What does this mean?

So, I never remember my dreams, to the point that I started to think that I don’t dream ... but then today happened. Today I was lying on the floor in the dining room stretching my sore back out and I fell asleep and I dreamed. What a strange thing it was, I need your help with it. I’m going to write it out as best as I can remember it and you’ll have to tell me what it means, because I am at a loss.


In the dream I was at my parent’s house (it wasn’t my parent’s real house, by that I mean the layout was different) they were having a dinner party. The guest list was as follows, Myself, Angela, My parents (obviously) their friends Elaine and Jack, My friend Carlo (who lives in Florida) and his father (who in real life is very heavy, but in my dream was very thin and in good shape) there were other people there that I don’t know, but in the dream I knew them and they knew me. So, I was in the kitchen and I started to get so tired that I could not open my eyes, I couldn’t see anyone and I fell. My father came to me and told me to get up, it was no time for such things and I told him that I couldn’t open my eyes, I was too tired. He told me to get up. I told him that I needed caffeine, Angela asked what was wrong and he told her that I needed caffeine. They went off together to find my mother. I crawled to the pantry and forced my eyes open to look at the coffee and the tea to find caffeinated (my parents really do not drink anything with caffeine) and did not find any (even though there was an enormous collection of different teas in the pantry). My father returned and told me that caffeinated coffee was for guests and I did not rate to get any. I was mad but I told him to get me caffeinated tea and I would make it really strong ( I was still on the floor with my eyes closed). He came back again with two tea bags. I was standing up now and had a cup of hot water. I forced my eyes open to see what kind of tea it was and one was lemon camomile and the other was plum (plum?). I put them both n the cup and began to drink. All of a sudden I could open my eyes and I was sitting at a high kitchen counter across from Elaine and Jack. My friend Carlo was standing next to me and I realized that noone had introduced him, I proceeded to introduce him and his father (the skinny healthy, version) and neither one of them had a right arm below the elbow. I introduced them to everyone but my parents and my wife, both men presented their right stubs of arms to shake hands and noone would shake their arms, they all turned away in disgust. I was appalled and told Carlo I was very sorry, he didn’t seem to mind but I was very upset and then I woke up.

Please, use your dream interpreting abilities to tell me what all that means ( if you don’t know me I drink 20 cups of coffee a day so that might be pertinent, Carlo works with his hands for a living and his father is very heavy and very ill (not at all mobile) so that might help you too. Leave your explanation in the comments section below to help me out with this.

Monday Wedn ... (or Thursday) Friday

Ok, so the thing is, fiction takes longer than the news. I mean the news writes itself and i have to write the fiction ... if i just didn't have that pesky job i could really devote myself to finishing my story for you. And with that said, i will renew my offer for you to find a ton of friends to send me money so that i can blog full time ... short of that you're going to have to wait for the story (having trouble with the ending). Today's post is brought to you by people who's books i've read that died. God be with you both Howard Zinn and JD Salinger, you will be missed.

Salinger won't really be missed on account of the fact that he was really weird and has been hiding in New Hampshire for the last few decades. Missing someone post mortem sort of requires that you have in fact seen or heard from that person in your life time. Really, i've missed him since i was born, although i have read two of his books and he sold a gazillion copies of Catcher in the Rye, i have never seen the man or heard his voice. I guess it's still sad that he died, even if Catcher in the Rye is the second most overrated book in the history of paper. (First place goes to On the Road, an awful tale of travel written with out leaving a basement).

Zinn, on the other hand, was becoming more and more public as time went on ... i really don't know what to say about the guy other than to tell you to read People's History of the United States. If we know each other and you live in the United States i have been probably telling you to read it for a long time ... you will not regret learning things about your country that you didn't know (sorry European, Canadian and South African readers ... i've got nothing for you here, if you read it you'll just hate America even more so you're not allowed.) I'll just say in closing that there are few people in the world who flood the marginalized with the spot light and Howard Zinn i adore you for you service to your country and you insistence that we never forget the people who built this great nation with their blood, sweat, tears and in many cases with their very lives.

