View From the Back Window of My Pickup Truck

you are mediumauqamarine #66CDAA

Your dominant hues are cyan and green. Although you definately strive to be logical you care about people and know there's a time and place for thinking emotionally. Your head rules most things but your heart rules others, and getting them to meet in the middle takes a lot of your energy some days. Your saturation level is medium - You're not the most decisive go-getter, but you can get a job done when it's required of you. You probably don't think the world can change for you and don't want to spend too much effort trying to force it. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Via Lilli








3:50 AM -
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I have J.R.R. Tolkien running out of my ears. If I see another Hobbit I will be sick. My lovely wife and I went to see the Return of the King at the late night showing tonight. We've been discussing how we wanted to do this for some while. We own the first two movies on DVD in extended format. They are both approximately 4 hours long. Our plan was this. We first watch the 4 DVDS that contain the first two movies. Then we go see the final movie in the theater. In other words I've just watched 12 straight hours of Hobbits, Orcs, Dwarves, Elves and Wizards.

Having read the 3 books as well as the Silmarillion, The Hobbit and assorted ephemera many times, starting around age 12, I am fully versed in the story. My wife, despite being a sci-fi fantasy geek such as myself, has never done so. I suppose that is the reason for watching the films over again prior to the final one. All in all I am happy that we did so. However I can't recommend it for the faint of heart or weak of bladder.

I'm a bit disappointed in the final movie. It was a bit anti-climactic. Peter Jackson has left off the entire final half of the last book. I feel that the portion of the book containing the "Scouring of the Shire" was necessary to properly tell the story. That being said The movie was very good. Understandable liberties were taken in other instances. Some portions of the book were underemphasized and some only hinted at. The fight between the Witch-King of Angmar and Eowyn of Rohan as well as Eowyn and Faramir's relationship being among the more egregious. Still Jackson did have to keep the film down to a reasonable time, 3 hours, for the average movie goer. I'm hoping that the extended version on DVD has a bit more depth although I understand the Scouring of the Shire will not be present.

If you've been living under a rock and haven't seen any of the movies yet, do yourself a favor and rent them. They are a very faithful adaptation of some of the most popular books in the 20th century.








3:36 AM -
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Saddam Hussein is captured and Moammar Qaddafi agrees to give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction. I wonder if ol' Moammar saw the writing on the wall when he saw Saddam's scraggly face on TV. Take that Howard Dean.








6:49 PM -
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I've been up to my eyeballs in things to do lately. Therefore no blog-blog. The common wisdom is that things get slower where I work over the holidays. Not this year. I will be blogging and working on solutions for the parliament but unfortunately can't spend much time on it right now.







9:35 PM -
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It seems the Anglican Bishop of Cheshire is in trouble and under criminal investigation by the Cheshire Police Department. What was his crime? The Rt. Rev. Dr Peter Forster has had the temerity to suggest that,

"Some people who are primarily homosexual can reorientate themselves. I would encourage them to consider that as an option, but I would not set myself up as a medical specialist on the subject - that's in the area of psychiatric health."

Hardly what one would consider a terribly outrageous statement especially from a conservative man of the cloth. Unless of course one lives in the UK. Under the Public Order Act of 1986 "abusing people because of their race, faith, religion or disability - or because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual"is illegal.


This law of course is now being enforced so that any criticism of homosexuals or minority groups is enough to put you in jail. Don't you just love "Hate Crime" laws? How much longer will it be before every British clergyman must pass his sermons through a homosexual review board?








8:28 PM -
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Natalie D'Arbeloff and her cartoon alter-ego Augustine, have something at their site called the Blogger's Parliament. The basic concept, as I understand it, is that people will submit their solutions to various problems. These problems can be social, technological or otherwise and they will be voted upon at a certain time by the world's bloggers. It looks to me like there are about nine or ten people signed up for this right now. Every solution I see listed so far appears to be an over-simplification based on quasi-intellectual leftist thought. That being said, I'm a sucker for things like this. Natalie assures me that this isn't some inbred leftist debating society and the voting on solutions will be blogosphere wide so I don't have to worry about the being ganged up on by her and her fellow lefties for daring to submit a solution that is less than purely Marxist in nature. I do still have issues about whether Natalie will be able to get anyone to vote on the solutions besides the solution posters and those people who read about it in places that she decides to publicise it. So I would recommend that she please try to publicise it in places besides moveon.org, Democratic Underground and Indymedia. :-) I'm working on my solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict now and should have it and the rest of the world straightened out in a week or so.








3:46 AM
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Oh Dear. Howard Dean wants my vote.

The Vermont Governor said today that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,"

Unfortunately I have some news for Howard Dean. Those of us living in the South driving pickups with Confederate flags on them, mine is a 1995 Chevy 1500 extended cab with a brushguard and big tires, are about as likely to vote for him as we are for Al Sharpton or John Kerry.

Yet Dean seems to be onto something that most Democrats haven't quite come to grips with yet. What was once a bastion of solidly Democratic votes, the "Solid South" is now firmly in the camp of the Republicans. There are some holdouts like my great-grandmother in Arkansas, bless her heart, who has a picture of Bill Clinton on her fridge right next to her Jesus and the Sacred Heart prayer card. However, the older generation who still reflexively vote Democratic because of FDR are fast departing this earth. Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee in the last election. Even perennial loser Fritz Mondale won his home state of Minnesota. Democrats are losing the South because they have become the party of the cities. Things that play well in big cities like Gun Control, racial pandering, support for alternative lifestyles and a disdain for traditional American family values are the staples of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have become the party of the snooty academics who earn doctoral degrees in transgender studies and race baiting hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Disdain for the common working man and his moral and religious values is a badge of honor in the cynical left. None of those things play well in a place where you can tell its Sunday because everyone at the grocery store is wearing their good clothes.

The left likes to sneer at the South as a benighted backwater of hypocritical, white sheet wearing banjo pickers who boff their cousins at the family reunion all the while expecting the South to file in to the voting booth and pull the "D" lever. Sorry fellas. It ain't happenin' no more. The only guys with a (D) after their name down here who get a vote are folks like Zell Miller of Georgia. Did I mention that Senator Miller just endorsed a Candidate for 2004? Some Texan by the name of Bush.

Dean may be on to something. But his statements on the Iraqi war and his attacks on a sitting president in wartime are gonna be more than enough even without his other hyper-liberal stances to ensure he has no chance with us pickup truck driving Bubbas.








2:58 AM -
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It's late. No Trick-or-Treaters yet. The light is on. No knocks or doorbell ringing. Hmm. None of the neighbors have their lights on. It was this way last year too. I wonder if all of the old people that live around me intentionally turn their lights off to keep the little ghouls and goblins away? I bet the kids have caught on to this and avoid this neighborhood like the plague. I wish the neighbors would have warned me before I bought a 5 pound bag of candy that I would have no one to give it to. Oh well, I like Kit-kats anyway.







1:00 AM -
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Lilli has a post on her blog about the disparity of the disability payments that are going to be received by PFC. Jessica Lynch and SPC. Shoshanna Johnson. For those of you who forget, these two ladies are the two female members of the 507th Maintenance company who were captured in Iraq and survived. Lynch was rescued in a dramatic raid and Johnson when she was turned over to US forces by surrendering Iraqis. The 507th is stationed at Ft. Bliss outside of El Paso Texas. My Sister and Brother-in-Law are stationed there also. In fact, my sister says that we've driven past Johnson's house many times when we visited her.

The gist of the story is that Lynch is receiving 80% disability payments and Johnson is receiving 30%. All the usual suspects, including Jesse Jackson, are claiming that the disparity is because Johnson is black. This is of course ridiculous. Color has nothing to do with it. Johnson was able to walk, despite being shot twice in the legs. Lynch had suffered multiple fractures including a few compound when her Humvee crashed into a jack-knifed tractor trailer. Lynch was clearly injured more seriously than was Johnson. The problem I have is the low disability payments. Lynch should be receiving 100%. Her injuries and the torture she endured were severe enough. E-3 pay for the rest of her life won't make a dent in the US treasury. Johnson should be getting at least 60%. She has a permanant limp, a young daughter and suffers from severe depression. The US government has an infuriating tendency to mistreat its veterans when it comes time to take care of those who have borne the battle.







1:30 AM
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You are Proverbs.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla








9:12 PM -
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Imagine this, a 200 year old Cathedral in Central Berlin is converted to a monument to Germany's war dead. Nothing wrong or sinister with this is there? This is merely an admission of the general human suffering caused by war. Then the elderly German priests enshrine Adolph Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Reinhardt Heydrich and 11 other high officials in the Nazi party who were executed after the Nuremburg trials. Those whose ashes can be found are buried under the altar. Shortly after this the Shrine receives an official state visit by the German Chancellor. Amidst the furor over his visit the Chancellor says, "Why do we have to differentiate among the war dead?"

Finding a way around Germany's strict Anti-Nazi laws, school textbook publishers remove any mention of the Holocaust despite outcries from Russia, Poland and Israel. Finally, Centrist German politicians begin making statements to the effect that Hitler's "Festung Europa" was really an economic vehicle designed to keep communism out of Western Europe while at the same time moderating the laissez-faire capitalism of the United States.

Does this sound far-fetched? If I were really talking about Germany it probably would be, despite the topic of the last couple of days. Every incident that I mention in the preceding paragraph is based on an actual event in Germany's erstwhile ally of WWII, Japan.

The Shrine actually exists. Yasakuni Shrine is a Shinto temple dedicated to the 2.5 million war dead whose souls the Japanese believe reside there. In 1978 Shinto priests "enshrined" the souls of Japanese wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and 14 other convicted war criminals who were hanged after WWII. Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese PM, visited there recently and indeed did say of the war criminals, "Why do we have to differentiate among the war dead?" China, both Koreas, The Philippines and Australia protested the visit but their anger went unanswered.

Japanese school testbooks nowhere mention the Rape of Nanking where a city of nearly 300,000 Chinese were murdered by Japanese troops. The death toll in China alone, not counting the rest of the Pacific, is thought to be near 30 million. The Japanese almost make the Nazis look like amateurs.

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was the high sounding name of the organization that the Japanese founded after annexing Manchuria in the early 1930's. In reality it was neither great, east Asian nor did it share prosperity. It was simply imperialism in a new name. Japan needed raw materials. China had them. Japan took them and said they were doing it for the good of the Chinese. In 1999 Shingo Nishimura, parliamentary vice minister of the Japan Defense Agency said that he wanted to "spread the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere" to the rest of the world

This little analogy, I think, bears on our topic previously. After WWII Japan was considered "victimized" by the horror of the Atomic bomb. This despite the fact that more people died in Nanking, China than died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb blasts combined. Japan in my opinion, was therefore given a bit more leeway during Occupation than was Germany. Germany has strict laws that require the Holocaust to be taught in classrooms. Japan has no such law. In fact the Mayor of Tokyo has denied that the Rape of Nanking happened. Can you conceive of a Germany where the Mayor of Berlin would feel free to say such a thing? Germany and Japan both combined the concepts of racial and cultural superiority with a militaristic nationalism. In Germany it appears that the allies were moderately successful in rooting this out. Either that or their laws are keeping it down. Despite their best attempts in Japan however, Militaristic nationalism still has a foothold.

In my opinion this is because Japan was allowed to don the mantle of "victim" and reclaim some of the moral high ground. The Japanese made pious platitudes about the innocent victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while honoring the men responsible for the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March. Now Germans are beginning to consider making shrines for their victims. If you want to understand why I'm concerned all you have to do is look at Japan.











12:24 AM
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There is a minor inter-blog discussion (I hesitate to use the word war, since both sides are being civil) between Hans Ze Beeman and Moni at Lilli Marleen. Hans has posted on the somewhat bizarre attraction that Germans have toward off the wall conspiracy theories andthe politically correct attempt to cast Germany as the victim in the Second World War. Oddly enough, one of the underlying threads in all of the conspiracy theories, whether they concern American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan or the theory that the CIA planned the 9-11 attack, is a comparison to Nazi atrocities in World War Two.

The hyperbole and "Bush is Hitler" meme are commonly found in German (and American) leftist web sites. To Moni's credit I have seen her publicly repudiate those who compare Bush and Hitler. To her discredit she buys into the whole moral equivalence construct.

Hans' thesis is that Germans can no longer tell the diference between fighting evil and the ill-conceived concept that fighting IS evil. Hans quotes one of Moni's posts where she can't understand why people hope Yasser Arafat dies soon.

You're talking about the dead (sic) of a human being. You're talking about the dead of a father, grandfather, son, uncle, husband brother-in-law, best friend.... whatever. Yes, I know what you want to write: He's also a terrorist and murdered or is responsible for the murder on oh so many innocent people. Yes, that's true and that is what will make the world without him a better place, sure, but it is still absolutely tasteless, styleless and ... impossible behaviour to bet on someone's dead. (emphasis Hans)


Hans uses this to illustrate his point that Germans tend to shy away from confronting and have trouble recognizing evil. He notes Moni first mentions that Arafat is a husband and a father and then as an afterthought mentions that he has also killed hundreds or thousands of people.

Moni replies on her blog and for her example she takes the case of the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustlof which was torpedoed by the Soviets with a loss of close to 9,000 people and the bombing of Hamburg by British bombers in the Second World War which caused probably 100,000 deaths.

Firstly the Gustlof, in her own words.

"Sure - this is nothing compared to 6.000.000 killed jewish people by the Nazis, but can suffering be compared?

The dead of all the innocent Jews doesn't justify the dead of a few thousand innocent germans."


This is of course a false analogy. The comparison of a Soviet Submarine captain's decision to torpedo a ship that he may or may not have been aware was a refugee ship with the industrialized methodical attempt at genocide that was the Endl?sung, despite her claim that she isn't doing just that, is despicable.

On to Hamburg,

"Let's for example look at Hamburg (an often called example for german victims). I'd say Hamburg had its average share of Nazis, idiots, supporters, anti-Nazis, weasels and whatever. But the bombing of Hamburg was extraordinnaire, even when there was no military goal to hit. Most of the people in Hamburg also never before had harmed a soul, but they got killed by that bombings because the Brits wanted revenge for what german pilots had done to the UK.

The war didn't end a minute earlier because of these bombings. I'd say people who died there are also victims. In germany it was a No-No for a long time, to talk or even think about germans in another way than in either Nazis or people who were also guilty because of not having dona anything against it.
"

The first thing that immediately comes to mind is that Moni must have some mystical connection to the past. Or maybe not. I know someone who disagrees with her thesis that there was no military value to bombing Hamburg and believed that it would cause the war to end sooner. His name was Albert Speer. He was Hitler's Minister of Armaments. What was the opinion of the man tasked with maintaining Germany's munitions industry?

"We were of the opinion that a rapid repetition of this type of attack (Hamburg bombings)upon another six German towns would inevitably cripple the will to sustain armament manufacture and war production. It was I who first verbally reported to the Fuehrer at that time that a continuation of these attacks might bring about a rapid end to the war."

Hmm, so a Nazi official thought that it might bring a rapid end to the war if the Brits bombed more cities like Hamburg. Maybe there was a reason other than revenge for the bombings.

Lilli thinks that Hans has just internalized guilt over the German role in WWII. She comments to him, "Sorry Hans, but when I was younger I was about the same than you are today. Full of guilt and feeling bad for all and everything any german ever has done. Believe me, this is stupid. You are responsible for what you do and you ought to think objective about what your ancestors did."

I've been reading and talking to Hans since he first showed up on Little Green Footballs as a typical German Lefty. I've never sensed even a touch of guilty self-flagellation in his comments. In fact, Hans is far more objective over what his ancestors did than Moni seems to be.







11:18 PM -
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Lt. Colonel Yang Liwei of the Chinese People's Liberation Army successfully orbited the earth 14 times landing in China at 6:30 AM today in China. China now joins the US and Russia as the only 3 countries who have succesfully put men into space.

From what I can tell Yang's spacecraft is roughly the equivalent of a Gemini capsule of the mid 1960's. I can almost hear the pundits poo-pooing the importance of this event. Despite the fact that this is something that the United States accomplished 40 years ago, it doesn't mean that the Chinese are 40 years behind the US in the space race. Technology is better now than it was 40 years ago. China will be able to advance at a much faster pace than the US did. Computers are far more advanced as is metallurgical science. All of the computers used by NASA in the early 1960's could be replaced with 10 regular home PC's. Not only materials but electronics and their packaging are more advanced. John Glenn and Alan Shephard were flying vehicles with vacuum tubes and few solid state components. China will benefit from the technological advancements as well as learning from the mistakes made by the US and Soviet space programs. The other reason why the Chinese aren't 40 years behind us is that we, the United States, aren't operating using 2003 technology. The US is operating using technology from the late 1960's to the mid 1970's. I remember watching the first Space Shuttle flight take off on television. I was 8. That shuttle, Columbia, had parts in her that were 25 years old when she went down. If you read NASA documents from the late 1960's you would be astonished to see that the US intended to have permanent colonies on the Moon as well as having completed missions to Mars by now. What happened? Well, the only thing I can point a finger at is Vietnam. After the success of the moon mission money was siphoned off to the war. I don't think Vietnam was a bad cause, but that is another post.

I suspect that the Chinese won't be as lackadaisical about space exploration as the US has been to date. I also don't think that is a bad thing. Just about anything that keeps humans in space is a good thing. If it happens to kick off a new space race, well, all to the better. I just hope the Chinese don't get caught up in the debacle that the space station has become.







9:21 PM -
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From the Dept. of righteous shootings comes This story.

According to the blogger, "About 1:25am EST on October 8th, I awoke to the sound glass breaking. It wasn't that drinking glass-breaking sound. It sounded like a window breaking. I proceeded into the family room (where I heard the sound). I peeked around the entrance and there is this guy just standing there looking around. Then I see another guy coming through the broken window. And then I noticed that the first guy is carrying a gun. Now I'm thinking at warp speed to myself, "Should I announce my presence or should I shoot?". But thinking about my family (wife and 7-month old downstairs, my 5 and 4 year old upstairs) won out. I quickly stepped out from where I was hiding and fired at the man with the gun approx. 10 feet away.

The bloggers choice of weapon was, "A Mossberg 590 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.

Unfortunately, the scumbag he shot lived. What was the scumbag's motive for breaking and entering?

Come to find out that the man's motive was that he hated black people. I just moved in a little over a week ago. The neighborhood is about 70% white and 30% black but he picked me and my family.

This isn't a story you hear about much. I'm not talking about the racial undertone of the story. It's pretty common to hear about racially motivated killings. What you don't hear about is a black man being attacked by an armed white man and being able to defend himself with his own weapon. For that matter you don't often hear about a black man being able to defend himself with his own weapon against any armed criminal, white or black. The reason for this seems to me to be not so much cultural as it is based on the fact that most blacks live in heavily urban areas that have restrictive firearms laws. Despite a CDC report that says gun control laws are largely ineffective, large cities continue to routinely disarm their innocent citizens. Perversely enough the people who need protection the most, hardworking, honest, poor black denizens of the inner city, are denied the right to have weapons while their assailants continue to ignore laws and use firearms illegally. The hoary old saying still rings true. Where guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.

Cesare Beccaria said it much better and much more eloquently than I can. He also said it 250 years ago.

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer?

Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."








1:35 AM
...

I really haven't seriously watched baseball since the '94 strike and my heart hasn't really been in it since the Astros ripped it out in 1986 so I'm not really up on the current state of baseball. However, as I remember, isn't a Cubs-Red Sox World Series one of the signs of the coming Apocalypse in Revelations? I mean I'm pretty sure that the Curse of the Billy Goat is mentioned by John in chapter 13 verse 5. Then there is the curse of the Bambino for the Bosox which I am sure somehow relates to the Whore of Babylon or possibly the 4 riders of the Apocalypse. But I digress. I guess that I have to hope it isn't real since some Chicagoans attempted to transfer the curse of the goat to my Astros. I have faith though that the Astros screwed up on their own this year like every other year. They've done it to me every year faithfully since the mid 1980's. Then again I think the Astros may suffer from what I like to call the curse of Charlie Kerfeld. Kerfeld was a semi-talented reliever who played for the Astros in the mid 1980's. However, his appearance on the mound generally meant that the Astros were going to lose when Kerfeld made some spectacular error. Like throwing a pitch 8 feet over the head of a batter or screwing up a simple pick off attempt. No, The Astros don't need a curse. Whether its something as stupid as letting Nolan Ryan go when he was 41 or Charlie Kerfeld making an error that a 9 year old little leaguer would be ashamed of. (My little brother would actually burst into tears and storm out of the room when they called Kerfeld out of the bullpen.) No, they do themselves in fine every year.








10:48 PM -
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INFP - "Questor". High capacity for caring. Calm and pleasant face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 1% of the total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

This is the same result I get every time I take the test. all my results are in the 70th percentile with the exception of the N/S which is in the high 50s.

Link Via Across the Atlantic










10:57 AM
...

The Washington Post, and Cathnews.com are both reporting on an article in the Italian Catholic Magazine Jesus that says the Vatican is considering making some changes in the post-Vatican II arrangements at most parishes around the world. According to the directive, altar girls are to be forbidden or seriously discouraged as well as banning "applause and dance within the place of worship, even outside the celebration of [mass]". Further, the document would recommend that Catholics only receive the wafer as communion rather than taking both the bread and the wine. Another change would be the forbidding of Catholic priests to perform ecumenical services with Protestant or Orthodox clergy. In fact the document places such an act "alongside black masses as one of the four "most serious" abuses."

OK. Now for my standard disclaimer. I'm not an Anti-Catholic. I'm an Evangelical Protestant married to a Catholic. I'm writing this not three hours after attending Mass with my wife.

I really have no opinion on the place of altar girls in the Church. Its none of my business. I will note that there is a very severe shortage of boys willing to dress up and be at church all day. I will also note that the bad press the church has gotten by ignoring the abuse of many of these boys by homosexual priests surely doesn't help the recruiting efforts. The churches that I attend with altar girls seem to have no problem with the young ladies handling the eucharist.

I do understand the reasoning the church has for wanting to try to increase the number of altar boys. Priestly vocations are down. This is understandable considering that many young men don't want to give up family and the joys of marriage. This could be fixed by allowing priests to marry. Orthodox churches do and the Roman Catholic church recognizes the apostolic succession of their priests. There are married Roman Catholic priests who are in full communion with the church. They are converts from the Anglican church who were married prior to converting. Celibacy is a fairly new concept introduced in the middle ages. The best way to save the all-male priesthood is to allow married men or men who wish to marry to become priests.

Next Item, banning clapping in church. I could understand banning it during solemn times like communion, but that would really just be codification of reality since everyone is quiet and respectful at that time anyway. I'm not sure why this is something on their list. I don't see the reason or the problem here. I do see a problem for the church if they enforce it. African and Latin American churches are much more animated than their staid northern neighbors. Banning expressive worship would more than likely drive converts from Catholic churches to the Evangelical churches that are far more successful in the third world than the Catholics have been of late. This of course wouldn't bother me at all. :-) I also have to point out that making a joyful noise to the lord is scriptural.

