Where in the World is Vladimir Putin?

"I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
- President Bush, June 2001, in reference to a meeting with Vladimir Putin.


Not so much anymore.

Let's get a quick review of what's been going on with Putin.

In May, 2001, Putin met with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. What did they talk about? Creating an alliance against the U.S. as the only super power in the world. Ouch.

The budding romance is revived in July 2006 when Chavez visits Putin. What did they talk about? Putin wants to give lots of weapons and equipment to Chavez. Plan was finalized in weeks. Rut Roh.

Soon after, we have the always memorable Chavez speech at the U.N., "The United States empire is on the way down" and Bush is "the devil." ...and they want to pursue nuclear technology.

In light of those ominous stories, this week has been...

What was that? I can't hear...what? Anna Nicole Smith's autopsy is inconclusive? Hold on, let me shut the media door.

Much better. Now, a quick look at Putin's travels this past week:
Feb. 8th - Meeting with the special envoy of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati
Feb. 12th - Qatar festivities
Feb. 12th - Putin meets with Saudi officials
Feb. 13th - Meeting with President of the Palestinian ational Authority Mahmoud Abbas
Feb. 13th - Putin in Jordan

Wait, wait. Back up one. Didn't Abbas and Fatah just hook up with Hamas?

This doesn't look good. Putin's all practically crackin' a cold one with with Chavez and Ahmadinejad (who don't like us), wants to knock us down a peg himself, is chatting with the newly-joined Palestinian family, and has made advantageous visits to the Middle East where feelings on the U.S. are an emaciated husk, securing favor and gas/oil conversations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Either Putin's playing a superb game of international chess or it just looks like a revenge conspiracy to rinse the taste of cold war collapse out of his mouth. I don't think Bush has left the country that often since he was elected the first time.

Is this about oil? Gas? World domination? Or is this all a lovers quarrel, a proverbial poke for an unsettling Angry Pirate?

Aawww...

But if nefarious mind of Vladimir Putin should again think to travel diplomatically (just in case it has to do with blowing up the world or stealing all the oil/gas), he should know that despite the battle over the body of Anna Nicole Smith, someone will be watching.


We know your secret. WTF?

Haredi Rage, or If I Were a Bitch, Man

Daidle deedle daidle Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum

Okay, no more "Fiddler" jokes. We are dealing with "Taliban-like Jewish fundamentalism" here.

What-what? If you didn't hear the story on NPR on Jerusalem's Rosa Parks fights "Modesty Patrols" then go there and listen to/read the story. Now.

The haredi are an ultra-orthodox section of Judaism. A lawsuit has recently been filed with Israel's highest court on behalf of women who have been harassed and abused for not moving to the back of the bus. Naomi Reagan was one such woman who triumphantly retorted "Look, you show me in the code of jewish law, where it's written that I'm not allowed to sit in this seat, and I will move. Until then, get out of my face." Other women have not been so lucky, some succumbing to the harassment some being violently beaten. The story is worth every minute of your time.

So WTF Award goes to the haredi for this round, although it could easily be generalized to most organized religion.

While I was outraged at devout Jews beating women, I was not surprised. A quote near the end was the most telling and the source of today's tangent: These enforcements "help men focus on their family and their wife, and avoid distractions."


Pic from Failed Messiah

That's right, it comes back to the majority of the world continuing to embrace an antiquated, phallocentric worldview. And it's guys like the rabbis pictured above, Ted Haggard, Bill Donahue, Osama bin Laden, and the Pope who all contribute to this attitude: Women must be controlled because men can't control themselves and cannot take responsibility for lack of control.

• Taliban rule in Afghanistan banned women from schooling, forced them to wear a burqa, and often beat them in public for the smallest infractions


• Haredi rabbis burned see-through stockings, rioted to kill a gay pride rally, and are considering passing a law to end female education at the high school level.


• Pope John Paul II declared that Catholic women could never be priests, and since it was "founded on the written word of God," was an infallible judgment.

It's part of every religion, every controlling culture (see female genital mutilation). Burn the books, beat the women, and instill the fear of God.

It's how men and power and religion and control all work together. Now if we could only show that government is somehow related...


Kickin' it Haredi Stylez (not gay...?)
Photo from here.
Hip Jewish smiley shirt here.

CNN, CBS, ABC Pimp Dead Woman

Here's where I get into personal quagmires. Should media be transparent? Yes. Should we be able to have access to all the information? Yes.

But if I want to read about a shootout in a mall in Utah, should I have to see this?


What if I'm just perusing the news (This image was on the home page of CNN.com)? What if I'm a member of the family who hasn't been called yet?

Okay, I'm over the lone body on the floor. Click the story.


