Soundsurfr

I Pledge Allegiance To The $39 DVD Player

2006-12-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

Prologue: I'm writing on this topic because I work for a company that manufactures goods in China that are sold back to the United States. I've always been proud that my company cares about all of its employees, and as a result, has vowed to enforce every environmental law and workers right statute in China that it does in the United States. This makes us slightly less competitive against companies who don't, but we've been able to stay profitable and keep our market share. Unfortunately, since I've become intimately involved in our operations overseas, I've come to realize that even though we are able to operate our factories to the highest standard, many of the component parts and raw materials we purchase from local vendors are not made under the same conditions. I am not sure how to think about that, or what can be done about it.

100 years ago, American industry treated its workers like cattle and wreaked havoc on the environment. This is the kind of stuff that happened in US factories:

Children were hired to work long hours every day.
Factories ran without air conditioning in summer or heat in winter.
Dangerous machines were operated without guards or emergency stops or worker training.
There were no emergency exits, or they were blocked by stock or merchandise.
Factories spewed out soot, unscrubbed, unregulated, and the height of the smokestacks was not always sufficient to dissipate pollutants, which simply settled on the surrounding neighborhoods.
Workers were forced to stand for many hours, or work overtime, or relinquish half a day's pay for arriving one minute late.
Workers were not provided health insurance.
Wages were often well below living wages.
Workers were physically beaten and/or mentally abused.
Collective bargaining units were not permitted.

Relatively little of that goes on any more in this country. There were worker uprisings in our grandparents' day and lots of people died. You can have a look at some of what went on here. At the cost of their blood and guts, we now have very strict laws protecting our workers and our environment (for the most part) from the ravages of unchecked corporate greed.

But all that stuff costs money. Makes products more expensive.

Which is why we now buy 60% of our manufactured goods from China. Wanna take a stab at how the Chinese are able to make anything and everything cheaper than we can? Well , first and foremost, wages are much lower - even fair wages. Second, their currency is devalued which puts the exchange rate in their favor, making their products cost less than ours. I can live with those two disadvantages. But here's what also goes on:

Children are hired to work long hours every day.
Factories run without air conditioning in summer or heat in winter.
Dangerous machines are operated without guards or emergency stops or worker training.
There are no emergency exits, or they are blocked by stock or merchandise.
Factories spew out soot, unscrubbed, unregulated, and the height of the smokestacks is not always sufficient to dissipate pollutants, which simply settles on the surrounding neighborhoods.
Workers are forced to stand for many hours, or work overtime, or relinquish half a day's pay for arriving one minute late.
Workers are not provided health insurance.
Workers are paid unfair wages.
Workers are physically beaten and/or mentally abused.
Collective bargaining units are not permitted.

So in effect, American industry has done a complete end run around the rights our great-grandparents fought for, and simply moved all its manufacturing overseas where it can once again treat workers like cattle while wreaking havoc on the environment. (Just as an aside, pollutants originating from the Dongguan manufacturing areas in China are now measurable in Southern California.)

So, in discussing this with some buttheaded right wing idiot recently, it was suggested to me that perhaps the Chinese should adopt "American Values". And as long as they don't, then we have every right to go ahead and let them make $39 DVD players for us.

Hmm.

Now here's the real kicker. Chinese workers, not surprisingly are starting to get restless. There have been many small uprisings here and there in China, as workers begin to demand better conditions, better pay and the right to organize. In an unprecedented response, (and a rather astute attempt to avoid a repeat of American labor history) the Chinese government has proposed a new national workers rights law that provides sweeping reforms on behalf of the Chinese laborer.

Pretty cool. But wait. There is opposition to the new law.

From........... The American Chamber of Commerce in China. That would be made up of chief executives from Coke, Pepsi, General Electric, Nike, even Microsoft. Seems American Values are already firmly entrenched in China, and this new law will only muck them up.

Their argument? It'll drive up costs and ruin them financially. In other words, that DVD player might end up costing $59. And Michael Jordan will not be paid $39 million dollars a year to wear a pair of sneakers made by a guy who makes $39 a year.

Perhaps the $39 DVD player, folks, is the true American Value.

A Theologically Supportable Position

2006-11-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

In a recent conversation on the internet, a theologian referred to something as a "theologically supportable postion". The reply from his opponent was hilarious:

Sorry, but the expression 'theologically supportable position' put me in mind of this -

1) Buttered bread always lands butter-side-down.
2) Cats always land on their feet

Therefore, if you tie a piece of buttered bread to the back of a cat and release the assembly in mid air, as 1) and 2) are mutually contradictory, the buttered bread/cat assembly will hover.

I'd never heard that before. But I immediately applied for the patent rights...

New Recruiting Procedures

2006-11-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Jesus,

I think you need to take a look at your top-spokesperson recruiting process.

Seems like a rather large number of the folks who lead your flocks and provide spiritual guidance in your name are turning out to be, well...flaming, hypocritical ass holes.

I would suggest that quite a few of them could be weeded out in the interview process. Here are a few things to watch out for: First, I think we can safely say that if a guy is over 40 years old and he still looks like he's twelve, something is awry. Yes?

Dude could be making deals with the guy downstairs, if you get my drift.

Next, I would say that anyone who parts their hair starting from below the top of their right ear may be sending a message that there are bigger issues lurking.

Take a look at their ears, JC. If their ears are bigger than their feet, I think that's a problem.

Obviously, it's not fair to judge them completely by appearances. So you might also want to take a close look at their behavior. F'rinstance, if they act sort of like raving lunatics, further investigation could be in order.

If they cry every week on cue...

You may also want to check out their wives.

It would be in everyone's best interests if you asked them a few questions about their ideology and beliefs. In the I-can't-make-this-shit-up category, this guy's name is Dr. Creflo Dollar. He claims to be a Christian, but he worships money. Off the top of my head, I'd say possible conflict of interest there.

Now looky here. Satan himself, it appears, managed to slip through the interview process. Not good.

What I'm getting at is this - all in all, I think with a little more in the way of interviewing skills and due diligence, you might have been able to head this one off at the pass:

First of all, he's got the Ken-doll look, which should send alarm bells ringing at the outset. Second, that "H" on his forehead should have been cause for concern.

In the future, let me know if you need any help with this.

Sincerely,

Soundsurfr

Cool new things that can happen now that the Dems are in the House:

2006-11-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

Finally, gay congressmen can marry their pages.

Barbra Streisand can be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Nancy Pelosi can start performing partial birth abortions on the House floor.

Is the budget balanced already?Dang...that was quick!

Social Security is going back in the lockbox.

Scientists announced today that global warming has been reversed.

All Gitmo prisoners will be released and replaced with Halliburton executives and stock holders.

Christopher Reeve will be resurrected through stem cell research.

Everyone in Mexico can now move to Santa Barbara.

Flag burning party. Saturday night. My house.

The Sunnis and Shiites will sing Kum Ba Yah, arm in arm, in the streets of Baghdad

Hillary Clinton will pardon Saddam Hussein.

The ACLU will be made the fourth branch of government.

Ted Haggard will convert to Kaballah and will be appointed as the new House chaplain.

Spanish will be declared the new official language everywhere south of the Dakotas.

Treasury Department will announce a new 3 dollar bill bearing the image of Barney Frank on the front, and a lovely picture of San Francisco on the back.

President Bush will announce a new Cabinet level position. Secretary of House and Senate Surveillance.

Congress will debate a Constitutional Amendment banning the display of the Ten Commandments in churches.

Closed door energy planning meeting to be scheduled at Capital building attended by Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Ralph Nader, Al Gore and Kim Jong Il.

Gerry Falwell and Pat Roberston will be declared enemy combatants and sent to secret CIA prisons, all their assets seized and given to the ACLU to fund investigations of people saying “god bless you” after someone sneezes in a public school.

Axis of evil will be reconfigured to include Exxon/Mobil, Texas, and Rush Limbaugh.

Homeland security to be outsourced to Pakistan.

Ann Coulter will be forced to betroth Mary Cheney in a same-sex marriage ceremony in Newark, New Jersey, after which her embryos will be extracted, fertilized ex-utero by Al Sharpton and placed into stem cell research facilities.

Finally, finally, finally.

Just when I thought it couldn't get much better -

2006-11-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Rumsfeld gets out of Dodge.

Adios, scumbucket.

The good thing about the past 6 years...

2006-11-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

I'm in a good mood. Feeling charitable.

So rather than gloat about the political sea change going on in our country today, I'm going to point out what has been good about the past 6 years, politically speaking.

What's been good about the past six years is that we've had an opportunity to see and hopefully remember what happens when you let Republicans rule as a majority for six years.

This is what you get:

Stunning abuses of power.
Shameless warmongering, carried out with astonishing ineptitude
Fear based politics
Religious fascism and pandering applied to social issues, ignoring popular concerns
Financial irresponsibility on a macro scale
Insane pork barrell spending
Massive deficits
Increasing dependence on fossil fuel, inflamed by government policy favoring fossil fuel companies
Failed foreign policy resulting in increased nuclear proliferation worldwide, increased anti-American sentiment worldwide, increased terrorist recruiting worldwide, increased security risk to the USA
Unprecedented political divisiveness
Reduction in Constitutional rights for individuals
Gay bashing
Dwindling middle class
Increased disparity between the rich and the poor
800,000 children with no health insurance
Drug benefit programs designed to uphold the profits of drug companies at the expense of the elderly
Inability to systemically deal with illegal immigration issues
More children left behind
Jobs exported overseas
Congressional pay increases/minimum wage decreases
Back room secret policy making
Unchecked global warming, denial that problem even exists, government suppression of scientific study results
Paid political propagandists posing as unbiased news reporters
Torture as a policy, revocation of Geneva convention, secret prisons

And in case we still need to be reminded why Democrats picked up 27 seats in the House, at least 4 seats in the Senate and ousted 6 Republican governors yesterday, here are a few proper names to remember:

Mark Foley, Tom Delay, Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, Enron, Duke Cunningham, Tyco, Osama bin Laden, Bob Ney, Hurricane Katrina, Terry Schiavo...I'll stop there. I said I was feeling charitable.

So now we begin the process of trying to dig out from this mess.

Good luck to us all.

I win...

2006-10-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

You lose.

Sincerely,

Kim Jong Il

Do you think somebody's trying to rip us off?

2006-10-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Cost of a brand new Epson R200 printer (complete with ink cartridges) on sale in CompUSA: $92.00
Cost of one replacement set of ink cartridges for the Epson R200 printer in CompUSA: $96.00

When it's cheaper to throw out your printer and buy a new one every time you run out of ink, you gotta scratch your head and wonder about that.

I'm So Inspired By These Posters

2006-09-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Aren't you? I mean don't you feel enlightened, energized, focused and motivated every time you walk by one of these drippy propagandist rags? Especially if it's mounted directly behind your boss's desk where it burns itself into your retinas while he is ripping you a new ass hole for losing a sale or missing a meeting.

And they're so much more esthetically pleasing than the old kind, like from the 1940's that looked more like this:

Of course, the message is still the same. Work your ass off and everything will be great. Don't work your ass off, and [insert demon here*] will overpower you and take control.

*Short list of possible demons: Commies, Homosexuals, Islamic Extremists, Democrats, Atheists, Hippies, Illegal Immigrants, Abortionists, People Who Don't Play Golf Or Smoke Cigars

So you have to give these guys some serious credit for coming up with a whole line of new "Demotivator" posters like this one:

Now we're talking inspiration, baby. Wisdom for the ages.

Everybody Say Cheese

2006-09-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

You know, the world may really be getting a little too stupid.

It's starting to freak me out.

Today's New Fatwa

2006-09-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Great Alah Imam of Mars
Brothers and sisters in the religion of peace,

In response to the insidious lies uttered by the infidel Pope Benedict the Incompetent, the great Alah Imam of Mars has issued a fabulous new fatwa. As follows:

If any infidel claims that Muslims are violent, you must avenge this absurd lie by finding an infidel and hacking him to pieces with a dull, rusty knife. Then do the same to his mother and his children.

Peace be upon you.

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part Three

2006-09-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hey all. It's September 11th. 2006. Time to make a list of reasons why we should feel safer today than we were five years ago. Here's mine:

1. We got those aluminum tubes away from Sadaam.

Even though you can't use 'em for nukes like Colin Powell said, there's no telling what that rat bastard was doing with them. Probably wacking Kurds over the head.

2. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri have not been found. Which means they're lost. Which means we don't have to worry about them any more.

3. Terrorists can no longer bring hair gel, shaving cream or Kool Aid onto airplanes. Since we found out a few weeks ago how dangerous THAT shit can be.

4. There have been zero -count 'em - zero terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. Had some in London and Madrid, but those were in Europe, I think.

5. Bush is still our president.

Thank you Jesus.

6. We now have secret prisons.

7. All those dangerous loopholes in the Constitution that terrorists use to stay one step ahead of the FBI and the CIA have been eliminated.

'specially those dumb amendments.

But as happy as I am about these wonderful developments, it would be foolhardy to become complacent or entertain a false sense of security until we finally put an end to the Jon Benet Ramsey case.

Once and for all.

Screw You. Hahahahahahaha.

2006-08-31T12:18:00.000-07:00

We don't care about you, or anybody else. We can be as loud and obnoxious as we want, any time we want.

We don't care if we drown out your conversation or your TV program or the music you're listening to.

We don't care if we wake you in the middle of the night.

We don't care if we frighten your children or alarm your pets.

We don't care if you can't think straight or relax when we're around.

We don't even care if we're so loud that we risk damage to your hearing.

When there are a lot of us around, we can be disruptive to anything that goes on around us. We might even screw up your business. But we don't care.

See, It's all about us.

We think it's cool to be loud and annoying. This is how we get off. (Well, that and the 750 pound steel vibrator between our legs.)

Basic human courtesy is bullshit. Consideration for others is bullshit. The only thing that's not bullshit is us.

Maybe our father's didn't pay attention to us when we were kids. Maybe the other kids beat the crap out of us in school. Or maybe we were just so dumb or uncoordinated that we couldn't keep up with either the brains or the jocks. So now we're the misfits and the less people like us, the better.

It's all about compensation, my friend, my friend. And payback.

Sometimes we'll offer some lame-ass appeal that we HAVE to be loud for safety purposes. But everyone knows it's just a bullshit attempt to try to cover over the fact that we're insecure and this is the only way we can feed our own scrawny, miserable egos.

And have you noticed that we go out of our way to look like a bunch of ugly, dirty, slobby bastards, too? That's part of our image. Hopefully, it offends you.

So if you don't like us, well.... SCREW YOU. We're GLAD you don't like us. We don't like ourselves, either.

Sincerely,

The ridiculously loud motorcycle/chopper riders of America.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

2006-08-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

Whoa, it's been a long time, eh? I'll bet nobody's even around anymore to read this crap. Not that there were throngs of hits here in my heyday.

Bless me Father, for I have slacked. It's been one month since my last blog entry. Since then I've been screwin' around with lotsa things, blogs not being one of them. One of them is this - the missus and I have become active members of a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. We actually did this about a year ago, but I did not want to write about it until I figured out whether or not this place was the real deal.

