Atheist Meditations

Welcome to the new machine

2008-02-23T17:19:00.002-06:00

yO, we all know that nobody be hitt'n Atheist Meds anymore. . .

Check out Reasonable Pagan .com.

Twas the Night Before Chrismas Eve. . .

2007-12-23T20:21:00.000-06:00

Twas the Night Before Christmas Eve,
And I'm kinda bored.

With fifty-one and a half hours to go,
before into my belly several beers get poured.

Eh.

Guess I'm just not in a blogging mood.

December has seemed to race by. Yesterday, when Cin and I were cleaning up before having some family over today I found the little note I had sketched out with the title, 'Kitchen by Christmas.' I had done a little drawing of how I envisioned the kitchen might look after some renovation, and then had some bullet points about work to be done. I think the whole Idea came to me one morning as I was waiting for the coffee-maker.

Nice to find an old Idea-note and have seen it through to fruition.

In the last month and some change we have, repaired and painted all the walls (Northern Star, a nice Sherwin Williams color, a stately blueish-gray), painted the ceiling, replaced all the switchplates with groovy brushed nickel ones; puttied, caulked, primed and painted all the trim and baseboards ( with two coats of sexy oil-based white paint ) and made a few cosmetic alterations to the kitchen cabinets. That was step one. Next I divided the cabinets into four quadrants, prepping, priming, and laboriously applying two coats of that same said oil paint to each of them. Completely taking over the kitchen for a shift and then returning everything back to my 35 gallon tupperware storage bin where the materials were safe from marauding kittens.

Many nights in the last few weeks I came home a bit early from work to dive right into painting cabinets again. I can't believe I'm done and I can count the imperfections on one hand. The cabinets were old and mis-matched to begin with, if we were the kind of folks that just throw money at problems, I'm sure the entire cabinetry would have been gutted, for about $500.00 in materials and 80 - 100 hours of labor, we've come a long ways.

Hang some shelves, replace the hood fan over the stove, re-organize and clean like fiends. Feels good to be done.

Still got a window and a back door to paint ( I convinced Cin that it's too cold for the paint to cure ), and we measured for some new counter-tops this afternoon. No rest for the wicked, but I will be taking a few weeks off.

The old wrist has been acting up again, too much painting. . . Trying to lay off the typing till the carpel tunnel symptoms recede. Suppose I could mention that at my physical next month (having good health insurance is a trip), but I don't like doctors. That's a hold-over from my youthful rebellion, if I want to live my dream of staying gorgeous into my fifties I'll have to get past that.

Fifty-one hours to go before I shatter these contemptible chains of sobriety.

Day 60

2007-12-16T21:10:00.001-06:00

Lo and behold, today is day 60 in my ten weeks of damned sobriety. That means I am at 85.7%, with ( in 2 hours 44 minutes ) only nine more days to go before I'm back on the sauce. That's only six work shifts, and only one more dry weekend. Yeee Haw!

To be frank, it has been a swell experience that has taught me quite a bit about myself. I'm planning on incorporating the system into my lifestyle as a fundamental part of my yearly cycle. A few ten week excursions in a 52 week year, that's got to add to the life expectancy of the liver. It is not easy, but it is not impossible either.

It messes up the destructive routines as well. Gets you to thinking about stuff. Like, some of the factors I got into about 'vangs and using Jesus as a drug in my previous post. Listening to Rhapsody 'Public Enemy' Channel - quality old school stuff by rhyme swingers who use their mikes to advance a position of intellectual understanding - this is all I think of when I think of Hip Hop. Anyways, I'm digging to The Disposal Heros of Hiphoprisy's 'T.V. . . .

On television, the drug of the nation,
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation . . .

A few month back I had an interesting exchange of words with a fellow at work. He asked me what was up, and I replied, 'eh, it's after lunch, so I'm really just thinking about getting home so I can get drunk.' His response: 'good to know I'm not the only one who's feeling that way around here on a daily basis.'

Booze, cigs, television, evangelical 'worship'; ain't it all just an altered state? What percentage of our fellow sentient beings are really just craving an altered state - get through this so we can hurry up and get back to our high?

Like I say, it's got me thinking.

Highway of Holiness?

2007-12-05T17:32:00.001-06:00

I heard just a few lines about this on the local radio's news round-up, and I had one of those, 'What the fuck?!?' moments. I found the article in a Twin Cities ezine, about how evags are embracing I-35 as a 'Highway of Holiness.' It seems like a truly harmless chuckle, but then you watch the video from Pat 'liberals petitioned Satan for 9/11' Robertson's 'news' program and it ain't so funny anymore.

More video of blank-eyed young people enthusiastically spewing nonsense about 'Jesus moving in their hearts' and 'being called to public displays of God's power.' Mobs of children and young adults of slightly below average intelligence who have been given permission to act outrageous in public. Mass hysteria with a bible in one hand. This ain't Jesus' ministry they be following; it's the Bacchae.

If only I could I'd grab one of those poor,hapless, misguided kids and smack them around a bit: "When did you people decide that Jesus was a narcotic? When did being a follower of Jesus mean jumping around and tweaking your fucking adrenal gland?!? I've read the New Testament and I don't remember too many scenes with the apostles, the guys who actually hanging around with Jesus Christ, hopping around and whooping it up on the His good shit."

"What are you doing when you confront a stranger and try to convince him/her (all too often a child) that they need to pray right fucking now to feel the power of God? Your 'spiritual experience' has been reduced to feeling good. You people have devolved your god into nothing more stimulating than a shot of liquid viagra. Your behavior is fundamentally revolting."

"You are not feeling anything even remotely fucking associated with the spiritual or the divine. What you are doing is making an ass of yourself in public, and then pretending that the shame and humiliation you feel when strangers are taken aback by your ridiculous behavior is actually Jesus taking over your body. You are being overwhelmed by something, dumbass, it's called the fight or flight response - a legacy from the not to distant past when our ancestors were both predator and prey."

"All the bullshit surrounding 'Revivals' and being 'Born Again' is just pricks who have figured out how to use social stimuli to invoke an adrenal response. You poor fucks have conditioned yourselves to believe that the all the endorphins and adrenaline surging in your bloodstream somehow proves 'God loves you.' All it really proves is that you are a product of evolution."

"Why don't you shut the fuck up and try a little experiment. Go try bungee jumping. Better yet, spend the day before searching the internet for videos of people dying during bungee jumping mishaps and then bring your mother along on the day of to constantly tell you that she don't think it's such a good Idea. If you survive, when you're in the middle of boing, boing, boing, really ask yourself if that experience is any different from the first day you were 'saved.'

"It is time to stop acting like a child. If you want to remain a follower of Jesus' teachings - and hey, for the most part they're pretty good stuff - you have to do so like an adult."

If only I could reach more of those poor kids. Damn I feel sorry for them as fellow sentient beings. I also dread the society we'll create when we normalize that sort of asinine, self-indulgent, masturbatory behavior.

Prometheus Feels His Liver Consumed by Vultures

2007-11-27T07:50:00.000-06:00

By now everybody knows, Torii Hunter has become a member of the Angels. Good for them, they now have more talent in their outfield than many teams (perhaps even our beloved Twins) have in their whole damn roster.

I'm sure many a Minnesotan passed a sneering out-of-town relative over the holiday weekend on the way to the beer fridge, repeating to him or herself the mantra of Twins Baseball. 'I shall not fear, fear is the team-spirit killer. I shall face the fear of losing our best players to ridiculously better funded organizations and let it pass through me. When it is gone only our scrappy, small market club with a big heart and a strong history of Central Division dominance will remain. . . I shall not fear . . . '

Yet now I read this at the Official Site of the Minnesota Twins: Twins and Yankees discuss Santana. The shock of being informed you have testicular cancer must pale in comparison to the spiritually devastating news that the Minnesota's shining star - our magnificent boon from years of solid Minnesota-Venezuela relations - may leave us.

I suppose, I've been reading that Santana after this next bidding war is anticipated to become the highest paid pitcher in baseball, so obviously that means he won't be playing for Minnesota anymore.

Damn the New York Yankees, that region's powerhouse economy and that team's superior negotiations over broadcast rights!

Ahw geez. . . I think I might need to take a sick day today. I'm too depressed to work.

Atheism as a Moral Imperative

2007-11-25T16:23:00.001-06:00

Earlier this week I was roped into helping put up Christmas decorations. For the most part, I just hate putting up decorations in general - I'm not that kind of guy - but religious decorations celebrating the nativity really bug me. I got a bit irritated, maybe I was over caffeinated that morning; whatever. I excused myself for a few minutes, wrote down some angry notes, and then returned to participate with a level of enthusiasm that might have approximated good cheer.

My scribbled note:

It is the moral duty of every young man (and any young women who want to be more than property, but those who don't/can't aren't my concern, just as I don't feel any ethical responsibility for domesticated cows that cannot survive in the wild ) to reject religion in general and their own sect/branch in particular ahead of any other exercise in consciousness. This task must be undertaken before setting out to make one's fortune in the world, and before devoting oneself to the search for a truly meaningful romantic partnership. Failure to do so is a moral failing. One fails themselves, their society, their generation and the future . . .

Indeed, I channel the demon of hyperbole exceptionally well.

Skipping over the rough parenthetical outline of why I do not crusade for Feminism (not my job), I'd like to elaborate on this moral calling. Generation Y, Generation Next, Generation Me - whatever someone wants to call these young kids - they have a unique set of opportunities that sets them apart from any of the groups of young men who have come before them. There is also a unique responsibility, and Atheism is one name for that responsibility.

I'd like to make some grandiose statements here about societies and 'moments in time when young people had to make a choice.' That same demon of hyperbole wants we to weave evocative statements about abolitionists and slave owners, those who wanted to appease fascism and those who wanted to fight it; statements about critical mass and when it was necessary to demand 'no taxation without representation.' I can't do that with Atheism.

Atheism is just obvious.

It is simply a choice between maturity and retardation. In order to be true to anything, one must first be true to themselves. Every young man has to learn to stand up for himself, and in our current time Atheism is how you stand up for your own ability to think.

Let me be clear, this imperative rests upon your shoulders, not that of your parents or grandparents. They grew up in a different world. Even when your parents graduated from high school the exchange of Ideas was nothing like it is today. There was no internet, even ocean of books and periodicals has much less circulation and depth. Sure some pursued an education and the knowledge that naturally leads to Atheism, but to not do so is a different species of failure from the one that lurks over you.

There is a direct correlation between the number of hours of leisure time per day that your generation enjoys and the expectations of learning that are thrust upon you. With the internet you can access works of academia and the diaries of total strangers with equal ease. . .

I accuse anyone who grew to adulthood in the age of the internet and has not embraced Atheism of being a failure. A moral failure and someone who will be a dupe and a tool every day they exist upon this planet.

Just as the young person who witnesses violence in the home, or whose unemployed father drinks and smokes the family into poverty may be unfortunately predestined to be a economic or relationship failure, someone whose parents' utilize the same tactics of brainwashing Chairman Mao used might never escape spiritual failure. Since our society seems to have ceased trying to show empathy for the former, I'm done going out on a limb to the latter.

UFC 78: Support the Draw

2007-11-18T08:46:00.000-06:00

I'm mainly classifying this as moderate, cuz the UFC is filled with individuals who cuss with style. Even the President, Dana White, can often be overheard telling guys that they fought, 'a fucking great fight.' Clearly, the men who fight in the octagon are not using these words because they want to look tough.

My feelings on '78 were mixed. I was impressed by the caliber of fighters, but irritated by the crowd, some of the commentary, and the judgments.

Negatives first. Perhaps it is just the once notorious environment of 'Minnesota Nice' which I hail from, but I have certain expectation of my fellow human beings even when they are gathered into a huge arena to watch bloodsport. Similar to the revulsion I feel when some dumbass throws the visiting team's homerun ball back onto the field - cuz that's gonna show 'em - some of the crowd's antics at '78 were just fucking childish.

In particular, when Evans and Bisping were going at it, and the crowd started to chant 'USA!, USA!' What the fuck? That just ruined all the energy for me. Did we just win World War II? Did I accidentally flip channels to a Rockey sequel where Sly Stallone is making a comeback against a cartoonish Russian superman? Who let the spoiled college republican crowd in, to get fucking stupid drunk and shout meaningless slogans?

I'd say that the majority of the booing resulted in a crowd that simply did not have the sophistication to understand what was going on in the ring. Part of that lies in the fact, as I see it, that UFC is a pay-per-view sport over a live spectator event. Boxing is boxing cuz they have purposefully simplified it so that even some drunk fucker one hundred feet away can more or less grasp who's winning, who's losing. (More on this vein another time.) Even someone with a wrestling/jujitsu background can't make out too much of what's going on from the twelfth row. Submissions are the highlight of unarmed combat. A crowd that lacks the savvy to appreciate all the aspects of MMA should stick to boxing. Personally, I'm a big believer in the notion that the ignorant should shut the fuck up most of the time.

That brings us to Joe Rogan's commentary. I've learned a shitload about the modern ground game from listening to Joe. He's got good insight and has been making an effort for years to educate the audience on the science of having a solid guard. Even someone like myself with a judo background was well served my his commentary (grappling without a judogi to grab is a different sport, and even the techniques that remain the same are known to UFC fans by terms other than the Japanese I learned.)

I thought Joe Rogan was a bit off in his commentary on the Karo Parisyan v. Ryo Chonan fight. He seemed so eager to display his understanding of the upper body lock-ups Parisyan would use to set up a major outside or inside hip throw ( ko uchi gari) that I thought he missed the point. Ryo Chonan is Japanese and has obviously encountered the sort of 'gentle way' techniques in the past, as well as specifically trained to meet Parisyan's challenge. In my opinion Parisyan used a bit of the rope-a-dope strategy, allowing Chonan to devote a fair amount of his mental game to preventing a judo throw while he instead came at him with some 'back to basics' straightforward wrestling take-downs. I'd argue that a solid wrestling take-down defense and a strong defense against judo throws might even be mutually exclusive. Karo Parisyan will remain a fighter I'll always shell out the ching to watch mix up these forms.

Also, I would greatly prefer throws like we saw towards the end of that fight referred to as 'leg sweeps' than 'trips.' 'Trip' just sounds kinda vulgar. The key to that sort of throw is perfect timing. You sweep his foot out at the exactly a nanosecond before he shifts the majority of his weight to that leg. Too early, he just keeps his weight shifted on his other leg. Too late, and no amount of hacking at that leg will pry it loose. Whatever.

My final opinion here will combine my dislike of the scoring with my respect for the fighters. The various training schools successful programs, combined with the level of competition we're seeing (and I suppose, with Xyience nutritional suppliments) has resulted in a cadre of top tier fighters who are the all-around real deal.

Not just competent, but exceptional in all areas of MMA - aside from Houston Alexander's apparent gaps on the ground. Gone are the good 'ole days of a flashy kickboxer thrown into a ring with a college wrestler whose been in a bar room brawl or two. This ain't some '80s movie of one marital art style versus another anymore; those lopsided fights are still fun to watch but won't be headliners on pay-per-view. Under Dana White's stewardship we've seen an interesting combination of skills evolve to dominate. No fighter makes it very far anymore who does not master all of them.

It's much more than just the skills, however. The physical conditioning of these guys puts us all to shame. I remember just a few years ago seeing fighters, particularly the heavyweights, who wold totally hit the fucking wall after two rounds. Two big guys swaying back and forth, hands at their sides, mouths open and chests heaving. Now there was a time to fucking boo a boring fight. Fatigue can still play a role. It can slow down quick hands, it can cause that second hesitation when one feels an armbar clinching up. Just about all of the fighters we saw last night train full time. Another of the major factors that leads to lopsided ass whoop'ens simply no longer exists at this level of fighters.

That brings us to what the commentators call a 'strong chin.' I don't know if that's a combination of training and experience or just a benefit of one's genetic lineage. Some of these fuckers just seem to be able to absorb the kind of punishment that beats all. A few of the fights we saw last night featured men of phenomenal fortitude. Ryo Chonan, for example, how many elbows did he absorb? As the UFC becomes the elite MMA organization in the world, we are going to see less and less fighters who can get knocked out cold. True, no human being is invincible (although a few of those Russians over at PRIDE seem to be), but match ups where one fighter has a combination of striking harder, faster, and more true that results in a bloody knock out are going to be on the decline.

From what I understand of the modern UFC, much of the rules regarding the duration of competition is decided more for the safety of the athletes and to just slip under the legal bar for licensing in most states. I've also got too much respect for the fighters to want to watch the sport devolve into something where the men spend their forties on in a wheelchair addicted to vicadin (that's the NFL.)

So what is wrong with a draw?

The Bisping Evans contest is the perfect example. From what I saw, neither man inflicted any really significant damage on the other. Evans overcame Bisping's takedown defense with effort, but was not able to capitalize on that advantage. The UFC is not competitive Judo, contestants are not scored in real time based on the observable beauty of their throws. A good takedown can be like pulling a gun, if you don't/can't pull the trigger, it don't make much of a fucking difference.

Now takedowns/submission attempts and defenses do take an obvious toll in the realm of conditioning. Trying to prevent someone from throwing you to the ground can use up all the gas in your tank damn fast. Here I would say Bisping appeared to have an advantage by the end of the second round, yet Evans had enough to stay together and hold his defense up throughout the next five minutes. It was just fucking inconclusive.

So now we can argue back and forth about minor details of scoring; should takedowns be worth more than an escape?, do we get like boxing and start calculating the percentage of punches thrown versus landed? Fuck that, I like the Ideal of the octagon with Tina Turner in a ring-mail bra, 'two men enter, one man leaves!'

I'm not saying there is not a place for a decision fight. Sometimes those things are pretty obvious. The title fight of UFC 78 was not. That was a fight that needed another two rounds in order to truly define which of those men was better.

This is a problem that Dana White and the UFC will have to deal with. As the pool of fighters gets bigger, more and more of the guys at the top are going to be solid mixed martial artists with championship skills in all of the areas I've detailed. The UFC is going to see more contests that cannot be conclusively decided in three five minute rounds.

Regardless of what's fair for the fighters, that's more booing crowds and less folks shelling out $39.95 in hard earned money.

Day 29

2007-11-16T07:36:00.000-06:00

Day 29, that's 41% of the way through damnable sobriety.

It still sucks.

The intense migraines have laid off a bit, yet the luster of life still be dull.

Cin's got me on a shitload of herbs and vitamins to assist in the detoxification process. I've got enough B vitamin in my system to turn my pee into the color of anti-freeze. That's novel.

Yesterday way 'National Smoke Out Day' (not that anybody promotes it - fuck if we'd ever use our omnipotent media infrastructure to do anything but sell ED drugs. ) On a day like today I've got absolutely zero patience for anyone who hasn't quit the cancer sticks yet. Toughen up candy-asses! If I can have my own personal weakness kick me in the nuts (and my liver's nuts) over and over again for two months and change, you can go twenty-four hours without nicotine.

People assure me there is some element of spiritual growth in denying oneself pleasures.

Maybe I'll get lucky and a truck will back over me on my way to work. With my fucking luck, I'll be on my way to Boozemart on December 28th when some vacuum tube at NORAD burns out and our entire nuclear arsenal goes off.

Yeah, Alanis, isn't that ironic?

Conspiracies, Conundrums, and Callings

2007-11-12T18:58:00.000-06:00

'Two men think they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong. . ."
- Dire Straits, Industrial Disease

Thus the simplest of wisdom is preserved for the next generation in a catchy tune. Of course, it just might be possible that neither of them are the Second Coming incarnate, but that's a blog of another color.

I'm still simmering with an ice cold fire in regards to that one third of the American population who believes that the United States Government's involvement in 9/11 far exceeds mere incompetence. Those special souls who willingly participate in the sort of mental masturbation that is found in the 'documentary' Loose Change.

This film's third and 'final cut' (I sure hope they apologize to Roger Waters) was released on Sunday - with a premier right here in our sister city of Minneapolis. I was tempted to go and see it myself, and then write a review. I couldn't get over the notion that paying money was sort of like giving L. Ron Hubbard a few grand to discover first hand that his program is a load of poor fiction. Fortunately, U-tube has plenty of clips from the previous release. I devoted most of my Sunday morning to these viewings ( We Atheists are always finding productive things to do with that extra morning we get every week.) I was not converted.

Let me say to anyone who has taken this burgeoning mythology seriously: Do not feel ashamed. These things can be seductive, and those of us who are a bit more creative, a bit more worldly, a bit more willing to zig where others zag . . . this conspiracy is like the huge shot-glass of vodka that the little voice in your head tells you not to hit but you want to do it anyway. Bush is an absolutely terrible President and human being, and one could easily imagine him guilty of all sorts of vile acts. Slamming the Loose Change shooter is like going to see a Saw sequel, it is a walk on the dark side, and as Camus said, 'it is essential to know the night.'

Yet now we must travel back.

Towards the end of Loose Change, while discussing the validity of cell phone use on those doomed flights, the narrator makes a relatively unequivocal statement: "The cell phone calls were faked, no 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts'." Yet within barely five minutes, the narrator summarizes the film's arguments while the camera rolls through a hazy scene of debris and the strong, angular shapes of first-responders in uniform. After a clumsy attempt at rhetoric, where the government's reports are the true conspiracy theory, he encourages his viewers to stand up to their tyrannical government with the same heroism of Todd Beamer when he shouted 'Let's Roll!'

Two men think they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong.

Either the phone calls were faked as part of a CIA plot to create a story regarding what happened on 9/11 - to incriminate the hapless catspaws on Al-Queida - or, Todd Beamer was a hero who helped lead a tragically noble charge to reclaim that plane from murderous fanatics. One or the other. You can't disparage the man and everyone else on that plane on one hand, and use him as an emotional icon with the other. Unfortunately, such glaring lapses are just one example of the contempt this film holds for the thinking power of its viewers.

Perhaps the filmmakers are true believers who just happen to make sloppy arguments. More likely they are shameless exploiters to National Tragedy seeking profit and attention. Either way, I will not tolerate this asinine conspiracy theory anywhere near the Ideals of the Left that I still hold dear.

I know myself well enough by 32 to know that I'm a hopeless Idealist. These days I'm inclined to believe that a condition within my brain causes me to obsess over morality and the best life. I refuse to give up on the notion that we can, by making choices about society based on pragmatism and open discussion, create a system that strives to maximize the number of winners and minimize the losers. The exact opposite of the model which now prevails, where a handful at the top profit immensely off the maximum number of losers in the economy.

This fight is not over. Not the fight to save souls, to allow human beings to at least try to grapple with the awesomeness of consciousness without some religious prick retarding their understanding. Not the fight to have some say in the shape of this world and this economy, to fight for the liberties and opportunities that still are at the heart of Liberalism. And certainly not the fight to keep these defeatist, conspiracy-nuts from soiling both the name and the direction of Modern Left.

I expect I'll be getting yelled at a lot and getting called a fair number of impolite names in the next few months. That's o.k., I'm an Atheist. I can take it.

Epistemology 9-11

2007-11-07T22:01:00.000-06:00

This is a blog I don't want to write, but feel I have to.

e·pis·te·mol·o·gy [i-pis-tuh-mol-uh-jee] –noun a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.
(Dictionary.com)

Last weekend, Cindy convinced my occasionally anti-social ass out of the house to meet up with a local group of progressive democrats for coffee. This would be the third political sort of group that we've tried to interact with, it can be cumbersome compared to drinking beer at 11 Am and starting a game of Civilization 4; it must be done. It was a small turnout, and my intention is not to paint a picture of the meeting at all. I do believe, however, that my uncanny levels of observation did detect a slight hint of something that might be more than just a curiosity with some of the more radical of progressives. There was an undertow of 9-11 conspiracy. To the point where President Clinton at a recent fund raiser here was confronted by a group of 'radicals' who shouted at him, '9-11 was an inside job!'

First, let me insert again into this web log a serious caveat regarding the discussion of 9-11. The event was a serious tragedy and dramatically affected the lives of over eight million New Yorkers, along with millions of other human beings associated with those doomed flights, the pentagon, and the family / friends of America's lost. I, living in the Mid-West, was considerably isolated from the true terror of that experience as well as the intense pain of personal loss. Many who are invested in this debate have grieving loved ones. My intention is to discuss the matter with adequate abstraction to avoid insulting anyone.

Just as I can look my grieving aunt straight in the eye at the funeral and say, 'you know it, he's in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ right now.' There is a little fucking thing called tact, and I try hard to have it. Blogs, unfortunately, are exceptionally poor transmitters of this fine virtue.

Well, lets have a go at it then.

Within our modern world we must grapple with the double edged sword of our media. While more information than ever before now moves around our society in packets ranging from gossip to Wikipedia, groups also have the capacity to close their own systems, thus recycling their own Ideas and flying under the radar of the rest of us. A surprising number gather their RV's in Roswell and listen to speakers discuss the government's complicity in hiding the 'truth' about UFOs from the population. A great number are not there to be amused, they make the pilgrimage because they are true believers. Likewise, on the West Coast, a frightening book has become the nucleus of a 'masculine christianity', Eastern European, militantly anti-gay movement. Scott Lively's The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, fabricates a history where Hitler and his ruling cabal were all gay, and it was out of that gayness that all their faults and crimes sprung. (SPLCenter.org)

Obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can all rattle off a half dozen such groups and movements of various degrees: theorists advocating an alien/Atlantis connection, Scientologists, believers in 'faith healers', Bigfoot 'researchers', Holocaust deniers, and the movement for 'Intelligent' Design.

My point is that everybody loves a mystery, and some part of the human brain digs engaging the 'what if' regions of mental experience. Yet the world has plenty of L. Ron Hubbard's (whom I'll always fondly remember by his nom de plume: Winchester Remington Colt), we must be careful. Our epistemology must have a solid foundation.

Some folks trust Fox News to report so that they can decide. Others rely on the natural mellowing agents within NPR. Some trust preachers, some trust professors, some gangstas who 'keep it real.' How can we know anything?

Carl Sagan tried to equip society with the tools in a chapter called 'The Baloney Detection Kit.' I skipped it, my penchant for vulgarity thought that was the dumbest fucking title ever.

Personally, I think the most rudimentary skill with which to dig the foundations of epistemology is good old anger. Channel some high quality righteous anger. Close your eyes and remember George W. Bush and the Republicans during the 2000 election cycle, when every damn sentence had the word 'accountability' injected into it like 9-11 gets injected now. Eight years of liberal largess had resulted in all sorts of over-expenditures and corrupt failures. They were going to usher in a new era of 'accountability.' I know, irony can fucking burn.

Still, the concept have value far exceeding a slick, yet meaningless, talking point. When someone lies to my face I, like most adult males, find that to be disrespectful and thus it makes me angry. Perhaps not the ideologically pure anger associated with 'accountability', but I don't like that guy. I used to work with a fella who was completely full of shit. Despite the fact that I knew he grew up in a nearby town he pretended to talk with a Southern accent and claimed to have served two terms in the Vietnam war. He was the same age as me and that war ended when I was three. In my mind he is still an anomaly I just can't figure out.

So we have the growing mythology out there that 9-11 was an 'inside job', that our government went beyond merely being a tad unprepared for an organized terrorist attack, they actually committed it themselves. Government investigations into the matter cannot be trusted as the myth places the investigators in the shadow of guilt already. Plus, most of us know that our government has done some nasty things - and we all hate Bush/Cheney - so why not? Is it not plausible?

Yes and no. Some varieties of the myth, some of the accusations are just fucking ridiculous and I worry about the society that creates individuals who can repeat them without critical analysis. Like claiming the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile or that any of the three buildings at Ground Zero were destroyed by previously planted demolitions, I don't even want to begin to engage such theories. Hundreds of eye witnesses watched the plane hit the Pentagon, crew uniforms from the flight with body parts still inside were recovered. All three buildings that fell that day were occupied with thousands of workers - perhaps someone would have noticed if truck loads of explosives were being strategically placed . . . Other parts of the myth might be plausible, but extremely implausible claims require extremely convincing evidence; at the first wiff of an L. Ron Hubbard or a 30 year old 'Nam vet, we need to get fairly angry and cry bullshit!

Lets just take one example, I believe it is from the 'Loose Change' documentary. In it CNN correspondent Jaimie McIntyre is shown reporting that he just can't find any evidence that a plane crashed around the Pentagon at all. I mean here we have a good looking CNN journalist saying something pretty straight forward, before the government can enforce their cover story onto the media. Yet honest research reveals that his report has been edited to take that statement out of context. Apparently, in the initial chaos some conjectured that Flight 77 may have hit the ground first and then sort of 'skipped' into the Pentagon. Mr. McIntyre was responding to a question of that nature, and his reply in the the negative regarded evidence that the plane struck the ground before it hit the Pentagon. (Skeptic vol12 num4 2006, p37)

Here the editors of 'Loose Change' are indulging in the same shit bird tactics that 'vags use when trying to convince folks that Albert Einstein believed in their god by taking a few quotes out of context and ignoring the great deal he said specifically regarding the matter. Either the editors are just carelessly sloppy, or they are purposefully manipulating their media to try to make a quick buck. Maybe enjoy some notoriety.

Unfortunately, the world is full of shit birds. Many may even feel that the 'ends justify the means', so a few embellishments are o.k. Even on the level below them, many people will want to tell juicy stories about government conspiracies on a similar human impulse to having the best gossip about a co-worker. We can look at multiple examples in our own current society where these same tactics and impulses create very robust mythologies.

I believe those of us on the Left have much more important battle to fight.

I got no time for this shit.

The Moral Quandries of Skepticism

2007-11-05T18:23:00.001-06:00

Over the course of the weekend I've been passing the time as I re-organize my workspace up here by listening to some of the many archived podcasts available at the Skeptic.com website. Under the name Skepticality, co-hosts Derek and Swoopy have interviewed a great many of the big guns in the modern skeptic movement. Sometimes these programs are highly stimulating, other times the full hour of conversation seems to drag just a little.

Last night I finally caught up with one of their most recent interviews, released on October 16.

Daniel Loxton begins the podcast with a reading of his essay, Where Do We Go From Here?, in which he draws from some surprising resources of pop culture (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spin-off Angel) to make an appeal for the morality of skepticism.

I found his presentation to be both informative and inspirational.