Psalm 47:1. Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!

The third item was the use of only the communion wafer instead of wine and bread. I think this one is pretty clearly wrong. As a Protestant I don't believe in the doctrine of transubstantion. It is arrant silliness. Doctrine spun out of the necessity to maintain coherence in Catholic doctrine. But I digress. What I do believe are the commands of Christ.

Matthew 26:26-28 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ,Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

If this is the moment that Catholics are memorializing, then it is pretty clear that Christ commanded that you both eat and drink in his memory.


The thing that bothers me the most is forbidding Catholic clergy from participating in worship services with different denominations and likening it to a black mass. Are we worshipping a different God or something? Are our differences so severe that we cannot come together occasionally and pray to our Lord together? As a Protestant I find that almost any question can be answered in the scriptures. This situation is of course no diferent. Christ answered the question of differing groups working in his name more than 2000 years ago and the scripture is valid for me as the reason I am not totally opposed to the works of the Catholic church despite what I believe is it's bad theology.


Mark 9:38-41 "John said unto him, Teacher, we saw one casting out demons in thy name; and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man who shall do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ's, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward"


The Catholic church should be most concerned about what Christ says in verse 42 about throwing stumbling blocks out in front of others. " "And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. "










12:15 AM
...

Don't believe that there is a homosexual agenda that includes the end of religious freedom as you now know it? Then read this Toronto Sun article about Canadian bill C-250 which passed parliament 143-110 and now only awaits rubber stamping from the Senate.

Typically The Sun glosses the issue over with a statement from socialist homosexual MP Svend Robinson who sponsored C-250, accusing Christians of "fearmongering" and mentioning an amendment to the bill that "explicitly protects the expression of opinion based on religious text." His statement is disingenous at best and clearly dishonest when one considers the example of Hugh Owens of Sasketchewan who was forced to pay $5000 to 3 homosexual men offended that he had the temerity to place an advertisement that suggested God might not be best pleased with homosexuality. No incitement to violence. Not even a quotation of scripture. Just the chapter and verse where the scripture was found and the universal negative symbol of a circle with a line through it superimposed over the stick figures of two men holding hands. Of course Owens was punished under the Canadian equivalent of a state law. But it was upheld under appeal by the Crown.



Then there is Scott Brockie who was fined $5000 for refusing to print up the letterhead of a homosexual advocacy group. But I digress. Back to C-250.

The leftists swear up and down that it is not their intention to target Christians or Muslims. But as WorldNetDaily notes, "Robinson's amendment spells out three different types of actions or speech considered criminal, and only one can be excused by a religious defense."

In the current debate over homosexual marriage in Canada leftists are already accusing their opponents of "hate speech" for opposing it. How long until they can legally lock up the opponents for 5 years for simply saying that homosexual marriage is wrong?

Also bear in mind that C-250 allows the government to seize any literature that is considered hate speech. Envision a street preacher standing on a box in a Canadian park waving his Bible and denouncing homosexuality. Then imagine RCMP mounties packing him off to prison for 5 years and tossing his Bible into the furnace. Think it can't happen? It all depends on how the Canadian government decides to interpret the law. A good prosecutor can pull off just about anything with a loosely written law like C-250.

Think it can't happen in the U.S. because we have the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights? Then savor this quote from US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Constitution Society, "Justices are becoming more open to comparative and international law perspectives," and "While you are the American Constitution Society, your perspective on constitutional law should encompass the world," also "We are the losers if we do not both share our experiences with and learn from others."

Still not convinced? The US Supreme Court relied heavily on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in its decision overturning the Texas Anti-Sodomy law.

Be scared. Be very scared. If you oppose Homosexuality and its agenda, they want you arrested or scared into silence.










8:23 PM
...

The Tomb of the Unknowns was guarded during Hurricane Isabel as it has been continuously since 1930.







4:43 PM -
...

A young lady in Oakley, Calif. named Lisa McClelland wants a Caucasian Club at her local high school. Black Student Unions, Hispanic clubs and Asian clubs exist there so why not a club for and about white people? McClelland says that anyone, regardless of race, will be invited to join. Somehow I suspect that isn't the case at the Black Student Union. I'm not sure what to think about this. Darnell Turner, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, however thinks the club will create racial tension. I'm again not sure how this club will cause any more or less tension than having racially based clubs for other ethnicities does. But then I don't have the all-powerful wisdom of the NAACP.

I for one think it would be a good thing for members of other races to sit down in a group with white kids and discuss things like the pervasive influence of such musicians as Barry Manilow and Michael Bolton, with their atrocious lyrics or lack thereof, on the white race. Maybe the phenomenon of "Vanilla Ice" could finally be explained to the satisfaction of all who wondered what the hell was up with that? Black youth may begin to understand the joy to be found in listening to heavy metal and could explain why Lenny Kravitz and the guys from Living Colour seem to be the only people of color in Rock music. No, Hootie and the Blowfish aren't rock music. Maybe the desire of white youth to dress in those hideous fashions from The Gap and Old Navy will become clear to minorities. Maybe black kids could explain the revulsion for a belt and properly sized trousers and the need for a 5,000 dollar sound system in a 500 dollar rusty 1986 Olds Cutlass. Perhaps this will bring racial harmony. Black youth could finally understand the white need to attempt to dance to music that they clearly havn't got the rhythm for. Hispanics could finally conceive of why Anglos continue to call Taco Bell "Mexican food". Asians, well asians know everything already, the brainy little yellow devils.

In all seriousness I don't think this club will harm one way or the other. The damage has been done already. The fact that there are such things as Black Student Unions and Hispanic clubs in the first place indicates a problem. The left is trying to "balkanize" the United States into seperate identity groups each with its own claim to victimhood. Young people, like Ms. McClellan, have seen the political power given to the various victim groups on campus and want a slice for thier own group. This of course runs counter to the left's need to have a "victimizer" group. So the left wails whenever there is any attempt to portray whites in a positive, sympathetic or victimized light. What this school really needs to do is disband any racially based organizations and teach its students to work together as Americans.

Note:The entire second paragraph is intentionally stereotypical and doesn't necessarily indicate the opinions of the author. Although he is curious about what the hell is up with the shitty cars and the expensive rims,tires and stereos.







3:42 PM
...

Do you ever wonder why the U.S. State Department seems to be out of step with the rest of the U.S. government and public opinion in general? This E-mail to Rich Lowry of National Review about his recent column concerning North Korea is a good clue. Lowry refers to Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea in this column as a "lunatic"

The unidentified writer of the e-mail says, "Regarding President Kim Jong Il, it is un-professional, and un-productive to refer to the head of a country as a "lunatic". It is also another sad example of White American Male Supremacy. Please don't become part of the problem with such name-calling." [NAME WITHHELD]Former U.S. Department of State Foreign Service 1985-88; 1999-2001 contracted US Mission UN Protocol under Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke"


Lunacy isn't a new criticism nor particularly unfounded when one considers the enormity of Kim's crimes and reckless behavior. Letting 3 million people of one's own nation starve to death while courting war with the US, China, South Korea, and Japan simultaneously isn't exactly well grounded behavior much less having the world's largest collection of Daffy Duck cartoons and rounding up all the nations triplets and incarcerating them.

I'm afraid I have to agree with John Derbyshire when he says, " Kim Jong Il is not playing with a full deck. By which I mean to say, his smoke does not go all the way up the chimney. His elevator does not go up to the penthouse. He is, in other words, not too tightly wrapped, not quite sixteen annas to the rupee. He has bats in the belfry and a bee in his bonnet. To put it another way, he is one sandwich short of a picnic, one brick short of a load, one coupon short of a toaster, one fairy short of a Christmas tree." I am also sure that Derb's eloquent listing of colloquialisms for insanity also applies to this nameless cog in the diplomatic machine. What kind of whack job demands respect for every tinpot dictator based on the mere fact that they control a country? Based on his statement he would have been profoundly respectful of Adolph Hitler in 1940. Why do I suspect that this diplomat's refusal to call names doesn't extend to George Bush? Does being a white male somehow prevent Lowry, or me for that matter, from criticizing a monster like Kim Jong Il in this person's eyes? Does this guy consider any criticism of an Asian leader by a white man to be racist? It sure sounds like it.







1:03 AM
...

Think that complete registration of firearms won't keep law-abiding citizens from owning firearms if they obey all the rules and jump through the bureaucratic hoops? Here is a list of reasons why applicants for firearm licenses were denied in South Africa:

1.) You are too old.


2.) You have a husband who can protect you.


3.) The police will protect you.(Not true in the U.S. per a 1982 legal ruling.)


4.) You do not have the right type of house to have a firearm.


5.) Your application was insufficiently motivated.


6.) You have not been attacked yet.


7.) You are too young (a reason cited to applicants between 21 and 25 even though the legal age for gun ownership is 21)


8.) Your "employee" (sic) must supply you with a firearm (The reason given to a security guard who wanted a private firearm).



Ahh yes, the joys of surrendering your right to own a weapon to a bored and lazy cog in the wheels of the civil service.

Link via The Edge of England's Sword




6:57 PM
...

Brendan Fearon, the burglar who is suing Tony Martin for having the temerity to shoot him while he was in the process of robbing Martin's farm, has been taken into custody for the British equivalent of grand theft auto.
Apparently this violated his probation. He wasn't on probation for the burgling of Mr. Martin's residence, but for a later drug offense. The UK really needs a three strikes felony law. Even better would be letting the Queen's subjects defend themselves without fear of retribution, criminal or legal.









7:23 PM
...

The movie Jackass inspired a lot of criticism and imitation. I personally didn't see it. I did however hear that there was a lot of umm... sticking of things in places that things are only designed to come out of. Apparently I was well informed. It seems an Australian man has grievously injured himself in an attempt to imitate one of the more asinine stunts in the movie. The 26 year old Australian man suffered injuries that,

""By virtue of the fact that the explosion was confined in an upward direction, it went up into his pelvis, blasted a great hole in the pelvis, ruptured the urethra, injured muscles in the floor of the pelvis which rendered him incontinent. His pelvis was also fractured."

What the gentle doctor is trying to say is that the dude had a firecracker go off whilst it was esconced in his poop chute. This is funnier than the Urban Legend about the two gay guys, a gerbil and a methane explosion.

I'm sure a lot of moralizers will point at this and say how horrible it is and how it is all the fault of the movie. I'm not sure I find it unfortunate. What would make it really sad, IMNSHO, is if this halfwit still retains the ability to procreate despite the temporary impotence or if he has already done so. I mean a perfectly good chance to sterilize a nitwit will have failed because it just missed blowing off his dangly bits by an inch or so. Think of it this way. Jackass just might be the chlorine that the gene pool needs.









11:07 PM
...

N.Z. Bear has a post on his site about the bad results of compromise in certain political questions. The issue that he chooses to use to illustrate this is gun control and specifically the recent shooting in the gun control heaven that is Chicago. His thesis is that compromise on the issue has given us the worst of both worlds. In other words if we had either total gun control or total gun ownership we would be better off than we are with the current hodgepodge of laws. His statement on the pro-gun control side is this:

"But these deaths could have been prevented with the complete opposite approach as well. I do believe it is possible to ban all firearms to a degree that would make it at least extremely difficult for criminals to obtain them. This would require gutting the 2nd Amendment, and basically shutting down handgun manufacturing in the U.S. and imports --- yes, we're serious, this is not tinkering --- but it could be done, if the political consensus existed to do so. Would you ever achieve zero guns in the criminal world? No. But I'll bet you could achieve it to the degree that a petty-level loser like Tapia(the murderer) couldn't get one easily.

I disagree with his premise that the government could sufficiently remove enough guns from circulation. Ignoring the fact that such an attempt would likely result in a third American revolution and that there are probably close to several hundred million guns in circulation, firearms are a very simple 19th century mechanism. Give me some steel tubing, aluminum and a file and I can make a functional firearm. Give me a lathe and a mill, which are easily found in every machine shop and many garages in the U.S., and I will make an excellent one. I'm sure there are plenty of criminals who have the minimal mechanical skills to do the same. They probably learned them in their prison vocational classes.

All that a complete ban on firearms would do is make those who obey the laws turn them in. To use the hoary old phrase "When they outlaw guns, only Outlaws will have guns." Its not a matter of "political consensus" The ban that N.Z. Bear suggests would literally inflame the inland West, Midwest and the Deep South to such an extent that the United States might collapse into anarchy. Even a ban on gunpowder and metallic cartridges wouldn't dry up the supply. Black powder is very easily made and smokeless isn't that difficult either if you have an interest in chemistry.

I have to conclude that while his concept might be valid in some instances, it is not valid for the gun control argument.

Link via Lilli



11:52 PM
...

Imagine that there is a man running for elected office in the United States. This man is running for an office that will control a large portion of the US economy. This man once belonged to an organization whose motto was, "F?r unser Rasse alles. Au?erhalb unser Rasse nichts." Or translated into English, "For our race everything. Outside our race nothing." Who am I talking about? The Neo-Nazi David Duke? Arnold Schwarzeneggar? Maybe it will be easier to guess if I give you the phrase in its original language, "Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada."


The man I am talking about is California's Democratic Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamente. Bustamente was a member of an organization known as MEChA when he was in college. My (poor)translation of their motto into German was intentionally misleading, but the comparison is apt.

MEChA seems to have cherrypicked some of the more disgusting concepts from the failed ideologies of the 20th century to espouse as their own. They have a concept of the sacred "Vaterland" nearly identical the Nazis. The MEChA version goes something like this, "We are a bronze people with a bronze culture... "in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztl?n." One of the basic tenets of MEChA is that nearly the entire western half of the United States is some kind of Chicano Sudetenland or "Aztlan" that must be freed from the "gringos" and "Gabachos"

Again from the Nazi playbook MEChA takes the page of racialist nationalism. All Hispanics are members of "La Raza de Bronze" and must stand together against "the brutal "gringo"" I had a Hispanic friend once tell me that Mexican geography textbooks label California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas as "Mexican territory currently occupied by the United States."

MEChA combines all this fascist nonsense together with some poorly thought out junior college Marxism liberally interspersed with race-hatred that would have made Hitler smile. "Aztl?n belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans." and (Chicanos are)"a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner "gabacho" who exploits our riches" Substitute Deutschland for Aztlan and "Jew" for foreigner and see how it reads. Voila a "Chicano" identity movement is born.

The odiousness and vileness of the rhetoric in MEChA's "Spiritual Plan of Aztlan" so similar to something out of Mein Kampf doesn't seem to bother leftists (and I include the mainstream media in that definition). Most of them dismiss MEChA as simply a bunch of bored college students drinking cervezas and trying to see who can be the most radical in an attempt to bone the hot communist chick in the red beret wearing the Che Guevara t-shirt and Ho Chi Minh sandals. I suspect they sigh and fondly remember their student days when they helped burn down the ROTC building. But I digress. The liberal Media will give Bustamente a pass on his membership in the organization. Like Michelle Malkin, I think they will be more interested in seeing if they can somehow make a "Nazi" label stick to Arnold despite the fact that he was born two years after the war and is a generous benefactor of the Wiesenthal center.



7:57 AM
...

You belong in Time Enough For Love. You are older
than you look. Your wit and wisdom are prized
by others. People throw themselves on you,
begging to be with you.


Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In?
brought to you by Quizilla



Funny, I've never read this one....






1:47 AM
...

1:36 AM -
...

A lot of people haven't heard of the attorney-general of Alabama, Bill Pryor. Mr. Pryor has been nominated to the Eleventh circuit court of appeals of the United States and is currently in awaiting confirmation by the US Senate. There is a minor kerfuffle going on at the moment regarding his religion. Mr. Pryor is a Roman Catholic. A conservative Roman Catholic. By conservative I mean not his political philosophy, although that applies as well, but his religious philosophy. Democrats naturally oppose Mr Pryor based on his political philosophy. Republicans, led by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, are lambasting Democrats as opposing Mr. Pryor on the basis of his religion. None of this would be very interesting except that several conservative groups have run ads in heavily Catholic states with liberal leaning Republican senators that shows a door labelled "judicial chambers". There is a sign on the door that says "Catholics need not apply".

Richard Cohen of the Washington post spins valiantly in an attempt to defend Democrats and excoriate Republicans. Cohen calls the ads, "an insult to Catholics." How Catholics are insulted I'm not sure. Cohen, towing the Democratic line, says, "some of the Democrats who oppose him (Pryor)are also Catholic." What Cohen misses or conveniently ignores is that the Catholics who oppose Pryor are not of the same conservative stripe as Pryor. The Democratic Catholics in opposition to Pryor are almost uniformly in support of such things as abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, female clergy and other things that traditional Catholicism forbids. In other words, Ted Kennedy (who divorced his wife Joan and wangled an annulment on the grounds that he hadn't really meant his wedding vows.) and Bill Pryor both call themselves Catholic, but they are almost diametrically opposed in their beliefs.

I think that the Republicans have a point. Democrats are attempting to apply an unconstitutional litmus test to applicants that any conservative religious person would fail. Pryors's sin is to believe that the United States and its legal system is based on a Judeo-Christian ethics system. Hardly an outlandish belief. I find it ironic that the party that once nominated a Catholic for president, despite xenophobic fears that he would turn the US into a vassal of the Vatican, is essentially opposing Bill Pryor for the same reasons that the bigots in 1960 opposed John F. Kennedy.



8:03 PM
...

I'm from Ravenclaw!

Hogwart's Sorting Hat Quiz






6:44 PM -
...

I'm back. Sorry for the lengthy delay. Ok I'm not sorry. My sister and her family left last week and I have been too busy (and apathetic) since to post. But I found a humdinger that I just couldn't ignore.

According to Rev. Jesse Jackson (free adultery counseling! No charge!), Bush is refraining from intervening militarily in Liberia because the Liberians are, gasp! black. Forget for a minute how ridiculous this is to say of a president who has two black advisors in very high positions. Let's have a look back at what the good Rev. had to say about the war in Iraq a few months ago and contrast it to his recent statements.

"It (the Bush administration) is putting U.S. troops into occupation of a nation torn by religious and ethnic division. It may do so without even the mandate of the United Nations. This surely will generate more hatred and more terrorism aimed at this country.

Lets fast forward a bit to the right honorable Reverend's latest statements.

"Liberia remains a killing field on the back burner..." and "We are turning our backs on Liberia," noting that, "hundreds have died there in the last few days".

Later Jackson "contrasted what he saw as U.S. inattention to Africa with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He said the occupation is costing resources and American lives and is becoming a "quagmire.""

Here we have what is typically known as damned if you do and damned if you don't. Typically the leftist is looking at things 180 degrees out of phase.

The first fallacy in Jackson's statements is that Liberia will be easier to pacify than Iraq. Liberia is forested nearly everywhere and mountainous in the north . If you want to talk about a quagmire, imagine an African themed Vietnam with US incursions into African versions of Laos and Cambodia.

The second fallacy is that Liberia somehow lacks the ethnic divisions that afflict Iraq. For the record, Liberia is 20% Muslim, 40% Christian and 40% native in their religious beliefs. In addition to the descendants of North American and Caribbean slaves who make up about 5% of the population there are many native tribes including the, Kpelle, Bassa, Gio, Kru, Grebo, Mano, Krahn, Gola, Gbandi, Loma, Kissi, Vai, Dei, Bella, Mandingo, and Mende. Sing me that one again about nations that are "torn by religious and ethnic division."? Jackson seems to think that Liberia is a monolithic social structure that just needs good old massa to come in and set things straight for them. The sheer blindness, hypocrisy and racism of it make me vaguely ill.

I also find it funny that Jackson would be OK with the US acting without UN approval to invade Liberia yet disagree with it in Iraq.

As sad as the statement is, we simply don't have a strategic need to be in Liberia. Other than protecting American citizens, there is no reason to be there. Yes, the death is sad and wasteful, then again Charles Taylor is a corrupt thug who needs to be tossed out and the Liberians seem to be willing to do it. Taylor is willing to step down under the right circumstances. I say let them settle it diplomatically without US or UN military intervention.

Iraq is a different case. The US had and still has strategic reasons to be in Iraq. Liberia isn't developing chemical weapons. Liberia doesn't have murky ties to terrorist groups. Liberia never had a nuclear program.

What is occuring in Liberia is a civil war. It is essentially a domestic dispute. Any good policeman, whether a beat cop or the world policeman can tell you that you run the risk of having both sides attack you when you intervene in a domestic dispute.

I'm sure though, that if the US does commit troops to Liberia that the anguished wail coming from the left will be that its all about the oil or all about the diamonds.



9:59 PM -
...

Your soft drink is Mr.Green! You are shy most of the
time and don't talk a lot. You aren't too popular
at school but that doesn't matter to you much.
You are more into video games and computer stuff.


Which soft drink are you?
brought to you by Quizilla




8:49 PM -
...

Posting has been non-existent for the past two weeks as my sister and her family have been down. My brother-in-law is back from Kuwait and they decided to make the most of his leave and come visit my parents over the 4th. He has informed me that all of the care packages that Trista and I sent to him made it through safely, including the contraband items; Holy Bible, (against Islamic law) Tabasco sauce, (glass bottles) and easy cheese (aerosol container.) I am also now the proud owner of an Iraqi 250 Dinar note and two packs of Iraqi most wanted cards. One of which is the Kuwaiti version and is in Arabic. Unfortunately he was prohibited from bringing any captured enemy items like the Iraqi helmets that they found home. Go figure.

Fortunately he was behind the lines at a Patriot battery. He tells me that the Patriot batteries shot down 14 Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein didn't have. Unfortunately they missed the Chinese made Silkworm missile that hit a Kuwaiti mall.

Trista and I were operating on the assumption that he was starving to death when we sent him all of the care packages. My sister told us at the time that he was having to go to mess with the Kuwaitis since his unit was too small to rate a mess hall of their own. He told us yesterday that his command sergeant major came down and had a meal with them the first week and found out they were subsisting on MRE's rather than eat the Kuwaiti food. Subsequently his 50 man unit had a mess hall set up which was three times what they needed. The menu apparently included steaks weekly that were donated by a Nevada company, lobster and other assorted delicacies. War is hell. Needless to say as my sister, Trista and I were operating on the assumption that he was living off of dried goat meat, dates and couscous we sent him lots of junk food. Hmm, perhaps that's why he never told us he was eating well. I think he gained ten pounds.

I promise to return to a somewhat faster posting rate in a week or so.




2:33 PM -
...

For those of you who watch what you eat... Here's the final word on
nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical
studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the British, Americans or Australians.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than
the British, Americans or Australians.

3. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British, Americans or Australians.

4. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart
attacks than the British, Americans or Australians.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British, Americans or Australians.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is
apparently what kills you.

via email chain joke



10:11 PM -
...

It just occured to me that I just wrote my 100th Post. It is apropos that it concerns flatulence considering my prediliction to 4th grade humor.



9:53 PM -
...

Just when you think that the government may have run out of things to tax New Zealand goes and levies a tax on livestock flatulence. I'm just grateful I don't live there. I mean what is next? Are they going to tax people for the same thing? Is the government going to mount a sensor on your bathroom door to listen for eruptions and charge you a nickel a fart to save the ozone layer? I hope not, I'm broke enough as it is...






