worrisome days
10/31/06 15:45
I keep
getting robo-calls from a woman named Carol who’s
very concerned about one of our Senate candidates
here in Misery. She’s worried about what life will be
like if Claire McCaskill and the Dems take over
congress. It seems they plan to immediately surrender
to the evil brown Muslim people in the war on terra
and institute Sharia law throughout the land. Then
they are going to throw open our borders and raise
taxes a zillion percent in order to pay social
security benefits to all the evil brown hispanic
people flooding into the country. After that,
marriage between a man and a woman will be outlawed
and every pregnant woman will be forced to have an
abortion to provide stem cells to produce an army of
Clenis and Hillary clones.
I wish I could comfort Carol, but she doesn’t leave her number on the recording. I’m pretty scared myself. Will I have any say in who I’m forced to gay marry?
I wish I could comfort Carol, but she doesn’t leave her number on the recording. I’m pretty scared myself. Will I have any say in who I’m forced to gay marry?
|
the sky is falling
10/25/06 11:03
Not
really. But the coral is
dying, which
to me says for the ocean, what “the trees are
dying” says for the land. It’s a catastrophe in
progress. And every time the subject of global
warming makes it to the evening news dubya puts on
his serious face and says he’s concerned, but the
subject needs more study because “scientists
disagree.” Doing what he does best, play dumb.
Relying on the American people to remain as
incurious and ignorant as he is allows him to use
bogus studies funded by Exxon-Mobil to negate the
work of thousands of real scientists from around
the world. Meanwhile the surface temperature in
the northern hemisphere for 2005 was the hottest
on record. The four years prior to that round out
the top 5 warmest on record. 2006 is gonna be
another hot one, maybe the warmest yet. This is a
very real problem that is happening in slow motion
right in front of all of us and all our government
wants to do is muddy the waters to avoid any real
public discourse on the subject. It’s corporate
profits at any cost. Madness.
war is loss
10/25/06 00:30
Remember
Pat Tillman? He was the Arizona Cardinals football
player who passed up millions to go be a special
forces soldier with his brother and was later killed
by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Truthdig has a
document posted written by Pat’s brother Kevin that
every person in America should read. Just
click here to
check it out.
Stay the course? What course?
10/24/06 11:29
Yesterday
on ABC’s This
Week, dubya
said
“We’ve never been stay the course.”
I don’t
know what happened after that, but I’m assuming
George Stephanopoulis just stood there gaping for the
rest of the program. Then this morning on CBS’
Early
Show White
House senior adviser Dan Bartlett said dubya’s Iraq
policy has
“never been a stay the course
strategy.”
Wow. They’ve apparently decided to use the force to alter public perception of reality. These aren’t the ‘droids you’re looking for.
The left blogosphere is busy finding all the video of the preznit saying those exact words umpteen times over the last 3 years. It’s ridiculous. They are so desperate to get out from under their own stupid slogan that they are going to try the old everybody-keep-telling-the-same-lie-until-it-becomes-accepted-truth trick again. Look for Rush Limbaugh and company to be backing them up the rest of the week. By the time the election rolls around the whole stay the course thing will have been a Democrat idea.
I think it’s finally dawning on the boy king that stay the course means more of the same and most Americans by far now think that more of the same is a stupid idea.
Wow. They’ve apparently decided to use the force to alter public perception of reality. These aren’t the ‘droids you’re looking for.
The left blogosphere is busy finding all the video of the preznit saying those exact words umpteen times over the last 3 years. It’s ridiculous. They are so desperate to get out from under their own stupid slogan that they are going to try the old everybody-keep-telling-the-same-lie-until-it-becomes-accepted-truth trick again. Look for Rush Limbaugh and company to be backing them up the rest of the week. By the time the election rolls around the whole stay the course thing will have been a Democrat idea.
I think it’s finally dawning on the boy king that stay the course means more of the same and most Americans by far now think that more of the same is a stupid idea.
A confession
10/24/06 11:05
People
think I’m always pounding on the Republicans and
their habit of sloganeering instead of actually
governing because I’m a Democrat. Snot true. I’m a
registered independent now, but the truth is, I was
once a Reagan Republican. I was a true believer.
From my earliest memories I recall being taught how the US is good and righteous and benevolent, but we have these evil enemies that want us to fail, so we had to be ever vigilant and true to our country and practice putting our head between our legs to protect us from nuclear bombs. In the ‘70’s, I witnessed the US pull out of Vietnam and I believed the right-wing when they said we lost because our leaders didn’t have the guts to finish the job. Then there was the Arab oil embargo with high gas prices, recession and stagflation etc. That was followed by the Iran hostage crisis. I felt like the world was out to get us and we needed to kick some ass.
I was ignorant. And arrogant. Ronald Reagan pushed all the right buttons with me. He was the prototypical rugged American cowboy (at least he played one on TV) who wasn’t going to take any shit from those damn foreigners. And so, for my first-ever vote, I voted for him with a great sense of pride and patriotism.
It’s embarrassing to look back on it now. I’ve always considered myself to be pretty bright, but it’s obvious that my analytical thinking skills back then left a lot to be desired. Intelligence doesn’t do you any good if you’re too lazy to put in the work to actually separate the facts from the fiction. It’s always easier to just believe what the government tells you and go back to drinking beer and watching television than it is to try to be a responsible and informed citizen. I get so angry at the rubes who are still backing dubya because I see my younger self there.
I can’t point my finger at any particular event that woke me up, but it was some time near the end of Reagan’s second term that I finally began to pull my head out of the sand. I’m working on another post about some of the myths of the Reagan era now. Some of those myths are still being perpetuated by the current administration, which shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess, since a lot of the same actors are in the cast. More on this later.
From my earliest memories I recall being taught how the US is good and righteous and benevolent, but we have these evil enemies that want us to fail, so we had to be ever vigilant and true to our country and practice putting our head between our legs to protect us from nuclear bombs. In the ‘70’s, I witnessed the US pull out of Vietnam and I believed the right-wing when they said we lost because our leaders didn’t have the guts to finish the job. Then there was the Arab oil embargo with high gas prices, recession and stagflation etc. That was followed by the Iran hostage crisis. I felt like the world was out to get us and we needed to kick some ass.
I was ignorant. And arrogant. Ronald Reagan pushed all the right buttons with me. He was the prototypical rugged American cowboy (at least he played one on TV) who wasn’t going to take any shit from those damn foreigners. And so, for my first-ever vote, I voted for him with a great sense of pride and patriotism.