Mr. Loxton describes the sense of burnout that plagues many of the old guard in the skeptical movement as well as really fleshing out just what it is that these individuals are actually doing. Following in the footsteps of Harry Houdini himself, guys like James Randi confront mediums and faith healers who are cynically profiting off of the grief and desperation of some of the less sophisticated amongst us. The motivation is not to 'ruin the fun' in someone's happy fantasy that aliens routinely visit the earth, it lies in protecting the public from charlatans who sell worthless (or even dangerous) goods and services without a scrap of oversight from either the government or the media.

His position spurred me to think about a lot of things, and has been my high point in philosophical stimulation in at least the last few weeks.

I recommend the audio media to everyone. A printed version has also been made available in pdf format. Kudos to Skepticality and all the sentient beings who still strive to extract something of the higher potential of human consciousness for our public sphere.

Day 15

2007-11-02T07:09:00.001-05:00

Today be day fifteen of Damnable Sobriety.

This morning I've got some perspective on the experience. Enough to affirm that it is probably a good thing for me to go through, but I still have intense, visceral reactions daily where I declare that it has been, 'the stupidest fucking thing I've ever done.'

While it is easy to buy into the media product that one's brain has an imbalance of chemicals and thus unpleasant mental stimuli needs to be modified via barely understood drugs; try grappling with the notion that unpleasant mental stimuli be the result of your own normal cognitive function and the dysfunction of most other human beings in society.

Alcohol has always assisted me in skating over the thin ice of that existential abyss.

Modern existence ain't easy for anybody. An acute sense of powerlessness as we realize that our survival depends much more on the decisions of others over our own prowess, combined with a severe divorce from the natural world. All of us are vulnerable to social and violent acts which are powerful enough to impose changes upon our behavior that we may not be able to grapple with consciously. Escape from this reality, however fleeting, has been an essential part of our successful existence for thousands of years.

The breaks can be as brief as a genuine laugh or 'the little death' of orgasm. They can be as permanent as the functional retardation of evangelicalism.

Chronologically, Alcohol lies much closer to the former than the latter. I'm still fond of informing folks that 'Beer is much older than god.' Members of our species were pushing back frothy libations long before they worshiped anything more ridiculous than the Sun.

According to Cin I've been going through 'mild to moderate' withdrawal symptoms.

I've never had a headache that wasn't caused by the Irish Flu. Last week I not only lost to my brother at racquetball, I got a migraine that lasted for two days and hurt like a bitch. Not the dull, vaguely pleasant, ache of the hangover, more in the frontal lobes - definitely affecting my personality. Even fucking worse, it seems that caffeine can trigger 'em, so it's like I'm losing my whole damn harem not just one pleasant distraction.

Boredom has become my most common conscious state. There ain't a damn thing on television (even deep cable) that doesn't suck. I guess I never used to watch T.V. without a brace of beers to lubricate myself into disseminated stupidity. I'm also pretty sure that programming has gotten much worse in the last seven years. The other night the 'History' channel had a much hyped special on the lost book of Nostradamus, despite the fact that all evidence seemed to point to the fact that he didn't paint the ambiguous images that supposedly drew parallels to 9/11.

I'm almost ashamed at the number of distractions that I formerly indulged in which I cannot tolerate without suppressing higher brain functions with sweet Mistress Boozilla.

I've also gone from sleeping about six hours a night to nine plus. I think part of it is just the piercing boredom - might as well be unconscious. That's been a trip, however. Unusual dreams are also supposedly an effect of alcohol withdrawal. Last week I had a series of dreams based on the Disney sort of programming where various internal organs are played by character actors to educationally entertaining effect. My liver was played by Robin Williams. I'm not a fan of Mr. Williams, and in my dream I had to resist the urge to smash him repeatedly in the face with a series of beer bottles. Not sure what that dream was all about. . .

So to summarize, withdrawal is not fun. I'm 21.5% of the way through my self-imposed role as an abstainer. Committed as I am to fiddling while Rome burns, longevity has its place too.

Stay groovy,

A Day's Thoughts

2007-10-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

Listening to 'Moon & Sand' channel on Rhapsody, West Coast jazz. Nice stuff. My neck itches. Haven't shaved in three days. My mind's been encumbered by a species of disquiet of late. No continuity of thoughts has blessed my day; novel observations, annoying obligations, and whatnots fire off from my brain in all sorts of directions. If thoughts be like a flock of birds, when one of mine takes off the rest do not follow.

Is that all that consciousness is? The following of one thought after another - or maybe a jazzy harmony of thoughts - that believes it understands where they are all going? Or, maybe it is the experience/expectation of being able to control your thoughts. That's an Idea with literary antecedent. The great man who sets his mind to seemingly impossible tasks and triumphs with
overwhelming determination. Perhaps a bit of true wisdom has been hidden away in the written word.

I suppose I'm not being nearly precise enough in my syntax. I suppose medically, consciousness is defined as being aware of one's surroundings and responsive to stimuli.

I still got that.

Within the Virtue of Full Disclosure, I have to admit the One Beer Covenant didn't fucking live up to the hype. Too bad, cuz I thought all that shit about Two Loves, One Beer was worthing of getting tatoo'd somewhere on me body. Just fell off that wagon. The groovy shackles of Mistress Addiction were clearly getting a bit too heavy. A bit too obvious.

This weekend I fell back on a technique I've had good success with in the past. Often we overindulge a hair during the glorious Gemuetlichkeit of Oktoberfest in Minnesota. Where the local liquor stores fill with rich, complex beers packaged in colors as bright and fine as our autumnal foliage. Good times, good friends. A man just has to sample them all.

So then I just quit drinking for the rest of the year. Advantage one: the cessation of boozation is finite. Rather than the flawed One Beer Covenant when I was forced to endure the chronic understanding that I would never again experience a Billy Joel-esque 'belly full a beer.' Here I just have to set my sights on New Years Eve, when I get to make the ironic resolution to start drinking again. I'd even reckon a short stint of irresponsible behavior should be permitted after such a display of will. Advantage two: I save a lot of money right before the Holidays which makes buying dinners and gifts much less of a strain. Also, with Cindy's family's notion that Thanksgiving means cramming every member of the family into the same house until nerves are rubbed raw - I'm just saying it don't hurt to have a little extra self-control in the hidden reserves.

So that's about it. We're nearing the end of day three, so I'm relatively sure hospitalization won't be necessary this time. More than anything I'm just a little bored.

Change is good. Altering the routines and experiencing new perspectives drives the creative and spiritual drives. Anything to avoid the zombification of obsessive compulsive behavior.

Peace out.

Rubbing 'gainst the Bellies of Angels . . .

2007-10-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

Ever been in a situation where a hot chick totally wants to 'rastle with your tube-snake, but you realize you just don't have it in ya to cheat on your woman? Evidently some dudes can do it, but you have to accept you just ain't one. . .

With a flash of understanding that approaches the Kwisatz Haderach (sorry, been reading Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson's 'House Atreides') I envisioned an act that would certainly earn one a place amongst those currently roasting alive in their fifteen minutes of mass media fame.

Here's the Idea, one that involves two of my major loves in this world: radical acts of artistic expression and the methodical torture of cats.

Anybody could do it. Just need a cat, a faucet and a digital camera (better yet a video camera); film and post the first ever web-documented water-boarding of a feline. Simply following the same credo of the water-board that we utilize as a nation, 'not to drown the suspect, only to make them believe they are drowning.' It wouldn't take but a few minutes and a pair of welding gloves to reduce a kitten to her most primal survival instincts.

I couldn't do it myself - at least not without disrupting a fairly stable personal relationship - but I can place an adorable kitten in a situation where even one with severe deficiencies in the are of imagination can still grasp the gist of what I'm talking about:

Then all the PETA members flame the shit out of your blog for being so cruel to animals, so you respond, 'So a housecat has more more rights in this country than a Prisoner of War?' Cuz you think a water-boarding looks nasty when inflicted upon a cute little kitty cat, imagine when it's done to a human being.

Bucket after bucket after bucket after fucking bucket of cold water poured into your gasping mouth until you are completely convinced that you are drowning. A rude gesture and six little syllables from Mr. Bush are all that separate any of us from that fate. Our security services have already done it to hundreds of people - some innocent, some not - not that such a little fact as that makes any difference . . .

Once he intones, 'enemy combatant,' you have far fewer rights than little Ellie here.

Welcome to fucking Amerika. If someone with media access mentions your name and 'terrorist' in the same sentence, youz be dehumanized far beneath a house pet. Unpacked, this blog has a lot to say.

I call upon everyone in the blogosphere! Waterboard your pets, waterboard your children, waterboard you drinking buddies! Lets show the world what it looks like! Lets revel in the sense of power over the helpless that so far we have only enjoyed vicariously through Keifer and 24. Ride the predictable wave of outrage and indignation that angry, wet kittens invoke. Experience the future.

Note: no cats were harmed in the making of this blog entry. Actually, I needed several band-aids, but the cats were O.K.

I can't see straight. THe pain. The Pain.

2007-10-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

Every brick in the wall of my own masculinity is crumbling on faltering foundations. I am lost. I am lost.

http://www.chucknorris.com/

It all seem pretty normal until ya hit the "Christian Section".

Cindy tells me that this can't be The Man's real site. I can't shake the horrible feeling that it really is.

Grrr.

How the World Works part VII

2007-10-02T17:44:00.000-05:00

A tank just drove down the middle of my street. I looked out the window - stupidly, I suppose - I was in shock. A soldier sitting on the tank pointed his weapon at me, I stopped looking out the window. The nice people in military uniforms are on my television instructing us not to leave our homes until further notice. That's the only T.V. station, and they cut off my internet last week.

Alright, that didn't happen to me yet this week, but it happened to somebody today in Burma.

I'm finding my melancholic humors a bit stirred from the contemplation required in that first paragrab. If I suddenly switched bodies with a similar Burmese soul . . . that's not very fun thoughts. Being an Idealistic sort I'm sure I would have been at those protests, cheering on the actions of those Buddhist monks. ( men of religion, it is true, but this atheist holds a special exemption for the intellectually complex variants of Buddhism; I perceive those Burmese monks
on a pedestal of awe and respect) Just like China after Tienanmen Square, they are going to round up just about everybody they think had something to do with the protests. Just having been active on the internet will surely be a flag for Burmese Security Services that have been tasked with gouging out the eyes, tongue, and heart of this Demonstration Movement.

As they take you into custody, that's when you have to come to grips with the fact that The Suck will not end until they say so. It may well last for the remainder of your life.

Perhaps I'm a tad preoccupied with imaginings of atrocity, since I spent the morning reading the Wikipedia entry for List of War Crimes. Surprising how many just involve a village and a few dozen men and boys. Rounded up by invading soldiers and executed. That's the sure way to crush a resistance or stifle an uprising.

I'd intended to base this post around Sovereignty. The underlying principle of much modern international law whose conceptualization dates at least as far back as 1513 when Niccolo Machiavelli wrote. The Ruling Class, whether it is a sociopathic dictator, a group of military leaders, or an infighting club of capitalist elites; they do what they like within their own borders. Hear anybody talking about invading Burma and charging those 'Generals' with crimes against humanity? Why not? Where is the George W. Bush who connived so relentlessly to get our nation to overthrow Saddam and give the Iraqi's a chance at peace and democracy? You want to talk about a people who would greet us with flowers as liberators: we should invade Burma.

The contrast between Iraq and Burma are dramatically salient.

From what I understand Burma actually does have exploitable oil resources. Yet that is China's backyard and we have learned from the Korean and Vietnam wars not to mess with China's backyard. The Middle East, however, is territory we have declared our long term interest in. I think you could argue that WWII was decided by who controlled the Middle East.

The first rationale for invading Iraq was the fantasy that Saddam possessed 'Weapons of Mass Destruction.' That meant that he could finish the Holocaust with the push of button, America had to preemptively act. That's how the Bush Administration hoped to dance around the war crime of 'war of aggression', which, not too long ago when we were trying war criminals at Nuremberg, our nation described as "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (Wikipedia, "War of Aggression")

Now it is completely obvious that the majority of international commentators, the U.N.A.E.C., and progressive news sources in America were saying all along was completely right. The notion that Iraq was producing 'WMD' during the U.N. inspection regime was absurd. Not only that, but we now have a shitload of evidence that Bush's marketing campaign to hype the threat of Saddam knew that the WMD case was phony and intended it merely as a means of 'selling' it to the public. They knew they were promoting bunk intelligence, and they combined that with a policy of devastating any skeptics (remember Valarie Plame?)

Now those same spinarbeiters want to tell us that the main motive in attacking Iraq was to liberate Iraq from the evil Saddam and 'provide an example of Arab Democracy that would soon bring about the reincarnation of civility to that backwards people.'

Saddam was a bad person, no doubt about that, but that couldn't have been the reason to invade. Or else we would have a carrier battle group in the in the Bay of Burma right now.

Religious Right to form Third Party?

2007-10-01T17:22:00.001-05:00

<<>>

Salon.com reports a powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private conclave in Salt Lake City to artlessly threaten to support a third-party candidate for president if an abortion-loving nominee like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination. The fucking Council for National Policy, which includes absolute fuckheads like James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council have proven what Karl Rove and the rest of us have known for a long time: they are fucking wankers who are easily perceived as contemptible by all who have escaped the intellectual ravages of their brand of religion.

I've listened to a fair number of 'Dr.' Dobson's radio programs - and I should have put the title in bold, not mere air quotes. His guests are well trained to inject all sorts of disgusting awe and worshipful respect into the stress upon those two syllables - each program has been more spiritually deflating than the last. The fat boy's inadequacies of maturation are so revoltingly obvious one cannot help but politely look away. Of course, in the shadow of that social balking be where the fucking pedophiles and religious demagogues always prey upon the weak.

Just to be abso-fucking-lutely clear about this, pedophiles occupy a higher moral status than do bitch ass 'pastors' like Mr. Dobson. The most hyperactive predator of small children cannot harm the lives of more than a hundred or so kids, Mr. Dobson's vulgar projection of his own base needs infects the lives of tens of millions in this country alone. Fuckers with broadcasting power behind them are held to a different standard than the rest of us; once you become an Axis Sally or a Senator McCarthy you've trespassed against us in a way that forfeits most mercies.

Example? The easiest example would be to repeat any of the countless dumb ass shit statements he's made regarding homosexuality and the 'gay culture' that actively seeks to queerify every young christian boy in America. Or I could play it a little closer to home and detail how the obese fucker routinely insults those of us who have risen to the challenge of living a moral life without a silly, oversimplified, father-figure god to give us childish rules for our behavior. By demonizing every secular thinker, along with the science of evolution and such, he's working hard to remove so much of the Beauty and Understanding of our existence from his poor, ignorant followers. In our marvelous age all someone has to do is search the internet to find levels of understanding denied (oftentimes purposefully) every fucking previous generation. To try to preclude that just because you, Dr. Dobson, are too stupid or lazy to embrace it has got to be a crime/sin. My example will involve the fillies.

Listen to a thousand hours of Focus on the Family, until your dick falls right off and I challenge you to find one fucking example of a woman on that program who is ever treated as an intellectual equal. Nope, they are invariably introduced in a manner that praises and credits them for their submissiveness - i.e. acceptance of Gawd's will - then immediately go into a rapid-fire exhibition of trite thankyous and praisegods for Dr. Dobson, his ministry, and the huge, positive impact he's had on their lives. Most real men, in my humble fucking opinion, always feign discomfort and change the subject with an 'aw it was nothing.' The Jesus I learned about in school would quickly defuse that sort of speech with a self-less comment on 'just doing my Father's will.' Not Dr. Dobson, he's got a molochesque appetite for the stroking of his ego, and I've personally never seen the fucker show humility. What women struggled like hell to achieve for hundreds of years - and now can actually fucking possess in this brief historical period if they just reach out and take it - . . . not in Dr. Dobson's little world.

I need to transfer back to the fucking Council for Nation Policy and the title of this blog.

Do they understand that this bluff can only be a bluff, or are they really willing to take their poor sap followers back into forty more years of wandering in our political landscape's desert? If I thought that any of these fuckers were acting upon firmly held ideological motives, than maybe I'd buy their 'puritanical breakaway' to a third party. I think Dobson and Perkins are like the Jerry Falwell so eloquently eulogized by Christopher Hitchen's, "If you gave his corpse an enema he could be buried in a matchbook." I'm sure they believe the parts that make them special, not so sure they are ready to put their balls on the line for the finer points of dogma.

Perhaps they believe that this game of chicken will have an effect on the Republican party and their candidates. I've just had a horrific vision of Rudy Giuliani having a religious conversion, finding 'Jesus', and taking the reverend Dr. Dobson as his personal spiritual adviser. He gets the sins of his multiple marriages and 'rah, rah, abortion!' stance wiped cleaner than Gee Dub's three decades of women, booze and cocaine blow jobs. This line of thinking be too frightening to con-type-plate.

Most likely, Dobson and the other fucking cretins who occupy similar positions of power within the totalitarian hierarchy of his 'religious movement' suffer from the most characteristic malady of the evags: an apparently pathological inability to perceive themselves in a critical light. While most of us possess useful inhibitions that anticipate social disdain and avoid actions that will lead to such derision, evags seem to represent an social evolution where that inhibition/level of understanding has been lost. I think it grows out of the fact that they only care about the opinions of others who have also 'found Jeesus.' They perceive all the rest of us as 'proto-christians' waiting to be saved, and thus cement in their own status as a lesser group. . . this be tangential.

Most likely, Dobson and the other fucking cretins have misjudged their own importance. Since they cannot comprehend themselves in a self-critical way, they will continue to see the pandering of Karl Rove and Gee Dumb as some sort of actual proximity to power. The real 'powers that be' will select the Republican nominee and then they will find a way to sell him to their credulous flock of sub-humans. That is wherein their value lies, when they stop being valuable. . . well, this is a capitalistic society. . . (sort of)

Dick's WSJ editorial

2007-09-20T19:05:00.000-05:00

I'd like to begin this rant - I mean blog - with a personal story. I was preparing a blog this morning based on the USA Today headline 'Jobless Rate Falls Unexpectantly.' I've long held the prejudice that economics and psychology are two industries of tremendous bullshit, and planned to skewer the 'dismal science ' with my caustic wit. The fact that nine thousand fewer American's lost jobs last month than some wankers in Washington predicted, I thought, is a sure example of economic techno-babble trying to put a happy spin on the shitty news that 300 and some odd thousand people did lose their jobs. Plus, the article I was reading stated that "Businesses are taking a cautious approach given the widespread attention given to the problems on Wall Street and in the housing industry, but they are not acting as if they expect a recession. . ." Yeah right, I wrote, like any business makes decisions based on such abstract notions. Most are concerned with immediate factors in their immediate business environment.

Then this lousy feeling started to grow in my belly. I re-read the article and found that sentence continued with an "or, are seeing a significant decline in revenues that requires cutting back on the number of workers" That pretty much shoots the shit out of my second attack. Time to go back over the jobless numbers. 9000 divided by 311,000 is 0.0289 or almost three percent. Fuck, three percent is rather significant. Maybe, as I read more related articles, our economy is a complicated beast with about 300,000 people losing employment every month and almost the same amount finding new work. Time to press delete on that post.

Thus I drove to work doubting myself and angry that I was a half hour late with nothing to show for it.

Some of my readers may be familiar with the wonderful Amber series by Roger Zelazny. I really enjoyed those books as a kid and was fascinated by the 'logrus' (I've got a tribal tattoo on my back of it.) The logrus was a black tentacle sort of thing that members of the Court of Chaos could use to reach out into the millions of parallel worlds to find the one thing that they were looking for. I loved that and and one of my 'pleasant fantasies' is that my own consciousness worked that way. The total mind could understand more than the conscious mind could comprehend at one time, and often I would find myself absorbed with something that would have serendipitous value later.

I was a terrible student, rarely ever doing reading assignments or homework. I do not know how many times I would find myself drawn into a page of my textbook in the boredom of a teacher's lecture only to be called upon during Q&A on that exact topic. The one time I grabbed a condom for my wallet before a first date was the . . .

Anyhoo, I'm sure you'all get the meme.

I get to work and sitting in the office is this yesterdays Wall Street Journal with a teaser in the upper corner about Dick Cheney's response to Allen Greenspan's new book where he criticizes Bush for over-spending ( the accusation of over-spending to a republican is like accusing a democrat of beating a harp seal's skull in - them's fight'n words ) Mr. Cheney quickly shot off an editorial to the WSJ titled 'The Real Bush Record."

I read it, I had to, and almost as soon as I got past the bland statements of respect and friendship for Mr. Greenspan that I'm sure come straight from our Vice President's unnaturally preserved heart, he gets to invoking 9/11.

Aimed at our country's financial sector, the attacks were followed by the closing of stores and shopping malls, and the cancellation of thousands of flights. In the three and a half months between 9/11 and Christmas nearly a million Americans lost their jobs

The logrus strikes.

311,000 people filed new claims for unemployment last month. During the last recession that number was as high as 450,000 in a month. 'Nearly a million Americans' losing their jobs in three and a half months is not a fucking shocker. If anything, it shows how little the terrorist attack did actually unbalance the economy.

Mr. Cheney, almost certainly knows this. He also knows that 'a million Americans lost their jobs' makes a nice paragraph ending statement (or at least his staff writers know.) Yet he will use that foolish statement as the prime argument for the first of his two columns. Even when writing to a readership as erudite and conservatively tight as the Wall Street Journal, he doesn't mind talking down to us as if we were retarded.

He does more of that shit as he continues to argue Bush's fiscal responsibility. "[A]nd that's why he has steadily reduced the annual rate of growth in non-security discretionary spending." That's not a big deal, since obviously 'non-security' spending would be the areas of government where the money spend actually fucking accomplishes something. Probably in a manner that has some sort of oversight and record-keeping. Bush, Cheney, and their corporate board of directors are much more interested in the kind of spending that they've so mastered in Iraq: zero fucking oversight, no-bid contracts to loyal friends and pet corporations, billions that just 'get misplaced', and nothing to fucking show for it.

Maybe that's what Mr. Greenspan was driving at. Bush's spending has been reckless because as a nation we have abso-fucking-lutely nothing to show for it. Iraq and the entire Middle East are much worse than if we had just left them the hell alone.

Curiously, Mr. Cheney omits any acknowledgment of Mr. Greenspan's most controversial statement, that the Iraq Crusade was largely about oil and, unfortunately, the current political environment makes saying that difficult.

He ends with praise for Mr. Bush's 'superb' efforts to coax Congress into reforming Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I'll end with thanking the god I don't believe in that these three institutions escaped the sort of 'reform' that Bush and his Coterie of Corruption would have inflicted.

Updates and Random Thoughts

2007-09-18T19:49:00.000-05:00

My one beer a day program totally sucks! I think I may have made a foolish decision there; the first beer merely cleanses the palate for the next one. I'll never again split a variety pack with a buddy and debate the various styles of ale, lagers, pilsners, and stouts. One beer a day makes it difficult to compare and contrast.

I've decided that drinking wine in excess just ain't for me. I used to love to drink a bottle of Australian Shiraz, smoke a thin cigar and write. Guess I'm not into stained teeth anymore. I'll drink a glass with Cin over a good meal, but excess be denied me. I dug all my old cocktail apparatuses out of storage, and attempted to achieve the perfection of a Stolichnaya Straight Up Extra Dry One Olive Martini. I feel pretty good writing with one of those in front of me, yet by the Wolf's Hour when I'm in need of number three, I usually just go to bed. My ancestry is Irish, not Russian.

Whiskey goes down just as fast and smooth as beer - even faster and smoother in fact - so that beverage was returned to the list of 'inappropriate for regular consumption.' Trust me, nobody wants to be around Aurelius when he's 'Whiskey Friskey.'

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I can't believe when Petraeus and Crocker testified before Congress they did not have to do so under oath. What a crock .
The latest issue of Skeptic magazine has a fascinating article on the end of science. Really he's talking about the end of technology, i.e. that most of the major breakthroughs have already happened. A Bee-Girl from the thirties might be impressed with your iphone, but between the telegraph and radar she ain't seeing much science that's new to her.

Here's how Mordechai Ben-Ari extrapolates this line of thinking to grapple with ET (I think it's fascinating.)

We have every reason to believe that the laws of physical science are universal, so that even if there is a much older intelligent ET life, it will have the same physics and chemistry as we do. Any scientific revolutions that they underwent are ones that we might potentially undergo, so if that prospect is doubtful here, it is doubtful there too. Discussions of ET life must be careful not to commit the non sequitur of deducing the existence of radically new science and technology from the existence of intelligent life. (Skeptic Vol 13, Num 2 2007, p 26)

I love this line of thinking and Cindy and I debate it frequently. She believes that life is astronomically rare, I favor the notion that life (at least simple life) is fairly commonplace. Within my lifetime we should have definitive knowledge regarding Mars and microbial life.

This debate at astrobiology.com lends my views some support.

Imagine an immense universe filled with countless planets and moons that harbored complex life, many of them even able to evolve a sentient species before an asteroid/solar fluctuation/volcanism/pandemic/war wiped the slate clean. All of them contemplating existence, and none of them ever going to discover a technology that would allow them to escape their host star's gravity.

I think that's beautiful

'I shall have no Covenants, only Proximites. . .'

2007-09-06T20:32:00.000-05:00

Slowly getting back to the routine here after a long week off staying up near the headwaters with family. Had a swell time. The tallest Red Pine in Minnesota, one of the tallest in the nation, suffered wind damage this spring. About 300 years old, now 'the monarch is dying.' Choked me up a little.

I've been enamored with that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote for quite a while. I believe he is saying that will have no 'Covenants', no childish, black and white rules for his behavior. Rather an Ideal that he will seek to remain in 'proximity' of. So instead of declaring that alcohol is a sin and I will never touch it, he sees a role model of a responsible, temperate man and strives to emulate that behavior.

I liked that thinking. Seemed more mature than the system of 'morality' where one follows certain commandments laid down by a questionable deity in return for rewards of an even more questionable nature. This system also precludes the worthless guilt from 'cheating on your diet.' I swore I was never again going to wank it on a Sunday morning, now I've sinned and feel lousy about myself.

Besides, 'covenants' and the like must be purged from one's consciousness to stay on the active defense against the living death of Obsessive Compulsive Behavior.

Yet I'm also coming to grips with the usefulness of certain rules and routines. I'm learning that the Writer sits down and writes every single day - that should be the proximity I'm shooting for. My policy of writing every Tuesday and Thursday for two hours even if I have to tie myself to the desk chair is working. . .

So I shall have One Covenant, one self-imposed rule that I will subjugate my id to without deviation.

See, I have two great loves in my life, so I can only have one beer.

The One Beer Covenant. I completely love beer. I love every variety and type, the history and the science; hops makes my blood smile. Lately I've been alcoholically ravenous. A bottle of Summit Extra Pale Ale goes in my belly in a few chugs, then on to the next one. I'm not enjoying the beer, only the buzz. So now I will only drink one beer a day.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still get rowdy off a string of martinis or a bottle of wine, I'm only putting the beer hound on the leash. I think this is a big enough change. It's a big enough change.

Religion as an Obvious Threat.

2007-08-20T19:05:00.000-05:00

In a recent episode of the BBC America's 'Jekyll' (I'm waiting for the six episode to re-air, as an unforeseeable TiVo accident failed to record it - this we're not talking spoilers here.) the highly animated Mr. Hyde asks his tormentor from the secret organization which has been stalking him from birth if his last statement was a threat against his family. The response is something like, 'Yes, I am threatening your family. Explicitly, emphatically, and earnestly, I am threatening your . . . gaelllllll . . . ' at this point Hyde has slit his throat and is talking him through the difficult process of dying by encouraging him to count backwards from ten.

'Jekyll' does a fine job of cultivating audience pathos for the monster Hyde via a tri-fold strategy. Establishing him as an anti-hero who is still morally/rationally superior to the quasi-government organization that seeks to use him as a weapon. The suffering and challenges of his Dr. Jackman other half, and the sheer maniacal charisma of the lead actor James Nesbitt. In this scene the rationale is crystal clear. Once one has threatened to murder your children, then any act of violence is justified in defense of them. Nesbitt's Mr. Hyde responds to the threat with certainty, violence, and a homicidal flair.

Trust me, all males dream of being able to act in such a way. At least any male whose balls have over a millimeter of 'hang.'

My point is that most moments of moral certainty are transcendent to the point that a villain can exhibit them and instantly be reconciled. The fundamental moral truths; protect your family at any cost, don't shit where you eat, don't harm children - these don't need some religious mumbo-dogma to enforce, they are instinctual and obvious. To the contrary, only those deeply damaged by the plague of religion frequently cross these moral lines. Universal moral codes are just that - universal - and . . .

I've been rambling and don't see this blog striking exactly where I originally intended.,

Religion demands that it be held more sacred than family, thus it devalues family. Religion denies the world of cause and effect that makes 'don't shit where you eat,' obvious. Religion, in the weakness of its premise, has been targeting children in multiple, damaging, ways for endless centuries.

If our ability to think is what separates us from the orangutans., then religion is our primate tail. Caught in an evolutionary trap, but we don't seem to have the will to rid ourselves of it. Wolves caught in a trap during their obviously human orchestrated extermination from the lower forty-eight earned infamy by chewing off their own leg and living on to consume more livestock and slay more pets.

Do you fucking care fiercely enough to live or will you simply,weakly, die?

Religion is the pillow held over your face by the feeble and queer old priest. Do you just lie there while he slowly chokes you to death?

My bad decision

2007-08-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

In discussing our weekend plans with some friends over for dinner this Friday, we had to make a call between catching a movie with Cory or trying to get tickets to tag along when his partner went to the Twins game today. Boy, did I ever make the wrong call.

We saw 'Stardust', and I've got to say that's a pretty damn good PG-13 flick. Cindy couldn't understand how it's falling behind 'Rush Hour 3' (a fun movie but nothing to write home to mother about.) We both enjoyed the movie.

But Brenda got to be at the dome when Johan Santana broke the Twins record for strikeouts in a game. 17 strikeouts in eight innings. Wow. 8 x 3 is, like, only 24 batters, so having seventeen SO's is bordering on crazy! Only Sammy Sosa could hit his stuff, and it just wasn't enough today.

