about it either, nor do I care to have it explained to me why I should care. All I know is that what I saw on TV would cause me to run screaming into the night, too. I also think it's in pretty poor taste to do the things she did in the manner that she did, but it ain't my business. I do know that if I was Mr. Mason, I wouldn't touch the woman with a 10' pole now. I also know that Mr. Mason is so high on God that prayer and forgiveness will make everything A-fuckin'-Okay. He's mental, too. Wouldn't surprise me if he sits on her 24/7 now and then stalks her afterwards. The church-going ones are always creepy like that.
I have refrained from writing anything about this until now because I originally divined that something about the story of Jennifer Wilbanks did not add up. I also didn't give a rat's behind about the story either, since I've become immune to all this news about missing women and little girls. Sad truth to tell, it's becoming easier to ignore since it seems to be an everday occurrance here in the south. It's Man Bites Dog.
However, in the case of Ms. Wilbanks, what makes the story even more annyoing is because the media considers it sexy: pretty woman, girl next door, seems about to get everything a woman could want from the nice-guy husband from a prominent family to the Cindarella-600-guest-wedding. And then she just dropped off the face of the planet.
I figured out that someting wasn't right just as soon as the fiance got on TV to make his appeal to the public for help.
Jennifer Wilbanks represents a sizeable minority here in the south. One that is easy to find in just about every town. They're so common as to outnumber kudzu, in some parts.
Jennifer is a victim (God, how I wish I didn't need to say that) of that segment of Southern Society that still believes in appearances, and that appearances trump everything.
Okay, her fiance is obviously a nice guy, but he's also about as interesting as toast. There's nothing about him that doesn't smell of church and "Aw-shucks-golly-gee" Opie-Taylor-ism.
Guys like him, from prominent families who have to keep up appearances, have two major issues just simmering under the surface: a) they're sexually repressed, and b) check everything they do with their pastor before they do it. He's a dweeb. He also seems the type to invite the pastor over from dinner every goddamned night, seemingly attached to the hip to his spiritual leader. Her life would be a daily hell of pollyanna husband and the microscope of his pastor and family.
Okay, she was going to have the spectacular wedding, but that was more of a display for the family than it was for her. Once one reaches a certain stratum of polite south'ren society, one is expected to throw elegant galas at weddings and such. Complete with lawn jockeys and mint julips. Tradition dies hard, even the more ridiculous ones. And it would have been more of a trophy wedding for her husband than it was for her. Such events are intended to reinforce someone's social status here, letting everyone know that so-and-so is a player. The purpose was not to join two people in holy wedlock, but to give the who's-who of Georgia society an excuse to get together and play Tara.
Okay, she was wrong for doing what she did. After all, she could have easily spoken up and let someone know how she felt. Then again, women here are not especially encouraged to speak up. I can easily see how peer pressure, the pressure from her family and her fiance, could have driven this woman to accept the ring and then conspired to keep her from expressing her doubts. Here again, once you reach a certain stratum of society a woman is expected to be a dutiful wife, in all respects, and then shut the heck up.
So, I can see why Jennifer Wilbanks escaped a fate worse than death: she was about to be sentenced to life as a dilligent southern wife, deferential to her dweeby-but-wealthy husband, to spit out children and sit on the church board, the PTA and the Executive Committe of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Doors would be opened for her by her social-climbing new family, whether she wanted them opened or not, and she would be pushed through them against her will. Her image would have to be spotless and squeaky clean in order to protect her husband's reputation. Her reputation means diddly squat in those circles so long as none of the dirt gets on hubby. And she would be expected to do all of this when she wasn't flinging fried chicken and grits or secretly buying sex toys or having an illicit online affair because her husband is a dead fish in the sack.
Just look at how the family closed ranks around her. Yes, I know that is expected, but these people built a veritible fortress around her. She hasn't spoken or issued a statement that I'm aware of and it's almost as if they're all perfectly capable and willing to speak for her. The poor child ain't right, ya know. They call this "protection"; what it really is, is "damage control". God forbid she gets close to a TV Camera or microphone and tells her story. They'd all be mortified.
Trust me, I actually know women like this.
So yes, despite the guilded cage, I would have run off too. What makes it newsworthy is that she's done this before which leads me to believe that she either has a serious problem or her family has been pushing this woman off on every man in town. I know women that's happened to as well. The impulse to have your daughters married off around here is every bit as powerful as the survival instinct. Occasionally parents go off the deep end. It's almost as if you are considered a failure as a parent if your daughter hasn't found herself a husband the day after high-school graduation. Again, it's all about perception.