It’s embarrassing to look back on it now. I’ve always considered myself to be pretty bright, but it’s obvious that my analytical thinking skills back then left a lot to be desired. Intelligence doesn’t do you any good if you’re too lazy to put in the work to actually separate the facts from the fiction. It’s always easier to just believe what the government tells you and go back to drinking beer and watching television than it is to try to be a responsible and informed citizen. I get so angry at the rubes who are still backing dubya because I see my younger self there.
I can’t point my finger at any particular event that woke me up, but it was some time near the end of Reagan’s second term that I finally began to pull my head out of the sand. I’m working on another post about some of the myths of the Reagan era now. Some of those myths are still being perpetuated by the current administration, which shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess, since a lot of the same actors are in the cast. More on this later.
Reagan set the bar pretty low
10/24/06 10:49
I was
writing about Reagan the other day, and as I thought
back on his policies, it became clear to me that
dubya’s regime has been a continuation of the worst
of the Reagan-era game plan.
First, the notion that what’s good for the rich is good for the country. That giving the rich more money via tax cuts while cutting programs for the poor and elderly to pay for them is somehow beneficial to the poor and elderly. Reagan called it the trickle-down theory of economics. In truth there wasn’t much trickle, but he sold it so well that it became common knowledge that “tax cuts stimulate the economy.” I’m from Missouri though, so you have to show me. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate the exact opposite. The booming economy of the ‘90’s started under the elder, smarter George Bush who actually raised taxes. Then it really took off under the Clenis who raised taxes again. Dubya came into office with tax cuts as his main agenda and the economy went into a funk that it’s only just coming out of. The Dow Jones industrial average is right now at a record high above 12,000. That’s a good thing. The problem is this: back in 1999 it hit a record of 11,000. It took 7 years (6 of them under dubya and his big bad tax cuts) to gain 9% and that’s without adjusting for inflation. I’m no economics wonk, but I don’t see how you can spin those numbers as good for the country.
Another similarity between dubya and Ronnie Ray-guns is the insane amount of deficit spending. They both cut revenue by giving massive tax cuts to the rich and then spent trillions more than that revenue, essentially borrowing money using the nation as collateral to give to the people who need it the least. Then they both made cuts to social programs under the guise of cutting the deficit that they themselves created. Reagan set the previous record for largest deficit in history. Dubya blew that record away. He started with the largest surplus in history and still turned it into the largest deficit in history. Amazing.
These people aren’t interested in governing well or governing responsibly. They aren’t really interested in governing at all. In truth, they are anti-government. They want to see the government so far in debt that it has to do away with social security and welfare programs and cease providing essential governmental services. I think Katrina showed that we are well on our way to that point.
First, the notion that what’s good for the rich is good for the country. That giving the rich more money via tax cuts while cutting programs for the poor and elderly to pay for them is somehow beneficial to the poor and elderly. Reagan called it the trickle-down theory of economics. In truth there wasn’t much trickle, but he sold it so well that it became common knowledge that “tax cuts stimulate the economy.” I’m from Missouri though, so you have to show me. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate the exact opposite. The booming economy of the ‘90’s started under the elder, smarter George Bush who actually raised taxes. Then it really took off under the Clenis who raised taxes again. Dubya came into office with tax cuts as his main agenda and the economy went into a funk that it’s only just coming out of. The Dow Jones industrial average is right now at a record high above 12,000. That’s a good thing. The problem is this: back in 1999 it hit a record of 11,000. It took 7 years (6 of them under dubya and his big bad tax cuts) to gain 9% and that’s without adjusting for inflation. I’m no economics wonk, but I don’t see how you can spin those numbers as good for the country.
Another similarity between dubya and Ronnie Ray-guns is the insane amount of deficit spending. They both cut revenue by giving massive tax cuts to the rich and then spent trillions more than that revenue, essentially borrowing money using the nation as collateral to give to the people who need it the least. Then they both made cuts to social programs under the guise of cutting the deficit that they themselves created. Reagan set the previous record for largest deficit in history. Dubya blew that record away. He started with the largest surplus in history and still turned it into the largest deficit in history. Amazing.
These people aren’t interested in governing well or governing responsibly. They aren’t really interested in governing at all. In truth, they are anti-government. They want to see the government so far in debt that it has to do away with social security and welfare programs and cease providing essential governmental services. I think Katrina showed that we are well on our way to that point.
I'm in the majority now
10/20/06 12:25
I was
doing a little cleaning and straightening around the
bunker today and I found a yellow sticky note on
which I have written the following quotation from
John Kenneth Galbraith:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
I don’t remember when or why I wrote that down, but when I read it again today I immediately flashed on dubya speechifying about an “ownership society” right after he was re-elected. He was going to use his 1% mandate to try to pull off the conservative wet dream; get rid of Social Security. I think that was probably the point where the public began to turn away from him.
Up until then it was all steely-eyed resolve and stay the course, we’ve turned a corner in Iraq rah rah flag waving, but when he started making noise about getting rid of the single most important liberal social program in our history the people finally took their attention off American Idol long enough to say “No thanks dipshit.”
It was his first real setback, but then Katrina came along and he stayed on vacation for a couple more days while New Orleans drowned. And now we’ve turned so many corners in Iraq that it’s become obvious to about two-thirds of the country that we are going in circles. I’m optimistic that I am seeing democracy in action in the US right now. It’s refreshing.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
I don’t remember when or why I wrote that down, but when I read it again today I immediately flashed on dubya speechifying about an “ownership society” right after he was re-elected. He was going to use his 1% mandate to try to pull off the conservative wet dream; get rid of Social Security. I think that was probably the point where the public began to turn away from him.
Up until then it was all steely-eyed resolve and stay the course, we’ve turned a corner in Iraq rah rah flag waving, but when he started making noise about getting rid of the single most important liberal social program in our history the people finally took their attention off American Idol long enough to say “No thanks dipshit.”
It was his first real setback, but then Katrina came along and he stayed on vacation for a couple more days while New Orleans drowned. And now we’ve turned so many corners in Iraq that it’s become obvious to about two-thirds of the country that we are going in circles. I’m optimistic that I am seeing democracy in action in the US right now. It’s refreshing.
