I am watching the debate between Kerry and Bush. Man. Kerry kicked Bush's ass. Bush's voice is cracking, he is befuddled, and so angry. He becomes lost for words. He reminds me of a bully who somebody is standing up to. If anybody ever doubted the intellectual and character capacity of Bush that should now be over. Bush is weak. I can not believe how he folds and how weak he appears. Sticking his little pouty lip out like some spoilt brat. Our president is truely a horses ass.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I'll Take Sir Fergus Montgomery Any Day
Today the news reported that two American's were beheaded in Iraq. Today "President" Bush spoke to the United Nations and jutted out his jaw - the tough cowboy sticking to his guns still defying the opinion of the rest of the world. Bush still insists that Iraq and Afghanistan will be shining examples of democracy, but the military is having to go into next year's budget to finance the call up for troops that are going to be required for the elections. Gosh, those Iraq's sure show their gratitude in strange ways (beheading, and car bombs - those guys party scary). All of this and Bush is still leading in the polls.
Bush has had his chance. He was 100% right about Afghanistan although we have not finished the job. I was not sure going into Iraq if it was the right thing to do, but I thought that maybe Bush was right. I support the missile defense initiative, and I mention that to show that I am not 100% a liberal nut. What is wrong with being able to shoot down incoming missiles? Yet, Bush has blown it on Iraq. He has made our nation an outcast, he LIED about why we should be going into Iraq, and he has bungled the rebuilding of Iraq.
Will Kerry be better? I have no idea, but he will not be worse. Bush is a failed president who has LIED to us, and mismanaged our military might. Why are we so stupid about this?
Last night I heard a local newsperson say that 90% of the Iraq people support us. Why in the world did that bonehead say that? Is he some expert on Iraq? Does he have some inside information that nobody else has? How many people believed the stupid thing that said?
Well, Bush is leading in the polls and one thing remains absolutely true. The American people always get the president they deserve.
I met Sir Fergus Montgomery today. He is a member of the Conservative Party in England and a friend of Margaret Thatcher. He was a Conservative MP for many a year. He is living proof that conservatives do not have to be stupid, and that they can have a sense of humor. It is not conservatism that is dangerous, not at all, but a lack of intellectual depth. I'll take Sir Fergus Montgomery any day.
God bless Sir Fergus Montgomery, God bless England, God bless America, and God save us from George Bush. I'm not kidding. Ask yourself this. Is it pleasing in the eyes of God for us to do what we have done Iraq? I really do not think so.
Bush has had his chance. He was 100% right about Afghanistan although we have not finished the job. I was not sure going into Iraq if it was the right thing to do, but I thought that maybe Bush was right. I support the missile defense initiative, and I mention that to show that I am not 100% a liberal nut. What is wrong with being able to shoot down incoming missiles? Yet, Bush has blown it on Iraq. He has made our nation an outcast, he LIED about why we should be going into Iraq, and he has bungled the rebuilding of Iraq.
Will Kerry be better? I have no idea, but he will not be worse. Bush is a failed president who has LIED to us, and mismanaged our military might. Why are we so stupid about this?
Last night I heard a local newsperson say that 90% of the Iraq people support us. Why in the world did that bonehead say that? Is he some expert on Iraq? Does he have some inside information that nobody else has? How many people believed the stupid thing that said?
Well, Bush is leading in the polls and one thing remains absolutely true. The American people always get the president they deserve.
I met Sir Fergus Montgomery today. He is a member of the Conservative Party in England and a friend of Margaret Thatcher. He was a Conservative MP for many a year. He is living proof that conservatives do not have to be stupid, and that they can have a sense of humor. It is not conservatism that is dangerous, not at all, but a lack of intellectual depth. I'll take Sir Fergus Montgomery any day.
God bless Sir Fergus Montgomery, God bless England, God bless America, and God save us from George Bush. I'm not kidding. Ask yourself this. Is it pleasing in the eyes of God for us to do what we have done Iraq? I really do not think so.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Ted Koppel - Tell Us It Ain't So!