So, in the end, if Jennifer broke any laws, then by all means prosecute her to the fullest extent.
But I can see why she did it.
Now, as for the psychobabble, which started just a soon as Jennifer turned herself in (I'm still wondering where Fox News gets a psychiatrist at 4 am to make a pat diagnosis without knowing the subject's complete medical history) the dissection began. There has been endless speculation on her motives, her state of mind, whether or not there was premeditation, the endless angst of the why's and wherefore's. There are psychic scabs to be picked at on television, you know.
My theory is just that, a theory, but I've seen the situation enough to know it exists. I don't particularly care whether or not I'm right about it either, nor do I care to have it explained to me why I should care. All I know is that what I saw on TV would cause me to run screaming into the night, too. I also think it's in pretty poor taste to do the things she did in the manner that she did, but it ain't my business. I do know that if I was Mr. Mason, I wouldn't touch the woman with a 10' pole now. I also know that Mr. Mason is so high on God that prayer and forgiveness will make everything A-fuckin'-Okay. He's mental, too. Wouldn't surprise me if he sits on her 24/7 now and then stalks her afterwards. The church-going ones are always creepy like that.
Defeat From the Jaws of Victory...
Why is it that everytime Republicans actually win something they immediately find a way to toss that victory away? It seems to me that my party has a tendency to melt down, usually in the second term of a President's reign, no less, and make it impossible to advance the agenda. In this case, it's simple overreach.
Vis-a-vis the case of the filibustered Judges, when you get 90% of what you want and the other side asks for nothing in return, you've done pretty well. In the words of the immortal Bob Dole, "Half a loaf is better than none". Especially when the loaf was free. Give it up and redirect your energy to something else --- like keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. These 10 judges may be top quality individuals, worthy appointments to the courts, but,there are at least two Supreme Court Justices who, in an act of poetic justice, are close to having their feeding tubes yanked. If you think an appointment to the Appellate Court was tough because of a stand on abortion, wait until you have to put someone forward to the Supreme Court.
The difference, though, between these 10 judicial nominees and a Supreme Court appointment is tha he public would REALLY not stand any delay in choosing a replacement SC Judge. Yes, the fanatics of the death factorty (kill 'em before they're born, kill 'em before they die on their own, let murderers and rapists roam free) will screech anyway, no matter who you appoint. But, and this is the point, you can bring heavier artillery to bear with public opinion and perception. Right now, you're getting clobbered on perception.
It also seems to me that if the democrats learned the wrong lessons about religion in the 2004 campaign, so did conservatives. I have no doubt that evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, et. al. exist in legions and they vote. I also have no doubt that they also overwhelmingly vote republican. However, it seems that some republicans (especially De Lay and Frist) have embraced that constituencies platform to the detriment of the rest of us. Yes, we do want a more just, more civilized society. Yes, we belive in God (although in varying degrees...I went to Catholic school all my life, remember?), and keep the moral code outlined in the Commandments. But whether or not those Commandments hang in a public place is a minor issue when a tin pot Korean dictator and a Persian Daffy Duck-like character with a too-tight turban threaten to turn my home into a smoking pile of self-lighting rubble.
I guess what I'm saying here is, basically, pick your fights. Right now we're doing a very bad job of it.
Social Security reform could use a boost. We have an energy plan that requires action. We've practically defanged the trial attorneys, now let's find another obstacle to progress, like the Treehuggers and EcoTerrorists (re: Sierra Club and PETA). How about getting back to cutting that budget instead of expending energy on Senate Rules changes? How about sending the Estate Tax back to the infernal abyss it crept from permanently?
There are other things you could be doing. Perhaps if you did them, when the midterm elections come in 2006 you'd have those 60 senators you need and there wouldn't be an argument over filibusters or a few judges.
Why is it that everytime Republicans actually win something they immediately find a way to toss that victory away? It seems to me that my party has a tendency to melt down, usually in the second term of a President's reign, no less, and make it impossible to advance the agenda. In this case, it's simple overreach.
