#74: Marines: Assault on Terror?!

So, how y'all doing? It's been, what, two, three weeks? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I have been twittering, or whatever the hell it's called (I'm sorry, but it seems to change every f*cking week. I can't keep track. And I hate this. I feel like those old geezers on CNN who decided a long time ago, "You know what? I can't even begin to understand how this stuff works, or what it's called, so I'm just going to treat it as magic. I don't give a sh*t about how old and out-of-touch I seem." And that's not cool. Anyway...).

I'm sorry about that. It's just that with Twitter, you can't really do long parenthetical breakaways, and I've missed those. It's one of the many reasons that I have to continue writing this thing. If you followed my Twitter account, you would know some of the others. But the main one is thatI don't feel whole unless I'm writing. And neither texting nor coding count as writing, as much as I may enjoy both activities.

So I intended to come back to this eventually, but the impetus for this specific post is a game. A video game. It's called, as you may have guessed, Marines: Assault on Terror. Now, don'tget me wrong; I have nothing against the Marines, but this is taking too far. If you want to indoctrinate the population, please, do it in a subtle way.

As far as I could gather from my five second glance at the tacit summary on Amazon, you go through the streets of Beirut, looking for terrorists to shoot down and stuff. Now that I look at it, I remember that it was featured in some newspaper where the developers were trying to pay homage to the troops, while producing the most kickass war simulator on the market. Which means that they are trying to paint this war as kickass by association.

But the reason that I'm doing this post is that it just doesn't seem right to commercialize war. Yes, the revenue doesn't hurt, but when war is commercialized, a real, active war is commercialized, it lowers the level of horror that is so much a part of war, and such a large part of the reason that many people abhor it, and most countries resort to it as a last resort. This just seems wrong on some basic level, that I can't properly articulate. But it's wrong. I know it's wrong. There are still people out there, in Afghanistan and Iraq who are fighting something and losing their lives, and to trivialize that conflict, where people are still dying, on both sides, just to make some money just strikes me as not quite f*cking kosher.

I guess I got my point across as well as I'm going to be able to right now. Comment if you think that you understand, or if you want to disagree or agree, or whatever.

The Saturation Point, Part 2

There are six and a half billion humans alive today. At an average weight of 150 pounds, that is a total biomass of 975 billion pounds, or 487.5 million tons of biomass.* This number may not quite match the biomass of several other species, such as ants, or beetles, but it is still an impressive figure.

The thing about ants and beetles though, is that they have a clearly defined place in their habitat’s ecosystem. They leave a minimal impact on their environments, and daily, hundreds of thousands of them give up their lives after a short struggle to provide sustenance for some creature greater than themselves.

However, humans? We do not have a defined place in the ecosystem. We kill and eat almost every single animal on the planet, and are not consumed ourselves except by accident. We have caused untold harm to the Earth, harm that may be irreparable. But the most telling, significant difference between our philosophy of life and that of the creatures that operate solely on instinct is that human beings almost unilaterally refuse to give up living if another alternative can be found and we view those who have differing views as to this fact as in need of therapy and counseling.

And if we are injured and declared to be nearly beyond repair, we will turn all of our willpower, intelligence, and funds to find a way to cure ourselves in order to remain alive, even though we may be in incredible pain (Example: Chemotherapy). And if there is no possible way to be healed, we will freeze ourselves in the hope that one day technology will be developed that will be able to cure our ailment.

But why do we go to these lengths? It seems that after a certain point, we would realize that it would be better, easier and cheaper to give up on life.

But no.

We don’t.

We continue to fight to stay alive and the important bit of this is that with our intelligence and determination, we will probably very soon raise the average lifespan to above ninety. However, humans would likely not stop having unprotected sex, and as a result, the population would increase even faster than it is, since there would be more people alive at any given moment. And as the lifespan continues to increase, as more cures for diseases are found, humans will die less frequently, which will lead to the population density increasing to the point where basic sanitation will become nonexistent and we drown in our own filth, our elderly bodies that have lived longer than humans were meant to live too aged to provide the strength that might once have saved us.

Now let me pause in my predictions of doom and catastrophe to insert some logic into my arguments.

Yes, excess will kill us unless we get our waste under control.

And yes, the population is growing at an absurd rate. As much has been said before. However, the apocalyptic scenario that I painted is probably a bit over the top.

. . .

This is why I never do sequels to posts. The fire, drive and inspiration that consumed me during the writing of the original post is gone, leving me to write a moronic, insipid, unenthusiastic piece of work.