9:44 PM -
...

I've been messing around with some releases of Linux lately. I'm typing this right now on Lycoris Desktop LX. It is the closest thing that I have found to a simple "Windows" install. It uses RPM's for packages which makes things easier. During installation it found all of my devices including an IDE controller the site's webpage says isn't supported. I was able to open 16 bit Windows applications with the included wine software. Its kind of disconcerting to be playing Microsoft entertainment pack games on a linux desktop. I do have a few gripes with this distro though. Wine doesn't seem to be able to handle 32 bit Windows apps. There is no way to open a root console or access the command prompt. This makes it difficult or impossible to install some non-standard packages like Seti@home. It uses a heavily modified KDE desktop and doesn't allow for root access or command line at all. I suspect this is because it is so heavily geared toward novice users. I'm still running Windows ME on a 10 GB partition just to be on the safe side. Overall I would give Lycoris a B+. Installation was simple, but there are a few rough edges.

Prior to last night I was running the latest release of Debian. Somehow it managed to build itself without the ability to allow a regular user to SHUTDOWN. I was also unable to logout of the desktop to access the command line to shut down from there. I couldn't adjust the color depth on the screen. I spent several fruitless hours researching the X-window server and was unable to resolve the problem. I think It needs a bit more simplifying before its ready for me. Last night I downloaded the ISO images for Mandrake 9.1. I had a bad experience with it back around version 7.0 but I'm willing to give it another try. I tried to download RedHat and SuSE but their FTP servers either reset my cheap ass or told me it was going to take 300 hours to download. (I have DSL!) I'm not going to invest in a store copy until I can get the thing to install and try it out for free.



9:40 PM -
...

Its been said that the Canadians were potentially the most gifted nation in the western world. Based on their history, geography and ethnic makeup they could have amalgamated British culture, French cuisine and American technology. Instead they ended up with American culture, French technology and British cuisine.



9:07 PM -
...

Carbon! You are practical, simplistic, and logical.
You also have the ability to get around...you
sometimes seem to be *everywhere*!


What Element (heh, heh...) Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla



8:51 PM -
...

What I was afraid was going to happen in the priest molestation scandal has happened. The Bishops are about to try and push it under the rug. Former Oklahoma Gov. Keating is resigning from the board of prominent Catholics appointed to investigate the scandal.

Ostensibly his resignation is because he made some remarks that were deemed offensive to the Bishops. His remark? According to Keating certain Church officials, ".. act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will all come out." Not a particularly offensive remark considering the gravity of the situation and the evidence that Bishops HAVE been ignoring such behaviour. After all isn't that why the board exists?

However the powerful Cardinal of Los Angeles, Roger Mahoney, thinks that Keating's statements are "the last straw." and it was his stated intention to force Keating out if he didn't resign. It's funny, a simple and true statement is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Cardinal Mahoney may have something of a vested interest in covering things up as he is a target in abuse lawsuits for allegedly shuffling priests around and ignoring reports of abuse.

Keating, who was appointed almost exactly a year ago, isn't taking it laying down. Blasting certain bishops, Keating said, "My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology," explaining that, "To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church."

The Church and the board are back-pedaling furiously in their attempts to portray this as just a resignation based on personality issues. Jane Chiles, a board member and former director of the Kentucky Catholic Conference, said, "This idea that somehow there is a backing away (from the boards original purpose) could not be more inaccurate," and "Clearly that is not the case. We will be every bit as tenacious as ever, but there will be a style about it that we hope will elicit support rather than repel."

I'm sure Ms. Chiles and all the other board members are good honest people. However, the fact that she and several others hold titles in organizations that are either dependant on or heavily supportive of the Catholic church and the status quo make them suspect in their zeal for positive change. Governor Keating is a former prosecutor and FBI agent. More importantly he was an executive with no ties to the Catholic church other than his lay membership. He had no vested interest in maintaining a status quo. His removal is a clear sign that he had roiled the water too much and was starting to scare some guilty souls.

I hope I'm wrong. I bet I'm not. The frightening thing is that this news isn't being trumpeted forth on many broadcast or internet news sources. Nothing on the front pages of Fox.com, MSNBC.com or CNN.com. Matt Drudge is even silent on the subject. The fix is in. The American people have short attention spans. We are more interested in who murdered Laci Peterson or if Jessica Lynch is going to sign with ABC. We've forgotten to care about a stodgy old board investigating whether some priests abused kids 40 years ago.

God help us. On the remote chance that any of the Bishops or priests out there are reading this, I want you to remember what Our Lord said in Matthew chapter 18 verses 5 through 7 about those who harmed or allowed harm to come to his little ones.

Update: Glenn Reynolds blogged this topic virtually simultaneously on Instapundit as well as the story of a Bishop being questioned for a hit and run in Phoenix




8:41 PM -
...

Reasons that I'm glad I'm a man...


You don't have to learn to spell a new last name.

Your ass is never a factor in an interview.

Hot wax never comes near your pubic area.

You can leave the motel bed unmade.

The garage is all yours.

Wedding plans take care of themselves.

Chocolate is just another snack.

You can be president.

You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.

Car mechanics tell you the truth.

The world is your urinal.

Foreplay is optional.

You don't give a rat's ass if someone notices your new haircut.

You never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.

Same work, more pay.

Wrinkles add character.

Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.

People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.

The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.

Dry cleaners and hair cutters don't rob you blind.

You can go to the bathroom without a support group.

New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

If you are 34 and single, nobody notices.

If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit you just might become lifelong friends.

Your pals can be trusted never to trap you with. "So, notice anything different?"

A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.

You can open all your own jars.

You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

If someone forgets to invite you to something, he or she can still be your friend.

Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.

Everything on your face stays its original color.

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.

You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut or a bolt.

You almost never have strap problems in public.

You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.

You don't have to shave below your neck.

One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.

You can "do" your nails with a pocketknife.

You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

Your orgasms are real. Always.

Porn movies are designed with you in mind. ( I wouldn't know about that one. ;-)

One mood, ALL the time.

Received via chain mail some time ago.




10:14 PM -
...

Today is Flag day. My flag is flying, as it does every day with the exception of rain and darkness, from its staff mounted on the carport. In honor of Flag day (actually it was really just a coincidence, but follow along with me though)I took my wife down to the local public rifle range. Trista has been wanting me to take her for a while now, but we have been unable to do so because of planning conflicts. The rifle section of the range is down for improvements as the Florida Police shooting competition is being held there in a week. I'm lucky that my wife, in addition to being beautiful and smart, is Pro-gun. I suppose it helps that she is a U.S. Army veteran and qualified expert with the M16A2 and the M240 grenade launcher. Unfortunately her time in the Army didn't include training on the standard service pistol. (The M9 Beretta in lousy 9mm) Since we are going to have firearms in our house she wants to be proficient in the use of each one. She has also only fired a pistol a few times with her uncle, now deceased, who was an NRA instructor. So I pretty much emptied out the gun safe this morning of every modern pistol I own. I borrowed my dad's Ruger P-89 in 9mm since I don't have anything except an antique Nazi P-38 that shoots the wimpy Europellet. I also brought my carry gun, a .357 magnum Colt Trooper Mark III, my Makarov in Soviet 9x18, My Glock 22C in 40 S&W, my trusty old Colt 1911A1 in manly .45 ACP and my dad's reliable old Ruger Mark I in .22 Long rifle. This first outing of course was really just intended to get her familiar with the operation of the various weapons. She liked the .22. The old Ruger shoots straight and there is no kick with a .22. Next I made her fire a magazines worth (7rds) of .45 in the Colt 1911. She didn't like that. She is rather petite, just over 5 ft. tall and the Colt's recoil was a bit more than she was comfortable with. It was literally pushing her arm back 6 or 8 inches. Next was the Colt Revolver. In deference to her arm strength I gave her .38 Special to load. She seemed to like the revolver a bit more. The Trooper is a medium framed revolver with a 3 inch barrel. There is very little kick, especially with .38s. Her verdict was that the gun was too heavy. I also noticed she was flinching and pulling the muzzle down when she was squeezing the trigger in anticipation of the muzzle climb. In retrospect I shouldn't have started her with the .45 since it is a bit intense for a first timer and probably scared her a bit making her anticipate the same recoil in the other guns. After the revolver I figured that the big heavy P-89 with the 9MM would be just the thing. Not much recoil, not much muzzle climb. Again she liked it but she thought this gun was also too heavy and the muzzle blast too powerful. Finally I gave her the Makarov in 9x18. 9x18 has ballistics similar to a .380. The Makarov is a straight blowback pistol so the slide action is a bit more violent than on the unlocking barrel of the P-89. She didn't really like this gun despite the fact that it has much less muzzle climb and recoil than any of the others. So we went back to the .22 Ruger, skipping the Glock altogether. After 5 or 6 more magazines of .22 she was ready to go home. All in all it was a good way to spend flag day, enjoying the freedoms that those who have defended the flag have ensured for us. We'll have to go back to the range in a few weeks, when we have time and she has had time to forget the .45. Now I have to go clean some pistols.




5:29 PM -
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On her blog, Lilli Marleen, Moni (she's on Blogspot and their links are generally phuqued so you have to scroll down) disagrees with a comment I made in an earlier post. I'm not sure if it is the language differences or perhaps I was a bit unclear and should have been more verbose. However, I disagree with what she thinks I said.

My comment was, "Frankly I think you are wrong about the museum. I would rather have everything in it lost than sacrifice a single life of a Marine in its taking."

Her take on this was, "he made the comment that he thinks all the art stuff at any museum would not be worth one single life of a soldier who tries to safe it." She later interprets this to mean that I don't believe any museum is worthy of defending. To suggest that I don't think museums should be guarded is simply ridiculous. This is not the case. My statement only referred to the Iraqi museum and only when it was occupied by enemy troops. One of the bravest things done during World War Two by the French resistance was the hiding of the precious artifacts of the Louvre and other museums. Frenchmen lost their lives over it. It was a very brave and worthy thing. In fact one of my favorite moves, "The Train" from 1964 starring Burt Lancaster and directed by John Frankenheimer deals with just this very subject.

The key phrase in my statement was "in the taking" My point was that it wasn't worth American lives to storm a museum that may or may not have antiquities in it still. This endangers the troops and the artifacts unnecessarily. Now that we are certain the Museum is intact it certainly is worth guarding. It is also worth hazarding the life of a guard in the event that it is attacked by someone intent on looting it. Then again, if a museum was hosting Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano exhibits I think I might have to fall back on Moni's interpretation.






8:03 PM -
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Well, maybe pigs DO fly. An article recently appeared in the in the far left British newspaper The Guardian that acknowledges the unfairness of the charges against the US in the Iraqi Museum debacle. Here are some money quotes. On the subject of the looting in general.

"So, there's the picture: 100,000-plus priceless items looted either under the very noses of the Yanks, or by the Yanks themselves. And the only problem with it is that it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks."

It turns out that there are only a little over 2000 items missing and most of those are minor things like potshards and such. Only 33 major items are missing.

As for the reasons why the Marines didn't secure the facility? Well, it was occupied by Baathists. According to the article in the Guardian, one of the storerooms had, "clearly been used as a sniper point by Ba'ath forces" and "at the back of the museum there was a room that seemed to have been used as a military command post. " Maybe the Marines knew what they were doing after all. If there had been fierce fighting to dislodge the Baathists from their positions a great deal more damage would have been done to the museum. Imagine Marines tossing grenades to kill Baathists and the destruction that would have occurred to the museum under those circumstances. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children don't fight neatly. They terminate the enemy with extreme prejudice. Blood every where. Hmm, maybe bypassing the museum was a calculated move to allow the defenders there to flee so the Marines wouldn't have to fight to kill them and damage the museum. Nahh, couldn't be.

Of course it doesn't matter what we did. The US is still going to be blamed for whatever goes wrong. The author of the article realizes this too. His quote...

"Furious, I conclude two things from all this. The first is the credulousness of many western academics and others who cannot conceive that a plausible and intelligent fellow-professional might have been an apparatchiks of a fascist regime and a propagandist for his own past. The second is that - these days - you cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed. "







7:19 PM -

What Common Breed of Dog Are You?
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I'm afraid I have to disagree with this assessment of greyhound personality. When my sister was 14 she got a greyhound for a pet. It was a former race dog that had been adopted out. Its racing name had been "Perfect Passion" We shortened it to Pert. She apparently had never won a race. Pert was the single most spastic dog that I have ever met. I guess the racing does something to them. When we got her she had deep scars from being stuffed into a wire crate. Sometimes from a dead sleep the dog would bound up and start running laps around the coffee table in the living room. God forbid if you left the front door open more than a crack because she would slip out and start running. It's very hard to catch a greyhound running full tilt. Greyhounds, fortunately, are very stupid. The best way to stop a running greyhound is to get its attention, then when it is looking at you run the other direction. In the dog's pea-brain it thinks that it is suddenly losing the race. Run right back to the house and shut the door behind the dog when it runs in. Unfortunately Pert had other issues too. When we got her we noticed her gums and teeth were damaged. After a while it became apparent why. We couldn't leave the house without the animal chewing on the door frame and window shades. Apparently she did the same thing in her crate which explained the chipped teeth and damaged gums. At last my parents decided the cost of the damage was more than they could take anymore and they took her back to greyhound rescue. The Rescue guy said that they would try and adopt her out, but that it was most likely she would be euthanazed since she had exhibited the behavior before and never should have been placed with a family in the first place. We never did find out what became of her.




6:29 PM - <
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Remember the anguished wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from the left about how the US failed in its duty to prevent the Baghdad museum from being looted? Well, guess what. The stuff is still there, including some things that the Iraqi government hid in a bank vault and flooded. I'm expecting to hear someone from the left admit they were wrong. Anybody?







8:31 PM -
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In an earlier post I blogged about my confusion at seeing homeless men at the highway off-ramp using the identical sign I saw different men using a week earlier. Yes, there are almost always two of them. Since then I have seen 4 distinct signs used multiple times by different "urban outdoorsmen" always sitting on the same two black milk crates. Friday afternoon I discovered why.

The Florida Department of Transportation has been beautifying the overpasses and the areas between the highways and off-ramps for the past few years. One of the popular landscaping trees here in Central Florida is the Sabal Palm It is native, drought and saltwater resistant and attractive. Quite simply, nature designed it for Central Florida. When a palm frond dies it dries and generally breaks off under its own weight about 8 to ten inches from the base. You can see this in the first picture on the link above. This creates a kind of crotch against the trunk of the tree. These nooks catch all kinds of seeds and such normally As well as providing places for small mammals and insects to hide. It is common in fact to see native Serpent Fern growing almost completely over the entire trunk of a palm in a shady area. There is also a story about my father disturbing a bat in his Palm while trimming it, but I digress.

It seems that these ingenious fellows have discovered the natural shelf effect and have been using a particular palm to wedge the cardboard signs into. Friday evening as I got off the highway I had to stop quickly well before the end of the off-ramp to avoid rear ending the four tractor trailers in front of me. As I was stopped I noticed that one of the landscaped palms seemed to have erupted in cardboard cancer. Fifteen or 20 signs were jammed into this poor tree. Stacked neatly behind the tree, two black milk crates. I can only imagine what other stuff they have stashed there. One minor mystery solved.




2:08 AM -
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I've been busy this weekend working on the house. Our bathroom, like the rest of the house, was installed in 1973. I verified this fact by checking the casting stamp on the inside of the toilet tank that I discarded this morning. The ugly colors you remember from the 1970's (or not if you are under 30) were in full force. The toilet was the hideous shade of yellow/gold from the early seventies that they called "harvest gold" The shower stall was an even more putrescent color; avocado green. Sometime in the past the bathroom had had burnt orange shag carpeting installed in it. I'm not sure who would put carpeting, much less shag, in a bathroom. In this single bathroom was contained the complete hideous spectrum of colors that made the 1970's the horrible decade I remember. Then again maybe it wasn't the colors, it might have been Jimmy Carter. I'm replacing the old yellow crapper with a nice new almond one. The fiberglass shower stall is staying, since it is prohibitively expensive to purchase the new two piece unit that would be required to replace an existing installation. However, I am painting it with a 2 part epoxy paint that is tinted almond. The floor is being treated to some basic white tiles. I'm also stiff as a board because I am unused to this level of manual labor. There is a reason I work behind a desk and not in a construction job.




1:39 AM -
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There are a lot of assholes out there today. Lilli Marleen gets a hit for someone searching for "little nude boys" and I just got one by someone seaching for pics of underage girls. Tends to reduce ones faith in humanity.




7:41 PM -
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I didn't get any Hate mail from the previous topic so I think I will continue on it and respond to some things that Moni at Lilli Marleen brought up concerning her opinion of homosexuality and Biblical validity.

One of the interpretations of the Bible that is popular with some liberal Protestants and Catholics raised Post-Vatican II is what I like to call the functional interpretation. The basic premise of this interpretation of the Bible is that everything in the Bible is not a hard and fast rule where the things that it forbids and commands are concerned. Everything is open to interpretation and the reader's agreement with its validity. Some people call this Cafeteria theology because of the Ala Carte aspect it has. Functionalism is of course different than the traditional Catholic view, which relies on tradition as well as the bible for guidance and the hardcore Protestant view of biblical infallibility. Moni points out the functionalist interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 with her interpretation of why the Old Testament forbade homosexuality.

"Scientists say there is a 10% group of gay people in each community. When you now live in a very small community it is really important to have all the genes in the gene-pool, because else there will be disease and other problems with the children. And when then there are two guys living together and refusing to give their genes into the gene-pool and all that they are really sinners! Sure they are. And so Leviticus and all the other guys probably were right, I think. In their time. At their place.
But not today! Our gene-pool is so huge, I wish the one or the other would keep his genes out again. We do it now global and so we now grew to a community where the 10% gay are not just a burden we can carry, but also a gift to the community. They work, they earn money and they pay higher taxes since they have no children. Society should praise them daily! "

What Moni, wer spricht Englisch besser als mein Deutsch, is saying is that most of the codes in Leviticus were necessary for the survival of a nomadic people living in a harsh environment. They simply no longer apply today because we don't need them to survive. To paraphrase comedian Chris Rock, Back in the days before refrigerators a pork chop could kill your ass. Today, a pork chop is your friend. Dietary Laws however are another subject and I am not going to address them in this post, maybe tomorrow.

The problem that most conservative Protestants, like myself, have with this is twofold. Firstly, it assumes that God's reason for issuing the commandment in the first place is invalid now because of the antiquity of the text and the changed circumstances of the readers. Now I'm not a big fan of slippery slope arguments but this mindset, in a Christian, will ultimately lead to a total renunciation of the text of the Bible as a guide for life. For example, if the Bible is wrong about forbidding homosexuality, then it might be and probably is wrong about other things as well.

Again this point is illustrated a bit further down in Moni's post when she talks about the Ten Commandments and her impression of them.

"Look at the ten commandments. Wonderful commandments! I mean, most of them, besides the first one"

The first Commandment (for Catholics and Lutherans like Moni) is, "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

This is a clear example of creep in the interpretation of the text to suit one's own world view.

Suppose the shepherds of Scotland and New Zealand (where men are men and sheep run scared) decide they don't like Leviticus 18:23:

"Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion."

I mean since we have plenty of beef cattle now, is it still necessary to protect sheep? I'm sure the rule was only there to prevent the contamination of sheep as a food source or offering to God. Why shouldn't we get a fine young ewe and put her back feet in our rubber knee boots and go to town?

OK, so maybe that example is over the top. OK it's WAYYYYY over the top. Here is a bit more relevant example, Leviticus, 18:17-18:

"Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time."

You can find Web sites all over the Internet hawking mother and daughter sex and hundreds of pages dedicated to twins. If all parties are consenting, under the functionalist view, it's OK. Bear in mind that this passage is not only specifically forbidding incest, but it is forbidding the man to have sex with two closely related women at the same time regardless of whether the women have sex with each other.

The second issue is the functionalists' seeming inability to recognize that while times may have changed, Human nature hasn't. Laws that were valuable in the past to maintain the integrity of the family unit are still valid. People are people now or 10,000 years ago. A family can still be broken if the Husband decides to "lie carnally with... (his) neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her." (Lev. 18:20 KJV) Maybe the reason for Leviticus 18:22 forbidding Homosexuality is because God's plan for men is that "...a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Gen 2:24 KJV)

I think the underlying reason for these disconnects are the recent teaching of "Jesus is love" to the exclusion of all else. Most Christians under 30, in Catholic and the larger mainstream Protestant denominations, seem to view Christ as a lovable hairy Hippie who did nothing but walk around Israel in Birkenstocks smoking dope and telling people to love one other. Then "The Man" killed him. Part of that is true. Christ did walk around Israel telling people to love one another. However, rather than the somewhat permissive image of everlasting forgiveness and moral relativism that most people seem to have, Christ acknowledged and on several occasions acted and spoke on his anger at sin and disobedience to Hebrew commandments. The story of the moneychangers in the temple comes to mind.

"And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." (John 2:13-17 KJV)

Jesus, the same man who preached forgiveness and love, physically whipped those he thought were dishonoring his father's house.

What was Christ's opinion on those who harm children?

"And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" (Matt 18 5-7 KJV)

Again, Christ taking a dim view of a sin and saying little on love, lots on consequences.

I think one of the weaknesses of the functionalist arguments is the very lack of consequences that they seem to espouse. Human nature tends to concentrate on things that it likes. Thinking about being punished for your sin or that behaviour that you enjoy IS a sin is something most people don't like to contemplate. It is much easier to rationalize the consequences away by mentally removing the sinful stigma from your actions. In this respect, people who adhere to a functionalist mindset are actually only a few steps removed from Atheism, which relies entirely on rational thought to the exclusion of faith.

OK this is the end of my somewhat disconnected rant. Atheists may continue giggling, but only if they do so quietly. Comments are appreciated. Trolls are not. This post should not be construed as me taking a dump in Moni's Cornflakes. I respect her greatly as a person. She simply had some quotable quotes that I decided to use.




9:14 PM - <
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An Australian man, who claims to be an Anglican, says that he has proven Jesus and 3 of his 12 disciples were gay. Dr. Rollan McCleary, who was awarded his doctorate for a thesis on gay spirituality by the University of Queensland in Australia, bases his assertion on Jesus' astrological charts and his re-interpretation of several passages in the Gospel of John. According to Ananova, McCleary says that, "the planet Uranus figured prominently in Jesus's astrological chart, as it did with many gays." It is soooooo tempting, but I'm not going to go for the obvious joke on that one.

No, I don't have a problem with the belief that Christ may have had homosexual thoughts or temptations. In the Bible it says, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities: but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb. 4:15 KJV). Christ, as our saviour, was subjected to the same temptations as the rest of humanity. Homosexual thoughts or tendencies are a natural human temptation.

Now comes the part where I am going to offend a lot of people. If I do offend you I would ask that you at least read the whole post before calling me mean names and questioning my sexual orientation. Here we go.