I know that you've all been thinking about Yemen lately and you thinking to yourselves, "Pinko, you said we were going to invade Yemen and you were wrong." So ... in Yemen news, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement yesterday on the subject, and here it is, “We recognize that the challenges facing Yemen cannot be solved by military action alone. Progress against violent extremists and progress toward a better future for the Yemeni people will depend upon fortifying development efforts. The Yemeni people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future, not leaving their fate to extremists who incite violence and inflict harm." Doesn't that sound nice? and then came the news ... the Pentagon is escalating military operations in Yemen with a major new deployment of Special Forces. Military officials say the number of US operatives will “significantly increase” above the estimated 200 Special Forces currently on the ground. The US has been deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops that have killed scores of people, including civilians and suspected al-Qaeda leaders, in the past six weeks. The news comes as the US and other nations met Wednesday in London at an international conference on Yemen. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US won’t just rely on military operations to fight Yemen’s militant extremists. INVASION! It was quiet, there were already 200 soldiers on the ground and then they had a secret meeting to "decide the fate of the Yemeni question" and decided that we would not JUST invade ... we'll do other stuff too. That's nice of us. My only question is that if we want the Yemeni people to have a self determining government, why don't the two massive regions of the country currently revolting against the government count? Why don't they get to determine? It hurts to be right, it hurts to know that we are bringing efficient death to more people. Forget all your other lies President Obama, i forgive you for all of them but this, to promise an end to war and to instead make new wars, to take the Nobel Peace Prize for your good intentions and to melt it down, forming it into warheads to fire at villages filled with women and children. Mr. President, bring our soldiers home to their families, learn that violence strengthens ideologues rather than dissuading them and end this madness once and for all. Where is the diplomacy that you promised? You told the world that you would be rational and firm and talk out problems and the only talking you're doing in the world is with the sound of cruise missiles. Shame on us all for believing the hollow words of a politician.

Happy Thursday?

Repentant Satire

Today’s special Tuesday post is brought to you by the middle east ... i love you middle east! Who else could provide me with such great stories to laugh at? I mean seriously, you are a nutty, nutty place.

With that in mind we take you to Saudi Arabia where a 13 year old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes with a whip and 2 years in prison after fighting with her teacher. The teacher was attempting to take the child's phone (which was a camera phone and thus banned) and the child protested, not giving the phone to the teacher when commanded to do so. So, as in all civilized countries, she was arrested, charged and convicted of corporal punishment. Makes sense to me. Amnesty International has been in contact with the Saudi monarchy in an effort to have the sentence over turned and in response the Saudis have said that the girl was "about 20" years old and so the punishment was acceptable. 13, 20 what's the difference? I love how we choose our allies, no need to have any conditions for our support ... would it be impossible to say that we won't give you any more attack helicopters or money until you stop sanctioning the physical abuse of children? Would it be impossible to tax Chinese manufactured goods to death until they change the deplorable conditions of the factories in their country? That's all crazy talk ... everybody gets "favored nation" status and attack helicopters for everyone!

And in Bush/Cheney news the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids. The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan. We are at war with multiple people groups that only cooperate every few decades when they are invaded in a country that has no central government or national laws that are enforced outside the capital. Who knew that for $25 mil all that could be solved! You know what, for $10 million i'll go there and explain to the Afghans that their country would be better if it were like ours and ruled by a strong central government. I can be just as ineffective for $15 million less! What a deal. And it's nice to see President Obama throw his cronies some no-bid contracts ... there's just something wrong with a President that doesn't spend the taxpayer's money to make his friends rich. It's the American way.

And in all's well in Iraq news, the people of Bagdad are very excited that the war is over there ... except for that pesky little coordinated bombing yesterday where three hotels were all targeted with car bombs within minutes of each other. There are 36 dead and 60 more wounded as the Sheraton, Hotel Babylon and the al-Hamra were attacked. I'm just glad to see that the Iraqi security force is on top of the situation and got it all under control.

Happy Monday!

Time to Explain

Today’s post is brought to you by transparency. I’m going to broadcast all of the meetings that lead up to this post on C-SPAN ... oh, right, we’re not doing that whole healthcare thing now, we’re gonna make some jobs instead.

The aforementioned Monday Explanation post has been removed after several readers reported falling asleep while reading it. All of us here at Pinko's World would like to apologize for those of you who read the rambling drivel that appeared here until minutes ago. All the writers who were involved have been terminated, and while we are very sensitive to the employment situation in this country we cannot tolerate such a half hearted effort to bear our name.