Fuck.

* HamdenRice at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x111533

Nuclear Holocaust! Plus, a Technorati Blog Link!

As you may or may not recall, a couple of weeks ago, I posted about how I was trying to register my blog to Technorati on the advice of an article by the New York Times' technology columnist. However, when I tried to register, Technorati refused me, which set me on the path to a completely random, rambling rant about nothing (moreso than my usual posts), but also happened to lead me to a new blog that I am now following.

Anyway, I have just retried registering and it was successful, which is why I am now very honored to be able to post this link to my as of now blank Technorati Profile!

(I had to post the link in order for them to verify that I owned the blog.)

Now that that's out of the way, in my last post, I mentioned the very real possibility of nuclear holocaust. It may be just a coincidence, or some sort of subconcious expression of the effect that watching Nicholas Cage's latest film, "Knowing," (which was a piece of sh*t, by the way) has had on me. Either way, I have been having thoughts and dreams of nuclear holocaust (by the way, in case you couldn't tell, this is a picture depicting about the maximum range that Iran's new nukes could reach), all of which, for some reason, seem to involve me quickly making a post to this blog along the lines of, "The missiles are about to hit the Northeast. They've sounded the alert sirens. I don't know how much more time I have, but rest assured, I will keep you updated and I will fight the cancer, heat, cellular degeneration, radiation poison and disintegration until the bitter end. F*ck the bastards that came and sh*t on the American way of life! Solomon out."

Then, just as the missile is about to hit, I fold up my laptop, stand erect with a steely glint in my eye, and begin to run away from the missile, escaping just in time in one of those action movie explosion escapes (you know what I'm talking about. The hero just barely makes it out from the exploding vehicle, house, secret lab or other threatening structure, and is pushed to the ground by the explosion's shockwave, but gets up with nary a scratch, cut or bruise), then I run somewhere with free, unrestricted internet access and continue blogging until the end of the world. And you know my last word is "This is Solomon. Goodbye," and I click Publish just as the missile hits and I die a martyr for a now extinct civilization.

Yes, I know how implausible that is. Yes, I know the destructive power of nukes. Yes, I would not have time to escape the shockwave, and if I do manage, by a miracle, to evade the epicenter in the fashion that I have described, I would have massive radiation burns and likely be in too much pain to do anything.

But it's a cool scenario, isn't it?

I also know that the likelihood of Iran setting off a nuclear war is extremely low, since the President knows that massive retaliation would be swiftly forthcoming and very possibly fatal for all of Iran. He might even set of a nuclear world war, which no one wants. This is why nuclear weapons are used more a bargaining chips in the international game of diplomacy, along the lines of countries with nukes saying to the nukeless, "Send us money or we bomb you to the Stone Age."

Or something like that.

But even though I am aware of this fact, or have rationalized it through a brief consideration of the problem, the presence of nukes still worries me, especially with the recent apparent glut of news stories about small, US-hostile nations building and launching nuclear weapons tests.

And if I'm the only one, I might as well cede control of this blog to my brother and turn myself into a crazy bin.

Which I won't do, because Mr. Obama apparently shares my views. You all know about how he wants to abolish some nukes (if you were able to find my small, relatively obscure blog, you know about current events), and how no one else thinks it is really feasible or rational (oddly enough, suggesting the disposal of a few slightly volatile substances is not rational) to do so.

I am hardly in a position to suggest a plan to make Mr. Obama's dream a reality, nor do I believe myself capable of fulfilling such a momentous task, but I do think that it is somewhat feasible, and in fact, necessary. I use this analogy: Do you really need 7,600* bullets when you can kill just as effectively with just one or two? The problem worsens when it is revealed the the bullets are highly volatile and need constant care.

Think about it.

*Number of warheads in the US arsenal as of November 2002, according to the website http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab11.asp.

The "Next Blog" Link

Good day, all. Just wanted to discourse about this thing that's been slightly bothering me. I mean, that's why I started a blog in the first place, isn't it? To express my Flow of Conscious, or was I just experiencing temporary insanity?

Either way, I will communicate my issue. Whether you decide to read it is beside the point, because I can't make you do anything that you don't want to do. Even if I'm right there with a knife to your neck, telling you to read this, it's still your decision . . . but that's another post.