Is Ted Koppel sleeping with Barbara Walters? Does Barbara Walters have some kind of dirt on Ted Koppel?
I like Ted Koppel but I'm worried. No, I'm scared - please hold me. Ted (notice I'm writing like he and I know each other when in actuality we have never met) is one of the last true news reporters on network TV. Oh, he has his little flaws like that hair piece (Ted, we know it is a hair piece so be a man and go bare headed we don't gave damn) but you can overlook that. True confession: I experimented with Grecian Formula this year so who am I to throw stones. Yet, he has been a real news person when everybody else is doing crap. He is no Jim Lehrer but who is?
Tonight he actually did a special on Barbara Walters. Do you realize tonight that we actually had a one hour news special about nothing more than another blindly ambitious half-talented news person? Is that metanews? I do not think I have to say anything more than that.
Why is it that people like Ted Koppel and Barbara Walters are so vain that they think we actually want to hear drivel about them? I am so tired of people who think they are "stars" being so full of themselves that they actually interview each other.
Important things are going on. No wonder the American public is profoundly stupid. You are what you eat and the networks are feeding us shit.
Is Ted Koppel sleeping with Barbara Walters? Does Barbara Walters have some kind of dirt on Ted Koppel?
I like Ted Koppel but I'm worried. No, I'm scared - please hold me. Ted (notice I'm writing like he and I know each other when in actuality we have never met) is one of the last true news reporters on network TV. Oh, he has his little flaws like that hair piece (Ted, we know it is a hair piece so be a man and go bare headed we don't gave damn) but you can overlook that. True confession: I experimented with Grecian Formula this year so who am I to throw stones. Yet, he has been a real news person when everybody else is doing crap. He is no Jim Lehrer but who is?
Tonight he actually did a special on Barbara Walters. Do you realize tonight that we actually had a one hour news special about nothing more than another blindly ambitious half-talented news person? Is that metanews? I do not think I have to say anything more than that.
Why is it that people like Ted Koppel and Barbara Walters are so vain that they think we actually want to hear drivel about them? I am so tired of people who think they are "stars" being so full of themselves that they actually interview each other.
Important things are going on. No wonder the American public is profoundly stupid. You are what you eat and the networks are feeding us shit.
Cheny A Coward? No, Just A Hypocrite
Okay. Let's see if we can straighten this out. Sen Harkin called Cheney a coward! Now, where I come from those are fighting words, and Tom Harkin hadn't ought of called our vice president a coward unless there is evidence to back it up. In the public interest I have decided to set down and attempt to sort of cypher out this mystery. The following is the result of my exhaustive examination of the evidence at hand:
Part 1
Kerry - volunteered for Vietnam and actually experienced combat.
Bush - "served proudly" in the Air National Guard but never attempted to actually prove his mettle in combat (unlike his father who DID put his life on the line).
Cheney - received five deferments and never served in the military.
Part 2
Kerry - after firsthand experience, actually in Vietnam, decided that he was against the war.
Bush - kept his mouth shut and partied his ass off.
Cheney - kept going to school and NEVER served in the military.
Part 3
Kerry - least Hawkish
Bush - moderately Hawkish
Cheney - extremely Hawkish
Discussion:
If anybody has evidence of Cheney actually showing physical courage such as rescuing someone at the peril of his own life, standing up to a bully, or any other act that would demonstrate real courage please let me know. "Standing up to the democrats" or "those commie bastards" is only rhetorical so we can not count that kind of nonsense. Until then, I will have to stick with my conviction that if I was going into a real fight Kerry would be the one who I would want on my side. Oh, he would probably whine about it latter but at least he would be there for you. Bush and Cheney have not been proven in any kind of real trial by fire. But, is Cheney a coward? No, he is just a hypocrite.
Conclusions:
A. At least with these three men their tendency to be war mongers is inversely related to their actual military experience.