Cory and Brenda got a kitten from the Humane Society yesterday and I was teasing him all afternoon that he better name the little guy after the Twin's ace. If I stop by next week and that cat ain't named Yo-Yo, I'm never talking to him again.

Seventeen Strike Outs, what a performance. . .

Damned Tagification

2007-08-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

I'm embarrassed to admit that in catching up with a good friend's blog this afternoon, I discovered that he had 'tagged' me almost a week ago. That's why my blogs been sucking lately, I just can't endure the caffeine levels that allow me to produce content constantly and keep up with the few noble souls who give a shit about what I'm posting here. Fair enough, I'm 'tagged' so I'll devote five paragrabs to personal details.

#1 I'm an Aquarius from '75. That makes me 32. Anyone who has known me for the last decade will tell ya that I'm terrible when it come to the anniversary of my nativity. I get depressed sometime around Christmas, and lay the whine on pretty damn thick regarding the erosion of my physical prowess as well as the certainty of my mortality. Partly, I think I just like the attention and the chance to engage other's mental constructs with novel notions, partly I think I'm saddened by the fact that our consumer culture targets the young and the wealthy. I once was young (and damn good looking); I'll never be wealthy. It is rather depressing when you realize that the media that once worked overtime to stimulate your ego no longer gives a good god-damn about you or your purchasing habits.

#2 My woman Cindy is the most important thing in my life. In my twenties I had many 'friends' but our disagreements regarding the nature of reality insured that they would never be my 'intellectual equal' or even view me as anything other that a 'lost soul to be saved.' Any brother atheist will understand immediately how rare it is for our kind to find a partner who can contemplate the horrible awesomeness of Atheism. I consider myself to be diabolically eloquent, but I can never express to her how lucky I am to have her as a partner. Too many women have been bred and indoctrinated to a level of submission that is boringly sub-human. Daily I stagger at the blind luck of finding a female who still thinks of herself as a full member of the species - she sees her sex as an equal part of the human family, not as a caste; like worker bees or drones, with the species.

#3 I live in a household with FOUR FUCKING CATS. Since they are all calicos I often lie about this, since a casual observer may be unable to differentiate between all those shapes of white, black, and brown. 'Nope, that's the same cat, we only have two.' Suffice to say, I've never walked down the stairs, or crossed the kitchen without considering the disrespectfully sprawled form of a cat.

#4 I was a judoka in my youth, and still find the skills and philosophies of Jigaro Kano to be valued in my later life. I was the state champion in my weight class in 1989, and won the silver medal in the 'star of the north games' the following year. I'm not trying to impress anybody here, when I was competing in judo the field contained less than a dozen competitors at my age/weight class at the time. This was Minnesota. Yet I consider my training in ukemi (the art of falling) to be largely responsible for the fact that I have never broken a bone, despite my many misadventures. No child should enter their teens without that training, unless their parents have limitless health insurance or just don't care about them.

#5 I'm nearing completion of my first serious work of fiction, what I've titled 'The Education of Io.' For the last three years it was the 'Education of Aelectra,' but I decided Io was much more visually groovy. Basically, it's a post apocalyptic world where slavery has returned and the American Empire has been largely balkanized. What Io learns about how the world works will hopefully be a education for my teenage readers in realpolitik and the structures of social control. I hope to have a working draft by the end of the year.

Thus concludes our test of the compulsory tagification system. Thanks.

Christopher Hitchens' Book into Iraq War

2007-08-16T19:00:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite characteristics of blogging lies in the ad hoc, stream of consciousness-ness, nature of it. In no other medium can one expect to begin on one topic and only barely seek to justify a transition to an entirely different subject. These are the subjects dueling for my attention today.

Yesterday I picked up Christopher Hitchens' latest book, god is not Great, from the local appendage of a chain book selling company. This marks the third or fourth clearly atheistic work of non-fiction that I've purchased in the last six months, and this one is easily my favorite by far. I took an hour and fifteen for lunch today so I could squeeze in just a few more chapters. I'm hooked on some literary kine.

Here's a quote a driving intensity, regarding the sexual dysfunction almost always glorified as a pillar of various religions:

The homicidal lunatics - rehearsing to be genocidal lunatics - of 9/11 were perhaps tempted by virgins, but it is far more revolting to contemplate that, like so many of their fellow jihadists, they were virgins. Like monks of old, the fanatics are taken early from their families, taught to despise their mothers and sisters, and come to adulthood without ever having a normal conversation, let alone a normal relationship, with a woman. This is disease by definition. Christianity is too repressed to offer sex in paradise - indeed it has never been able to evolve a tempting heaven at all - but it has been lavish in its promise of sadistic and everlasting punishment for sexual backsliders, which is nearly as revealing in making the same point in a different way. (p 55)

I can understand why in a debate over the war in Iraq a few years ago British MP Galloway screamed at him, "Yes, you write like an Angel, but you are working for the Devil!"

Christopher Hitchens was a former Trotskyist and even a regular contributer to The Nation before leaving the Left - an act few at The Nation seem to be capable of forgiving. That betrayal was the lever which opened the bomb doors for: 'wet-brained alcoholic' and 'jaded opportunist.' I was pretty biased against him before I read much of his work - and in that debate with George Galloway he did utilize some rather unsavory rhetorical tactics.

Yet I'm feeling my own energy for the Left dissipate, and a combination of my spiritual need to be intellectually better than worthless fundamentalist (i.e. to occasionally consider that I might be wrong) with an attraction/respect for cleverly coherent writers; I'm open to the opinions of this fellow atheist even if they contradict my established world-view. We all want to dig in and defend our territory, but we have to be ready to accept that the world is a whole lot bigger than what we thought. We may need to take more territory, not defend this insignificant and strategically weak parcel.

In fact, I'm reaching the point where I no longer want to be called a liberal. Not because the right-wing media has convinced about half of our population that liberal is a synonym for fag - if that were the case I'd be calling myself a 'bright', a practice I agree with Mr. Hitchens when he refers to that 'cringe-making proposal' to 'conceitedly nominate themselves to be called' - I don't know if I really understood what Liberalism means. Was it just a broad drag net, an abstract designed to let a large number project their own hopes and dreams upon this ideology? Could it be more than Civ4's Free Religion, Free Speech? I think I might be wrong in cherry-picking quotes from the Founding Fathers of our Liberal Democracy and cherishing that 'Liberalism.' Maybe it is just an overloaded term, similar to 'Communism' that means absolute good to some and absolute evil to others, thus making the term meaningless?

Part of it is that I'm now starting to realize what '9/11 changed everything' means. To continue a blog of naked honesty, as a midwesterner 9/11 didn't shake me up all that much. For a while it was dramatic and awesome, like a living in history sort of thing. Then it was just advantageous, cuz for a few blessed weeks the crew I was working with was willing to listen to Public Radio instead of neuron deadening christian rock. I've never been to the east coast, and the impact of 9/11 was not too personal, similar to hearing about the killings in Sudan, but these folks were rich and white. I saw plenty who wanted to indulge in the horror of 9/11, titillating themselves with camp fire horror stories about 'what ifs.' I despised that practice, every time I heard a preacher or a pundit hold up 9/11 like a teenage boy holds up pornography in his left hand.

Hitchens, and some of the other writers I've been reading lately was on the East Coast, for them the trauma was much more real. More akin to the brief panic I felt when our bridge collapsed and I didn't know for sure my father was not on it. More than just the 'Pearl Harbor Level Event' of that disgusting memo, it was a shock treatment to a massive chunk of our 'liberal population.' The shocked included our federal politicians, our students at our 'elite' colleges, our bastions of progressive population. . .

I feel like Alan Alda as his M.A.S.H. character, not sure if the surgery was a success, but done and wanting to just tell a subordinate to 'close for me.'

9/11 really did change everything. More so than just a talking point for the propagandists of the corporate media. It changed what a plurality of educated Americans thought about how the world does and should work. Unilateral military action that ignores the Geneva Conventions is now the model. Our country will interact with the rest of humanity with the righteous rage of a man avenging his murdered family for the next generation at least. No rules apply to us, no limits are permitted to be discussed regarding our militant behavior - have you forgotten September the Eleventh?

That's what burns my soul but I need to just get over and accept.

Part of me wants to just scream at the wind. The 'Greatest Generation' laid down life after almost countless life in a World War. Except for ourselves, almost no civilian population was spared the horrors or war, on scales that are neigh unimaginable today. The French were occupied for terrifying years, the English had the Blitz, the German people suffered Russian rapes and English fire bombing of cities, the Russians lost cities and citizens on a horrific scale, the Chinese suffered more than anyone in sheer human numbers to the Japanese, the Japanese lost two entire cities to the most terrible weapons ever used by our species. Italy, Egypt, the Balkans, Indonesia - it was a World War and innocent civilians were targeted and terrorized over and over again. Out of that came the Geneva Conventions, a code of honor for warriors that was trumpeted by the United States in our hour as the 'good guys', the noble defenders of liberty.

The Geneva Conventions were ratified, and by our nation's law that makes them also the law of our land. They contain the wisdom of a generation that not only fought, but won a world war.

An invading country under the Geneva Convention has an obligation to provide law and order. To even pretend you were going to do that in Iraq would have required four times the number of troops we needed to knock down Saddam's speed bump of a military. There would also have been more initial casualties as nationalistic Iraqis attacked the nearest invading American. More Americans outside of the Green Zone, more casualties. Remember Rumsfeld watching looting in the streets and saying something about 'democracy is messy.' That's a failure to meet the Geneva Conventions, that breaks American Law. When your Commander-in-Chief comes from a state that routinely executes the mentally retarded, don't go pretending that pleading ignorance will save ya. A country with a population of 24 million, over sixteen million in the population centers? Could even a feces-flinging retard articulate the position that a hundred and fifty thousand troops were going to provide unquestioned authority.

Under the Geneva Conventions an invading country has a clear obligation to respect international law, and under such law the right to organize cannot be curtailed. Yet Paul Bremer re-affirmed Saddam Husseins' law criminalizing labor unions almost immediately after taking control of the country. Labor unions, perhaps the most effective means of forming bonds between people that transcend ethnic or religious lines, were made illegal to please Chevron, BP, and Exxon. It is illegal and it is wrong. Paul Bremer should not escape justice.

We have two choices. Either the Bush Administration intended to turn Iraq into another Nigeria, where 'business partners' were nothing more than reactionary tribal dumbasses who could be manipulated with a promise of a case of M-16's or a pair of Apache Helicopters (both of which were also easy profits for an established political donor.)

Or the Bush Administration was populated with political hacks who were far more concerned with expressing their political loyalty to Mr. Bush than affecting the real world that some of us remain committed to living in. Honestly, if the entire bureaucracy that one brings to the Presidency is filled with nothing but eager interns and graduates in 'Yes Man,' are you not responsible for the tragedy in that wake?

Yet that scream may be just an outlet for immature misunderstanding. If the mass media will never speak the syllables of a crime, is it really a crime? If no politically appointed prosecutor will mention and no politically appointed judge will hear, is it still illegal?

On the other hand, what I need to be holding up before my panting vision be the fact that 9/11 was enough to change the landscape forever. Pretending that the sole remaining Superpower should even consider the opinion of our lessors is now heretical. America is good, and pretending that our Leaders should ever be endure a judgment other than hagiography - have you forgotten 9/11.

It is now ten bells. I started this at seven thirty PM. I have more beer bottles before me than I can count with my blurring vision. Don't hesitate. Reading up on the Gen Con (amusing) or even the biography of C.H. can't hurt. What is becoming of our generation and our society?

Aurelius Comments on the 35W Bridge Collapse (I'm still alive)

2007-08-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

I saw in the paper today that 78% of Americans are still actively keeping up with news about the tragedy that is our collapsed bridge. That makes this news event one of the top ten 'attention grabbers' since 1991, or something like that. Hmm.

First, let me say that the incident did give me some personal insight into what something like 9/11 might have been like for New Yorkers. At first, Cindy's yelling distracted me from whatever I was working on in my room, to see the headlines on CNN or MSNBC. The national cable networks didn't know dick about our local infrastructure, and their reporting was so confusing that I mistook the bridge in question for another one to the south - closer to where my parents live. My father travels a lot with his occupation, so I called him immediately. He didn't have time to chit chat, so I admitted in the trill of the moment that I only wanted to hear the sound of his voice - confirmed that mom was good too - then called my brother to get word on his family. Verizon was overloaded by then, I could not make a call for the rest of the night.

For about four hours everyone in the metro was either trying to call family or fielding calls from out-of-state relatives while watching the news. Even though in the end only about a dozen human beings actually died, the panic effect was powerful.

I think the effect hit me a bit more intensely than it might otherwise have, my father's clan buried two of its own in the two weeks leading up to this; I carried his brother to his final resting place exactly one week before. Bitter irony and the 'rule of three' were pounding on the panic button when I speed dialed the old man.

Thoughts post collapse:

It must be nice to be the Governor of a state with a well known fault line. Any failing bridge is going to collapse during an earthquake for sure, and everybody will buy that as an act of Gawd. Like that Murray peacock who owns the mine that ate those men this week - just keep talking about Gawd and earthquakes, the media will ignore those geologists who define the seismic noise as the sound of the mine collapse, not the cause of the collapse.

Like a morning show guy on KFAI mentioned this week, we finally have a reason be be happy that the Republicans are going to kick us out of our own capital city for a week while they have the theater they call a convention. They have an opportunity to turn the 35W tragedy into a 'win' for them, so for once our Blue State might see more money come back from the federal government than we pay out every year in taxes. They are still the party that holds graft and cronyism in an elevated spiritual realm far above reality, so I'm not holding my breathe. At least I can grant them a possible motive force.

Not to be ghoulish, but I just don't get why we are still sending divers down into the river to put their lives at risk, rather than just bringing in the heavy equipment and getting the clearing process underway. What gives here? It is not like after a week, when the chances of finding a living survivor from 9/11 were zero, the recovery teams broke out the shovels and toothbrushes and turned ground zero into an archaeological site. The remains of the 35W bridge are underwater. We are going to spend weeks, and millions of dollars, and put human lives (not just any human lives, but highly trained divers) at risk to recover remains that are water-logged and crushed, rather than remains that are water logged and more crushed? I understand respect for the dead, but over a million people can not continue to pour money, time, and risk lives over the remains of a few corpses. Obviously, if we lived in a society with limitless resources the bridge never would have collapsed in the first place. . .

Finally, our NPR station has devoted an ass-load of time to dwelling on the tragic event (despite my disdain for the network, a savvy listener can filter useful information out of their hopelessly 'objective' propaganda). They had a doctor on this afternoon who had evidently had some positive role in the treatment of victims of 8.1.7 (yeah, whatever). This crisis response official was asked about a scenario that kept him awake at night and he did not have an answer that involved asteroids or the eruption of Yellowstone. His response was an influenza pandemic. He stated that it might not be this year or the next, but it would happen within his career as a physician, and that our hospital system could never handle it. We have 20% less hospital beds today than we had in 1970. Large segments of society would have to be triaged and isolated. Think Katrina. To summarize, we have not had a pandemic in the history of 'modern' hospitalized medicine, but we are due, and we're screwed.

Remember to live life in the moment and appreciate all that we have. Any of the French Louis' would have unhesitatingly slain their own fathers to have a lifestyle that most of us take for granted. Plus we have access to the level of education and understanding that would have driven them to abdication or suicide. Don't shirk from the subversive truth. Revel in your consciousness, enjoy your existence. Move our culture forward.

Still on that theme

2007-08-04T17:26:00.001-05:00

I'm still bothered by the same banshee screams as one culture is ground asunder by another. Like one tectonic plate sliding beneath its neighbor; sometimes quiet, sometimes quake.

Either I'm just growing a little less idealistic and that's scuffing me into a pattern of negative thinking, or the culture of America has changed quite a bit in the last six years. I'm not sure which. Really, I'm not.

I've heard more than one person observe that 'you can tell who's going to be an asshole driver on the road by whether they have a fish/God Bless America/Support Our Troops bumper sticker on their vehicle. The kernel of this be more than the fact that a-holes are drawn to the dominate culture; the propaganda model currently applied to those groups purposefully excludes the information and perspective necessary to make the co-operative process of freeway travel possible.

Just as our Lieutenant Governor (and Secretary of Transportation) yesterday got neigh hysterical denying that the 35-W tragedy could possibly be something she might have to own up to - 'my daughter drives that bridge twice a day going to school, so to suggest anyone in our department chose dollars over public safety is an outrage' - - - the patterns never change. It is not about having contemplated the fact that your daughter drives a particular bridge every day, the kernel lies in never having contemplated anything. Nothing beyond short term impacts upon the self can be engaged in the current media model disseminated by corporate media.

This is brutally fascinating in a state where just one hundred and fifty years ago Sioux Indians were worth twenty five bucks a scalp.

We occupy our place in Minnesota because a majority of our ancestors were able to dehumanize the natives to the level of dogs. Yeah, its too bad they can't feed their children, guess they should have worked harder on their farms this spring. A subconscious refusal to connect the dots between forcing them off the valuable land and starvation of their next generation.

Again the refusal to consider other human beings reigns supreme.

Ms. Molnau, our Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Transportation, totally misses the point. For her, the notions of human beings' safety and the bridge integrity were so far removed from the petty concerns of governance . . . that was engaged in such a level of the abstract as to be meaningless.

Of course she starts breaking glass with the sound of her nasal voice when she contemplates her daughter being in one of those submerged cars, but she has never considered that scenario until it happened to ten or so Minnesotans! It is the retardation of the neo-cons. It would have ironic value if dead people were not involved. They can never see themselves or their loved ones as part of society, only as elite - better than, superior too. We all die when the bridge we're driving over collapses.

So back to the initial impetus. The dehumanization of others has long been a part of the 'conservative' view, and now it is ascendant. All conservative media separates a man from his society and makes him feel defensive and reactionary; that's an easy man to control. That's a man with deformed testicles, but that's another blog entry.

Just as you will never get that prick in the SUV to back off more that six inches from your rear bumper before you find a place to merge into the right lane - no bumper sticker or hand gesture is going to change that behavior. It is not that the driver is too stupid to understand that their SUV has twenty times the mass of the motorcycle they are tailgating, just that they don't consider it or the life of said motorcyclist as being worthy of immediate consideration.

Grrr. I'm still frustrated.

Just as the tobacco industry made bazillions by screwing multiple generations of Americans into emphysema and lung cancer, so is the media cartel making bazillions at the cost of our democracy. They don't care. Just as our society is saddled with tens of millions of oxygen tanks 'cuz our legislature would rather lick the sensitive spot between the balls and the anus of Big Tobacco than challenge it, they are not going to challenge a media that turns potential human beings into retards.

Who wouldn't want to be a leader in a superpower populated by retards? Unlimited power, zero oversight. Sounds like fascist nirvana to me.

Hmmm

2007-07-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

That last post does not sit well with me. I believe I was trying to get at something real, but taboos 'gainst criticizing soldiers be strident. This theme will not be abandoned. Please do not judge her on this single posting.

Crazy Shit

2007-07-23T21:21:00.001-05:00

(shit is in the title)

This link, be some quality shit. I don't know who 'Human Events' is supposed to be, and I'm as inclined to believe they've 'been leading the conservative movement since 1944' is big joke upon anyone who might take them seriously. That's a pretty stupid statement.

Anyhoo, this site is still important. I'd like to pretend that most of my fellow American's possess a mental regime of skepticism and robust critical thinking that would tear a fish ass website like that right into the emergency room; yet I know I'm wrong. 30 to 40 % of our population has no critical thinking skills. They can't tell the difference between a journalism and propaganda - any society that approaches such a number is fucked. What has been done to this next generation has fucked us.

Look at that fucking website. The only two attacks on Mr. Obama are vague insinuations presented in the passive voice. Subscribe to their email (and further narrow your media intake) and then they will give you 'the ammunition' to blow away your ideological opponents.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that had a christian cross and a handgun as symbols on the same decal. That's some heavy shit. If you are too stupid to understand how horrific it is to see those two symbols combined by a right wing group anywhere in America; you've just sold off all your shares in America. It is only fucking obvious that fascists in this country would like to see the vast wealth and military power of America diverted to their own petty goals. That's what fucking fascists do, and it is retarded to think that a country with population exceeding 300 million would not have enough of a selfish subculture that idolizes Adolf to be a problem.

Candy asses pretend that problems are going to go away. Fucking American's deal with their problems.

I'm irritated with any American who hasn't spent six months of their adult life studying Hitler's fascist rise to power. Any ten year old must be able to deduce that if bad shit where going to happen in America, it would almost certainly be something more like Hitler than Red Dawn. If one has any duty as a citizen, you'd think it would be understanding how Germany went wrong or how many American corporations thought fascism was totally profitable and groovy.

There is a story from the recent local press that gives some life to this point. A recently returned Iraqi Crusader crashed a party recently, drunk off his ass. A proud Minnesotan stood up to him, asked him to leave a party his was not invited too, and this poor messed up vet pulled a handgun our Governor is so proud to have 'concealed carried' into legality; a struggle ensued and our Minnesotan victim of the Iraqi Occupation ended up on the wrong side of his own gun.

Now the guy who killed someone who brought a gun to a fist fight is looking at serious criminal time.

Fuck all, and I think this is an important message for all my liberal brothers and sisters to catch on too. Conservatives have changed the world from the happy liberal fantasy of the early nineties.

I still hang out in local bars and I still drink. If you are an asshole at my bar I'm going to tell you so. Get physical with me and I even see a hint of a concealed weapon - I'm going to kill you. Fuck you, anyone with an IQ over seventy must realize that the human body is a massive combination of vulnerable targets combined into consciousness; fists can subdue, guns kill.

Bush and his holding company have worked hard to make this country a more dangerous place. 'Liberals' need to wise the fuck up. The strategies we utilized in the past were noble, but not so useful in the current paradigm. You need to 'man up', and enforce your own territory.

Up until Rupert Murdoch started blowing shit bubbles out of his mouth, most liberals understood that their gains were paid for in blood. Corporations don't give you shit, you have to take it.

This next generation, we'll see.

Open Letter to the Young Woman who just sold me a Twelve Pack of Summit at Booze-Mart

2007-07-13T17:09:00.000-05:00

Dear Young Lady,

I know that the industrious young employee's at Booze-Mart pride yourselves on efficiency, so I didn't interfere with the seamless transactions of alcohol for currency upon which your establishment has built it's obviously solid foundations. Yet somehow I find myself compelled to write this. Now that I have added it to the AM blog, I expect the world to take notice.

First off, let me say that you seem to me to be a nice young thing. I particularly appreciate the tight green T-shirt and the low riding jeans that displayed some curves about your hips and lower stomach that engaged my imagination in some truly novel ways. You're always polite with a smilet when I make some witty observation on the advertising strategies of various breweries and such. These traits, combined with the fact that you work in a liquor store must make you a fairly prized object of competition amongst the young men of your social group.

I'd like to confront you upon choice of music. Every time I pop in to grab a box of Summit Extra Pale Ale for 10.99 a twelve pack, you seem to have the shop radio tuned to pop country.

This is an affliction I hate to see such a delightful nymph languishing under.

More than once I have yearned in my soul to reach over and switch that radio from that painful, monoculture schlock to KFAI - 106.7 in St. Paul, 90.3 in Minneapolis - where I almost guarantee that the very first song you hear will be awesome. Perhaps it will be some dirty Mississippi Delta Blues or some energetic, new Hip Hop from East Africa that helps you and your deliciously exposed caramel mid-riff get your groove on . . .

But I digress. You see, pop country is not culture. It is crap that be mass produced, the most important aspect of pop country is the highly developed infrastructure that allows them to blast the same stale music into suburbs all over the country. I has only the stalest of connections to the forms of country music that were popular in previous generations, and none of the honesty or ideological variety that defined a genre of such artists as Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. Pop country is intended to sound like every pop country song that came out before it (or worse like a twangified version of '80's hair metal) and with just about the entire distribution network owned by a few rich, old, white men who are proud of their slave own'n, Hispanic hate'n family histories. No artist who writes a song that offends them or their take on how America should be will ever get radio play again.

Try KFAI. A lot of what you will here on this station are local artists, or musician well respected by other musicians in their communities. Not a good looking guy who has managed to turn his vocal talents into something that makes him a millionaire (and lets those bastards who own those radio stations and record studios remain multi-millionaires) ; women and men with so much music in them it forces them to live in poverty just to keep making music.

There is a huge fucking difference. Once you start listening to KFAI, music can become so much more to you. Once you begin to take in all of the different styles and comprehend how they have changed and grown as new artists from the next generation fill the places of the old masters. History becomes more alive, and evolution in Ideas, life, art becomes spiritually compelling.

It's as simple as this. The more true culture you are exposed to, the more your potential as a human being develops. Plants need sunlight to grow, humans need legitimate social interaction. The more culture you absorb the more you will demand it. The more you demand it, the more starving artists will find audiences, rather than the great deals at Booze-Mart.

Attractive young women shape their communities by the choices they make. I wouldn't be the man I am if it were not for dozens of great, cultured women. Don't throw away your power.

Sincerely,
Mr. Summit & Sideburns

P.S.
I hope this don't make things awkward when I stop in tomorrow to buy another case of Summit.

Contraditions

2007-07-13T07:39:00.000-05:00

A few things that have happened to me in the last twenty-four have been difficult to file logically in my head.

If a man, dressed up in somber greys with a black tie, comes into Walgreens to purchase a single sympathy card; why would the woman behind the counter tell him to, 'have a great day' ?

Also, I sort of participated in the strangest conversation with some cousins last night. After defining a sanctuary city from Las Vegas as, 'where they look down on Vegas, a place where they actually have some taste, some culture,' he supported his position by describing a great house there in terms of square footage?!?

No. This is not my humble opinion, wealth does not equal culture. Taste is not defined by square footage. Sheer volume can impress (like when you walk into a cathedral) but what delineates taste lies in the how one uses that space. "Four hundred and sixty square feet, with a piano," fails to convey the sense of awe I'm sure you felt.

In my former life I was forced to work in the homes of many of Minnesota's richest families. Nothing can invoke the irksome sense of ironic tragedy like the combination of surplus wealth with zero taste. I liked to look at it with a Dante'sque Eye, they created their own Hell of Disharmony that they are too ignorant to suffer from. Nothing like a bored hausfrau using a credit card to fill an emotional void, then trying to explain to you what she 'created' in this room.

Of course, some know that they have no taste, or just want to have it without understanding it, so they hire an interior designer. An interesting little niche of the New Bourgeoisie, usually artistic trophy wives who make a 'business' out of designing rooms for her husband's friends. Chatting up other women and showing a healthy amount of tits to the Man of the House.

Oh well, the world is a huge place and every human being has a whole world of contextual opinions about how that world does and should operate. The distance between my own treasured consciousness and that of others makes the nothingness between galaxies seem but a skip.

Everything that is you be within your mind. From the depths of your emotions to the thrilling peaks of your passions. You can create nothing (except a child) that is not defined by the limits of your imagination and fineness of your understanding. Seek to understand many things. Experience deeply. If you open yourself to the lives of others and the works of artists, both contemporary and those speech even death has not stilled, something great will begin to grow within you. Culture will become more than square feet and damn piano.

It is your life. It is your consciousness! Revel in consciousness!

David Sirota

2007-07-07T07:59:00.000-05:00

This article on totally jived with me, so here's a link.

Now I'm off to the middle of no where North Dakota to fulfill familial obligations. Grr.

Letter to NPR's Danial Shorr

2007-07-05T16:40:00.001-05:00

A letter to NPR regarding Danial Shorr's recent commentary on the Libby Pardon.

To whom it may concern:

Hearing daily how NPR is a 'bullhorn' for the liberal left - with references to Mr. Shore's commentary as a major point of proof - I'm forced to submit this comment.

To summarize his 'analysis': don't analyze a President's pardons.

Any commentary that does not include a reference to how our current President's father used his pardon of Mr. Weinberger to effectively kill an investigation into Iran Contra; or lays out the current talking point about Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich without mentioning that Scooter Libby was that felon's lawyer are not fulfilling a journalists duty to inform his/her public.

If one is just going to be a glorified blogger, at least have a site where others can comment publicly.

No Liberal has ever wasted public airtime with the message : 'you are powerless to do anything, so just stop thinking about it.'

Scooter Libby gets his Pardon

2007-07-02T19:05:00.001-05:00

First of all, I fucking know that Bush didn't pardon his motherfucking ass. He commuted the prison time associated with his conviction because the Imperial President can do whatever the fuck he wants. He decides what parts of laws He will recognize, and He decides which parts of a sentence His lackey's will serve.

One observation the amuses me: how different this is from most other pardons. Except for a few of the more high profile pardons, most presidential pardons are granted as favors to individuals who have long ago paid the price for their transgressions. Individuals who seek a pardon as a way of wiping a past mistake off of their record - they paid their fines and did their time decades ago - they seek a cleansing of their personal and family honor.

Not a high point in our political culture, but not necessarily an evil that has to be immediately confronted.

Libby didn't get that. His conviction for lying and obstructing justice remains a stain on his cute little name. Maybe Bush just felt he could not pull it off with nixonian approval ratings. More likely he just don't fucking care. Neo cons are like evags in that they just have no sense of public shame. "Who fucking cares how many allegations of corruption and convictions follow my name?!? That don't mean fucking shit to the clique of wealthy men that I run with. I'll still command all the respect a man called 'scooter' by his betters is ever going to fucking command. I've learned to like it."

He's a bitch, a lap dog. Always has been one. . . 'Scooter'.

Still, it is interesting how weak he must be. His bitch, Judith Miller, who published all that junior high level propaganda - rah rah rah , WMD, rah, rah, rah, anonymous source says - did some time refusing to give him up. Became a martyr for the Forth Estate to those whose goldfishesque public memories went back neigh four days.

Scooter can't do any time. He can't even endure processing.

He's got the shit to roll uphill on his masters, but not the balls. Yet Cheney has commanded Bush lay out the pardon, so this guy can't be trusted to have the sac to hold out for even a few hours.