Aww, Jesus, man. Going through her pockets? So I check the other sites: CNN, CBS, and NBC have all followed suit. Who did not? Our bastions of decency are MSNBC and FOX News (yes, aware of irony).

I'm all for impropriety. I'm all for shaking up the establishment. Hell, I've even written about bottles up arses. But this is someone's daughter/mother. There's a certain level of decency that needs to be taken into account when these images hit the newsroom. That I see them on the front page disregards that decency, disregards common respect.

Question: Would it be wrong to show the dead shooter? Or: Would it be less wrong to show the victim of the shooting if we could be emotionally vindicated by the pool of blood surrounding the kid in the trench?

So, CNN, CBS, and ABC: WTF? These pictures came from a photographer to the Deseret Morning News, sold on to AP, sold to you. You chose to post them. I can even sympathize with needing to bring the immediacy of the situation home to us. But give us readers fair warning.

FEAR ALERT:
After Columbine we were introduced to a new spectre: The Trench Coat Killer(s). This faded and came back in fits and starts, mostly in other school shootings. "Troubled Goth Teen Who Listens to Industrial Music and the Cure Picked on, Kills 2 With Gun and Trench Coat." Or something like that. It's back.

Let's make it clear, though: the trench coat is not a marker of someone who will kill, simply a symptom of it; no one hides a 12-gauge shotgun in a semi-sheer powder blue microweave windbreaker.

No, it's too late. It's merging with 911 vigilance. There is a part of my brain that will see a suspicious tan-skinned person in a trench coat and I will freeze. And then he will kill me.

Photoshop Love: Flashback Santorum

Some people have killer skills when it comes to Photoshop design. I'm not one of them. But I do have a knack for quality image editing. And this is the perfect forum on which to unleash some of this madness.

This is the first entry of Photoshop Love.

While the Democrats ruling congress has lowered the din from the November elections into the soft hiss coming from your Uncle Arnie's ass, we can't forget that there were some truly hilarious moments.

Case in point: Santorum concedes.


While Santorum's concession was a great moment in American politics, the look on the daughter's price is faceless. You know what I mean. And, please note, she's holding a doll (probably American Girl), dressed just like her.

Ah. Now let's push a little further back and we can dig up why Santorum thinks we're currently safe from terrorist attack on U.S. soil:

As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.

Put 'em together, and what-have-ya got?



This is going to be fun.

Also Authoring Elsewhere - Pelosi's Plane

I've written a piece for All Things Democrat on Nancy Pelosi (More on deplane).

Bauhaus made me do it.

If received well, I'll be making my more perfectly partisan posts there.

Yay!

Israel and Hamas and Fatah, oh my!

Aw, snap!

For over 30 years, the United States has been the patron slut of Israel, or at least would have been had they been Catholic. They have had a lot of fighting to do and we have made a business out of supporting them with military supplies. This is because we had a stake in creating the State of Israel along with the Brits and the UN, and once we stake a claim, we stick to it, no matter the consequences (see War on Drugs, second Iraq War). We have a friend in a hostile region: better to keep them there. Also, Palestinians blow themselves up when they attack. People who blow themselves up are terrorists. We don't like terrorists. Palestinians are edging awfully close to that label. We do like Israel. So we give them guns and bombs and war-making machines. At least we're not beating up Palestinians here in the U.S. Oh.

And we don't "not like" all Palestinians. Hamas has traditionally been the biggest fighter against Israel. Fatah not so much. They actually recognize Israel. And in a brilliant and very recent military stratego-matic, Magic 8 Ball move, we've handed over a shit-ton of weapons, bullets, and other various people-killin-stuff to Fatah. To "provide deterrence and balance" one official was quoted as saying.

Easy enough: We like Israel. We don't like Hamas. We give Israel guns. Fatah is Palestinian, but not so bomb-y. We don't like Hamas. We give Fatah guns. And the oh, snap: Fatah and Hamas are joining forces.

Am I the only one getting paranoid? U.S. (and other nations) fund Fatah just before they shake hands with Hamas, who doesn't recognize Israel, three days before Iran, who not only doesn't recognize Israel, but would like it wiped off the map, is about to announce something big and nuclear
at a time when the whispers of war are heard on the tips of the nips of our administration and Iran is saying "Whatever, bring it on." It smells like thousands of sweaty people running to hit a button to launch a bomb.

Coming soon: A war by the American people, for the American people. American Government (and Bush in particular), WTF?

You just got pwned by a bunch of Muslims.

But at least we're exporting something besides jobs.