B. Republicans send democrats into combat to actually do the fighting .
B. Sen. Tom Harkin was incorrect to call Cheney a coward. He is just a belligerent, bullying, pathetic hypocrite.
Don't even tell me that Bush or Cheney have shown their courage in the fight against terrorism. Please. It is easy to act big with the Secret Service guarding you, and the whole United States military at your beck and call.
You know what I would pay good money to see? Let Cheney prove he is a big man. Put him and Saddam Hussein in their underwear and let them wrestle in pay-per-view. Just image what kind of world audiance that would have. Every Arab, and every red blooded American would be glued to their seats. I know I would. Who do you think would win?
Part 1
Kerry - volunteered for Vietnam and actually experienced combat.
Bush - "served proudly" in the Air National Guard but never attempted to actually prove his mettle in combat (unlike his father who DID put his life on the line).
Cheney - received five deferments and never served in the military.
Part 2
Kerry - after firsthand experience, actually in Vietnam, decided that he was against the war.
Bush - kept his mouth shut and partied his ass off.
Cheney - kept going to school and NEVER served in the military.
Part 3
Kerry - least Hawkish
Bush - moderately Hawkish
Cheney - extremely Hawkish
Discussion:
If anybody has evidence of Cheney actually showing physical courage such as rescuing someone at the peril of his own life, standing up to a bully, or any other act that would demonstrate real courage please let me know. "Standing up to the democrats" or "those commie bastards" is only rhetorical so we can not count that kind of nonsense. Until then, I will have to stick with my conviction that if I was going into a real fight Kerry would be the one who I would want on my side. Oh, he would probably whine about it latter but at least he would be there for you. Bush and Cheney have not been proven in any kind of real trial by fire. But, is Cheney a coward? No, he is just a hypocrite.
Conclusions:
A. At least with these three men their tendency to be war mongers is inversely related to their actual military experience.
B. Republicans send democrats into combat to actually do the fighting .
B. Sen. Tom Harkin was incorrect to call Cheney a coward. He is just a belligerent, bullying, pathetic hypocrite.
Don't even tell me that Bush or Cheney have shown their courage in the fight against terrorism. Please. It is easy to act big with the Secret Service guarding you, and the whole United States military at your beck and call.
You know what I would pay good money to see? Let Cheney prove he is a big man. Put him and Saddam Hussein in their underwear and let them wrestle in pay-per-view. Just image what kind of world audiance that would have. Every Arab, and every red blooded American would be glued to their seats. I know I would. Who do you think would win?
Friday, September 10, 2004
Culture of Fear
Part 1: Christianity
This country, the United States, is controlled by fear. Stephen King is one of our best selling writers and the underlying theme of his books is fear. We tote guns out of fear. Americans demand the "right" to keep guns in their homes to shoot criminals that just might happen by, and those same criminals often carry guns because they are afraid of being shot by homeowners who keep guns because of criminals. What is interesting about that situation is that more children, the very ones we are trying to protect from the criminals who might have guns, are killed by those guns we use for their very protection than are actual criminals! Everybody is armed. It is some kind of pistol packing mutually assured destruction - just like MAD from the cold war days. More on guns at a future date.
Then there is Christianity. But, not just any kind of Christianity because Christianity as a whole is really a pretty good religion. I admire it a lot. Who on earth could argue with the Golden Rule or the Sermon on the Mount! Unfortunately here in the U. S. we have a special kind of Christianity that scares the bejesus out of the rest of the world that sees us as a nation populated by trained marksman (remember we have to have guns at home to protect our children from the possibility of criminals who are armed because we are ... anyway), and we have a born again president in the form of a rather dull witted George Bush Jr, who is not shy about bitch slapping whatever country gets in our way. You see, George had kind of a substance abuse problem awhile back. Instead of AA he went to Jesus because he was afraid of his own out of control behavior (Jesus is a whole lot easier than AA which requires reading and regular ongoing attendance at meetings). He was also motivated by fear of going to hell. You see, George Bush is an Evangelical Christian. Let us take a look at Evangelical Christianity.