Homosexuality is wrong. It is a sin. I'm not talking about the occasional thought or temptation. The physical act of homosexuality itself is sinful. This is my belief. It would also have been the belief of a Jewish rabbi in the 1st century AD. Christ would have taken the Old Testament literally when it said that the Lord commanded Moses to tell the Israelites, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. (Levit. 18:22 KJV).

Some modern liberal biblical scholars claim (incorrectly in my humble opinion) that references in the Old Testament to homosexuality are actually more concerned with inhospitability (Sodom and Gomorah) and general mistranslations of commandments about not having temple prostitutes. Leviticus 18 is, however, a clear concise listing of sexual acts that are specifically prohibited to the Hebrew people by the direct commandment of the Lord to Moses. They include incest, bestiality, offering your children to idols as well as homosexuality.


The second argument against this verse is that the Old Testament is invalid to Christians as we are under a new covenant with the Lord that was purchased for us by the blood of Christ spilled at Calvary. The Laws of Moses simply no longer apply to us under the new covenant. Again, this theory doesn't hold water very well. In the words of Christ himself, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matt 5:16-17 KJV). Christ again clearly points out that the laws of the Jews still have bearing on Christians.

Another thing bothers me. Dr. McCleary claims that he has based his assumptions at least partly on Christ's astrological chart. I assume that he is basing his chart on the thesis that an astronomical event that occured in the middle East in about 3 or 4 BC with the alignment of several stars heralded the birth of Christ. Has he taken into account that the entire star system has shifted in the last 2000 years? What if he thinks Christ is an Aquarius but he is really a Pisces? Seriously though, we cannot be exactly certain of the date Christ was born. Basing his statements on the assumption that that particular astronomical event heralded the birth of Christ is fraught with problems. The greatest being that we cannot even be certain that the astronomical event was the Star of Bethlehem referred to in the Gospels. Of course those are the things I would say if I took astrology and astrologers seriously.

What would the Jewish Rabbi have thought about astrologers? "When you arrive in the land the LORD your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling or sorcery, or allow them to interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. Anyone who does these things is an object of horror and disgust to the LORD. It is because the other nations have done these things that the LORD your God will drive them out ahead of you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The people you are about to displace consult with sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the LORD your God forbids you to do such things". (Deut 18 10-14 NLT). I've used the newer New Living translation here since the beautiful pentameter of the Elizabethan era English King James version is archaic and hard to understand in this instance.

The underlying meaning of the good Doctor's work can be understood by the degree he has earned : gay spirituality. In the rarefied world of academia the best way to make a name for yourself is to "prove" some shocking occurrence or fact. Status quo is so bourgeoisie. Dr. McCleary is serious about making a splash. He is also interested in changing the perceptions of society. What better way to convince people that homosexuality isn't wrong than to "prove" that the man considered the saviour of humanity by billions of people was a homosexual? It is ambitious, but not overly so considering the gay agenda. Attempting to normalize homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle choice is on the top of the list for every homosexual activist.

Now before I get a barrage (well maybe not a barrage considering my total readership of about 5 people) let me say this. It is not my place to judge homosexuals. I am a fallible human being. In the words of Christ, "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke 6:36-37 KJV). Also, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:10,23 KJV). Later in the chapter Christ illustrates a problem common to humanity, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye." (Luke 6: 41-42 KJV). Seeing the small speck of dust in someone else's eye and failing to perceive the beam of timber sticking out of one's own eye is a common failing of humanity and some holier-than-thou Christians in particular. It is also the major failing of the liberal types who rail about Christians failure to respect the rights of others while they themselves work to destroy the rights of Christians.

All this is not to say that Christians cannot acknowledge right from wrong. It is simply not our place to judge the person. That is for the Lord alone. "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (Luke 6: 43-45 KJV). Knowing that homosexuality is sinful doesn't give us the right to judge the eternal reward of the homosexual. The "fruits" (pardon the pun) of homosexuality however, do allow us to make a value judgement of it based on the commandments of the Lord and our own observations.

I think the important thing to remember is that while Christ lived, walked and taught daily among people who were sinners; prostitutes like Mary Magdalene, adulterers, and tax collecters. (!) It is also important to remember that he told them to go and sin no more. Rather than accepting a sort of cafeteria theology where whatever someone believes is what goes, Christ led by the example of his life.

Would I accept a homosexual in the congregation of my church? Certainly, if they were repentant of their sin. Would I accept a homosexual couple in my church? No. I also wouldn't accept a serial adulterer or a serial thief. The difference is of course that rather than repenting of their sins the people are continuing in them. This is also the root of the dilemma that the Catholic church is facing with priests. Many homosexual priests simply refuse to honor their vow of celibacy. Could I accept a homosexual in my family? Of course, but I would pray that that particular cup would pass from me. I would also have to tell them that I loved them, but believed they were sinning in the eyes of the Lord.


As a dyed in the wool Protestant, I rely primarily on sola scriptura arguments in matters of theology. Church councils much after about 700 AD are invalid in most cases in my opinion. Catholics will have different interpretations based on the traditions of their church. Atheists will of course giggle about the ridiculousness of examining the minutia contained in the writings of a poorly understood nomadic tribe of Semites from 4 millenia ago all the while denying the underlying organic nature of homosexuality in the genetics of the people who are homosexuals .

I don't really think that I am going to change anyone's opinion on the subject, but I thought that it might be a good subject to expound upon. If you don't like what I say, then tell me so and why. Just try to be polite about it. Remember, this is my blog and I will delete mean, nasty posts with abusive language.






5:35 AM -
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You are Tank, from "The Matrix." Loyal
till the end, you spare no expense in ensuring
the well-being of others.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
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11:57 PM -
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Need another reason why the US should look long and hard at its relationship with Germany? The city of Berlin is considering re-installing its old Communist era Statue of Lenin. Perhaps they should also rebuild the wall while they are at it. I loved this line about the Lenin Statue in the Independent's article,

"The powerful image, a symbol of the West's wilful destruction of East Germany's identity, has sparked a debate in Berlin over whether to restore it to its former position in what is now called United Nations Square."

The West's willful destruction? I stayed up late at night watching news coverage when the wall came down. I remember seeing drably clothed East German youths with hammers helping West German citizens, wearing Scorpions and AC/DC shirts with torn blue jeans, tear down the wall. I saw DDR flags with the center cut out. I saw David Hasselhoff singing. I'm still not sure what the hell he was doing there. But I digress. My point is, it wasn't the West that got rid of Lenin. It was East and West together.If Germans, and Berliners in particular, are wanting to bring back Lenin then something is seriously wrong in Germany.

Another wonderful irony is that Germany originally was a haven for Lenin in real life. The Kaiser's Imperial government sent him back into Russia in 1917 to destabilize the Tsar. He did his job.


Link Via The Corner



11:29 PM -
...

I haven't blogged much lately. There is a reason for this. I was in Orlando over the weekend. My laptop is currently kaput so I couldn't blog on the road. Numero dos, my mother-in-law is coming to visit from Virginia. Life in my household now resembles something of a cross between a barracks cleaning for a General's inspection and a convict on death row waiting for the call from the governor with 5 minutes before he meets old Sparky.

Combining two bachelor households accumulated over 30 years is trying. Especially in a two bedroom house after only 3 months of marriage. Between us we have eight boxes of Sci-fi and fantasy novels. That doesn't count the rest of my books that I have stashed at my parent's house. We have two vacuum cleaners, two toasters, two computers and four alarm clocks. Both of us are heavy sleepers. Neither of us wants to throw anything away. I guess there is something to be said for marrying young before you have a pot to piss in.

I'm trying hard to convince my lovely wife that her mother will understand why there is dust on top of the refrigerator. She disagrees. We both work full-time and she is going to school full time. We are out of time now though. Her parents get here tomorrow morning and we have to go to sleep soon so as to be up early tomorrow for work and school respectively. I hope I'm right and not my wife.



10:27 PM -
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I saw this interesting Link at Clayton Cramer's blog

It seems that the EU is having trouble meeting the so-called "greenhouse gas" emissions requirements that they set out for themselves. In fact, "Ten of the EU's 15 states overshot national targets, increasing total emissions by 1 percent in the last year for which data is available."

Remember the Kyoto treaty? The one Bill Clinton signed knowing full well that the Senate wouldn't ratify it? This is another proof that an industrialized society can't just simply stop cold turkey and remain industrialized.

I personally find it a tad ironic that "greenhouse gases" are supposed to increase the temperature of the atmosphere, but one of the reasons for the European increase, "is due to a cold winter in many EU countries, higher emissions from the transport sector and greater use of fossil fuels in electricity production."

So let me see if I have this straight,

1.) The increase in warming greenhouse gases has made it colder.
2.) Europeans are still transporting goods and services using fossil fuel powered vehicles.
3.) The fear of non-emissions producing power nuclear power has made most Europeans rely on coal-fired power plants.

(sarcasm)

Don't Europeans know that the fate of the atmosphere relies on all of us killing ourselves or, at worst, returning to a hunter-gatherer preindustrial way of life? Why haven't they quit their jobs and started foraging again? I know that most of the Greens are vegetarians, but there aren't any large native mammals left to hunt there anyway. Surely they can eke a living out on something they find out there. I hear dandelion salad is good. Remember though, no domesticated animals, they produce methane. That's a greenhouse gas. Oh yeah, no farming either, that is raping mother earth.

Sure I know there are some luddite scientists who say we don't have enough data, and most of it is conflicting, but I mean, come on, who cares about the conflicting data, Everyone knows about global warming. It MUST be valid. I mean the fact that we only have 200 years of spotty data for the past 2 billion years to work with gives us a complete grasp of how climactic changes work on a global scale over the millenia. Statistical analysis be damned.

How dare Europeans drive gasoline powered vehicles? Don't they know that hydrogen power is cheap, safe and plentiful? Why I just passed 5 or 6 hydrogen refueling stations on the way home from the movies in my large spacious hydrogen powered SUV. Hydrogen only burns like crazy when it's in something highly flammable like a Hindenburg Zeppelin.

I applaud Europeans on their hatred of nuclear power. I mean just because it doesn't produce any emissions and uses a small amount of fuel doesn't make it a good choice. I mean everyone knows that coal power is a safe and logical choice. I'm sure all that radioactive fly ash released when coal is burned and somehow disposed of is safe. Nuclear power is bad, because, umm, its like nuclear and stuff. Ya know?

(/sarcasm)

Back to the article, France and Germany have both met their gas limits. I'm going to say something next that actually scared me when I thought about it, mainly because I agreed with them. France has met its quota, smartly I believe, by relying on clean nuclear power. On the other hand, Germany which also met its quota, presumably did so by letting its economy fall into the crapper.



12:52 AM -
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I love reading Quirkies on Ananova But sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Here is the latest:

"Karen McFarlane, 38, has been told she could face charges for having an offensive weapon after two officers spotted..." "while her car was parked in Swindon."

Guess what I left out of the quote after the ellipsis. Drugs? Bombs? Guns? Do you give up?

"her seven-year-old son(s)... plastic toy sword"

Later a Wiltshire Police spokesman said, "they had no record of the incident", but "admitted anything can be adapted into an offensive weapon, "even a rolled-up newspaper, depending on how you use it.""

I'm not trying to pick on the UK, but it they make it so easy. Burglars suing their victims, police harassing mothers and small children. Honestly, I think some people need to get their priorities straightened out.





6:52 PM -
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From the "Inmates are running the asylum" category out of the UK. The government is considering putting a ban on burglars suing householders. I didn't type that backwards. In the UK it is apparently a fairly common circumstance for a burglar injured in the course of his crime to sue the householder on whose property the injury occured. According to the Telegraph, "Brendon Fearon, the burglar"... "is trying to sue Tony Martin for ?15,000 after being shot while breaking into his home" Apparently Mr. Fearon has been unable to find work since he was shot by Mr. Martin. His unemployability is obviously Mr. Martin's fault and has nothing to do with the fact that prospective employers might be reticent to hire him because he is a convicted felon and known thief. Sarcasm aside, I find it ridiculous that cases of this sort aren't laughed out of court and are becoming more common in the US also.





2:39 PM -
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I just got through checking my e-mail. I'd have to say that the spam traps are working better, but I still get LOTS of Spam and this is from an address that I have never used for anything or given out. I suppose the spammers must have programs that guess likely e-mail addresses.

Just for giggles I'd like to imagine what kind of person would respond to all of the junk e-mail that I get. This is based on actual spam that I am currently looking at in my inbox. They would have to be male, to need the the offer for Russian and eastern European brides. Balding, to take advantage of the herbal hair regrowth treatment. He would have to have erectile dysfunction to take advantage of the ads for prescription-free viagra. His cock would have to be like an overly sharpened pencil to need all of the guaranteed formulas to thicken and lengthen his penis. He would have a lousy lovemaking technique to need the Kama Sutra instruction manual. He would have to be a transexual to use the natural breast enhancement and enlarging formula. He would have to have a checking account to transfer the stolen Nigerian oil money into. The checking acount would have to be empty and he would need 6 maxed out credit cards to take advantage of the debt consolidation program. He would have a 19% interest rate on his house so he could refinance at a lower rate. His septic tanks would be clogged. He would be a pervert and into German scheiss videos and barnyard videos. He would be an avid golfer who always lost balls and needed to buy more.

So in summation, based on the spam I get, the average person who replies to spam is a lonely, middle aged, balding transexual male with severe sexual and mental dysfunctions, bad credit and to add insult to injury he's a duffer. With a profile like that you think the spammers would start selling cups of Hemlock. God knows they have the audience.




8:54 PM -
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In addition to having my computer take a big wet sloppy dump on me, I've been too busy to blog lately. I'm spending this weekend in Tampa at the University of South Florida's Medical School graduation. My baby brother, all of 25 years old, is now an M.D. Since he is a U.S. Army reserve officer he was also commisioned a Captain on the same day. He has a 6 year Radiology residence in front of him at the USF hospital. Those 6 years are important since he will have 6 years in grade as a Captain when he has to go on active duty for his military commitment. He should be a major shortly after that. Did I mention that he JUST turned 25. Yesterday, May 10th in fact. At an age when most people are just thinking about starting a Master's degree, he has a doctorate. This is in addition to being married and having a 16 month old baby and another on the way. I'm very proud of him.

Here is a PDF file of his page in the USF medical student directory. My niece is, of course, the cutest child in the history of the world. The PDF is 240 K so it may be slow if you are on a dialup.



1:00 AM -
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Microsoft is Evil. Proof of this is the fact that I am now typing this on my wife's antique PC. The operating system on my machine, the perpetually buggy Windows ME, has ceased to function. It is hanging just after the splash screen. All I get is a mouse arrow. CTRL ALT DEL says there are no running processes. Period. It does the same thing when I try to boot in safe mode. I scanned the hard drive with a seperate program and the disk structure is intact. There is apparently something wrong with one of the files that makes up ME itself. Thus, I have a 1.5 Ghz machine with 1.2GB of RAM sitting idle while I type this on a 300 mhz Celeron with 64 MB of ram and Windows 98A. I would appreciate any recommendations for a Linux distribution or some other open source operating system that isn't excessively technical. No Lindows or Mandrake though please. AAARRRRRGHHH. I am fortunate though since I partitioned the drive in halves intending to put Linux or something on the other half, so I won't have to wipe the drive and lose my data.




9:50 PM -
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Little did I suspect when I made a reference in jest in the previous post to Kim Jong Il shooting up heroin that it might be TRUE




10:38 PM -
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Believe it or not there is an official North Korean news agency on the internet. Since North Korea doesn't trust its people enough or is unable to afford an internet backbone the site is hosted out of Japan. Give it a read. Some of its articles are quite amusing. They have the whole Stalinist Cult of Personality thing going on. The page has two or three anecdotes each issue about the great leader Kim Il Sung or his son, the current General secretary, Kim Jong Il. Here is a typical story illustrating how the great leader cares for the welfare of his people,

"Pyongyang, May 5 (KCNA) - General Secretary Kim Jong Il gave on-the-spot guidance to the newly built syringe factory on December 19, Juche 89 (2000). After looking round its production processes, he said he would take some injectors produced there for test use.
A few days later, he met an official and told him that he had got injections with the syringes and some of them had pained him. And he said that the pain might be caused by needles, so efforts should be directed to improving the quality of needles for people and servicemen. "

I'm wondering what he injected to test them. Given his bizarre appearance and habits it most likely was some mind altering substance. No wonder he always wears long sleeved uniform shirts. He doesn't want anyone to see the track marks he has from testing the efficiency of the people's needle factory. Maybe he reads Cosmo and wanted to get that Kate Moss heroin chic look. Doesn't he know that look is sooooo Y2K?

The seriously disturbing thing about this is the underlying subtext of the "anecdote". Communism, especially the Stalinist variety, is a religion and it is a jealous religion. It has no space for competition. It takes aspects of religion and twists them to suit its own sick worldview. The Kim Jong Il you read about in those two paragraphs has taken on Christ-like attributes. He so loves his people that he offers up his own flesh to harm that they may not suffer. He crucifies himself with a syringe so that his people may be saved. The North Korean state has indoctrinated its people to worship the Kims, father and son alike. The doglike devotion to the "godlike" Kim is one of the things that makes North Korea very dangerous. Iraq didn't really scare me. North Korea scares me spitless.

I've blogged about North Korea before here, and here

When Internet Explorer loads the Korean Website it may ask you to load Japanese or Korean language support. Close the dialog box as this is unnecessary since the site is primarily encoded in English.





9:13 PM -
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I've taken the Meyer's Briggs test before. I always came up as an INFP So it was no surprise when I came up as one on this quiz site.

My Bloginality is INFP!!!

INFP is the rarest of the Meyers-briggs types. It is about 1 to 2% of the population. Oddly enough, according to this very unscientific test. (only 4 questions) most of the people taking it were INFP. I wonder if there is some link between blogging and an idealistic point of view?



9:58 PM -
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Things like this make me happy I live in a semi-rural area of the South. They also make me appreciate the concealed carry laws here too.

Link via Roscoe Ellis




9:49 PM -
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There was yet another funeral recently at Arlington national cemetery. This one was for a young Marine Corporal killed in a firefight March 23rd near An Nasiriyah. This funeral was a bit different from the others that have been happening lately. Cpl. Kemaphoom Chanawongse of Waterford, Connecticut was born in Thailand but left at the age of 2, later becoming an American citizen. Amidst uniform rows of government issue tombstones stood a group of saffron clad Buddhist monks. The service was led by Dr. Chuen Phangcham, president emeritus of the Buddhist Council of the Midwest.

According to Cpl. Chanawongse's mother, Tan Patchem "He'll be among his fellow Marines and the other brave soldiers and heroes, He deserves to be there."

Rest in Peace Cpl. Chanawongse
Semper Fi




9:37 PM -
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The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Heh, I'm a protestant. I don't believe in purgatory. \

Link Via Da Goddess



3:59 PM -
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What is the fastest ocean liner in the world? Is it one of those new fancy ships that come out of Scandinavia? You might think so, but you would be wrong.

The fastest cruise ship in the world is the S.S. United States.

I remembered an article that I had read on CNN when I saw John Coxon's post on his website about the Queen Mary.

On July 7, 1952 the United States took the Blue Riband award by crossing the Atlantic in a little over 3 days, beating the previous record holder from 1938 by more than 10 hours. Her average speed was 35 knots (41 mph). The United States was running at 2/3 of engine capacity when she broke the record. It is rumored that she could do 45 knots (50 mph)if she was pushed. The United States ran the Atlantic crossing from 1952 until 1969. It is estimated that she carried 50,000 emigrants to the US. She never had a mechanical failure and was always on time.

What vessel was the previous record holder? The R.M.S Queen Mary. Its not really fair to compare the two vessels since they are a generation apart in design. This becomes apparent when you look at the specs. Queen Mary was capable of 28 knots cruising. She is 1,019 feet long and 80 thousand tons. This is 29 feet feet longer and 30,000 tons heavier than the United States. She carried 2,139 passengers. The United States carried only about 160 fewer passengers and a nearly identical crew complement. In time of war the United States was quickly converted to a troopship that could carry a staggering 15,000 troops.

A more fair comparison to the United States would be the ugly abortion that they call new Queen Mary II. Despite being 50 years its elder the United States matches well to the new ship. The Queen Mary II is 1,132 feet long. She weighs 150,000 tons, nearly 3 times the United States. She can accomodate 2,620 passengers and 1,500 crew. Her top speed? 30 knots. It is unlikely that the United States will lose the title of Fastest Liner any time soon.

Unfortunately the United States has suffered the same fate since 1969 that the Queen Mary did. Fortunately, like the Queen Mary, she is soon to be released from her purgatory of rust and neglect that is claiming her in a Philadelphia harbor. Norwegian Cruise Lines has purchased the old lady and is going to have her repaired, refitted, and relaunched. She will retain the name United States and will still carry a U.S. flag. This is a good move for NCL and a wonderful thing for the groups that have been fighting to save the United States. Maybe I'll go for a cruise on her when she's back in the water.



12:33 AM -
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When I was 6 or 7 a new show appeared on television. It was titled "Battlestar Galactica". I loved it a great deal and eventually begged my parents to buy me all of the toys that Hasbro was selling. Shortly thereafter, about 1979, it went off of the air and I was crushed. There was a brief attempt to resurrect the show in 1980, but the follow on show only had one of the original characters and it was so bad that even as a 2nd grader I could recognize its stinkiness. I didn't think about it for another 20 years.

Prior to my wedding, while I was watching the Sci-fi channel, It was advertised that they were going to be playing the original series in its entirety Monday to Friday. I ran out to the Wal-mart picked up 5 tapes and came home and taped the entire series. This weekend, almost two months later, I finally found time to watch the tapes. The first couple of shows were as good as I remembered them from my childhood. Actors like Jane Seymour, Patrick MacNee, Lorne Greene, and the classically trained John Colicos were very good. Towards about the 4th or 5th tape things started getting progressively worse. The final episode was utter trash with no plot and a cylon, named Cy no less, who sounded suspiciously like the robot from "Lost in Space"

I had heard that there was some thought of the show coming out as a movie or perhaps a series again and I was bored so I Googled up "Battlestar Galactica remake". It turns out that there is a semi-official site dedicated to a follow-on series that maintains the story line, plot and characters of the original. It also turns out that Sci-fi network is "reimagining" the original series.

In the Sci-Fi remake Commander Adama, the wise fatherly figure originally played by Lorne Greene, who leads humanity away from destruction will now be played by James Edward Olmos, The pock-faced actor best known for screaming at Crockett and Tubbs in Miami Vice. Apparently the original concept of Adama and his son saving humanity was a bit to male-centric for Sci-fi channel. There is now a new character to take over the role of executive head. President Laura Roslin will replace the original series' primarily faceless council of twelve. The dowdy Mary McDonnell, of Dances With Wolves fame, will play this role. In addition The character of Apollo, Adama's hotshot fighter pilot son, will now be known as "Lee". No I am not making this up. Starbuck, the happy-go-lucky, gambling, cigar smoking raconteur of the original series is now "Kara". Yes, Starbuck now has tits and a vagina. How long before Sci-Fi has him (her?) fucking Apollo (Lee?)? I'm so damn confused.