A Haggard Idea, the Haggard Cure

Praise Jesus! In a miracle that could only be brought on my the Lord Almighty and several thousand contributing, praying followers, Rev. Ted Haggard has been cured of his homo-dirty-man-sex-(and-meth) thing. One of the Kleezantsun that made sure he didn't go more queer, Rev. Tim Ralph, said that he was "completely heterosexual."

And the drag queen angels are line dancing to "I Will Survive" on the head of every pin in the world. And they're laughing.

The angels understand the human condition. Ted Haggard does not.

One one hand, we are a species of adaptation (I guess all really are, survival of the fittest, Richard Dawkins and all). But in our daily social lives, in the big questions of what we want to do with our lives, what we believe, and how we think we should behave, internal and external pressures (priests, money, etc.) can mold us, shape our world view. Someone subjected to the same torture every day, be it working in a cube farm or being beat with a stick, can learn to get along. But if there's not that much pressure to conform, if there's enough leeway to pop out of the mold, change will happen (sidenote: this is why I cannot believe in Hell; we can get used to anything. If Hell actually existed, it wouldn't be hell because souls would've gotten used to it to a certain degree. Or they would have reached critical mass, revolted, and it is now being run like a frat house).

So while in counseling for three full weeks, Rev. Ted renounced his man sex and his methamphetamine. There's the rub. Social pressures and four reverends made sure he was "set straight" so to speak. Now he's being advised to move into secular work. This will have the opposite effect. It will start with impure thoughts, quickly move to gay internet porn, and before he knows it, he'll be snorting meth off a tranny's cock with a bottle of Kamchatka Vodka shoved up his ass. The bottle will be half empty.

When forced, we are capable of amazing tolerances. When left to our own ideas of limitation, all hell can break loose (that frat Hell kind). Jesus be praised, angels dancing and all, Rev. Ted is headed for something he'd probably describe to his overseers as dirty gay naughtiness. It's coming folks. It has to. He has such a pretty mouth.

Iran Has Big News Coming (oh, and they cured AIDS)

Some whispers breezed by last week, but now it's official. "The Iranian [Fars] news agency said an upcoming dramatic announcement on Iran's nuclear 'rights' would be made on February 11."

After curing AIDS on Saturday, I can't believe we're going to have to wait almost a whole week.

Seriously. Cured AIDS. WTF Ahmadinejad?

I smell bombs.

The War Pigs Take On Iran

The lyrics to Black Sabbath's War Pigs is easy enough to find (hint: link here). I'm almost embarrassed to say that when I first heard the song, it was a Faith No More cover.

But that's the song that came to mind when I saw this piece about Iran vs. Iraq rhetoric. I've been of the opinion for the last few months that we're on the same train to a different depot without the means for careful analysis. Mr. Olberman, Mr. Olberman, please stop about Iran. You're scaring the kids.

Nevermind. We need it. Even the former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has warned us. It's underlined.

It looks like we are going to attack or invade Iran. The thing that frightens me the most is that the complacency of Americans is so high, that many of us were almost surprised when we did invade Iraq. The pattern is repeating itself. We have a tough enough time learning from history that is 200 or 500 or 2000 years old. We are destined to repeat ourselves, to slip back down, below the surface of rationality before we've even taken a breath.

Our only hope is that Bush would eat a baby. Maybe some folks would wake up, take notice, and try to understand what is going on before it happens.

Friends of God, Amen

Two days ago I wrote:

And if you're not completely convinced that the religious influence in the government is working to unravel the basis of good, solid science, please try to catch "Friends of God" on HBO. Okay, you lazy ass, here's the schedule.

That was when I had the documentary on DVR and had heard good things about it. I watched it last night. Every word I wrote is true, and then some. The evangelical movement in America is a travesty of rational thought and the scientific method. There is one guy in particular looking at Job 40 in the Bible, and saying "behemoth" is a dinosaur. That's after he tells a bunch of kids that evolution is silly / the world's only a couple thousand years old, and before he sings a song about people living with dinosaurs (the picture of the harnessed dino pulling the cart is adorable). Did I mention these are kids? Arrgh!

Evangelicals get the WTF Award today.

Watch "Friends of God" on HBO (schedule here). Get angry. You will be a better person for it.

Is it Getting Warm in Here?

It's happening again, he said, as if it had ever stopped.

Today's NY Times gives us the punch:

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

Holy shitcakes.

Bush has a hand in every agency, in every issued report, in every word that comes from the government. Okay, calm down. It's not that bad. What? We have to rely on this policy for some of our basic protections? Hey I said calm down.

It's not like the President of These United States put pressure on anyone to mis-report anything scientific, such as global warming. Or oversees a government that would allow the National Park Service to sell a book that explains the Grand Canyon as created by Noah's Flood.