Now don't go thinking I've got religion or anything. Unitarian Universalism is the work of the devil, I assure you. In fact, I think it's a by-product of that other insidious evil - intellectualism, and at times invokes the absolutely depraved philsophical underpinnings of humanism.

I've picked this topic in deference to two very heartfelt blogs about religion recently posted by my two friends, the Viscounte Lacarte and Bobby Lightfoot. Those are here and here, if you're interested.

Given that we live in a country that is run by and largely populated with self-righteous, sanctimonious scumbags who begin sentences with the words "As a Conservative Christian..." when they explain how you are about to be fucked by their corporate oil war machines, we sane folks of like mind often find ourselves in a state of revulsion at the very concept of churchgoing.

That's all well and good. Nobody ever saved the world sitting in a church, anyway.* But this is not a church, it's a fellowship. (UU's get mad when you call it church.) It's a formal organization consisting mainly of people who believe in love, compassion, tolerance and the dignity and equality of all humans. No, seriously. They really believe in that stuff. And the oddest part about it is - there's usually more practicing going on than preaching.

Don't confuse these folks with congregations of people who read platitudes out loud from prayerbooks each week about love, tolerance and the dignity of all humans, smiling and winking and patting themselves on the back for being so fucking upstanding, principled and "right with God", and then cheering for bombing campaigns labeled "shock and awe". That would be a church.

There's no hatin' going on at the UU Fellowship. Or at least very little. And one reason nobody really hates anybody is: There is no sexually repressed, self-proclaimed Earthly representative and spokesperson of a territorially challenged, emotionally retarded SUPREME BEING standing in a pulpit every week telling us all who we should hate. As a matter of fact, there's this mentally stable, relatively normal "minister" who doesn't believe in DOGMA, that stands up from time to time and suggests that we probably shouldn't hate anybody.

Clearly, Satan is behind this. As further evidence, I offer you this inside information.
Here are some of the types of mutant freak show people who make up the congregation -

There are Jews and Christians and Atheists and Agnostics and Buddhists and Muslims who are tired of being railroaded by religious authorities.
There are Jews who don't hate Arabs and Arabs who don't hate Jews.
There are heterosexuals who don't hate homosexuals.
There are homosexuals who don't hate themselves.
There are theists who don't hate atheists and atheists who don't hate theists.
There are people with one color skin married to people with a different color skin.

What we don't seem to have are neocons or fundamentalists. At least I haven't met any. But if they wanted to join us, they'd be welcome. I don't think many of them will tho, because we don't do a lot of the stuff they seem to like. F'rinstance...

Nobody ever says "Glow-reh".
Or uses the word "annoint".
Nobody speaks in tongues.
There is no healing of lepers.
No casting out of demons.
And relatively little, if any, ecstatic convulsing.

So what UUers do, actually?

Well, on Sundays, we get together for a service, where somebody (sometimes the minister, sometimes someone else) researches a life-question topic like, say, dealing with death, or what is compassion, or what makes a fundamentalist a fundamentalist, and creates a service around that topic. My wife just did a really cool one on forgiveness. The service leader also picks some cool, relevant-to-the-topic-music, which some REALLY good musicians deliver from week to week. I've heard everything from Gregorian Chants to Talking Heads at UU services. The service leader delivers a short lecture on what they've researched, and we all sort of discuss the presentation a bit after they're done. You see, you don't have to agree with everthing that's said up at the lectern. Otherwise, it would be a church.

We also have some funky little rituals for the ritually inclined, like the symbolic lighting of a chalice, the ringing of a deep-toned bell to start the service, that sort of thing. Some of the services are intense and enlightening. Some are nothing special. But we all have a good time and sometimes we're inspired to do good stuff.

Which brings me to the other things we do - stuff to make the world a better place. We hold fundraisers for subversive charities like aids foundations and planned parenting organizations. We run environmental cleanup programs. We buy our coffee directly from third world growers and pay them a couple of dollars per pound so they're not otherwise doomed to live in abject poverty selling it to name brand coffee retailers for 17 cents a pound who turn around and sell it to you for $4 per "grande" cup. We do all kinds of diabolical stuff like that.

Now, to get to the point of this long-winded blog - here's why I think this is important, and why I'm bothering to blog about it. I think it's important because atheists and agnostics and just plain non-religious folk are not organized. Why would we be organized? We just simply don't believe something. There is no organization of people-who-don't-believe-in-Sasquatch. But you see a lot of people who believe in weird, hateful, dangerous shit are highly organized, and as such, are able to muster enough power to spread their weird and hateful and dangerous shit all across the land and have it permeate to the extent that we are all becoming the victims of it. And so we need to organize to protect ourselves against it.

And that's what UU is about.

*Nobody ever saved the world, period.

Meet Ernie

2006-07-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

Everybody meet Ernie.

Ernie is a fertilized human embryo that lives in a petri dish in the third freezer on the left at the Eleanor P. Bumpus Reproductive Health Center in Eutaw, Alabama.

I have designated myself Ernie's foster parent as his real parents do not want him anymore. Seems that 4 of Ernie's siblings were implanted into his mother and all 4 of them took, so she's doing all she can not to abort half of 'em. So I'm taking care of Ernie until he finds himself a uterus and becomes a snowflake baby (not likely), or until his shelf life is up.

Right now I'm working on getting him a social security number and an Alabama State ID card. At first they didn't want to give those to me, but I said "Look - he's a person, right?" And not one of them could argue with me. I tried to get him a birth certificate, but they put their foot down on that one and told me he'd have to be born first. And even though I call him Ernie and refer to him as a "he", I can't fill out what sex he is on the forms until he's at least into his second trimester, if he ever has one. I figure if he turns out to be "Ernestine", Ernie still fits.

So anyway, once I have the ID documents, I will be taking out a life insurance policy on Ernie for one million dollars.

I sent Ernie a few comic books and a talking Elmo, but they tell me he can't deal with that stuff at his age, so now I don't send him anything. I'm just doing my best to make sure the insurance company knows that I'm serious about Ernie as being in my foster care and all.

See if Ernie doesn't get a uterus by next February, they'll have to throw him in the medical waste dumpster. It'll be kinda sad, but it's perfectly legal and I'll get a million dollars.

I'm sure I can use some of that for a nice funeral service for Ernie.

Confessions of a Liberal

2006-07-26T10:29:00.001-07:00

OK conservatives, I'm spilling my guts. I'm comin' clean. You knew it all along and now I'm givin' it to you straight.

I am a liberal, so I want what's best for liberals. I'd like to see Bin Laden pull off another attack in the USA and I'd love to see Iraq dissolve into civil war because I hate President Bush THAT much. In fact, whenever anything goes bad for this country, I celebrate. I'm pro-terrorism, anti-freedom. I want higher taxes and I want our military to be weak. I think anybody who doesn't want to work should get a free ride from the government. I'm totally paranoid about the environment, and if a multi-billion dollar business has to go down to save a dung beetle, so be it. I make up stuff about global warming just to incite fear and panic.

I think partial-birth abortions are a perfectly legitimate form of birth control. I sprinkle fertilized embryos on my cereal every morning and I've burned at least 17 US flags in the past year. I would like to see anyone who makes more money than me put in jail and have their wealth re-distributed to undocumented immigrants. I want to outlaw religion and allow pedophiles to marry children. Several children. Their own children. I want BIG government. BIG BIG BIG, with HUGE bureaucratic agencies that can squash profitable business interests with a single accounting audit.

I believe insulting a prisoner's mother is torture and is in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Whew. I'm feeling a little cleansed. Thinking a little more conservative now. I'm being baptized in an O'Reilly sort of clarity.

Christian values, baby, that's where it's at. Christian values.

Maybe slave labor in the Mariana islands is not such a bad thing after all, especially if we can convert the little monkeys to Christianity. And maybe if I have to choose between saving a small child in a fire or 24 frozen embryos, I'd save the embryos! After all, saving 24 lives is better than saving one, right?

Folks, we can wipe out the use of condoms in Africa in our lifetime.

And why doesn't the NAACP support the repeal of the estate tax? Ha? There are at least SEVEN black people in this country rich enough to benefit from just that one little piece of legislation. Gimme a big hoo ha for the estate tax repeal! Do you realize that there were more people murdered in New York City last year than there were US soldiers killed in Iraq in the same time period? THAT MEANS BAGHDAD IS SAFER THAN THE BIG APPLE, BUCKO.

And if I volunteer to drive a busload of minorities to the polls in November and I get lost, what of it?

What of it?

Everyone should read this

2006-07-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

It is a letter from 20 retired military commanders and other concerned individuals with considerable credentials, addressed to the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, Arlen Specter.

It's about this crazy bastard.

Crazy bastard in question is William J. Haynes, II. This man basically orchestrated the White House policy on torture that led to the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib. That would be the policy that was recently struck down by the Supreme Court. He figures we should be using dogs and waterboarding and all manner of nasty techniques on our "detainees". Remember, a bunch of army peons were recently thrown in jail for doing just that.

What should we do with this guy? Why, we need to make him a Federal Judge, that's what. A lifetime appointment, one step below Supreme Court is what he deserves, and nothing less.

Now this letter is from a bunch of frigging MILITARY GENERALS. And this guys scares THEM. Do you realize how freaked out we need to be when a group of 20 military bigwigs is afraid of having this guy on a federal court bench?

Read the letter.

Jesus protect me from your followers, Volume 162

2006-07-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

I was lurking at a debate website where a Christian and a skeptic were arguing about the Isrealite's slaughter of the Amalekites. After defeating the Amalekites, the Isrealites massacred the Amalekites' babies. According to the biblical account, all of this was ordered and sanctioned by God.

The justification put forward for this by the Christian was:

Who would raise those young children with all the adults dead? The Israelites? How would those non-Israelite children have been treated by the Jews? A lifetime of second class citizenship, then when they grow into adulthood, it would be, "I don't get mad, I get even."

Not to mention the massive drain it would have put on Israel's resources to suddenly increase their population by several thousand. It's not like they could have run to the local Wal-Mart to stock up on baby formula.

This is when you know that a person has taken leave of their senses. The suggestion is that upon orphaning children in a war, the most prudent and moral step that can be taken by the victor is to slaughter the children.

Sam Harris was right on when he said:

One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the 21st century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns--about ethics, spiritual experience and the inevitability of human suffering--in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith.

Take the Hitler/Coulter Quiz!

2006-06-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Click HERE .

Man, that was HARD! I only got 9 right.

After a Two Year Court Battle, The Judge Has Ruled In My Favor

2006-06-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

I was accused of failing to fulfill a contract (which I had most certainly fulfilled, to the letter) and was being sued for $60,000. I was also accused of certain slanderous things that were not even remotely true. I counter-sued for my legal expenses.

After two years of legal bullshit, we were finally placed in front of a judge. The judge read the complaints and the counter-arguments and in the span of five minutes, stated that the suit was without merit. Told us to each to go home and deal with our own legal expenses.

So I won.

Sort of.

Legal expenses came to about $5000. Plus several full days lost from work to attend court hearings and legal conferences. Plus countless hours spent putting together reams of documentation to prove myself innocent in the face of completely fabricated and baseless charges. Plus two years of anxiety and stress that my family had to endure.

That was fun.

Like chewing glass.

Anne Coulter comes to Long Island

2006-06-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Wins Best In Show.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

2006-06-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Got one of these a few weeks ago.

Sounds like a choir of angels, baby. Choir of angels.

What I Did in Vegas....or.....What Happens Here Sucks

2006-06-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hung out in the Big Apple last week. Had a blast. The week before that I hung out in the Big Easy. Had a blast. This week, I was in the Big Stupid.

For those of you who've never been, here are a few of the many things to do on the Las Vegas Strip. First, if you're not a gambler:

Take a walk outside on black asphalt in 105 degree heat.
Cool off by bathing in the 105 degree water of your hotel's outdoor pool. Be careful not to get sun poisoning in the 105 degree heat.
Go to a show. Some prime choices are Celine Dion, Wayne Newton or David Copperfield. Curb your enthusiasm.
Shop for gaudy, overpriced merchandise at a 300% markup.
Go to the Mirage Hotel, stand outside in the 105 degree heat with 200 of your closest friends and wait for the volcano to erupt. The volcano erupts every 30 minutes. It's a propane volcano. Say "Wooooooooo" in unison with everyone else, just like you do whenever your outdoor grill lights up.
Pay $200 for a steak dinner at the Palms. Bring your earplugs.
Hang out by the 5 cent slot machines and watch throngs of pasty-faced septugenarians in polyester clothing, noses connected via surgical tubing to oxygen tanks, fat hanging over their motorized wheelchair seats, pushing buttons in mindless repetition as fake coin noises (there are no more real coins dispensed) and electronic bells resonate through everyone's skull plates. Every once in a while, take in a deep breath and savor the refreshing second hand smoke.
Hang out by the $1000 minimum card tables and watch Arab and Chinese business magnates put up the equivalent of the gross national product of Bolivia on each hand of Baccarat while women with fake boobs and scanty evening gowns press their thighs up against them hoping to get few of those K-note chips dropped into their cleavage.
Go to a strip club and get blueballs while jaw-droppingly beautiful women who hate your guts smile and flash their silicone implants at you and the nearly equally undressed cocktail waitress runs each of your credit cards to the limit every time you buy a drink.
Listen to one of the lounge bands as they duplicate to the tiniest cymbal tap every single Top Forty hit every played on Soul Train. Marvel at how they never actually end a song, but segue each and every number into the next closest sounding song in their repertoire. All this while sleeping standing up. If you're lucky, you'll get to see one of the many trade convention attendee geeks in a plaid golf shirt dancing awkwardly to the KC and Sunshine Band medley with a transvestite whom he is too drunk to realize is a man. Snicker as you picture the reveal later on.
Come back the next night and watch a different set of sleepwalkers do the exact same thing with the exact same songs. Note that the transvestite is back, but 'her' companion of the previous evening is not.

Sound like fun? If not, then try your hand at gambling.

This is a ritual where you simply hand over your hard-earned money to a bunch of crooked gangsters. The cool thing about gambling is that you're set up to lose, they explain to you that you are set up to lose, and you still do it, thinking you will win. Ha Hahahaha.

Hey, I have a proposition for you. I have a big noisy machine here. Dump your money into it. For every dollar you put in, you will get an average of 92.4 cents back.

What's that you say? Stupid deal? Nonsense. People fly here from all over the world just to do this.

OK, I have a better proposition. I'll deal blackjack, you put up cash and play me. The rules are such that there is an edge in my favor as dealer. In other words, unless you cheat I will always win in the long run. Not fair? Nonsense. People are lining up to play.

What a place.

Next week I'm going to Cleveland. Hallelujah.

Another Fine Day In America (as told in pictures and captions)

2006-05-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Bush.

You are a man of faith, like me. You are like my home boy, in that respect, except that in all other respects you are like a plague upon the Earth, you miserable shit. Peace be upon those who enrich uranium in the name of God.

Mr. President,

We should be friends. Embrace Islam or die.

Peace, out.

Mr. President – Do not under any circumstances respond to that letter. It is a threat. Fuckers are crazy. Nuke them now.