Vis-a-vis the case of the filibustered Judges, when you get 90% of what you want and the other side asks for nothing in return, you've done pretty well. In the words of the immortal Bob Dole, "Half a loaf is better than none". Especially when the loaf was free. Give it up and redirect your energy to something else --- like keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. These 10 judges may be top quality individuals, worthy appointments to the courts, but,there are at least two Supreme Court Justices who, in an act of poetic justice, are close to having their feeding tubes yanked. If you think an appointment to the Appellate Court was tough because of a stand on abortion, wait until you have to put someone forward to the Supreme Court.
The difference, though, between these 10 judicial nominees and a Supreme Court appointment is tha he public would REALLY not stand any delay in choosing a replacement SC Judge. Yes, the fanatics of the death factorty (kill 'em before they're born, kill 'em before they die on their own, let murderers and rapists roam free) will screech anyway, no matter who you appoint. But, and this is the point, you can bring heavier artillery to bear with public opinion and perception. Right now, you're getting clobbered on perception.
It also seems to me that if the democrats learned the wrong lessons about religion in the 2004 campaign, so did conservatives. I have no doubt that evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, et. al. exist in legions and they vote. I also have no doubt that they also overwhelmingly vote republican. However, it seems that some republicans (especially De Lay and Frist) have embraced that constituencies platform to the detriment of the rest of us. Yes, we do want a more just, more civilized society. Yes, we belive in God (although in varying degrees...I went to Catholic school all my life, remember?), and keep the moral code outlined in the Commandments. But whether or not those Commandments hang in a public place is a minor issue when a tin pot Korean dictator and a Persian Daffy Duck-like character with a too-tight turban threaten to turn my home into a smoking pile of self-lighting rubble.
I guess what I'm saying here is, basically, pick your fights. Right now we're doing a very bad job of it.
Social Security reform could use a boost. We have an energy plan that requires action. We've practically defanged the trial attorneys, now let's find another obstacle to progress, like the Treehuggers and EcoTerrorists (re: Sierra Club and PETA). How about getting back to cutting that budget instead of expending energy on Senate Rules changes? How about sending the Estate Tax back to the infernal abyss it crept from permanently?
There are other things you could be doing. Perhaps if you did them, when the midterm elections come in 2006 you'd have those 60 senators you need and there wouldn't be an argument over filibusters or a few judges.
National ID Cards...
There's been quite a lot of talk recently about tightening up the requirements for many forms of identification in this country, in particular, driver's licenses. The reasons for tougher requirements are easy enough to list; identity theft is becoming a major problem in this cyber age, in this day and age, the 9/11 hijackers had 64 drivers licenses between them, illegal aliens often use various forms of state identification as they keys to the kingdom, to unlock state and federal largesse. Nowadays, tnaks to digital scanning and printing technologies, just laying on the shelf and waiting to be abused, counterfeiting identification documents is a boomng business.
Congress is seriously considering adding federal requirements to the acquisition of what, until now, has been an exclusive preserve of the states: the issuing of driver's licenses.
Now, hold on to your hats, because I'm about to say something you would never, ever expect me to say:
It's about good goddamn time the Fed'ral Gubmint actually got involved in this issue.
Normally, I'm not one for giving Leviathan a license (pardon the pun) to stick his nose any further under my tent flap than necessary. I feel this way about federal intrusion into my life in the same way one would regard a proctoloscope; a very distateful thing, but still one of life's minor tragedies, and very often required for practical reasons.
Now as to whether or not the feds have any standing to do this, I haven't a clue. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but it would seem to me that if the Feds can regulate interstate commerce, and if it can be reasonably assumed that everyone issued a drivers license will eventually hit the interstate system, or drive on a road paid for or maintained by federal funds, then it stands to reason that the feds have the right to attach a new requirement to a license. Makes sense to me, anyways.
There are, of course, who decry such a thing as yet one more example of the creeping tyranny about to overtake the country. These same people also decry the creeping theocracy, the crawling advance of Big Business, the wriggling insinuation of Big Brother and the impending selling out of the country to the Rothchilds. In other words, these folks are usually nuts.
Yes, I'm willing to admit that if you gave people with the wrong intentions any information that could be used against you in any way, then we do have a serious problem. If and when that ever happens, and the government now has a list of "undesirables" they need to eliminate before turning the reigns over to Kofi Annan or Hillary or the Great International Communist Conspiracy, then in hindsight it would have been a bad idea to allow the feds to get into the driver's license game. However, let's first admit that people who take this line of thought to bed with them a) probably do have something to hide to begin with and b) are really telling you what they would do with that information if they had both it and a dose of power behind them. I remind you that to date, not one person has been prosecuted under the Patriot Act. Anyways...