Who am I kidding? It's happening and has been happening ever since we've had that evangelical asshat in office. I enjoyed (and shook my fist after reading) Phil Plait's blog entry back in July of '06. The process is as appalling as it is ubiquitous.

I'm not going to get into all the filthy aspects of how the government treats oil, global warming, or creationism (they all deserve the same amount of outrage), but it is all based in a sick, sad philosophy that I am more convinced every single day is based solely on Religion and Money. The two have been dating for centuries, occasionally accompanied by that strumpet Control. Bush, in this analogy, is like the fashionable gay friend, ushering them off to the glam world where they can enjoy themselves and he can look good.

And if you're not completely convinced that the religious influence in the government is working to unravel the basis of good, solid science, please try to catch "Friends of God" on HBO. Okay, you lazy ass, here's the schedule.

For letting it get this bad, the entire United States Government gets the WTF Award.

"It is right to give Him thanks and praise."
- Catholic Mass

Do you think the president would think they were talking about him?

Glenn Beck is a Tremendous Douchebag

I have to hand it to Glenn Beck; he has made a career out of saying things that fire up his detractors while simultaneously making sense to his devoted listeners. It's hard to strike a balance on that fence. </admiration>

I used to listen to Beck on the radio about five/six years ago when I was working building sets for a community theatre. I found about 1/3 of his ranting relevant. 1/3 didn't interest me. 1/3 made me shout expletives at the radio. But around the time of the 2004 election, folks like Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity became even more polarized than I'd ever noticed. Or maybe they were always like that and I was, for the first time, making note of it. They had all become mouthpieces for the administration, cheerleaders for war.

Radio to TV, daily shows expanded, and the wingnut media bled finally bled into mainstream television in May of 2006 with Glenn Beck's show. The parts I've seen have inflamed my anger and lowered my tolerance towards ignorance. I was actually in the process of compiling reconstituted pieces of his mindless logorrhea when his audio appeared on NPR. And Think Progress beat me to it. From their story, some of Beck's more memorable bits:

The anti-gay slur "faggot" is nothing more than "a naughty name." [1/23/07]

"What happened to the Duke lacrosse team was practically a lynching without the rope. And for the first time in my life, Mr. Oreo Cookie without the chocolate on the outside can understand why people celebrated when O.J. Simpson was acquitted." [1/15/07, using a racial slur for African-Americans that refers to being black on the outside and white on the inside]

"[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'" [11/14/06, on what he would like to say to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first elected Muslim member of Congress]

"I wonder if I’m alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year." [9/9/05]

"And that’s all we’re hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we’re seeing on television are the scumbags." [9/9/05]

Interestingly, the story talks about how Beck criticized Limbaugh and divisive rhetoric in a classic pot/kettle moment (don't worry, he's categorically denied that he meant what he said).

I impetus of the onus to create this entry was the "naughty name" comment. "Faggot" is a naughty word, but it's also a slur, which has its roots in bigotry, which has its roots in ignorance. GLADD's pissed. And CNN is backing him. Makes no difference: Glenn Beck wins the WTF Award.

All these guys, but Beck in particular, remind me of the kid in Jr. High and High School who always talked shit; he never had much logical reasoning, but always had an audience. That kid grew up and got a radio show. Then a contract with CNN. And that kid's audience grew up too and they pined for his tales and antics and eventually found their surrogate on the AM dial or cable news.

Which leaves me. And while the Nancy Grace / Glenn Beck evening combo congeals into the most unwatchable four hours of television nightly, I watch on occasion. Because it's good to know what idiots heads are being filled with. Because, every once in a while, it's good to clench your jaw, shake your fist, and shout naughty names at the television.

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
- Will Durant

Guilford College: Muslim Madness

Local hullabaloo. Yay meatheads!


Pic from WXII-12.

Depending on the report source, this past Friday night or Saturday morning at Guilford College, between 15 and 30 students, most/all from the football team, beat the hell out of three Palestinian students. These guys get the WTF award. Indications are that it was racially/religiously motivated.

Ever since I was in grade school I have noticed that a few components of human nature, in the right mix, often combine into the worst exemplifications of human behavior.

Ignorance Necessary basis of any attack, ignorance of one or many facts or realities. "Ignorance just means not knowing. That's easy to fix. Not like stupid. There's no fixin' stupid."
Pride Usually vague, such as pride in American values, which polarizes values of the rest of the world as indecent. Also misappropriately manifests after the beating/before the arrest as pride in self.
Misplaced aggression Nothin' better than good ol' misplaced male aggression. Hate your dad? Get drunk and start a fight.
Pressure Parental, peer, societal, mob, perceived or real.
Strength In numbers or muscle, direct physical attacks require you to be bigger than them.
Violence Verbal or physical, the violence is the culmination of the aforementioned traits, the end result of idiocy.