Whenever I click the "Next Blog" link at the top of the page, it always, invariably takes me to some foreign language blog. Often it's Spanish or Portuguese, but Monday, I believe (I'm not too certain of dates around midnight), I was directed to a Russian woman's blog (which I'm sure I would have found delightful, if I had been able to read Russian!).

Before you get on me for being all f*cking anti-immigrant, pro-America (not that being pro-American is a bad thing), "Burn everyone who doesn't speak American with an American accent," please, understand. I appreciate the fact that we live in a global society, melting pot, yada, yada, yada . . . BUT I would appreciate it if I could once get as my "Next Blog" a blog that was in English. I know that non-English speakers exist, and I applaud their accomplishments, yes, but I want something that I can support and follow and add to my list of "Blogs I'm Following," without having to learn a new language.

Also, I suppose that it bothers me that I always get a different blog every time that I click that link. I'm probably going to sound out of touch (BTW, I have Linux! My comp now has 2 OS[s? i?]), but I thought that if something was next, it was supposed to always be next, kind of like two is always after one (as long as you count [forwards] in whole numbers and not with fractions or decimals or some crap), B after A, etc. I'm slightly disoriented by the changing "Next Blog" (slightly; I figured out how to get Linux, [which I have to stop bragging about], didn't I?), which irritates me.

But whatever.

Also, before I collapse from exhaustion or lose what little lucidity I have ever possesed (ooh, flying monkeys! Hi Dorothy! Flibberty-gibbet![Is that how it's spelled?]), I'd like to congratulate the nation of Iran for successfully conducting the solid fuel missile launch that "landed exactly on target," according to President Ahmadinejad (I always thought that his name had a C in it somewhere . . .). I am not exactly sure what a 1,200 mile range will allow them to target, but as long as they don't begin a nuclear war, I am fine (I wonder if the Obama administration is as uptight as Bush's was about not spouting the party line, RE: Kid Gets Arrested For This. If I said that supporting Iran during Bush years, my blog would be shut down and you'd never hear from me again directly, since I'd be in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib [whatever happened to that anyway? No one mentions it anymore]. Maybe Obama is just more covert about it, since he essentially controls the media, and everyone loves him, including me. I'm just cynical).

Next Time: The World Is Dumbing Down! Prepare for Nuclear Holocaust!

Explorer Scouts Train to Fight Terrorism

I read this article on the New York Times website about how Explorer Scouts are being taught how to fight terrorism and crime. According to the Times, "one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters." However, teaching 14 to 18 year old kids to handle guns and rifles? Training them to be able to respond to border violence, terrorism and bus hijackings? Really. I mean, I understand if you want to teach thesekids how to resuscitate drowning victims, or treat burns, or deal with excessive blood loss, or whatever else is needed to help a person recover from an injury.

I may have been wrong, but my understanding of the Scouts program was that of teaching kids to "Be Prepared" for any eventuality, especially those that involve victims who need medical attention.Wasn't that the reason that Scouts were given all of that emergency medical training. However, it seems that in this post-9/11 world, the Scout's of "Be Prepared" was really "Be Prepared to Respond To Any Crisis By Knowing How To Maneuver As A Trained Strike Force."

I must have missed the fine print.

But I am beginning to digress. A Scout was supposed to be a sort of EMT, as I stated above. If they wanted to learn how to take down "disgruntled Iraq war vetran[s]", or deal with an "obstreperous lookout" on a marijuana field raid, they were to join the police force when they came of age. It's just too early. What happened to the concept of "childhood innocence?" Or did that die with the advent of the ninetys and nearly ubiquitous internet (not that either of these is to blame; I'm just saying that this era seems to mark the vanishing of true childhood, which may or may not be the subject of another post) to be replaced by omnipresent sarcasm, cynicism and a desire to find things out by oneself, immediately?

However, I again digress. The Scouts were, to me, a manifestation of the decline of innocence. Children were supposed to not be prepared. They were to learn this during their teenage years, sometime before adulthood. And now, with the Explorer Scout program teaching the scouts about "facing down terrorists and taking out 'active shooters,' (those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses)," one begins to worry about whether the notion of childhood can continue to survive, or if it will be snuffed out by these programs that force kids to live in the adult world before they are ready for it.

By the way, before the Scouts program sues me for defamation, I have emailed them, requesting an interview with a representative, so this may well become a miniseries of articles (assuming they respond to me, with my body of work totaling only forty-seven posts over a period of almost twenty months).

Is it a bad thing?