I don't have a problem with the concept. I have a problem with them attaching the Battlestar Galactica name to it. The two are different enough that Sci-fi could make up a new name. So I think that I will have to join in the movement to boycott the Sci-Fi channel for this travesty as well as for killing Farscape, the best Sci-Fi show currently on television. Why couldn't someone cancel "Enterprise" before Rick Berman destroys the Trek universe too?





9:47 PM -
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Here is another reason I'm not sure the French get it. This is a link to a French telecom company download page for screens you can put on your mobile phone. Look at #0378329. Its halfway down and all of the way to the left. Does it look familiar? It should. It is Osama Bin Laden. There is apparently enough of a demand among French consumers for a Bin Laden screen that the phone company has allowed one to be displayed on its webpage. There is also a Hammer and Sickle logo on that page. The irony of a communist symbol on a cell phone makes me giggle.

I was curious about the French Phrase over Bin Laden's head and read further down the thread.

According to Caton:
(The) " 'translation' of spice de counnasse would be dumb bitch. The political satire show Les Guignols de l'Info turned this insult into a common banlieue expression (meaning 'wife' or 'girlfriend') by having their bin Laden puppet using it instead of "wife". For example, the bin Laden puppet would ask, 'How are your kids? and your dumb bitches?'."


Links Via Little Green Footballs



9:21 PM -
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Many people, especially Europeans, complain about the American prediliction with Sport Utility Vehicles or SUVs as the green types like to hiss through their teeth. There is a reason why Americans are driving these behemoths and I will explain that later, but first I want to show you a picture



This is a picture of a 1975 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. Except for the blue paint it is identical to my mother's bronze 1977 model. My father bought it used for her after he got out of the Air Force because she was unable to drive the standard transmission in his 1976 Chevy Nova. This made getting groceries problematic when he was TDY. The car below is similar to Dad's but is a coupe. Dad's was a plain jane white four door. His Nova had the 250 inline six cylinder with the manual three speed on the column shifter.



But I digress. The reason my mother got the Oldsmobile was that she had three kids, a husband, 2 dogs and some neighbor kids that she had to chauffeur around. Then there was baseball, ballet, and Boy Scouts to drive us to. No, I was the Boy Scout not the ballerina. The Oldsmobile could, with the rear seat folded down, accommodate a sheet of plywood. It could gobble 2 grocery carts full of bags. It was the all-purpose mom mobile. It was low slung so there was no problem with high-center of gravity like today's SUVs. It had a 400 cubic inch V8 with a Turbo hydramatic 400 automatic transmission and a quadrajet carb. My mom could squeal the tire if she goosed it. I say tire because it was an open rear differential and only one tire would spin when it lost traction. It was exactly what she needed to fulfill the tasks she had as a wife and mother. I really miss that car.

Women today have the same things going on that my mom did 25 years ago. kids to drive around, baggage to haul, places to be and things to do. If you have a family you will recognize the drill. So are American women still driving station wagons? No. There are very few domestically produced wagons in the US and no full sized ones. The last full size was the Oldsmobile/Chevy/Buick versions produced from 1991-1996. Those vehicles were expensive, large, butt-ugly and shaped like a whale. Consequently they sold poorly.

In 1973 the US decided to clean up the air and introduce emissions controls and what is called the CAFE. Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Basically the total aggregate of vehicles have to meet a certain miles per gallon rating based on the percentage they make up of the fleet produced by the particular automaker. So for instance, if Chevrolet wants to sell a bunch of gas-guzzling large sedans they have to sell many more economy cars to make the gas ratings average out. Light pickups were partially exempted from CAFE since they were primarily used for things like farm trucks and delivery vehicles.

The ultimate consequence of CAFE was that the automakers started building fewer large cars and more smaller cars to meet the law. Ultimately they started building front wheel drive cars and transitioned away from the larger rear wheel drive automobiles. For example Chevrolet only builds one rear wheel drive automobile now, the Corvette. Many Americans prefer driving rear-wheel drive cars and they like to have space to stow things. Large cars make us feel safer. With the automakers stopping production of station wagons and minivans bearing the stigma of boring low-performance, the modern SUV was born. The SUV was partially exempt from CAFE since it was legally classed as a light pickup. Having lower standards to meet it could be bigger. Bigger vehicles are more versatile. Then there was the allure of having an off-road vehicle.

Unfortunately most people didn't appreciate that SUV designs are based on a light pickup chassis. They have a high center of gravity and a generally stiff suspension. People used to zipping around town in their low slung cars were rolling some of the more top heavy SUVs with regularity. Manufacturers lowered tire pressures in an attempt to get the cushy soft ride that people had grown accustomed to from a stiff chassis that was designed for off-road use. The results were the Ford/Firestone fiasco

So basically, fuel economy legislation from the early 1970's has contributed to the creation of the gas-guzzling SUV. Ironic isn't it?
Unfortunately, it is also the reason why I can't buy my wife a domestically produced relatively inexpensive station wagon.



1:15 AM -
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In a comment to my earlier post someone asked what I would suggest be done about the problems our schools are facing. That is indeed a fair question. Anyone can kvetch and moan about a problem. Having a solution to a problem is a whole different kettle of fish. Unfortunately you will also always have those who will admit that there is a problem but refuse to allow someone else's solution to be implemented even though they have no viable solution of their own. I think that those two positions lay out quite clearly where Democrats and Republicans stand on the issue of school reform. Republicans say that the system is broken and that our schools are producing sub-par students who are poorly educated. Democrats believe problems are minor and are caused primarily by underfunding.

The Republican plan is to introduce a voucher system that would allow parents to select whatever school they wish their children to attend. Parents could choose a public, private or religious school if they wished. This would be a boon to many families, especially poor black families, in the inner cities with atrociously bad schools. Parents could send their children to a school that is functioning rather than being forced by the law and economics to send their children to a dangerous dead-end school which will probably doom their child to a life of low paying jobs or crime.

Democrats oppose the voucher program for several reasons. The first is that parents would undoubtedly send their children to religious schools using the vouchers. Democrats feel that using taxpayer-funded vouchers to fund religious schools is a violation of the separation of Church and State. The second is that Democrats are generally not in favor of decentralized plans with little government oversight. The voucher program would effectively remove control of the educational agenda from the Democrats and their allies. The third reason comes in the form of the groups who are the Democratic Party's allies. All of the national teachers unions are left-leaning despite protestations of neutrality. The NEA and other teacher unions would lose political clout and therefore the Democratic Party would lose the votes of the teacher unions.

The Democratic version of a solution would be to spend more tax money on the problem and leave the educational system as it is with neither a voucher system nor standardized testing. Sadly, this would just exacerbate the problem. Spending without accountability, whether to the government or to the parents of the student, breeds a lackadaisical approach to education. Good teachers will still keep doing their job but bad teachers won't.

The best solution to any problem is usually always a blend of the two solutions. I would lean heavily on the Republican plan and take some pointers from the Democratic plan. The first thing I would suggest is that teachers need to be paid much more than they currently are. My mother has a Ph.D., about 12 years of college and is an assistant principal, yet she makes just slightly more money than I do with 4 years of college and a general degree working in the private sector. Low teacher pay is the main reason that many bright people do not enter the profession. The high demand for teachers due to lack of interest caused by the low pay is also a reason that teaching tends to attract some teachers who are lazy and unsuited to the job. When you can't get enough teachers, sometimes any warm body that helps meet the quota is good enough.

The second thing that I would recommend is that vouchers be instituted universally. The Chicken Little refrain from the left is that public schools would immediately have to close their doors as all the parents pulled their kids out for greener pastures. This reaction tends to give the impression that Democrats are unconcerned with students as opposed to maintaining the status quo for the teacher unions. If one of your fears is that everyone will abandon public schools, don't you think that might indicate a severe problem with the public schools and the teacher unions? The simple matter is that logistically everyone wouldn't be able to leave the schools immediately. There are simply not enough private school slots available. Private schools have to be accredited every year, like public schools, by a regional accreditation board. It would take several years for the private schools to expand and by that time the public schools should have been able to recruit more high-quality teachers due to the increased spending on teacher pay. An added benefit in private sector schooling is that public schools would be less crowded. The kids in the portable classrooms would be very happy about that.

The complaint about universal vouchers being spent in religious schools is a shibboleth. It is simply leftist code for maintaining government control over what beliefs children are taught. The non-religious school is in fact an artifact of the latter half of the 20th century. If a religious school is accredited and meets its standardized test scores, why should we care if there is a Bible, Torah, Koran, Tao or Wiccan study class? There should be no offended parents since they chose and placed their children in that environment. Atheistic or Agnostic parents can send their children to schools that teach evolution and not have to worry about creationists trying to have the curriculum changed. Parents could send their students to schools designed around a specific curriculum. You could have science, art or literature oriented schools similar to the charter schools in the public field.

Unfortunately there is no such thing as a free lunch. Raising teacher pay would cost money. Then again, private sector is always more efficient than the government. I have seen studies that show vouchers actually would save the government money on a per student basis versus public schools since the more efficient private sector would be responsible for upkeep and facility maintenance as well as teacher pay. I'm not sure I believe the studies entirely though. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a wash as far as finances are concerned. We would need to spend more on education, but the cost could be easily covered if Congress were to exercise some fiscal discipline and not spend money on things like the Strategic Mohair Reserve and Robert Byrd would stop naming things after himself in West Virginia.





9:00 PM -
...

My mother was a teacher. I once considered becoming a history teacher. I was in fact a history major for a period of time in college. I'm kind of glad that I didn't when I read things like THIS article in the Guardian.

It appears that the English history books are being modified to teach students history in a way that is more conducive and positive about European unity and the EU.

Here are some quotes from the 1994 edition of the school history book From Cavemen to Vikings.

'Danes [who] besides being farmers, were much better at trading than Saxons. The Danes and Saxons settled down together and Saxon England became one rich and peaceful kingdom.'

I'm sure this would surprise the Saxons. It must have been a mistake when King Harold killed Harald Hadrada in 1066 at Stamford Bridge. Surely the pagan Vikings weren't moving through Christian England pillaging, burning and looting. The Vikings were "traders".

Here, I'll trade you a swift jab with this swordpoint for your nubile young daughter and your cattle. Do you mind if I dash your infant's brains out on the rocks, rape your wife and burn your hovel? No? Ok. Thanks for shopping with us, come back and see us soon!

I wonder what the book says about William the Conqueror? Does it refer to him as William The Bastard or William The Non-Traditionally Parented.

The Guardian article also says that, "Napoleon is depicted less as an invader and more as a reformer whose code of measurement was introduced throughout Europe." This was a man who sacrificed nearly an entire generation of men in foolish wars. Hundreds of thousands of men froze to death on the Russian battlefields because of Napoleon. Calling Napoleon a modernizer is sick. He was the closest thing the 19th century had to a Hitler.

There is something seriously wrong in the educational system today.

Link via Instapundit BTW



10:31 PM -
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Which OS are you??



Which OS are You?


I'm ashamed to say that I own copies of OS/2 2.1 and 3.0 that I paid actual money for....

Link via Lilli Marleen. She's a lefty German blogger so beware.




4:03 PM -
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Its kind of funny, something you might expect to hear from the Iraqi information minister, instead you hear it from peace protestors and Democratic presidential candidates. What is the statement?

Iraq harbors no terrorists. Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11. We should leave Iraq alone.

Then Abu Nidal commits suicide in Baghdad mysteriously in August of last year. Presumably somebody found out he was there and Saddam cut him loose to save face. Iraq then claims it has no ties to terrorists, Al Qaeda or otherwise.

Later we hear about Ansar al Islam in Kurdistan. Linked to Al Qaeda, protected from the Kurds by Iran and/or Iraq. They recently killed an Australian journalist with a car bomb.

Finally we have the capture of Abu Abbas in Iraq. His Palestinian Liberation Front was affiliated with Yasser Arafat's PLO. The PLF hijacked the Italian cruise ship the Achille Lauro in 1985. While on board they shot, in cold blood, 69 year old wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer. They did so in front of his terminally ill wife on their 36th wedding anniversary. They then pushed Mr. Klinghoffer and his wheelchair over the side. Klinghoffer's crime? He was a Jew. Mrs. Klinghoffer dies 4 months later. Nope no terrorists in Iraq.

I think if we look in Iraq we may also find Youssef al Molqi, Bassam al-Asker and Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi the hijackers who have either escaped jail in Italy or skipped out on probation. When we find them I want to lock them away for the rest of their lives in a stinking hole. The triggerman needs to face the chair or maybe we should make him walk the plank for piracy on the high seas. I wonder if keel-hauling is still on the books as a legal punishment for pirates?



7:58 PM -
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As I was surfing along I found many interesting links that pointed to a story by Mark Steyn at Canada.com. Unfortunately there are too many to link, but most of them pointed to Winds of Change. Steyn suggests some reasons that Canadian PM Chretien has been unwilling thus far to assist the rest of the Anglosphere in removing the Baathists from power in Iraq and has decided to throw Canada's hat in the ring with the likes of M. Chirac and Herr Schroeder.

Apparently PM Chr?tien has a daughter named France Chr?tien. It just so happens that Ms. Chr?tien is married to a Mr. Andre Desmarais. Mr. Desmarais is a chief co-executive of Montreal's Power Corp. Andre's daddy is "Montreal's Paul Desmarais", who is "Total's biggest shareholder". Total refers to TotalFinaELF, which is a large French petroleum conglomerate. Total had agreements with the Baathists in Iraq to develop certain petroleum fields when sanctions were lifted. "Mr. (Andre) Desmarais' brother, Paul Desmarais Jr., sits on the Total board."

So lets iron this all out shall we? The Canadian prime minister, Jean Chr?tien, has a daughter who is married to the son of a man who owns a large Montreal utilities company. This company is the largest shareholder in a French company that stands to gain billions if not trillions should Saddam Hussein remain in power. This man has put both of his sons, Paul Jr. and Andre, in controlling positions in that company. Coincidentally, (of course) the Prime Minister of Canada makes a decision that could benefit his daughter and grandchildren financially.

Now the next time that I hear a leftist say, "Its all about the Oiiiiiiill." Or blather on about the Bush family and their labyrinthine connections to oil companies, I'm just going to nod and smile mysteriously.

UPDATE: On Mrs. Du Toit there are links to the Desmarais' Belgian connection to TotalFinaElf and a Belgian chemical company named Imerys.






9:52 PM -
...

Click on the ugly fat man with the shotgun on the right top of the page that comes up after you click on this link.

I've been reading about "Buy a gun for Michael Moore" day over at Kim Du Toit's page for a while now but I finally broke down and linked to Aaron over at Rantblogger who came up with the idea. It is based loosely on Meryl Yourish's Eat an Animal for PETA Day that was inspired by PETA's offensive ads comparing the Jewish holocaust to factory farming. I remembered to do this today after putting it off for a while because as I was totally shocked, as driving home, listening to the radio an ad came on for an evil loophole ? Gun Show at the Indian River county fairgrounds this Saturday and Sunday. This is from a station that plays music from the 80's and 90's. Fluffy pop stuff mostly, soccer mom music, not a flag-waving country station or a hard rock station. But I'm rambling again. Its for a good cause, so I suspect I will purchase another weapon for the arsenal. I hope its a big show. I'm looking for some cheap M-14 mags.



10:26 PM -
...

It appears that paparazzi pugilist and peace protester Penn is packing. (Damn, I love alliteration!) According to Drudge, (his link is now broken, here's another.) Sean Penn had his 1987 Buick Grand National and two firearms stolen in broad daylight from in front of a San Francisco Citibank. The two weapons were a loaded Glock 9mm semi-auto and an unloaded S&W .38 Special revolver. The revolver was locked in the trunk and the Glock was apparently in the passenger compartment of the vehicle. Penn and his assistant were eating lunch in a nearby restaurant when the theft occurred.

I thought the purpose of having a concealed carry permit was so that you could, umm, carry a firearm on your person for self defense. It damn sure doesn't do you any good locked in your car if some whackadoo comes looking for you in the restaurant.

I also find it very ironic that most leftists and gun control advocates actually carry guns for protection from the great unwashed masses who are their fans. Penn and Dianne Feinstein are the only two people I know who have concealed weapon permits in San Francisco. Odd, isn't it, that the rich, (Feinstein) and the famous (Penn) have no problem getting permits but a poor, single, working mother in San Francisco would have a better chance of finding a nice straight guy to date in the Castro than she would at getting a firearms permit for self-protection. Then again there are no poor people left in San Francisco. The high housing costs have run them all out and their apartments are being renovated by upwardly-mobile liberal yuppie scum, but I digress.

Stephen Spielberg is rumored to have the largest legal collection of fully automatic weapons in the United States. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you have friends in high places or know which strings to pull. The fact that Sean Penn has a concealed permit is just another point in the argument that gun control laws are undemocratic on their face and are never applied equally. From the English weapons laws of the middle ages preventing serfs from owning swords, bows and muskets to modern "Saturday Night Special" laws in the US that are aimed at preventing lower socioeconomic class people from having the ability to defend themselves. Gun control laws have always been aimed at controlling the masses and preventing them from posing a danger to the government. Those who are in positions of authority in the system however, lords, knights, kings, actors and senators, are of course exempt from suspicion and therefore permitted to do as they will. Gun control laws are not about crime. Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law.

I'm ranting. My point is this. Sean Penn has been arrested on assault charges many times. If this was a hard-working 35 year old black man named Calvin Jefferson, who drove the same 16 year old Buick but was an assistant manager at McDonald's, even with a clean record he would have no chance to get a concealed weapons permit in San Francisco. Thank God for Florida and its "Shall issue" permit laws



9:38 PM -
...

I love Florida. Nowhere else do you have to wear your sunglasses to shield against the sun's glare while driving in a full blown April thunderstorm with raindrops the size of small birds. Bear in mind that this is happening while you dodge shriveled, wizened and apparently blind Canadian snowbirds driving otherwise identical tan and white 2003 Ford Crown Victorias side by side on the Interstate at 20 miles below the posted limit. One has Ontario plates the other has Nova Scotia tags. The left blinker is flashing on the car in the left lane and the right blinker on the right hand vehicle. The rain stopped ten minutes ago and there has been none on this section of highway yet. There is no reason to be going this slow. One vehicle finally overtakes the other and you pass them. A mile or so in front of the drag-racing oldsters is a balding fellow in a brand new 40 foot Winnebago with Quebec plates towing a late 1980's Dodge quad cab with dual rear wheels. He is having trouble maintaining a lane. The reason for this becomes apparent as you pass him and notice he is eating a sandwich while gesticulating wildly at a harried looking woman in the passenger seat with the other hand. She is cringing visibly even at a distance. Whether she is cringing due to his driving, his screaming or the fact that he doesn't appear to be steering the vehicle is unclear. A bit further up is a late 1970's rusty primer grey Chevy Suburban that is packed Joad-like with all of the owner's worldly posessions. Mexican migrant workers. At least they can maintain a lane. The truck doesn't look like it will make it too much farther though. Passing them and pulling back into the right lane you look in the rearview mirror and notice a fast moving vehicle approaching. Its a late model Honda, probably a '99 or '00 model. The exhaust is obnoxiously loud and the tires are the low profile type that kids like these days. As it approaches you can hear the thud of the stereo, even at 75 miles an hour. Curious, as it passes, you attempt to get a look at the driver through the illegally tinted windows. Young black male? No. Young white male? No. Young black female. Yes. As it is doing well over 90, you only have time to register the face briefly before the vehicle is past you and around the corner. The radar detector goes off and you tap the brake to disengage the cruise control, you bring yourself down to a legal speed of 70. The trooper has apparently let the Honda pass. Perhaps he is afraid of being labelled a racial profiler. The radar detector shrieks as you come within acquisition range of the radar gun. As you pass the trooper's Camaro interceptor, well-hidden in its sylvan speed trap, he doesn't even look up from whatever it is that he is reading. Relieved, you wait until you are a mile past the speed trap and set the cruise back at 75 miles an hour. In the distance you see two tractor trailers. One is an open top box trailer, loaded with oranges from the local grove and pulled by an ancient Freightliner that you think you recognize from Cannonball Run. It is attempting to heave its mammoth bulk up to speed to merge onto the highway. The other rig is a shiny new Kenwood, with lights everywhere, pulling a tandem trailer bearing the enormous logo of a company that you don't recognize. The Kenwood driver has written "show your tits" in the travel grime on the back of the trailer doors. You are tempted to lift your shirt as you pass, and show him hairy man-boobs to teach him to be more precise in his requests. You decide not to. The old truck is just completing its merge after pulling on from the on-ramp and is belching puffs of black smoke as the driver runs through the gears getting the arthritic rig up to speed. After a mile of highway he's up to 35 now. This is too slow for the Kenwood who is going about 60. He flicks his signal on and moves ponderously into the left lane. Unfortunately you are now trapped behind him and must slow to his speed. Doubly unfortunate is the fact that the orange grove truck has finally made it up to about 55. Infuriatingly, this matches the speed that the Kenwood slowed to to avoid hitting him. Neither driver appears concerned with the fact that they are slowing traffic. The Kenwood gains extremely slowly on the orange hauler. After several miles the Kenwood overtakes the orange truck. The orange truck then flashes its lights notifying the Kenwood that he is past its nose and is safe to pull into the right lane. As the Kenwood makes way, you put your foot to the floor and kick your pickup up to 80 to pass them. Approaching your off-ramp the radar detector goes off again. Slowing back to 70 you see a Ford Police Interceptor of the Highway patrol and a county Sheriff's Chevy Tahoe with K-9 painted on the side. They've pulled over the Honda. A slightly overweight female officer with a somewhat butch haircut is running her German shepherd in and out of the Honda. The driver of the Honda is standing in front of the Tahoe. She is talking to the State Trooper. She looks upset. The trooper is a young black man with a serious expression on his face. His Smokey the Bear hat is perched on his shaven head and tilted forward. You consider that some officers don't have to worry about being called racial profilers. The German Shepherd starts pawing at the front seat of the Honda. You see no more as you pass the scene and then exit the off ramp. At the base of the off ramp there is a homeless person on the side of the road panhandling at the light. You reflexively lock the door as you come to a stop at the red light. You've seen the sign before. It was being used last week by a different panhandler. The bright red marker used to draw it gives it away. The new drifter must have found it in the homeless camp in the woods just off of the highway. Briefly the thought occurs to offer to buy the man some food, deciding against it as you notice that he is well-fed, groomed and slightly overweight. The fact that the man is probably only 35 also gives lie to the sign's proclamation that he is a Vietnam vet. He also has a small brown paper bag next to him with an amber glass top protruding. The light turns green and you head home. Its been a long day.



8:25 PM -
...

United States Of America -
The most well-renowned country in modern day times.
The militaristic superpower, the United States of America are also known as the bossiest nation.


Positives:

Known Worldwide.

A Beacon to Others.