When it comes to the concerns of "privacy advocates" I wonder just what it is they want to keep secret, and how important it is when compared with the problems of security and illegal immigration. Opponents of a national ID system forget that we already have one: the Social Security Number, which follows you from cradle to grave and which invades every aspect of you daily life. Thanks the SSN, the government already knows where you work, probably where you live, how much money you make, how to tax you, how to withhold for your retirement. Business uses the SSN when you apply for a loan, open an account somewhere, apply for a mortgage, when you buy insurance. One day, your SSN number will appear on your tombstone in place of your name. This way, when your banker, ISP, gas company representative, insurance agent, etc, etc, happen to be passing through the cemetary, they can comment to the other mourners just what a terrific customer you were, even if they didn't know your name. They just recognized the account number.
If it were up to democrats, your SSN would be tattooed on your forearm like a concentration camp inmate. Just to remind you of your place in the coming reign of Hillary, the Queen of Darkness, and the order of your execution.
Some of us have passports, so the government knows where you're going, where you've been and when. Having travelled through Europe extensively, I can tell you that everytime I've ever checked into a hotel, I'm immediately asked for my passport, the information on it taken down, and my presance recorded and reported to the local authorities. Now even foreigners know where I'm at and when I come and go.
And, of course, when the government is not busy hoarding our private info, and business is not busy using it for mailing lists and cross-selling opportunities, we're doing our level best to give it away anyhow.I wonder how many of you get spam, and then wonder how you got on the mailing list in the first place? Well, if your ISP isn't selling you screenname, then you're leaving electronic fingerprints behind everytime you log into the Lillian Vernon website. Or when you read the NY Times online. Or even when you buy those concert or airline tickets online. The electronic identification revolution is almost 30 years old now, and now that all of this data has been collected, at great expense, don't expect someone to just throw it away for the sake of your privacy. Maybe you should think twice about handing your credit cards over to a waiter or a cashier. Perhaps you should stop signing pettitions, cease voting, stop registering for classes at the local university.
The fact is that, right now, complete strangers already know you better than you know yourself. They know your habits, likes and dislikes, income, spending habits, musical tastes, TV viewing habits, what medications you take. Don't get mad --- you gave most of that info away by taking surveys, answering questions from telemarketers, filling in rebate coupons, taking the Pepsi Challenge. When people can be so passionately protective of their privacy when it comes to the government and then be stupid enough to voluntarily offer information thay wouldn't give to their parish priest, they have no right to complain about creeping tyranny. Creeping Marketing is every bit as pernicious.
So, at this point, when so much data is available on everyone (and much of it on the open market), and the genie canot be put back in the bottle, what's the opposition to a national ID card or a federal identity requirement for a driver's license? I mean, at least this surrender of our personal information would serve some purpose, right?
That purpose is, of course, making sure you are who you say you are. Especially if you're a young, Middle-eastern or Mexican-looking person who fits the appropriate profile: bomb-throwing religious nutcase, or alternately, blood-sucking leach.
The Feds say they want to do this to increase security and to preven these documents from falling into the hands of those who mean us harm, and quite frankly, I'm sure they mean it. Quite frankly, I'm also pretty positive that once the feds get through figuring out what they want to do (that's after the 62 lawsuits by the ACLU, the assinine descisions from at least 12 state courts, two Supreme Court Cases and the de rigeur demostrations, the thing will be so incredibly screwe up that it will a) have to be done all over again or b) fufill the worst predictions of the conspiracy nuts.
There's been quite a lot of talk recently about tightening up the requirements for many forms of identification in this country, in particular, driver's licenses. The reasons for tougher requirements are easy enough to list; identity theft is becoming a major problem in this cyber age, in this day and age, the 9/11 hijackers had 64 drivers licenses between them, illegal aliens often use various forms of state identification as they keys to the kingdom, to unlock state and federal largesse. Nowadays, tnaks to digital scanning and printing technologies, just laying on the shelf and waiting to be abused, counterfeiting identification documents is a boomng business.
Congress is seriously considering adding federal requirements to the acquisition of what, until now, has been an exclusive preserve of the states: the issuing of driver's licenses.
Now, hold on to your hats, because I'm about to say something you would never, ever expect me to say:
It's about good goddamn time the Fed'ral Gubmint actually got involved in this issue.