When I was in college, one of my closest friends grew out his hair and beard. In a dark bar, he looked a little like a short Sayid from Lost. More than once he heard some ignorant asshat blurt out: "Fuckin' Arab." The problem with that distinction is that he's Italian.

This is the mentality we're dealing with. The first Iraq action/incident/campaign gave American ignorance and hate an outlet in the form of the tan-skinned Middle Easterner. The second has simply informed us a little more, so that when we're beating the snot out of someone who's skin is a little darker (or lighter) than our own, we can shout "Muslim" instead of "Arab."

As for the local show of violence, the FBI is looking into it as a hate crime. If only sentencing could include a serious ass-kicking followed by six months of study in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Give War a Chance: State of the Union '07

CBS News has the full video of the speech.

The state of the union is... well, you decide. Bush didn't address the desire for change mandated in the shift in power last November. He said what people were thinking he was going to say, not as a broken, defeated, lame duck, but not with a great deal of conviction either. Here are some highlights as I saw them.

Greeting Pelosi
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was the most prominent change in the environment last night, and Bush handled it well, but not too well. He congratulated her on her distinction as the first female speaker. He went on to talk about bipartisanship. But he never linked the two. A mention of Pelosi's progress since taking office, often with a spirit that crossed the aisle to get things done might have been nice.

Faces in the Crowd
I believe the shots of the distinguished audience come in two flavors: Appropriate to the content of the president's speech and "Aww man, look at that face; take camera 4." As there is no comedy in the former, here is some of the latter.

Hillary Clinton - Early on we saw Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). Aside from the odd Donna Reed hair flip and pearls combo, the face was striking. The slightly curled lips, the scrunched mouth, the utter look of contempt on her face combined with the slight lean and cock of the head read thusly: "You liar. You stupid bastard liar. Every thought out of your head is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag." At least that's how I read it.

Ted Kennedy - You can't always get a laugh out of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) like you used to. Last night was not one of those nights. Also seen early on, the man looked like a hangover in skin. His fingers on his temples, his eyes barely opened, a great grimace of anguish on his face. Based on the mathematics of drinking shifted to Ted's experience and body weight, it can be calculated that he had been drinking heavily, probably mixing beer/wine/whiskey from 10am to 4pm, caught 4 hours of sleep, and woke up as walking death.

Condoleezza Rice - Dr. Condoleezza Rice is usually a staid member of the former, boring group. But CNN got one hell of a shot of her last night. It was about halfway through the speech, and she was hunched over in such a way as to make her forehead huge, her eyes sink way the hell back into her head, and a scowl that I am beginning to believe is her "at rest" face. She looked awful. Yes, even worse than this.

To Blink or Not to Blink
The president is front and center. He's talking about the state of our union. He's addressing "important stuff." But all I could see was the Cheney/Pelosi dynamic going on in the background. It was like a morality play without the moral lesson. The first thing I noticed was Pelosi's constant, constant blinking. She was averaging over one blink per second. It was distracting. What was even more distracting about it was the contrast to Cheney. The vice president, now apparently almost completely cyborg, was blinking once every 12 to 17 seconds. This gives the value of one Cheney blink as about fifteen Pelosi blinks. Blinking means nervous; nervous can be interpreted as weakness.

Direct notes: Pelosi, stop chewing the inside of your mouth. Pretend you are on camera all the time because, for the most part, you are. Pelosi and Cheney, if you got a piece of ribeye fat caught in your meat-catcher at dinner, floss before the damn speech. Or dig it out at the table like every other red-blooded American.

Hints at Iran
I did spend a little too much time focusing on the Pelosi/Cheney dynamic, but I couldn't miss the three or more mentions of Iran as a threat. Syria was thrown in as well. Some rumors in the wind hint at us attacking Iran within the next year. Was Bush steeling us for this eventuality?

Private Citizen what?
I'm not sure I got this or just misheard it. By the look on the faces of the Joint Chiefs, they felt the same way. Did Bush really say something about bringing private citizens to Iraq? Is this to support the troops? Is this just trying to get more folks over there without the necessity of joining the armed forces? How is this different from private contracting? More to come as everyone starts digging a little deeper.

Give War a Chance
C'mon guys, really doodz. I'm tryin' here and we're really gonna win, man. Really. I just sent a bunch more guys over and more guys and weapons and bullets means more better killin' the terrorists, doesn't it? If you don't think so then maybe you're a terrorist too. Just gimmie some more time, man. Success. I'll have it for you, I just need more time. I know we've been there a while and it's only getting worse, not to mention the (shh!) civil war that may be in the works/on the way/already occurring. But more guys and private citizens and Iran's bad. God bless.