Powerful.

Fast Food.



Negatives:

Bossy.

Despised by Most Others.

Elitist.



Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


I took this quiz just for giggles. I actually came up as German, but I went back and modified my answers to account for the bias in the quiz just to see what it said about the US.

This quiz was probably written by a European. What gives it away? Well, one phrase is "the United States of America are" (emphasis mine) Americans haven't used the plural form "are" to refer to the country since 1865. After the Civil War the usage became "the United States IS" signifying a unified single nation rather than a federal coalition of many small states.

The second tip-off is "militaristic" Clearly the quiz writer is unaware that the US military is an all-volunteer force. There is no conscription or draft like there is in some European countries. The US has a small Army per capita in comparison to true militaristic powers like China, N. Korea and India. The perception that the US is militaristic is probably driven by the comparison to the hyper-small size of European armies that have atrophied because of their ability to hide under the US umbrella.

The third marker is the "elitist" Americans are unbelievably egalitarian. Most Americans feel that they are quite as good as any other American. Socioeconomic status is of no matter. It is the whole concept of the American dream. My brother is married to the daughter of a millionaire. Her father is the grandson of an immigrant. Americans certainly don't use accents,(with the possible exception of the south) to determine social status.

The fourth I would say is the "bossy" (Yes, I know its out of sequence) Americans like to believe we are the sweet voice of reason, whether or not that is in fact the case. From a European point of view we may seem bossy. Of course, from an American point of view, the Europeans seem a bit like petulant spoiled children.





9:27 PM -
...

In Flanders Field

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

World War I was the most unnecessary war fought in the 20th Century. It claimed the lives of millions of men, literally destroying the best and brightest of the generation. I find it saddening that men like Col. McCrae and My Uncle shed their blood defending a nation where things like THIS are becoming all too common. This is in addition to a poll in LeMonde that shows 33% of the French would prefer a victory by Saddam Hussein over the US and UK. What kind of twisted morality desecrates the graves of men who fought to protect you nearly one hundred years gone and hopes for victory by a man who has murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people?

Some links via Misha





6:11 PM -
...

Over at Samizdata there is a wonderful line about what the reporters would have been saying if CNN et al had been around in France in 1940,

"Ten days onto the offensive, it is clear that the Wehrmacht is exactly where the French want them, as evidenced by their pause to refuel their tanks and rearm with more ammunition."

This is also clearly the case in the situation with media coverage of Iraq. We control 2/3 of Iraq. We have done this in 12 days, but the word from the media is that we are "bogged down" and in a "quagmire"

For chrissakes people you are worse than my 7 year old nephew with the never-ending "are we there yets?" The only thing missing is someone kicking the back of my seat. This is a war. We are kicking serious ass. The US and the UK have 8,000 Iraqi POW's The good guys have lost around 50 of our troops killed and captured.

This is going to take a bit longer but the outcome is certain. Sit back, pour yourself a drink. Have one in memory of the brave men and women we have lost. Tie a yellow ribbon on a tree. Fly your flag. Pray for the troops. Just don't start getting antsy because the media is hyping you for ratings.



8:27 PM -
...

And yet another entry for the moral bankruptcy/equivalence column. Amnesty International has warned that war in Iraq is giving cover to other countries to trample human rights. That statement by itself may not seem so bad, I mean I can imagine Syria or the Palestinians or maybe even North Korea and Cuba taking the opportunity to take care of some dirty business and kill dissidents while the world is distracted.

The problem is, that it is none of the usual suspects that AI is complaining about. The list includes Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Norway, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Turkey, the United States and Yemen.

Normally I'd bite on Yemen, Turkey, Sudan, Jordan, Greece, and Egypt. But Belgium? According to AI Belgium has "placed more than 450 anti-war demonstrators under preventive arrest" How horrible, The Belgians arrest some hard core anarchists who destroy property for fun and they are now in the same list as Sudan.

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Britain and the United States have committed the cardinal sin of freezing decisions on Iraqi asylum claims. Funny, I wasn't aware of an unalienable right to emigrate. I mean doesn't it seem like a good idea, when you are at war with a country, to prevent its citizens from entering your shores? Don't you think there might be the slightest chance that they might try to slip in some combatants in those huddled masses?

The report is notable only in its omissions. Iraq is omitted. Syria is omitted. North Korea is omitted. China is omitted. Cuba is omitted and the Palestinian authority is omitted. I wonder why AI thinks it is acceptable to lambaste the western world and omit Iraq, Syria, N. Korea, China, Cuba and the Palestinians?

The Palestinians are using the opportunity to organize more homicide bombings on Israeli busses. Cuba is locking up more dissidents. China is still being China. North Korea is taking triplets from their parents and sometimes killing them because of some wacky belief of Kim Jong Il about being overthrown by a triplet. Not to mention that millions of N. Koreans have starved to death in the last ten years trying to meet the ideal Juche form of government that Kim aspires to. Syria is still occupying Lebanon. Iraq is murdering its own civilians when they disagree or don't support the government.

Simple answer,you never hear about them because AI has never been about human rights. Sure they mention them in reports occasionally, but the big guns are reserved for the western governments. AI is a leftist front organization. AI is more concerned with doing PR damage to western governments than it is with human rights. AI would rather lambaste the US for locking up a cop-killer like Mumia than make a stink about the millions of Christians and animists killed by Muslims in Africa and around the world.





8:00 PM -
...

I was cleaning my desktop off today and found this picture. It is nearly a year now since it was taken.

I must have saved it meaning to blog about it and forgot to do so. The Cardinal is Roger Etchegaray (of France, natch). The guy with the bad complexion is of course Yasser Arafat. This was taken after Israel backed off its siege of Arafat's compound. The untitled subtext of this picture is that the Roman Catholic church supports Yasser Arafat in his struggle with Israel. Thus the triumphal raised arms clasped in victory.

If your first response to that is to say, "So what?" I suggest you leave this page now. I'm gonna piss you off.

This picture was taken after Palestinians holed up in one of Christianity's holiest shrines, The Church of the Nativity. Cardinal Etchegaray presumably had full knowledge of the depredations inside the church. Here is a list from the Washington Times:.

"They (the Palestinian gunmen)also guzzled beer, wine and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests' quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol."

and they

""ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry."

also

"Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. "Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold,""

Of course all that Johnny Walker had to go somewhere so the Palestinians urinated and defecated in the sanctuary.

One of the reasons that the Roman Catholic hierarchy may have reserved their anger for the Israelis is the behavior of the Franciscan monks at the church toward their Orthodox Co-religionists. (from the Washington Times article also)

""All the media concentrated on the Franciscan [Catholic] quarter, where little damage was done," the archbishop (Ironius) said. "Why? The Franciscans actually let the gunmen in, then guided the gunmen to our rooms."
Archbishop Ironius showed onlookers where the militants had broken in to the monks' quarters by smashing locked doors while, he said, the monks were praying downstairs.
"The Franciscans then blocked their own rooms' doors with iron bars," Archbishop Ironius said."

and

"While in the church, the top Palestinian gunmen slept on comfortable beds in the elegant apartment of (Orthodox) Father Parathaious, while others rested on mattresses there and elsewhere under high-quality woolen blankets."

The upshot is that the chapel where the Orthodox perform services was defiled and the Orthodox were required to reconsecrate it. Orthodox worshippers were not able to worship at the chapel for the Orthodox Easter on May 5. The Roman quarter, barred by iron bars and saved by the treachery of the Franciscans leading the gunmen to the Orthodox was declared undefiled by the Vatican.

(sarcasm)The Vatican was under no illusion about who was responsible. (/sarcasm)

In a statement the Vatican, "sharply criticised Israel for imposing "unjust conditions and humiliations" on the Palestinians."

and

"Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the head of the Roman Catholic church in the region, said the gunmen had been given sanctuary.

"The basilica is a place of refuge for everybody, even fighters, as long as they lay down their arms," he said. "We have an obligation to give refuge to Palestinians and Israelis alike.""

OK, so here is a synopsis. Palestinian gunmen kill Israelis. Gunmen flee to Christian church where they either force their way or are let in fully armed despite the fact that ancient law of sanctuary applies only to unarmed persons. The gunmen then ransack the church and despoil it of artifacts and supplies. The gunmen desecrate the altars of the church. The gunmen fire on the Israelis from the church and some Israelis fire back damaging some statues and mosaics. The Israelis guarantee to the Vatican that they will not storm the church and that the clergymen are free to come and go as they wish since it is their house. The Palestinians prevent the clergy from leaving. The Vatican concludes that the whole mess is the Israelis fault because they want to catch those poor Palestinian gunmen and try them for murder.

This is the kind of moral equivalence that the Vatican spouts off that drives me absolutely wild.

I'm going to throw out my trademark "I'm not an Anti-Catholic" line now.

I am married to a Catholic. I go with her to mass every Saturday despite our differences.

That being said, I believe that the Roman Catholic church has a deep flaw that it needs to excise. I believe a strong layer of anti-semitism and philo-islamism run through the church. The Roman Catholic church still seems to believe and act as though Jews are guilty of deicide.






1:17 PM -
...

I've blogged about Former UN inspector Scott Ritter before. I guess that since he has no credibility left after being caught trying to pick up an underage girl on the internet he figures he has nothing to lose. Some of his recent statements via The Free Republic

"The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we can not win,"

and

"We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable,"

also

"Every time we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for ten years in Vietnam but we will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost,"

The odd thing about this is that Ritter used to be a USMC Major.

Contrast those statements with some of his statements from his 1998 Senate testimony.

"Iraq today is not disarmed, and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace. Those Americans who think that this is important and that something should be done about it have to be deeply disappointed in our leadership."

and this nugget in response to a question from Senator Carl Levin (D) Mich.,

SEN. LEVIN: "Yeah, but would you agree that it's important that if there's a threat of force, that that force be implemented and not just made and then ignored? If you're going to make a threat of force to enforce a policy, you darn well better carry out that threat if you are thwarted. Would you agree with that?"

MR. RITTER: "Yes, sir. This is part of the cycle of confrontation and concession that I have been talking about, and we can't give concessions. If we have confrontation, it must have a resolution."



Clearly something has happened with Mr. Ritter between 1998 and 2003. Many people point to an incident involving an Iraqi front man who paid $400,000 towards a documentary that Ritter was creating. Also there is the incident with the underage girl on the internet. I'm not saying that Ritter has been paid off or is being blackmailed. All that I am saying is something my grandpa used to say, "If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck its probably a duck."



7:29 PM -
...

One of the more odd things about my honeymoon was that there was a fair amount of praying going on. I checked my cellphone a day or two after we got in and there was a message from my mother telling me that a unit from Ft. Bliss had been captured and some of the troops had been executed at point blank range with a single shot to the center of the head.

My Brother-in-law, had been unable to attend my wedding due to the fact that he is deployed in the middle-east. I'm not going to mention his current location because I am AM going to mention his unit. He is a US Army SSGT in the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade out of Fort Bliss, TX. He is a support troop, I forget his specific MOS but basically he is a network support guy. The early reports weren't real specific about who the unit was and my sister had to board her plane out of Orlando not knowing. She had to maintain a brave face in front of my nieces and nephew as they flew back from my wedding. Fortunately, thank God, it wasn't his unit or him. Unfortunately, for the families of those that were captured, the reports were true.

I've driven all around Ft. Bliss when I have visited my sister and brother-in-law. It is kind of an odd feeling knowing that I undoubtedly have driven past that unit's building and may have walked past those captured troops in the PX or filled up next to them at the Shoppette. I'm still praying for them and for the soldiers from the UK and Australia.

My heart also goes out to the Iraqi people. War is evil, but sometimes a necessary evil. That knowledge doesn't make it any easier to see the young Iraqis who have been injured either by misguided US ordnance or Iraqi antiaircraft shells and missiles falling back to ground. I hope this is over quickly and as bloodlessly as possible.



9:13 PM -
...

My lovely new bride and I have returned from our mini-moon in St. Augustine. I'll be posting a few wedding pictures as soon as I get them back from the photographer. If anyone is considering taking a trip to North Florida I would highly recommend St. Augustine. There are quite literally hundreds of quaint little bed and breakfasts in the old town and they are all quite affordable.

My wife (There is a phrase I'm still not used to saying!) and I stayed in the Castle Garden B&B. The B&B used to be the carriage house for the mansion that is now Ripley's Believe it or Not. Only in America can you pay $179 a night to stay in what is essentially a converted garage! I'm kidding though, the house was very charming and well maintained. I believe it must have been converted in the 1930's. Again, if you are in St. Augustine, the Castle Garden B&B is a very reasonable price and is actually only a few hundred yards from the Castillo de San Marcos. It is about 500 yards outside the old city gates and is very quiet and tucked away from the clatter and bustle of St. George's St. pedestrian mall.

I'm not going to do a full travelogue of our trip since we actually saw less of the city than one might expect for a 5 day trip. It was our honeymoon after all. We took one of the many haunted St. Augustine tours and had a very animated and articulate guide. We also had a lovely carriage ride around town. We attended Mass in the beautiful 19th century basilica of St. Augustine which is in turn built on the earlier remains of churches dating back to the 1580's. There is also a shrine called the Nombre de Dios just down the road from the B&B at the site of the first Christian service in North America. The mass was said there by a Spanish priest in 1565. The spot is marked by a 208 foot tall aluminum cross. Very big.

The Florida National Guard has facilities there, just off of the waterfront in what used to be Spanish and English barracks in the 18th and 19th century. The facilities were guarded by troops in woodland camouflage and flak jackets with loaded M16A2 rifles. It was a bit odd to be riding in a 19th century buggy down cobblestone streets and turn the corner onto 4 or 5 modern soldiers and a Humvee. I would have been only slightly less surprised to see a conquistadore with a pike and a horse. According to our buggy driver the troops have been there since 9/11. I guess it just brings home the fact that we are in a war and have been so for coming up on 2 years. My wife and I both waved to the troops and gave them a thumbs up.

All in all we had a very enjoyable trip. I am quite sad to have to return to work.




10:11 PM -
...

It seems that the country band The Dixie Chicks are ashamed of Bush. The band's zaftig lead singer Natalie Maines said, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" at a concert in England. I was gonna rant about this one, but Bill Hobbs has a much better rant than I would be capable of. However, in the distantly remote chance that Ms. Maines is reading my page instead of one of the many thousands ranting about this, I want to tell her something. You are entitled to your opinion but I want you to remember this, Country fans are generally rabidly patriotic. We keep Lee Greenwood around for the sole purpose of singing God Bless the USA despite the fact that he has had no other song in 15 years. I am also entitled to exercise my opinion and to buy a Hank Williams Sr., Patsy Cline or Alabama CD instead of your latest.


UPDATE Apparently the reaction in the flyover states to Natalie Maines comments is quite large. There is virtually a nationwide boycott of the Dixie Chicks ongoing.



11:25 PM -
...

Posting has been light this week and will continue to be so until next Monday at the earliest. This is due to my marriage which occurs on March 19th at Holy Family Catholic Church in Orlando. We are having the ceremony in Orlando rather than Vero Beach due to Trista's numerous relations flying in from the Philipines and New York and mine flying in from Texas. There is no airport to speak of in Vero and the hotel situation is rather bleak. Vero is just about midway between Miami and Orlando, so it was decided that Orlando would be a better choice. One would assume with all the snowbirds here that the travel situation would be better, but it is not.

The wedding will be officiated by Fr. Felicito Baybay. In keeping with My fiancee Trista's Filipina heritage the ceremony will include the Filipino customs of the arrhae and a cord and veil ceremony.
I'm just the slightest bit nervous as I have expected a traditional Protestant ceremony in the event of my marriage. The paperwork required for a Protestant to marry a Catholic in the church is a bit daunting and the requirements are heavily slanted toward an attempted conversion. Not that I am complaining, but I mean after all, as Christians, we agree on the basics don't we? I hope I don't forget my lines...



8:37 PM -
...

Woo Hoo! I pissed someone off! An Englishman who also has a page here at Blogstudio. I replied politely a couple of times to his comments that the BBC is Bias-free. This apparently angered him. He had a post all about me! Well, it was about me and how to impart a spin to bowling balls. I wonder if he knows that the concept of getting a ball to spin is called english in pool. Wonderfully ironic that.

Anyway in the post he calls me a, "Republican, Texan bigot, masquerading as an intellectual" and a "polite, though deluded gentleman" In my own defense I must point out a few things. First of all, while I was born in Texas, I have resided in Florida since 1982. My family still lives in Texas, but my only true allegiance to the state are the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Astros. I guess the Texas thing fit his mental image of those damn cowboy Americans. Secondly, I am most definitely not a bigot. My fiancee is of Asian extraction and I have many friends whose skin color differs from mine. One of the references I gave him about the BBC and its bias was Andrew Sullivan the openly gay, HIV+ columnist. I will cop to the "polite though deluded". However, I will say that the only delusion I cling to is that of my own grandeur.

I'm not going to call him names back, but I will quote a few nuggets from his site for the general enjoyment of all. He describes himself as a, "sensitive male, more made of willow than oak". Can't you just imagine him eating quiche and sipping white wine while watching Oprah? He is a teacher and his "main subject is teaching French, mirroring my love affair with the country, its people and culture and language." I wonder if he has visited the beautiful French countryside of the Vosges where my uncle is buried? I have. He was quite miffed about my earlier tongue-in-cheek link to the T-shirt company that sells "Bomb France" shirts. I was going to explain the concept of hyperbole to him, but I told him to look it up instead. Then there is this one, "Heart and soul wise I am a writer and a musician/ singer with a strong sense of wanting to communicate and spread a little sunshine." Someone has a serious John Lennon complex. I wonder if he has found his very own Yoko?

He has a wonderful collage picture of himself up done up by someone else. For a mental image imagine Rowan Atkinson in Mr. Bean with Jay Leno's chin playing a guitar all while you are dropping acid.

Elliot if you are reading this and are still looking for someone to write nasty comments for your site I think this may be your guy. I'm not sure he would understand you, but all you have to do is challenge his basic worldview and out come the slurs.


UPDATE

Mr. Coxon has changed his original post, now I am a "self-confessed Texan Bigot" He also hasn't replied to my follow up post.



8:04 PM -
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Reason number 3,115 to hate the French. Apparently the French have been selling Irag embargoed spare parts for their Mirage F.1 fighters. Iraq has (or had) about 110 Mirage fighters, second only to France's 250.

Apparently these are very popular aircraft in the Muslim world:

Jordan (36)
Kuwait (33)
Libya (38)
Morocco (50)
Qatar (15)

Iraq, of course, lost a number of these during the Gulf war and in Desert Fox in 1998 if I remember correctly. Some of the pilots flew them to Iran rather than face the USAF, RAF and USN pilots waiting for them.

The good news it that the Mirage, introduced in 1966, is no match for the F-15, the F-16 or the UK's Tornadoes.
However, if any US or UK servicemen die because of operational Iraqi Mirage fighters I suggest that we bomb France.



1:12 AM -
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Who is your closest personality match?





Aragorn son of Arathorn II

Bearer of the Star of the North, Captain of the Host of the West, Chieftain of the D?nedain of Arnor, the D?nadan, Elessar of the line of Valandil, the Elfstone, Estel, Evinyatar the Renewer, Heir to the Throne of Gondor, King of the West, Longshanks, Strider, Telcontar, Thorongil, Wielder of the Sword Reforged, Wingfoot and probably also, scary guy sitting in the corner, dirty guy sitting in the corner, guy that smokes all the time, and guy with the broken sword.

definitely the dirtiest member of the fellowship, you are not content with a simple 'hi, how's it going?' whenever you meet someone. instead you find it absolutely essential to introduce yourself, or have someone else introduce you, using a minimum of three of your amazingly numerous names. this need for pronouncing your identity at every possible opportunity suggests a deep inferiority complex, probably stemming from the fact that no one actually told you your real name until you were twenty.

Heh, I get to do Arwen...





10:23 PM -
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In my self declared boycott of German beer I have decided to try some other brands from countries that are supporting the US.


Here is the latest: Staropramen.






Staropramen is a Czech beer. If it weren't a Czech beer I would call it a pilsener. However, Czech beer types are regional. Czech pilseners therefore only come from the town of Plzen. I'll settle for calling it a lager. It tastes a great deal like some of the local German beers that I had in Eastern Bavaria. The hops are noticeable but not overly so. There is a slight bite or hint of bitterness characteristic to these kinds of beer, again not bad or even really noticeable after the first two or three swallows. Overall I'd give it a B+. Its not the best beer I've tasted, but it rates right up there. It is as good or better than Warsteiner and somewhat less expensive. I think I'm gonna look for a Polish beer next...

Jpeg shamelessly stolen from Oxford bottled beer database.





9:49 PM -
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Here is another Reason to hate France.



Second from the left, with the large mustache, is Saddam Hussein. All the way to the right, wearing the stylish glasses, is Jacques Chiraq. Spelling intentional. This picture was taken in 1975 in the Osirak nuclear reactor. France entirely supplied and built this reactor for Iraq. Fortunately the Israeli Air Force took care of the problem in 1981. One of the brave fighter pilots was the Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon who died in the Columbia disaster. I should also point out that the Israelis were flying F-16 and F-15 fighters. Link via Little Green Footballs archive.





10:06 PM -
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I found another non-idiotarian Texas Blogger.



12:17 AM -
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I E-mailed Warsteiner beer the other day about my personal boycott of their product.

Here is my letter

I've just finished my last bottle of Warsteiner beer. I am very sad since it is fine beer and I like it. However, I can no longer support German companies when Germany no longer supports my country.

Here is their response.

Greg Hardman ghardman@warsteiner-usa.com

Dear Friend:

Thanks for your email. We have made a note regarding your comments. (and graciously sent you a form letter using a program incapable of discerning your first name from the message header) We would like to point out that Germany supports our country in so many ways (such as bravely standing behind us and cowering in fear of Soviet tanks and marching against Pershing missiles) including economically (heavy employer of US citizens, our organization included), militarily (they too have soldiers in Afghanistan) (and supplying Iraq with WMD supplies so we can have this wonderful war) and culturally. The great part of the free world is everyone is given a voice. By stifling those voices, (Who is being stifled by threatening a preemptive veto at the UN Security Council?) it only gives power to those who oppose freedom. (Like Jacques "keep quiet eastern Europe" Chirac?) Others may have differing views on a wide range of issues (But declaring an outright veto before hearing the evidence? Really now...) while still being a major supporter of us. (I'll believe it when Helmut Kohl is re-elected) We would ask that you take a longer view of the relationship (I've looked) and see that Germany has been and still is a major supporter of the US. Although we may not have changed your mind regarding German companies in regards to this issue, (You haven't) we hope you would reconsider based on my comments (Not bloody likely) and the facts. (Are you saying I have my facts wrong?)

Sincerely,

Greg Hardman
Warsteiner Importers Agency USA





11:33 PM -
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Are you good, evil or Neutral? Take the quiz. I am Neutral.


How evil are you?