The insurgency is in its last throes. Hey, whatever happened to that (brrrrrrrrp) pheasant I shot?

mmmm the ffffff times they arebbb a cherangin’…cough....

Pssst. Little Zionist girl. Over here. Want a candy? Want to go for a ride in my car?

Yo, Ah kin see Trent Lott’s new house from here! Hain’t she a beauty?

Ah KNOW the Bible Is REAL, but Ah also know the Da Vinci Code is REALER.

OK, line up boys. We’re gonna pick cotton and I’m gonna give each of you a DOLLAR for a day’s work!

“Que Bueno senor!!!! Muchas Gracias!!!”

Goddam immigrants are stealin’ our jobs.

Sure it’s ok to sing our national anthem in Spanish. But it should always be sung in English.

Amenece ¿lo veis?a la luz de la aurora….

Too Much to Handle

2006-05-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

OK, I haven't written in a while. Not because there hasn't been much to write about, but because there is just too much crazy shit going on right now. There's so much noise out there I can't wrap my head around it. I look around myself and say "Why is it so hot in here and what are we all doing in this handbasket?"

So what should I write about? Iran's spooky letter to George Bush? The chilling revelation that there is a government database of phone calls with records of all MY calls in it? The ongoing infusion of "Christian Nationalists" into the US political system? Daily suicide bombings in Iraq? The attempt on the part of internet service providers to police internet traffic according to revenue? The justice department's inability (or refusal) to investigate NSA wiretapping? Brittany Spears has been allowed to procreate again?

Each of these things is worthy of its own blog. Some may be worthy of several installments. But I'm too overwhelmed right now to do anything but wallow in my own angst.

Back soon.

The Unrelated Negative Meme

2006-05-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

Upon request from the illustrious Viscount, whose own Unrelated Negative Meme will be hard to top, I am tackling only the first part of his UNM:

5 Bands I Used To Like But Don't Anymore:

Lynnrd Skynnrd

I admit it. I did actually like Skynnrd once. The guitar work on Sweet Home Alabama just tickles me good, and the song is kinda cool too. Aside from that, however, we've got Skynnrd to thank for "Ooooh That Smell", "Gimme Three Steps" and the godforsaken "Free Bird". I don't know why it took me until I graduated college to realize that these guys were just drunken rednecks playing to crowds of equally drunken rednecks. Maybe it had something to do with my mental state in college. Anyway, even in that genre, the only thing worse than Lynnrd Skynnrd is Post-Airplane Crash Lynnrd Skynnrd.

Chicago

Actually, I still love early Chicago stuff. Back when they were still the Chicago Transit Authority. I had a 4-disc live album when I was in high school that I wore out several turntable needles on. The interweaving of jazz horn arrangements with rock guitar and drums was novel and brilliantly done - stuff like "Ballet for a Girl in Buchanan" is timeless. Then one day they apparently handed over the creative reins to Peter Cetera and became the Chicago Corn Dog Authority.

Bob Dylan

Historical figure. Brilliant lyricist. Activist. Storyteller. Quirky stylist. He was all those things and more, I suppose. Now he's toast. Saw him live last week at the New Orleans jazz festival and tried to feel the emotions associated with being in the presence of a rock deity. Instead, I felt the emotions associated with being in the presence of a croaking toad in a white cowboy suit . Dylan has reached a point in his career where he looks like shit, sounds like shit, his band sucks and his songs are boring. Other than that, he's great. Plus he's weirder than a three dollar bill which for some artists can be a good thing, but for this one is most definitely not.

Post-Beatles George Harrison

I'll probably take some flack for this (especially after dissing Dylan), but nothing George did after the Beatles moo -who -wooves me. I don't mind listening to some of it, but I own no post-Beatles George in my collection and I don't feel all that deprived in light of it. His melodies sometimes sound just wrong to me, his voice is not always appealing, and that prissy solo guitar tone he favors...well....he's done a lot better. I don't need to go into detail about the Traveling Dingleberries, either. Still, I have tremendous respect for his integrity and his ability to maintain his dignity through any situation - qualities he displayed throughout his entire life.

Colin Moulding

Now, pay attention to what I'm doing here. I am in no way disparaging or even lessening my admiration for XTC as a band. But in the past I would pick my way through earlier XTC albums to get to the Colin Moulding songs because they were always the high point on the CD for me. Lately however, they've become the low point. Colin, in my opinion, has lost his voice, and I don't mean his singing voice.

King For A Day, English Roundabout, I Remember The Sun and other priceless gems have given way to "The Smartest Monkeys" (great music, pretentious lyrics), "Frivolous Tonight", "Fruit Nut", "Board It Up", the unbelievably annoying "Standing in for Joe" and a host of other duds. Maybe it's time for Colin to hang up his spurs.

Fire away.

Bush on The Beatles

2006-05-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

"I liked their early stuff. They did some good records. But then they got a bit weird. I didn't like all that later stuff when they got strange."

New Biblical Revelations

2006-04-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

This just in.

An early coptic gnostic quote acrostic gospel has been rediscovered after 17 years in a safe deposit box in Hicksville Long Island and 1700 or so years in a very smelly Egyptian sinkhole. It is being called the Gospel of Judas because its author (who is unknown, but believed by devout Christians to be an axe murderer writing on his days off) portrays Judas as Jesus's number one homeboy and confidant. According to the account, Jesus asked Judas to do him a favor and turn him in, because that was the plan all along.

This is in contrast to the Judas of the 4 canonical gospels, who was for the most part, a spineless scumbag who turned Jesus in for a few sheckles which he later spent on a bag of pitted dates. Or something like that.

In a brief synopsis of his initial findings, biblical scholar Flinch T. Screenplay, author of "Was Jesus a Right Wing Asshole?" says the following: "After several days examining the translation, I find the translator's handwriting to be abominable." He did indicate a possible discrepancy in the translation. Where the translator shows Jesus saying to Judas: "Go now to the authorities and betray me", there is a mistranslation of the Egyptian word "ublechhh" (pronounced "ublechhh"), which is often translated as "betray me", but in this context is more likely to have meant "tell them you're me."

Some are worried that this new discovery might bring some confusion to the otherwise crystal clear message that Christianity has been offering for centuries. "We wouldn't want Christians breaking up into sects over this," said Rufus "shotgun" Mabley, pastor of the First Somewhat Charismatic Church of Latter Day Saints Advocating the Second Coming of Christ the Not-So-Wimpy-As-You-Might-Think Messiah.

Compare and Contrast

2006-04-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Greetings students. Today's exercise is on fundamentalism.

The following is list of the ten major identifying characteristics of Islamic fundamentalists:

1. They view Islamic religious idealism as basis for personal and communal identity;
2. They understand truth to be revealed and unified in the Q'ran;
3. They are intentionally scandalous, noting that outsiders do not understand them or their cause.
4. They envision themselves as part of a cosmic struggle for Allah (jihad);
5. They seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in light of this cosmic struggle;
6. They demonize their opposition and are reactionary;
7. They are selective in what parts of Islamic tradition and heritage they stress;
8. They are led by males and favor a male dominated society;
9. They envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power.
10. They use militaristic language (fight for Allah, death to infidels, be soldiers of God)

Now here are the ten major characteristics of Christian fundamentalists:

1. They view Christian religious idealism as basis for personal and communal identity;
2. They understand truth to be revealed and unified in the Bible;
3. They are intentionally scandalous, noting that outsiders cannot understand them or their cause;
4. They envision themselves as part of a cosmic struggle for Jesus;
5. They seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in light of this cosmic struggle; 6. They demonize their opposition and are reactionary;
7. They are selective in what parts of the Christian tradition and heritage they stress;
8. They are led by males and favor a male dominated society;
9. They envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power.
10. They use militaristic language (fight the enemy, make war against evil, be soldiers of Christ)

Compare and contrast.

Why Cheney Is Not President

2006-04-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've been ruminating over this for some time. Given that Cheney pretty much runs the country while Dubya spends most of his time looking stupid on TV and mangling the English language, why didn't the Republicans run Cheney to begin with?

However, when you look at the qualifications, it becomes clear that Bush is in fact far more qualified than Cheney to be President. Observe:

1. Number of DWI convictions - Cheney: 2. Bush, only one.
2. Number of Military Deferrments: Cheney: 5. Ended up never serving. Bush at least served in the National Guard when he wasn't AWOL.
3. Performance at Yale - Cheney: Dropped out. Bush: squeaked through.
4. Number of people shot - Cheney: 1 Bush: None that we know of.
5. Number of heart attacks - Cheney: 4 Bush: None that we know of.
6. Number of personal conversations with Jesus: Cheney: None that we know of. Bush: Talks to Him every day.
7. Number of parents who were also president - Cheney: None. Bush: 1
8. Number of gay children: Cheney: 1 Bush: None that we know of.

So it's Bush, hands down.

Two Major Groups

2006-04-01T01:34:00.000-08:00

I believe there are two major groups of people in
the world.

Group A: People who are fucked up.
Group B: People who are not fucked up.

To my knowledge, there are no people in Group B.

I believe this may also be true for insects and firearms.

Discuss.

It's time to burn all 4-track cassette recorders

2006-03-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

I offer no apologies, and hold my head up high as I admit to the following - I'll take a well produced Janet Jackson song over a low-fi Guided by Voices song almost any day of the week.

Overproduced

I know this is blasphemy. I know Guided by Voices is considered by many to be stark naked human creativity at its finest. I know that Janet Jackson songs are pretty much formula. I know that state-of-the-art production on a vapid Nelly tune is just lipstick on a pig. I know that the industry's finest producers are all out there polishing turds.

Underproduced

But see - I want to hear that kick drum pounding in my chest cavity, yo, not something that sounds like wax paper being spanked. I want to bask in the sound of an acoustic guitar that sparkles and resonates deeply through sweetly seasoned wood. I want to close my eyes and hear a well-sung vocal awash in rich, clean reverb that makes me feel like I'm floating in a beautifully tuned acoustic space. I want the backing vocals to sound FAT and the guitars to sound PHAT and the synth pads to sound fucking OBESE. I want quiet passages to sound so quiet I can hear insects in the room breathing.

Dammit.

Overproduced

This is why I became a recording engineer, because a kick-ass recording rocks my world like nothing else.

And also because I can't stand to hear tape hiss. Or tinny guitars. Or non-existant low end. Or any other such audio foppery.

When I hear that crap, I can't hear the music. I don't want to hear the music. It could be the world's finest lyric set to the world's most beautiful melody, but all I hear are fingernails on blackboard.

Underproduced

Yeah, I know - It's the songwriting, stupid. Fine. You got a good song? Record the fucking thing in hi-fidelity. This is the 21st century. We are no longer singing into Victrolas that scratch out patterns on wax cylinders. Pink Floyd recorded one of the finest sounding records ever - Dark Side of the Moon in 1973 and technology has been improving exponentially since then. Yet still today we have savants like Robert Pollard putting out recordings that sound like open ass.

ROBERT. DUDE. We have preamps built to specs that would make NASA engineers drool. And the stuff is cheap. There are kids in grammar school who have every digital and analog sound processor in the known universe in their bedroom closets. There is no longer any excuse for any recording to have a signal to noise ratio above .000000000000001%.

Look, I can wolf down and enjoy a Big Mac as much as anybody, but why bother if Chateaubriand is the same price? See here's where this analogy really hits home for me. I pay exactly the same amount of money for a CD that was beautifully and painstakingly recorded in a world class studio as I do for a CD of some smug, artsy dude who hasn't combed his hair in six months hocking lugies at a 4-track cassette recorder and touting himself as some kind of rock and roll purist. Sorry, bucko. You ain't a purist. You're a lazy fuck who is afraid to put in a little production effort because you're paranoid that it's going to wind up sounding sterilized. Well that won't happen if you know what you're doing. You say don't care how bad it sounds because the idea is to focus on the song and not the production.

What a crock. What a cop-out.

Here's what I say - maybe you have great songs. But there are other artists out there who have great songs and have taken the time to learn the craft of sound recording and production and apply it to make the bitches sound BETTER. In my book, their shit is BETTER than yours, Mr. Hockalugee. Mr. Behringer Hockalugee.

And yeah, there are plenty of artists who overcook the meat and ruin it. We used to call that "walking past the money". But this is not a reason to eat only raw meat. It's a reason to learn how to properly use a stove. As soon as I read a review where the recording is described as "raw", I know that's a euphemism for "recorded in a garage by a bunch of drunks".

To hell with that. I'll have mine medium rare. With a nice Chianti.

No Choice But To Kill Him

2006-03-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

Check out this dude named Rahman.

Rahman used to be a Muslim. Now he's a Christian. Q'ran out - Bible in. In other words, Rahman switched comic books. He went from Marvel comics to DC comics.

So the folks at Marvel have to kill him.

I mean, it's written right in the bylaws of the comic publishers. If somebody stops being a Marvel comic guy and becomes ANYthing else, (especially a DC comics guy), the punishment is death. Death to Rahman.

Stupid Rahmen. After leaving Europe, where he lived for a while and converted, Rahman returned to his native Afghanistan and tells his family (who are all Marvel comic types) that he's converted to DC. Naturally, they turned him in. What else could they do?

They turned him in to these guys:

These are the Marvel comic clerics. Stand up guys, all. They confer, and say- "Rahman, renounce your belief in DC comics and you will go free." Rahman, standing firm in his conviction that he is a die-hard DC man, refuses. Superman is real. Aquaman is fake. He could no more deny this than he could deny that the sun rises in the East. DC comic folks the world over rejoiced and applauded Rahman's bravery. The clerics have no choice other than to behead him. It says so right in the bylaws.

Now, the folks over at DC comics have their panties in a serious bunch about this, of course. See, THEY changed their bylaws about 300 years ago. Used to be that if you were a DC reader and you read some other comic, you were put to death also. But not anymore. Now you can read any comic book you want, and no one's going to kill you. You can believe in Superman, or you can believe in Wolverine. You can even safely admit to reading R. Crumb, although you'll be considered a freak. This makes them civilized over at DC.

The clerics are barbaric, they say - admitting, in a sense that for 1700 years they too were barbarians. But now they're civilized. And it's time for the Marvel folks to become civilized too. Or else. Dontcha think?

This Week's Refrigerator Wisdom

2006-03-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

All courtesy of Mrs. Sound:

His voice said yes, but the tree devil climbed another heart.

Manacle your puppet. Make it confess.

My funny friend...speak sweet memory and release music.

Monkey! I howl at your cold beauty. Go suck a lime.

Fear not. Love can only be explored.

Steam the holy pickle bald, boys.

(that one scares me a bit - SS)

Understand grammar him do.

I dream between blue.

Random dancing is never wrong.

Soundsurfr - Live at Cool Beanz

2006-03-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

Last night I summoned up the courage to take my acoustic guitar into the Cool Beanz cafe in a local town here in NY and sign up for the open mike. This is the first time I've played to a live audience in a few years, and more relevantly, one of very few times I've ever performed solo at a public venue.