Fan, meet shit...Shit, this is fan
10/18/06 09:58
The wheels
are
really coming off
in Iraq now. Even CNN appears to have seen enough. As
I am writing this the headline on the
international edition
reads
Bloodshed
Buries Iraq Hopes. I think
that sums it up pretty well. The first three
paragraphs of the story are pretty damning:
(CNN) -- Early in the Iraq conflict, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed insurgents as "dead-enders." In 2004, President Bush said the battle against these fighters was "turning a corner." In 2005, he described a "turning point," and Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Now, those descriptions lie buried beneath thousands of bodies -- U.S. troops, Iraqi police, and everyday citizens tortured and killed simply because of their religious sect.
The U.S. death toll is well above 2,700, and the coalition death toll just passed 3,000. Last month 776 U.S. troops were wounded -- the highest number in nearly two years. There is no sign the insurgency is waning, and no evidence to suggest it will any time soon.
Dubya is desperately trying to keep the blinders on his remaining supporters long enough to get past the mid-term elections, but I’m optimistic that the American people are starting to see through this moron. I’m fairly confident that the Democrats are about to take over control of Congress. It’s what they do with that control (and the accompanying subpoena power) when they get it that gives me doubts. I’m not confident at all that they have the balls to end the insanity.
I would love to see some real, very public investigations conducted into PNAC and the whole selling of the Iraq invasion. I firmly believe that several of these people belong in prison. Back in the ‘90s they came up with a plan to invade Iraq and install a US friendly government and military bases from which to exert influence and “protect US interests” (that’s PNAC for control the oil flow) in the region. They state in one of their documents that it would take a triggering event such as another Pearl Harbor to be able to pull it off. 9/11 was just the excuse they were looking for. After that all it took was a year-long scare campaign to conflate Iraq and al-Qaida in the mind’s of anyone not paying attention (sadly that’s a large part of America) and just like that, we own Iraq. Remember the banner on the aircraft carrier? Mission Accomplished. If you look at it from their point of view, it’s true. They have accomplished what they set out to do. Military bases? Check. Puppet government? Check. Secure the oil? Check.
That’s why they haven’t done anything since. They didn’t have a plan for withdrawing the troops after the invasion because they don’t intend to withdraw. The ongoing carnage reinforces their claims that we can’t leave now. They wrapped it in the flag and sold it as spreading freedom and democracy and protecting us from Saddam and his WMDs, but the truth is, this invasion was about empire building and I think it’s criminal. The US invaded a sovereign nation for economic reasons. That isn’t democracy, it’s capitalism run amok.
(CNN) -- Early in the Iraq conflict, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed insurgents as "dead-enders." In 2004, President Bush said the battle against these fighters was "turning a corner." In 2005, he described a "turning point," and Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Now, those descriptions lie buried beneath thousands of bodies -- U.S. troops, Iraqi police, and everyday citizens tortured and killed simply because of their religious sect.
The U.S. death toll is well above 2,700, and the coalition death toll just passed 3,000. Last month 776 U.S. troops were wounded -- the highest number in nearly two years. There is no sign the insurgency is waning, and no evidence to suggest it will any time soon.
Dubya is desperately trying to keep the blinders on his remaining supporters long enough to get past the mid-term elections, but I’m optimistic that the American people are starting to see through this moron. I’m fairly confident that the Democrats are about to take over control of Congress. It’s what they do with that control (and the accompanying subpoena power) when they get it that gives me doubts. I’m not confident at all that they have the balls to end the insanity.
I would love to see some real, very public investigations conducted into PNAC and the whole selling of the Iraq invasion. I firmly believe that several of these people belong in prison. Back in the ‘90s they came up with a plan to invade Iraq and install a US friendly government and military bases from which to exert influence and “protect US interests” (that’s PNAC for control the oil flow) in the region. They state in one of their documents that it would take a triggering event such as another Pearl Harbor to be able to pull it off. 9/11 was just the excuse they were looking for. After that all it took was a year-long scare campaign to conflate Iraq and al-Qaida in the mind’s of anyone not paying attention (sadly that’s a large part of America) and just like that, we own Iraq. Remember the banner on the aircraft carrier? Mission Accomplished. If you look at it from their point of view, it’s true. They have accomplished what they set out to do. Military bases? Check. Puppet government? Check. Secure the oil? Check.
That’s why they haven’t done anything since. They didn’t have a plan for withdrawing the troops after the invasion because they don’t intend to withdraw. The ongoing carnage reinforces their claims that we can’t leave now. They wrapped it in the flag and sold it as spreading freedom and democracy and protecting us from Saddam and his WMDs, but the truth is, this invasion was about empire building and I think it’s criminal. The US invaded a sovereign nation for economic reasons. That isn’t democracy, it’s capitalism run amok.
Rogue Nation
10/16/06 12:10
I’ve been
pondering North Korea’s claimed nuclear test and my
thoughts seem to keep coming back to dubya’s State of
the Union speech in January 2002. That’s when he
declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea to be an axis of
evil.
In the four months between 9/11 and this speech, we had invaded and conquered Afghanistan, broken up and dispersed the Taliban and generally wreaked havoc on al Qaida. We were kicking ass in the war on terror. But with this speech, dubya unveiled his War on Terra. He moved the goal posts. We went from pursuing known enemies to perceived enemies and it’s been all downhill since.
Looked at in the light of this speech, how can the US be surprised that North Korea is hell-bent on obtaining nukes? The leader of the only remaining superpower declared three other nations to be enemies of the world and subsequently invaded and occupied one of those nations. What the fuck other reaction could we expect from the remaining two? Is dubya stupid enough to think they were going to just sit quietly and wait for their turn to be invaded? Never mind, I know the answer to that one.
In the eyes of smaller countries, the only deterrent to our policy of regime change is to make it too costly to carry out. It worked for Pakistan, right?
In the four months between 9/11 and this speech, we had invaded and conquered Afghanistan, broken up and dispersed the Taliban and generally wreaked havoc on al Qaida. We were kicking ass in the war on terror. But with this speech, dubya unveiled his War on Terra. He moved the goal posts. We went from pursuing known enemies to perceived enemies and it’s been all downhill since.
Looked at in the light of this speech, how can the US be surprised that North Korea is hell-bent on obtaining nukes? The leader of the only remaining superpower declared three other nations to be enemies of the world and subsequently invaded and occupied one of those nations. What the fuck other reaction could we expect from the remaining two? Is dubya stupid enough to think they were going to just sit quietly and wait for their turn to be invaded? Never mind, I know the answer to that one.