Do you remember that I told you guys that I had moved, which was the reason for me not posting for a few weeks?

Well, I'm in an apartment in a city, on a main street, and about every night, a police car or fire truck, or ambulance goes by, disturbing my attempts to sleep. (No ill will, police people, you're just doing your jobs, and to have the sirens and quieter would impede your ability to protect us members of the docile, sheeplike citizenry).

Here's one now. Anyway, ignoring for the moment the rate of crime and regularity of accidents that must be occuring for this many government service vehicles to go by every night, do you think it's a bad thing for me to begin to be able to recognize the vehicles? Like, 'Oh this one is a police car,' 'Oh, listen to that, two ambulances and a fire truck. That sounds bad,' etc., etc. Yeah, I'm sure some of you have been able and are able to do that (identify emergency vehicles by the siren) and you might use this as evidence to pinpoint my race, age, sex and location (Hint: I'm not white) due to my being close-lipped about my identifying traits except where it is absolutely unavoidable (i.e. the copyright at the bottom of my story posts [when I get that bitch published, I am not going to give some of my royalties to Blogger or Google, because I expect this thing to be a cash bonanza and enable me to not have to work for the rest of my life] because if I didn't add those, this website might take some of my profits from the royalties) but I couldn't, because before I moved, I lived on a quiet residential street in a suburb.

So this is a new thing for me. I've never been able to do that, and I am very proud of myself, while somewhat scared/confused/tired.

Oh yeah, and I've decided to stop dating. Forever. No more women (or men) for me. You'll miss me.

The Trouble with Boys

The title of this post also happens to be the title of a very good book by journalist Peg Tyre. To save all of you busy people out there the trouble of reading this book, I will write a comparatively short synopsis.

Essentially, the book describes how the women's rights movement has made it so that schools teach girl friendly curriculum. Before I go any further, let me just say that I have no problem with women's rights activists. Being a minority myself, I understand their struggle to get fair and equal education in school for their daughters.

Now that I'm through with that little sidebar, I will continue. I'm sure that all of my readers have seen the graphs detailing how girls are enrolling more in college than boys. If not, here is a graph detailing this trend.

Please, feminists, hold up your attacks for a minute. Some of you out there must have sons in school and this must worry you at least a little bit. If it doesn't, then you're horrible f*cking parents and don't deserve to have little boys under your command. For those of you who are worried, you are worried with good cause, and you're not the only ones. Ms. Tyre is worried with you.

The main question of the book is, "How can we fix this problem without upsetting all of the feminists who worked so hard to get our dauthers equality in schools, who worked so hard to make sure that more than 50% of girls enrolled in college?"

The answer is not so simple. The book first of all points out that boys and girls learn differently. OK, we can live with that. Boys are usually more active and enjoy and get more out of hands-on learning. Girls, however, learn more with book-learning, and are less active. The book says that even if girls are bored with a particular lesson, they are more likely than a boy to just sit there and force themselves to absorb it. This is true.

And Ms. Tyre believes that schools send a negative message to boys about reading. "Boys predominantly choose books that are funny and vulgar. They think The Adventures of Captain Underpants is the funniest thing on earth. They don't want to read Little House on the Prairie! But if they bring Captain Underpants or Captain Marvel to school, many teachers will tell them those aren't classroom books. So they learn that what they like to read isn't acceptable at school. That's a negative message that sets a lot of boys back.The same goes for writing. Boys tend to write for other boys—things that are dark, funny, and gory—whereas girls tend to write for the teacher. Boys don't want to write personal narratives; they want to write about Star Wars, and teachers might not approve of that, so we're creating nonreaders and nonwriters."

About early education she says, "Over the last 10 years, parents have bought into this idea that children are receptive to academic learning at a very young age. But there's good research that says that's really bad for a lot of boys, who aren't developmentally ready yet—their fine motor skills and vocabulary develop later than girls', and they have a harder time sitting still. We think if we give them French and violin lessons early, we can plant the seeds of genius. But it doesn't work that way."

Now, can we change this uneven academic playing field, which, for the first time in hundreds of years, is slanted in the favor of girls? To quote Barack Obama, "Yes we can."

But how should we approach this problem without disenfranchising the millions of girls who have had their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins and sometimes male relatives, work so hard to get them to this spot? First of all, the book says that we can instill a love of learning in boys just by hiring male teachers, or having male role models come into school and show the boys the value of education. This doesn't hurt girls, and it will get boys to see education as a valuable tool to become a police officer or a fire fighter or whatever.