What a condemnation of George W Bush. A man who saw himself as the enforcer of his family, who granted favors and purged underlings based solely on loyalty to the Bush Family. The number two to his number two can't be trusted. No mafia, or even a fucking drug peddling street gang would permit such a limp dick to rise so high; to ever let serious shit pass before a man who can't be absolutely trusted to do a stretch for the organization.

It is ironic in the darkest fucking way that a group of men who are willing to devote five years, with teams of psychologists and treatment that mocks the Geneva Conventions , for the breaking of one of their Al-Qeida enemies - they cannot count on one of their own lieutenants doing a week in a minimum security country club. Oh, he just can't survive being away from his children. . .

I'm re-reading this posting and I think the logical analysis stands 100%. Scooter is already a sympathetic figure to the 30% of my retarded fellow Americans who consume one of Mr. Murdoch's products. Not retarded because they were born that way, retarded because his products are marketed as predictably damaging to the 'ignorant rabble' who consume them. I don't think any human being is 'ignorant rabble', but after a few years of choking on Rupert's Big Media Dick - you might be damaged beyond salvation.

Public Relations 101, particularly after the losses in '06 and the current trends, be to let Scooter do eighteen months and spend every minute lionizing his suffering at the hands of vicious partisans. The fact that they can't do that with him shows how weak he is.

Thoughts on Technology

2007-06-26T18:56:00.001-05:00

My PDA died a few months ago. Just now I decided that I will not be replacing it. I'll stick with the memo books and notepads that I've been compensating with. My Samsung cell phone, mangled with purposefully useless Verizon software, still serves some uses as a digital toy; I'm not going to completely embrace ludditism.

Yet I cannot help but hate the lousy things. I guess most people don't realize that every single little digital toy that that seems to define this hip new generation ( I can't think of anything else that defines them) contains some rare materials that are most commonly extracted from Africa by workers that are little more than soulless slaves.

I'm gonna opt out of that one. Just like Cindy and I are opting out of the whole 'diamond ring equals a lifetime of love' load of feces that a certain diamond cartel dreamed up a few generations ago to spike sales. It's a moral choice. Whether one be swayed by Leo de Cap's powerful performance in Blood Diamonds or you just read a bit about that industry and that side of the world, refusing to participate in a happy fantasy that fuels human suffering is a good thing.

Cindy loves her digital toys, so maybe this new moral edict will not apply to everybody. Still, at least we are trying, and that mean something. Most folks just seem incapable of taking the time to consider how systems like global trade work, and that some of these interactions are not morally justified.

I wish I could force them to contemplate the notion that all choices are moral choices. I'll never eat at Applebee's or permit positive things to be said about that chain in my presence, because I worked within that corporation long enough to know that it is not a good neighbor. They willingly operate under a business model that exploits labor and works hard to cycle through employees in under a few years - no benefits, no living wages, no real future. Their food is no better or worse than most of the trash that chains slop down in front of unsophisticated 'guests', but I think any rudimentarily conscious human being should aspire to more than predictable blandness and a scripted 'conversation' with every human being they encounter - from the host at the front door, to the server's 'personal favorites', to the managers visit.

I guess I'm still a bit cynical about the state of culture and social interaction in the our society.

Fucking Theists . . .

2007-06-12T18:06:00.001-05:00

So I was listening to this week's podcast of Skepticality from the folks at skeptic.com and was moved by this interview with former Nevada State Senator Lori Lipman Brown, now the official lobbyist in Washington representing the views of those who don't think that Noah's ark and countless species two by two really happened.

I'm impressed with her eloquence, and naturally I affirm just about everything I heard her say. I also learned even more about the levels of corruption and outright greed that has accompanied the activities of the Bush Administration. Every day I am more convinced that those motherfuckers intended to grab hold of the office of President and use their every waking moment in that position to transfer as much taxpayer revenue to their political friends and family as they possibly could. No Child Left Behind, Office of Faith Based Initiatives, Operation Iraqi Liberation . . . each just a damn cleverly designed vehicle that seems to have no higher purpose than to alter the flow of taxpayer largess into new, less accountable directions.

No Child Left Behind, just a whole bunch of rhetorical 'accountability' bullshit with no greater goal than to insure that a handful of test publishing companies (most with ties to his limp-dicked brother Jeb) become nationally contracted industries with annual sales in the tens of millions. That's the only reason it was pushed through, whatever the effects are on the education level of this next generation; who the fuck cares? Certainly not Junior and Jeb.

Since its inception the Office of Faith Based Initiatives has endured absolutely fucking zero oversight from the Republican Congress. Only now are we starting to hear about the grotesque levels of cronyism and favoritism that was built into that monstrous institution. Ms Lipman Brown brought up the amazing amount of money that got shifted to Pat Robertson's 'Operation: Blessing.' (yeah, the fucker who put the 'dumb' in 'Christendom' ) Mr. Robertson's organization has a bad track record when it comes to using contributions (the use of helicopters purchased with charity money to haul diamond mining equipment into the heart of exploited Africa comes to mind), yet GWB gives Mr. Robertson a few hundred thousand of our taxpayer dollars and he does not have to show shit to account for a single fucking dime. George Bush to the Television Evangelist: 'We trust you to spend it wisely.' Again a cleverly designed now apparatus that allowed the transfer of taxpayer funds from groups that formerly had to justify how they spent that money, to friends and political allies who could burn it for their own amusement for all the current administration fucking cared. Of course, they do expect their cut back in political donations and brainwashed automatons who vote based on 'their values.'

The Iraqi war is such an obvious example I can't even get myself to reiterate the facts again here. It really does not matter how may civilians were tortured to death in lawless Iraq or how many American Soldiers died in a country where they can accomplish nothing good by being there; Halliburten made money. Bush-annointed contractors are making money. Bush-annointed contractors are growing in size and power. Within the the myopic realm of Washington, no other figures get included in the calculus of war. You are a child if you believe otherwise.

Finally, in that excellent interview, Ms. Lipman Brown discussed some of what it is like working in the area of the federal legislation of sexual education. This really pissed me off.

She described the kind of person who devotes themselves to the political process of defining how sexual education is taught in this countries public schools, the kind of person who honestly cherishes in their heart the notion that sex before marriage is wrong, and such sinful behavior should carry consequences like accidental pregnancy or AIDS.

How do you sit across the table from a self-righteous piece-of-shit who smirks at the notion that a gay man might contract AIDS - 'sinful behavior has terrible consequences.' This religious infection goes beyond not caring if gays live or die, it actually takes pleasure in the fact that in their fucked up little reptilian minds AIDS reinforces their world-view. They use the deaths from AIDS to buttress their assault on the modern world.

The fact that most young Americans just want to have sex and enjoy their lives infuriates these fuckos, they want to use the Federal Government to insure that every member of the next publicly educated generation both gets indoctrinated that 'abstinence is the best policy' while also learning abso-fucking-lutly nothing about how to successful employ contraception.

People like that do not represent a functioning culture. They are the shitty kind of humans who would rather cripple and geld their children than permit the threat that they might rise above the stagnant sub-culture that is this modern Jesus-Drug Cult. This group does not evolve or produce human beings capable of engaging the majority of us, they retard their children's development to produce a generation on a collision course with fascist violence. Jesus may have been a philosopher with a message worth listening to, he was not a fucking drug to be abused.

Even a theist like Bono or a modern Methodist has to accept the fact that their religious group does not do any greater good than the secular groups out there, and the fact that they are a successful religious group only help legitimize the Faith Queers.

I'll end with that, I think I'm kinda groov'n on that adjective. Faith Queers, individuals who just don't seem right to the majority of us, cuz they are extracting pleasure from their association of sexual and social reinforcement with an irrational religious world view.

"Jesus loves me and gets me hard, cuz I'm a fucking religious retard."

"I will never ever engage my brain, I'll just sing this repetitive refrain."

Major General John Batiste is on DN!

2007-05-25T17:19:00.000-05:00

Listening to Major General John Batiste on Democracy Now! got me thinking about something.

AMY GOODMAN: Recently, Sergeant Sanick Dela Cruz testified he urinated on the dead body of an Iraqi killed by his fellow Marines. Sgt. Cruz also said he saw his squad leader shoot down five Iraqi civilians who were trying to surrender. The testimony came in a pretrial hearing for a Marine charged for the massacre and the ensuing cover-up.
MAJ. GEN. JOHN BATISTE: There is a fine line between an armed mob and a disciplined military force, and it’s up to military leaders to hold that line with rigid discipline. What you just relayed are examples where we lose it. There is no reason in the world why that kind of behavior should be condoned or, for that matter, happen in combat.

I don't think we can put too fine a line on it.

Our Military, particularly the branches that work on the ground, are dangerously past the crossing of it. Around a third polled are pro-torture, about half would hold to a 'code of silence' for a fellow who executed an unarmed civilian, about one in ten openly admit to war crimes. All this in an institution where 25% of females leaving report having been raped, a number that is surely far higher, where in civilian life where we often hear that the number of rapes that gets reported is something like 1 of 5.

These numbers are just fucking crazy. Jump off the mother-fucking page crazy. The picture they paint of our Men and Women in Uniform is dark. These troops come off sounding like soldier/gangsters - guys' who take what they want and don't respect women. They bond with the fellas in their squad like a ganger 'bout his brothers - always got his back, never rat him out. You want that kinda guy on the street with a Machine Gun near where your toddler is playing?

imagine why The Insurgency keeps growing.

Which half of Germany do you want to create? The half where a sophisticated, wounded people were won over by a professional, disciplined army? Germany soldiers and families sought desperately to be captured by Americans in the last days of the War. Or the half of Deutschland that was overrun by invading Russians, who murdered and raped hysterically?

Which was the better invading force? Which was the better Germany?

I can understand why General Batiste is so upset. Our Military had been tracking forward since the dark days of Vietnam. Gulf War I, Balken States, I have never heard of a single Human Rights complaint. The casus belli of each engagement seemed reasonable. In the Balkans, all we seemed to be trying to do was stop a genocide, in GW I, Kuwait had been invaded and they were an ally of the U.S. - I mean, it is 1991, you just can't let a country invade another on bullshit pretense.

Yet this war had none of that. The justifications for war were a matter of propaganda, not policy defining fact. Such levels of factual analysis seem to have been avoid for sake of 'selling the war.' The standards of the Geneva Convention were purposefully re-defined, despite the fact that they had worked for fifty years. This opened sundry Dark Doors. The realistic troop levels that would be needed to provided security (one of those quaint Geneva Convention obligations of the invading force) were not going to be met by a multiple of four. This was not a dare to stick your dick in a hornet's nest. This was penetrate hornet nest with hands tied behind back and a cubic yard of bee's wax shoved up your ass.

I think General Batiste's opinion jives with mine since day one. Putting a relatively small amount of Christian troops in the middle of the Muslim Holy Land will never generate positive results. It is just stupid. We allowed an administration to get/seize election that cared about nothing more than getting/seizing election. . .

I'm going to quit, I'm just overwhelmed. George W. Bush is such an incompetent President , I just can't believe how much we have lost. We're not even a Superpower anymore thanks to him, we're just another Asshole at the Table.

Look at Putin. He's currently terrorizing Europe with radiation murders and threats of cutting of energy supplies. Can we call this former KGB and bully out? No Way! He knows we just went all in on the last two hands. We can no longer bluff with the former Soviet Union.

That sucks, considering we fucking 'won the Cold War.'

I think we need to consider how each of us, as Americans, takes responsibility for the Bush Presidency. The infantile motherfucker has ruled this country for seven years. The damage inflicted upon every corner of our society cannot be underestimated. Failure to recover in just one area could be societal death.

Even if you embrace the conspiracies of voter manipulation and DeBolt machine fraud, it still happened. Nobody stood up within the national press and challenged the legitimacy of this President. We didn't stop traffic and halt commerce, we let it happen.

We protested, but not loud or often enough. We were outraged, but it wasn't something to disrupt the family Easter over. We sent a few dozen emails, knowing how easily they are filtered out.

"You ain't seen bad yet, but it's come'n."

Le Cellule Africaine

2007-05-17T18:58:00.000-05:00

This Wednesday's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article in the lower center of their Front Page. I'd provide a link, but WSJ is all into the registering of readers, and I'm not down with that shit. Here's a summary:

Colonial-Era Ties to Africa Face a Reckoning in France

"On the evening of March 4, 10 French paratroopers" dropped near a militia controlled airstrip in the Central African Republic, 'ambushed the rebels, killing several and reclaiming the airport for the government."

"In France, neither the public nor the parliament was informed of the attack for three weeks." This action was run by the 'Cellule Africaine' a three-man office. The 'Cell' has had their dick in African affairs for over fifty years, in the bland words of the WSJ; "has overseen France's strategic interests in Africa, holding sway over a wide swath of former French colonies. Acting as a general command, the Cell uses France's military as a hammer to install leaders it deems friendly to French interests. In return, these countries give French industries first crack at their oil and other natural resources." Plus, of course, "The Cell's close ties to oil giant Elf Aquitaine, whose top executives were jailed on corruption charges . . ."

Wowsers. This is not the sort of reporting one gets to see very often. I'd hazard that this article made it into the conservative press for two reasons. First, the country in question is France, a nation state that has been heavily characterized by the U.S. Right's propaganda. Secondly, some of the Journal's readership already understands how the world works - they have ideological structures in place to allow them to ignore injustice and suffering in the Third World - or, they lack the critical thinking skills that would permit one to extrapolate this example to our own society. Even at newspaper as prestigious as the Wall Street Journal, at least half the readership is retarded.

So a French President come into power, and the head of the secretive Cell, comes to visit in the still of a Parisian night. Tells the President what the Cell can do for him. They know Africa. They know who has the power, who is vulnerable, and have an extensive understanding of how to utilize force their effectively. They are already tight with the powerful oil and other industries to which so much of the French economy is dependent. They understand the ways that things can be done to protect/enhance the profits of said industries. The President doesn't need them to tell him how pleasing France's largest oil company is good for his Presidency.

This is realpolitik, an level of understanding of how asymmetrical power almost invariably plays out with our species. It seems that when a technologically/militarily superior group encounters a group that cannot rise to meet the level of threat, the dominate group will never voluntarily stave off the exploitation and violence. Anyone who has studied history or global politics beyond the community college level has to grapple with realpolitik. Powerful men, when facing no serious oversight, will seek to utilize the full extend of their power.

We can learn a lot about why France is still a member of the G-8 from this article. Most powerful economies don't function without submissive satellite states from which resources and wealth are extracted. We can also gleam a bit about the natural sprouting of corruption inside a secretive and dangerous 'Cell.' How quickly before someone who routinely bribes foreign official or organizes coups against foreign governments begins to loose respect for his own nation's jurisprudence?

I'm not sure what's going on in France these days, but if the Cell is facing any sort of 'Reckoning', than the level of informed political discourse must be light-years ahead of anything our own pundits and citizenry are capable of. How shameful. This Cell has not done anything worse than Iran-Contra, or the Iraq/Oil Crusade, but neither of those are actually understood by more than five to ten percent of our population. Most will have their brains cease activity before they ever move beyond jingoism and the mere repetition of slogans.

I pity them, so of course I also pity us. Yet nothing will change the fact that realpolitik be the law of the land. There is nothing new under the sun.

Twins Woes

2007-05-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

Today is one of those days where 'no joy in Muddville,' seems too apropos.

The Minnesota Twins have lost six of the last seven games, some of those spectacularily. The pitching has been mediocre, the bats cold.

Tough times. That's professional baseball. Statistics tell us nobody wins all the time.

Wait for the wheel.

Relationships

2007-05-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

Social encounters of the last five minutes have set off a series of blogable thoughts. While our neighbors are away, the daughter's fiance - an affable, young chap with a tastefully-tricked, red Dodge Ram - met Cindy on her walk home and detailed his unenviable task. Something had gotten into their trash can and presumably drowned. The nose knows, and this something was a few days damn well past ripe.

He's out there wearing my respirator right now, fishing rotten squirrel corpses out of stagnant water and scrubbing the insides of the plastic dumpster with bleach. I told him that the squirrels were trapped by plastic and water, but he was trapped by the more subtle bonds of relationship. Men who are scooping maggots into a plastic bag are rarely inclined to indulge in the philosophic distractions. Perhaps I was clumsy.

What I had meant to select with that statement was the strength of the bond, a mutual recognizing of it, not to draw parallels between being with his girlfriend and drowning in a rancid pool. Certainly this task sucks, and certainly the motive force that compels one to put on a stranger's respirator and stick one's upper body into a stench and fly infested space is not a weak one. Any of us who are invested in a loving relationship understand how he is trapped by this scenario. Not 'trapped' with a negative connotation, just trapped enough to elucidate the ensnaring motive.

Lets call that Love. As Katharine Hepburn said in a recent A&E Biography I accidentally watched half of, 'a desire to change oneself or do things; to please the one you love.'

What I want to talk about is how Love is both necessary and inevitable in most physical relationships, yet how the intensity of that emotion has virtually zero correlation with the success of said relationship. I want to talk about marriage, meaningful relationships, and spiritual maturity. All the things that go into a relationship that are excluded from the afore defined set. Just because you want to riff on Love like a long-haired 80's rock star in the midst of a 'power ballad', does not mean the relationship will succeed. It's like knowing what what soil, climate, and light are right for planting something, just wanting it to grow is immaterial.

We know relationships implode (or explode, guess it's personal preference.) I do not believe that marriages fail because as Cappellanus's quote 'All Love be Either Increasing or Decreasing.' I think relationships fail because folks are too immature when they enter into them, they don't yet have enough understanding of the world/selves to 'get it.' I'd go so far as to say that the only time relationships actually fail is when one member grows into something more mature or complicated.

Literature is filled with examples of the man who goes off to war or other dramatic experience and then deals with the fact that his wife and him just don't see the world the same way anymore. Feminist Literature has their own paradigm. As Spiritual Beings, we must never be afraid to try to grow into something more, to expand our selves and our understanding.

The main problem is that 17 - 25 is the main time for individuals to make a major leap to a more complicated world-view. Current theories of brain development argue that the human mind is not physiologically capable of higher level moral considerations until sometime in the early twenties.

Some humans want to experience a more complicated reality, some are easily manipulated by their fear of it.

Take the current 'liberal' vs. 'conservative' schlock. I would bet my sideburns that a proud member of the college republicans has never justified selecting a major based on 'I'm trying to find myself,' or 'I'm looking for something that I can be passionate about.' Such Aimless Wanderings are anathema to the conservative movement. Their role-models knew from a very early age what they wanted to do, or what their 'calling' was. The archetype of 'The Seeker' does not exist on their side.

Yet the few rational voices left in the press keep bringing up the disparity between the cultures. Liberals and states that have progressive views on these matters have a much lower divorce rate than the 'red states.' The religious hyperbole of the South won't shut up about 'values', yet they divorce (or murder their wives) at a rate far beyond that of any 'blue state.'

I think it's because of the fundamentalists' foolish belief that seeing a man married at nineteen is somehow a good thing.

Theocracy does not need the level of civic responsibility that Democracy does. In fact, it kinda needs to keep the baseline a few notches beneath most of the twentieth century.

So, us who 'get' liberalism engage and screw during our early twenties, not looking for life partners, just dissipating (the groovitastically pleasurable) primate needs. We read and we dwell and maybe we get depressed, then around three oh we try to accept Mortality and make the most out of who/where we are. We've got a feel for where we are in 'riding the wave' that be life. Let's try to have a good ride.

'Conservatives' (or 'evags' to my more regular readers) are motivated by a sub-conscious knowledge that their belief system makes less sense than a Pepsi commercial. Exciting something, brand name. Exciting excitement, brand name brand name, we all want to be like exciting brand name. Embrace Brand Name. Do not question the word of Brand Name.

I've got two plus hours into this. Please, my friends, 'get' what I'm driving at here. Curse the religiously damaged world that makes these discussions so difficult to initiate.

Defense of Al Sharpton

2007-05-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

This morning on Google News I saw this: "Sharpton Remark on Faith was Bigoted." Rev Sharpton, who 'led the attack on poor Don Imus', is 'now in the cross-hairs himself.' While having a rather informal, sit down style debate with Christopher Hitchens (an Atheist, but someone whose political opinions have drifted . . . basically, I think he's a literary gun for hire. Few on the hard right have the skills to opine in favor of the Iraq War in front of a hostile crowd. C H has those skills, honed to an arrogantly fine edge), Rev Sharpton said something about 'those who really believe in Gawd.' Governor Romney's team wasted no time playing the 'Offended Christian' card.

Here's my thoughts, as I delay going to work this morning.

Listening to CNN's pundits talk about 'the problem here is we don't have the whole context of his statement.' Oh really? You can't, as a major 24 hour 'news' program, have an intern track down the transcript of that debate and take ten minutes to read it? Obviously the whole damn thing was filmed. The problem is that modern pundits can't put any thing into context. That is a critical skill practiced by real journalists, purposefully lacking on the cable networks.

Secondly, does this lame fiasco mean that all Atheists are bigots? Mr. Romney seems to be able to allege the victim stance just because someone may have questioned the legitimacy of his religious faith, yet to an Atheist no religion is legitimate and Mormonism is one of the more blatantly rediculous. Divine texts that vanished whenever they were critically questioned, polygamy, Brigham Young? Five million followers or not, it's still a funny belief system.

I don't get the controversy. Clearly Al Sharpton is being held to a different standard than any other religious leader. Evangelikals accuse Jews and 'weak' Christians of worshiping the wrong god. Catholics have long been disparaged by proddies as having fallen into a confusion of latin mumbo jumbo, of having lost the true meaning of Jesus' message. Ten minutes of 'Christian' radio will give you ten examples of 'we're real Christians, these other groups are wrong.'

As Atheism is Self-Evident, many religious belief systems are a house of cards. To a house a cards, even a breath - even the spoken word - can be devastating. The Fragile Construct must be defended at all times. Surround oneself with fellow believers, condemn critical thinking, we see this behavior over and over again.

Critical Thoughts on our Modern Military

2007-05-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

Voltaire once said that 'those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' This observation does not bode well for a country with standing members of congress who see creationism as reality, a country where 24 is watched by anyone over twelve. Yet while a myopic culture can have serious consequences, the same refusal to engage illogical memes can have exponentially worse consequences within certain institutions. Our military is the paramount example.

A recent interview I read had a military officer taking a moment to stress just what the U.S. military is: 'the most efficient fucking killing machine that has ever been created in the history of our species.' And it is true. The more one learns about the military, from A-10 tank killers to bombing systems that could turn an entire sports stadium into hamburger in seconds, the capacity to bring death numbs the mind.

This is what makes the recent poll numbers released this week so damn troubling. About fifty percent of marines and army soldiers informed America that they wouldn't report a fellow soldier whom they witnesses kill or maim a civilian. That's broken. The number can't be trusted straight up, because most individuals should be aware enough to lie if that was their honest belief. That fifty percent represents members of the U.S. military who don't give a good gawd damn about the institution they serve.

If you love your mother, you don't go telling strangers about what an easy slut she is. If you love the corp, you don't go summarizing to the media how little honor and the uniform code mean these days.

F.T.A. is back again, this time with soldiers openly admitting that they have rejected any sense of a moral code more enlightened than that of a prison gang. Represent, stick up for your brothers, never snitch.

I remember a conversation I had over Easter with several family members lamenting how 'a soldier would have to file out paperwork in triplicate before he can fire back a kid with a AK-47.' That's part of the rightwing bullshit these days, that our soldiers are dying cuz bleeding hearts want them tie their hands with rediculous regulations. 'Back in my day, you didn't have to call for permission to fire your weapon, if somebody was shooting at you, you shot back.'

This has a lot to do with the utter misunderstanding of modern warfare. In an arena where dozens of units from dozens of countries are working together under a shared command and control; war has changed. With the percentage of casualties attributed to friendly fire somewhere near 40%, when you are taking directed fire from over the horizon - the chances are pretty good that you have been mistakenly fired upon. You don't get to return fire until that hostile has been confirmed. You call down an airstrike on a team of Japanese, now the U.S. has an international incident on her hands.

I know that most Army recruiting media makes soldiery seem like Rambo. A soldier's job is not to kill. To paraphrase, 'a soldier's job is to do and die.' Sometimes 'doing' is killing, and in pitched battles our soldiers are second to none at killing, but many times the job is to die. To follow orders even when they seem suicidal.

I think too much of the thinking about the military has been affected by the 'Black Hawk Down' syndrome. A glorification of fighting for the sake of fighting, why and who are not important, only that you 'never leave a buddy behind.'

If I were a military leader, I'd love a military with such malleable morals. As a citizen, I'm shockingly disappointed that the men and women who serve do not aspire to more.

What makes America's military great is not its ability to wage war. What makes it great is its willingness to submit to civilian leadership. The Arsenal of Democracy fights for the good of We the People, not for some king or some fucking corporation. When half the uniform members tell the world that they don't give a rat's ass about international law or civilian oversight, they are saying something dark about the state of the U.S. military.

Withdraw from Iraq and most of the world. Bring our troops home and give them the care they have earned. Cut the standing army down drastically, and only keep/promote those who care about preserving the honor of their institution.

Thoughts on the Soul

2007-05-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

Had a conversation today that helped my mindfire grow beyond kindling with the topic of the soul. Most if the major species of monotheistic religion posit the existence of an immortal soul as an article of faith. Engaging Descartes, our existence is divided into two completely separate spheres. The realm of the body, the material world; our skeletal system, tables, computers, beer. The world of moving bodies, opposite and equal reactions, starvation and fat. On the other side be the realm of the soul, the inner world of the spirit. To this nebulous region experiences such as emotions and spirituality reside. If you believe that your soul lives on in heaven or some other afterlife, that 'soul' becomes the reference point for all that the tensions, desires, fears, - in short it becomes shorthand for you, all the characteristics that one references when they contemplate selfhood.

Now I'm certain that many enlightened (no, not enlightened . . . edjemicated ) are already assailing Cartesian Dualism with either Skinner's Behaviorism or a recently released study on neuroscience. For this entry, however, I'd like to run off into another tangent.

To most theists, when they discuss the soul they are thinking on some level about the things they treasure about themselves - the things that make them unique. Parts of themselves that they anticipate will be with them in the 'next life.' Skill at pool, a fascination with astronomy, a way with the ladies, traits that will continue to define them once they have left this body behind. Uncle Fritz just wouldn't be Uncle Fritz if he didn't have that goofy sense of humor in heaven. In heaven you're you, just without the material body. What is not flesh, muscle, or bone falls into the region of the soul. Hairs could be split, but the soul is the self.

So let's ponder the soul for a few moments. Do Atheists have a soul? If we don't believe in Gawd can we believe in a soul?

A rudimentary definition of the soul: the unique parts of a sentient being that engages the spiritual.

What is the spiritual? Those drives and impulses in a human being that lure and urge some of our kind to act in ways that transcend the mundane. I'm not prepared to define spiritual (especially after just leaving the May Day festivities this afternoon) , like the famous quote regarding pornography - 'I know it when I see it.' The swelling in a heart that makes one stand up to tyranny despite threat of death, that impetus be spiritual. The decision to take in an orphan when one's own children have an uncertain enough future as it is, that choice was motivated by something beyond an instinct for survival. Somewhere between sheer irrationality and cold, cold rationality; spirituality inspires some to seek a better world.

The tolerant accept that this spirituality can be found in many places. It might be hardwired into our brains. The intolerant see spirituality as exclusive to their cultish belief system. The intolerant must be purged.

With this pair of terms crudely delineated, I do not support my Atheist brothers and sisters who would throw away the realms of the soul and spirituality.

Just because we refuse to labotomize ourselves into sheep so that megalomaniacs can shamelessly exploit us, does not mean that we have forsaken all the subtle wonders of life that lift sentient beings above poultry.

I happen to agree with many that empathy supports most of what our species considers to be morality. I've always felt I was a rather empathic individual, it is the feeling of others emotions. When others are suffering, I suffer. When others are truly joyful, I am often joyful. I will choose actions that affect others' emotions because often I can feel them too. An interesting motive in a society whose 'capitalism' supposedly has elevated 'acting in one's self interest' to the primary virtue.

Faith also belongs in the real of the spiritual. To the ignorant evags who think that faith and Atheist are anathema I say read S.K's Fear and Trembling. I have and understand faith. The evag has been too damaged intellectually to comprehend the true Virtue. They are the blindmen being lead by the elephant's tail.

I think that we are born with a genetic blue-print that will create an organism with a huge mass of cleverly connected neural cells. Each of us possess processing power that dwarfs every computer on earth working together by a few exponential steps. Within that almost incomprehensible processing machine the capacity for self-awareness began. Within that self-awareness an awareness of others and our own certain mortality also springs forth. These realizations of self allow for the development of the characteristics that have been short-handed into the soul.

I don't believe that we are all born with a soul, but as humans we are all born with the potential for a soul. I'd say most kids these days have devoted more time to developing a digital pet/mmorpg character than they have ever spent cultivating their soul.

I forgot how long one of my blogging sessions can last. I'll have to continue this at another time.

Personal Update, thoughts on decline of culture, random brain misfirings

2007-05-05T19:07:00.000-05:00

Cindy helped get me started, and soon four hours of my life were sacrificed to the capricious deities of Blogger and HTML. I'm still not sure what happened to my profile pic and my blog description, maybe they will just pop up sometime in the future. That's what used to happen with my Google ads, sometimes they'd load in time, sometimes they won't. Anyways.

I'm going to make another attempt at being a more regular blogger. I've hit my six months at the new job, and while I have considerably more free time now (the daily commute went from around two hours to ten minutes), the job requires me to be there early and prepared to patiently socialize. Back in the good 'ole days I'd start blogging with me morning coffee, and stop when I felt like it - an hour in the truck on my way to the job site gave me plenty of time to get my thoughts in order. Now I don't even get to empty the coffeemaker before I'm pulling into the parking garage.

To say that my supervisor has 'the gift of gab' qualifies as the understatement of the epoch. Some days, after hours of animated conversation darting from refinishing a '67 chevy to Bush's utter incompetence like a mongoose on meth, I'm just worn out with communications. Back when I worked with the ignorant evags, I came home desperate for intelligent communication with the woman. Now it's a brace of beers, the ball game and 'please shut the hell up.'