Evangelical Christianity is the dominant religious bent, besides indifference, in the United States and it has a peculiarity about it that is not characteristic of Christianity in the rest of the world. Our homegrown flavor of evangelical Christianity is full of apocalypse, hell, and visions of doom unless you accept Jesus as your Saviour. We are all going to hell because we can not meet God's standards. Think about this sequence:
1. You are a sinner and deserve to go to hell for breaking the rules even if you were never told what the rules actually are.
2. Even if you tried like heck to be good and made up all kinds of rules (like Jews and Muslims) to govern your behavior it is a vain attempt to please G-d because we can never be good enough. And my kids think I am hard to please.
2. People go to hell for eternity. So, there is NO end to their punishment no matter how short their life was on earth.
3. G-d came down here to earth in the form of Jesus who was really G-d (evidently there are three versions of G-d but there is really one - you figure it out but this drives Muslims to distraction as they trip over the logic while Jews just try to ignore the shennanegans of those wacky goyim who have always been so well armed, and Buddhist just smile politely as they walk quickly away).
4. Jesus died and Mel Gibson made a documentary of G-d's death. There is something fundamental to our nature in that scary film.
5. Jesus died so you do not have to go to hell but there is a catch.
6. The fine print, the catch, is that you have to believe and accept that Jesus died for you. If you do not accept it then the whole deal is null and void and you go straight to hell because you are a sinner no matter what you do or do not do.
That is kind of how it works. Now, what is the net effect of this form of Christianity? What effect does it have when the emphasis is on avoiding hell rather than being a decent neighbor, an honest person, and a competant person? Pardon the sexist language but it is kind of an "every man for themself" type of thing. You gotta grab onto Jesus first and hold tight before anything else.
The first effect is that this creates the illusion of their being only ONE path to heaven and you are either on that path or not. Buddhist, Jews, Muslim, Hindus, and folks too confused or hungry to declare an official religion are all going to hell. You are either with us or against us. Now, you tell me. How far does this type of thinking go into creating a tolerant, diverse world? I think not very far. Maybe that is why we are so dogmatic about everything else. America is the best, democracy is the best, our way is the best (no matter what others say or what kind of logic you may try to trick us with). Everybody else is going to hell anyway so how could they possibly offer us anything culturally, politically, or especially on a spiritual level. Oh, they may have oil, gold, aluminum, uranium, or some other natural resource that we need. They may have lots of cheap labor, poor souls going to hell anyway, that we can exploit, but we really must not take them seriously as people. We are willing to do business with them but we can not leave it at that because fundamentally we are missionairies spreading the gospel of Jesus and market capitalism (market capitalism is sort of tangled up in all of the relegious stuff in a way that is hard to sort through). We are obligated to correct their misguided behavior, and particularly their misguided beliefs.
Don't believe me? Why is the rest of the world so pissed off at us? It is not because we bought their oil or whatever they had to sell. Nobody had an argument with that. It was because we could not stay out of their business, we were arrogant, and we tried to tell everybody else what to do. Not only that, we had the will, resources, and skill (remember we are a nation of excellent marksman) to try to make others into our own image. In other words, the proselytizing we learned in church, saving sinners from hell, carried over into our diplomacy, foreign trade, and world view.
Part 1: Christianity
This country, the United States, is controlled by fear. Stephen King is one of our best selling writers and the underlying theme of his books is fear. We tote guns out of fear. Americans demand the "right" to keep guns in their homes to shoot criminals that just might happen by, and those same criminals often carry guns because they are afraid of being shot by homeowners who keep guns because of criminals. What is interesting about that situation is that more children, the very ones we are trying to protect from the criminals who might have guns, are killed by those guns we use for their very protection than are actual criminals! Everybody is armed. It is some kind of pistol packing mutually assured destruction - just like MAD from the cold war days. More on guns at a future date.