I'm not shy at all about performing with a band. I'm all over that. If you find yourself in trouble (break a string, forget a verse, embark on a coughing fit, whatever) somebody next to you is always on hand to bail your ass out with a Hammond B3 set to "stun" or a Marshall stack cranked up to 11. Not so when you're solo. And as a solo artist, screw-ups cannot be blamed, as is customary, on the bass player (sorry Viscount) unless you happen to be playing the bass. There are no harmony singers to cover your pitchy falsetto, range-busting chorus notes or the fact that your larynx has been torn to rags from a coughing fit brought on by a slice of pepperoni that went down the wrong pipe earlier in the evening.

When it's just you and your acoustic guitar, all eyes and ears are trained directly at you. Focus your gaze on any single individual in the crowd and you will find them staring right back into your eyes. The eyes say... here we are now, entertain us. The feeling is palpable and disorienting.

In the back of my mind, I know I have the potential to dish out a pretty good performance. At times when I'm practicing, I fall into the zone, where every note is sung effortlessly and clever stylized voicings are at my fingertips and it feels O SO GOOD to be playing for y'all thangyouveramuch. Like when you suddenly find yourself in the pocket during a tennis match or golf round and every shot seems to go right where you aimed it. The problem is summoning that calm, cool headed comfort and confidence on demand. For me this capability behaves like a cat. It never comes when I call it - it just appears occasionally out of nowhere when it's good and ready, and I just have to be damn pleased that it's there. When I absolutely need it, I can be assured that it will be off sniggering in some hidey-hole, leaving me to muck my way through the songs with something way less than aplomb.

Of course, I've created that perfect in the pocket performance a million times in front of the IMAGINARY audience. The great thing about that imaginary audience is how they all delight in noticing the minute licks and flourishes you've worked so hard to perfect and how they completely disregard flubs as if they did not occur. You can even stop a song in the middle and start over again, and they won't even notice. Gotta love that.

In the front of my mind, however, is the unsettling understanding that REAL audiences tend to behave in exactly the opposite manner. Any and all performance glitches will be duly noted, written down for the upcoming press release, video taped through zoom lenses for looped replay on MySpace, and discussed among the audience members via megaphone as I step down from the stage.

The absolute worst fear for the solo musician is the brain freeze. This happens to you. It's when you walk into a room to do something and you have to go back into the room you came from to try and remember what it was you were supposed to do in the room you just walked out of.

For musicians, this takes the form of completely forgetting the chord progression of a chorus you've just played twice already in the past 90 seconds, or the lyrics of a verse you've sung at least 1900 times in your life. The likelihood of this happening on stage is directly proportional to how nervous you are. And when it happens, every human being in the entire universe, including childhood bullies, ex-wives, forgotten relatives, former high school teachers and the guy you inadvertantly cut off on the expressway last night materializes in the audience, leaning forward through the awkward silence. Their collective ears will be cocked forward, waiting in intent canine expectation to see whether you've got the chops to recover gracefully, or whether you will spontaneously devolve into a pitiful, sniveling rodent strapped to a guitar.

What makes these "open mike" venues even tougher is that you only get to play one song. That's it. One chance to be paraded, observed, judged and sentenced. No opportunity to warm up, feel out the audience, settle into a groove, find your space, get in the zone, yada, yada. It's like trying out for a baseball team where you get one at-bat and your entire athletic ability is going to be judged based on whether you hit or strike out. And you know you're capable of both.

Just trying to decide which song to play is a nerve wracking exercise. Do I dazzle them with some intricate guitar playing? Not today man, it's cold in here and my fingers have taken on the dexterity of Idaho baking potatoes. How about the easy one that I know backwards and forwards? Nah, too safe. Doesn't show 'em anything - I'll be consigned to oblivion among the throngs of perpetual wannabees - career open mikers who have been doing the "one song" thing for years, hoping against all hope to someday be asked to perform a full set as the featured artist on a Saturday night. How about that jazz piece - some technically slick chord progressions and an unusual choice for a folk venue, but damn, the vocal is ever so slightly out of my range in the verses.

Baby Jeebiz, why am I putting myself through all this pressure? You'd think I was gearing up to play a Carnegie Hall date packed with A&R executives, when in reality I'm about to strum a few chords in some hole-in-the-wall, suburban strip mall storefront bagel shop patronized by about 32 characters, each of whom appear to have stepped right out of "A Mighty Wind", many of whom are probably tone deaf, and a few of whom may actually be deaf. Hell, the guy who went on before me sang so out of tune the potted plants were drooping.

And they were plastic.

And everyone applauded.

At that point I realized I could get up there in a Dick Cheney mask and mumble the Star Spangled Banner and these people would applaud.

So what does that tell ya?

Nothing. But I got up and did my thing and it was fun. As I suspected, I was not a nervous wreck, but I didn't step into the zone either. My voice was a little shaky, and I missed a chord here and a lyric there, but people listened, and they smiled, and they nodded along to the rythm of my playing in solemn appreciation and THAT, people, is why we musicians suffer through the all the performance anxiety and get out and play when it would be so much easier to stay home and bask in the safe, comfortable revelry of the imaginary audience.

Maybe I'll go back next week. If I can drum up the nerve.

Naked, Random And Obedient

2006-03-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

This is a sentiment currently being expressed magnetically, on the front of my refrigerator. Don't ask what it means. You already know.
It means what it says. This is what I love about my new toy - one of those magnetic word jumbles.

I don't care if you think it's lame. You just don't get it. I am now obsessed with this process, and rightly so. I have gone so far as to practically require my family to provide new sentences for us to ponder every day on the fridge. I have become the word jumble Nazi. Hey - you want to live here, you gotta pitch in and do your share of the household chores, and this is one of them. Here are a few pearls that have graced the brushed stainless over the past few days:

Some of my furniture is conscious.

I know that chicken has been spying on me.

I love sleeping beneath your voice.

Naked, random and obedient.

My bosoms will make you understand.

Never dance with the brain puppet.

Yes, that tremendous black spider speaks perfectly.

Does he ask you how you bleed?

The curse of inspiration is almost understanding.

Fear is a cliche.

They use visible light to see truth.

Truer words were never spoken. And I can sit and trip out on any one of these for minutes at a time. So I do. Especially when I should be doing something else. The question is - what do we do with this stuff? We should write songs or create short stories around them. We can't just take them down and consign them to oblivion. They need to be logged and recorded for future generations. The answers to the mysteries of the universe are being systematically unlocked by these profound snippets of language.

By refrigerator magnets. How ironic. (Pun intended).

I know I'm out of control. Humor me.

Let's Get Real, Volume II

2006-03-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

This is a poem by a guy I know from the internet. It helps to read it when some right wing religious fanatic is prosletyzing at you.

She is Revealed to All- by LGM

You do not have to be “perfect”.
You do not have to grovel on your knees,
in pretentious displays of repentance,
for simply being born human.

You do not need to banish your neighbor,
to an imaginary eternity of suffering,
for not mumbling your creed,
or performing your rituals,
or bowing before your jealous gods.

You do not need to pretend,
that everything beautiful,
is a gift from your god.
And that everything painful,
destructive, and bleak,
is a demonic spell of some evil spirit.

You just need to live…and strive,
and grow, and learn,
and love, and be loved.

You need to celebrate life,
respect her countless forms,
accept her endless cycle,
of birth and death,
and revere the awesome universe that is her home.

You must be satisfied to take your place,
and find your way,
and leave your small mark,
while this brief spotlight of time,
shines down upon you.

Tell me about your pain and sorrows,
and I will tell you mine.
Tell me how your god has saved you.
That he will someday take your essence,
to a place where life is always fair,
idyllic, and painless.

A place where justice prevails for all eternity,
and there is only light and love;
and where all life’s questionswill be answered.

I will tell you this is not life.
It is a sacred illusion,
of something else.
Then I will tell you,
how understanding,
accepting and revering,
the divinity of this world and life,
that I have found,
for what it simply is…...gives me a sense of peace.

How this serenity has saved me,
from the countless,
incoherent illusions,
my fellow man invents,
to reconstruct his universe,
into one designed to make him,
satisfied, justified, and immortal,in his mind.

God is love and god is hate.
Fear and courage
Pride and humility
Knowledge and ignorance
Shepherd and sheep
Light and darkness
Proton and electron
A glorious sunrise,
and the hurricane’s wind

A long life of accomplishment,
and one cut short by painful death
God is paradox
God is balance,
and never ending change.

God is our reality,
we must learn to accept her,
understand her terms,
and respect her with our decisions.

For god is not hidden in the shadows.
She is not only foundin the myths of ancient men,
or serendipitous good fortune.

She does not come,
only in dreams and visions,
to a chosen tribe,
or an elected few...
God is standing right in front of you.

She is revealed to all living things,
in countless ways.
Open your eyes and caress her with your spirit,
explore her with your mind,
revere her awesome wonders with sacred love,

For you only have this chance,
to dance with her,
while the spotlight shines upon you.

AMEN.

SS

The War on Noone In Particular

2006-02-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

And it's one, two, three, Who are we fightin' against?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop's gonna end in "-stan"

Let's stop being stupid about this. Or coy. Or polite. Whatever it is we're being when we use meaningless, couched rhetoric to describe the current state of worldwide conflict. Because as long as we do this, we're not gonna win.

Start by pointing out the obvious - that there's no such thing as a war on terror. How can there be? You can't shoot at terror. You can't find terror on the map and drop bombs on it. You can't torture it, imprison it, apply sanctions to it or blockade it. Most importantly - you can't ever really say you've beaten it. So declaring a war on terror is like declaring a war on bullets. Stupid. Silly. Nonsensical. Of course, that doesn't stop us from talking about it all day long.

Even Donald Rumsfeld has figured this out. For the first time that I can recall in his overstayed, miserable career, he is correct. He has been trying to get us to stop calling this conflict "The War On Terror" for a while now, unsuccessfully. He's tried unsuccessfully to invoke several stupid euphemisms for this war, and his latest is that he wants to call it "The Long War". Certainly that is a more accurate label for this mess. Notice however that the salient piece is still missing. That would be the "Who", Horton. You need a WHO.

The effects of not indenfying the enemy as part of the public consciousness are insidious. Witness the Shakespearian confusion over "Dubai or not Dubai". We scratch our heads and wonder if it is not an outlandish proposition to let an Arab government-owned company come in and manage our container shipments. Hmmm. Aren't we at war with those guys? We're not? Who are we at war with, anyway? Oh, that's right. Terror. Well then. Are the United Arab Emirates "terror"? Damned if I know. No wonder we can't make an informed decision on something as basic as who should or should not control container shipments to our ports.

A while ago we had "The Cold War". But the name stuck because we all knew the WHO. You could ask anybody - Who is the enemy in this Cold War? Well, the fucking Commies, that's who. And we knew where they were. In Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba. They were all a part of the Evil Empire. We knew exactly where the bombs would need to be dropped and where they'd be coming from if it ever came down to it. There was no way the East German government was ever going to get a contract to manage US seaports while the Cold War was going on.

So who exactly is the enemy in this "Long War"?

It's not Iraq. We've conquered Iraq. (Even before we conquered Iraq, the enemy was not Iraq.) We have military bases there and we've set up a new democratic self-government. Sort of. Sometimes we refer to the war IN Iraq, but we're always careful to express our deep respect and admiration for the Iraqi People in the same breath. Since it's not the Iraqi people, or the Iraqi government we're at war with, this "war in Iraq" must be against some other people who happen to be in Iraq. Some "insurgents" maybe. But it's not just in Iraq, right? After all, we're fighting and dropping bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, too. So there must be some other people we don't like then, or who don't like us.

Could be the Extremists.

These Extremists. They're so.......EXTREME. GOD, HOW WE HATE EXREMISTS. This is a war on Extremism.

No it's not.

Listen. When we fought against Communism, we didn't go around saying -

Communism is not bad, really. In fact, Communism is actually quite benign. We've got nothing against Communism. Lotsa great people are communists right? I've hung out with several communists in my day and they have just been the nicest, most hospitable folks you ever could meet. How unfair is it to brand them all as evil? Totally. It's just a few communist EXREMISTS who are mucking things up. You know, the ones who are advocating violence and trying to spread communism throughout the world. Not that there's anything WRONG with communism, we just don't think it's right for them to be spreading it around like that.

We didn't go around saying stuff like that because that would have been utter bullshit. Communism, as it was being practiced, was everything Democracy and Capitalism was not. It was antithetical to our values of individual freedom and self-determination. The spread of communism was a threat to the American way of life and we said so from the highest pulpits.

And now so is the spread of Islam.

That's right folks, whether we want to admit it or not, there is no war on terror, there is a war on Islam. As with communism, we are at war with an "ism", an ideology. The difference is, this particular ism is also a religion. And therein lies the dilemma. You see, we Westerners believe in freedom of religion. We all agree that it's not appropriate to ban or even restrict any religion - that is contrary to our values. But what happens when we are faced with a religion that is not just a religion, but also an ideology that is inherently anti-democratic?

More on this in the next blog.

A Message From The Infinite

2006-02-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

Greetings.

It's Me. The Creator of all things. Allah. Jehova. Whatever you call Me. I don't care.

Which is what I wanted to mention.

Let Me see if I can manage to put this into a perspective that you can wrap your tiny little minds around. Some people claim that I'm not omnipotent because I can't make a rock so heavy that even I couldn't lift it. Well, what's closer to the truth is that I've made a universe so big that I can't get puny little life forms like yourselves to understand how insignificant you really are.

Here's the deal. Remember that goofy poster that came out a few years back where it shows some galaxy and points to a spot that says "You are here"? This one:

It's supposed to give you a sense of how insignificant you are.

Well it's wrong. You are much more insignificant than that. See that galaxy in the poster? That galaxy is insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. If I were to drop what I was doing and go to the point labeled "here" in the poster, I'd still need to magnify things 8 million times just to be able to make out your twirpy little solar system, and your planet would still be the size of a pimple on a gnat's ass. Imagine what YOU would be.

Now don't even try to pretend that you're Me. Every time you do that you get it dead wrong. Pretend, instead, that you're you. And you're standing in the middle of the Sahara desert. And on one of the million billion grains of sand about 600 miles away and about 600 feet underground there is a community of a billion or so completely clueless microscopic organisms. And one of these meager, pathetic, trifling, miserable, inconsequential, infinitesimal creatures draws a cartoon making fun of you.

Imagine how insulted you would be.

Not.

But here comes the really funny part. A bunch of the other pathetic little creatures get all upset because they're concerned that maybe you might have been insulted by this. I guess they feel that when it comes to microscopic, insignificant creatures, you have very little tolerance for humor on their part at your expense. They need to avenge you, so they start burning and killing and calling for the death of all organisms that share the nationality of the one who drew the cartoon.

Hee heee hee hee hee. Those are some swelled-headed ameobas, eh? Ya think? Imagine a bunch of sorry-ass microscopic loony bins killing each other because they think you give a flying wazoo about any one of them? Does it get any funnier than that?

You know what? That's YOU! HAAAAA. What a hoot. Hee heee. Oh, man. I'm dyin' here.

But I digress. What I wanted to explain to you humans is that I don't care. Really. How could I? Please get some perspective, you idiots.

Regards,

The Lord Of The Universe

An excerpt from the first draft of President Chimpanzee's speech

2006-02-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

Prior to extensive editing by White House staffers....

"Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. Folks, I just figured this out. I mean, prior to this year, I didn't really give a rat's ass about being addicted to foreign oil. As a matter of fact, I instituted policies that led to an increase in our dependence on foreign oil. We went from 58% of our oil being imported when I took office, to 65%, which is where we are now, thanks in a large part to me and Dick. Well, mostly Dick.

See, up until recently I had a different plan. Actually, Dick and I had a different plan. Actually, Dick had the plan and I thought it was a good one. Anyway, our plan was to take over the Middle East. First, we would invade Iraq, install a puppet government and grab their oil supplies for our exclusive use. Then we would use our newly installed military bases to control the remaining oil supplies in the region. That is, after we swept all the flowers thrown at us by the emanicipated Iraqi people off the runways and such.

Dick, hand me a banana. Thanks.

OK, so that didn't pan out. Those idiot insurgents keep blowing up the oil pipelines faster than we can repair them, so we're not getting shit in terms of oil from Iraq. Now, the Iranians are threatening to go nook-ular on our asses. So I figure, I'll fix those bastards. We'll stop buying oil from them and they won't have a power plant to piss in, let alone one to enrich uranium in. But my energy secretary tells me that if we do that, we're screwed because we need their oil to keep our economy afloat and they can just as easily sell their oil to Vladimir Putin, that rat bastard. Had him over to the ranch and everything and I still can't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Condi- would you check and see if there are any lice in my hair? Thanks.

That brought me to my recent epiphany, namely that this whole addiction to oil thing needs to stop so I can just annihilate those Iranian scumbuckets. Hold on for a second while I talk to the Iranian people. People of Iran - I respect you. But you need to remember what happened the last time I spoke directly to the people of another country in a speech. That was the Iraqis. I told them how much I respected them and then I threw a few million tons of missiles at them. So now listen to me: I Respect You. Got it?

Where was I?

Oh yeah, here is my plan to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil:

First, we're going have breakthroughs. That's right. Breakthroughs. I mean don't you think it's about goddam time we had some breakthroughs? I'm calling upon scientists to figure out how to make some cheap biodeisel from corn, wood chips, cow dung, New Orleans stagnant water, whatever - I KNOW they can make biodeisel from all of that shit. That is, as long as they intelligently design it and don't try any evolution hocus pocus on it. And I promise the American people that no stem-cell will be harmed in the process.

Second, I'm going to continue taxing the oil companies at 11% instead of the standard corporate rate of 18%. This will do absolutely nothing to help wean us off foreign oil - in fact it will pretty much undermine our other efforts, but Dick says I have to keep doing that so I will.

Third, we're going to invest in zero-emissions coal-fired plants for energy generation. We're not going to invest much, because I'm cutting the allocation for renewable energy resource funding by $50 million as part of my new budget proposal, but....what's that? I'm not supposed to mention that? Sorry, Dick. Zero-emissions coal-fired plants is what I'm talking about. We're going to have those. And more nook-ular plants too. Lots more.

Fourth, I'm setting goals. I hereby declare that we will decrease our dependence on Middle East oil by 75 percent within the next, say, 20 years. How, you ask? I KNEW you would ask how. If there's anything I've learned over the past 5 years as king, er, president it's that every time I say we're going to do something, some divisive, partisan, nitpicking liberal will be up my ass wanting to know how. Well here's how. We're going to use hybrid cars. And hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. And all kinds of cool new stuff that doesn't use oil. We are. I just know it. And it's going to be better for the environment, too. Not that there's anything wrong with the environment, and not that I've gone treehugger on you or anything, but it will be even better. The environment. Will.

No Need To Write Anything This Morning

2006-02-01T06:39:00.000-08:00

I only need to link you over to this article:

Greetings From Idiot America.

A must-read.

Feeding the Oil Barons

2006-01-31T10:50:00.000-08:00

S.S. Condoleeza Rice

The Viscount has already begun the tear regarding the all-time-highest-ever-profit-ever-posted-by-any-company-ever recently reported by Exxon/Mobil.

I'm not against company profits. Nosiree. I got a company. I work in a company, too. I'm a big fan of company profits.

What I'm not a big fan of is astronomical profits taken by the very rich off the backs of the poor and middle class in times of economic stress with the help and collusion of the US government. As a matter of fact, I fucking hate that.

So someone needs to please explain to me this:

How is it that increases in product COSTS translates to increases in company PROFIT for gas and oil suppliers?

In my business, when my costs go up, my profits go down, unless I increase my prices HIGHER than the increase in costs.

So in this case, the American people are scrounging to pay for oil and gas amidst rapidly rising prices, while the gas and oil suppliers are increasing their profits at the same time. Which means they are ripping us off.

But wait. It gets worse.

The US government, in the meantime continues to subsidize oil companies for drilling and exploration and in the meantime said oil companies continue to cut jobs.

The subsidies, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, undermine other efforts to promote cleaner, more efficient forms of energy.

So when I have conversations with right-wing apologists who advocate that we should "let the market drive new energy sources", I bite back the urge to rip their heads off and spit down their necks. This is a direct result of my Bhuddist tendencies and Zen meditation training and should be commended. Instead, I simply remind them that they are full of shit because the market is RIGGED.

In fact, I can remember exactly when and how it was rigged - how about you?

Once upon a time, Dick Cheney convened a group of oil barons in a room and had an energy policy meeting. Remember what they talked about?

Of course you don't. It was and always will be a secret to everyone except Cheney and the oil barons. Members of Congress then approached the supreme court to get Cheney to release the transcripts of the meeting discussions. Cheney took his good buddy (and presiding judge for the case) Antonin Scalia on a really cool hunting trip which Scalia arrogantly assured us was NOT a conflict of interest. By the grace of God, Cheney won the case in the Supreme Court, flipped Congress the bird and embarked on our new energy policy which can be summarized as follows:

Exxon overcharges us for oil.
Exxon also gets our tax money.
We have little in the way of non-oil related alternatives, so Exxon posts record profits.
Exxon cuts jobs.
Buncha rich people get richer
Buncha not-so-rich people get poorer.

That's part of what we get when we vote oil barons into public office.

This is the other part:

More Pearls of Wisdom...

2006-01-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

...from the Charter of Hamas:

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him...'

Not that they are anti-semitic or anything.

How about this...

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with...

Not that they lack a spirit of compromise or anything.

Get out your prayer mats kids. These guys are gonna make Arafat look like Mother Theresa. (Actually, Arafat kinda did look like Mother Theresa, poor guy)

Here's a website that'll warm your heart. Pour yourself a hot chocolate and have a look:

Cute Muslim Kids

Democracy In The Middle East - Finally

2006-01-26T09:50:00.000-08:00

That's right folks - Democracy has taken root in the Middle East with Palestinian voter turnout at 60% (beats the crap out of ours). Jimmy Carter and his team of election officials found the election to be conducted in a fair and non-violent manner.

This is a shining moment.

Oh, and here are the guys they elected into office:

As for me and the missus, we're planning a vacation to Israel to take a few snapshots of the Holy Land before it's vaporized.

My sleep in buffoonery bunghole

2006-01-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

That was the subject line of an e-mail I received yesterday. The e-mail was from a Mr. Esteban Capps. My e-mail program previews the first two lines of every e-mail, so in preview mode, I could read this:

Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. a sacrifice on our port of some portion of the premium, of course, line. On one side of this line, said Mr. Micawber, representing I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his...

Now, if I didn't get about 5 of these every single day I would think - "Gee, that's peculiar." And if I were stupid enough to open the email and read it, I would even more puzzled to find inside a recommendation for a new and "extremely undervalued" stock pick.

And then my next step should be (pick one):

a) Place a high priority call to my stockbroker;
b) Respond to Esteban Capps with a thank you note for his kind generosity in alerting me, of all people, to this incredible opportunity; or
c) Contact my IT department and YELL AS LOUD AS I CAN AT THEM ASKING WHY THIS CRAP STILL MANAGES TO GET THROUGH THEIR FIREWALL WHILE MY WIFE'S E-MAILS ARE ROUTINELY BLOCKED?????

Another e-mail that I received right before that one was from some poor hijacked soul named Eunice Ruiz and it had this for the subject line: EXTRA TIME

Wooweee. Here's what the preview lines said:

Does this sound familiar when you are having sex? ..please don't come yet...please..oh god..no..no..no..yes..yes.. SHIT I came...Not again... If you said YES, keep reading...

OK, so I gotta ask.

Do people really answer this shit? I mean, is it really possible to sell Viagra or boost stock prices this way?

It must be, because I keep getting more and more of these things in my inbox every day. I mean someone has to go through some trouble to make this happen, and they would not do it if there were no payback. So that leads me to my next and final question of the day...

How have we survived this long as a species?

TODAY'S FATWA: Allah loves most those who wallpaper our mailboxes with spam. Surely they will each be given a special virgin to shower naked with in heaven.

Post Op

2006-01-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

Knee surgery yesterday. Meniscus was too messed up to repair, so they snipped it. Makes recovery easier I'm told, but could lead to a faster encroachment of arthritis in the knee later in life. C'est la vie.

The most pain I experienced through the whole thing was the insertion of the intravenus into my wrist. And that was nuthin. The creepiest thing was the operating room. Very creepy. Big circular light. Nurses with hair nets and masks. Operating table with STRAPS. Beepy, blinky machines everywhere. And you think - I really don't want to be here. Maybe therapy was the better option. And just before you get revved up enough to seriously consider your chances of bolting, they start pumping valium through your IV and the whole thing becomes a scene in somebody else's movie.

How about that nurse putting that gas mask over that guy's face, ha? How about that line, "Take a DEEP breath and before you know it, you're going to wake up in recovery." After that, I had enough time to think "?" before I woke up in recovery with a nurse holding a cup of crushed ice in front of me.

Wow. Like, who changed the channel?

Not much pain, but enough to wonder how it's gonna be when the drugs wear off completely. No need to worry on that account. Along with the ice chips I was given a cup with two horse-pill sized Percodan's. Ten minutes later the world was a pain-free, worry-free Shangri-La dressed up as a hospital ward. Hey, there's my wife. Isn't she cute? Let's go home baby. I'm starving and I think I would also enjoy jumping off the top of the pergola into the goldfish pond. Why haven't I tried that before?

And so, today is day two, and I'm feeling pretty good. It was tough sleeping last night becuase my throat was sore (apparently from the breathing tube they claim was in it during the supposed operation). So, that and the drugs have left me a little too mentally spent to work on anything more taxing than this blog. I would have liked to have started a new tune or something.

Maybe tomorrow.

I Now Issue Fatwas

2006-01-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

I am totally into fatwa's now. Fatwas are beyond cool. They're brilliant.

First, there's the word itself.

Fatwa. How incredible is that word? I mean, if had to come up with a word for this practice, I could never come up with a word as good as FATWA.

It's beautiful. Say it with me:

Faaaaah Twaaaahh....

Good. If you pronounce it correctly, it should sound like Marlee Matlin calling someone a "fart-twat".

But that's neither here nor there. What is more relevant is the derivation, which I believe is a combination of the ancient Egyptian root "Fah", meaning "new rule" and the modern Farsi suffix "Twah", meaning "that I just pulled out of my ass."

Muslim clerics have taken the practice of issuing fatwas to the level of sublime art. You see, the trick is to have your fatwa seem stupid at face value, but in a very subtle Yogi Berra- like way, it reveals itself to be both clever and thought-provoking.

Take this one - a very recent fatwa issued by the highly respected Egyptian cleric Rashad Hassan Khalil:

"Being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".

Now, this is profound in its brilliance. There's no way that I, a fatwa noobie, could have come up with a fatwa that good in this stage of my career. Think of the questions it provokes! Does leaving our socks on count? How about jewelry? Handcuffs? What if we both wear the same garment?

Then there's the utility of it. Think of the possibilities for guys who want a divorce. No expensive lawyers, no tying up the courts and she doesn't get half your shit. All they have to do is claim they did it with their clothes off and the marriage is annulled. Done deal. I say guys because it would be a little more for difficult for the gal who wants a divorce. You may be aware that under Islamic law for a guy to prove something, all he has to do is say it happened, while for a woman to prove something, she needs four male witnesses. So if the couple does actually have sex in the nude and there are four male witnesses...well, there's a whole 'nuther fatwa about THAT.

The Grand Ayatollah of Mars

Here are some other cool fatwas:

“Whoever cuts down a lotus tree, Allah will cast him headlong into the Fire.”- Sunan Abî Dâwûd

And one of my all time favorites:

"You do not have to prevent music from entering your ear. You will not be a sinner just because you hear it. The sinner is the one who listens to music intentionally."-Sheikh Sâmî al-Mâjid

No wonder martyrdom is big with these folks.

Anyway, I'm now practicing issuing fatwas, although I'm not nearly as good at it yet as I hope to be someday. Here's one I just issued:

"Anyone who comes across a member of the Steve Miller Band shall throw a large rock at him or force him to eat rotten fruit."

And one more:

"Those who choose to comment on today's blog shall include their own fatwa in the comment."

Peace be upon you.

Clear Liquid Gold

2006-01-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

How did we get ourselves into this? I mean really, what lemming-like disregard for logic and sense can bring us to understand our willing participation in this absurd scam?

Imagine if someone said to you: I'll sell you a product that you already get for price A, at 1000 times price A. You have it in your house now in unlimited quantity, but when you come to the supermarket, I'll sell it to you there for 1000 times the price you're already paying and you'll buy it and carry it home. You'd say - that's nuts, but the truth is we're all doing it, aren't we? You know what I'm talking about, right?

People are up in arms about the price of gasoline. Bitching and moaning. Blaming Bush, blaming the arabs, blaming Katrina and having an all around conniption when gas goes from $2.25 to $2.50 per gallon.

But think about the logistics for a minute. To get all these gallons of gasoline, we need to arrange with local and foreign governments for drilling rights, spend millions in capital for drilling rigs and tankers, ship the stuff across thousands of miles, pump it into refineries and process it chemically, distribute it over land via rail and truck tankers, paying attention to myriads of safety regulations, drop it off at your local gas station then add 40% on top of the selling price for federal, state and local taxes. After all of this is said and done, we end up paying $2.50 (or less) for a GALLON of the stuff.

Goddamn oil barons.

But then we'll stride into the local deli or movie theater and cheerfully lay out $2.50 for 12 OUNCES of water. Do you understand, people? Even at it's highest inflation-adjusted price in 20 years, gasoline is 5 TIMES CHEAPER than bottled WATER.

What are the logistics associated with providing bottled water? Let's see...first we need to...um...get some water. Do we have to get it from a "mountain spring"? Nah. Not unless we call it Mountain Spring water on the label, but they don't even do that anymore. Now it's just "Dasani Water" or something equally meaningless. Could be tap water for all we know and probably is. Do we have to filter it or refine it or clean it or something? Newp. And even if they did, could you tell the difference? Be honest with me friend. If some disturbed individual snuck into your home and replaced the so-called "spring water" or "filtered water" or whatever the hell water you might think is in that bottle with water out of the tap, would you come downstairs the next morning, crack open that bottle and spit it out all over the kitchen floor in surprise and confusion? Would you say, in righteous indignation - "THIS IS NOT THE WATER I PAID FOR!" I suspect not.