If this should fail, then Ms. Tyre also advocates single sex schools. She tells the story of an all boys school in New York, which, among other problems, had a crew of feminists attacking it for being sexually discriminatory. The school was assaulted with discrimination lawsuits and shut down within five years.

She then tells the story of an all-girls school where the principal, an ardent feminist, sued the City of New York and got a verdict that allowed the school to remain open as long as the facilities remained equal. This prompted a New York branch of the 100 Black Men organization to open an all boys school of their own. The boys at this school are well dressed, well spoken and getting a college preparatory education. However, these boys have problems that carry over from their elementary and middle schools. Many of them are averse to learning, believing that being educated is a sign of weakness. Due to this belief, many of them are below grade level in reading, but the organization will not give up on this school.

So, what shall we do, then? What is the proper course of action to make sure that our sons can go to college so that they will have a fighting chance in the corporate world? What steps can we take to ensure that our daughters do not fall behind in this mad rush to narrow the gender gap?

Because the last thing we need is to hinder the progress of our daughters to bring it to an equal level with our sons and call it "success."

Congratuations, Barack Obama

First things first.
Well, Barack, here is your belated congratuations from myself. I know that this race was hard for you and I am very glad that you've won. But now, everything will get harder. You are the President Elect of the United States of America, (as if you didn't know that already) and come January 20, the real work begins.

You are taking control of a country that has lost a lot. It has lost much of the respect of many other countries. It has lost many young lives in a pointless and seemingly endless war, and it has lost many jobs due to outsourcing by companies that only care about the bottom line. This country, while it still may be the "greatest country in the world," is for the first time in fifty years facing competion for that highly coveted position.

You ran on a platform of change, Change We Can Believe In, was your slogan. We have no doubt that you will change things. But is it drastic change or subtle change? Is it change for the better or change for the worse? We will soon find out.

You have won the highest office in the land, Mr. Obama. You are, as they say, the leader of the free world. So what how will you use your power? Will you be a great and memorable President, like FDR or Lincoln? Will you be a forgetable President, like Buchanon, or Taylor? Will you be a scapegoat President, like Hoover, or a truly horrible President, like Johnson. It's all up to you. You have a great legacy to live up to and very big shoes to fill. Let's hope you're up to the challenge.

W: A Movie About Our 43rd President

On Saturday, I went to see the movie W. by Oliver Stone. Som2e people probably think that it's way too soon to make a movie about the possibly most, for lack of a better word, disliked man in modern times, but I think that it came out at the perfet time, with the elections coming up on Tuesday. (Does anybody else feel like just yesterday it was just Super Tuesday?) So, anyway, the movie was really good. It depicted Bush as a guy who was just trying to enjoy himself and live up to the expectations of his father. I mean, it really made you pity him. (And I pitied the bastard already, because during his administration, the world pretty much went to sh*t through no fault of his own. Then it got f*cked even harder because he made sh*tty decisions.)

So, anyway, all of you should go and see the movie. If you hate the *sshole, then go see it, because hate ain't good. If you love him, then go see it, because you were probably going to see it anyway. And if you care neither one way nor the other, then go see that sh*t right f*cking now. It gives you some insight into why the world is sh*t and why the issues that Obama and McCain are arguing over are important. And on Tuesday, the next four years will be decided, so you should give a damn about what's going on. See the movie. It can't hurt. And if it does, it's not my fault.

Letter to the Presidential Candidates

Candidates;

First of all, congratulations to both of you for getting this far. I applaud your audacity and perseverance.

Now, you both market yourselves as agents of change, and yet, I have noticed a lot of old politic, such as fingerpointing and saying, "I will do such-and-such. Look at his record. He did this bad thing and earmarked and voted to raise taxes."

Look, you guys are saying pretty much the same thing. And I'm looking at your websites right now and they look almost exactly alike, although Barack's looks cooler with the lighter shade of blue. But that's not the point I wanted to make.

Your jobs are to help the American people, to represent their views and wants and needs. I watched the debate last night and you two talking about your policies. (by the way you should both apologize to Tom Brokaw. The poor man was just trying to do his job and you talked over him and ignored his cues to stop, just so you could press your own agendas, which I'll get back to. You spent at least five minutes on questions ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET could have answered in one.) Your views were so similar, just blame the other guy. Barack even took up John's free tax credit spiel. This campaign is no longer about the issues, it's about personality. Who is more likable, more cool, more electable.