Webb's rebuttal
Let's get this out of the way: the content was fine. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has relevance with a son in Iraq, he doesn't fully agree with the party line on Iraq withdrawal which gives him believability as a real person.

I'm guessing as soon as the camera was turned off, someone got their ass beat. Take a look (CBS News Video of Dem Response here). Webb's speech was slowed down. There were pregnant pauses trouncing all over the place. His head was cut off. I don't know what goon of a little intern was running things over there, but it made the whole thing ridiculous. When shooting a speaker, you give them "head room," or a little gap above their head in the shot. That was missing. And the person running the teleprompter was running things a little slow. I can understand a freshman senator's lack of formal TV time, but a good teleprompter runner can follow anyone (look how well the president came off). It seems Webb was aware of the absurdity of the situation as well because about 3/4 of the way through his eight minute speech, he started to get the "smiles." The content of his speech was not appropriate to grinning, but he was doing so. I was genuinely afraid he'd break into giggles and be unable to stop. In a way it made him more real. In a way it was unprofessional. It's only funny if it happens to the folks on SNL.

And that was the state of the State of the Union.

NPS: A Chasm in Understanding

Bush, our beloved government, and a lack of separation of church and state. I love Bad Astronomy.

That's where I heard about this little mess. It actually started by PEER with this premise: The National Park Service sells a book that says the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's Flood and park rangers aren't allowed to say it was created geologically for fear of offending religious nuts.

After that whole story bled through the consciousness of the internet world, some more careful reading was done, and it wasn't exactly as it seemed. PEER starts to look a little shady because of misleading the public on what rangers are and are not allowed to say. But the Park Service still looks shady because there is a book (excellent reviews) and it is still for sale.

And there is movement. Oh, wait...no. More of a shuffle. Bad Astronomy again with the alert, Northstate Science with more details. ParkRangerX rails at the tenacity of the story and the audacity of PEER. Hell, even Doonesbury's in on the act. The book stays, but in the "inspirational" section that was created for it.

There is a valid story here. A National Park, funded by our tax dollars, is selling a book that attributes a fantastic natural phenomenon to Judeo-Christian lore. Despite switching its label or location in the store, it is still a religious book backed by public funds. And why this fundamentalist drivel is still being backed after all the press is an outrage.

What else is an outrage? PEER. Why the hell would they deliberately taint the story that's already got legs? This is state funded religion already, you asses. You made Trudeau look like an asshat. Feed the clean story to a couple of blogs and ...wait a second. I see what you're doing.

Wait. No.

You're just not that smart.

On this day, the NPS and PEER share the WTF award!

Ben Stein is a Tool (of the Right Wing)

Ben Stein.

Give that a moment.

Ben Stein: Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Win Ben Stein's Money is also of The American Spectator.

And he's written a piece about Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fl). (Hey, so did I)

I caught a link and thought Oh, hey, Ben Stein. Let's see what he has to say.

From the piece: "I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys."

What? WHAT?? Ben Stein has won the WTF Award.

Ben claims his best friend is a homosexual. This man is probably no longer his best friend.

What smarty-pants Stein has failed to recognize is that homosexuals are attracted to members of their own gender, just like heterosexuals are attracted to members of the opposite gender. If that attraction dips below the age of consent, below that social and legal border of decency, then it is labeled - by both heterosexuals and homosexuals - as pedophilia.

You see, Ben, pedophilia is not about the gender as much as it is the age. They like 'em young (see NAMBLA). Pedophiles are the West Virginia of the "adult consensual relationship" world: Whether you're in the North or the South, you don't want any part of it.

I don't know where he got the socially ignorant view that pedophilia is a part of homosexuality, but it is wrong. So, for anyone out there who still doesn't get it: A homosexual is someone who is attracted to the same sex (consensual). A pedophile is attracted to kids (illegal).

Now that we've got that out of the way...

"Second, let's look at George Allen. Now, he's a bad guy because he has a Confederate flag."

What the Christ?!

George Allen is a bad guy because he used a North African racial slur ('macaca') in reference to a dark-skinned videographer, downplays his Jewish ancestry as though he was talking about getting the clap in high school, and used to call African Americans niggers. (Yes, I conceded to using the word he used instead of making a euphemism out of bigotry. Perhaps if the media stopped dancing around it we'd realize its gravity.)

Just these three things exemplify that George Allen thinks little of anyone who's not a white, blushing, European-bred non-Jew. That makes him a racist. That makes him a bad guy. Hell, I didn't even know he had a confederate flag. Not that I'm surprised. Cherry on top, as it were.