In the eyes of smaller countries, the only deterrent to our policy of regime change is to make it too costly to carry out. It worked for Pakistan, right?
Accuse, Invade, Repeat
10/16/06 11:05
I’m going
to see if I can pick up Scott Ritter’s new
book
Target Iran today.
This one is a must read for me. He’s the former Iraq
weapons inspector who was so harshly criticized prior
to the invasion for saying that the administration’s
WMD claims were false. Pretty much everything he was
saying at the time about Iraq turned out too be true,
so I think it’s important to listen to what he has to
say about Iran today.
One thing he is saying now (based on a couple of interviews I’ve heard him give) is that dubya and company are using the same strategy for Iran that they used for Iraq. Essentially that strategy is to continually make unsubstantiated accusations about weapons programs and keep escalating the breadth and extent of these (perhaps imaginary) weapons programs until it’s eventually common knowledge throughout the trailer parks of Amurka that they exist and must be dealt with. It puts the accused country in the untenable position of having to prove a negative. How can Iran prove to dubya’s satisfaction that they are not producing nukes? Iraq wasn’t able to do it with weapons inspectors on the ground for four months prior to the US invasion, so I’m doubtful that anything Iran says or does is going to work.
I remember back in 2002-2003 being baffled at how the mainstream media made a pariah out of Ritter for speaking truth to power before the invasion. They helped Rush and Hannity et al take a guy who had spent a good deal of time in Iraq looking for WMDs and had reached the conclusion that they weren’t there, and make him out to be some kind of left-wing moon-bat secretly working for Clinton’s penis.
According to Ritter, there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran is producing nuclear weapons. And how did he reach this conclusion? He went to Iran and did some research, interviewing Iranians and visiting facilities. What a novel approach.
One thing he is saying now (based on a couple of interviews I’ve heard him give) is that dubya and company are using the same strategy for Iran that they used for Iraq. Essentially that strategy is to continually make unsubstantiated accusations about weapons programs and keep escalating the breadth and extent of these (perhaps imaginary) weapons programs until it’s eventually common knowledge throughout the trailer parks of Amurka that they exist and must be dealt with. It puts the accused country in the untenable position of having to prove a negative. How can Iran prove to dubya’s satisfaction that they are not producing nukes? Iraq wasn’t able to do it with weapons inspectors on the ground for four months prior to the US invasion, so I’m doubtful that anything Iran says or does is going to work.
I remember back in 2002-2003 being baffled at how the mainstream media made a pariah out of Ritter for speaking truth to power before the invasion. They helped Rush and Hannity et al take a guy who had spent a good deal of time in Iraq looking for WMDs and had reached the conclusion that they weren’t there, and make him out to be some kind of left-wing moon-bat secretly working for Clinton’s penis.
According to Ritter, there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran is producing nuclear weapons. And how did he reach this conclusion? He went to Iran and did some research, interviewing Iranians and visiting facilities. What a novel approach.
Got Jeebus
10/12/06 13:15
A very
spiritual friend of mine dropped me an e-mail about
the site. She writes:
Sometimes I think you want God in your life...You want someone to give you concrete evidence that God is truly there...I really do wish... that I could describe to you...what it feels like in my heart to believe in the Lord, to know a greater power and know that there is something wonderful in store for me when I leave this earth.
She’s projecting more than a little there, but it’s a classic example of what I like about religious individuals. In singles and small groups they are kind and caring and they have the best of intentions. But as any group of religious individuals grows, at some point a sort of critical mass is reached and the benevolence seems to fall away as the focus changes from sharing their beliefs with others to imposing them on every one. Apparently the crazy is cumulative
As for that feeling of awe and wonder that comes with belief with a capital b, I have actually felt that before (I was once a Baptist), but it wore off rather quickly when, at the age of 12 or 13, I set out to read the bible and found it didn’t actually live up to the hype. It was obvious right away that it wasn’t actually the word of some all-powerful being. It’s too full of contradictions and mistakes and hatred and bloodthirsty violence to be anything other than what it is, ancient writings by men seeking to justify their positions of authority. I put it down somewhere in the latter half of the Old Testament and never felt the need to pick it up again.
I do still get that feeling of awe though, when I ponder the immensity of the universe. I think about the fact that there are something like 70 trillion stars out there and all of life as we know it is concentrated in a thin film on the surface of one small planet circling one small star in one small galaxy on the outskirts of the whole thing. I am awed by my own insignificance. My idea of heaven would be to get to see some of that vastness up close. My friend means well, but her god is too small for me.
Sometimes I think you want God in your life...You want someone to give you concrete evidence that God is truly there...I really do wish... that I could describe to you...what it feels like in my heart to believe in the Lord, to know a greater power and know that there is something wonderful in store for me when I leave this earth.
She’s projecting more than a little there, but it’s a classic example of what I like about religious individuals. In singles and small groups they are kind and caring and they have the best of intentions. But as any group of religious individuals grows, at some point a sort of critical mass is reached and the benevolence seems to fall away as the focus changes from sharing their beliefs with others to imposing them on every one. Apparently the crazy is cumulative
As for that feeling of awe and wonder that comes with belief with a capital b, I have actually felt that before (I was once a Baptist), but it wore off rather quickly when, at the age of 12 or 13, I set out to read the bible and found it didn’t actually live up to the hype. It was obvious right away that it wasn’t actually the word of some all-powerful being. It’s too full of contradictions and mistakes and hatred and bloodthirsty violence to be anything other than what it is, ancient writings by men seeking to justify their positions of authority. I put it down somewhere in the latter half of the Old Testament and never felt the need to pick it up again.
I do still get that feeling of awe though, when I ponder the immensity of the universe. I think about the fact that there are something like 70 trillion stars out there and all of life as we know it is concentrated in a thin film on the surface of one small planet circling one small star in one small galaxy on the outskirts of the whole thing. I am awed by my own insignificance. My idea of heaven would be to get to see some of that vastness up close. My friend means well, but her god is too small for me.
Full court press conference
10/11/06 16:37
I heard
some of dubya’s press conference on the radio today.