I mean, yes, personality plays a part, as does reputation, but no one should want to have a reputation as the guy who slings mud until there is no more mud to sling, at which point, he slings rocks and trash. If someone tells the press that you have cheated on your wife, take a lesson from Grover Cleveland and David Paterson: Tell the truth. Mark Twain said it best:
"If you tell the truth, then you don't have to remember anything." Lies will catch up with you. They will trip you up and make you stumble and have you falling and getting your stories mixed up. Tell the truth about your records. If you voted a certain way, say, "Yes, I did vote for that bill," instead of lying or ignoring the question. The voters will respect you more in the long run.

Candidates, what I am saying here is common sense. It's not that hard to understand or comprehend. Try to take my advice. It will be better for the country, and for your reputations if you do.

-Solomon

The Political Process

OK, first of all, does anyone really understand the electoral college? Wikipedia, one of my three main sources of information, did not simplify it for me, but instead, made it harder for me to understand.

I realize that in the times of our forefathers, however they voted, it was impractical to record who all of the colonists may have voted for, but in this age of technology, we should be able to count who may have voted for whom. Then, everyone's vote will really count. I mean, more than it does now, where everyone's votes are counted by district or whatever. I don't get it. Please, please, explain this dumb sh*t to me.

And before you say anything, I know about the popular vote. And that's what I'm saying, election winners and losers should be picked by the popular vote, as opposed to the thing that they have now, which I do not understand.

Concerning my Repeated Absences as well as the Candidacy of Barack Obama

Once again, I must apologize for my absence. I have been very busy this past month, what with moving, my family reunion and my job starting again. However, I know I've said it before but this time I will really try to blog regularly.

Now, I have been thinking about what I should blog about, and since I have already criticized the Bible for being out of touch and contradictory, I should write about the 2008 Presidential election.

Hmmm...

The Bible and John McCain have a lot in common. Is that by design or accident?

Anyway, John McCain is running against Barack Obama, as you should know unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past 19 months, and Barack's amazing lead, where everybody in America seemed to be for him has whittled down to him being a few points ahead by most estimates. However, the Democrats think that they can beat McCain by 50 or so electoral points. It's so nice that they can remain upbeat, despite their having lost the majority of the last few elections. However, this view of things fails to take into account 1 thing.

Most Americans have neighbors who would not vote for Barack Obama. "Yes, of course, we're progressive, we'll vote for him, we want to see an end to Republicans in the White House. It's just that, well, Mr. and Mrs. Jones over there, they might not want to. Why? Well, it's because, (and mind you, I'm only voicing their opinion, I'm 120% for him, raised funds and everything) it's because, well, I guess it might POSSIBLY have something to do with the fact that he's . . . black." This is of course followed by a nod, a wink and then both people chuckle at racist old Mr. and Mrs. Jones. How could they be racist? This is the 21st century, for heaven's sake!

But this isn't just one isolated incident. This kind of thing is happening everywhere. And guess what happens when everyone's neighbors go off and vote for the white guy? The black guy loses.

But don't think that I'm not for Barack Obama because I don't expect him to win. I'll vote for him, my whole family will! It's just that, well, my neighbors . . .

Ashamed

So here I am, on my computer every single day, for at least an hour, my blog is fourth on my list of startup tabs and every single day I log on my computer, look at my blog and say, "I'm going to post something. It's not like I have a lack of material to post. Oh no! I just read some of "Lies my Teacher Told Me" and in one chapter I found a whole lot of sh*t I could write about. Boomers! Remember this picture? And this one? Yeah, these were in there. So I could write about these, but I won't.


And so TODAY I open the tab and I say to myself, "Look, you've been NEGLECTING your blog for a week." But I don't post yet. I check out some of the blogs that I like and I see that THEY'VE been posting pretty frequently. So now I gotta live up to them in my mind and post some sh*t.

. . .



I am such a bad blogger.



HOWEVER, I am now back! I will f*cking post like crazy for as long as possible until I become otherwise engaged.

Money

Everyone goes nuts if you drop a buck on the floor. If someone
saw this -> pile of money on the floor, he/she would probably start foaming at the mouth and fling herself on top of it, like that lottery commercial where the money falls from the sky and everyone rushes for it. I mean, yeah, it pays the bills, but still, there's no need to start acting like you're a penniless orphan who's never seen a dollar bill before. I think that's part of the reason that reality shows are so popular, because you get to see the extent people are willing to go to for money, even though you'd do the same thing.