Normally, I'm not one for giving Leviathan a license (pardon the pun) to stick his nose any further under my tent flap than necessary. I feel this way about federal intrusion into my life in the same way one would regard a proctoloscope; a very distateful thing, but still one of life's minor tragedies, and very often required for practical reasons.
Now as to whether or not the feds have any standing to do this, I haven't a clue. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but it would seem to me that if the Feds can regulate interstate commerce, and if it can be reasonably assumed that everyone issued a drivers license will eventually hit the interstate system, or drive on a road paid for or maintained by federal funds, then it stands to reason that the feds have the right to attach a new requirement to a license. Makes sense to me, anyways.
There are, of course, who decry such a thing as yet one more example of the creeping tyranny about to overtake the country. These same people also decry the creeping theocracy, the crawling advance of Big Business, the wriggling insinuation of Big Brother and the impending selling out of the country to the Rothchilds. In other words, these folks are usually nuts.
Yes, I'm willing to admit that if you gave people with the wrong intentions any information that could be used against you in any way, then we do have a serious problem. If and when that ever happens, and the government now has a list of "undesirables" they need to eliminate before turning the reigns over to Kofi Annan or Hillary or the Great International Communist Conspiracy, then in hindsight it would have been a bad idea to allow the feds to get into the driver's license game. However, let's first admit that people who take this line of thought to bed with them a) probably do have something to hide to begin with and b) are really telling you what they would do with that information if they had both it and a dose of power behind them. I remind you that to date, not one person has been prosecuted under the Patriot Act. Anyways...
When it comes to the concerns of "privacy advocates" I wonder just what it is they want to keep secret, and how important it is when compared with the problems of security and illegal immigration. Opponents of a national ID system forget that we already have one: the Social Security Number, which follows you from cradle to grave and which invades every aspect of you daily life. Thanks the SSN, the government already knows where you work, probably where you live, how much money you make, how to tax you, how to withhold for your retirement. Business uses the SSN when you apply for a loan, open an account somewhere, apply for a mortgage, when you buy insurance. One day, your SSN number will appear on your tombstone in place of your name. This way, when your banker, ISP, gas company representative, insurance agent, etc, etc, happen to be passing through the cemetary, they can comment to the other mourners just what a terrific customer you were, even if they didn't know your name. They just recognized the account number.
If it were up to democrats, your SSN would be tattooed on your forearm like a concentration camp inmate. Just to remind you of your place in the coming reign of Hillary, the Queen of Darkness, and the order of your execution.
Some of us have passports, so the government knows where you're going, where you've been and when. Having travelled through Europe extensively, I can tell you that everytime I've ever checked into a hotel, I'm immediately asked for my passport, the information on it taken down, and my presance recorded and reported to the local authorities. Now even foreigners know where I'm at and when I come and go.
And, of course, when the government is not busy hoarding our private info, and business is not busy using it for mailing lists and cross-selling opportunities, we're doing our level best to give it away anyhow.I wonder how many of you get spam, and then wonder how you got on the mailing list in the first place? Well, if your ISP isn't selling you screenname, then you're leaving electronic fingerprints behind everytime you log into the Lillian Vernon website. Or when you read the NY Times online. Or even when you buy those concert or airline tickets online. The electronic identification revolution is almost 30 years old now, and now that all of this data has been collected, at great expense, don't expect someone to just throw it away for the sake of your privacy. Maybe you should think twice about handing your credit cards over to a waiter or a cashier. Perhaps you should stop signing pettitions, cease voting, stop registering for classes at the local university.
The fact is that, right now, complete strangers already know you better than you know yourself. They know your habits, likes and dislikes, income, spending habits, musical tastes, TV viewing habits, what medications you take. Don't get mad --- you gave most of that info away by taking surveys, answering questions from telemarketers, filling in rebate coupons, taking the Pepsi Challenge. When people can be so passionately protective of their privacy when it comes to the government and then be stupid enough to voluntarily offer information thay wouldn't give to their parish priest, they have no right to complain about creeping tyranny. Creeping Marketing is every bit as pernicious.
So, at this point, when so much data is available on everyone (and much of it on the open market), and the genie canot be put back in the bottle, what's the opposition to a national ID card or a federal identity requirement for a driver's license? I mean, at least this surrender of our personal information would serve some purpose, right?
That purpose is, of course, making sure you are who you say you are. Especially if you're a young, Middle-eastern or Mexican-looking person who fits the appropriate profile: bomb-throwing religious nutcase, or alternately, blood-sucking leach.