11:16 PM -
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I just finished my last bottle of Warsteiner beer. I spent some time in Germany at the US base at Lanstuhl and I realized that even regular cheap German beer is superior to run-of-the-mill US beer. Unfortunately I can no longer in good conscience buy any German product. I'm pretty sure that this is the only German produced item that I purchase. I'm currently drinking Sam Adams, although I like a good Budweiser if it hasn't been on the shelf too long. I would boycott French items too, but I don't eat a lot of stinky cheese or overpriced mineral water and I know better than to buy any mechanism with French parts. I do still have my MAS 36 rifle. It is in good condition, never fired, dropped once. On the other hand I went out the other day and bought a marvelous utility toolbox made in Israel. I'm looking for things from Spain, the UK, and the Vilnius 10 nations to buy. Unfortunately I can't support our Aussie cousins by drinking the kangaroo piss they call Foster's beer.

I'm not the only one boycotting the French. According to ANANOVA a Danish pizzeria owner has gone one step further. He has banned not only German and French products but German and French people. According to Aage Bjerre, "Hadn't the United States helped Europe in defeating Germany, there would have been photos of Adolf Hitler hanging on the walls around here." and he added, "Frenchmen have a lifetime ban here. Their attitude toward the United States will never change." It warms the hackles of my evil little heart to read that not everyone in Europe is out of their friggin minds.






10:52 PM -
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I was just rolling through Little Green Footballs and saw the latest topic. Apparently some teachers in Maine are telling the children of deploying Maine National Guard troops that their mommies and daddies are evil for serving their country. The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and Joe Katzman at Winds Of Change are on the scent too. Here is the clip from the Maine news station that covered this. (Don't try it with a slow connection or machine)

What is the State of Maine doing? Well, here is a quote from the reporter, "Alan Grover, WABI-TV: "Maine education commissioner Duke Albany says he and the National Guard are discussing the allegations and he will issue an advisory to the state's educators if that's warranted. For now, though, Albany says that such allegations seem very out of character for Maine's dedicated teaching force and that no parents have made any such complaints to the education department." In other words, we are waiting for the NEA to tell us how to respond. We'll get back to you when they tell us what to say.

I am beyond pissed. The report says that it is mainly young children from 7 to 9 years old who are being told their parents are immoral for serving their country. My nieces and nephew are 1, 7, 9 and 10. Their daddies are an active-duty US army SSgt and a US Army reserve 2nd Lt. My little brother hasn't been activated yet. My brother-in-law is already overseas. He is living in a tent in the desert currently. When I think about my nieces Allison and Brenna and my nephew Ryan whose daddy is over there right now and I imagine someone telling them their that he is bad I begin to lose control of the fist of death. I begin to harbor thoughts of strangling patchouli stinking, birkenstock wearing Ani DiFranco listening lefty hippies. Fortunately, I don't have to worry since they are in a US military dependants school. Also my baby sister is much meaner than I ever could be.




7:07 PM -
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With Janene Garofalo, George Clooney, Sheryl Crow and other assorted asshats like the Sarandons (Mr. Susan and Mrs. Tim), Alec "The Bloviater" Baldwin and Babs Streisand on the pro-Saddam bandwagon it is nice to know there are some celebrities who are in favor of freeing the Iraqi people. The first is Kid Rock otherwise known as "The lucky bastard who is currently schtupping Pamela Anderson". In a New York Daily News interview the rocker says,

"Why is everybody trying to stop the war? George Bush ain't been saying, 'You all, make shitty records.' Politicians and music don't mix. It's like whisky and wine. [Musicians] ought to stay out of it."

His opinion on the fate of the dictators? "We got to kill that mother-fucker Saddam," he says. "Slit his throat. Kill him and the guy in North Korea."

He even has a logical view on collateral damage and civilian casualties.

""Are some women and children going to die? "Yeah. But is doing the right thing. You got money, you sit around talking about peace. People who don't have money need some help.""

The second much more urbane and well spoken celebrity is James Earl Jones. In a speech in North Carolina the actor said,

"We can no longer play games," "I was not against the war in Bosnia. I was against it taking so long. I was not against the war in Somalia. Again, it took too long, and we didn't finish the job. We should've stayed and finished the job. About this pending war, I just think we should've finished that war the first time."

Of course it makes a difference that Jones is a veteran and former Army Officer. I think it speaks well for North Carolina that he received applause and ovations after his statements.



10:52 PM -
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I've been thinking today about the incident in the 1960's when France pulled out of NATO and kicked the US forces out of France. Someone, I believe it was the US secretary of State, asked De Gaulle if he meant that we had to remove the Americans buried in France too.
My Great-uncle is buried in France at the Epinal American Cemetery He was a young man from a poor, devout, German Catholic family in Arkansas. He went and defended the French from those that he could have been his relatives. My great-grandfather, Jerome's brother, spoke German and French fluently thanks to strict Catholic Nuns at their school. I assume Jerome did as well. I wonder if he spoke to the surrendering German troops he encountered on his way? Did the French peasants express their gratitude? Did they say anything to him before he went into the Vosges where he gave his life for them? I think of Jerome whenever I start to wonder if we have paid our debt many times over to Marquis de Lafayette and should kick the French to the curb. Would it make his sacrifice a vain one? When the French act as they have been doing of late and I think of an uncle I never got to meet and his 5,000 odd brothers at arms buried in the green landscape at Epinal I find it difficult the understand why we continue.



10:57 PM -
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Comments back up
6:00 PM -
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Comments are taking a dump. I have contacted BackBlog about it but no reply yet. If you have to contact me you can mail me at redacted (at) Yahoo (dot) come.
2:38 PM -
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In a previous comment section the subject of moral atheism came up. We could argue about this for a long time. In my opinion an atheist who follows conventional morality is one who is adhering to the rules and tenets of a religion. Essentially they are functioning as an agnostic. There is an aphorism that states that no man is an island. Similarly, atheism doesn't exist in a vacuum either. A "moral" atheist's beliefs have been influenced by a society that is largely Judeo-Christian in outlook. What some consider moral atheism is simply choosing to follow the underlying tenets of a religion and dispense with belief in and worship of a supernatural deity. "Pure" atheism on the other hand would seem to preclude anything other than self-interest guiding the decisions of an atheist. This is particularly the case when that person is operating in a society that has strong rules and mores. The problem I have with atheism is that, barring some afterlife or rebirth/Karma cycle ala Hinduism, there is no reason to behave in a manner that is altruistic. I mean, if we are just walking meat puppets who are not inhabited by an immortal soul, why worry about behaving in a moral manner? Let's get our kicks in now and party like there is no tomorrow.
A case can be made that adhering to conventional morality enables the atheist to live in a coherent and organized society that is safer and more likely to meet their needs. The counter argument to this is that a "pure" atheist who is operating in such an environment would be less likely to need to behave as a moral atheist since it is unlikely that his deviation from conventional norms would affect larger society in a negative fashion. Further, a "pure" atheist who is in an anarchic society would also be precluded from acting altruistically due to the need for self-preservation.
One of the problems in todays society, in my opinion, is that many people are acting as functional "pure" atheists. The 1960's and 1970's gave us people who are more concerned with themselves. Gone is the concept of self-sacrifice. It has been replaced with doing what feels good at the moment. The funny thing is that most of these people do not identify as atheists. They identify with conventional morality or perhaps an eastern variant, yet they behave in a completely nihilistic fashion. These are of course the people I refer to as god damned hypocrites. They are the Jim Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggarts of the world.

Before I get any hate mail let me say this, I have many friends who are atheists who are fine and moral people. I have had this discussion with most of them over the years and have been unable to convince them. On the other hand they have been unable to change my mind either. On the whole I would rather be with an atheist in their sincere disbelief than a wishy washy Christian who acts like nothing matters. Or as Jesus said, "because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot; I will spit you out of my mouth." Revelations chapter 3 verse 14



10:51 PM -
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I found THIS AP story on Drudge. Normally I don't fisk biased AP articles since I do have a full-time job already, but hey what the heck I am bored.

The author, Jennifer Loven, asserts that, "With war, tragedy and terrorism confronting him(Bush)now, his allusions to spirituality and morality seem to be increasing." She goes on to cite the President's use of a quotation from the prophet Isaiah during the Columbia memorial, scriptural references in the State of The Union address and a recent speech.

There is nothing incorrect or even wrong to this point. Her next line is, "It is a welcome message for some, particularly the evangelical Christian conservatives whom Bush is courting as he seeks a second term. Some others are uncomfortable." She immediately, after mentioning nervous evangelicals, quotes a fellow by the name of "Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Louisiana pastor and executive director of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, an umbrella interfaith group." Rev. Gaddy says, "I think his rhetoric implies a lack of appreciation for the vast pluralism of religion in this nation,"

OK HERE IS WHERE THE PROBLEM BEGINS. The author mentions evangelical Christian conservatives and in the next breath quotes this Reverend Gaddy. She fails to differentiate Rev. Gaddy from conservative Evangelicals, suggesting that conservative evangelicals are upset by Bush's late turns of phrase. (Reverend Gaddy is, according to the organization's website, a Baptist minister. However, I doubt that he is a Southern Baptist.) If you are a standard liturgical Protestant or Catholic you may not know what the problem is. If you are a conservative Evangelical on the other hand you have likely heard of the "Interfaith Alliance" The author conflating Rev. Gaddy's opinion with those of the larger Evangelical community would be like me saying that B'nai B'rith is a Muslim front organization. Not only is it a lie, it is 180 degrees out of phase.

The Interfaith Alliance was founded for the sole purpose of preventing the religious right from having its voice heard. The left cooked up the organization so that they too would have a religious card to play. According to their own website they were "Founded in 1994 in opposition to the Religious Right"
The Interfaith Alliance is notorious among right-wing evangelicals for lambasting conservative Christian organizations. I'm not sure it isn't a coincidence, but the Interfaith Alliance just happens to have a statement/article on its website condemning the President's "consistent and reckless use of religious language". Not that I believe in the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy? or anything. I think this may just be an example of sloppy reporting from a woman who doesn't know an evangelical from a Lutheran and who thinks that anyone from Louisiana with Reverend in front of their name is a bible thumping Moral Majority member. If she would have actually looked at the website of his organization she would have seen that there are Jewish, Mormon, Hindu, Muslim and many other religions associated with the Interfaith Alliance. Using this organization as your quotation in an article from conservative Evangelicals beggars belief.

Now if I were really upset I would mention in detail that the article has no positive statement in reference to the President's religious bent of late. I would object less to this article if it had someone like Rev. Jim Bob Cadiddlehopper of Dime Box, Texas saying how glad he was that the president was speaking the word of the Lord. Having quotations from a Liberal religious organization and Americans United For Separation of Church and State does not a balanced article make.



12:01 AM -
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Here, by request, are my answers to the quiz. If you don't like them that is OK, just don't call me names. If you do call me names I will sic the spambots on you. I will note that I think this quiz is somewhat biased toward the Libertarian point of view in its question format and choice.

Personal Issues


Military service should be voluntary. (No draft) YES

Government should not control radio, TV, the press MAYBE
or the Internet.

Repeal regulations on sex for consenting adults. MAYBE

Drug laws do more harm than good. Repeal them. MAYBE

People should be free to come and go across borders; NO
to live and work where they choose.


Economic Issues


Businesses and farms should operate without govt. YES
subsidies.

People are better off with free trade than with tariffs. YES

Minimum wage laws cause unemployment. Repeal them. YES

End taxes. Pay for services with user fees. YES

All foreign aid should be privately funded. MAYBE







7:41 PM -
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Interested in finding out your political orientation? Look here. This test is a lot better than the overly simplistic right/left bar tests. Oddly enough I come down on the line between Libertarian and Right Conservative. I would have figured that I was more solidly right-wing.






11:58 PM -
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This story out of Canada a few days ago made me shake my head. Here is a quick summation. A mother in Canada has forced her daughter's school to remove the word "gun" from its list of spelling words. She apparently wants to insulate her daughter from violence. This is of course a pure example of Ass-hatted PC idiotarianism. Here are some quotes from the mother. "I realize people hunt in this area, but I still don't think that warrants the teaching of this word to my daughter or any other child," So apparently when the child hears shots being fired her mother is now going to be unable to explain what the loud bangs are coming from. Here is another: "The word gun is synonymous with death. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out why a seven-year-old would need to learn this word," Here's a reason. "Mommy and Daddy why is that mean man pointing that shiny cold blue thing at us?" "Daddy how come you didn't have your own cold shiny blue thing that spits fire to protect us when the mean man took your wallet and hurt mommy where she makes babies?" The last and most idiotic statement of all, "I don't think this is an issue of political correctness. It's an issue of protecting your child from violence. Guns are violent. End of story," Now I know how violent guns are. I mean just the other day I was walking past my gun cabinet and my Colt 1911A1 jumped out and started shooting itself at me. I had to club it to death with my M1 Garand. Get a grip woman. Guns aren't violent, people are violent. A gun is an inanimate hunk of steel and plastic. It just lays there until it is picked up. Hell, if I had that attitude I would be out trying to get all chain-saws banned because I saw a Friday the 13th movie. The local school board also gets a big raspberry for doing what the moron asked. Their statement, "We are quite happy that the whole matter has been resolved and the word will no longer be included in our curriculum." I think the whole root of the problem was summarized by a single line the reporter wrote. The Sousas relocated to tiny Lombardy, about an hour west of Ottawa near Smiths Falls, from Kingston, where Mr. Sousa still works, to be closer to family. Yes, this is a case of city people moving to the country to be safe and then trying to make the country exactly like the city they just left. Do everyone a favor. Go back to Ottawa. Link via Rachel Lucas and many others.




10:55 PM -
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Do you say that you disbelieved the President when he characterized the Axis of Evil? Then you should read this article about a North Korean who was caught working for Al Qaeda in Lebanon. I guess the idiotarians will say he is a peaceful North Korean tourist minding his own business. We all know how much the North Koreans LOVE to travel.{/sarcasm}



10:11 PM -
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If you want an idea of how post-war Iraq will be for the US troops you should look here. The quote I particulary love is from a doctor named Besnik Bardhi, "If there is a God, his missionaries on Earth are Americans,". Remember this article when some idiot starts blathering about the Muslim street. Link via Curiosity blog





3:05 PM -
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I got to experience the joys of interacting with the civil system today. No, I wasn't arrested nor did I have to pay a ticket. Today I got to go down to the Indian River County Courthouse and get my marriage license. Its been a while since I have had to go to a courthouse. I had jury duty when I was about 22 and a ticket when I was 18. Since then I have had no physical interaction with the civil or judicial system of the State of Florida. Incidentally I was the Jury Foreman on that long ago trial. I was voted in unanimously by the 11 other jurors, all of whom were 45+ year old housewives. Anyway, my lovely fiancee and I arrived at the courthouse and walked through the metal detector. I was promptly frisked. Apparently my belt buckle set the machine and the wand off also, but to be sure the officer patted me down anyway. I do feel sorry for my fiancee, as she also set the machine off. I'm reasonably sure the thin, hatchet-faced deputy that patted me down didn't find me attractive. The large female officer with the mullet haircut and rainbow tattoo on her arm who patted my fiancee down I'm not so sure about. After the local law enforcement were through groping us, and back to polishing their bullet, we walked to the information desk and were directed to the door marked "Civil Marriage and Passports". Once inside my fiancee and I showed the clerk our certificate that we had completed a pre-marriage counseling course. Under Florida Law doing so entitles you to a $30 reduction in fees associated with a license. The Clerk asked us if we had the $56 in cash required to pay for the fees. I had assumed that I would be able to use a 21st century method such as a credit card, but I had prepared and also brought my dusty checkbook which I rarely use. The clerk sadly informed us that we would have to pay in cash. We boogied our little behinds right on out of the courthouse and down the road to Wachovia, my bank. After withdrawing the requisite funds, we returned to the courthouse. On the way back in we discovered that our previous frisking was going to be insufficient so we received another one for good measure. Once we made our way back the marriages clerk, we discovered that the previous clerk had gone on lunch. We now had a new clerk. Our new clerk must have REALLY been new. As she signed us in we neglected to show her our certificate. She was entering the information into the computer when she asked us if we had the $86 in cash. I guess they must really drill the cash thing into these people. I said, "No, and it is $56 since we have this certificate." waving my certificate enthusiastically like a Frenchman does with a white flag. The clerk came over and looked at the certificate and said, "I don't recognize that name, the Die oh Keys (Diocese) of West Palm Beach. I'm gonna have to look it up in my list." My fiancee tries to explain to the woman that the Diocese is the governing body of all the Catholic churches in the area, but the lady just shakes her head and pulls out a dog-eared list of churches and pores over it until she finds St. Helen's. As she looks at it she realizes that it says that St. Helen's is part of and accredited by the Diocese of West Palm Beach. This apparently satisfies the bureacratic requirements in her mind and she changes the fees. After we pay our $56 at the cashier we get to go back and sign the forms in the clerk's office. The Clerk has neglected to include the Junior at the end of my name. I ask her to do so lest my mother shoot my father for bigamy when she reads the morning paper. She shreds the paper and she prints a new corrected one, we fill it out. After checking that it is correct and our names are spelled right, our birthplaces are properly listed as Killeen, Texas and Middletown, New York. We sign the paper. The clerk then begins photocopying at a tremendous rate. Dropping copies in 15 different folders, stapling and hole punching like a mad woman all the while mumbling things like, "Office of vital statistics, Jacksonville, The Post." After all the paper has settled, the clerk gives us the copy for the priest to fill out and an ornate marriage certificate that we can have a calligrapher do for us. Then she gives us the congratulations bag. I was excited by the congratulations bag, but alas my hopes were dashed. Instead of containing anything of value, the bag contained soap powder, sample Pepto Bismol tablets and Secret deodorant. Strong enough for a man but made for a woman. I mention to my fiancee that the clerk must have thought she had BO since she gave her deodorant. She smacks me with the bag, which hurts, since the deodorant is still in it. I then mention to the fiancee that I have discovered the purpose of the congrats bag. The soap powder is so she can learn to do my laundry and the Pepto Bismol is so that I can eat her cooking. She hits me again. I deserve it.



8:36 PM -
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I once swore that I would never write about Star Trek. I am a big Trekkie, but until now I have followed the immortal words of William Shatner, "get a life" No, I don't own a Starfleet uniform or fake pointy ears. I'm afraid I have to blog on this one though. I watched Enterprise last night on UPN. The episode was "Stigma".

**WARNING THIS IS THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE SHOW. IT IS A SPOILER**

The story line goes something like this. T'pol comes down with something called Pa'nar Syndrome. Pa'nar syndrome is spread by mind-melding. Mind-melding is officially frowned upon by Vulcan society. Dr. Phlox is keeping the T'pol's diagnosis private from the Captain. The Enterprise goes to an interspecies medical conference. Dr. Phlox asks his Vulcan colleagues about the disease. The Vulcans give him the brush-off. The Vulcans go up to the Enterprise and collect a sample of T'pol by subterfuge. They call Dr. Phlox on the carpet. They say that they are removing T'Pol from duty. The Captain confronts the lead Vulcan doctor and asks for a tribunal. One of the Vulcan physicians gives T'pol the information that they have been withholding because he is a mind-melder. T'Pol tells the mind-melding doctor that she isn't a mind melder but was forcibly mind-melded. The mind-melding doctor says this would absolve her of any guilt in the eyes of the doctors. T'Pol nobly refuses to tell them this since it would add to the bias against the mind-melders. The tribunal happens. The mind-melding doctor shoots his mouth off, allowing both the Captain and T'pol to maintain their noble refusal to slur mind-melders. T'pol is allowed to stay on the Enterprise. Dr. Phlox is able to develop a treatment to slow the disease. They all live happily ever after.


**end plot synopsis**

Ok I'm gonna start with what I saw wrong. I immediately realized that the extremely heavy-handed writer was using Pa'Nar syndrome as a metaphor for AIDS. This is fine, it didn't bother me. Star Trek has a long history of doing shows that touch on current events and social issues. I especially love the TOS series with the men who were white on one side of the face and black on the other, but I digress.
The second thing that bothered me was that the Vulcan doctors in the show were holding back information on the syndrome so that an "undesirable subculture" would be wiped out. If you carry the metaphor of Pa' Nar syndrome as AIDS to its conclusion, this basically means that the writer is saying that the medical community in the US is letting AIDS patients die because they disapprove of the lifestyle of homosexuals. This is blatantly untrue and slanderous. AIDS research is getting more research funding than many other more mainstream diseases, such as diabetes, which kill more people straight and gay both.
The third thing that bothered me was the mind-melders as homosexual analogy. The mind-melding doctor (he did look awful prissy) says something to the effect of "Who are they to judge me for sharing emotion as I wish?" A close approximation of which in the Pa'nar/AIDS metaphor is "Who gives a damn who I sleep with as long as we are both consenting adults." The problem with this is that there is apparently no way to have safe-sex mind melds. Hmm, now there's a thought, psychic condoms. Talk about mixing metaphors. You could explain this by saying that the mind-melders would have to get tested. However, many homosexuals on Earth in real life don't bother to get tested. In both cases recklessness is the cause of many of the infections. The real people have no excuse. Tests can be done free or anonymously.
The fourth thing that bothered me is T'pol's refusal to admit she wasn't a mind-melder and got the syndrome unwillingly. I think this was an attempt by the writer to try and call attention to a perceived stigma that homosexuals all have AIDS and that AIDS is because of homosexuals. There is a reason people have more sympathy for people with AIDS who get it through no fault of their own. The little hemophiliac boys in the mid-eighties did nothing wrong. They were in the wrong place in the wrong decade. The homosexual men who participated in unsafe sex and drug users who shared needles had a choice and made it of their own free-will. Stigma isn't necessarily a bad thing. Society has mores to maintain its cohesion and stigmas are a consequence of breaking them.
OK final thing. WHAT THE F$*K!!! Rick Berman should know Trek mythology well enough to know that mind-melding **NEVER** has held a stigma. Sure, it is something that was rarely done, but only because Vulcans didn't want humans to know they could do it. Berman is f&*@king with the essential underpinnings of the Star Trek franchise and is risking turning it into another Xena: Warrior Princess. Star Trek has maintained its fan base for so long because it has a rabid fan base. The reason it has a rabid fan base is that Star Trek is set in a reasonably cohesive reality. Fine, if you want to do socially-conscious shows. Just dont go yanking at the f&*%ing underpinnings of Trek reality. The Vulcan mind-meld is a well-established set-piece in the collective consciousness of America. This isn't the first thing in the Trek universe that Berman has screwed with in this new series. This is very nearly as bad as when TNG kept using the transporter and the holodeck to keep snatching crew members back from the jaws of death. I'm spent. I promise, no more Trek for at least a year.