Yet I know that my world is defined by my assumptions and all that rot. Change my habits, change my expectations. Nothing is good or evil but thinking makes it so.

Tomorrow is the May Day festival at Powderhorn Park across the river. Great parade and paganesque ceremony celebrating spring, rebirth, and renewal. I'm hoping to catch a bit of the positive energy (and an eyefull of young female squeezed into a chainmail bra.)

Holy crap! The Twins are playing, and Santana's got a lead. . .

An Attempt at Optimism

2007-04-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

So many of my blog postings lately have taken a considerable dive into "American't." As a test of my capacity to control tone, I'm giving optimism a try. Here is my take on a positive future.

The Democrats continue to enjoy political ascendancy. Although a few in the Bush Administration were quite determined to implement the techniques of population control trailblazed by fascism, they just moved a little too fast. From imposing education 'reform' on the entire nation to spike the profits of a few family business, to invading a country in the manner that put the safety of Halliburton's profit margin far above any other concern; they just had their fat little fingers in too many peoples' pies. Almost every American family - well, except for white, upper-class, neurotically christian families - have seen themselves or those they care about thrown into the wood chipper of FOX dominated media. Be they black or latino, gay, liberal, union, or just someone who thinks evolution kinda makes sense, they have seen their identity portrayed as a stereotype - with challenging portrayals dwarfed or all together absent.

Neurotic christians' love this analogy about a boiling frog. 'You see, if you like throw a frog into a pan of boiling water, he'll like jump out right away. But, if you like put a frog in a pan of warm water, and then like slowly turn up the heat, he'll just sit in there until he cooks, see?'' The tactics being leveled against this country, combined with the level of media conglomeration and religious lunacy in this country was easily the most dangerous threat to America of the last 100 years, but by being too greedy, too drunk on power; too many Americans felt the water was boiling. They instinctively jump away from all things Republican, as they will remain 'brand Bush' for the next decade.

Not that Democrats can go back to 'triangulation' business as usual. Damn Bush, his violations of international law, constitutional integrity, and the rights of human beings; now all these groups are charged up and working together. Grassroots and community groups all over the country have a much better understanding of just what is at stake - what citizenship is all about. More people understand the role the ACLU plays in a liberal democracy than ever before. Nobody takes a politician's word at face value anymore. If politicians cannot justify legislation with something other than political contributions from a PAC, they find themselves weeded out of America's ruling garden.

Our healthcare system is brought up to par with the rest of the white world.

Our secret services are finally collared with proper oversight. No more murdering a democratically elected leader in South America to help the short term profits of a company with one of your friends on the Board of Directors. No more funding terrorist groups, just cuz you think they are going to murder the citizens of some country we don't like. No more kidnapping people all over the world, putting them under sedation and into adult diapers, then flying them thousands of miles to be tortured in BFE (literally.)

The asteroid that is predicted to have a close call with us in 2012 misses. Sentient beings all over the planet engage in a new spiritual awakening, spurred by the intoxicating emotions of pondering global cataclysm. Major religions are moved towards a more moderate, inclusive doctrine, as the understanding that we are all in this together, clinging to life on planet earth was nearly driven home with a tremendous impact. Also, the event triggered a new resurgence in the public's interest in astronomy, with major cities enforcing nocturnal bans on light pollution as legions of amateur star gazers bring out their telescopes.

Somewhere, a water cooler conversation transitions from the visible moons of Jupiter to recent U.N. resolutions, instead of from the visible cleavage of Sue in accounting to American Idol.

America once again becomes a leader in the world. Refusing to trade with nations that do not respect the values of labor, human rights, and individual liberties that we cherish. Got a warehouse full of DVD players constructed by workers who have lost all hope - fuck ya. Americans are learning that the choices made every few years in elections have some effect on the world, choices made every time they go to Wal-mart vs. the Goodwill store are much more important.

Keiffer Suterland publically apologizes for subjecting the masses to the indulgent fantasies of power and paranoia that be 24. Rush Limbaugh is found dead after a tragic, vicodin fueled, self-eroticification mishap. Pink Floyd gets together for a culture shaking new album, and when they tour I'm able to afford tickets.

Yep, everything is going to work out just fine.

We Hold Atheism to be . . . aw fuck it.

2007-04-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

In the last few months I've read quite a few books on the Evagelikal Brownshirts and arguments for Atheism, from Chris Hedges trip and a half (see highlighted sidebar) to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Many have been some fine works, while others have been a bit indulgent - regardless, I jumped naked from the shower yesterday morning to transcribe these thoughts to a water stained piece of paper: We Hold Atheism to be Self-Evident.

It all seemed so fucking obvious, once I had finally gotten this horrible realization out of my subconscious and onto paper. Atheism is self-evident. A priori, just like fucking congito ergo sum.

To quote the Ballad of Bill Hubbard (which I'm listening to now, trying to distract myself from the sounds of wii downstairs) 'lightened my heart if you like. . .,' this is what I've known since the fourth grade but could never get my head around. This is the casus belli of my pathetically late partisanship of counter-culture and socialism. I know 'self-evident' is a loaded term, yet I just know it is right.

I'm never going to make an effort to convince anyone ever again that they might want to consider atheism. Every developing mind confronts the reality of N0-G0d, and they either grapple with it or shirk backwards into something less mature. That's not completely fair, cuz religion is a socially transmitted virus. Those religions that are most effective at stunting the development of children and precluding the chance that they might ever achieve adulthood, are going to be the most successful viruses in the pool. Mother's once threw their children into the flaming mouth of Moloch, religious parents will lobotomize their own children rather than face the horrors of a child who might not reinforce their desperate, childish, world-view. Mongol remains have deformed heads, as the culture would mold the soft skulls' of their infants into cones - what damage did that inflict upon the potential for consciousness? And the bloodthirsty fucks slaughtered all civilization in their path.

Retarded theists can and will destroy everything thinking, civilized individuals have worked for thousands of years to make our culture into. Homicidal monkeys . . . aw fuck it. Just fuck it all.

Strange Weather

2007-03-27T17:43:00.000-05:00

Currently the sun is shining brightly and pouring rain threatens to flood the street. Strange weather we've been having up here in Minnesota. Just three weeks ago we got 18 inches of snow in one weekend, yesterday it was 81. Ah, life in the exact center of a continent.

So we've got the Republican National Convention coming to my home town of Saint Paul in about a year. I'm saving up my vacation time already, cuz I'm sure I'll be illegally detained trying to participate in some form of civil disobedience or another. To amuse myself at work lately I've been brainstorming up various signs that I'd like to wave in the face of their delegates.

"No Habeas Corpus? FUCK YOU!!!"

Well, that's really all I've got so far. The whole removal of habeas corpus by our legislature lately has really gotten under my skin. I just keep thinking about it. We've lost, without a whimper from the masses, the most fundamental lynchpin of Western Civilization. Sure, a white guy like me in the midwest can probably still demand some recourse if detained for political reasons - no, maybe not. If the Fuhrer deems you an 'enemy combatant', if the corporate bitch media takes Bush's balls out of their mouth long enough to call you a 'terrorist'; then you are done.

All my life I've had this pride deep in my heart that in America, all are equal under the law. Sure their have been a few special exceptions in our nation's great history: Native Americans, Blacks, Women, Communists, Japanese Americans, 'Guest Workers', gays . . . etc. etc., but for the most part the Constitution be a noble document, and as our society progresses more and more are included under its protections.

We don't have Habeas Corpus anymore! They fucking chucked out Habeas Corpus! We're fucking not free. We don't have a fundamental, fucking rudimentary protection from the Police State.

I've got a neighbor with a bumper sticker that reads, 'The NRA: Freedom's Frontline'. I drive past that rusting truck every day when I run home on my lunchbreak (cuz the fucker's probably unemployed) and it just pisses me off. When's the last time the fucking National Rifle Association ever protected anybodies fucking freedom? Sure, you had the rifle clubs organized by black communities in the 50's and 60's, but that's not really the same fucking thing as the NRA, now is it? Let's be honest here. The NRA's core membership is reactionary fifty-somethings who live in denial that they could never resist an assault by a twenty year old male, and want to pretend that having a gun would give them power and make their dick get hard again. Just a bunch of delusional dumbasses. In their dreamland everybody has a gun, how fucking stupid is that?!? A fifty year old with a gun still can't beat a twenty year old with a gun, you lose on reaction time and sheer youthful impetus. Your fat, fucking sweaty fingers just can't deal with four home invaders with crowbars, let alone .38 specials. The utopia of the NRA don't make any fucking sense.

Freedom's fucking frontline is the ACLU. When those candyass lawyers spring into action to protect a member of some minority or gay community; it's like that famous poem about coming for people during the Nazi regime - first they came for the blah, blah, blah, but I said nothing cuz I was a WASP, blah, blah, blah.. As long as the ACLU is racing to Jose Padilla's defense, I don't have to burden my beautiful mind (Barbara Bush's phrase) with cruel imaginings of being fucking tortured cuz I have the cajones to disagree with someone in power.

It sounds inhumane, but how many honest Liberals can deny that they supported the Civil Rights movement for those very reasons. Not trying to be offensive here, just evaluating a hard truth. If the blacks get equal rights, that just adds one more buffer between me and the gas chambers. If you can't deny employment to someone because of the color of their skin, that just makes it harder to fire me cuz I won't pretend there is a man with a beard in space who loves me. Hopefully, all the minorities who finally get to enjoy the protection of our constitution become eager and stalwart defenders of it. One more line of defense.

The rain has stopped. The setting sun has filled my room with groovy colors, a nuthatch is singing in the blue spruce outside the window. Good as place as any to disengage.

20 minutes to Wii!

2007-03-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

Being the culture maverick, I find myself with one of the new Ninetendo Wii's interfacing with my life. In just twenty minutes, we'll be enjoying the game system that folks have been scrambling over for the last few months. Where you wii at?, eh, where you wii at?!?

Finally back up and running

2007-03-21T08:34:00.000-05:00

Sure as Bush is the worst president in modern history, a porn surfing trojan is going to keep coming back. Finally, we decided that the best solution was just to reinstall windows and start over. Thus the hunt for my OS disk, along with the laborious process of tracking down every driver, app, and scrap of worthwhile writing. All my life's written work does not make 10 megs. My PC still can't seem to find the damn Network Neighborhood, but at least I'm back on the internet and completely 100% malware free.

I sure did take the instant access to the internet for granted.

What motivates someone to create a nasty virus that goes out and damages others peoples property?

I used to just consider all that stuff on the internet as something similar to a natural phenomenon. Devices have to have immune systems for the same reason organisms do. But the Porntastic Trojan had an author, some prick with nothing better to do with his life than sit around and code something that will hijack my media player and start downloading large files of hardcore.

At least it was no more harmful than that. I didn't lose any files, and tales of my tribulations have amused many. Like my friend said last night, 'when are you not in the mood for porn?,' or 'is the picture quality good?'

It all sounds so funny, until your mother is visiting and suddenly the sound of sado-masochistic hardcore starts pouring from your bedroom. . .

Viruses, Spyware, and Trojans, oh my!

2007-03-18T16:24:00.000-05:00

Didn't get to do much blogging this weekend. My computer was infected with a horrible chunk of malware that constantly opened up Windows Media Player, then began downloading and playing hardcore pornography. I'm lucky my woman is so progressive and laid back, cuz I'm sure some of the 'porn destroys marriages' crowd would have freaked at a frozen scene of three on one sex on my computer screen every morning. A lot of animated stuff too. I've seen some carnal acts committed by blue haired sailor-moon chicks that I'll never get out of my head. Never.

I've never had a virus or anything like that before. Cindy claims that I must have downloaded something somewhere, but like Jimmy Buffet says: 'and I know, . . . it's nobody's fault.'

We were off line for most of the weekend. Ran an AVG scan and one by Spywarre Doctor, hopefully my pc's porn addiction has been cured!

Atheist Meditations

2007-03-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

In a moment of Fancy, I've begun contemplating renaming the blog Atheist Meditations. Since Marcus Aurelius is so obviously my hero, and the habit of keeping a daily journal in which I transcribe my philosophical thoughts of the does fall into the pattern of Meditations. A blog is quite a bit like Marcus Aurelius' multi-volume work. His daily entries were often short. He sometimes took long absences from writing in his journal. He didn't go back over past entries and spell check them; develop them into more complete forms of prose. A day is a day, and a meditative journal entry is the same.

My meditations today began with me backing into the living room to attempt retrieval of the remote while avoiding the siren of T.V. Paused at the end of Stargate: Atlantis, the TiVo sputtered forward to prevent screen damage, Mad TV (is that fucking show always on?) In the four lines of ambiguous dialog, laugh lines, and brightly flashing screen; I can get sucked into that shit in seconds. I'll come downstairs to ask Cindy something, see a brightly stroboscopic car commercial and just slur into a slack jawed exhibit of primate fixation. My intellectual ego wrestles with the shame of it, but I am not the only one who has this flaw.

What a cruel, shitty thing Television is, and how tragic is it, that so many of our species revels in their subjection to it. Indeed, how many among us - if we had the fucking time for introspection - would not see themselves as horribly under-socialized. Interacting with strangers and acquaintances can be so damn tedious. Trying to anticipate their purpose, figure out where they are coming from, try to choose words that will engage them without requiring more explanation, avoiding postures and phrases that make you look stupid or weak. T.V. is the opposite. Energetic and stimulating (how different from so many of the human interactions we have) with the pleasant covenant that the focus of the attention will never suddenly turn on you.

Watch the fight without ever having to consider the bully turning to demand your milk money. Laugh at the ostracized girl without the nervous knowledge that you ain't cheerleader material either. You will never get betrayed in the boardroom, or have to produce witty chatter with a Love Interest in an elevator. Observation without trial. The stimulations of socialization without the learning curve.

I'm 32 years old now. Not a young pup, but with a fair amount of race and stamina left. I've wasted so much time on 'entertainment.' I've got so much more that I want to do. I need to be more productive.

Marcus Aurelius was in the blissful ignorance that his thoughts would ever be published and read. Yet their public distribution has been to the world's advantage. We bloggers sure have massive egos.

Book Report: American Fascists

2007-03-14T17:48:00.000-05:00

Chris Hedges latest book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, is a helluva book. I've been absolutely engrossed since I got it over the weekend, drawn into a compelling set of arguments that read with the potency of thriller fiction. The author makes seemingly hyperbolic statements-'the Christian Right has completely infiltrated the Republican Party'-then follows with a merciless hammering of facts-this percentage of republican senators received over 90% approval ratings from the top three Christian Right groups, this politician ran for office promising the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions, this senator is a creationist. The many deeds of the various actors on the Christian Right are laid out in a framework that demonstrates the deliberate parallels with other fanatical fascist groups in history. I believe that wherever one lies on the 'political spectrum', this book is a must read for concerned citizens.

Mr. Hedges is a Christian. Within his first chapter, 'Faith', he makes the dangerous choice to include a fair amount of his own beliefs and personal experience while criticizing the type of 'Christians' who are somehow not offended by the use of mass media by their leaders. This tactic often fails authors, (I'm thinking of Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, where he indulges in so many attempts to beg the evag not to close the book and their mind -- I had to close the book, or at least skip ahead a few chapters) but Mr. Hedges is proud of his faith, and discusses the subject in a way that I haven't seen since Kierkegaard. I found his first chapter to be a fair balance between subjective personal experience and objective insight into the world of the Christian Right.

While the tone of American Fascists can often flirt with the inflammatory, Mr. Hedges' honest compassion for the individuals he sees as trapped in the clutches of this false religion easily moves this book up beyond the jeremiad. Dozens of men and women from within the movement that he criticizes are breathed into life by his written word. The tales of personal and economic tragedies are interwoven with an insight into how fascist manipulators consciously exploit the sense of hopelessness and desperation in people whom society has cast aside. He lets these individuals speak for themselves, rarely with a disparaging aside. For readers who have seen the film 'Jesus Camp,' or are familiar with this group; their shocking openness with others about their inner lives can be agonizing for those of us who disapprove of such a paradigm. One cannot help but feel terrible empathy for the poor souls caught up in the propaganda of the Christian Right.

I don’t believe books like this one come around all that often. The technical details of
propaganda - the how not the why- of how it was done in Germany, Serbia, China, of how
a small, radical, fanatical group seizes power; these details are not often found in a small,
well-written, mass distributed book. Mr. Hedges gives some excruciating insight into what goes on at a 'Conversion Conference,' where eager evagelikals have their own personal stories of finding Jesus honed and corrected by leaders to maximize their effectiveness at seducing converts. The techniques of 'Love Bombing,' where a lonely target is selected by recruitment leaders and then suddenly the recipient of extravagant attention by multiple cult members, a technique first used by Chinese Communists back in the day - The Christian Right has added it to their bag of tricks. Free societies have been overcome and destroyed by fascist groups on sundry occasions. The tactics they used are surprisingly similar. Any patriot who loves America will want to understand them better.

Since we began this article with the crude comparison between Mr. Hedges’ book and
thriller fiction, we must conclude with a point; the resonance of which can be felt on many
levels. Is there a pattern to fascist takeovers of democracy, and is the current leadership of
the Christian Right deliberately following that patten? Or is he a conspiracy nut, drawing
us into his titillating world where zombies with guns and bibles are about to destroy over
200 years of American Liberty? The Archetype of the Society on the Brink of Peril be
always seductive. Is his world a conspiracy theory fantasy or has he correctly described a
sub culture within our society that is shamelessly employing the organization and
propaganda models of fascists? Ultimately, Mr. Hedges attempts to reinforce his allegations with facts, quotes, a bibliography, and logic. We can engage his book on its intellectual merits, we are free to assess the peril to our beloved homeland at our own leisure. The fact that those he criticizes, that they are unswayed by facts, quotes, references, and logic, that they pride themselves on never questioning the statements of their Leaders; read this book.

Besides, every true radical's gonna want to own it just to know on their bookshelf resided a favored tome; the index of which held sixteen entries for ‘God’, located shortly after ‘Global Warming, denial of’, and just preceding ‘Goebbels, Joseph.’

Congrats to Stephen Hawking!

2007-03-01T17:47:00.000-06:00

Just saw this headline! Looks like Mr. Hawking's getting ready to experience a zero g flight in a 'vomit comet.' For 25 seconds he'll get to experience weightlessness. I think that's great. A man who has overcome so much and who has done so much for our understanding of the universe deserves something like this.

Groove on!

Right Wing Radio Listeners Suck

2007-02-26T17:45:00.000-06:00

Right wing radio listeners suck. The other day I was absorbing Chris Hedges' discussing his latest book American Fascists, when he challenged his fellow Americans to tune into these religious broadcasts that populate our radio dial - to grapple with the messages of hate and isolation that so many languish within.

Thanks to my previous employer I've consumed about as much religious, talk down to you, 'christian' radio as any sane man can be expected to absorb. So I skipped the WWJD FM, and even took a pass on Rush Flagship FM that Clear Channel was so nice as to provide the Twin Cities a few years back; I went with what I figured was more 'mainstream' conservative talk, the local KSTP 1500 talk. They also cover the Twins, so I figured their schtick couldn't be all that horrible. I was wrong.

The host of the hour or so that I listened to was Robert Somebody, I think. I suppose I could visit their website and track down his name proper, but I just don't fucking care enough to. He was the cookie-cutter 'moderate' conservative, and his smooth radio voice didn't quite cover for his artless insertions on talking points. He said 'I don't know,' a helluva lot, and often took the stance of being just slightly more educated than his callers by reinforcing their slightly bigoted, reactionary statements, but also claiming that he could 'see the other point of view.' In short, he was a hack.

What bothered me was the caliber of his callers. To call them proto-adults would be too optimistic.

Perhaps in the world of talk radio, a program's callers are the greatest barometer to gauging how that program lives up to the broadcaster's obligations within the shared resource that is our public domain airwaves. If the broadcaster claims to provide any public service whatsoever, the frameworks of ethics and citizenship that their callers flesh out ought to be a fair measure. After all, most of these fuckers heavily screen their calls to produce an appearance of acceptance and respect for the host. They have the tools to define their listenership in who they put on the air and how they treat them.

Caller #1 on AM 1500 in Minnesota, Friday 2.23.7, approximately 11:30 ish: (paraphrased)
Yeah, I think all this media attention about Hillary and Obama is just too much too soon. I don't care. I just want to wait until next fall when they have it narrowed down to two people, and then vote on the one I like.

To be honest, I need to take a minute to elucidate the hosts pathetic demagogic rope-a-dope of the day. His main theme was all about the judge of the Anna Nicole Smith trial crying during his pronouncements, and then questioning why 'are we so focused on this when so much that is clearly more important is going on?' Thus he included that weeks talking points about Clinton and Obama being in a political dogfight without any support whatsoever (just one 'important' story that was overshadowed by who gets the body.) He could also criticise the media for not paying attention to the war, while not having to discuss the war at all. Just to say that it was, 'more important.'

So for me, a good ole boy like Caller #1 deserves a strong rebuke. Bob didn't provide one, cuz from the perspective of a right wing controller that's just the greatest attitude in the world. 'Yeah, get all upset cuz you have to hear too much about a political race, just wait until there are only two and then decide.'

Caller #1 should consider emigration. His mentality would be great in One Party China right now, he would have fit in just fine under the Kremlin or a King. His mentality just ain't good enough for America and any radio host who gave a shit about this country would tell him so.

'Sorry Caller, but you are just dead ass wrong. Folks like you who just want to wait until it's either Kerry or Bush are the problem in this country. If you don't get involved in your party during the primary phase, than you are pissing away the most important opportunity to influence who represents you. If you are not active in your party at the primary level you are not doing your job as a citizen, that fucking simple.

Caller #2, female, called in to talk about how much she loved the ANS trial, but how she doesn't listen to any real news from 'the media' cuz it is all slanted and bad. She had a nephew in Iraq, and he's sent her a bunch of Videos and Letters telling her about all the good things going on over there that 'the media' never talks about. Nephew built a water treatment plant, nephew built a school - why don't the media ever talk about everything we are doing for 'them' over there?

Bob Hack loved her, he grooved on her riff for five minutes. Can't get enough of 'family members' with 'special insight' into a war on the other side of the fucking planet who think that everything bad about Iraq in the media is a propaganda falsehood.

If Caller #2 was not a real Minnesotan woman who sounded a lot like my aunt, I'd be a whole lot more mean. Fuck?!?, reports of suicide bombers and dead U.S. soldiers are not news, but stories from one nephew about 'good works' trumps all? Has this nephew been back to the water treatment plant? Is it still in existence? Cuz I can research the clean water standards or the number of hours of electricity in Baghdad at any time, and that's a good indicator if the situation is improving.

A good host would have patiently explained to her that in a war, a citizen has to be informed about the good, and the bad. Sure the information her nephew sends her in important, but he's in the middle of a warzone, and our media should be able to provide more of a 'big picture' kind of story.

In a way, I think the family members of soldiers (particularly when they choose to ejaculate talking points) are granted a level of celebrity in the media. Probably not a good thing.

Right wing radio listeners suck. They don't have the practice with thinking or logic to even make sense, and they don't seem to have a concern with doing anything that might rise to the level of Civic Duty. For too long I've liked to pretend that those sort of people don't exist, or at least they are a small minority - NOT TRUE - fascism cultivates these sort of worthless fucks, and more and more, these ignorant thralls are feeling 'empowered.'

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

2007-02-01T18:30:00.000-06:00

This is only being posted as a way to try to get a cooler avatar for my geek side. The pic is from a collectable card game illustration by Danial Gelon copyright 1994. Hopefully, this falls under the radar of copyright lawyers, since I'm not trying to make any money off this image at all. I'll take this down in a heartbeat if I'm unwittingly violating someone's intellectual property rights.

The Fucking Prince

2007-01-30T17:56:00.000-06:00

They say that Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is a book that is much more often quoted from than read. That's because pulling a few one liners out of it make nice dressings for some lame ass fiction novel or a book on chess tactics, but to actually read it; that's not the kind of information that you need to have. Some folks just can't get their head around the fact that the ruling class has a different view of the world, a different understanding of history and a different moral education. 'The Prince' is a written attempt by the author to explain to a young relative how the game works (egg heads still argue about who the young relative really was, but more importantly, the work was meant to show to Niccolo's betters that he could be tapped as a strategist) - he knew the deal.

For whatever interesting reason, perhaps for its novelty, perhaps due to the sharpness of Machiavelli's spare prose, it has found a place in the literary canon - i.e. poor working trash like you and me can buy it at Amazon.com. I suppose they figure that something written like five centuries ago can't be all that telling.

They could not be more fucking wrong. The fact that elite behavior has not changed noticeably in multiple centuries is alone a marvelous kernel to grasp. Would that more did. . .

Would that more of my fellow fucking citizens could get it into their head that a millionaire in Mexico does not have all that much in common with a Mexican street musician. He's got a lot more in common with a millionaire in America or China, more than enough to easily over-ride 'Mexican Pride.' Patriotism is a cynical tool to fuckers like George W, you don't hold hands with Saudi princes cuz it's good for the troops . . .

The example that inspired this posting is today's interview with Barry Lando, formerly of 60 Minutes, on Democracy Now!, (if you are not listening to DN! everyday, you're probably a fucking worthless traitor to America who does not know a fucking thing about what is happening in the 'land of the free.' With the Internet, someone could stay on top of all the bullshit with some diligent reading, but when true journalists are providing such a quality service. . .) His latest book, Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush, generates some damn interesting thought processes.

I've hated and opposed the Second Bush Crusade since I first saw the twinkle of it in that moral midget's eyes years ago. If only for the reason that placing a large number of western, predominately christian soldiers into the Holy Land was just a totally fucking stupid Idea. I've never gotten past that, and I've never yet been proven wrong. I may not be religious, but I understand religion enough to guesstimate a fucking obvious result of invading a Muslim country with christian troops. The average American might not be able to summarize the Crusades (or even the Middle Ages), but the average Muslim sure as fuck can. I thought I was pretty well versed in the region/conflict for a guy who has never set foot on that hemisphere, and doesn't speak a word of Arabic. Mr. Lando's statements surprised the shit out of me.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speak briefly about that uprising, because it's very significant for Iraqis’ view of the United States, too, and it involved President Bush, Sr.

BARRY LANDO: Yeah. To me, the uprising and what happened is really key, in a way, to what's going on there today. As Saddam had invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, and the United States moved in to push him out of Kuwait, when they did, George Bush called on the people of Iraq publicly, called on them to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. This call was relayed by the CIA’s secret radio stations all over Iraq, and US airplanes also dropped millions of pamphlets over Iraq, telling the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam. And they did. And the uprising spread like wildfire across southern Iraq. These were among the Shiites. The Kurds also rose up.

Then, the US, Bush Sr. and James Baker, became worried, because they realized they weren’t going to be able to control this uprising. They had wanted a military coup, a nice, neat military coup that in the end they could really control. But what, in fact, happened was a popular revolt. They were worried that perhaps Iran would come in, would try to make use of it; that the Kurds would try to set up an independent country that would disturb Turkey, their allies; that the Saudis wouldn’t like what was going on there. And so, they turned their back on the uprising.

They allowed Saddam to continue using his helicopters to attack the villages, and the Shiites had no way of fighting back against these helicopters. And when the Shiites came to American lines -- I spoke to a Special Forces officer who was just a few kilometers away from where the uprising was going on -- you had the Shiites coming to the American lines and saying, “Look, we're not asking you to fight for us. Just give us weapons. We will fight ourselves.” The Americans had hundreds of millions of dollars of arms that they had seized from the defeated Iraqi military. They destroyed those weapons, rather than turn them over to the rebels.

In another case, we were told that they blocked one rebel column from trying to march on Baghdad. They refused to meet with any of the insurgent leaders, who were desperately trying to talk to the Americans. The Americans refused to even talk to them, on the Kurdish side and on the Shiite side. So, finally, the revolt was over, and Saddam came in and killed, slaughtered, anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 Shiites.

He also mentions how U.S. elites did not want either Iran or Iraq to grow in power, so after Carter goaded Saddam into attacking Iran via Saudi proxies, they sold weapons to both sides and our U.S. military even gave satellite intelligence to both sides . . . they gave mass troop movement intel to Iraq knowing that they would use chemical weapons on the revealed targets.

Play one side against another just so you can dominate the decimated survivors. Instigate an uprising and then leave them to die - fuck, you'd think these Bush's were Roman Emperors, not leaders of a supposedly liberal democracy.

That's my point: the Roman empire ruled its empire with some ingeniously fucking brutal tactics. So did the British, and so has America for that last few hundred years. The ruling classes are well versed in the sort of dark wisdom that Machiavelli outlines in his famous work; childish christians condemn it as evil, rational fuckers just accept that the ruling class adopt the most successful of tactics for maintaining their status. It would be odd if they did not. You can believe that a magical father figure sits on a throne in the sky and loves you, you can believe that America's leaders are uniquely moral and concerned with the welfare of all Americans -either way, you are a fucking waste of human potential.

Just some random thoughts

2007-01-21T08:57:00.000-06:00

Now that Hillary's 'in to win,' I can't help but fixate on a much better way to select a president in this fucked up country . . . lotto. Every four years we have a lottery to select a handful of cantidates from amongst the wealthy, white male population (just kidding) , then they have a few debates and we go push buttons on diebolt machines. Seems to me that a thirty-something pot dealer could run this country just about as well as anyone, and what they may lack in 'insider' connections, they would more than make up for with the fact that lack 'insider connections.'

Instead of having spent the last few decades on the board of directors of Wal-mart, a cantidate selected by lotto may actually have some insight into what the fuck is going on in this country. Might think of America's citizens as friends and human beings, rather than as disposable labor capital or as a market for cheap foreign goods.

Hell, in Minnesota we had Jesse 'The Body' Ventura for governor, and he proved you don't have to be a formor lawyer or CEO to understand how government worked.

Fuck, nobody could do a worse job than Mr. Bush is doing in office.

I had a dream about him last night. For whatever reason I got caught up in a crowd that was waiting to see his majesty walk by on his way to do 'hard wurk.' Instead of cheering, the crowd broke out into an old rally cry I recall from my highschool days, when the hometeam was getting clobbered - 'E! For Effort! Show show some Effort!' I woke up waiting for the Secret Service to open fire on the crowd. . .