Why pervert homosexuality? Why defend George Allen, of all people? Apparently it's a hypocrisy contest and Ben Stein wants to prove the Democrats are hypocrites. Worse than the Republicans. Unfortunately, the brain train has lost his logic nut.

Ben says that it's hypocritical for Democrats, who have traditionally supported gay rights, to come down so hard on a gay man. We've covered this: all signs point to pedophilia, not homosexuality. No one likes a pedophile, especially homosexuals who have to deal with ignorant tools who still think gays want your kids.

Ben says that it's hypocritical for Democrats, who apparently have "in the Senate an actual former Klansman, Robert Byrd of West Virginia," to be critical of a confederate flag. Again, already been covered: I've never heard anyone speak out about Allen's flag, but his racist comments are media spooge shooting all over the internet. Why wasn't that addressed?

Finding hypocrisy in government and politics in general is like looking for water in the ocean. That's what it's made of! And holding a contest to see which party has accrued the most exposes only two things: the leaning of the writer and folly of his judgment.

Foley: So Folds the Right Wing on Crime

In my last post (good lord, so long...), I was writing about how not only predators, but the military too, were trolling for your young. Apparently Congress was so put off by the exclusion that they had to leak some info, had to be included.

While I try not to delve into partisan politics here (Think Progress, Crooks & Liars, and Kos could eat me alive), this fits into a Cause for Concern. In this case, utter outrage.

Out of the loop? Get out of the cave.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fl) has been a bad, bad man. He sent naughty emails to a 16 year old page. Oh yeah, and creepazoid is 52!!!

So Foley's trying to right himself. He steps down and resigns. He checked into a rehab clinic. For Alcohol. Okay, this already won WTF Award as soon as I started typing, but ...WTF? For alcohol? How about the kiddie porn? How about the pedophilia? No dice.

Oh, and now - this very minute - the predator is pulling a Jimmy Bakker on us. Please forgive me! Apparently, he was molested as a child. (I call Catholic!) That poor bastard. If I didn't hear Rove whispering in the background, it might almost sound genuine.

Wasn't the problem booze?

But he was a borderline problem that was simply kept under wraps and maybe it was the encouragement and perhaps the control offered by the other members of the house that really kept him from showing up on To Catch a Predator.

No.

Not even close.

Hastert thinks it's a conspiracy, Tom Reynolds (R-NY) surrounds himself with kids to avoid anything meaningful, and everyone else thinks "That's what gay people do."

Allow me a moment:

WTF????

This is a mess of opportunity, a mess of media, and a mess of humanity. The biggest phrase in the Foley world is "sexual scandal," but the problem is not that it is a scandal based on sexuality or a scandal based on sex in general. The problem is that he broke the law and was one step from showing up at the house for To Catch a Predator.

This should be called a sexual crime.

A Crime! It's not a damn scandal, but someone who meant to meet with and had online sex with a minor.

Looking for the one you love is one thing. NAMBLA is another.

Bad People and the Military: mySpace Trolling for Your Kids

I've been trying to put this post together since 'Nam. And I've come to find that maybe that's an appropriate analogy.

mySpace is the topic of conversation here.

MySpace is great for connecting to people, for letting yourself be found. Granted, there are people out there trying to exploit the open universe of communication, but they're few and far between.

Okay, so they're rampant. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad stage for our society, especially our youth.

The problem we've seen so suddenly is that mySpace is exploding all over the news. mySpace may face legislative crackdown. But why?

Well, it's not because some 16 year old decided to go to Jordan. Although that was bad.

And it's not because of other "predators" hoking down on prepubescent teens, like on NBC's To Catch a Predator.

Although those are concerns, there is one way to avoid any of these horrible things from ever happening: be a parent.

I know, it's an obvious job, since you may already be one. So let me qualify that by saying: Be a responsible parent.

Whining, bitching, "you don't know me" drunken slurrrs aside, parenting is about watching your kids. I have a daughter. I know what she does on the computer. And if parents aren't able to have the resolve to remove the computer from the kid's room (why the hell would you give them that access in the first place???), then at least make the investement to monitor their computer use. Net Nanny is one such solution.

Here's the rant: Parents, get off your asses and watch what the fuck your kids are doing. If you're too lazy to implement technologies or too stupid to do so, your kid (and probably you) should not have a computer in your house. You're a moron. Get on the fucking stick and figure out what's going on in the world. You'd be surprised. If you can't trust them, watch them. If you can't watch them, install a program. If you can't install a program, get someone who does. If you can't get someown who does, throw your computer out the window.

Why?

Because the people in Washington, a.k.a. Ted Stevens legislating this stuff are complete morons. The link you just passed is an audio clip of a man who talks about the internet as tubes. And he's the guy you're supposed to trust to make sure you feel safe at night? From anything?