Now we take this tap water and put it in a cheap plastic bottle, truck it over to the store in an ordinary truck and sell it to wankers like you and me for - once again - roughly 1000 times the price of what we pay for tap water. Remember also that there are no state and local taxes on the stuff. No international contracts. No oil tankers christened "SS Condoleeza Rice". No special trucks. No more regulation than there is on local tapwater (in fact, usually less). No refineries. No station attendants or special computerized dispensing devices. No wars with arab extremists.

I'm figuring about $2.21 cents of that $2.50 is pure margin. Or profit, as we say in the trade. Clear liquid gold. And they're laughing all the way to the bank.

Is this marketing genius or just profound stupidity on our part? Do you remember that 10 years ago there was no such thing as bottled water? Is this stuff filling some kind of deep-rooted need or are we just marching in tune to some mad pied piper and buying it because it's there?

I'm not saying its not convenient and even healthy. No doubt it's better to grab a bottle of water from the deli fridge than a coke. But we're being gouged. This is price gouging of the most egregious kind. You don't see a particular brand of water coming in at 35 cents a bottle and knocking the others out of business, so there has to be collusion going on. Why are we consenting to being ripped off like this?? A bottle of water from the deli should cost a quarter. Period. They'll still make money.

The Coca Cola bottling company can go to hell. I'm not paying for bottled water anymore. I'll fill up a few bottles with tap water at $0.80 per 500 gallons (which is roughly what the utility charges) and I'll carry them with me. I've got better things to do with my money.

And I'll tell you something else. Every time I sit down in a restaurant and I'm asked by the waiter if I'd like a bottle of water for the table (at 5 bucks a pop), I'll tell him: You fill our water glasses with tap water out of that pitcher over there and if I have to pay a single cent for it, you'll never see me in here again.

And put a slice of lemon in it too, while you're at it.

Me7e

2006-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Illustration: "The Seven Ages of Women"

My "7" list...

7 Things to do before I die:

1) Record and perform with some really good musicians in real time.
2) Take my wife and kids to Europe and Asia (but not in one trip)
3) Acquire more real estate. (It's Monopoly, folks.)
4) Learn to properly meditate
5) Free myself and my loved ones from the stifling negativity and ill-will of my ex
6) Embark on a long-term philanthropic project
7) Make as many new friends as possible and spend as much time as possible with both the old and the new

7 Things I cannot do

1) Sit still
2) End up with more hair on my head today than I had yesterday
3) Finish "The Glass Bead Game" by Hesse
4) Watch movies over and over again
5) Laugh at practical jokes
6) Make sense out of any Abrahamic religious ideas
7) Drink bad wine

7 Things I say most often

1) "What the fuck, over?"
2) "Leave your brother alone."
3) "Step on the gas, fool"
4) "Stupid cat"
5) "Awesome"
6) Silence, raised eyebrow.
7) "Sorry, I'm not buyin' it."

7 Movies I can watch over and over again

See "things I cannot do".

7 Books I love

1) The Monk and the Philosopher - Revel/Ricard
2) A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
3) The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
4) Chapman's Piloting
5) Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot - Al Franken
6) The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - LeGuinn (Short story)
7) The Blind Watchmaker - Dawkins

7 People who are a national disgrace

01) Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rove, Rumsfeld, Delay, Rice, Bolton, Frist. (They all count as one as they are all being controlled by Satan)
02) Pat Robertson
03) Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly (All count as one as they are all being controlled by Rupert Murdoch who is in turn being controlled by Satan)
04) Cardinal Bernard Law (May actually BE Satan)
05) Kenny G
06) Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed (Count as one as they are both being controlled by Dan Quayle who, fortunately, is too stupid to be conrolled by Satan)
07) Raymond, from "Everybody Loves Raymond". What a fucking asshole.

7 People I want to play too

1) Lil
2) MT Vanus
3) George Clooney
4) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
5) Andy Partridge
6) Kim Jong Il
7) ?

There May Be Hope For Pop Music

2005-12-30T20:15:00.001-08:00

I don't write about music much on my blog. I'm as wrapped up in music as any musician can be, but I usually don't find it worthwhile to bitch about bad music and there is just not much good music to write about.

But every once in a long while I run into something unusual that deserves mention, so here we go.

Let me say this first. If there ever was a viral pandemic threatening the art of music it would be the modern POP DIVA.

You know who I'm talking about. Beyonce. Mariah Carey. Ashley Simpson and her brain dead sister. Mousketeers Aguilera and Spears. Made for TV idol Kelly Clarkson. Michael Bolton. (Yeah, just a diva with a package.) Madonna. And the queen of self-absorbed vapidity, Celine Dion. These women do for pop music what Velveeta does for cheese. They make it smooth and creamy and bland and tasteless and so utterly dripping with bad cholesterol. Listen to a Celine Dion album all the way through in one sitting and you take two years off your life. Just like that.

Imagine how NOT excited I was to be turned on to a track that friend of a friend Billy Mann wrote a few years back for yet another pop diva. Imagine how completely jazzed I was to hear a piece that was really great in so many respects. In retrospect, maybe this particular pop diva has a few things going for her that others don't. First, she's a successful artist, but she's not mega-famous. Second - she is fighting breast cancer, so she has some REAL shit to flame out about in her life as opposed to those who throw tantrums over whether or not their dressing room curtains are the right color. And last but not least - she appears to have some soul - that is - the ability to make you believe that she believes what she's singing about.

OK, this song - this is the shit.

It's got the acoustic guitar riff. It's got the funky tabla percussion track. It's got the unexpected vocal stylization. It's got the melody and the harmonies. It's got the lyrics written by and for someone with an IQ higher than a billiard ball number. Hell - it's even got the Cajun instruments and the fucking FIDDLE solo. And it's got something to say. Hallelujah good god almighty.

Don't let me oversell this. This is not a revolution in music of the kind we experienced so often in decades past. This is not the Coltrane or the Basie, the Lennon/McArtney or the Becker/Fagan. This will not spin your head around exorcist style like the first time you heard Sgt. Pepper. It won't leave you wondering how many souls were sacrificed to the devil to come up with the track like, say, Aja did. Nothing like that.

All this is, is an outbreak of hope amidst the viral pandemic.

Do yourself a favor and listen to - "Overdue Goodbye" written by the talented Mr. Billie Mann and performed by the equally talented Anastacia.

"Breathtaking Inanity"

2005-12-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

That was the term used by the Judge in the Dover Pennsylvania "Intelligent Design" case to describe the Dover school board's policy of inserting religion into science class.

Full article.

I guess I couldn't have said it better. Nor could I have said this better, regarding the disclaimer that the Dover IDiots wanted science teachers to read to their science classes:

"In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere."

Amen, Judge.

They're gonna cut me.

2005-12-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

I was out on my sailboat one day and I put my foot down on a surface that I thought was going to be horizontal but in fact was tilted more towards vertical at the time. Now I gotta get knee surgury. Big suck.

But it could be worse. This could be the year 1721 in which case I'd be resigned to limping for the rest of my life. Or maybe I'd be having some crackpot with a jar full of leeches and a dull knife cut me open with five guys holding me down while I bite down on a bullet and guzzle corn whiskey. And THEN I'd limp for the rest of my life.

Or I could be having my 7th brain operation in 12 months like my cousin Mike. (Subject of a whole 'nuther blog.) So in the appropriate perspective, modern orthoscopic knee surgery is kind of a lame thing to be wepnering about.

But I'm not a man of faith and I can't help thinking about how much blind faith and trust we put into doctors. This little dweeby guy in a white coat looks at an MRI picture and says OK, we're gonna open up your knee and cut a piece of this and drill a piece of that and then you're gonna go home and do rehab after a while your knee will no longer feel like it's being stabbed with a steak knife. What the fuck, over? I mean, take the white coat off and this is just another slob glomming shrimp at the Christmas party. Now he and his posse are gonna be injecting me with anesthesia, knocking me out cold, then slicing into my skin and applying laser beams to my MENISCUS. I don't know what the fuck my MENISCUS is or what it does but I'm pretty sure I like having it and I fully plan on keeping it.

And who is this guy really? I don't know him from Adam. I don't know if he belongs to NAMBLA or if he tears the wings off of flies in his bedroom at night or if he's a Moonie or what. I mean I just don't know shit about this guy except that he has an office with magazines in the waiting room and knee posters in the examination rooms and some secretaries with computers and a diploma on the wall. I sure hope it's a REAL diploma and not one of those Sears diplomas. Could be one of those Sun Myung Moon diplomas for all I know.

So armed with this puny amount of background information on my boy I should be perfectly ok with letting him cut me open and fuck with my innards, right? What would you do? Google the guy? Follow him at night?

And then there's the whole dexterity thing.

I like to build stuff. Nothing intricate - I build furniture and do construction projects and landscaping and stuff. And nine times out of ten while I'm working on a project, I'll drive a nail right through the thing I'm supposed to be joining or make a cut the wrong way and tear up the piece of wood and have to either get a new piece of wood or glue the splinters and shards back into place or whatever. No big deal man, it's a two by four. But these guys do construction on humans. And it's microscopic. There can be no cutting the wrong way and tearing up shit. There can be no reading the fucking blueprint backwards or saying damn, I used the wrong size drill bit. There is no UNDO key in surgery and no EASY button either. Elmer's glue will not hold my shit together if this guy's balls suddenly itch he and shreds my MENISCUS into a pile of pulled pork. And I can't go to Home Depot and get a new MENISCUS and start over.

So it's like this - in a couple of weeks I'm gonna show up at the hospital and get some chemicals injected into me and I'm gonna go to sleep and I'm gonna hope I wake up. And if I wake up, the first thing I'm gonna do is check and see if I still have a right leg, 'cause I've seen too many Twilight Zone episodes where the patient wakes up with both his legs amputated and the doctor standing over him with a bloody meat cleaver going "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" Then I'm gonna find out if I still have a MENISCUS. Then when the drugs wear off I'm gonna learn how painful it is to have someone poke around my MENISCUS with a goddam laser beam. Then I'm gonna go into REHAB and find out how painful it is to do knee exercises after this for-all-I-know sadist pervert Moonie has poked around my MENISCUS with a laser beam.

Then, hopefully, I'm gonna walk normally again.

My favorite secular holiday

2005-12-14T11:09:00.000-08:00

You go, O'Reilly dude, you go boy. Blame the de-Christmasization of Christmas on the merchants. Blame it on liberals and atheists and ex-cons. Blame it on the Big Boxes.

On Walmart, On KMart, On Nordstrom, On Bloomies.

On Penny's and Barneys, and Costco's and Screwmie's.

Call for boycotts for anybody who uses the words "Happy Holidays". Vent your rage at the collective defamation of the birthday of the Son of Gawd. Then go home on Christmas day and drink your Pieper Heidsieck and eat your Ghirardelli chocolate and give your 10 year old son a new dirt bike with a built-in DVD player. Maybe a nice gold and diamond BROOCH for the wife.

Then when the booze wears off and the self-righteous spittle has run from your pontificating chin, and your blood pressure returns to what you might call normal, mull over this for a minute or two...

Christians have only themselves to blame for turning their High Holy Day into a circus.

Who's trampling over their own grandmother to get through the department store door at 5am the day after Thanksgiving? Who gets into a fight over the last "Elmo Takes A Dump" doll on Christmas Eve? Who's blowing out their neighborhood power transformers trying to turn their house into a freaking World's Fair exhibit from November to January? Buncha Muslims? Buncha Bhuddists? Buncha Communists? Nah. It's the Christers, as Bobby L would say. Here they come a Wassailing. I don't really know what the hell Wassailing is, but I'm guessing it has something to do with eating and drinking until you puke.

And in church on Sunday, how many sermons are devoted to cutting the bullshit? How many priests and deacons are telling their flocks to back off on the $5,000 worth of Christmas lights and give the money to the poor? Hell, now the CHURCHES are decking themselves out with enough lights to blind oncoming traffic. Are there any preachers out there reminding folks that emptying the entire 3rd floor of FAO Schwartz onto the living room floor does not really put forth the message of the Christ child? And more importantly, how many Christians are listening?

Not too many, from the looks of it.

Secret CIA Prisons

2005-12-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

OK folks - who thinks this is ok?

The CIA, under the direction of the Bush Administration, is operating secret prisons in foreign countries. We, the American people, aren't supposed to know they actually exist. We're not going to be told where they are or who's in them. We don't know what goes on there. Neither do Congressional Democrats. (Apparently Cheney briefed a few Republicans in a closed door session, but Dems are clearly not on the "need to know" list.)

This is for our security, you understand. No doubt you are feeling more secure in the knowledge that undisclosed CIA operatives are holding undisclosed prisoners in undisclosed locations for undisclosed reasons.

So hold the bus. I thought this was the kind of shit that BAD countries did. I thought countries run by EVIL CRETINS, like Russia and China and Cambodia and Syria and Burma locked people in secret gulags where they were not charged with any crime and never heard from again. I thought Americans believed in people's right to a fair trial. I thought we were signatories of the various Geneva Conventions and that we actually subscribed to and upheld the humanitarian principles they described. I thought one big difference between civilized societies and FUCKING-LUNATIC-DEPRAVED-BLOODTHIRSTY-FOUL-SMELLING-BABY-EATING BARBARIANS was that the latter tortured people in secret prisons and the former did not. Seriously, that's what I thought, fool that I was.

I also thought we had checks and balances written into our Constitution that existed to prevent any one branch of government from becoming so powerful that it could actually do stuff like this and get away with it. But let's go to the videotape. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Congress, which holds the sole Constitutional power to declare war, signed off its responsibility in this regard to President George Chimpanzee Bush. In other words, it abdicated its authority, and in so doing it removed one of the most important checks over the Executive Branch. And this is the guy who Congress gave all the war juice to, right here:

They just said - "Here's a boatload of money Mr. President. We're pretty much scared shitless over this whole terrorist thing, so if you need to declare war on some A-Rabs, you just go ahead - no need to check with us first." So now, he doesn't just have the steering wheel - he's got the brakes AND the throttle AND the gearshift too. He is in total control and when the Cheneysfeldowitz hydra told him it needed to set up some secret Auschwitz in Siberia, they just went ahead and did it. What the hell.

Now you gotta ask yourself. Why do we need secret prisons on foreign soil? (Jeopardy music.)

What is.... - Because it's illegal under US law and under the Geneva Conventions to torture detainees on US soil, but it's not necessarily illegal to do it in some frozen snake pit in the middle of the Ukraine?

Right. Now for the daily double: - Why does the Bush administration want to veto the anti-torture bill? Because it would make torturing anybody anywhere illegal under US law. Damn. That would mess things up, wouldn't it? So if Congress wants to get its credibility back, and at least get a foot on the brake pedal before Wonder Boy drives us all over a cliff, it had better override the veto.

I don't know what scares me more, that the US is doing this, or that the people of this country are not completely freaking out about it. What gives?

Senate Passes Heinous New Bill...

2005-11-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

The bill, introduced by John McAin, that sniveling, self-righteous, black-child-rearing destroyer of all that is Conservative and Good resolves to have the United States Government abide by the leftist pinko communistic rules of the Geneva Convention with regard to the humane treatment of prisoners.