So I've been doing more reading and fiction writing than blogging (even my bold new Anti-Ministry hasn't been getting the weekly updates I forsaw.) I'm thinking this site will now be for these quick little ranting ditties - and I've got to get out and read what me peeps are up to more too. One can spend too much time on the internet; real life takes time too.

Stay groovy.

The Anti-Ministry has been launched!

2007-01-04T22:29:00.000-06:00

Finally gotten enough thoughts and philosophies worked out to give it a go. The Anti-Ministry will be my effort at a more focused blog that works to help others to the truth and contentment that I've begun to take for granted in my life. I'll still rant and rave here from time to time, with the vulgarometer and all that, but my ministry will be the source for a atheist spirituality, and will hopefully someday grow into a fair community of soulful thinkers. I commit to one anti-sermon every sunday, and we'll see how things go from there.

Stay groovy.

George Bush needs to be removed from office now!

2006-12-21T16:51:00.000-06:00

An additional carrier group was deployed to the Persian Gulf on December 12. Another carrier is reportedly going there within the month. Plans are in the works to preclude Iran from the tactical opportunities to disrupt oil transport in the event of a war.

George W. Bush uses the weekend before Christmas to declare that he's ordered his new Secretary of Defense to get busy increasing the size of the U.S. military. Yet again our Commander in Chief addressed our country in his new speaking style - with a lecturing tone, consistent finger poking, and a high voice seems to be tittering on lunacy. Who knows what's going on in that guy's head? I don't want to know.

I know the bodies are still piling up in Iraq, but can't we take a break from all this shit for just a few weeks? Bush is a lame duck, the Democrats will not be in actual majority until the start of next year. Bill O'Reilly been whining about a 'war on Christmas' for months - shouldn't we get just one damn weekend to set the burdens of the world aside and spend some happy moments with our families?

George W. has taken vastly more vacation time than any other President in history, they really should have shipped him down to his play ranch right after the elections so he could cut some brush and ride his mountain bike. If Iran is not dropping nuclear bombs all over the Middle East, maybe Mr. Bush doesn't need to swing the hard cock of the U.S. military all over the place. Maybe he just needed to take a big step back for a month or two.

But he won't. He's a proving daily that he's a nutcase, and he's not finished with whatever agenda his crazy, fundamentalist, messianic understanding of the world demands.

War with Iran is coming.

We saw the war with Iraq coming, and we rallied by the hundreds of thousands in damn near every major city on this planet, but we couldn't stop it. We ranted on the internet and read all sorts of alternative media that pointed out the obvious bullshit that was WMD, were intimidated with stories about how Iraq without Saddam would be a horrible place to try to occupy. We wanted desperately to see just one talking head point out how fucking stupid invading Iraq was - putting Christian soldiers in the middle of the holiest of Islamic cities is just pouring gasoline on a fire. Nothing could boost the positions of the religious fundamentalists more. It was retarded on its face, and we just marched right on in there thanks to GWB.

George W. Bush loves to lie to the country as he cleverly pretends that he 'hasn't made up his mind yet.' Thus the only debate entertained regarding foreign policy takes place only in his fucking head. He played that game for months leading up to Iraq, but we now know from the Downing Street Memo and other sources that the intention was set from day one, and that the 'intelligence was being fixed around' justifying it.

Modern war requires a large amount of prep time, and the Iraq invasion was being prepped the whole time Bush aped the actions of a thoughtful leader. Iran is now being prepped, and Bush is crazy enough to pull the trigger.

I honestly believe that if he could, Bush the Elder would just drive up to the White House and tell his son to get in the car, 'that's it, time to go home.' If we don't impeach, he'll cause even more damage trying to fix the Middle East.

Mr. Bush may no longer cure a hangover with a few shots of gin in the morning, but that pattern of behavior has not gone away.

He can't be trusted with the lives of any more soldiers, and the geo-political balancing act that will be required to keep this country in oil has become far too subtle for a man like him.

He should be impeached based on what he has done. He must be impeached based on what he might do.

Under construction

2006-12-19T21:20:00.000-06:00

Aurelius would like to inform his last few visitors that he's been working on Atheist Seeker V 2.0.

Hopefully, we'll have something new and cool to have up by the first of the new year.

I'd like to focus my blog, so that I can also focus my thoughts. I don't think I want to have a myspace site, with all the trivia about what the inside of my bathroom looks like (it's bright fucking hello, and cozy) A blog site that people might come to for a reason, not because they have stumbled across it before and were momentarily amused. Click, amuse me again; a focused site that focuses on a few topics.

And like, some of these stories I've been reading about the crazy fundamentalists again are really causing me so hurt. Jesus Camp, the recent Mac Hammond article in my own local City Pages - my formor employer is a member of this guy's megachurch. I've been to a Christmas pagent within that edifice in the last two years . . .

I'm just becoming more and more concerned by the varieties of theism that I'm seeing in my daily life. Crazy, fundamentalist types who cannot be reasoned with and will not accept compromise.

They are a serious threat that has surfaced time and time again. Revival after motherfucking revival. There are many treatments, but only one cure. Atheism.

The mormon got into an intimidation display when I told him I was on an Atheist Ministry.

"Do you know the definition of ministry? It means to tell people about Gawd."

I'm concerned enough about these fundamentals and their suffering to want to do something more than I do, and I want to use my mildly amusing capacities as a writer to try to drive my blog in a direction that challenges them - that helps spread the salve of atheism.

There is a political aspect to atheism too. The skepticism and critical thinking which both invoke and demand atheism never dull once that responsible state is reached. An atheist cannot help but have a much more nuanced and realistic view of the world than what, unfortunately, has become the norm. Plus, once one accepts that they are a conscious animal, of the species homo sapiens sapiens, they must therefore conclude that each other member of our species is more like them than not. Thus, being killed is a bad thing for them. The tragedy of mortality is understanding what it means when a computer is off and her hard disk be decomposing.

I want a new stance, less vulgaromic blowhard and more anti-baptist to the rising anti-christianism in the hearts of everyone.

Anyhoo. Hopefully by the new year. A new Atheist Ministry. Maybe only weekly or bi-weekly postings, but consistent and contentful. I'm not done with this media.

The Tears of the Father

2006-12-12T13:14:00.000-06:00

Why is the First Father breaking into tears in public places? I know that the bitch media is making sure that every opening paragraph frames them as 'tears of pride for his son Jeb,' but what sort of fella is going to buy into that?

The chances are fairly fair that President George W. Bush will be sacrificed for the 'good of the party.' Just like after Vietnam and Iran-Contra, too many of the slumbering masses are getting a bit too savvy regarding how the government works - and that's never a good thing for those who believe the U.S. government exists to serve the elite class. The best and the brightest of the spinmeisters are doing their damn'est to keep the Fortunate Son free of the consequences of his actions (as he has been his entire fucking life), but that just might not be possible anymore.

As he falls so will the Bush name, and so will the chances of Jeb.

The gossip always was the Bush the father was never too keen on bull-headed junior being used as a figurehead for Cheney, Rumsfeld and their neo-con cultists. A man whose personality was tempered by cocaine, falling down alcoholism, and messianic goofball christianity; perhaps not the sort of fabric from which a great President is cut. Compound that with a set of values that places submissive respect and personal loyalty over any other virtues - well, we now see what troubles haunt George H W Bush's soul.

When the republican party controls so much media, with such a lockstep dissemination of talking points and smears, this sort of thing should never happen. Without even mentioning the crazy amounts of voter suppression alleged to have been taking place - only evags can feel comfortable voting on a paperless touchscreen, cuz it's totally an act of faith. Seats in the Federal Congress are damn near locked in for incumbants, like 98% re-election rates, how in the world does the Grand Old Party lose both houses in a mid-term?

Blame the particularly weak performance of President Bush and folks like ourselves who get a least a balancing view of the world from alternative media. Our kind forced the democrats to get in up in 2006, now we're long, and we're strong, and we ain't gonna let Nancy Pelosi deal away the momentum that we've got going. Well, we're sure gonna try not to let them return to the teats of K Street and Big Business.

Mr. Bush may be a lame duck, but that duck has just begun being prepped for cooking. For the last six years he's operated under a protective blanket of two subservent Houses and a Federal Judiciary largely stocked with partisan hacks. He could be manipulated into lying about our reasons for going to war with Iraq, and blow sunshine up our asses about how easy that war would be. He could insist that nobody got any civilian positions over there unless they were of proven loyalty to the Republican Party (Bush Chapter, naturally.) His military could violate the Geneva Conventions with both in what they did (collective punishment on cities such as Fallujah, use of banned and questionable munitions - white phospherous, cluster bombs, DU shells) and what they failed to do (provide security for the civilian population) George Bush gave himself legislative powers as he 'refined' over 800 of the laws he signed with 'signing statements' that - such as with the McCain bill that redundantly forbid torture - declared he personally could ignore any part of it when he felt it was right. Oh, and he took war profiteering to new levels, and fucked up FEMA and just about everything about Katrina. He spyed on Americans, had foreign nationals kidnapped by the CIA and tortured, and has driven at least a dozen men out of the human family via the highly effective techniques at Gitmo and other places. I doubt Mr. Padilla will ever be able to interact with anyone as a human being for the rest of his wretched existence.

Did I forget anything? I have a feeling I did.

I don't think it's a question of should he be impeached. For me the question is, 'how the fuck can he not be?!?'

So perhaps the tears of the father are invoked by visions of the girls on 'The View' discussing what sort of crappy parenting generates such a loser and a sociopath. I think the impetus for waterworks is a bit more pragmatic.

Daddy Bush sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. Oil is the most important thing in the world to those people. The House of Bush and the House of Saud do more than hold hands in public. If we are to believe some of what the ISG says, that the situation on the ground in Iraq might be ten times worse that gets reported here, that means the ruling family in Saudi Arabia ain't happy. Sunni vs Shia violence (the House of Saud is Sunni) , perhaps millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing into, and destabalizing, neighboring states; an Iran that grows in influence every day.

I think ole Bandar has pulled the smooth skin of his masculine grip out of the elder Bush's hand. I think someone's heart might be breaking.

Thoughts, without a focus

2006-11-27T19:06:00.000-06:00

I've been listening to this Democracy Now interview with Nir Rosen. Damn.

Iraq's situation is maddeningly complex for a midwesterner to try to take on. So much of the information coming out of the region is either wishfull thinking by worthless 'embedded' reporters who have never left the green zone, or pro-american propaganda that our U.S. taxpayer dollars are purchasing at a rate of millions per year (yep, the military admits to buying Iraqi journalists.) Even those journalists who are not pets of the media can't get much of an Idea what's going down in Iraq, cuz they keep getting kidnapped or murdered.

As a rational man, I'm still inclined to seek out those folks that were right before we invaded the country; yet being able to call a spade a spade does not necessarily make one an analytical genius. Anyone whose skull diameter just can't quite penetrate their own rectum knew that Iraq had no serious weapons 'of mass destruction.' The U.N. weapons inspectors were saying it. U.S. weapons inspectors were saying it. Domestic critics of the military industrial complex were saying it. It made sense that a country under the thumb of deliberatly repressive sanctions might have a hard time duplicating the Manhatten Project. Plus, we kept learning more about the limitations of chemical and biological weapons - how they have a short shelf-life, how difficult they are to use in a tactical situation, how war crime justice just might catch up with leaders who do gamble on them. All facts that Colin Powell pissed on when he 'nailed it' before the U.N.

To understand why we were being lied to leading up to the invasion took the critical thinking skills of a twelve year old. To understand what the best course for Iraq is now takes a bit more.

They've been 'on the verge of a civil war' for about two years, and somewhere between 30,000 (Bush Administration estimate) and 600,000 (Lancet Medical Journal estimate) Iraqis are dead. If over 3000 died just last month; yeah, we all no better than to trust numbers from the calculator of George W. Bush.

Some interesting points by Mr. Rosen:

A civil war has been going on for several years. Soon we may see a major move by the Shia to 'remove' the Sunni presence from Baghdad.

Neither Bush nor the figurehead of Maliki can do anything about it. Maliki doesn't have a militia, so he has no power. Bush has a militia (yep, he means our bumpersticker supported troops) but they can't tell a Sunni from a Shia, so no matter how many innocent Iraqis they kill it just ain't relevent. They own a streetcornor until they leave. They can't possibly compete with a 'mob' style of street power. How can you fight the mob when you can't tell a made man from an ice-cream vendor?

"If I were an American," Mr. Rosen said, "I'd support an immediate withdrawl cuz why should another American soldier lose his life in Iraq? They didn't die for freedom, or to protect our your country. . . America can do nothing to help and maybe only a little bit to still hurt the situation.

This ain't Rowanda, where we can sit around and watch the two peoples kill each other. There was no civil war until we invaded. This is our fault.

I can't help but think of those poor mormon kids (and their poor father) who stopped over the other night. I just haunts me like a drag trap.

If one wants to believe in democracy (and as an atheist I probably invest a bit more of a 'need to believe' in my political structure than most) young men like that are anathema. Democracy that follows the 'will of the people' requires a population with a fairly high level of political acuity. The Mormon Trio had none of it. I'd bet my sideburns and all facial hair for a decade if either of them could have given me even a rudimentary overview of the Iran-Contra Affair. Remember, that little scandal of a few decade ago that a fair percentage of the current adminstration? Playing the Shia in Iran and the Sunni in Iraq against each other to destabilize the region and benefit their client (Israel) and 'national interests' (that involved oil extraction certain companies, and companies we do business with.) DEATH SQUADS AND JON NEGROPONTE. Whatever, I digress.

That must be it. The Mormon Trio has everything invested in their 'faith in a benevolent god', but only a trivial amount in a 'faith in good governence.' In fact, a lot of those worthless, traitorous wackos, actually profess to see the moral misguidance of government as a 'proof' of the validity of their belief system. Nevertheless, I have no 'faith in a benevolent god' so to provide my life with meaning I must search elsewhere. I'm interested in government cuz I see it as being a valuable, often dangerous, tool in trying to leave a mark, to improve upon, society.

Well, how's that for a five beer blog?

Commentary on Social Interaction

2006-11-22T19:24:00.000-06:00

Today, circumstances conspired to compel us into our local supermarket in the pre-turkeyday havoc. Bless the fates that we didn't need anything but a few fresh loaves from our recently upgraded Rainbow's surprisingly skilled bakery. Normally, I'm all about avoiding the big chains and supporting local business, but somebody running this bakery be making it a labor of fucking love. They make these twisted rye loaves that are edible works of art, this ain't the domain of a handful of minimum wage clock-watchers.

Given: a shopping market on the day before thanksgiving is going to be a damn madhouse. Lot was full, SUVs and minivans formed a line of illegal parking across the buildings entrance. Carts were in short supply.

- - - My blogging train just got derailed by a trio of mormons at the door, I tried to save their soul but we'll see. Even gave them the old url, so maybe they'll read me blog - even some negative comments would be better than none at all. I wish I could get through to kids like that, cuz there is a huge beautiful and terrible world out there - don't miss trying to engage it with your mind. I'll have to upload that experience later. - - -

Back to my commentary on social interaction.

Standing at the bakery glass, Cindy picked out a sexy shape of whole grain, and we tastefully flagged down a woman to come down and assist us in packaging it. Soon a woman and children were pressing our right flank, a heavyset, middleaged man squeezed into the space directly to my left. He didn't make any attempt at eyecontact, just continued to stare at the bread selection. My brain was already firing on the impulse to say, 'hey, fucko, can't you see you are in my personal space?' His daughter pre-empted me; 'oh look out' and then the cart that dwarfed her cute little frame caught dad in the ass. His reaction helped me learn.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that 'dad' is a good man who would never hurt any child, let alone his own. Yet an unexpected knock to his backside surprised him and his knee-jerk reaction was held in check with visible effort. I realized that his close proximity to my large, almost youthful frame was generating the same tensions within himself. Here we are, two good folks in a loud supermarket, and we're on the verge of fight or flight.

I'm growing into the understanding that men have territorial instincts, we spent a few hundred thousand years as social creatures who lived and died in groups of no more than a few dozen. Even into the middle ages, this forced proximity with other males of alien origin would have been totally unacceptable. Why should I trust someone I don't know? Why should I let someone I don't trust within striking range of my vulnerable parts?

The modern philosophies and our passive culture teach me that I should give that guy the benefit of the doubt, I should just trust that we're both buying bread and lay off. My adrenal gland don't seem to be buying it, however, and so tension levels rise quickly and impulsive confrontation ensues. The pattern repeats itself like a fucking fractal over and over again, in convoluted ways.

The parkinglot, another example of folks responding to real or imagined slights to their manhood (while protected by two tons of mobile steel) with impulsive reactions. Racing through pedestrian crossings or gesturing vulgarly as someone does not vacate a parking space with enough with submissive alacrity.

West Saint Paul, where I live, is even more complex, cuz here we have the intersection of at least four cultures. Whites have lived here like a suburb for a long time. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians all have specialty stores and growing populations. The tension caused by 'standing on your toes' interaction is exponentially increased when racial boundaries are crossed. I might snap at a white guy, but I'd probably let it slide from a black - cuz I don't want to look like a racist.

Maybe our community is on the track to become like a New York: fuck you, get out of my fucking face, I don't give a fuck who you are. I'd like to hold on to the notion of 'Minnesota Nice' that gets so ridiculed, but that would take effort.

If we had a mass media that presented messages other than how focused people are on associating themselves with particular brand names, maybe some of these situations could be addressed in a neutral environment away from where a man's blood gets up. Examples of disrespectful behavior - like blazing into a pedestrian crosswalk at forty or pushing past women and elderly to get on a bus first - could be addressed and templates for dealing with those types could be presented. Folks who didn't have a cultured father to teach them to respect little old ladies could still learn it from the T.V.

I've never wavered in my belief that if I had control of all domestic media (not just me, anybody with an IQ over 100 and a keen intrest in society) ; all racism could be eliminated in less than a decade. That's the frightening power of a minister of propaganda.

Grr.

UFC 65: Bad Intentions

2006-11-19T11:34:00.000-06:00

While I should have sat down and compiled my thoughts about the horrorshow that be 'Jesus Camp', I decided to dwell on the positive in the world and drink some Newcastles and watch UFC on pay-per-view. Somehow I thought watching the best thing in modern bloodsport was a better use of my time than sitting here typing 'fucking evags' over and over.

Technical difficulties precluded my catching the first three fights, and that's too bad cuz I heard one of the guys from season two was scrap'n, but I was well lubricated by the time Jeff 'The Snowman' Monson went up for his chance against the Champ, Tim Sylvia. Let me just say a few things about Jeff Monson. If you wiki 'anarchists' the short list of modorn advocates of said philosophy includes UFC fighter Jeff 'the Snowman' Monson. He's got a real blog, not one of the rather lame ones that are supported on the UFC website, and a master's degree from the Minnesota university system in psychology. His body is covered with anarchist and socialist tatoos. I got total respect for a man who stands up for his political ideals and uses his celebrity to promote it. I don't claim to have a fantastic insight into the nature of his anarchism, but I'm guessing it's along the vein Dielo Trouda - a rather pragmatic approach towards economic change that hates the concentration of state power in the hands of a few, extreamly wealthy capitalists - and I'm guess'n he's an atheist.

So when he walked out to the Octogon with the music of John Lennon's 'Imagine' (which was on the banned list of songs after 9/11) most of the folks watching must have been wondering what the fuck was going on. Not exactly the metal and rap that most fighter pump themselves up for, but he had a national audience, and damn it more people need to listen to the words of John Lennon. The UFC commentator summed it all up with, 'Jeff, he's a political, socio-economic dude.'

They say Bruce Lee used to spar with Kareem Abdul Jabar to investigate the advantages of reach in combat. If you've seen the weigh-in shot between Sylvia and Monson, you know what I mean. The smugly smiling Syvia has the musclebound Monson at the end of a long striking arm. There is eleven inches between the men, quite a disproportionate fight. The Snowman showed great heart and even some surprising standup, but in the end he was just plain out leveraged. Ground game included, everyone watching learned some valuable lessons in how a much taller man can use his long arms and legs to effectively leverage his weight and overcome Monson's vise-like grip.

In my humble opinion Mr. Monson has gone as far as he can in his quest for the title, it's a matter of physics that a short man cannot overcome. If he could cut down to the next weight class, I'm sure he'd be a killa. When someone eventually comes around to taking the Champs belt; I predict he'll be another fucking big man.

As for the second title fight, Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Hughs, that one went exactly as I hoped. Personality-wise, I like St. Pierre more than Hughs, so I was in his cornor. GSP's a marvelous fucking fighter to watch, yet Matt Hughs went into that fight a champ and a proven winner. I would not have put a dime on that fight beforehand, I just couldn't get over the notion that betting 'gainst Matt Hughs was fucking throwing money away.

The results of this battle show us the new direction that Mixed Martial Arts be heading. I declare we are seeing the ascendancy of the high leg kick. It's not glamorous like a uppercut, but the technique is dangerous to defend against (drop the hands below the waist, not a good Idea) and when there is power behind it like Georges St. Pierre can produce - he literally kicked Matt Hughs legs out from under him multiple times. Your stand-up don't mean shit if you can't fucking stand up.

Congrats to all the fighters and Georges St. Pierre in particular. What a great fucking night. Peace out.

Jesus Camp, oh bother

2006-11-18T10:01:00.000-06:00

Later today I'm slated to catch a showing of that newish documentary 'Jesus Camp' which features, amongst many disturbing images, a scene of young children fanatically praying to a cardboard cut-out of President Bush.

I'm not sure why I'm going. I can't see how any combination of images could make me any more radical of an atheist. I've pretty much been backed into the cornor by the 'New Atheists', forced to admit that whatever good some christian groups might contribute to the world, utilitarianism cannot be satisfied. Terrorists and propagandists can swim in the ocean of 'moderate' christians with imputiny. It is time for rational americans to take a big step forward and throw off the rediculous shackles of bronze age beliefs.

Honestly, can any amount of molestation by a priest be worse than getting totally indoctrinated at a camp that borrows tactics from the fundamentalist jihadi schools and the Hitler Youth?

I expect to be fully enraged at what's being done to bright-eyed white kids in the next state by sundown. grr.

Real Blogs

2006-11-16T12:13:00.000-06:00

I'm just drifting through a day on the web, as I'm demarcating some boundries at the new job; Taking a sanity day.

Anyhoo, I've been thinking more of late on the nature of online community. Bloggers everywhere would benefit from thinking of ourselves more as a class with a rather coherent ideological position. Bloggers are bloggers. I really don't like how some tech companies have ratted out bloggers to oppressive governments so the can be imprisioned. That's pretty shitty. In general, I think we all agree on a promotion of technological education as a means of improving overall civilization, and we know a lot about the value of free speech. The internet is the greatest collective action in the history of humankind - it blows organized religion out of the water when it comes to having meaning - and thus it shapes our souls even as we shape it. Those of us who are in love with the internet are a class.

I'm not pleased with the effort by agents on the right to use the same 'divide and conquer' tactics that have largely precluded television and radio from being great instruments of collective spiritual growth. A jackass to bray in front of cameras is no scarce commodity. Bloggers, those who rack up hours a day reading blogs and updating their own - not such a common entity. Those who can write and are actually engaging to read, those who got the sort of eloquence where over time readers actually feel like they know him or her personally, pretty gosh dang rare.

Like, I totally dig commenting on conservative or christian blogs encouraging them to engage some facts and grow in their understanding of the world. I always figure if someone is on the internet at all, then they are already half-way to atheism. I know I've saved some souls, and I've been banned from a whole lot of blogs and forums. What enrages me, however, is when I get the feeling that the site I'm at is not run by an actual human being. The manner which fascist structures disseminate 'talking points' from the top down bears telling resemblence to a computer, but when talking points are arranging themselves into code and furthering their distribution accross the internet, we should take note. Even if a human is involved in the process in some trivial way.

I'm certain that right wing institutions have 'bloggers' that they pay to contribute to the content of the blogosphere, just like they pay media and marketing companies to contribute to the content of radio waves and television waves - in ways that benefit the institution. These 'bloggers' are not you and me, reading blogs, feeling blogs, putting our own souls out there to be either ignored or attacked. These 'bloggers' look at it as a job, they put in their ten hours a week on their ten blogs, each with a similar format and content. Usually they have titles that are quite abrasive, then a paragrab or two of talking points (logical flow rarely necessary) followed by a lengthy cut/paste from a conservative columnist. In this way the most valuable investment, that of the paid columnist, gets successfully replicated in this media. The 'blogger' who repeats some of the talking points he absorbed in the car listening to Rush and friends, maybe shows a bit of flair for making commentors look stupid. Over and done in twenty minutes, easiest two bills a month you ever made.

If the battle does ensue as the more primitive media has, the market will be controlled by a small group. Billions of people, only and handful of radio frequencies. You got huge internationals buying them up and loading them up with meaningless crap, quickly the voices of those who want to challenge a corporate ideal for the future of mankind are drowned out. Can the internet become so overloaded with content that statements regarding reality, like schools of fish, overwhealm a young mind as an unquestioned truth?

If I wander the internet and find fifty bloggers who all feel that something is pretty important, I'm inclined to reconsider my own stance on it. That's a weakeness (in the eyes of conservative propagandists) us liberals have, we will frequently reconsider our opinions and modify them occassionally. If a republican party that spends hundreds of millions in self-promotion, can pay one 'blogger' two hundred bucks a month to produce twenty blogs of technological competetency and ideological consistency - how many thousands of blogs do I have to sift through before I get to one that has a human being on the other side.

I'm spending hours of my life every day engaging with others on the internet for the purpose of contributing to culture and perhaps civilization. They are hammering out a few hours a week in the production of a product, one that meets certain specifications. What my bloggers and their 'bloggers' are doing is completely different. I don't want to waste my time online engaging with them.

Technology keeps moving like a shark. We've all seen 'bots that comment all over the blogosphere with the grace of a spammer, but they are going to improve. How long before the menial tasks of a 'blogger' can be automated? One writer can take the days talking points and parse them into fifty or so phrases, which gets entered into a database. Macros assemble random phrases into all the potential permutations, with duplication aplenty. These become titles and opening content on millions of blogs, with hundreds of approved newspaper content being pasted in for further ideological fortification.

Young bloggers everywhere could soon be railing against virtual enemies.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that only the canon of Literary Criticism can save us. Only a sheer insane amount of literary complexity can assure us that the producer of said message is actually a human being. I'm seeing a whole new species of solipsism.

Yo, Joshua Muravchik scores one!

2006-11-15T18:53:00.000-06:00

(overheard near the water cooler within the Republican Machine, between two controllers of ideological operatives)

A Yo!, did you hear about Joshua Muravchick?

B No, what up?

A He totally killed 'gainst Amy G'man today!

B Um, Muravchikim'explaininghtheUnitedNationstopavethewayforward. . .

A Dude! Lil' man done pointed out he was outnumbered two to one by McCarthy and Kucinich, 'I'm the victim pussysounds', then chastises her journalistic cred. He had hit on the 'we'll be responsible for genocide' excuse and referred to AG as 'little miss moderator', before he ever got around to dropping the moneyshot.

B 'Little miss moderator' before he stroked off even one 9/11. . . This is reach around.

A No, Murav's too trivial for play'n, this be the loyal dope.

B So he's the next big thing?

A Oh, Pshaw! It's the blessed Kennedy Principle: both a powerhouse intellectual and a true believer - we don't push buttons on guys who both.

B Moooorav! inflected to rhyme the Marine battlecry.

A He scored a bunch of key word bombs early, but took too much time trying to establish himself as a thinker by pointing out a few of the official 'errors'

B Rummy Down! Rummy Down! feigning a panicking chopper pilot on Black Hawk Down.

A Yet, turns out him and everybody else out there 'had criticized Rumsfeld's descisions from the very beginning.' Of course we should have had more troops to begin with, cuz escalations the solution now DUMBASS! I LOVE THAT.

B Yeah, Jesus Love.

A Anyhoo, give it an ear then e me, short term link, I want to promote it and use it for training purposes, lines you want to see reinforced should be to me in 24.

B Aiiieh, 24.

Report from Minnesota post Election Night

2006-11-09T20:37:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been crazy but I guess now it is over. Shitloads of dirty tricks were played in the lead up to it, and the worthless media went out of their way to make such chicanery appear to be spread equally between the two major parties. Somehow the will of the people overcame voter suppression drives and the questionably patriotic act of voting into a touchscreen; the gloating of the 'permenent majority' has ceased.

Here in Minnesota we did so - so.

Amy Klobuchar became our replacement for one term wanderer Mark Dayton, smashing the lame Mark Kennedy. Unfortunately for Mr. Kennedy, enough Minnesotans had wised up to the fact that he was not a dem, so his usual campaign ads where his surname is repeated like a hip-hop riff while bland, neutral statements about being a 'good guy' - they just wern't gonna cut it anymore. Glad to see my state represent'n when it came to the U.S. Senate.

In the House, Betty McCollum easily won here in my home district. My partner has sent Ms. McCollum a letter from time to time, and she always replies to her with a personal letter. Better than my luck sending mail to our republican senator Norm Coleman. I send him an email telling him that he's a fuckhead, and I get a form letter back directing me to send contributions to this address.

Also in the House, Minneapolis, Minnesota has elected the nations first muslim to the Congress. Keith Ellison is also the first non-white ever elected to federal office in my liberal home-state. I've heard Mr. Ellison speak a few times and he's got some good shit to say. He's one of those black politicians who makes me envious. How nice would it be for a young man to have someone of his own race who could speak so eloquently regarding the state of the world. He's also promised to make instant run-off voting a priority when he get's up there. Instant run off voting gets us all a helluva lot closer to being able to elect real people and end the tyranny of the entrenched wealth.

One the down side Minnesota still has Tim Pawlenty as governor. Even though he again only won thanks to a third party cantidate pulling votes (again, let's get some fucking instant run-off and cut that out) , our worthless mass media be talking about how this is his opportunity to showcase his bipartisanship and prep himself for the national stage. Trust me, this guy ain't Presidential material. I don't even think he has the slightest misconceptions about that, the whole 'might he be President someday' line of bullshit is just something to give the sycopatic press to talk about other than his actions as gov. This guy made a promise to a dozen of our wealthiest citizens not to ever raise their taxes, and has been pussyfoot'n around with 'fees' and shifting expenses to the local municipalities ever since. He also compared poetry to being a mime, so he can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned.