The next post was promised to be a work of fiction but we have a team of writers that are going to work through the night to come up with some satirical commentary of the news and that should appear here tomorrow.
Again we apologize for this "systemic failure" and vow to have procedures put into place to prevent further boring you to tears with empty premises and sorry prose.

Happy Monday!

The Supreme Court thinks GE should get a vote.

For those of you who came to see "Gangsta Othello" it is the post below this one and is genius! It now holds the record for the most views of any post on this blog (completely crushing the old record) and was not written by me. My friend Steve generously donated it to us and leads me to believe that you want more guest writers and less me and to that i say .. too bad! Or maybe we'll take what we get and see where it goes, so as my wife says to pacify my children when they want something, "We'll see."
Today's post is really serious and if you want to laugh then go and watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpevc2t_Frw&feature=popt16usit's really funny no matter where you stand on the whole health care thing. Here's where i stand; I once lived in Germany and while i was there i scratched my cornea and had to go to the doctor and my father's insurance (although great) did not cover children being idiots in continental europe. I wonder why? So in Germany they have the dreaded "socalized medicine", and i didn't know what to do, but i lived with a great family while i was there and they made me a doctor's appointment and sent me to the doctor with my "sister"'s medical ID card. When i got there the office girl slid the card and sent me in to see the doctor (the wait was not long enough to sit in the waiting room chair). The doctor diagnosed, treated and gave me prescription medication for my eye in about 15 minutes and i was on my way. In Germany they pay about 55% of their income in taxes, and they have trains and busses and trolleys and a school system that makes sense and doctors and crazy unemployment/disability benefits (can you say extra vacation money for the unemployed?) and probably other stuff too. But you must remember that they have no old men and haven't had any for a long time (between 5 and 7 million dead from 1936-1945), so that lowers costs. So i don't know what to tell you about the health care thing, but if you want the German system you have to raise taxes a lot and if you raise my taxes i want to ride a train to work!

On to the big serious news. Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United Stated ruled that Congress may not pass laws restricting the free speech of corporations as it pertains to election politics. The ruling basically says that corporations are people too and that if they want to spend a gazillion dollars to tell you that Sarah Palin is the anti-christ then they have every right to do so. The Democrats hate this and the Republicans love it. Here's why.
Democrat view: Corporations will spend money endorsing republicans and denouncing us because we have spent the better part of 30 years telling the American people that they are demons and to hate them. Then we passed laws that made it illegal for them to fight back. Now they're going to fight back. NO FAIR!
Republican view: Ha, ha the dumb democrats are gonna get it now!
So that's where everybody stands. And they are both right, the other concern is that now the elected are going to have to be the puppets of corporations in order to remain in office. Honestly, i hate huge corporations, but if you think for one minute that all the people you've sent to Washington are not already in bed with special interests you are fooling yourself. Nothing is going to change with this except that you'll have more dumb commercials before an election (do you decide who to vote for based on those commercials?). The other thing is that corporations all care about different issues and the influx of information is going to, in large part, cancel itself out. In short, they are not going to all agree. And for those elected officials who claim to be crusaders of truth and principles, you just keep on being a pompus ass Chuck Schumer and see where pretending to be "for the people" gets you now. Chuck Schumer is for the people like Pol Pot was for Cambodians. And before all my liberal readers get mad at me please remember that i am a COMMUNIST! This is what the first amendment to our constitution says;