From the part I listened to, it sounded like the
usual train wreck. He was really pushing the “blame
it on the Clenis” theme. His position seems to be
that he abandoned the Clinton administration strategy
of negotiation with North Korea “because it didn’t
work” in favor of his cowboy diplomacy of refusing to
negotiate at all, which worked so well that North
Korea may have tested a nuke. Yessir, he’s doing a
heckuva job. In his Amurka, any policy that doesn’t
end with something blowing up is for pussies.
I’m gonna see if I can come up with a transcript. I really need to see if it reads like it sounded.
Also today the US indicted a guy we don’t have in custody for treason. A 28-year-old religious nut. One line in the CNN heading summed it up pretty well. It says “Californian rejected Christianity, embraced Islam, moved to Pakistan.” Probably passed through a few cults along the way. At first I thought indicting a guy you can’t actually put on trial seemed like weak accompaniment to the preznit’s brave and brilliant press conference. It was like they had run out of al-Qaida number two men to capture or kill. But now I think this one’s more about getting the word treason on the front page. It’s part of the overall fear campaign.
I’m gonna see if I can come up with a transcript. I really need to see if it reads like it sounded.
Also today the US indicted a guy we don’t have in custody for treason. A 28-year-old religious nut. One line in the CNN heading summed it up pretty well. It says “Californian rejected Christianity, embraced Islam, moved to Pakistan.” Probably passed through a few cults along the way. At first I thought indicting a guy you can’t actually put on trial seemed like weak accompaniment to the preznit’s brave and brilliant press conference. It was like they had run out of al-Qaida number two men to capture or kill. But now I think this one’s more about getting the word treason on the front page. It’s part of the overall fear campaign.
Hating for (insert supreme being here)
10/09/06 07:11
In
this
post a few days
ago, I was discussing Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s
book
Is Religion Killing Us? I want to
briefly touch on it again. Nelson-Pallmeyer, who
professes to be a Christian, sees the problems with
religion stemming from the violence contained in
religious texts which are considered holy. As he puts
it:
Designating the Bible and Quran as “sacred” gives legitimacy and uncritical acceptance to the violent traditions.
And of course once you’ve started down the path of violence in the name of your particular invisible cloud daddy, you can justify any sort of atrocity. The only thing unacceptable at that point is failure. Nelson-Pallmeyer:
Terrorist actions were for them a faithful response to historical grievances based on a faithful reading of their sacred text.
The highly esteemed American Lutheran religious scholar Martin Marty puts it this way:
Believe in one all-powerful God. Believe that this God has enemies. Believe that a unique and absolute holy book gives you directions, impulses and motivations for prosecuting war. You have then the formula for crusades, holy wars, jihads and terrorism.
Amen! You tell it, brother! Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s solution to the problems of religiously justified violence is to try to educate people about how these “sacred” texts actually came into being over a long period of time. It sounds like a good idea to me:
As I described in Jesus Against Christianity, Yahweh absorbed powers associated previously with other gods:
It took many centuries for Judaism’s one God to emerge as a powerful, composite deity with many characteristics of neighboring gods and religions.
So basically the ancient writers consolidated this one all-powerful god into existence from a bunch of smaller gods with less mojo. I would really like to ask Mr. Nelson-Pallmeyer if that doesn’t indicate that the Bible as we know it is bullshit from the very first sentence. You know the one: In the beginning there was Gawd. If so, that doesn’t bode too well for the later myth of the pregnant virgin, does it?
Now I’m not so naive as to believe that a world without religion would be a world without hate, but I do believe that if we could somehow take away the supernatural justifications for that hate and expose it for what it is, we would have taken a huge leap forward as a civilization.
Designating the Bible and Quran as “sacred” gives legitimacy and uncritical acceptance to the violent traditions.
And of course once you’ve started down the path of violence in the name of your particular invisible cloud daddy, you can justify any sort of atrocity. The only thing unacceptable at that point is failure. Nelson-Pallmeyer:
Terrorist actions were for them a faithful response to historical grievances based on a faithful reading of their sacred text.
The highly esteemed American Lutheran religious scholar Martin Marty puts it this way:
Believe in one all-powerful God. Believe that this God has enemies. Believe that a unique and absolute holy book gives you directions, impulses and motivations for prosecuting war. You have then the formula for crusades, holy wars, jihads and terrorism.
Amen! You tell it, brother! Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s solution to the problems of religiously justified violence is to try to educate people about how these “sacred” texts actually came into being over a long period of time. It sounds like a good idea to me:
As I described in Jesus Against Christianity, Yahweh absorbed powers associated previously with other gods:
It took many centuries for Judaism’s one God to emerge as a powerful, composite deity with many characteristics of neighboring gods and religions.
So basically the ancient writers consolidated this one all-powerful god into existence from a bunch of smaller gods with less mojo. I would really like to ask Mr. Nelson-Pallmeyer if that doesn’t indicate that the Bible as we know it is bullshit from the very first sentence. You know the one: In the beginning there was Gawd. If so, that doesn’t bode too well for the later myth of the pregnant virgin, does it?
Now I’m not so naive as to believe that a world without religion would be a world without hate, but I do believe that if we could somehow take away the supernatural justifications for that hate and expose it for what it is, we would have taken a huge leap forward as a civilization.
It's not our fault! Clinton did it!
10/07/06 19:25
Wow. The
bullshit coming from the Republican spin machine
regarding ex-rep Foley is getting
really deep now.
It turns out (according to the right-wing) that this
whole scandal is a conspiracy orchestrated by
Democratic operatives affiliated with the Clenis. No
shit. That is the meme they have decided to run with.
Every Republican talking head in the country is
repeating it now, despite the fact that there
is
no evidence
whatsoever that the Democrats had anything to do with
it. In fact The Hill and
others have reported that the whistle-blower was a
paid GOP staffer, which makes sense to me because
if there was any evidence to back up claims of
Democratic involvement, the GOP would have found
it by now. You can bet your ass they have been
looking hard.
They want to believe that the Democrats cooked this up and timed it to influence the elections so they don’t have to consider the alternative, which is that they shot themselves in the foot. But the truth is that the Dems are just not competent enough to pull that off. So they are using the same gambit they usually do when the facts get in the way of the spin. Just ignore the facts and keep repeating the spin until it becomes accepted truth. Rush and the gang are hard at work on it, but I don’t think it’s going to fly this time. The public knows the basic facts too well this time and they not only know the facts, they understand them. A 53 year old Republican was attempting to prey upon teenagers entrusted to the care of the Republican-led congress and the Republican leadership looked the other way to avoid losing a Republican seat in the congress. Those facts are not going away. They can spin that all they want, but unless they produce some kind of electronic boner device that the Dems would point at Foley whenever a page walked by, this is going to remain a Republican scandal.