Because if the molestors and the psychopaths and the perverts and the trevreps don't get them, the American Military will. That's right; In lieu of the draft and solid recruiting techniques, the Marines have already infiltrated the hippie landscape, and man, they've got lots of friends. And those friends are all about not making love, but war. I don't mean forces, I mean friends. Thousands of idiot kids have errantly clicked "Accept" on the friend request from the US Military.

Parents: you get it yet? Kids are being seduced daily. By whom? Take your pick.

But if you don't keep an eye on them, they're going to end up dead, in a ditch in Kansas or in a ditch in Iraq.

If it's not a horny 40-year-old trying to pull your daughter into a lifetime of servitude, then it's probably the US Military doing the same thing.

It's just different channels.

Watch your kids. Know what they do. Know who they are talking to.

Otherwise, the military and the molesters win.

And then what kind of world do we live in?

Plane Smoking

My feet stank like ass tonight. Let me qualify that. No, I guess I can't really qualify that: my feet stank like ass. I have unbreathable shoes and have --as of recently-- been employed by an every-single-day-business-casual company. We don't even get to wear jeans on Friday.

So I drove out this morning from Winston Salem at 6:45am, returned home by 6:00pm in order to drive my daughter to Raleigh Durham International Airport so she could fly home (solo) for the holiday.

So what does this have to do with anything, fair readers? National security.

Going through the process of your only daughter flying solo for the first time is enough to muster a great deal of emotion (always from the parent: she was fine), but first I got to deal with airport security.

I'm a smoker. I know, it's bad for me, and according to discredited studies, bad for everyone else too. But I had a lighter in my pocket this evening when I went through security.

I had planned it perfectly: I wore a jacket so all the crap I kept in my pants pockets was moved into my jacket, and when I hit security, I simply mounted my jacket into the tray and didn't have to worry about all the ancillary BS that goes with refilling my pockets. But I did have a lighter.

After having to take my shoes off because the tiny buckle on them beeped (but the large one on my belt didn't --notice to potential evil-doers: put the bomb in your belt buckle), I walked my stank-ass, shoeless feet through the detector to have the woman at the other end, who had apparently rifled through my jacket pockets, holding my lighter in front of me.

"You can't have this," she said.

"Uh...okay, I guess," was my reply.

I had heard about the lighters and matches being banned on planes, but thought that I'd heard something else about lighters being allowed on planes again. I guess I'd heard wrong. For those who've been living in a cave for the last decade, Richard Reid was the "Shoe Bomber" of fame who failed to light a bomb in his shoe with a match.

So the government banned lighters and matches from flights. That makes sense in a retarded sort of way (just in case we don't get the bomb in the scan of your shoes--which we make you take off--at least we have your lighter). But then they renigged and again allowed matches. But still no lighters. Apparently none of the people making laws that would save our country have ever smoked: always carry matches in case the lighter gives out.

So the lovely woman at the gate looked at my dumfounded expression and immediately offered me a pack of matches to take with me. What? Okay. I'm an attractive guy. Perhaps I inadvertently wooed her. I took the matches, as I would invariably be smoking on the way home.

But WTF?

After smoking by using these matches, I found that the "Carolina Hotel" matches pack quite a punch. A crappy match fold will yield matches that burn hot for a good half second before settling down. These were monsters. Almost two seconds of match-head burn. And on the first strike. Way better than my crappy lighter ever would've been.

So the WTF award on this post goes not only to Raleigh Durham International Airport, but the (probably smoking) idiot who changed the law.

Should lighters and matches be allowed on flights?

As long as they put my shoes through the scanner and feel okay about smelling my stank-ass feet, there's no need.

But watch out for the belts.

Superbowl After the Fact

It's been over a month, but there's a couple things I need to say about the basis of the Superbowl.

I guess I should be honest in saying that I didn't watch the game. I caught parts of it. But I did focus in on the entry.

The entry was an homage to "The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss. But there were problems.

First off, Harrison Ford was a problem. As an actor of 19 years, I've never seen a person so not sure of what to do with those gangly, five-digit lumps of flesh at the ends of his arms. He looked like a recent amputee/reatachment client with no control of his hands. It was awkward.

Using Dr. Suess to intro the Superbowl? Weak.

But finally, the background music used was a mess. It was the same music used in "True Romance" and - most recently - to promote Miller High Life. So the whole intro had ben opted for violence, beer, Dr. Seuss, and football, linked by one of the greatest memory kickers in life: music.

A mess.

And Harrison, please figure out what to do with your hands.

Harrison Ford wins a WTF award for his piss-poor performance.