12:20 AM -
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I interrupted work briefly today at 1:00 PM today to watch the memorial for the astronauts at JSC. The receptionist had brought out an antique Betamax/TV combo circa 1985. About 10 or 15 of us stood around in the lobby of Bldg. 24 and watched the ceremony. It was very sad and touching. Several things caught my attention during the ceremony. The primary chaplain was a retired Navy Rabbi who quoted parts of the bible in Hebrew. This was very touching. The Rabbi had an assistant, I presume a Christian, who did some of the quotations in English. Especially the 23rd psalm. At this ceremony there were Christians of various denominations, Jews and Hindus. None of them argued, none of them fought. This is my ideal of America. Everyone respected the religious beliefs of the others. Can you imagine an ecumenical service of this type in a muslim country? I think not.
Another thing that struck me was the genuine grief in the faces of President and Mrs. Bush. The camera caught Mr. Bush surreptitiously wiping his eyes many times. At one point the camera caught the sun gleaming off of the STS-107 pin on the President's suit lapel. It looked like a small star on his chest. Watching the families of the astronauts was heart breaking. Col. Anderson's daughters were there, the youngest looking as though she didn't quite understand what was going on, the oldest red-eyed and weeping. Cmdr. Clark's small son weeping on his father's chest. Col. Ramon's sons, spitting images of their father, sitting straight-backed in their chairs, attempting to maintain their bearing with red-rimmed eyes.
The moment that touched me the most, reaffirming my belief in our President as a good and honorable man, came when Col. Husband's son began weeping and had no handkerchief. The president gave his to the boy's mother. The child used it and then gave it back to Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush, not batting an eye, took the sodden thing back and placed it in his pocket. I simply cannot imagine Bill Clinton performing such a simple and profoundly human act of kindness. Then again the difference between President Bush and President Clinton is in their tears. Clinton's tears and lip-biting were false and for all the world to see. President Bush cried true tears and honest ones.



11:03 PM -
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"When I see hundreds of grown French men being beaten senseless by Texas schoolgirls, I completely see their point." I laughed untill I nearly wet myself. Are you curious about what would happen if the French pissed of the awesome military forces of a Texas high school band? CNS News answers the question for you. Link Via Roscoe Ellis




8:38 PM -
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"The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home"

G.W. Bush 2/1/03

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."

Book of Isaiah Chapter 40 Verse 26


Cmdr. William C. McCool USN
Lt Col. Michael P. Anderson USAF
Capt. Dr. David M. Brown USN
Col. Rick Douglas Husband USAF
Cmdr. Dr. Laurel Blair Salton Clark USN
Dr. Kalpana Chawla
Col. Ilan Ramon IAF



8:43 PM -
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I'm gonna have to say something about Columbia, but I can't think about it yet.
3:20 PM -
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Rand Simberg has a very funny set of definitions for all the cliched, hackneyed terms you have been hearing lately on television. I especially like the last one. Link via LGF



9:47 PM -
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This story caught my attention today when I was reading Drudge. The article states "The Vatican assailed Italy's defense minister Friday for having questioned the Church's opposition to a preventive war against Iraq" This line illustrates one of the problems I have with the Catholic church. It apparently believes that it is either above reproach or any questioning of its motives. Before the Catholics out there start screaming at me and in the interest of full disclosure I will say that I like to describe myself as a non-liturgical Protestant fundamentalist. I also am engaged to a lovely Catholic girl and will be married in a Catholic Church on March 19th. That being said. This is emblematic of why many Catholics are disillusioned with the church. The article further quotes the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano saying that "It suggested he didn't have the wisdom needed for his position". Perhaps I am a bit too American, but I don't know if I can square with the concept of a religious organization suggesting that a government official lacks wisdom for having the temerity to question it. If this had been the Southern Baptist Conference saying the same thing about a Clinton cabinet member the news media would collectively be going apesh*t.
The article also quotes Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, who said that a war against Iraq isn't worth "irritating a billion of Islamics." and "We want to say to America: Is it worth it to you? Won't you have, afterward, decades of hostility in the Islamic world?"

I hate to tell Cardinal Sodano this, but we already have hostility against us. Its not going to change whether or not we attack Iraq, it is because Islam is in trouble and hasn't had a cultural achievement in 500 years. For Pete's sake this is the root cause argument all over again. C'mon people what is it going to take to wake you up? Usama Bin Ladin setting a nuke off in St. Peter's? I'm all for turning the other cheek, but so far the west has had both cheeks slapped and a swift kick in the wedding tackle for good measure. The Curia seems to forget that Christ said "render unto Caeser that which is Caesar's". Defense of the country is one of those things that is Caeser's prerogative.



7:54 PM -
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Nelson Mandela is an idiot. I'm not sure if he has started to come down with Alzheimers disease or if he has just decided to stop holding back in his old age. You will still never convince me that he was not complicit in his ex-wife Winnie's atrocities, but I digress. It appears that Mr. Mandela, a Nobel prize winner, is convinced that George W. Bush is attempting to start a new holocaust and is only interested in Iraq because it makes 64% of the world's oil. Mandela also states that the Prez never dissed White UN heads and is only doing so to Annan because he is black. I'm leaning toward senility at this point. First things first. The statement that Bush is trying to start a new holocaust is unproveable on its face and meets the definition of slander. This accusation could easily be turned around by saying that Mr. Mandela is attempting to have a world holocaust by allowing Iraq to continue flouting the will of the UN and produce weapons of mass destruction. Item the second, Iraq produces about 5% of the world's oil. Thirdly, Kofi Annan has been head of the UN since January 1, 1997. I am sure that if Boutros Boutros Ghali, Annan's predecessor, had been making as much of an ass of himself as Annan has that Dubya would have bitch-slapped him too. Bush would have had a harder time dissing a white UN head because he was only the Governor of Texas in 1997.

On a further note, as I was leafing through the CIA Iraq Factbook,trying to figure which orifice Mandela pulled the 64% figure from, I came upon an interesting statistic. Iraq's Oil for Food program pays 28% of its income to the UN Compensation Fund and UN administrative expenses. This number struck me. It seems to me that the UN is more interested in maintaining its strangle-hold on the Iraqi oil fund than helping free regular Iraqis and allow them to care for themselves. Its an old trick, blame someone else for what you are actually doing.




12:16 AM -
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I just came across an interesting story at Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing. Senior Airman Clinton Boyd received a Bronze Star for killing a terrorist attacker. Stars and Stripes online notes that SRA Boyd was not allowed to have an M16A2 at the checkpoint he was guarding due to Qatari rules and was only armed with an M-9 Beretta. SRA Boyd emptied a 15 round clip into the attacker from behind a Jersey barrier while under fire from the attacker's AK-47. SRA Boyd is credited with saving nearly 20 lives by his actions. Capt. William Barron, assigned to the same unit as SRA Boyd, noted that "by the time we left M-16s were stored in the area, as was an M-60, hidden in a bunker. "

There are several things about this story that bother me:

Numero uno. This airman was out in the middle of the F&*%ing desert without a rifle due to some diplomat's misplaced attention to Qatari sensibilities. The M16A2 is very nearly worthless, but is better than an M-9 for knockdown power. If the Qataris don't like it, then tough.

Nummer zwei. SRA Boyd only had 30 rounds for his M-9. Granted he did kill the guy, but under automatic fire from a superior weapon and behind a barricade he was lucky to do so. If SRA Boyd had been not as good a shot as he was the story might have had a tragic ending.

Num?ro trois. "M-16s were stored in the area" means that the M-16s now available to the guards are PROBABLY LOCKED UP in the guard shack. It is typical of the Air Force and Navy to secure all weapons and ammo. In this scenario SRA Boyd would have to locate the key or whomever has the key and get them to release a weapon to him. This is NO IMPROVEMENT over the previous situation.

Numero quattro. This is perfect illustration of why the US military should NEVER have adopted the crappy 9mm Parabellum round or the M-9 pistol. Taking 6 shots to incapacitate someone is unsat. I'm not denigrating SRA Boyd's skill. I doubt that I would have done as well under the circumstances. It wasn't the man, it was his weapon. 9mm M882 FMJ 124 grain round nose 1250 FPS ball ammo is worse than useless. He would have been better armed with an old .38 special revolver like the MPs had when I was a kid. Ideally the military should STILL have the M1911A1 pistol with its large .45 cal 230 grain round nose bullet at 850-900 fps. Nothing fancy, just a large object knocking you down. Even better would be the ammo that was initially tested for special ops, .45 cal 30,000-psi., 200-grain truncated cone. Of course you couldn't fire this in a 1911 but I'm sure we could get SIG, Glock, Colt or S&W to enter a new competition.

Incidentally this isn't a new story. In the late 1890's US Army troops occupying the Philippines were unhappy with their .38 double action revolvers. It seems that drug crazed Moro tribesman could keep coming after having an entire revolver emptied into them. Some of the old cavalry troopers there still had old Colt single action pistols in .45 Long Colt however. These stopped the insane drug crazed muslims dead in their tracks. It was this experience that made the US Army develop the .45 ACP round in the early 1900's. The 1911A1 served the US through two world wars Korea, Vietnam, Grenada and Panama. Some were still in use in Desert Storm.

Update: I am not the only one bitching about the 9mm. See Kim Du Toit or Col. David Hackworth of Fox News fame.









11:24 PM -
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When I was looking up the ranks and titles of the Challenger seven, I still know their names by heart, I came across an interesting site at Johnson Space Center. The five regular Astronauts are under Career Astronauts and the subheading Former Astronauts and are among the few who are marked deceased. Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe are listed in the Payload Specialists section. Looking through Dick Scobee's Bio shows he was awarded the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. Mike Smith's Bio shows the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross and 3 Air Medals. In addition to being brave enough to be Astronauts and test pilots, both of these men were bona fide heroes. Ellison Onizuka also was a test pilot on many different programs in addition to having worked on programs ranging from the F-84 to the FB-111. Ron McNair was a 5th degree black belt in Karate as well as having multiple degrees including a Doctorate in Physics from MIT. Judy Resnik was a classical pianist and was the second American woman in space. She had a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland. I will also admit to having had a secret crush on her after seeing her on TV when I was only 11 or 12. In 1986 she was only 36 years old, 6 years older than I am now. Greg Jarvis had a master?s degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University. He had had extensive experience in many NASA missions and was a civilian employee of Hughes Aircraft. Christa McAuliffe was the teacher in space candidate and had beaten hundreds of other teachers for the opportunity to teach in space. She had a masters degree in education from Bowie State in Maryland. The amount of education and experience lost with these people is very nearly incalculable. As a boy looking at them I thought of them as incredibly old. From my current viewpoint I see that they were all in the prime of their lives, indeed not much older than I am now. They were the best of the best. I wonder what our world would have been like had they not been lost to us.



9:39 PM -
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Today is the 17th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. Lt. Col. Dick Scobee USAF (CMDR), Capt. Mike Smith USN (Pilot), Dr. Judy Resnik (Mission Specialist), Dr. Ron McNair (Mission Specialist), Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka USAF (Mission Specialist), Capt. Greg Jarvis USAF (Payload Specialist) and Christa McAuliffe(Teacher in Space) lost their lives when a faulty O-ring in the solid rocket booster ignited the main tank causing a catastrophic explosion.
Living in Florida, on the Space Coast I have seen many launches. This one was no exception. I was in the seventh grade attending Stone Middle School in Melbourne, FL. The launch was scheduled for the same period as my science research class. I vaguely remember that I was leafing through the large green hard backed Readers Guide to Periodical Literature looking for articles to use in my science project. The assistant librarian, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, was a large friendly black woman who was always very helpful to the students. I remember that librarian sticking her head through the sliding glass divider that separated the librarian's office from the main library area and saying something like "The shuttle has gone off, you had better hurry if you want to catch it." I could hear her radio playing a low quality A.M. station with the KSC program on it. Being 13 I was somewhat blase about "mundane" things like space shuttle launches. I had seen perhaps ten shuttle launches and easily 30 satellite launches at this point, including Sally Ride in 1983 from a few miles away inside KSC proper. In retrospect I should have been unbelievably excited. We had experienced a NASA demonstration a few months prior complete with, among other things, a man heating a shuttle tile to red-glowing hot and immediately dropping it in a volunteer's hand to demonstrate how effective it was. Stone had also set up some equipment so that the students could participate in the teacher in space program. I remember neatly marking the place in the Reader's Guide with a slip of scrap paper and ambling toward the dual glass doors. As I opened the doors the Librarian made a noise that I cannot describe to this very day. She was looking at the ceiling and she said something very softly to the effect of, "Dear Jesus, the shuttle done blew up." I gave her a funny look and walked outside. I looked up into the cold clear blue sky and saw something I will remember until the day I die. Normally after a shuttle launch you see a long continuous plume that corkscrews into the sky. This plume had gotten through about one and a half rotations and ended with a hideous puff. I must have walked through the doors just as the explosion was happening because the Solid Rocket Boosters were just beginning to pull away from the main plume and make a pattern that looked initially like devil's horns and finally like a child's first crazy attempts to use a pen. I was shocked when the boosters were detonated thinking it was another accident and not realizing that it was a command designed to keep them from damaging property. I sat and watched for what must have been 20 minutes as debris rained down. Even at that distance one could easily see fluttering pieces of the shuttle falling down. I remember seeing one large streak falling very quickly. I learned later that it was the crew compartment, which survived mostly intact, falling for several minutes until it hit the ocean. There was the infamous parachute also. I remember seeing it fluttering slowly down. Later I learned that it was one of the SRB parachutes that are used when the SRB rockets are expended. I don't remember when I stopped watching. I do remember walking back in and seeing the tracks of tears on the librarian's broad friendly face. I went back to my table and sat numbly until the bell rang.



6:15 PM -
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Well, Hans Blix has made it official. Iraq is in material breach by omission. I was quite surprised at the even-handedness of Inspector Blix despite the pressure he is undoubtedly under from both sides. He very clearly laid out the case against Iraq. He is also asking for more time to investigate. I am however, quite certain that President Bush will negate that possibility in his State of the Union address tomorrow. I suspect that by the middle of February at the earliest the Anglosphere will be at war. Our funny talking cousins from down under have decided that they too are convinced and will most likely be joining the U.S. and the Brits. I'm glad that the Aussies are coming on board. They have been our loyal ally and friend for more than a half century now. Indeed, this more than makes up for the damage they have inflicted upon the English speaking world with things like Men at Work, Crocodile Dundee, the Crocodile Hunter and Foster's Beer. (Just kidding mates) Now if only some of that manly Australian-ness would rub off on the pinko Kiwis.





12:24 AM -
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Its election time in Israel today. Polls indicate that Likud stands a good chance of getting between 30 and 34 seats in the Knesset. I've never been a very big fan of Ariel Sharon. He comes off as arrogant and perhaps a bit brutish but I feel for the man. He's literally fighting for the existence of his nation and people in the face of a generally hostile world. I DO like Benjamin Netanyahu, but this may be because he is extremely well-spoken with a flawless accent and a politicians poise. Recently however I came across an artice in The New York Observer that has made me reconsider my opinion of PM Sharon. The article nominally is about Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist and general target of the Religion of Peace ? In it Ms. Fallaci discusses, among other things, a phone call that she recently received from Ariel Sharon. (link via LGF BTW.) I won't detail the discussion they had, I want you to read the article, However, I will say that it shows the human side of Ariel Sharon which is not something you will get in the mainstream media.



11:57 PM - <
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It seems that that not all South Koreans are in favor of kicking the US military out. There was a rally in Seoul attended by 40,000 South Koreans. South Korea is a nation of about 48 million. If you consider that the U.S population is around 300 million, give or take 9 million, that means that the South Korean march is the equivalent of a march in the US that would draw in a quarter million people. By way of comparison the anti-war march in DC drew in, by most estimates, about 30,000 people. The figures for the anti-war rally were of course higher but are disputed. Most estimates give it around 100,000. Of course the mainstream media didn't cover this event.



1:53 AM -
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Apparently Serena Williams is not familiar with the US flag code. (4 USC 1 section 8) Link via Drudge. I believe that she also has her cute little behind on the Union Jack. For shame, brave men have died keeping the stars and stripes from the ground and she uses it to prevent dirtying to her dungarees.




10:09 PM -
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It seems that the whole story about Scott Ritter has been **GASP** a plot on the part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ? hereafter referred to as the VRWC. Story via FOX news It appears Mr. Ritter is concerned since the story leaked just as he was about to "be on an airplane yesterday to Baghdad" Well we're sorry Mr. Ritter, but just because you are a "leading voice of opposition" to the war doesn't give you a free pass to go around contributing to the delinquency of minors. Hey I've got an idea! Ritter could run as Sharpton's VP. Then anything said against you by the VRWC ? would automatically be discounted by the media!!!




10:35 PM - <
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There apparently has been a fire at the campaign headquarters of Al Sharpton. Details are sketchy but CNN Says there were two occupants in the building at the time but no one was seriously injured. According to CNN, "The fire was reported at 8:30 a.m. on the building's second floor, the same floor as Sharpton's offices, and spread to a church on the third floor." Rev. Sharpton is expected to call a news conference tomorrow morning and blame district attorney Steven Pagones, the "Diamond Mechants" and Freddy's Fashion Mart. Immediately following the Reverend Mr. Sharpton's speech he will lead the crowd on a march for peace and liberation (of electronics equipment).




12:00 AM -
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In the Washington Times today there is an article about the long-standing practice of Canadians and some Americans to wear an article of clothing with the maple leaf on it. This is usually done in countries where the local populace is hostile to Americans. Essentially it prevents Canadians and some lily-livered Americans from being hassled by the locals. Apparently this is no longer going to be the case. The Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Raymond Baaklini has said that the maple leaf will most likely attract negative attention after the liberal party "banned Hezbollah last month after public statements by a number of former top security officials and police that the group was using the country for illegal activities." This story is typical of Islamic threats toward anyone who stands against them. I am afraid that our neighbours, and their weak-kneed PM, to the north will allow it to influence their decisions regarding what to do about their obvious problems with immigration and racial hate crimes. Canadians need to understand that Islamic immigrants, especially of Arab origin, do not easily come to a rational co-existence between their Islamic identity and their Canadian one. One can easily find asian families, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or otherwise, maintaining their traditions while adapting to modern life in Canada or the US. In the US most Hispanics realize the importance of being able to live within the majority and adapt their culture to the new challenge. It is only Muslims, and Arabs in particular, who are incapable of change or adaptation. This is partially cultural, but primarily religious. The moment a devout Muslim comes to a new country they begin contemplating how they may bring the country into the Islamic fold. Indeed the goal of most Islamics is to institute sharia in their new home country. Many European countries are in danger of this due to the falling birthrate among native Europeans coupled with increased immigration and high birthrates among the Islamic immigrants. I remember the brave Canadian consulate members who forged fake papers for our hostages and got them out of Iran in 1979. I hope we don't have to do the like for them in the future.





11:32 PM -
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Remember Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector, now bosom buddy of Saddam? It seems he's been prosecuted trying for trying to pick up a minor over the internet. The minor turned out to be a cop. Go figure. Link is from the New York Daily News. If Ritter is that kinky I wonder if Saddam could set him up with his former lover satan. Sorry for the obscure South Park reference. I couldn't resist.



1:22 AM -
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In England there is an elderly farmer and gentleman named Tony Martin. In August, 1999 two young men broke into his farmhouse. Mr Martin shot and killed one of the three home invaders, 16 year old Fred Barras Jr. and wounded one of his accomplices with his shotgun. Were this to have happened in the United States Mr. Martin would have faced no charges in what was clearly an aggressive and violent home invasion. In England, land of the disarmed, he was sentenced to life in prison. The burglar that Mr. Martin shot had a several page long rap-sheet despite being too young to drive a car. Mr. Barras Sr, The father of the burglar that Mr. Martin shot, has a rap sheet dating back to 1969 and recently participated in a robbery that netted ?400,000. During this robbery Mr. Barras Sr. held a pistol to the temple of the female teller. The dead criminal's grandmother has recently been arrested for illegal possession of a firearm. Currently, the wounded burglar and the family of the exterminated burglar have a civil suit pending against Mr. Martin for injuring them. Mr. Martin removed his original barristers for incompetence and his new attorneys got his sentence reduced to 5 years on appeal. Recently, at his hearing, he was denied parole for the following reasons:(1) He is "a danger to burglars." (2) He is "not up to speed with the 21st century" and thinks that "things were better 40 years ago." and (3) He has refused to feign remorse. I personally think things were better in England 40 years ago also, Further there is nothing in being "up to speed with the 21st century" that requires you to allow yourself to be repeatedly victimized by burglars and lastly I can guarantee that if a burglar invades my home I am going to remorselessly put a 10 mm hole in him with my 40 caliber Glock. The site set up for Mr Martin is www.tonymartinsupportgroup.org Drop by and see how you can support him. Write him a letter or donate to the cause. This is an honest man who is being unfairly punished for someone else's crime.



3:14 AM -
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More on the EVIL of North Korea. When he isn't starving two to three million of their subjects to death Kim Jong Il enjoys creating museums about his defeats of the imperialists. In one of the museums near the DMZ they have the "military" axe that North Korean soldiers took from some US G.I.s and used to hack two of them to death. Apparently the G.I.'s were "aggressively" cutting down a tree that was impeding their view. This fellow has an interesting page on his visit to the DMZ. If you fancy yourself as someone who likes to see both sides of an issue HERE is the official website of North Korean news. When Internet Explorer loads this site it asks you to load Japanese or Korean language support, cancel as this is not necessary since the site is primarily encoded in English.



10:34 PM -
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I'm getting kind of tired of the talking heads and assorted moonbats complaining about the disparity in the reaction of the Bush administration to the threats posed by Iraq and North Korea. There are some very simple reasons why we do not simply attack North Korea; North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world, North Korea has crude nuclear weapons and China would be just as nervous now as it was in December 1950 about having a US supported unified Republic of Korea on its border. Bush certainly doesn't want a new Chosin reservoir in today's casualty conscious environment. Incidentally my grandfather was a US Army Corporal attached to the USMC at the Battle of the Chosin reservoir. He nearly lost his feet to frostbite on the way back south. But I digress. Iraq, compared to North Korea has; a poorly trained, ill-equipped, primarily conscripted army, Iraq has no (yet) nuclear weapons and its neighbours, despite their vehement protests to the contrary, would be quite pleased to have a US supported entity in place of Baathist Iraq. Also, The US is currently set up logistically to support an attack in the middle east. All of the warplanning and extensive logistical work has been geared toward an attack on Iraq. One cannot simply make troops do an about face, and march them north to Korea. It would take a minimum of 9 months to a year to plan an attack on North Korea. It is certain however, that at this moment in the Pentagon the staff members are updating plans for such an eventuality. The final reason that we are simply not going to negotiate with Iraq is because that is what we did in North Korea in 1994 and it didn't work then. North Korea may be more evil than Iraq, but that doesn't mean that we have to use more or equal force against it as we would against Iraq to maintain a foolish consistency.


10:03 PM -
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We all have a secret name in Hobbit As well in as in Elvish. Mine happen to be Bodo Sandydowns and Taurnil E?rfalas. If you can't tell which name is which and why, you should go out immediately and read the Hobbit followed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then the Silmarillion.





2:21 PM -
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Still working. Site meter tells me that I am the only one here so far. But its all good.
11:59 PM -
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This is, of course, a test post. Just checking the setup out as it were. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. The show is over.
11:32 PM -
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