A staunch Democrat friend of mine told me today that if the Republicans hold on to power after this election then he was going to start voting for them himself, because that would mean they must have supernatural powers. That sounds about right to me. Even hard-core conservatives are onto them this time. I was watching the 700 Club yesterday (don’t worry, I took my meds first) and they were predicting Dennis Hastert would resign the Speakers post by the end of the weekend.
They want to believe that the Democrats cooked this up and timed it to influence the elections so they don’t have to consider the alternative, which is that they shot themselves in the foot. But the truth is that the Dems are just not competent enough to pull that off. So they are using the same gambit they usually do when the facts get in the way of the spin. Just ignore the facts and keep repeating the spin until it becomes accepted truth. Rush and the gang are hard at work on it, but I don’t think it’s going to fly this time. The public knows the basic facts too well this time and they not only know the facts, they understand them. A 53 year old Republican was attempting to prey upon teenagers entrusted to the care of the Republican-led congress and the Republican leadership looked the other way to avoid losing a Republican seat in the congress. Those facts are not going away. They can spin that all they want, but unless they produce some kind of electronic boner device that the Dems would point at Foley whenever a page walked by, this is going to remain a Republican scandal.
A staunch Democrat friend of mine told me today that if the Republicans hold on to power after this election then he was going to start voting for them himself, because that would mean they must have supernatural powers. That sounds about right to me. Even hard-core conservatives are onto them this time. I was watching the 700 Club yesterday (don’t worry, I took my meds first) and they were predicting Dennis Hastert would resign the Speakers post by the end of the weekend.
Foley bits
10/06/06 13:15
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Check out this screen capture from Faux News. They’ve just decided to pretend that Foley is a Democrat. I wonder if the rubes are buying it?
House Speaker Dennis Hastert is scraping the bottom of the barrel for ways to deflect scrutiny away from himself in the Mark Foley/House page scandal. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he resorted to every Republican’s favorite excuse. He blamed Clinton.
Lame joke of the day: Mark Foley lost his bookmark, so he had to bend the pages.
Check out this screen capture from Faux News. They’ve just decided to pretend that Foley is a Democrat. I wonder if the rubes are buying it?
House Speaker Dennis Hastert is scraping the bottom of the barrel for ways to deflect scrutiny away from himself in the Mark Foley/House page scandal. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he resorted to every Republican’s favorite excuse. He blamed Clinton.
Lame joke of the day: Mark Foley lost his bookmark, so he had to bend the pages.
Freedom is not why they hate us
10/06/06 11:18
I’ve been
re-reading
Is Religion Killing Us? by Jack
Nelson-Pallmeyer and I wanted to post a couple of
blurbs from it that I have been cogitating on for a
while now.
The US is far and away the world leader in war spending, weapons sales, and military violence; 84% of US adults identify themselves as Christians.
The quality of our future depends on our capacity to see the world through the lens and experiences of our enemies.
The first is just a collection of facts. The second is, in my opinion, a profound statement of the single greatest weakness of our society. The vast majority of Americans lead lives so insular that we are completely ignorant of the existence of the rest of the world. At the same time we are taught from earliest childhood that the US is good and decent and righteous, etc. So it often comes as a shock when we learn that a lot of the world does not, in fact, see us that way. Our typical reaction to learning of our own ignorance is anger, and of course we direct that anger outward because we can’t or won’t take Nelson-Pallmeyer’s advice and look at ourselves as others do.
When I look at that first excerpt and try to imagine seeing those facts through the eyes of someone from the muslim world, it makes me sad for my country. I feel we’re traveling inexorably down a path to religious war and those never end well, if they end at all.
The US is far and away the world leader in war spending, weapons sales, and military violence; 84% of US adults identify themselves as Christians.
The quality of our future depends on our capacity to see the world through the lens and experiences of our enemies.
The first is just a collection of facts. The second is, in my opinion, a profound statement of the single greatest weakness of our society. The vast majority of Americans lead lives so insular that we are completely ignorant of the existence of the rest of the world. At the same time we are taught from earliest childhood that the US is good and decent and righteous, etc. So it often comes as a shock when we learn that a lot of the world does not, in fact, see us that way. Our typical reaction to learning of our own ignorance is anger, and of course we direct that anger outward because we can’t or won’t take Nelson-Pallmeyer’s advice and look at ourselves as others do.
When I look at that first excerpt and try to imagine seeing those facts through the eyes of someone from the muslim world, it makes me sad for my country. I feel we’re traveling inexorably down a path to religious war and those never end well, if they end at all.
Is anyboby out there?
10/06/06 10:43
Yesterday
my wife sent me one of those “read this and pass it
on” e-mails just to make sure my blood pressure
didn’t get too low. One of her co-workers had sent it
to her along with a group of other people. It was
basically a list of lies about how a Muslim person
could not possibly be a good American, because their
religious beliefs are antithetical to all things good
and decent. I probably should have just deleted it
like I normally do that kind of nonsense, but for
some reason (it was probably because at one point it
stated that our constitution was based on the bible
and that’s a pitch I have trouble laying off of) I
decided to take it apart and give it a quick once
over. Then I sent it back to my wife and requested
she do a Reply To All for me. She complied and that
stirred a few people up. One of them called her an
anti-American, atheist ass. She eventually explained
that it was from me and gave out my website name.
Maybe some of them will come trolling around here and
post some comments. So far nobody else has anything
to say. I have to go to other blogs to get a little
back and forth going. It’s lonely down here in the
bunker.
The pre-programmed mind
10/06/06 09:55
I have
been wondering for some time why dubya is still
sporting an approval rating in the thirties despite
more and more evidence appearing on a daily basis
that he has taken the little doggie of Iraq and
thoroughly fornicated it. Well, I saw a bumper
sticker the other day that read “God bless George W.
Bush and our troops” and I think I finally get it.
That sentiment explains so much about what is wrong
with our country right now.