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It means many things, just look at all those commas, i love commas! It says that the federal government MAY NOT pass laws that interfere with the exercise of religion, restrict speech, restrict the written word, stop people from meeting or stop people from suing the government, the first part means that they can't establish the Church of America and fund it with taxes. So, when a judge erects a ten commandments monument outside a court house it is off limits for the federal government to do anything about it, when kids pray in school, when i write about how they are going to invade Yemen any day now, when people march on Washington DC, when you shout about the government being a crummy bunch of nincompoops outside your house ... all of it is untouchable by the feds. Clearly the federal government cannot make a law restricting my ability to create a campaign commercial for my favorite candidate and paying to have it on TV. -So, what's the problem? The problem is not what anyone would have you believe if you're reading the news about this, the real problem for the American people is that the Supreme Court continues to recognize that corporations are equal to PEOPLE in the eyes of the laws of our country. Microsoft, Pfizer, Walmart, Citigroup and ExxonMobile are not people! To suggest that they should be equally protected is exactly what is wrong with this government, they continue to operate under the assumption that with out these megalithic businesses our nation would crumble. Our nation was not founded nor does it stand as a collection of corporations. If they were all gone tomorrow we would be fine, if we operate under a market driven economy (everyone tells me we do) then the market dictates demand and suppliers are inevitable. Bank of America goes bust? A new bank takes its place or existing banks expand ... that is the only advantage to a market economy, no one is essential. What percent of long distance use was through MCI Worldcom when they disappeared in the middle of the night in a poof of smoke and fraudulent accounting? Can those people call long distance now? They can? Oh, the market works, there was no price escalation, no chaos, nothing ... just the quiet implosion of a multinational that took an instant. It is treating corporations like people that leads our government to give them bailout money rather than let them fail, buying GM is not necessary in a market driven economy. Gm goes bust, there is a demand for their unique product and someone will step up and fill the void (no UAW you don't get $85/hour and 100% pensions after 25 years at the new company, but neither do the rest of us so welcome back to reality ... maybe paying you is what busted them out?). C'mon people you're the capitalists, you're supposed to understand this stuff. Treating corporations like people is what allows them to sue in court, treating corporations like people is suggesting that they have inherent value as individuals, which they do not. They are CORPORATIONS whose sole purpose is to make profit and the entire deck is stacked in the favor of the largest and most aggressive already ... let's strike down this old thinking that individuals do not rank light-years ahead of companies in value (my baby is worth more than GE) and get it over with. By the way, as far as i'm concerned they can still make all the commercials they want to.

Happy Friday!

Gangsta Othello (to the tune of DMX's "Up in Here")

The following bit of genius was written by an old friend of mine, Steven Rounds
It is used with permission and gratitude!


Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

Once upon a time not long ago
Lived a Moorish soldier with a tale to be told
Othello black devil with the “thickish lips”
People were behavin’ like he was legit
Impressed Desdemona with his battle testimony
With keen wit and skills that paid his army’s bills
He came to represizzle new European idizzle
Roderigo was the man
Who sold all his land
Trapped by Iago’s rap and his devious plan
Iago was the ensign who pilots the ship
Cassio the new lieutenant smart as a whip
Desdemona the daughter of noble Brabantio
Othello the great general and Bianca was a ho’
The whole thing started
When Desdemona departed
In the dead of the dark Venetian homies yell “hark!”
When Iago found out
He let out a shout
All the Venetians homies gotta put down their stouts
From atop his stoop
Brabantio screamed for his troops
To go and find Othello who was tryin’ to scoop

The genius villain
Seemingly chillen’
Made pop so tight
On that dark summer night
Iago on the sly yo’
He be feelin’ all right

Brabantio found Iago’s words absurd
The images he heard made him curious and furious
Even though he dismissed Iago’s talk as wack
He knew his daughter and the moor
Were making beast with two backs

Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

Brabantio thought the whole thing was tragic
That his pure white girl got tricked by dark magic
The Duke of Venice stepped in
Said love should win
Besides the Turks had invaded Cyprus and their troops were thin

Send the Moor
Along Cassio, Iago, Desdemona, and Bianca the whore
So the whole crew got summoned
Gonna fight the good fight
Othello told Iago to keep Desdemona in sight
Enter Michael Cassio
The lady lovin’ bachelor
Fresh from getting picked for the job Iago was after
Upon arrival in Venice
Cassio gave Desdemona a kiss
Iago was lucky that he didn’t miss this
The ensign looked on
And said “A Yo it’s on”
He had a knight, a queen, the rook, and now a pawn
Trap was set
Iago waited
His angry little pet revenge would soon be sated

Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

Cassio was a gentlemen and everyone knew this
Honest Iago realized that Othello was clueless
“Act with duty” said Iago about his murderous plan
“Only heaven can judge me”
I just have to frame this man
He set about to snare our newly married pair
And whispered poisonous lies in Othello’s ear
Blatant lies meant to hide his libelous smears
‘gainst poor noble Cassio who suspected nothing was weird
Honest Iago needed a symbol to break the shell
To make Othello jealous and drive him to hell
Just as he thought that the moments came
Othello held his head in agony and pain
Desdemona gave her napkin to aid his strife
She the caring, attentive, beautiful, loving wife
It didn’t work
The pain, it stayed
And the frustrated general knocked it away from his dome
Along comes Emilia to give it a home

Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

In this story of old
We watch the plan unfold
The handkerchief is the symbol for the mind that is nimble
It would make Cassio look bad
If it was found in his pad
Iago schemes faster because he is chaos’ master
An agent of intrigue
This prince of disaster
To Othello he said, “Hello!”
Which made it seem that a man on his team
Was doing Othello’s manly duties
Except more obscene
Iago scheduled a meeting so that Othello could witness
Evidence of infidelity of course Othello wouldn’t miss this
So in front of the moor
He summoned the whore
This is the drama as it unfolds in scene 1 act 4
So Iago’s plan was brilliant and psychological
This supposedly honest Iago was diabolically psychotical
He made Cassio confess that Bianca loved him
Which made Cassio giggle (as if he’d be her husband!)
She’s a whore after all!
And while we had a blast
If I sleep with her I’d probably get a rash!
Othello, of course, his anger cookin’
Heard the whole convo’ but he was mistook’n
Thinking Desdemona had cuckolded him he plotted revenge
Cassio left and Iago then suggested
It was Desdemona, after all, that Cassio molested
“I’ll poison her!” bellowed Othello
But honest Iago made it clear he had another intention

Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

Iago got Roderigo to go after big Mike
In the alley they waited like thieves in the night
Roderigo drew blood but only got nicked
In the clash of swords Iago stabbed Roderigo in his kicks
He howled in pain as Cassio got away
And Iago snuck off without a word to say
The ensign put on some jammies and returned to the scene
Finished Roderigo off with a stab to the spleen
Now everyone’s gone that knew the score
But Iago wanted to off a few characters more
Back at the crib Emilia discovered the quarrel
Othello was sick and was spittin’ immoral
Calling his wife a ho that she would sink so low as to bedding Cassio
She tried to pray but Othello wouldn’t have it
He saw the pillow to his left, reached out and grabbed it
With his bare hands he snuffed out her breath
Emilia stumbled in and witnessed her death
Just then the guards entered with Iago the ensign
The plays about to end, the fates predestined
Iago tried to lie but Emilia knew the truth
Until he drew a blade and silenced the proof
By then it was too lateThe knowledge was out there
Othello finally realized fate had decided
He took out a knife and ended his life
Final image, the embrace between the moor and his wife
Othello and Desdemona
Laying dead on the marriage bed
Looks like honest Iago may be off his meds
No more Ram tuppin’ the pure white lamb
Can’t be half-steppin’ in Cyprus land

Iago make me draw my sword/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me forsake my word//Up in here, up in here
Iago make me lose my wife/Up in here, up in here
Iago make me take my life/Up in here, up in here

Special Tuesday edition ... Breaking News!

Today’s post is brought to you by the Democratic party, never before has a political conglomerate spent so much time and energy talking about what they would do if only they had complete control of the American Government only to actually get it and so completely implode upon itself. Watching these morons govern is like watching Greg Norman melt down at the 1996 Masters, Scott Norwood miss the Super Bowl winner, Bill Buckner lose game 6 through his legs, and the 1984 Hurricanes blow that 31-0 halftime lead against Maryland all at once. You can't even get your own people to vote for your crummy laws without paying them billions in perpetuity.

So now enough of the ranting of a malcontent, and on to the breaking news ... this morning around 10am there was an earthquake in the Cayman Islands that registered a 5.8 on the Richter scale. There are no damage reports yet but as your #1 source for news i felt obligated to do some research and found that in 1794 King George III decreed that the Caymans would never be conscripted into military service and Parliament legislated that they would never be taxed. So clearly the Caymans also made a deal with the Devil and have gotten their 200 year-in-wait comeuppance. Or it is also possible that the fault line that runs through the Carribean is experiencing the effects of global plate tectonics. Well, it's one or the other.