Another let down over here was the loss of Colleen Rowly to John Kline. Again, not my district, so I'm not to down on why John Kline sucks, but Ms. Rowly was Time magazine's Woman of the Year. She was the career FBI agent who blew the whistle on the massive fuck ups that were preventing the disturbing fact that terrorists were over here learning how to fly planes (just not how to take off or land. . .) I'd think that even 'security moms' would want someone like that in the House. . . I think the district she was running in had a lot of wealthy suburbs, and suburbs do make people fucking dumb. . .

Let's see if the new majority party can be shamed into doing some worthwhile. Peace out.

Orson Scott Card is a Douchebag

2006-11-07T18:00:00.000-06:00

Anybody else out there fondly remember reading Card's Ender's Game? I even read his whole series that sorta follows that, with his goofy takes on the next world war. I totally dug that Bean character, and even liked Achilles (with the french pronunciation - a She el.) They were alright books.

Sometimes authors need to shut the fuck up and stick to their fantasy writings. I mean, I'm all down with free speech and go Dixie Chicks and all that, so I'm not saying dumbasses like Card and Crichton should not be allowed to write out 'their opinions' - but when they do so they should expect a bit more backlash than what those poor country girls have had to endure. The shitstorm aimed at the Dixie Chicks was designed to squelch their freedom of speech - evidently, many Americans have huge fucking holes in their head and can accept that fact that entertainers need to 'shut up and sing.' Your knowledge of music must be pretty fucking shallow if you can ignore the Dylans, Youngs, Waters, Beetles, fuck even Lynard Skynard was fucking political.

Orson Scott Card is a douchebag not because he's expressing his opinion. He's a douchebag cuz his opinion reveals such a level of ignorance that's it's fucking shocking. Honestly, I'm shocked, that a man who has made a name for himself as a writer would put that name behind this sort of shit.

Since I myself rarely click links to read up on supporting matters for somebodies blog, I don't pretend my reader has now completed Mr. Card's extremly long-winded opinion piece. Here's how the great man begins his article:

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

But at least there will be a chance.
I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war

Nice, hunh?!? Maybe the fucker is a democrat, I'd hazard that at least seventy percent of that party are a bunch of whistledicks who live on exactly the same rations of selective media that the most brain dead amongst the neo-conned savor. I don't know, I'd think that a fucking citizen of America would care that he only has two choices and even the lesser of two evils still cannot insure a positive outcome to what haunts him as civilization's greatest threat. That could be changed, just about every democracy on the planet does it differntly than we do it here in the U.S., but that's a whole 'nother rant.

I should'nt be so abrasive. Mr. Card has got to be getting up there in the years. Perhaps he's had a stroke recently and no one in his familial structure has stepped up to prevent him from publishing such statements. Let's be a bit more abstract and dwell on these specific statements apart from the man. I'm a seeker, not an assassin.

First, we have the Zell Miller effect. Everyone remember Zell on Earth? He was that looney dork who was getting torn up in the South by the evag media machine. Sure he had limited choices, but he chose to do the speech at the Republican National Convention as a way of trying to make nice with his tormentors. A fair percentage of the republican stalwarts are evags, they broker in 'redemption' stories in a way that most normal people cannot understand. A few formor addicts talking about how much better a high Jesus is over crack - that goes a long way with them. Mr. Card's intro is not meant to entice democrats into pondering his wisdom, it's intended to get 'the base' hard while Mr. Card grovels in his submissive display. Think of a low status dog on his back urinating on himself before the pack, same shit different species. Nothing like having a supposed ideological enemy admit that he was wrong and then argue why for your amusement.

All that and he also gets in his two givens: The 'War on Terror' is real (or important, or logically sound) and the democrats will undermine it if they have the opportunity. Writing which will never endure critical thinking be filled with 'givens' that are laid out in the opening and never solidified. Mr. Card does go a step further than most, he devotes an entire bold headed segment to defining:

However, there are several excellent reasons why "War on Terror" is the only possible name for this war.

1. This is not a war that can be named for any particular nation or region. To call it "The Iraq War" or the "Afghanistan War" would lead to the horrible mistake of thinking that victory would consist of toppling certain governments and then going home.

In fact, it is precisely the name "War in Iraq" that is leading to the deep misconceptions that drive the Democratic position on the war. If this were in fact a war on Iraq, then in one sense we won precisely when President Bush declared victory right after we occupied Baghdad. And in another sense, we might not see victory for another five years, or even a decade -- a decade in which Americans will be dying alongside Iraqis. For a "War in Iraq" to linger this way is almost too painful to contemplate.

But we are not waging a "War in Iraq." We are waging a world war, in which the campaigns to topple the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were brilliantly successful, and the current "lukewarm" war demands great patience and determination from the American people as we ready ourselves for the next phase.

2. We cannot name this war for our actual enemies, either, because there is no way to name them accurately without including some form of the word "Islam" or "Muslim."

It is our enemies who want to identify this as a war between Islam and the West. If we allow this to happen, we run the risk of achieving the worst of all possible outcomes: The unification of one or both of the great factions of worldwide Islam under a single banner.

President Bush and his administration have shown their grasp of our present danger by stoutly resisting all attempts to rename this war. We call it a "War on Terror" because that allows us to cast it, not as a war against the Muslim people, with all their frustrations and hopes, but a war in which most Muslims are not our enemies at all.

That can be galling for many Americans. When, after the fall of the towers on 9/11, Palestinians and others poured into the streets, rejoicing, it was tempting to say, A plague on all of them!

Yep, a plague on them all. This is an awesome example of writing with a cock in your mouth. 'Our enemies want us to define the war as a war on Islam cuz their planning on waging a fucking total war of global domination. Fortunately, our totally great Leader won't play that game. He knows what's best and will do it regardless of what the majority of Americans think.' When Palestinians rejoiced after 9/11, only our moral superiority kept us from nuke'n those fuckers.

It must have been a stroke that did this to Orson Scott Card. Obviously, the guy read plenty of war histories to conjure up his fiction, did he never read a single word of history of propaganda? Golly gee whiz, every state fighting a war has employed tactics to keep their population docile while they did so, and Mr. Card be going right down the list in his lame ass article.

In Ender's Shadow, Bean has a scene where he remarks, 'It felt good to speak truth to power.' Unfortunately, nobody seems to have the fucking manhood to simply state the fucking obvious about 'the War on Terror.'

When large groups interact in conflict, like when white America was pushing west through the vaginas' of native squaws, or when huge international petroleum extractors use loads of money to support repressive regimes that will give them unfettered access to the resources they crave; often one group grinds the other into the dust. History has recorded about a fucking million examples, and perhaps we're all grown up enough to realize it ain't much differnent today. In conflict where one side has total military superiority - and demonstrates that they will simply kill every member of your group - resistance to that requires desperate tactics.

It's just fucking evolution. The noble members of a group that refuse to murder civilians or torture or whatever don't survive. Those who fight by whatever means necessary don't live all that long either, but sometimes truly brutal terrorism does have an effect - so it will be repeated.

The simple fucking fact is that the middle east if full of fucking oil and oil runs every-fucking-thing in our modern world. The world has been fighting over the middle east's resources since WWII, and as the lone superpower, many in our country feel that it's ours 110%. The neo-cons have been writing papers about this for a couple of decades.

Some fucks still want to see the world in black and white, even though a few World Wars and decades under the threat of nuclear planet death didn't seem to get us too far with that mentality. They are tittilated by the notion of an 'Us vs. Them' kinda war, cuz they don't know shit about war or human suffering. Guys like Orson Scott Card are buying into the seduction of telling the American People what those in power want them to hear. Ain't hard to do. He's becoming just another Christopher Hitchens - just with a lot less talent.

I'll bow to the guys at South Park, Mr. Card is not a douchebag on par with the 'psychic' Jonethan Edwards, but he's still a douchebag.

Now, I've got to drink some beer and see what's happened at the polls today.

Self Actualization Not

2006-11-06T22:14:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I was trying to do some writing and things were going alright, you know, alright where your thoughts start feeling pleasurable and you get pretty sure that these thoughts are good thoughts, thoughts that literature exists to enshrine. Anyways, I got to thinking about how I got to be the way I am. Perhaps I'm not everyman, Mr. Joe Sixpack, the flat part of the bell curve. What if the processes that I followed in the infantile dream of becoming a writer were, quite seperate from the goals of moving forward culture; simply a rudimentary step in the development of self-awareness. Maybe people who keep a diary for ten years just happen to generate a greater level of familiarity with their own personality than those folks who don't. Maybe there arn't that many proven pathways to greater levels of consciousness - I suppose it makes evoluntionary sense that there would not be.

Could that be valid? Could it be true that mass media has no need for adults so their product is purposefully aimed at children so that the masses will aspire to that level of interaction. I'm not that much of a snob, but I can't watch five fucking minutes of broadcast television without wanting to vomit - it's all crap! 24, CSI it's all schlock! Engage the literature that was revered for centuries and that shit won't do nothing but hurt your soul. Could so many souls be hurt'n?

I just wanna believe that I'm just average 'for a country boy.' I gotta say, however, that the boogyman makes some damn fine points. Maybe when the world was village size and the church ruled out ninty-nine percent of possible innovation, maybe then a man could know his place by twenty. When the world be internet sized, and no rational man is going to let some dumbass clinging to a robe tell him how to live his life, maybe one needs to devote a fair portion of one's twenties to experimentation and growth.

I'm 31 and have spend a fair portion of time devoted to modern American history - I'm still ignorant - 300 million people; power = complexity.

Grr

2006-11-05T18:57:00.000-06:00

So we have less than two days until the vote starts a rock'n, and I've got to say that my own personal contribution has been kinda lame. C- and I went to a fund raiser for Al Franken's Midwest Values PAC, and I finally became a financial supporter of our local community radio station, but other than that I've been coasting . . .

I suppose I could dwell on the positive, make excuses about how swell my opportunities are at the new job and how I had to take the time to put myself first as 'gawd helps those who help themselves' and all that rot. Maybe I indulged a bit too much in the general apathy that preaches about how there's just nothing that we can do.

I never re-joined with the local activists that had demoralized me with their immature ineffectiveness. I never knocked on any doors. I didn't print out any of the great zingers of a bumper sticker that pop into my head, to stick on my new truck and start changing the world. Never even got around to bringing up the election with my family when we had a dinner last night.

I just got to take a step back and get serious about this sort of thing. Take some responsibility.

We bloggers never have any trouble ripping into others and finding who to blame. I'm still down on evangelicals who support fascism from the cult-like idiocacy of their 'christian' media bubble, and I'm not going to let the Baby Boomers off the hook for being too selfish.

If enough folks vote against the current power structure on Tuesday and the threat of Bush be forced to slink back into the shadows, great. Never will so many have done just the bare minimum to preserve their own damn liberty.

A Single Sign

2006-11-03T18:21:00.000-06:00

Anybody else notice this?

Sweep rounds up 10,700 fugitives

Convicted sex offenders who haven't registered are a main target.

By Mima Mohammed, Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2006

WASHINGTON — More than 10,700 fugitives were rounded up last month in a weeklong sweep by federal, state and local law officials, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales announced Thursday.

Lets just speak plainly about the world for a few minutes. Even the retired Justice Sandra Day O'Conner has made allusions to the conditions in this country that are trending towards authoritarianism. Citizens concern themselves with this sort of thing, but for the most part, the malled masses embrace ignorance. Casually shrugging off the singular uniqueness of our country and our track record of personal freedoms vs. just about any other place or time, they just don't engage. So lets just step around the 90 some odd percent that don't matter in America.

That just leaves the established elites, who are obviously concerned with maintaining their priviledges but who often war amongst themselves for position at the teats of taxpayer monies; and the radicals, those who are willing to throw away a comfortable, if meaningless, life in the pursuit of Ideals greater than an individual. Where elites come from is obvious, folks born into that top one percent do have sex and have children. Each generation, at least a few win the lottery and join those ranks. The radicals are something different. They come from any random combination of genes that forces a moral structure to engage - they tend to die prior to reproduction.

So you've got two classes that have any measurable control over the direction of America. Those who are slip'n the steely dan into the Daughters of the Revolution, and those who are drawn to radicalism like a moth to a flame.

And let me just say one thing about us radicals. We be the folks that just can't accept the world as it is. We just can't understand why citizens of a nation refuse to educate themselves to the point that they can make decisions in their own best interest. Why would anyone willingly support a politician who is guaranteed to triple the debt of any child of yours who goes to college? Why would anyone support a politician who decided to just ignore the national debt? We just don't get it, so we make noise and invite attack.

So amongst the single digets that actually engage with the direction of 'the land of the free', the majority are the elites. The Bushs, the Kerrys, the Kennedys, and the Clintons, and all their butt kissing friends.

This FALCON roundup - gosh dang I'm tired of the neocons little acronyms - is a show of force for the small percentage that's paying attention. They are making a statement and we're all pansies if we refuse to engage what they are saying. With mere hours before the next major U.S. election, do we really need to spell this out to the few morans who might stumble accros my blog.

A percentage of the elites are 'all-in' behind the Bush political machine. The K-Street project ensured a fair number of them were.

Now they are signaling to the fence sitters that the war is over and they better choose the right side. All the groundwork for a police force coup is in place, and not enough of the public has their head out of their ass. If you were an elite, with children in Princeton, would you hedge your bet on the wisdom of the masses right now?

They've eliminated habeus corpus. At a word from GWB you are an enemy combatant (even if you are a U.S. citizen) and penciled in for four hours of sleep and twenty hours of stress positions for the next three years. No appeal, no lawyer, no right to see the charges against you. Sure they havn't really stuck it to anybody who didn't look 'terrorist', but the law be the same for every one of us. Maybe you never went out of your way to read up on the dozens of young black men who wanted nothing but to fight segregation, but wound up on Death Row for the 'crime' of being associated with a group that someone in the government thought was terrorist. Flying planes into buildings is terrorist, refusing to submit to the KKK's terror program of burning black's homes is not. Unfortunately, too few Americans can pull themselves away from the castrating effects of media to understand that there might be a diffence between the two.

So, unfortunately, the powers that be do not see this as a challenge to their powerbase.

TBC - hit me one time. . .

Directed Rant - Target: Evags

2006-11-02T19:06:00.000-06:00

At the new job today, during an unusually boring meeting, someone had the bright Idea of helping to ensure our privacy by playing some music and pointing the speakers out the door. Suffice to say, that same individual thought that KTIS (one of the many fucking christian stations that pollute our airwaves up here in Minnesota) would be a choice we could all agree on - hey, at least it's not rap. So after almost two blissful months of mental peace; the old wounds have not healed a bit. I tried to focus on the content of the meeting, but like I said it was unusually boring.

I just fucking hate that music. Even if we ignore the large percentage that's just ripped off fag rock - change 'my boyfriend' to 'my savior' and you've got a hit - even if we ignore the blatent homosexual longing, the music centers around themes that I don't think are at all manly. "I can only imagine. . . when I worship you. . . I can only Imaaagine." Bollicks.

What ever happened to fucking masculinity?!?

That's my biggest problem with evangelical males, they just don't seem to have that fire in their eyes. Like, I'm pretty liberal and don't have a problem being around gays, but when I first meet one, I guess I just kinda like to know one way or the other. What they used to call the 'gaydar'. I always thought I had pretty acute gaydar. Then the weenie little evags started popping up all over the place. They stand too close to ya. They make too much eye contact and seem too comfortable with the proximity. They seem too interested in what you have to say . . .

I was about to compliment my friend Ch- on being so laid back with so many gay friends when I realized my gaydar was all fucked up. These young men with the meticulously manicured facial hair and a sense of 'flair' in their dress were not homosexual - they were evangelical. They didn't want me to touch their penis, they wanted us to touch Jesus' penis together.

Masculine men do not want to share emotional experiences with other men. Sure, maybe in the second or third year of a fucking World War, men might tell each other they love them - but that's certainly the exception to the rule. Evag men, having been convinced to lower their guard to experience a sensation of love that requires singing and make-believe about some sexy messiah with abs of steel, yearn for an emotional experience that just ain't natural. I ain't down with that.

Off on a total tangent to the program on maximum security prisons that Cindy and I watched last night.

Inmate after inmate spoke the same truth: 'It's a shark tank in here, there are no fish. Somebody disrespects you and you have to respond. If you don't, you weak and you gonna die. That's just the way it is, you gotta accept that.'

That's just the way it is, you gotta accept that. This has been true for 99.99% of all males that might ever be catagorized as members of homo sapiens. It was true when we were citizens of Rome, it was true when we were homesteaders in the West. It was true when I went to High School, although the consequences for failing to stick up for yourself and your tribe were a little less than fatal.

It you'z a young man in Iraq right now it sure as fuck still stands. If the world identifies you with the Sunni then you better be a Sunni who demands respect. Cuz if you ain't, what brother Sunni is going to put his balls on the line to stand up for ya. Death squads do those guys with power drills, it's fucking real over there.

Here in America we have a generation that has no fucking clue, and the evag is the weakest of that progeny.

Final point: I think that we should take the right to vote away from religious fundamentalists.

We don't let the mentally retarded vote, do we? Certainly most states do not allow felons to vote, even twenty years after they've 'paid their debt'. Why should we allow evags to vote?

I believe that the burden of citizenship gets heavier for each generation. The world gets bigger and more complicated. The access to information increases and the number of Ideas out there explodes exponentially. We've got more history to sift through and better takes on the lessons that need to be learned. The sacrifices of the Greatest Generation are not intended to be dissed, but if they gave all that then what have we done? Spend three or four hours a week reading up on modern history and alternative media?

Evags are not members of our society. The 'christian' founding fathers that they worship are not the real men who founded this country, they created a ficticious fantasy. They discount all forms of media that we real Americans contend with, and instead wallow in a 'christian' media filled with lies and purposeful misinterpetations. They don't even accept fucking science, the foundation for just about everything modern in the last two hundred years, to them the scientific method is just another competing religious dogma.

How do we interact with these people?

And since their interaction in the political arena has been so destructive, how do we deal with a whole subsection of the population that is not loyal to the values of a liberal democracy. They can't be reasoned with, they have radio stations that repeat all day long how they are the just like the jews, a persecuted chosen people, and how all liberals want to destroy gawd.

I don't think that any of the puppets in Mr. Rodger's neighborhood got to vote. If a modern evag male wants to live in a world a make-believe and only trust the leaders of his chosen group. . .

That's my final rant, that's what pisses me off the most about the pussys who call themselves 'christian men.' Men get angry when someone lies to their face or disrespects them. Getting angry is not a sin, sometimes it is the natural response to some dumbass who needs a lesson in when to shut the fuck up.

Pat Robertson is a corrupt bastard who uses charity helicopters to move mining equipment around to his diamond mines. The Rev. Ted Haggard was probably using church funds for gay liasons - my gaydar says he's totally into queer sex. While Bush and Rove have referred to the evangelicals as 'wackos' more times than I can count.

Where's the outrage?!? When does the average evag open his window and shout, 'I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!'? When does he at least take the time to ponder if maybe his religious worldview might not make a whole lot of sense?

When do they grow up? It's fucking 2006, six years into a Bush presidency that's been a horror show. Or do we have to take away their right to vote?

America has been free for over 200 years, and I'm not just going to sit on my liberal ass while these fucking douchebags sacrifice every liberal right and liberty we fucking have in the hopes that it will make Jesus come back sooner.

Can you only imagine how great America could be if every evag male's balls' dropped tommorow?

Rolling Stone: Inside the Worst Congress Ever

2006-11-01T20:23:00.000-06:00

The cover story in last week's Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi, helped get my activist fires burning just a bit more uncontrollably than a six-pack of Octoberfest can smother. I've always thought that was the worst timing for an election, days after a major fall festival and the World Series. I suppose it's a hold-over from the good 'ole days, if the masses don't like the elections and rise up, well it'll be too cold for them to occupy anything for the long haul. Winter is no time for a seige.

There still exists in the back of my mind some revenant from catholic school civics which steadfastly refuses to accept some of the details of juvenille behavior that Mr. Taibbi alleges take places in the hallowed halls of the Legislative Branch. The story of Rep. Bill Thomas and his republican cohorts on the Ways and Means Committee rebuffing Rep. Charles Rangel from behind the door of an 'undisclosed' meeting. What the fuck? I'm supposed to believe that the Lions of House and the Senate sit around for five minutes and pose for C-SPAN, then tell their colleges in the minority to piss off while they go rewrite the bill in secret? That's so crazy?!?

I also appreciate Mr. Taibbi's willingness to describe a member of this congress as 'an asshole.' His descriptions of pay-offs and and ear-marks forces a man to use such words. To still give him the benefit of 'the honorable senator from . . .' seems like a too far of a step into crazy-land.

Most obvious reason to vote against the majority party next week:

The numbers bear this out. From the McCarthy Era in the 1950's through the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, no Democratic commmittee chairman issued a subpeona without weither minority consent or committee vote. In the Clinton years, Republicans chucked that longstanding arrangement and issued more than 1,000 subpeonas to investigate alleged administration and Democratic misconduct, reviewing more than 2 million pages of government documents.
Guess how many subpeonas have been issued to the White House since George Bush took office? Zero -
(Rolling Stone, 11.2.6, pg 54)

What a bunch of fuckers.

Baby Boomers

2006-10-11T19:14:00.000-05:00

I recently started a new job, and the institution that I know work for has a slightly larger regional footprint than my previous employer. Thus I'm inclined to take greater precautions to protect the anonymity of myself and my employer. I'm not the kind of cat that blogs about my work or my co-workers (well, rarely) but I'm still uncertain as to the implications of some of my new co-workers reading my rants.

It's just something that I've never had to think about before.

Anyways, we're going to try a blog that takes off from the launchpad of my daily life, but hopefully does not cross any ethical boundaries regarding my responsibilities to my new employer.

I'm now working with some analysists who are busy thinking about how the long-term care industry will have to change in the next decade to stay competitve. One guy with a salary that dwarfs mine: "I'm a baby boomer, and when we begin to retire in another decade the sort of long term care we put our parents into just isn't going to do it for us. I look back on the sort of place where we put my mother and I cringe - baby boomers are not going to put up with that. We are going to demand more services and better amenities."

What is up with these darn baby boomers?!?

How much has America suffered because this one generation has been seduced by those who would sell them shit that they are 'entitled' to something? How illogical is it to stuff your own parents into a dumpy nursing home until they die (andthey did have a choice, any one of them could have taken their parents into their home or come up with some other solution. I'm sure a spiritually aware minority did) but now that they're facing the big darkness they 'demand' something better? This is the generation that said yes to NAFTA cuz they wanted their dollars to go further with the illegal aliens. This is the generation that wants a pill for everything from cholesteral to a limp dick and thinks our entire healthcare system ought to list in the direction of the phamacuetical companies that provide their little helpers. I'm tired of it.

My generation endured 4 and a freaking half hours of television a day thanks to baby boomers who never thought to question the damage that replacing a quarter of your conscious time with artificial stimuli might inflict upon developing minds. Hunh?!? Might a horrific schism between reality and what makes up a sizable percentage of their Ideas and Images (T.V.) lead to bit of depression?

Is my inner rage cooling now that I have reliable health coverage? Six months ago I'd just be hitting my stride. Now I'm tired of it.

Me and Me and the Bottle Makes Three

2006-10-06T18:48:00.000-05:00

When I was a young boy, the in thing to do was urinate on an electric fence. Not like on a regular basis or anything, but peer pressure insured that just everybody did it at least once before their balls dropped at adolescene.

I've just had that memory triggered by the beer and the Twins game.

Who could have thought that such a fate awaited the best team in baseball?

Oh Torii, oh Cuddy! Oh to the Joes and Johan! Woe be every talented and inspiring member of the Minnesota Twins!

I'm hurt'n. See you next season.

Go Twins!

2006-10-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

So I've had the pleasure of attending my first two post season games this year for the greatest team in baseball, the Minnesota Twins. Unfortunately, both games were rather depressing losses where the Twins seemed to never really get the good wood that they've been so celebrated for in the last few months.

Frank Thomas, who is that guy?!? I don't want to see him tested for steriods, I just want someone to x-ray him and prove to me that his insides are not a terminator cyborg! Johan Santana, who should be this years Cy Young award winner, who most commentators refer to as the best pitcher in the league - first pitch, crack, home run for Frank Thomas. What a long ball! That big slugger sure made knocking one into the stands look easy.

There was no joy on the streets of Minneapolis last night.

Just like in Highlander, in the MLB there can be only one. The Twins earned their place here in the post-season, and it ain't over until it is over. Go Twins!

Also, Michael Cuddyer's got a blog for the playoffs. It's cool to see how the blog tech is making baseball players seem even more real and approachable. So far he's been spared most of the blogshit, I wonder how the powers that be at MLB are handling it all . . .

God Bless the Kansas City Royals!!!!

2006-10-01T17:08:00.000-05:00

Yeeeeehaaaaaaaaaawww! ! !

After losing one hundred games this year the Kansas City Royals' said, 'No More!' They had the chance, albeit a slight one, to walk into the Detroit Tigers' stadium and kick the home team right in the balls.

What a finale, for four of the five Central Division teams to be locked into such monumental series! Chicago, only recently assassinated out of the Wild Card by the Twins and looking for payback - winning the first two games. The Royals, showing that they were nobody's punks, looking to spread some pain around in Detroit.

Detriot lost the first game. Minnesota fails to pick up the lead. Detriot lost the second game, Minnesota again fails to get one over on the Sox.

Finally, Minnesota gets the upper hand on Chicago; crowds chant 'lets go Royals!' in the Metrodome as the scoreboards updated to a tied game. We watched with incredulous amazement as Kansas City pitched out of some deep shit in overtime; then resposte to the same loaded bases at the bottom of the inning. Gobble up three more outs, omigosh, Twins have been handed the Division Championship on a silver fucking platter!

I'm gonna buy me a Royals hat, wear it with pride. That's a team with some real street-fighter heart. Get in your face, on your turf, and make you eat it.

Let's go Royals! Let's go!

(oh, right, your season is over. . . well, thanks for all the memories.)

Go Twins!

2006-09-29T07:31:00.000-05:00

I'm well aware that the masters of Major League Baseball control all the rights to their broadcasts, and that even written descriptions of the game can be a violation of their copyrights if I do not possess their written permission. I don't know why they would want to stop a lowly blogger from adding a small posting of kindling to the bonfire of Twins Mania in our culture, but their rights are their rights.

I am vulgar from time to time; that was nigh Bert Blyleven's downfall.

Suffice to say, a certain man with sideburns that would make Jesus jealous came through for his team with a two out, two strike homer in the eighth to keep the door open for the Twins to win the game! Our Twins have had an incredible season, with a great roster of surprisingly talented and highly motivated players.

Like two exhausted gladiators in the blistering sun of the city's arena, the Twins and the Tigers have three more games to struggle against each other (vicariously through the White Sox and the Royals) as they claw at the Division Title. There can be only one.

I just hope none of our players gets hurt in the run up to the post season.

Win or Lose, I'm a big fan of a team that plays the sort of baseball that you can't walk away from. Flip on the game, and soon I find myself standing in the living room with an empty beer - too engrossed in the game to take fifteen seconds to reload.

And the War Drags On

2006-09-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton:

"The President is not well served by his Secretary of Defense, a man history will not treat kindly. So what to do? Replace the Secretary of Defense with a proven leader who has a vision to get the country's defense establishment back on track. The army is in terrible shape, the marines are not much better. A Secretary who understands how to build alliances at home and abroad, who understands the operational art and understands the contemporary environment we live in."

President George W. Bush:

"Our nation is blessed to have young Americans like these -- and we will need them. Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They're not the first to try, and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. Nine-Eleven showed us why. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did, but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer, came to the aid of neighbors in need, and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America's strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who made us to be free.

Thank you, and may God bless you."

So now there's a NIE being talked about where just about everybody with the slightest interest in reality agrees that placing a christian army in the middle east had to be about the stupidest fucking thing that could have possibly been done. I can just imagine Osama sitting around the war room with his terrorist underlings:

"But boss, even though Allah is great and righteous, if we attack the U.S. on September 11 . . . Allah save us from the most powerful military the world has ever seen."

"Oh, murderous grasshopper, indeed Allah is great and righteous, and Bush will only attack us for a few months before he will turn and smite Saddam Hussien."

"Um, boss, if we attack him, why would Bush turn around and start a war with Iraq for no reason? That would totally play into our hands in every possible way? ! ? That makes no sense."

"Once you understand the nature of a thing, you know what it is capable of."

I bounce back and forth between thinking that Bush and his crew are so fucking inept that they just fucked up left and right in Iraq and things just got worse by the day, by the month, by the year; or the notion that fucking up Iraq was the gameplan all along.

What do they care if Iraqi's live like dogs in slums with giant lakes of human waste? What do they care if various death squads are torturing star-bellied sneeches at an insane pace? George W. Fucking Bush don't care.

He got to fuck up our economy and go ape-shit with the deficeit spending (exactly what guys like Grover Norquist want)

He got to fork over billions in no-bid, guaranteed profit, contracts to his pals at Halliburton (exactly what Dick Cheney wanted)

He got to settle a personal score with Saddam (exactly what a spoiled prince would want)

He got to fuck up the oil flow in the middle east (exactly as our nation's long term planners have wanted since Carter. Anyone else remember that Dallas subplot where J.R. Ewing wanted to nuke Saudi Arabia to make his own texas tea more valuable?)

He don't even care what happens to our troops over there. Nope, those neo-cons are so looking forward into this 'new military.' Already we see the rise of 'security contractors', where tough motherfuckers from Navy Seals and other Special Forces just don't find themselves with too many marketable skills when they finally get out of the military in their thirties - rather than go work at Wal-Mart they get hired by a security contractor to do what they've been trained to do, just sans oversight, or a uniform code of conduct.

Fuck the army, what we're moving too is corporate forces. They'll have all the latest technology and intel - and it sure ain't none of our business where they go and what they're doing.