No torture? We cannot have this. Torture is essential. We must have torture. We must veto this. But wait, it's attached to the defense spending bill ---OH....AUGGGH.....EEEEGGGH......

Silvio, George, Jeff and Kenneth

2005-11-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

Hello nice people. Allow me to introduce my self. My name is Silvio Berlusconi.

I am the prime minister of my country. I am also the richest person in all of Italy. You like that nice white outfit I'm wearing? I paid a hundred million lire just for the headband. So check this out - not only am I Prime Minister and the richest dude in the land - I own or control almost all of the media in my country! Isn't that great?? I personally own two of the nation's largest newspapers. And a large percentage of the country's radio stations. Oh, and I own three of the country's primary television stations. The other three are controlled by the government. Which is..... me! I have effective control over 90% of all national television broadcasting in my beautiful Italy. I own record companies, too. You should buy my new CD of me singing lounge act songs. It's a beautiful thing, and it's better than that stupid John Ashcroft video.

You know what's amazing? No matter what I do, there's hardly anything on Italian TV that is critical of me. They just love me those fucking guys. Can you believe it? And the public loves me too. They know what a fabulous business man I am, which in turn makes me supremely qualified to run the country for the next, say, 45 years. It's like if Donald Trump bought every newspaper, television and radio station in the US, then became President. What do you think that would be like? We have elections because Italy is a democracy, of course, but I always win. The other guys just don't seem to ever be able to mount a very good media campaign against me. Go feegura, as my mother used say.

Anybody got a problem with any of this? Fine, take me to court. Wait, let me just enact this new law granting me immunity from lawsuits like that. OK, done. Now sue me. Oh, too bad. You can't.

Now let me introduce you to my good friend, George W. Bush. George and me are big time amici. He's rich like me, and he's learning how to run the media, too! He's already got the keys to the media Ferrari with that FOX network. I can't believe that Rupert Murdoch guy is not an Italian. He's a fucking genius, I tell you. But George, he's no genius. First thing you do, I tell him over at the ranch one day, is start paying people to forward your political agenda on ALL the TV and radio stations - not just FOX. But you don't tell anybody you're paying them, you shangatz. You hire a real news person and you make it sound like it's a real news program.

So he does that. And he gets caught, because he's a chooch. He never explained to the newspeople he hired that when someone asks you if you've been paid by the government you say NO FUCKING WAY, or you end up in the river with cement shoes. No. Instead, somebody asks this guy - "Did you get paid by the Bush Administration for that broadcast?" and he says "Oh yeah. 'Course I did." And the guy is still walking around with real kneecaps.

Sigh. Let's try something else, I say. You know that press room you got in the White House? There are guys in there with press passes who are asking you REAL QUESTIONS. Man, what are you thinking? You need to get patsy's in there, and I'm not talking about my cousin Patsy, who's a meatball - I'm talking about guys who work for YOU asking questions that YOU want them to ask. He understands this, but who does he pick to start the ball rolling? Jeff Gannon, male prostitute. Was I supposed to say -George, use somebody who won't later be identified as a male prostitue, or does that go without saying?? This president, his brains are scrambled like an overcooked googootz.

I tell him, okay paisan, let's try this one more time. You really need to do something about this public broadcasting bullshit. I was watching that Macneil-Lehrer news report one day and these guys are showing all kinds of stuff that nobody's supposed to know about. Pictures from Abu Graib and whatnot. Then I listen to National Public Radio, and they're interviewing actual Iraqi citizens about the state of affairs in Iraq.... ON THE AIR for cryin' out loud. Not even CNN would pull that kind of stunt. George, I tell him, you need to get a Pinnochio kinda guy and appoint him in charge of public broadcasting, because this is out of hand.

Now, when I say Pinnochio, I don't mean the kind whose nose grows when he lies, (that's the LAST thing you want) but the kind who, when you pull on the string, he does what he's supposed to do. So George, he gets this guy Kenneth Tomlinson and puts him in charge of public broadcasting. Tomlinson, he's a good Pinnochio, but he's a stoonad. He comes up with this campaign to make public broadcasting more balanced and less "liberal". So far so good. Lotsa people think PBS is part of the liberal conspiracy front so you gotta play into that. But the first thing he does is he messes with Bill Moyer. You don't mess with Bill Moyer, man - he's a BAPTIST. That would be like me messing with the Pope, and you know I know where MY bread is buttered, baby. Then who does this Tomlinson call up to give him advice on how to make PBS less biased? Karl Rove. That's right, Karl Rove and there's an email trail to confirm it. This jaboney gets his ass fired in less than a year and now he's under criminal investigation for misuse of funds! Jesu Christu in a Sidecar Georgie, don't you own the courts yet??? And how is it that there were still people on the board of PBS who could get your little Pinnochio fired?

Haven't I taught you anything?

IDiots on parade

2005-11-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

<----Dover PA Board of Education

I followed the Dover PA Intelligent Design trial with utter fascination. Here's one of the many things I learned -

It is entirely possible for a person who is as dumb as a rock to be elected to a school board and become responsible for the education of children.

This is an excerpt of the cross-examination of Mrs. Heather Geesey, (former) Dover PA board member and ignoramus extraordinaire:

Q Now, you said you voted for the October 18 curriculum change because you liked it.
A Yes.
Q You supported the change.
A Yes.
Q It -- because it gave a balanced view of evolution.
A Yes, I mean . . .
Q It presented an alternative theory?
A Yes.
Q And the policy talks about gaps and problems with evolution?
A Yes.
Q Yes. You don't know what those gaps and problems refer to, do you?
A No.
Q But it's good to teach about those gaps and problems?
A That -- yes, that's our mission statement, yes.
Q But you have no idea what they are?
A It's not my job, no.
Q Is it fair to say that you didn't know much about intelligent design in October of 2004?
A Yes.
Q And you didn't know much about the book Of Pandas and People either, did you?
A Correct.
Q So you had never participated in any discussions of the book?
A No.
Q And you made no effort independently to find out about the book?
A No.
Q And the administration had made copies of the book available to board members.
A Yes.
Q But you never read the book.
A No.
Q And no one ever explained to you what intelligent design was about.
A No.
Q And you never got any instructional materials or tapes about intelligent design.
A No.
Q And you never viewed any or read any books about intelligent design.
A No.
Q And you didn't study it independently.
A No.
Q You didn't go on the Internet and look it up.
A No.
Q So you didn't really think too much about intelligent design.
A No.
Q You just knew it was something else that the kids were going to learn?
A Yes.
Q And it was a theory that was different from Darwin's view.
A Yes.
Q And what you testified earlier is that you were relying on the recommendation of the curriculum committee.
A Yes.
Q And that was their job.
A Yes.
Q And because they were recommending the introduction of intelligent design, you were going to go along with that.
A Yes.
Q And you thought it was a good idea to introduce an alternative to evolution.
A Yes.
Q Now, it wasn't the entire curriculum committee that was recommending this change, correct?
A I don't know.
Q Well, who was on the curriculum committee?
A Bill, Allen, and I can't remember the other one.
Q Was Sheila Harkins on it?
A I don't know.
Q Do you know if Sheila Harkins was supportive of intelligent design?
A I don't know that. I don't know. I never really thought about it.
Q So the two people you were really listening to and talking to about this were Bill Buckingham and Allen Bonsell.
A Yes.
Q And Casey Brown, I'll just tell you, Casey Brown was the last member of the curriculum committee. Does that sound right?
A Yes.
Q And she was not supportive of this change.
A No.
Q In fact, she was adamantly opposed to introducing intelligent design into the curriculum.
A Yes.
Q But you weren't listening to her, were you?
A She wasn't -- she was ignoring me, she wasn t mentoring me, so . . .
Q But she was there advocating against introduction of intelligent design, so it wasn't like the curriculum committee was unified?
A Right.
Q But you chose to listen to Mr. Buckingham and Mr. Bonsell?
A Correct.
Q Now, I know you said you don't have any background in science, correct?
A Correct.
Q And do you know whether Mr. Buckingham has a background in science?
A No, I do not.
Q Do you know that in fact he doesn't have a background in science?
A I don't know. He's law enforcement, so I would assume he had to take something along the way.
Q Did he ever tell you he knew something about biology?
A No.
Q How about Mr. Bonsell, do you know what his background is?
A No.
Q Do you know what he does for a living?
A He's a business owner, I believe.
Q He's not a scientist, to your knowledge?
A Not to my knowledge, no.
Q He's not a science teacher?
A No.
Q Now, there are people employed by the school district who do know a little something about science, correct?
A Correct.
Q And that would be the teachers.
A Yes.
Q And you know Ms. Bertha Spahr?
A Yes.
Q And she's been with the school district a long time.
A Yes.
Q And she's head of the science department.
A Yes.
Q And you know Ms. Miller.
A Yes.
Q And you know Mr. Eshbach.
A Yes.
Q And you know Mr. Lanker?
A I don't -- I wouldn't be able to place him, but I know the name, I know he's a teacher.
Q And he's a science teacher?
A Yes.
Q And you knew that the science teachers were all opposed to introducing intelligent design?
A Correct.
Q And the teachers had in fact told you that they were concerned about introducing intelligent design because they were worried that they would get sued.
A Correct.
Q And specifically they were worried about teaching from the Pandas book, correct?
A I don't -- I don't know.
Q Do you recall in August of 2004 you had a discussion about approving the new Biology book?
A Yes.
Q And at that time Mr. Buckingham did not want to vote to approve the Biology book unless Of Pandas and People was approved?
A Correct.
Q And do you recall Ms. Spahr making any comments about Of Pandas and People?
A No. No.
Q Could you look at page 63 of your deposition, please. Are you there?
A Yes.
....(Edited for brevity)...
Q And you knew that the teachers were opposed to introducing this intelligent design change because they were afraid they were going to get sued for teaching religion?
A Yes.
Q And so the only people in the school district that you're aware of that have a science background were opposed to introducing intelligent design; they thought it wasn t science, they thought it was religion, and you ignored that?
A Yes.
Q And you voted for the proposal because Mr. Buckingham and Mr. Bonsell encouraged you to do so?
A I agreed with them, that's why I voted for the proposal.

Folks - Mrs. Geesey is not an anomaly. She is not the only clueless, irresponsible clothes-horse-posing-as-a-human who has the power to decide what your child will be taught in school.

The rest of the Dover school board was equally dumbfounding in its ineptitude and dishonesty, and I highly recommend that you take the time to read the full transcripts at the talkorigins site. I would have sent you over to the Discovery Institute (an Intelligent Design proponent website) to read the transcripts, but true to form for these folks, they only posted the transcripts of the examination of the "expert witness" for the God of the Delaware Water Gaps faction, Michael Behe. I guess they don't want us to read the other stuff.

Some other highlights of the trial - The judge figures out that the donated copies of "Pandas" (the ID book that was to be recommended as additional reading) were provided by church donations, and this fact was hidden by some Mickey Mouse money laundering that the defense witness tried to hide. The defense witness's sputtering responses to the judge's angry red-faced interrogation on this charade is either extremely sad or extremely funny, I can't decide which.

With the exception of Michael Behe (who was torn to shreds) all of the "expert witnesses" for the defense backed out of testifying once they realized that they would be placed on the witness stand and all of their testimony (plus their published work) would be subject to public critical scientific examination as part of the trial.

In a seemingly rare display of people making real changes through the voting process, the entire Republican contingent of the Dover school board (8 out of 9 members) was voted out on election day.

In a typical display of disengagement from reality, Pat Robertson admonished the voters of Dover for abandoning God, despite the fact that the school board's entire defense case rested on the assertion that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with God.

Be aware people, and know who is on your school board. The future is on the line.

Next, we'll go to Kansas where we will learn that it is necessary to redefine science in order to make the scientific theory of Intelligent Design.....um.... scientific.

Mixing politics and business

2005-10-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

"Liberals are so stupid!"

There's a restaurant right down the block from my house. It's kinda cozy, very small -10 tables max, bar can seat about four. The food is mostly Italian and ranges from decent to really good. It's a little pricey, but heck, me and the Soundsurfrella (or "Lil" for short) like to splurge and eat well. And it's walking distance away! We can toss on a windbreaker and head up the street for a fine meal on a moment's notice AND we can drink as much wine as we want 'cause we don't have to drive home! What could be better?

But we don't go there anymore.

The owners of this restaurant, I am sorry to tell you, are right wing ass holes. Please do not interpret this in such a way as to think that I might consider anyone who leans to the political right as an ass hole - I don't. And even though the owners are indeed die-hard neocons, that in itself is not a reason for me to boycott a restaurant - especially a most convenient and pleasurable restaurant such as this. However, the owners of this particular restaurant are right wing ass holes who bring their politics into the restaurant.

One night, it was pretty late, and Lil and I had just finished a fine meal at said establishment. We decided to sidle up to the bar for an after dinner drink. Because we can. The owner, Art, is behind the bar, pouring drinks and sorting through the night's receipts, and he's chatting us up. His wife Carol joins him and we're engaging in some pleasant, brandy-fueled small talk about the restaurant, which they've recently acquired. It's all good. That is, until Art comes out with something like..."You'd have to be a LIBERAL to be that stupid! Yuk, yuk, yuk."

I do the Spock eyebrow, thinking to myself - "Did he really say that?" It was my wife's, small, involuntary mouse-like noise followed by a hint of atomized Bailey's Irish Cream coming from her direction that tipped me off that she heard it too.

My cousin Francis has a saying that I think really captures the surreal feeling of not being able to make heads or tales of what is happening in real time. He says:

"What the fuck? Over." As if he were talking on a CB radio.

That was my internal reaction to Art. "What the fuck? Over."

I mean, does Art think that the odds of a liberal coming to eat in his restaurant are so small that he can chance making a statement like that? (I live in a BLUE state for crying out loud) Or... Does he not care or is he too stupid to care about whether or not he offends or insults a patron? Or... Do Lil and I look so much like conservatives that he doesn't bother to ask before he disparages liberals? Or... Is he trying to clear the place of anyone but neocons? Or...

Later, in trying to make sense of this, I thought about the days when racism was de rigeur in the USA. (I realize those days are not necessarily over.) But there was a time in the recent past when it would not be unusual for a white man to say anything to anyone about black people, in any sort of tone, in earshot of (or even directly to) a black man. This was regardless of whether the black man was a restaurant patron, a neighbor or a stranger waiting for the same train. Their personal dignity was simply not of any concern to the white man, and the black man knew his place.

It occurred to me that this is the same attitude that right wing ass holes have about liberals. The term "liberal" is interchangeable with "nigger" in this respect, and that is exactly how they use it. It doesn't matter if they insult us, we're just liberals, for chrissakes. And we should expect it! It's standard operating procedure. Yassah, boss, that is a pretty funny joke you done made about us.

So Lil and I, we kept our mouths shut like good little liberal niggers and said goodnight. A week later, we're in the local pizza parlor having lunch and who do we see, but Carol and Art. We recognize each other and we chat. Once again, it's pleasant and innocuous - they've just come back from visiting their daughter in college, blah, blah, until sure enough, Art makes a derogatory comment about LIBERALS, followed by the obligatory donkey guffaw. I'm beginning to think he's not capable of carrying on a conversation without doing this. He's got right wing ass hole hoof and mouth disease. Again, we nod gamely and let it pass, but Lil and I have pretty much had it with this guy.