I had noticed before that the hard-core religious right supports dubya with a fervor that seems almost religious in nature. It dawned on me that it seemed that way because it is that way. That’s how religion works, you decide to believe something with no supporting evidence whatsoever, close the mind and turn away from any inconvenient contradictory facts. And just as with religion, it’s virtually impossible to pry that mind back open. These are the people who scare me because they have so much to lose when their beliefs are threatened that they can simply ignore reality. I swear dubya could start be-heading little old ladies on the White House lawn and his base would all get behind him and say he was doing what’s necessary to protect Amurka.
I had noticed before that the hard-core religious right supports dubya with a fervor that seems almost religious in nature. It dawned on me that it seemed that way because it is that way. That’s how religion works, you decide to believe something with no supporting evidence whatsoever, close the mind and turn away from any inconvenient contradictory facts. And just as with religion, it’s virtually impossible to pry that mind back open. These are the people who scare me because they have so much to lose when their beliefs are threatened that they can simply ignore reality. I swear dubya could start be-heading little old ladies on the White House lawn and his base would all get behind him and say he was doing what’s necessary to protect Amurka.
You heard it here first
10/05/06 04:22
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I’m been up surfing the intertubes in the wee hours of the morning today due to heartburn-induced insomnia. I’m paying for having put a serious hurt on a huge multi-cultural buffet last night.
Various news outlets are reporting that House Speaker Dennis Hastert will hold a press conference in Chicago this morning. The blogosphere is full of speculation as to whether he’ll resign the Speaker’s position. Well here’s the scoop. My sources tell me he will not only resign as Speaker, but he will resign from the House completely and begin training full time for his long-awaited rematch with the Three Billy Goats Gruff. He’s Republican, so you know it’ll be pay-per-view only.
I’m been up surfing the intertubes in the wee hours of the morning today due to heartburn-induced insomnia. I’m paying for having put a serious hurt on a huge multi-cultural buffet last night.
Various news outlets are reporting that House Speaker Dennis Hastert will hold a press conference in Chicago this morning. The blogosphere is full of speculation as to whether he’ll resign the Speaker’s position. Well here’s the scoop. My sources tell me he will not only resign as Speaker, but he will resign from the House completely and begin training full time for his long-awaited rematch with the Three Billy Goats Gruff. He’s Republican, so you know it’ll be pay-per-view only.
The bible college biologists*
10/04/06 10:47
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I was looking for something else this morning and stumbled across these guys again. With a name like Discovery Institute, one would think that this is a place for highbrow discussion of science and technology, but it’s really an anti-science website. They are one of the big purveyors of intelligent design theory. Michael Behe is one of their fellows. He sells books to the rubes promoting his theory of “irreducible complexity” which to me boils down to “I don’t understand it, therefore it must be magic.” These people are part of a national movement to keep dumbing down the science we teach our children until it can be replaced with religious dogma. I’ve added them to the Irrational list on my links page, which by the way is still far from complete. I’m open to your suggestions for additions to the lists or for additional lists. Just put any ideas you have in the comments.
*I shamelessly stole that phrase and the wooly mammoth pic from Pat Hayes over at Red State Rabble. Check him out. He’s certainly better than me at this.
I was looking for something else this morning and stumbled across these guys again. With a name like Discovery Institute, one would think that this is a place for highbrow discussion of science and technology, but it’s really an anti-science website. They are one of the big purveyors of intelligent design theory. Michael Behe is one of their fellows. He sells books to the rubes promoting his theory of “irreducible complexity” which to me boils down to “I don’t understand it, therefore it must be magic.” These people are part of a national movement to keep dumbing down the science we teach our children until it can be replaced with religious dogma. I’ve added them to the Irrational list on my links page, which by the way is still far from complete. I’m open to your suggestions for additions to the lists or for additional lists. Just put any ideas you have in the comments.
*I shamelessly stole that phrase and the wooly mammoth pic from Pat Hayes over at Red State Rabble. Check him out. He’s certainly better than me at this.
cheese and rice
10/04/06 06:29
Republican
congressman Mark Foley of Florida abruptly resigned
last Friday and ended his re-election campaign amid
reports of his having sent “inappropriate” e-mails
and instant messages to teenage male congressional
pages. The media, sensing a cover-up, and knowing
there is obviously a lot more to this story, has been
digging hard and making some headway. The Republican
leadership has circled the wagons and is now in full
damage control mode. They are already starting to
spin the story in the Foley-as-victim direction. You
see, he’s an alcoholic. Yeah, that’s it. And he was
molested as a child too, the poor man. And now he’s
gay (yet another closeted, conservative self-hater),
so if the left says anything bad about him, well
that’s just hypocritical gay-bashing, and we should
refrain from passing judgement and just move on, etc.
etc. Look! Over there! Terrorists! They want to kill
you and eat your babies! And you know the liberal
left would just hand those babies over to be eaten,
but we’ll protect you. Just keep voting Republican
and don’t worry your little head. Sit down and relax,
watch a little reality television. Feh.
But that’s not what I came to sermonize about today. Amidst the Foley feeding frenzy, I almost missed a good Condaleeza Rice story. The New York Times and the Washington Post are both reporting that on July 10th, 2001 then-CIA director George Tenet strongly warned Condi (then-National Security Adviser) that al-Qaida was planning an attack in the near future. Condi is currently using the Reagan defense. She doesn’t even recall the meeting, let alone what was discussed.
What’s interesting about this is the fact that the 9/11 Commission apparently knew about this meeting, but didn’t include it in it’s final report. I wonder why that is? When one panelist from the commission (Democrat Richard Ben-Veniste) was asked about the meeting, he at first claimed that the panel had not been told of it. He later admitted that, in fact, George Tenet had re-created the briefing for himself and panel executive director Phillip Zelikow in January, 2004, but referred any further questions on the matter to Zelikow, who has yet to comment. Guess what Zelikow did before joining the 9/11 commission? He worked for National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice. Guess what he does now? He’s a top aid for Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice. I’m gonna get back to banging my head on the wall now.
But that’s not what I came to sermonize about today. Amidst the Foley feeding frenzy, I almost missed a good Condaleeza Rice story. The New York Times and the Washington Post are both reporting that on July 10th, 2001 then-CIA director George Tenet strongly warned Condi (then-National Security Adviser) that al-Qaida was planning an attack in the near future. Condi is currently using the Reagan defense. She doesn’t even recall the meeting, let alone what was discussed.