What's wrong with folks in this country? The Bush bullshit has gone from disturbing, to absurd, to laughable, into a maddening environment of fucking insanity. They are doing away with habeus corpus (but, only for the bad men, the evil men) for fucksake. The media plays out this retarded 'debate' about the issue, and it is just so insane. Either I am going insane or the world is or always has been.

I'm leaning toward the latter.

Like Testing

2006-09-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

C- told me that my blog was down, and so I'm uncertain why I can still blog this here but I'm getting a 404 off blogger when I come at it from the other side.

Well, here goes.

Come as You Are

2006-09-13T19:28:00.000-05:00

I just read an article that C- recommended to me about the species of the evagelicals out in the Pacific Northwest on Salon. For those of you who are members; the link.

The article by Lauren Sandler summarizes the author's insight from his recent book, 'Righteous'; many illustrive anecdotes are laid out to clarify the situation. Here's one I cut out of the article:

During a community group evening, a couple of weeks before I visited, Dietz was hanging out with the men in the backyard, while the women were inside cooking and watching the kids. Scrutinizing the dilapidated fence that had come with the house, Dietz began talking about how he'd really like a new one, but wasn't sure how much the whole endeavor might cost.

A few days later, the men in the group pulled up in front of the house with a pickup truck full of lumber and set about building a new fence on the spot. Now whenever the Dietzes look out their kitchen window, they see a proud and solid reminder of the strength of their community, and the unity of their faith in God. Dietz recounts this story sitting squarely in his big chair in the living room, his eyes set on mine over the rim of his coffee cup. I tell him the truth: I have wonderful friends who I have considered close as family for many years now, and I can't imagine any of them helping me lug the wood, much less building me a fence. He pauses and sets down his coffee cup in a motion that is about to put a definitive end to a delightful evening. "Listen," he says. "We have a really nice rapport. But we believe different things. And let's face it, because of that, you're never going to feel like family to me. So, what I'm saying is, this is as far as it goes." Stung at first, upon reflection I can't blame him. I have nothing like his shared faith to connect me to other people. It's no wonder Dietz and Sarah glow when they talk about their group with the same tones of veneration in which they join hands and say grace before dinner.

End Quote

Now this strikes so many irritated chords with me that I can barely focus on just one to begin my rant with.

First is the manner of inclusion/exclusion that is used. This is a big step up from 'if you havn't felt the love of Jesus I pity you'; this is, 'If you don't believe what I believe than you don't mean shit to me.' See the cultiness here? That's definately a trend towards the Hard Right.

Secondly, why can't we just call a spade a spade and start to refer to these types with the same language we use for drug addicts? Earlier in the article the author describes what evags these days are calling 'agape' - the type of love that Jesus has for them, which effortlessly belittles the experiences of love that are psycologically paired with family, friends, or sexual partners. Agape can be used as the brand name for their group love drug. By exploiting the psychology of the herd, and also maximizing the mental fantasies of the group regarding safety and 'being special', the religious leader can generate incredible feelings of belonging and love. Like a version of Titanic adjusted on the fly by a skilled 'TV psychic' to generate as many shrieks out of that audience as possible - these freaks don't smoke nothing, they use group dynamics to get high.

And DAMN do they get high! 'Agape' is a the best trick their stale little culture has come up with yet to describe the experience to the rest of us. But even without possessing the religious underworkings which animate the word 'agape', we can still compare the imagry to that of drug culture and infer that they are talking about some religious Maui Woowie.

Group dynamics huffing works off the fact that our species is a very social animal (we have always found social bonds essential to survival and thus the continuation of our genetic material) yet too many of us are allowed to survive in this society dispite glaringly primitive social skills. Even me - a being that I like to think is very socially developed - can find myself sweating through my shirt and desperately hesitating when a novel situation requires me to interact with a stranger. Most Americans have some difficulty expressing themselves honestly and interacting comfortably with other human beings who are not a member of their family or close group.

What the evags do is use the power of group suggestion. Some members of the group claim to feel this incredible pleasure inside of their bodies, and they occassionally make unusual movements or noises to represent this transcendental pleasure. Other members of the group have a strong psychological instinct to relate to the other members of their group. So if one is claiming to have a groovy feeling of love right now, the others . . .

Anybody else have one of those early teen experiences where someone claimed to have some alcoholic beverage or a drug or something, and then everybody tried it and started acting goofy until finally the perpetrator admitted he was just playing you all for fools - it was just koolaid or granulated sugar? Evags have been taking that joke too far for about a hundred years now.

The first evags to initialize the group to a feeling of pleasure from this elaborate group dynamic are not lying to themselves. They honestly believe that the endorphins they are releasing are proof of a magical world. The process does release real chemicals in the brain, and those chemicals are very potent behavior modifiers.

The author of this article refers to Evagelicalism as 'gobbling up this entire generation.' The size of this locomotive of the damned is nightmarish.

Dietz is no different from a heroin addict that mocks your inability to score horse and 'feel the music.'

How many human beings are free of the slavery of the addicted mind? One percent? Two? Fuck us all.

It's Fucking On Now!

2006-09-08T19:45:00.000-05:00

The Path to 9/11, ABC Disney's latest attempt to cash in on the tragedy of 9/11 and please those in power has crossed the last motherfucking line.

The feed today at Counterspin has some killer insight into what's going on today.

I have to let all this soak before I can get a good rant going.

War is Peace! Violence is Compassion! Hail the Leader!

2006-09-06T18:52:00.000-05:00

President of the United States of America, the honorable and majestic George W. Bush:

Despite these strategic setbacks, the enemy will continue to fight freedom's advance in Iraq, because they understand the stakes in this war. Again, hear the words of bin Laden, in a message to the American people earlier this year. He says: "The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever."

Now, I know some of our country hear the terrorists' words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say. History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in Europe published a pamphlet called "What Is To Be Done?" -- in which he laid out his plan to launch a communist revolution in Russia. The world did not heed Lenin's words, and paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war. In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price. His Nazi regime killed millions in the gas chambers, and set the world aflame in war, before it was finally defeated at a terrible cost in lives.

What a cock knocker.

First off, I'm enough of a socialist to be plenty pissed off by that statement. The communism that Lenin set out to fuel a revolution in Russia with was not the communism that killed 'tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war.' The communism of Lenin and Trotsky was one of words and Ideas; men and women read those words, felt those Ideas and acted to bring down a fucking heriditary ruler and begin to change the fucking serfdom system. It was people rising up against a shitty autocrat, and the government they established was legitimate. . .

Then every country in the Western World (including the U.S.) declared war on them. Political systems in the West were too similar to the one that had Russian Armies convinced to lay down their arms rather than kill thier own people for an imbred Tsar. The example set by the October Revolution had to be wiped from the minds of the world. The European ruling class was going to get communism before it got them.

The nature of the communism in Russia changed as a result of the outside pressures, just as Islam has changed in the last sixty years. Soon communism became 'war communism' a series of centralizations of power that were necessary because enemy troops were on their soil. Violent times lead to the idolization of violent men; Stalin struck like a cobra. He implemented a horrifically effective police state, and those 'tens of millions' belong on his 'Stalinism' and not on the evaluations of the class war between Working Class and Ruling Class that Lenin and Trotsky operated under.

Mr. Bush's complete and deliberate mischaracterization of Lenin aside (and it is deliberate, too many Bush fans hold 'commies are evil' as a truth much more self-evident than 'all men are created equal') , what the fuck!?!

He does'nt feel that us citizens, the poor fuckers who actually think we have some duty as a member of American society to listen to his 'Presidential' speech, have the thinking capacity of children. His fucking market analysists have the whole fucking thing all figured out, with the same equations they use to sell toothpaste, about what phrases 'sell well' and they not him, determine the content of his speech. I doubt he even bothers to proof-read the thing before he performs it with radio coaching from backstage.

What the fuck kind of logic is he getting at here. Because Hitler wrote a book about his intentions before he got himself democratically elected to office in a free country, we are suppose to take the rantings of every single religious wacko as a absolutely fatal progrostication which can only be avoided by World War?

Hitler was not a threat to the world because he dreamed of exterminating the Jewish race. I bet there are thousands of bald headed white guys just within fifty miles of my computer here that have the same racist dreams. He was a threat to the world because he controlled a country where loyalty to the Leader was more important than anything else; the largest military on the planet and massive industrial and technological assets. That's what seperated Hitler from just another anti-semite, just that little detail about a huge fucking army, navy, and ruthless secret police.

Bin Laden should be evaluated as a threat on the same scale.

War is Peace! What the Fuck?

I read that speech and I just can't believe it. How can the President of the United States get off saying such pathologically illogical shit and not get called on it by the press? Are there really people in this country who listen to this sort of thing and not feel like they've just been kicked in the balls? The audacity of that man, to ridicule the office of President and use that podium as a means of spinning propaganda and fear-mongering.

Embrace Fascim to Fight 'Fascism'!

Farewell to the Croc Hunter

2006-09-05T08:23:00.000-05:00

I'm amazed at how large of a world response the recent death of Animal Planet's Steve Erwin generated. Cindy's sister called her as soon as she heard about it. My Mother brought it up during Labor Day dinner; the news articles detailing his accident have been tops on Google News for the last 48 hours.

Evidently, he's being mourned all over the world.

Mass Media does not give us people, it gives us characters. The parts of Mr. Erwin's personality that made it past the editing table and into the character of 'The Croc Hunter,' all seemed cool to me.

He had an infectious enthusiam for nature and danger. He was a good man.

Propaganda: VOA

2006-09-01T07:50:00.000-05:00

So by now I'm sure the blogosphere is awash with bloggers hammering keys in indignation over the recent comments by Secretary Rumsfeld. That old coot just don't give it up, does he? Like the taboo against openly ridiculing the religious, too many Americans still hold to this notion that the executive branch deserves a level of respect well above what they have earned.

Fortuanately, this does not filter down to the lower levels. At our state fair yesterday, a democrat running for office talked about a recent debate he had with his competitor. When the incumbent republican informed the crowd that 'this is the best economy we have ever seen,' the crowd gave out an audible groan. The same reaction when he sought to educate them on how the acts of 'environmental activists' were ultimately responsible for the spike in oil prices.

Tim Wahls (hope I spelled that right, no time to look it up now and risk distraction) stated that 'people are tired of being talked down to,' just given the talking points even when they are insulting to the intelligence of an average fifth grader. Politician are like car salesmen, sure there can and may be some with integrity out there, but the smart stance is to assume each one you deal with is content to hustle ya and move on - if you will let them.

We're 'making progress' in Iraq, or the 'economy is grrrreat!', are statements that require facts to support them. Facts are rarely considered important to the Bush Administration, when the leader speaks; what more do you think you deserve?

Thus I get to this Voice of America story.

For those few readers out there who are new to the ranting of this seeker, allow me to elucidate on VOA. This is not a news organization, it is a propaganda machine that the U.S. State Department has been running since the 40's, originally to counter the vile propaganda of the Soviet Bloc. I know that propaganda is an overloaded and heavily overused term (esp. in my little neck of the woods), but Voice of America is an interesting animal because no one denies that it is propaganda. That is why for most of us, we never hear about it, because U.S. law supposedly forbids the dissemination of propaganda in our free society. It is for broadcast at them not at us.

So we can safely assume that the VOA is one of the best specimins of political propaganda that we can observe and study. Their truthiness is high, it is in the selection of truth where the devil hides.

Still, I can't help but wonder if the cats in the State Department are a bit of their game,

Is this the image of Secretary Rumsfeld they want to reinforce? If I was listening to that speech and couldn't comprehend english, I'd be certain he was calling for the 'final solution' to gays, natives, and jews.

Oops, there I went and crossed the Nazi Line. . . Ever since Jon Stewart gave a hilarious opinion piece on the overuse of comparisons of political opponents to Hitler - '. . . and frankly, it's not fair to Hitler. . . that guy worked too hard, too many years at being evil' - I thought we all were going to lay off the penciling of narrow mustaches upon our most hated politicians.

But then, Mr. Rumsfeld did devote a fair portion of his speech to comparing those of us who criticize Bush's Crusade in the Middle East to Neville Chamberlain (who all of us Civ fans know was a really crappy leader.) Cuz refusing to support their 'War of Terror' is just like hoping Hitler wouldn't blitzkrieg your nation if you pretended to like him.

A few points:

The list of folks in America who desperately wanted to support Hitler during the lead up to our entry in WWII was long. Here in Minnesota our rock star Charles 'Spirit of St. Lous' Lucky Lindy met with Hitler and was an outspoken fan of Germany's airforce.
America has a fair history of appeasing great powers. The Louisiana Purchase, whereby we funded Napolean's War Machine is a prime example. He had the greatest army in the world, and the notion that he might take it across the Atlantic was more than mere speculation. If he had, maybe we'd all be speaking french today.
Hitler had the most powerful military in the world, along with a terrifyingly efficient secret police force. The notion that he could destroy a civilization without hesitation was real. Germany was one the cutting edge of technological development, and had the industrial capacities to mass produce the weapons of war.
Islamo-fascism is the stupidest term ever invented, and those who use it are either fascinatingly undereducated or purposefully speaking down to us. Fascism, by definition is more like how a corporation runs than an Al-Queida network. The powers at the top make decisions, and the components at the bottom follow orders. Bin Laden does not have secret police who oversee his every underling and made sure that their loyalty is 110%. Bin Laden runs a loose collection of cells that have very little contact with each other, most have similar goals, but they are not fascist. Fascism is bad, terrorism is bad - the comparison ends there.
To state the obvious: the Bush Administration, with its dependency on controlling mass media and spin, their love of the 'glorification of the Great Leader', their continual over-identification of themselves with our military, the various programs that are spying on us right now, ect. ect. - is much more following the fascist model.

Appeasing the terrorists and treating the human beings in the Middle East and in other places justly and fairly may be the same thing. Perhaps it could be as simple as ceasing our shameful flow of taxpayer dollars into Israel and the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and that ilk. Maybe if we just got our christian soldiers out of the Holy Land and stopped playing into their fantasies about Crusades and Jyhad.

Just a thought.

Summer of 06

2006-08-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Formations of Canadian Geese have been sighted overhead for the last few weeks. The sugar maple in our neighbor's yard is just beginning to glow with the autumnal neon around her edges. A hint of the dry cold lurks in our early mornings and stalks our twilights.

We native Minnesotan's know these signs well.

Soon the full fury of Winter will descend, covering our beautiful land with layers of snow more oppressive than Sharia Law: forbidding expressions of happiness and forcing our women to cover their bodies with the traditional ski jacket.

Into hibernation go'eth the casual erection, envoked with a smile by a jiggling, jogging beauty. . . too soon the only erect I'll be dreaming about will involve my lower back and the agony of shoveling out the garage before I can even go to work.

All this begs the question: have I gotten enough out of this Summer? Have I squeezed every ounce of life's zest from these too brief moments of thawed existence? One thing I certainly havn't been doing with my summer is blogg'n.

So today I seek to justify my lackadasical blogging habits this summer, and cross a line that has yet to occur on this blog. I will post some pictures to express the activity that has consumed my summer.

That's right, I've been painting our 100+ year old country farm house and doing all sorts of repairs and replacements. Unfortunately, the evening light in these photos does not do justice to the attractive luster of our yellow. Known as 'masculine banana' (mis-labled at Sherwin Williams as 'banana cream'), this tint of yellow is without a doubt the finest combination of eye catching intensity without a hint of the feminine. We have many yellow houses here in West Saint Paul, most are faded looking crap; 'masculine banana' is the vanguard for a whole new movement in house colors.

Please pay special attention to the detail in the trim.

That detail was once routed by hand by a craftsman who took some righteous damn pride in his daily work. Then it languished for many decades under layers of cheap-ass Dutch Boy paint. When I first started climbing the ladder and scraping, I realized that detail was there and mentioned it to Cindy (in retrospect, a dumb move.) This is a girl who mutters 'painted lady on Summit' in her sleep - my fate and the summer of 06 was sealed.

Each of those three peaks was an exercise in sanding, caulking and replacing rotten wood. After that they each got two layers of oil primer, two coats of white (inside the groves, where they still existed, in other places I just had to draw them by hand), then two coats of the green carefully cut around the white detail - all on top of a twenty four foot extension ladder.

I'm getting down to the final half-dozen tasks that need completion now, and winter's getting within realistic striking distance any day now. My promethian foresight insured that we used Sherwin William's Superpaint, that can be applied at any temperature above 35 degrees, but I'm so hoping that life does not ask that of me. I'm going to be done by labor day. I'm going to be done by Labor Day. I'm going to be done by Labor Day.

So there's some pics of what I accomplished in the Summer of 06. Since I've broken my taboo on filling a post with pictures, I'll end with a shot of one cornor of the inside of our groovy home:

Hope everyone be stay'n groovy.

Bring Back the Fucking Draft!

2006-08-23T19:22:00.000-05:00

When I first read a few years ago that the great Noam Chomsky had opposed the elimination of the draft I had to do a double take. Hunh?!? The draft, perhaps one of the greatest displays of the prerogative of the ruling class to treat us members of the working class a fucking tools - how can the abolition of such a nasty institution be a bad thing?

Tearing the innocent youth from the arms of their girlfriends (who are put'n out) so that they can get their balls blown off in a war that has goals only a small handful of the ruling class gives a shit about - securing access to a lucrative market, destroying the natives who are trying to organize and prevent the destruction of their homeland over the minerals beneath it - no, the draft is about something else. Like whipping a slave, the draft is something you subject your population to every once in a while to keep them in line. Learn Your Place, Boy! Me and my children do the fly'n, you and yours do the dye'n.

But Mr. Chomsky thinks about things with a focused brain.

He had already considered the trends of the technological age. Modern militaries (the kind that fucking totally kick ass) are backed up by the low hanging nuts of a motherfucker of an economy (that's you and me shopping at Sears) which produces weapons so un-fucking-believably powerful (we're talking nukes or the A-10 here.) One does not need trenches full of warm bodies anymore, what's needed is an technologically intensive miltary with a small number of highly trained soldiers to execute orders. It's been pretty fucking obvious for the last few decades that air superiority equals omnipotence. It all comes down to Top Gun - whoever has the best jet fighters will control the air. It will come down to a few hundred of the best trained (stimmed up) pilots flying the most expensive, technologically advanced machines ever to exist.

I've heard some damn good theories that slavery didn't end because a few too many Americans started 'really reading their bibles,' it had more to do with the industrial revolution - can't trust those damn monkeys around all the expensive machines. Same with the civil rights movement, American's didn't suddenly grow past racism - the commies were killing us with propaganda of our cops setting dogs on people; that was like castling, a defensive adjustment that had to be made.

I'd wager the elimination of the draft had more to do with those sort of forces than any bullshit about liberalism and a young man's rights.

So the military of today be a lot different from the days of Benedict Arnold. So are the fucking wars.

So just as we once decided not to stand in front of the redcoats, instead sniping at their officers in violation of all european military traditions; now many other cultures are devising tactics that attempt to minimize the usefulness of air superiority.

It's like a mick cop trying to clean up the streets of the godfather, he's going to make you fight for every single cornor - and he'll exploit racial violence to do it.

Without even considering the motivations of our foes in the Middle East, the tactics they use should be pretty fucking obvious. They will never challenge the air superiority of either Israel or the U.S. Whatever actions they attempt to take, they will be made with the primary goal of escaping sudden death from above.

Like obsessive compulsive middle age women are insuring the death of our species by constantly killing 99.99% of 'germs on any surface', so for sure that one freak mutant that can survive our primary bacteriacides will enjoy an awesome advantage and will surely lead to a new immune strain - so too with Israel. They've been just free-balling it for the last fifty years with the air-force of Yahweh. They can kill just about anybody at anytime and have been striving to drive that point home to the stupid arabs since the fucking six day war. Only the most resourceful of tactics and fanatical of motivating ideologies are going to survive.

For the slow on the uptake, that's Hezbollah and the insurgancy in Iraq. Not that they have anything in common, except the willingness to incorporate whatever tactics will not get them blown to fucking hell by a laser guided missile. Pretty slick how Hezbollah's similar to the mafia, they are a force to be reckon'd with, but they ain't got no capital to bomb, no clearly defined loved ones to kill in retribution. . .

The best stratagy for resisting the will of 'national interests' is the Hezbollah model. Israel's refusal to stop terrorizing the arabs has set the time table for the evolution of this model.

So this new model requires checkpoints and 'boots on the ground.' Regardless of why we went into Afganistan (oil pipeline) or Iraq (oil) , the new model for international conflict once again requires more than a few hundred fighter pilots and some rather bloodthirsty special ops teams.
The sorts of wars Bush is starting cost fucking human lives. I don't know what the fuck Clinton was doing in the Balkans, perhaps he really did want to 'prevent a genocide' - all I know is we didn't lose a single soldier's life. That's boring enought that I'm not curious about just who got bombed and why. Iraq seems pretty obvious - fuck up a country with lots of oil, and the oil in the rest of the world just got a lot more valuable - and it's a war that chews up lives.

I'm a liberal, so the deaths of Iraqi children also bothers me. But I ask you, 'how many American testicles have been blown into bits and lost in the fucking sands of Iraq?' These guys are giving up their sex organs because they want America to have a strong military. Under a large number of pragmatic analysis that's a noble motivation. Nations' that don't have young men willing to make such sacrifices often don't survive.

Now they think they're done after their third tour and Bush recalls their sorry old asses again?!?
Bring back the fucking draft! If this war is so worth fighting, let a few more of our 300 million population share the burden of this conflict.

Put your own nuts on the line. Our highly specialized military has given enough. For the stupidest fucking war ever - Christians with guns in the heart of the Holy Land, you couldn't play into Osama's hand any more if you tried -

I wonder how many Americans have promised themselves that they'd beat Tucker Carlson to death if they ever got the chance? Regardless of the consequences?

Fundamentalist's Alternate Realities

2006-08-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

Today hundreds of thousands of Hezbollocks' flags are waving in celebration in the Southern Lebanon as the President of Syria declares a 'historic victory,' over 'Israeli terrorism.' On the far side of an immense ocean, President Bush comments on Israel's 'victory', and stammers on about Syria and Iran's growing weakness.

There all full of shit, the kind that fundamentalists treat as holy and eat as part of some sort of magikal ritual.

Over a thousand civilians died in Lebanon; dozens in Israel. Perhaps 300,000 lebanese have been displaced, and old segregation lines between Shia, Sunni, and Christian have been all muddied up as families in the north take in strangers as refugees. An oil slick the size of the Exxon Valdez has been created off Lebanon's shores. Billions of dollars in infrastructure - that means the parts of society that people need to live - has been destroyed: bridges, factories, schools, hospitals, refineries, broadcast towers . . .

The romantic age is long over people. War just means irreconcilable suffering for innocent civilians who are unfortuante enough to be born on top of valuable resources.

But the fundamentalists are all a bunch of hopeless romantics. War is so fucking glorious, and 'victory' - as however they choose to define it - is always such a worthwhile reward for their sacrifice and loyalty.

I'd say an impartial observer would call this conflict a total loss for Lebanon, the country that just happened to be too weak to enforce her will on Hezbollah's fighters; and a stalemate for the Big H and Israel. Each side has their own propaganda machines and legions of brainless followers, however, so a new generation of Israeli soldiers will learn about this as another 'necessary action' and their rocket launching counterparts will be revering this moment as the 'beginning of the end for Israel.'

Reality has nothing to do with this conflict, and thus it will continue until one side gets medival.

Yet this maddening conflict between cultures that simply cannot define the same reality in unison ain't nothing new. It ain't nothing rare either.

I believe that the founding fathers of our country were deists and pretty radical skeptics and liberals. Evags are completely convinced that the fathers' totally intended to create a 'christian nation.' Evags hold disdain for the 'theories' of evolution and those of antropology, I can't find a flaw in them (not a 'deal-breaker' by any means.) Some folks in this country see Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest Presidents of the modern age; I can't get past Iran-Contra, the betrayal of the air-traffic controllers, or that slutty S+L bailout - let alone get to anything good he might have accomplished.

This country currently has at least two distinct cultures and ways of understanding reality. This will not do.

I hate to sound like I'm not a good moral relativist here, but - 'two men think they're Jesus, one of the must be wrong.'

My thoughts on the whole Joe Lieberman thing

2006-08-09T20:45:00.000-05:00

So every jackhole yahoo who gets irate on the cable news thinks that the defeat of Joe Lieberman be the crack in the foundation of the House of Democrats. The dems must be a party in the held hostage by the madness of a liberal fringe, so mindlessly self-destructive that they would throw the seniority of Senator Lieberman aside in a fit of ideologically motivated cleansing. The barely intelligible, Bush-hating, demogouges who rise to power in these liberal primaries will not have any traction with the 'mainstream voters.' Dispite the Clintons' and the entrenched Washington leaderships best efforts to pull in the rope of democracy - these fools are determined to hang themselves and force voters to favor the more moderate republicans ( oh, and to undermine the war on terror, and maybe our economy and moral values while they are at it.)

Ned Lamont in a millionaire who could be Joe Lieberman's clone except for the jew and the war thing. He is not some firebrand determined to breath life into the flat-lining democratic party. He's just a guy who say an opportunity to snag a job with a 98% retention rate, and dabble in some real power.

As a liberal and an independant, I think the weakness of Lieberman comes down to a simple stance:

We have sat incredulous for six years as a President has started multiple wars, bungled multiple catastrophes, and made a religious practice out of funneling our taxpayer dollars into the corporations of his friends and donors. During the rare moments anyone in the press confronts him on these acts, he stutters out some flat out bullshit - and they eat it right up and regurgitate it to us.

We're tired, and we are so disappointed in a Congress, particularily a Senate, which has done so little to stand up for Americans, or for the truth.

Joe Lieberman supported Bush publically on the war. He let himself be used as a prop when the Rove machine wanted to spin Iraq away from 'Bush's Crusade' and into 'America's Fight.'

We want to see a democratic majority so that come November we can finally begin to initiate the investigations (with subpeona power) that every informed citizen still can't believe are on hold. We want impeachment. We want someone to finally give media time to those who are risking everything to speak truth to power.

Joe Lieberman has proved that he is not that sort of man, so he has to go. I'd say about another thirty of them could be replaced for the party to get serious, but one at a time is the way it works. I don't feel sorry for him at all.

A worker in this country can lose his job, healthcare and pension all in one fell outsourcing swoop, at least Mr. Lieberman is being unemployed based on his performance.

Read!

2006-08-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to suspect that there be a connection between the place in the mental world that first caveman squatted in, and dealings with the young. Just as that neigh human beast sat there banging stones and trying desperately to duplicate the miracle of fire that would warm his children and be his only real protection against the lethal creatures of the night. So too is the act of delicately engaging the minds of our young people. Each time I engage them with an interrogative mental flint, I just so hope to in some way ignite their mindfire.

It's like we hope and hope that our hints and our allusions will draw them in. In truth we are just like a caveman invoking fire; as we do so we chant, 'Read, read, read. . .'

The Horrors of War

2006-08-08T07:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wish I could go back to being one of the numb sleepers. One of the many who listen to NPR with an ear for that 'liberal bias', and treat MSNBC as a more 'honest, corporate media.' Folks who have every image and story about the world carefully monitored so as to avoid the truly horrific sensation of grasping reality.

Yesterday I was fucking listening to Democracy Now, and Amy Goodman took the last quarter of the program to talk with guests about something other than the violence in the Middle East and the Bush Administration's rape of our environment and economy. The topic was the Congo, 'a vast land of mineral resources, with a bunch of black savages running around on top of it.' Turns out there are even more scare resources in the world than my civ's battle for in Sid's world. Coltan, a mineral which conducts heat excellently, and is found in all of our fucking cell phones, PS2s, remote controls, and laptops. Between this mineral, the diamond mines, and the uranium - the poor people in the Congo never had a chance to run their country without violent interference from the outside world.

Like one commentator once said, 'The people of Iraq are cursed by the vast stores of Oil underneath their feet. It's like a magnet for suffering.'

So the bad men from the Rawanda Genocide (genocidaires - they actually have a fucking name for these types) flee prosecution across the bordor into Congo, but when the Rawandan military follows them, they don't go after these genocidaires - nope, they actually work with them for the purposes of securing valuable mines and other resources. Armed groups spring up all over the place, all you need is an international corporation willing to deal for your access to a resource, and the willingness to force children to murder their own parents and force them into your fucking child army - and you're fucking in business. You've just become an international trading partner.

Any mature student of war knows that the creative drive for the sort of violence that will drive another man to suicide is a fundamental human trait. Our species has tried to use violence to cow others since we fell out of fucking trees, and there ain't no seperations between 'civilized' and 'barbarous.' What is happening in the Congo is not because they are a race of savages - the acts committed there are no worse than the one's committed countless times by White, Christian, American settlers every time they came across a group of squaws in the 'Untamed West.' No different from the vengence Russian soldiers took on German women when they came in from the East.

In the Congo right now, as groups fight over who gets to provide our multinationals with diamonds and metals, the atrocity de jour is to gang rape the competitions women and then shoot them in the vagina. You have entire hospitals right now filled with victims of such violence. In one province alone, there has been 45,000 rapes within a years time.

I swear, if you could somehow inject into the heart and mind of an American Hausfrau an understanding of the suffering our fasination with shiny stones has caused to other human beings - she would rip her own fucking finger off to get that diamond away from her body and her soul.

Assholes in the corporate media are always talking about 'consumers voting with their dollars.' They love that fucking goofy ass notion of this fusion of the mythical 'free-market' and democracy. That if consumers do not like the behavior of a particular market player, they will 'vote with their dolla's' and begin to choose another company for their material goods.

Too bad the magical 'free-market' requires participants who 'make rational choices in their own best interest.' Cuz we ain't got a culture that glorifies rationality, and our media has been presenting the 'consumeristic act' as a climactic moment of emotional gratification for generations. If the tobacco companies could game the system so effectively that 25% of our population still 'chooses' to spend almost five bucks for a fucking pack of reds - I'm not optimistic for the poor savages in Africa, or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

After all, we are the species that made an economy out of the enslavement of other human beings with just a few weak words of encouragement from our 'men of God.'

Give me that shiny new cell phone, the little girl whose hands were chopped off to terrorize those who might have gotten in the way of extracting the requisite minerals; she couldn't text messege all that well anyways.