But why? Why are we so obsessed with little green pieces of paper, or rather, really f*cking thin cloth? Why do we risk bodily harm for the aforementioned little pieces of paper? Because, since birth, we have been brainwashed with the idea that those little green pieces of cloth are the most important things in the world, and they are, because everyone believes they are. And when every single person in the world believes something, then that thing becomes a fact and try as one might, one cannot change it.

But is this the best way? Couldn't life operate on bartering for services, "I pull your tooth, you fix my roof?" No, we couldn't. Services have different values and unless one has tried his or her hand at both services involved, one usually thinks that his or her trade is the more difficult and thus worth more. So the bartering could extend until the need has passed or become so severe that it has exceeded the capabilities of the original parties and requires specialists.

Money is quite an integral part of our society and will be for the forseeable future, although why it must be so all-consuming is beyond me. So then, a return to the classic sign-off, and a suggestion: Think about it.

Guess What?

OK, so I took this piece of sh*t quiz called "Are you stupid?" and I guess I got my answer right there, because I'm wondering whether I'm f*cking stupid in the first place. So here is a
Question: Who wonders if they are stupid?
Answer: Myself, mentally challenged and the village idiot (George W. Bush)

I have just been notified by the CIA, FBI, and the NSA that GWB is not an idiot. I apologize Mr. Bush, but I will not remove the reference because of the 1st Amendement. (3 Words of Advice: Learn Your Rights. If you ever go to jail or somewhere equally unpleasant but fully law abiding [unlike Guantanamo Bay & Abu Ghraib], you need to know them) Sh*t, I feel like a textual copy of Stephen Colbert, without snarky writers (I have all the snark!). BTW . . . sh*t again, I forgot what I was going to write and both my Backspace and Delete keys are broken right now.

Anyway, away from the World's Longest Digression, which would not be out of place at the 1904 World's Fair (why is "World" capitalized there anyway?), I got a badge for completing the quiz, which is here by the way, if anyone out there wants to take it and HTML works here, but I lost the badge and don't care much about it.

Luckily for all of you out there who wonder about my intellectual capabilities, you Platos of the world, (not capped!) I took an I.Q. test and here is the badge for that! 144! Take that! I am smarter than our current president! (Whose I.Q. is 120-something, if anyone wants to know) And I have a tendency to boast! (Insert Nelson-esque "ha-ha" here) I also am addicted to random tidbits of info I'll never need to know and I ramble! I'm trying to stop myself, but I can't! Must hit 'Publish' button!

Tears of Gaia

How do you feel about the Earth? Have you never really thought about it? Do you think that this global warming stuff is a load of bullsh*t? Do you think that people should stop using plastic bags and cars and oil and fossil fuels and if you don't plant at least one tree, you're a total a**hole, not worthy to be a part of Mother Earth? Well, I've watched Al Gore's An Inconvinient Truth. I believe that global warming is real. And I think that we, as the supposedly most advanced species on the planet, we need to do more for this planet, because it's our f*cking home, and even if we were going to leave it tomorrow, we should still clean it up and leave it better thane we left it. Our species has overpopulated this rock, dumped our sh*t into the lakes, rivers and oceans, taken its resources and f*cked up the air we breathe. We, homo sapiens have effectively signed our own death warrant, as well as the death warrant of every other creature on this planet. But we aren't dead yet. We can change our ways, get off the path we're headed down, and fix our mistakes. But we have to do it soon, before all the sh*t we've done turns our path into a one-way street, with no exits. So, un-f*ck this planet, before our bastard child of the apocalypse is born. Think about it.

You, Puppet

Today I read Sylvia Browne's book, Secret Societies. And it started me thinking. Her book says that there are some secret societies out there, like SCAN, the Illuminati and Skull and Bones that are trying to control the world and make a f*cking New World Order. Now I wikied Browne and I'm not sure how much of her book I believe, but I have a friend who went to Syms, bought a tie, paid in cash, gave them absolutely NO information, and the next day, he's getting calls about discounts and all this other bullsh*t. We were talking about it and I think they took a picture of his face and got him that way. And by the way, you can't even go to the f*cking bathroom anymore without maybe having pictures taken of you, thanks to the Patriot Act. Come on! All you're going to do in there is take a sh*t. So, maybe Browne has something there with this whole NWO thing. Think about it.