Outside of Art and Carol's restaurant, there's a little sandwich sign that the couple post the day's specials on. We pass it every day on the way to work. Once in a while, they put up a cute little comment like - "Please come in - Daughter's wedding coming up and we need money!" But lately, they've begun to pepper the sign with right wing ass hole comments. A few weeks ago it read: "Tonite's special: Joe Biden Filet - trout with no backbone". Last Saturday it was: "Halloween Weekend - Ghouls, Goblins, Liberals and Witches Welcome!" You can just hear the implied guffaw.

We were probably good for a dinner a month over there. That's about $1200 per annum in lost revenue for Carol and Art, minus revenue from any friends we might have turned on to the place, etc. I sometimes wonder what Art would think if he knew he had turned us off to his place. I also wonder if I should put on a "FUCK BUSH" T-shirt and sit at the bar nursing a single beer until it goes flat, greeting anyone who comes in with a big smile and the words "You're doin' a helluva job, Brownie!"

One thing I know for sure is that we Liberals should not cowtow to the right wing ass hole sense of social caste structure. We all need to do a Rosa Parks on that bullshit if and when we're subjected to it. I'm mad at myself for not doing it before, but the next time we run into Carol and Art (and it won't be in their restaurant), and are treated to one of their remarks, I'm gonna let them know right then and there that their right wing hooey is stinkin' up the joint.

-ss-

Off topic:

For anyone wrestling with the proponents of Intelligent Design Theory, the hilariously definitive argument against can be found in this blog. Case closed.

I have a fetish...

2005-10-31T12:02:00.000-08:00

It's a form of masochism, I think.

I argue with theists in theological forums.This is a sick and twisted thing for an atheist to do, because it's about as productive and well-advised as throwing fruit at police cars. In fact, it's as unproductive as arguing about music - a practice I often admonish my musically passionate friends for when they engage in it. But every once in a while, I get payback. This comes in various forms. For example, I may be just about to lose interest in a long drawn-out debate about the problem of evil, when I'm tossed a gem like this one:

I'm not here on earth to party and have a good time. I'm here to learn my lesson. Imagine your painless world for a minute. What will a murderer learn if he cannot murder? If he cannot see his victim's life drain from it and TRULY KNOW the consequences of his actions?

Seeing the words "What will a murderer learn if he cannot murder?" eminating from the keyboard of a perfectly serious, otherwise functioning human being is an experience I could not conjure out of my own imagination. This person has clearly lost control of his television set and entered the realm of the Outer Limits. I marvel at this.

Another form of payback is the occasional introduction to the transcendent character. As an illustration, I give you one Mr. JP Holding, proprietor of http://www.tektonics.org/. Mr. Holding is a self-professed, self-styled Christian Apologist. I put this title in capital letters to signify that Holding does this full time. It is his profession to defend Christianity from the scrutiny of skeptics. Actually, his degree is in library science, but I believe he is presently unemployed. So he writes "scholarly" works defending Christianity from evil skeptics like myself, and solicits donations to support his activities.

Now, over the years there have been many Christian apologists of note, many of them scholars, academics, university staff, etc., and most of them are not notable or, as I say, transcendent in the way that JPH is. Holding is transcendent for a number of reasons. First and foremost, he's the Don Rickles of Christian apologetics. It's a thing to behold. Once he realizes someone is not buying into his apologetics, he unleashes a string of insults back at them with every post. For example, if one points out the pitiful lack of verifyable biographical data contained in the Gospels, JP responds with this:

"So, where's your expertise on GR bioi then, schelppy? Leave it behind the door when you rushed out for your box of Munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts?"

He really does talk like this. It's the Bible As Rocket Science philosophy - a canard that the Roman Catholic Church used for years as its basis for authority (although Holding is not RC).

Holding even draws comics of his critics where he ridicules them further. Some Christians are not amused. They ask JPH.. "Is that the way a Christian is supposed to act?" Well, apparently it is, because JP will happily provide a scholarly treatise on why insulting your opponents is actually biblical. None of this "wimpy Jesus" stuff for him.

The third form of payback is the rare and elusive argument-I've-never-heard-before. Just recently, a fundy came at me with this one:

Atheism is a bankrupt worldview because it does not argue in favor of anything.

Hmmm.

According to this mental acrobat, atheism has nothing to contribute - all atheists ever do is turn the conversation around and argue against God. One day he challenges me to defend atheism without arguing AGAINST the existence of God. Can't do it, ha? Ha?? I explain that atheism is, in fact, a lack of belief in God and I respectfully ask how one could possibly defend a lack of belief in x without actually arguing against the existence of x.

He has no plausible response to this. So he launches an attack on my character, and the character of all atheists. Apparently, we're all a bunch of hypocrites. For many Christians, prejudice is perfectly acceptable as long as it is aimed at atheists.

As an old friend used to say, we atheists just have to be damn pleased. It wasn't very long ago that they could boil us in oil if they wanted to.

Hannity's Lame-Ass Damage Control

2005-10-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

So I’m totally bored while driving home last night and I switch on Hannity for a few laughs. The topic is the impending indictments in the Valerie Plame case and the spin is this: Patrick Fitzgerald, the investigator in the case, is a QUESTIONABLE CHARACTER.

Immediately, we should realize that this is a tip-off that the neocons are so unable to defend the investigatee’s that they can only resort to attacking the investigator.

Hannity is in rare form on this. He’s got no solid material to work with, so his delivery comes across about as weak as a sweater woven out of cotton candy. But the lame-ass right-wing tactics are in full bloom. First, he delivers a convoluted, incomprehensible litany of past exploits that he only indirectly attributes to Fitzgerald, and tries to make them sound shady. These involve alleged pressuring of suspects to testify against other suspects in return for plea deals, “creative interpretation” of law to force indictments and other various and sundry acts, none of which, by the way, I could identify as being illegal, unethical or non-typical for the profession.

Then he says – “I don’t know what to make of this, really. I’m just mentioning it, because I think the people should know.”

Human beings with IQ’s above 10 should really be offended by manipulative weasel statements like that. I call them “Fox Trots”, because they are used day in and day out on right wing talk radio/TV. Another one is the insidious – “Some people say….” followed by a totally unsupported allegation against the enemy of the day. “Some people say that Hillary Clinton is actually a lesbian abortionist with ties to Al Qaeda. Is that something the voters should be concerned about John?” “Well, I’ve never seen hard evidence that she’s a terrorist, per se,” John replies, in a fair and balanced way. Note that these two ass holes think they’re not engaging in slander because THEY didn’t actually say anything bad about Hillary Clinton. Heck, John DEFENDED her. Note that nobody ever raises the question of WHO actually might have said something like that or what it’s based on. But for the bobble-headed minions who eat this crap for dessert every day, that stuff about Hillary is as true as the Earth is young.

So basically, Hannity insinuates that Fitzgerald is really quite an evil fellow and then Fox Trot’s out of it with the weasel words “I don’t know what to make of this really.” Yes you do, you cheese-ball. You want US to think he’s a Bad Guy, which, by virtue of some vacuous, Left Behind Series logic, makes Karl Rove and Scooter Pie Libby good guys.

Hannity wonders out loud why the “mainstream media” is not reporting on this. Well, Sean, because a) Fitzgerald is not under investigation, somebody else is, b) it’s not really information, c) they don’t have neoconservative cognitive dissonance and finally, d) maybe, like you, they wouldn’t know what to make of it!

Through all this, Hannity is careful not to mention that Fitzgerald is a REPUBLICAN. I’m sure half his listeners are convinced at this point that he’s a raving liberal, or maybe even a North Korean spy.

The next part of the dance is where Hannity takes a pre-screened, pre-approved phone call from a sycophant. “Sean, this is Terry from Dipstick Bog, Louisiana. You are a Great American. Thank God for you. Without you, how would Americans know the TRUTH?” Sean coos back – “Well, I couldn’t do it without the support of Great Americans like you Terry.” This mutual foot-licking goes on for a while, and I drift off to ponder the idea that people who think and act like Sean Hannity are Great Americans, so what kind of Americans does that make the rest of us?

Finally, we cut to a station break where we are informed that the Sean Hannity show is America’s most reliable source of “news and Information”.

Chaysus.

God Help Me

2005-10-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

There are contractors in my house doing a complete renovation of the bathroom in our master bedroom.

Now, I am not naive. I steeled myself for the obvious inconveniences this would cause. My wife and I set up temporary shop in the outer hallway bathroom and made sure that everyone's morning shower time was scheduled to avoid conflict. We took our clothing out of the closets that were being re-modeled to expand the existing bathroom, hung them on temporary clothes horses and protected them with plastic. We explained to our somewhat paranoid teenage daughter that the construction would be noisy and there would be all manner of characters blasting in and out of the house all day tracking dirt and carrying menacing looking tools. We were fully prepared.

But this is like saying - "I am now fully prepared for my barium enema." No matter what you do, it's gonna suck. So the first thing that happens is, the contractors come in and shut off the main water feed, open up all the pipes, then leave at the end of the day without closing up the pipes and turning the water back on. No showers, no toilets, nothing. Our daughter won't even pee because she's grossed out at the prospect of not being able to flush.

Next, the design begins to change midstream. "How about if we put the tub over here, instead of over here? We think it will be better for you." (Translation: It's less plumbing work for us.)

"Yeah, but if we move the tub over there, then the toilet has to go over here, and that's where the towel rack was going to be", I say.

"No problem, we'll put the towel rack where the sconce was going to go."

You see where this is going. If I go to my office, I'm needed back at the house to clear up a problem or make a decision. If I stay home, they don't need me for anything, so I sit in my freezing cold house (the heat is off because they've got the radiator pipes all chopped up) listening to the sweet sounds of hammers and power tools and hoping I can hold off on going to the bathroom for a while. My precious vacation time is being swallowed up by the Seat-Of-Our-Pants Construction Company.

Then there's the money thing. After we agree on a price, the price begins to undergo fluid adjustment. And unlike the water that hopefully will flow through my plumbing again someday, the price fluctuations defy gravity, preferring in all cases to move upwards.

"Sir, since you got through-wall faucets, we'll need to buy special plumbing fittings for those." Cha ching. $300 bucks.

Did I want 4 inch hi-hats in the ceiling or 5 inch? I wanted 4-inch. Good choice, I'm told. Cha ching.

"Sir, you and your wife are both tall. You should consider a higher toilet. It's so much more $comfortable$." My wife, unfortunately, is present when this is proposed. She nods, enthusiastically. I wonder to myself - did she have a problem with the throne she's been sitting on all these years?

So how long will we be subjected to this? I'm told a week, but I have no faith. It's now Thursday and the area still looks more like downtown Bhagdad than a bathroom.

And, God help me, there is no Green Zone here.

Yes, we're happy

2005-10-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

In light of the ongoing unraveling of the Republican Party machine that has been taking place with rapid acceleration over the past few months, I’d like to address a familiar talking point that we hear all too often from the right. Having little or nothing to say in their own defense for the debacles we see all around us, they are now pointing to liberals and saying – “Look, they’re happy that things are going badly for the USA! Liberals WANT the economy to tank. They WANT the insurgents to make a mess of Operation Iraqi Freedom. They WANT the USA to fail. Why? Because they hate our country!”

This of course is typical neocon logic, which is to say, incoherent

I’ll freely admit that I pull out my guitar and strum the chords to “Here Comes The Sun” when things go badly for the Republicans, but not for the reasons they think. It’s not because we hate our country, morons, it’s because we love it. You see, if we really wanted to have trillion dollar deficits, deadly, unprovoked conflicts, exacerbated terrorism, and under-funded, paralyzed, inept internal government agencies with under-qualified leadership, we would have voted for Bush in the first place.

I mean, it’s not like we didn’t predict this shit storm before it happened. It’s not like the neocons haven’t lived up to our expectations and then some.

Which brings us to the reason we’re happy. We’re happy because we may soon be able to begin the long and arduous process of undoing all the damage this administration has done over the past 5 years. Maybe, just maybe, a good number of the zombie bobbleheads who voted Republican in the last election will actually furrow their brows and say WTF? when they hear things like “The insurgents are in their last throes”, or “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breaching of the levies” coming from the mouths of their leaders. Maybe even a few EVANGELICAL senior citizens will sit up and take notice when they have to order their heart pills from Zimbabwe because their Medicaid coverage has been yanked. Maybe they’ll read one of Harriet Mier’s love letters to Dubya and say “Holy shit – she’s nuts!” instead of confirming her to one of the most powerful offices in the land because she believes in the coming rapture.

In a nutshell, we’re happy because there may be some hope for our children, after all.

I guess it's time...

2005-10-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

At the risk of becoming cannon fodder for the inevitable ideological cleansing due to occur in the United States of Christiania over the coming decades, I believe it is time for me to join the blogger bandwagon.

It won't take long before my posts betray me as the irreverent liberal atheist wingnut that I am, so I might as well get that out in the open from the get-go. In my opinion, the richest country on earth should be ashamed and embarrassed that its children lack health insurance. I'm not into bestiality, but I would rather be married to Lassie than Ann Coulter. I think that if George W. Bush suddenly died and they had to perform an autopsy on him, his brain would look a lot like Terry Schiavo's did. I have reason to believe that the ACLU is not a Stalinesque organization attempting to overthrow the US government and set up a communist state run by homosexuals.

Like my good friend and fellow liberal, The Viscount Lacarte, I am keenly interested in music and am a bit of a musician myself. So I'll be sharing my opinionated diatribes on music as well, but I won't be getting into arguments about it. There's a saying about people who argue about music. Maybe those who know it can post it in the comments. My first challenge.

Another topic of considerable interest to me is consciousness and self-awareness. I can debate endlessly about the Turing test and it's ramifications, real or perceived, so anyone who wants to get that discussion going, bring it on. I'm sort of like a retriever dog on these issues - if you throw the ball, I'll chase it every time.

Some more meaningless factoids that may add to ( or subtract from) your perception of me, FWIW -

I refer to God in the same sense that Einstein did. I'm very happily married and there's nothing that bums me out more than a loser who laughs and elbows you while berating their spouse. I think "MC 900-Foot Jesus" is the coolest band name ever. I'm a techno-geek and I've got all kinds of audio recording gear. I once published a book on home recording studio design and people actually bought it. I have children who are and always will be the center of my universe. I become closer to God every time I go out on my sailboat. I have too many hobbies. There's nothing better than good sex, but Japanese food and some French wines that cost more than my monthly car payment are acceptable substitutes in a pinch. I think the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is more profound than the Bible, and contains better advice.

I have questions. If I deliberately pour Draino into a test tube containing a human embryo, should I be tried for murder? Can God kill my immortal soul if He feels like it? Why don't faith healers ever heal amputees? Is blowing himself up the best way for a young Islamist to get laid? Why do people who make $18,000 a year vote for tax cuts for the rich? Why would someone vote for a dead guy instead of John Ashcroft? No wait, I know the answer to that one.

Welcome to my blog.