I haven't been able to force myself to blog lately due to acute ass and brain fatigue. I've been spending 8 hours a day in a classroom environment. The prolonged periods of attentiveness and concentration are, of course, mentally draining, but it's all the chair time that is really taking a toll on me. Even if there are are any blog-worthy ideas percolating through the mush inside my head, my entire body aches so much at the end of every day that the mere thought of sitting down in this vinyl and chrome atrocity of a chair in front of my computer is torture.

Another contributing factor to my overall weariness is the fact that I made the significant tactical error of outing myself to my classmates and instructors far too early in this 15-week course as a lefty (the only one in the crowd, as usual) and an atheist (maybe the only one in the whole fucking state of Oklahoma). Now, when we take a ten minute break from instruction, I get to spend it beating down bullshit arguments ranging from the ridiculous to the puerile. Here are some samples of actual conversations I've had over the past few weeks. There's this:

Classmate: {explaining how income tax cuts actually increase government revenue, voice dripping with contempt for my stupidity} It's very simple. 17% of this {holds hands cupped in a circle about the size of a softball} is always going to be smaller than 15% of this {moves hands out to about the size of a basketball}.

Me: Well that's certainly true, but how does your tax cut translate to your raise? I don't understand that part.

Classmate: What do you mean?

Me: Okay, say you make $100,000 and your income tax rate is 17%. You pay $17,000 in taxes. If your tax rate is lowered to 15%, you then pay $15,000 in taxes because your income never changed. That's a decrease in government revenue. Since a tax cut is not a raise, your argument is essentially that decreasing government revenue increases government revenue.

Classmate: {walks away frowning and shaking head}


And this:

Instructor: Hey liberal, have you ever heard of the Fair Tax?

Me: Yes, it's a national sales tax that is anything but fair. It ends up being a huge tax cut for the wealthy and a huge tax increase for the poor.

Instructor: {snickering} I bet you read a lot, don't you? You know what you need to do? You need to read two books; The Fair Tax Book and Fair Tax: Answering the Critics.

Me: You want me to read a book about taxes written by two guys who aren't economists that got trashed so badly by real economists that they had to write another book for damage control?

Instructor: {walks away with a weird little smile on his face}

This one is my favorite:

Classmate: Do you believe we came from monkeys?

Me: I believe monkeys and humans evolved from a common ancestor.

Classmate: That doesn't make sense to me. I just have real trouble believing that intelligent life could come from nothing.

Me: You have trouble believing that life, including intelligent life, could evolve through natural processes over billions of years, but you're okay believing that the invisible cloud-daddy made it all in 6 days with magic?

Classmate: Well if you analyze anything enough, you can make it sound ridiculous.

Me: Yep, I guess so.

This goes on day after day. They try to beat me into submission with bible verses and talking points pulled from the internet and hate radio and seemingly right out of their asses. As I said, it's very tiring, but now that the battle has been joined, my bone-headed pride won't allow me to cede even the most minor of points. I refuse to be silenced. I'm challenging everything from the tired old lie that Al Gore claimed he invented the internet to the newer ones about Obama being a closet Muslim who will institute Sharia law if he gets elected. I'm a rock of rationality, standing tall in a sea of ignorance, undaunted by the waves of stupidity crashing over me.

At last, we have reached the culmination of dubya's War on Terra. We are going to try (and execute) six men involved in planning and carrying out the crimes of 9/11/2001. That's right, six men. When I read their names, I had only heard of three of them. And I pay attention. Most of Amurka will only have heard of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed, and honestly I think that's because any time he's mentioned in the media it is accompanied by the bed-head picture from when he was captured while sleeping in Pakistan. It's the classic "gotcha" picture that reality-television America loves. (hee-hee, stoopid terrorist)

That was in March of 2003, by the way. I checked for the other five and found they've all been in custody since at least 2003. None of these guys is Iraqi, nor were any of them captured in Iraq. Going on five years in-country and we haven't captured a bad guy worth killing. Wow. It's almost like the whole invasion and occupation of Iraq was just an enormously stupid boondoggle or something. Even if I go ahead and add in the various al-Qaida lieutenants and the parade of al-Qaida number three men we've killed, and give dubya the benefit of the doubt in assuming he will eventually catch Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and, who knows, maybe a few additional number three men along with them, that still adds up to several billion dollars per boogeyman. We're certainly not getting much bang for our buck out of this War on Terra.

My imagination conjures up a big ol' what if. As in, what if, after 9/11, our preznit had kept his eye on the ball, sent the 150,000 troops currently in Iraq into Afghanistan and yes, Pakistan, and told them they could go home when they dragged Osama bin Laden's bony, dead ass out of the mountains? What if he had treated al-Qaida as the band of common and cowardly criminals that it was, instead of as some kind of evil super-villain from which he had to protect Amurka?

These trials and executions could have been long over, and an angry America could have moved on a little by now. Instead our preznit and his band of PNAC patriots hyped the hate in pursuit of Iraqi subjugation. I know my what ifs don't support the troops, but I can't help wondering what the consequences of not invading Iraq would have been. The worst scenario I can come up with is that Saddam would still be brandishing his imaginary WMDs at his neighbors and claiming his dick was bigger than dubya's. I'm sure the rest of the world would still think our preznit was a buffoon, but there's a chance they would think he was a somewhat competent buffoon. I could have lived with that.

The air is crisp and there's a cold wind out of the North. I stand on the concrete tee pad, right shoulder to the basket, and watch my breath float away on the breeze. I grip the disc with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and begin raising it up and to my left as I step forward with my right foot, turning slightly to my left, away from the basket. The pad is covered with loose, sandy red Oklahoma soil, so my steps are careful and unhurried. Pivoting on my right foot, I take a small backward step with the left. My back is now fully to the basket. I plant my left foot and take a big step back and around with my right, my body and arm following. I bring the disc through from high to low, snapping my wrist, imparting maximum spin. I let it go with a slight rightward tilt so it'll cut into the wind and it feels good leaving my hand. It turns into the wind and rides it, going long and continuing to turn right. It lands in the street, out of bounds, where it is immediately run over by a 30-year old customized Ford Econoline van. Double bogey. Sigh.

Today, in order to protect Amurka from the terrorists, Mitt Romney suspended his campaign. It's quite a sacrifice. He gave up his bid to lead this country in order to save it. I am deeply moved. So much so that I am hesitant to mention the fact that Mitt was spending millions of dollars of his own money on his campaign and still getting his ass handed to him by John McCain.

I dug into my electronic bag of crap and found a post from December 2006 in which I predicted that John McCain would not win the Republican nomination because of his pro-Iraq war position. I thought the tide of public opinion had turned against our occupation of Iraq for good, but see, that was before the year-long publicity campaign known as The Surge was unveiled. And besides, how could I have imagined what a sorry bunch of candidates the Republicans would muster. So bad that a man the majority of Republicans don't even like is going to win the nomination. Ironical.