What’s interesting about this is the fact that the 9/11 Commission apparently knew about this meeting, but didn’t include it in it’s final report. I wonder why that is? When one panelist from the commission (Democrat Richard Ben-Veniste) was asked about the meeting, he at first claimed that the panel had not been told of it. He later admitted that, in fact, George Tenet had re-created the briefing for himself and panel executive director Phillip Zelikow in January, 2004, but referred any further questions on the matter to Zelikow, who has yet to comment. Guess what Zelikow did before joining the 9/11 commission? He worked for National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice. Guess what he does now? He’s a top aid for Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice. I’m gonna get back to banging my head on the wall now.
Who you calling Fascist?
10/02/06 10:57
The
right-wing has adopted the term “Islamic Fascists” or
the shortened “Islamofascists” when describing
terrorists and their supporters as part of their Big
Scary Campaign 2006. Even the preznit is using it
now. It works pretty good for them I think. They know
their audience well. They know that the average
dumb-ass American probably doesn’t really know what
Fascism is, but knows that it’s
bad and
therefore they are against it. They also know that
Joe Sixpack won’t bother to look it up.
Well I looked it up on the intertubes (so you know it’s true) and it seems that fascism is characterized by:
nationalist aggression; fusing of the state with corporate interests; single party rule; the suppression of civil liberties; and pervasive propaganda.
Read that again. Does that not exactly describe what’s been going on in this country? Talk about spin! These fuckers don’t just tell the little fibs. They completely deny reality! Black is white. War is peace. A guy who supported Vietnam, but ducked out of actually fighting there is more patriotic than a decorated veteran of the conflict. That’s pervasive propaganda alright.
Well I looked it up on the intertubes (so you know it’s true) and it seems that fascism is characterized by:
nationalist aggression; fusing of the state with corporate interests; single party rule; the suppression of civil liberties; and pervasive propaganda.
Read that again. Does that not exactly describe what’s been going on in this country? Talk about spin! These fuckers don’t just tell the little fibs. They completely deny reality! Black is white. War is peace. A guy who supported Vietnam, but ducked out of actually fighting there is more patriotic than a decorated veteran of the conflict. That’s pervasive propaganda alright.
I'm insufficiently frightened
10/01/06 20:43
Juan Cole
has a great post up on his blog about the reasons
dubya keeps pressing for torture. You can
read it here. It’s
kind of long, so here’s some snippage. Blogging
about Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to
Uzbekistan, Cole says
In essence, I understand Murray to argue that the Bush administration hyped the al-Qaeda threat in order to have a pretext for the lily pad strategy of oil security. Murray did not say so, but this strategy would then logically underlie the conquest and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well.
I don’t think anyone who’s read many of the PNAC documents concerning the middle East, particularly Iraq, could argue that that isn’t almost certainly true. The people who are running this country right now are prosecuting the War on Terra using a strategy they devised when the Clenis was still president, years before 9/11 happened. Juan Cole thinks the torture is another tool used for keeping the fear level cranked up.
So how do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it.
Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.
Yep, it’s the Salem witch trials again, only this time it’s the evil brown people who worship a different cloud fairy that we are expected to hate. Ask yourself this: Were you ever really afraid that there was anything remotely resembling an existential threat to the US from al Qaida or any other terrorist group? I sure never felt that way, not even during the events of 9/11 itself. They just don’t have that kind of capability.
The Bush administration needs the Terror/ al-Qaeda bogeyman to justify the military occupation of strategic countries that have or are near to major oil and gas reserves. It needs al-Qaeda to justify the lily pad bases in Kyrgyzstan etc.
Conjecture maybe, but it sure would go a long way toward explaining why the US chased bin Laden and company up into the mountains and caves and then just kinda lost interest and went away to put a little shock and awe on Iraq, wouldn’t it?
In essence, I understand Murray to argue that the Bush administration hyped the al-Qaeda threat in order to have a pretext for the lily pad strategy of oil security. Murray did not say so, but this strategy would then logically underlie the conquest and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well.
I don’t think anyone who’s read many of the PNAC documents concerning the middle East, particularly Iraq, could argue that that isn’t almost certainly true. The people who are running this country right now are prosecuting the War on Terra using a strategy they devised when the Clenis was still president, years before 9/11 happened. Juan Cole thinks the torture is another tool used for keeping the fear level cranked up.
So how do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it.
Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.
Yep, it’s the Salem witch trials again, only this time it’s the evil brown people who worship a different cloud fairy that we are expected to hate. Ask yourself this: Were you ever really afraid that there was anything remotely resembling an existential threat to the US from al Qaida or any other terrorist group? I sure never felt that way, not even during the events of 9/11 itself. They just don’t have that kind of capability.
The Bush administration needs the Terror/ al-Qaeda bogeyman to justify the military occupation of strategic countries that have or are near to major oil and gas reserves. It needs al-Qaeda to justify the lily pad bases in Kyrgyzstan etc.
Conjecture maybe, but it sure would go a long way toward explaining why the US chased bin Laden and company up into the mountains and caves and then just kinda lost interest and went away to put a little shock and awe on Iraq, wouldn’t it?
ryk got schooled
10/01/06 17:42
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It’s a new day, a new month even. I turned the page on my calendar down here in the Abandon Mythology Command Bunker. Miss October looks pretty good in that long-legged, unblemished, flawlessly gorgeous 19-year-old way some girls have. Sigh...
It’s a new look for the blog too. Hopefully this one will be around longer than the last. I’m going to submit myself to the template for a while and see if I can quell the urges to improve it like I did the last one. I killed it with my bare hands! The humanity!
Anyway, this is kind of a test fire here so I can upload it and see how it looks. Also I wanted to take this opportunity to invite any readers (all two of them) to write something themselves. Send it to me via the Contact Me link and (if I deem it worthy) I’ll put it out there for the whole of blogtopia to see.
It’s a new day, a new month even. I turned the page on my calendar down here in the Abandon Mythology Command Bunker. Miss October looks pretty good in that long-legged, unblemished, flawlessly gorgeous 19-year-old way some girls have. Sigh...
It’s a new look for the blog too. Hopefully this one will be around longer than the last. I’m going to submit myself to the template for a while and see if I can quell the urges to improve it like I did the last one. I killed it with my bare hands! The humanity!
Anyway, this is kind of a test fire here so I can upload it and see how it looks. Also I wanted to take this opportunity to invite any readers (all two of them) to write something themselves. Send it to me via the Contact Me link and (if I deem it worthy) I’ll put it out there for the whole of blogtopia to see.