The Feds say they want to do this to increase security and to preven these documents from falling into the hands of those who mean us harm, and quite frankly, I'm sure they mean it. Quite frankly, I'm also pretty positive that once the feds get through figuring out what they want to do (that's after the 62 lawsuits by the ACLU, the assinine descisions from at least 12 state courts, two Supreme Court Cases and the de rigeur demostrations, the thing will be so incredibly screwe up that it will a) have to be done all over again or b) fufill the worst predictions of the conspiracy nuts.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Git On With Yer Bad Selves... Proving once again that we all just simply take up space on this planet, blowing hot air from our rectal cavities, I submit a collection of links to various news stories, with typically witty repartee attached. For your reading pleasure:
This little blurb about Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's Inauguration speech:
Yes, God forbid that the Pope fail to mention Muslims in a speech to Catholics. The angst over the mention of Jews in the speech once again proves what an inferiority complex Muslims still have vis-a-vis Jews. In fact, a careful examination of Islam would lead one to believe that it is basically just Judaism for the disaffected, no matter how much the Imams might protest to the contrary.
After all, don't Muslims consider themselves descended from Abraham too? Did Muslims not wholly subsume the kosher laws into their system? Did Muslims not build their holy sites in some of the same places the Jews built theirs? Don't Muslims consider themselves the chosen people as well? Get over it, Muhammed, you're Jews in everything but name but are in denial. I sugest therapy and massive doses of prozac.
Also in the "I need serious mental help" department, I give you this:
John Kerry proves that he still lives in an alternate universe because a) he believes he'll get another shot at the brass ring and b) he's still fixated on Ohio. Then again, democrats are still fixated on Florida. And Mc Carthyism. And on the vast right-wing conspiracy. And the threat of conservative theocracy doing to America what it did to Iran.
Two things to bear in mind: a) the democratic primaries in 2007-8 will be a repeat of 2004 (i.e. the candidates will fall all over themsleves to "reasssure" voters that they are not George Bush, even though Bush won't be running) and b) all the contenders will be tripping over the contradiction that while they believe in a secular vision of the United States, they're all good bible thumpers, too. These people keep focusing on minutiae and missing the big picture. you didn't lose because of your lack of religion, nor did you lose because the democratic process failed in Florida and Ohio. You lost because your platform is dated, your ideology is stale and because you can't advance a candidate that is electable.
I look forward to seeing President Rice inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.
From the "It must be a conspiracy" department, I submit this:
Yes Virginia, there is a massive conspiracy to put God back into government! I mean, just the reference to Jonestown proves it! This line of resoning reminds me of those scenes from the Silence of the Lambs movies where Hannibal Lecter can ask a series of seemingly random questions and pontificate on a variety of subjects before he can answer the question: what would this killer have for lunch?
Yes there are religious fanatics in the world. Just ask Mohammed Atta or David Koresh. And certainly, every so often the religious becomes the political, which is pretty much the history of Christianity in it's entirety. But when you scream about "extremism" and the people you (carefully) select to prove it are batier than Patrick Leahy (Communist - Vermont), you're not making your point. Then again, pardon the pun, the people who engage in this kind of nosense are preaching to the chior.
And finally, in the "Salem witch hunts did not end in the 1700's" category:
Wow, imagine people actually having the gall to insist that "unpopular" and "out of the mainstream" views have a fair hearing at a university, of all places, should happen in our day and age. It's amazing how people who scream like stuck pigs when their radical, narrowly-held views are questioned in academia and demand equal (or rather special) protection, get even louder when it's speech they don't agree with. Perhaps now that the shoe is on the other foot, and the country as a whole is becoming more conservative (a trend of the last 40 years, btw) we might actually have something approaching fair debate on a campus somewhere. That thought scares the professoriate more than anything else, people.
After all, where can an "intellectual" get paid to churn out nonsense and invent areas of educational endeavor such as gender studies, ghetto culture, the politics of the genitals, porn for extra credit, naked archeology and such and not answer to the public, the students, or the concerned citizenry? Could it be that perhaps these tiny minds are just frightened enough that their world, which revolves more around their feelings and lunatic ideas rather than the exchange of information, are afraid that someone might actually shine a light into their actvities? Could it be [ossible that he consumers of what passes for higher education might actually want to know what they're paying for? One shudders to think what might happen if people were to actually question why they're paying 40K a year for Junior and Sally to get "edumacated" and then wonder why they aren't...
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