Then there is Christianity. But, not just any kind of Christianity because Christianity as a whole is really a pretty good religion. I admire it a lot. Who on earth could argue with the Golden Rule or the Sermon on the Mount! Unfortunately here in the U. S. we have a special kind of Christianity that scares the bejesus out of the rest of the world that sees us as a nation populated by trained marksman (remember we have to have guns at home to protect our children from the possibility of criminals who are armed because we are ... anyway), and we have a born again president in the form of a rather dull witted George Bush Jr, who is not shy about bitch slapping whatever country gets in our way. You see, George had kind of a substance abuse problem awhile back. Instead of AA he went to Jesus because he was afraid of his own out of control behavior (Jesus is a whole lot easier than AA which requires reading and regular ongoing attendance at meetings). He was also motivated by fear of going to hell. You see, George Bush is an Evangelical Christian. Let us take a look at Evangelical Christianity.
Evangelical Christianity is the dominant religious bent, besides indifference, in the United States and it has a peculiarity about it that is not characteristic of Christianity in the rest of the world. Our homegrown flavor of evangelical Christianity is full of apocalypse, hell, and visions of doom unless you accept Jesus as your Saviour. We are all going to hell because we can not meet God's standards. Think about this sequence:
1. You are a sinner and deserve to go to hell for breaking the rules even if you were never told what the rules actually are.
2. Even if you tried like heck to be good and made up all kinds of rules (like Jews and Muslims) to govern your behavior it is a vain attempt to please G-d because we can never be good enough. And my kids think I am hard to please.
2. People go to hell for eternity. So, there is NO end to their punishment no matter how short their life was on earth.
3. G-d came down here to earth in the form of Jesus who was really G-d (evidently there are three versions of G-d but there is really one - you figure it out but this drives Muslims to distraction as they trip over the logic while Jews just try to ignore the shennanegans of those wacky goyim who have always been so well armed, and Buddhist just smile politely as they walk quickly away).
4. Jesus died and Mel Gibson made a documentary of G-d's death. There is something fundamental to our nature in that scary film.
5. Jesus died so you do not have to go to hell but there is a catch.
6. The fine print, the catch, is that you have to believe and accept that Jesus died for you. If you do not accept it then the whole deal is null and void and you go straight to hell because you are a sinner no matter what you do or do not do.
That is kind of how it works. Now, what is the net effect of this form of Christianity? What effect does it have when the emphasis is on avoiding hell rather than being a decent neighbor, an honest person, and a competant person? Pardon the sexist language but it is kind of an "every man for themself" type of thing. You gotta grab onto Jesus first and hold tight before anything else.
The first effect is that this creates the illusion of their being only ONE path to heaven and you are either on that path or not. Buddhist, Jews, Muslim, Hindus, and folks too confused or hungry to declare an official religion are all going to hell. You are either with us or against us. Now, you tell me. How far does this type of thinking go into creating a tolerant, diverse world? I think not very far. Maybe that is why we are so dogmatic about everything else. America is the best, democracy is the best, our way is the best (no matter what others say or what kind of logic you may try to trick us with). Everybody else is going to hell anyway so how could they possibly offer us anything culturally, politically, or especially on a spiritual level. Oh, they may have oil, gold, aluminum, uranium, or some other natural resource that we need. They may have lots of cheap labor, poor souls going to hell anyway, that we can exploit, but we really must not take them seriously as people. We are willing to do business with them but we can not leave it at that because fundamentally we are missionairies spreading the gospel of Jesus and market capitalism (market capitalism is sort of tangled up in all of the relegious stuff in a way that is hard to sort through). We are obligated to correct their misguided behavior, and particularly their misguided beliefs.
Don't believe me? Why is the rest of the world so pissed off at us? It is not because we bought their oil or whatever they had to sell. Nobody had an argument with that. It was because we could not stay out of their business, we were arrogant, and we tried to tell everybody else what to do. Not only that, we had the will, resources, and skill (remember we are a nation of excellent marksman) to try to make others into our own image. In other words, the proselytizing we learned in church, saving sinners from hell, carried over into our diplomacy, foreign trade, and world view.
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