And yet MORE breaking news ... ok, i looked, there's not much else going on but the election in Massachusetts and of course the Haiti relief effort ... OH! there is one thing. The people of Chile elected a right wing billionaire to be their new president. It's big news because the old left wing billionaire that was president was really popular and could not run again because of term limits. So that's exciting. Although the poor people of Chile will still be poor tomorrow i suppose.

Happy Tuesday.

Do all Religions Disagree and have Hypocrites?

This Monday post is brought to you by ... oh my goodness i'm about to open a can that should stay closed ... my Gram always told me, "Never talk about two things, religion and politics." I have spent most of my life talking exclusively about those two things and have gotten nothing out of it other than a reputation as a person that you'd probably rather not talk to. But here we go. I got a question two posts ago about wether or not other religions have differing opinions and do they in fact differ to the extreme that people who consider themselves of that religion practice and preach the anthesis of the actual religion (i.e.. Pat Robertson). So i'm going to try to dissect the worlds major religious traditions and find out if they are a hypocritical as Christianity.


1. Step One: What are the major religions of the world? I figured i knew but i looked it up anyway. Turns out i was wrong. My list was; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, Buddhism and whatever it is they do in Japan. It just so happens that there is a religion called Sikhism that has many more followers than Judaism, the largest religion in the world may be tribal idol worship, there are over a billion Atheists and i'm still not exactly sure what they do in Japan. In order to avoid making this a book on comparative religious studies, i'm not even going to find out what Sikhism and the Japanese thing are, i assure you this is not from prejudice but from sheer laziness on my part. So the very incorrect and unofficial list are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hindu.

Step Two: Christians who go against the teachings of Christ and reach positions of prominence. There are too many to even list. I may know this because i live where they live or i may know this because there are countless hucksters that prey on the faith of Christians. Usually it seems to revolve around "send me lots of money and Jesus will love you more". The Catholic church really started this idea in the early middle ages and it is now the largest land owner in the world and it has its own country (well done there). The protestant sects have picked up on the idea in the TV age and started with "send me money" and have evolved into a new idea where they preach a message that has nothing to do with Jesus and get you to like them for free and then get famous and sell books to people who are not real followers of the Christian teachings but can read a watered down, "Christ less", bastardized version of the prosperity gospel concept and feel good about themselves because the TV preacher told them that God loves them and wants them to be rich. The only one getting rich in this scenario is the guy writing the books (yes, you Joel Osteen) and there is no Jesus so that's kinda bad. Also worth mentioning is Pat Robertson and the doomsday brigade who believe in a god who hates everyone and makes things happen to kill them and the end of the world is always tomorrow and again there is no Jesus in any of that, so that is also bad.

Lots of Christian sects disagree about stuff but still believe in the message and divinity of Christ so for the sake of simplicity we'll say that their differences are really unimportant. I know that you're going to say that they've been killing each other for a thousand years over those "unimportant differences" and i'm going to argue that in most cases someone was using differences that were unimportant to achieve political gains and therefore do not count. So, check the Christian box for having people who preach against the core beliefs of the religion and still become prominent within the religion. But we knew that and knowing it was the catalyst of this discussion.

Step Three: Jews who preach against their core beliefs and rise to prominence. Although i know many Jewish people and have been to more bot/batmitvas that i have confirmation parties, the Jews that i know aren't devout and don't talk about religion and are really no help to me on this, also working against me here is the fact that the Jewish faith doesn't lend itself to preaching much of anything to us gentiles and so there's not a ton of examples. So here's the best i could do without doing any actual work; a long time ago there were two main sects of Judaism that co-existed and did not agree, the Sadducees and the Pharacies. One believed only in the written Word of God and the other believed in that and also the Holy oral tradition of the Jewish people. One was more political and the other more spiritual. Today there are many sects of Judaism; Orthodox, Conservative, Progressive, Humanistic and Messianic. The first three are similar but do differ in the interpretation of the rules of personal conduct (dress, diet, holy day observance, etc) The second two are exactly what we were looking for. The Humanistic Jews don't believe in God ... which is odd since the entire concept of Judaism revolves around being the chosen people of God, and if He does not exist they would be the chosen people of nothing and their entire history would be a bunch of persecution followed by deliverance by ... nobody. The Messianic Jews are equally at odds with their religion because they believe that Jesus was in fact the messiah (savior, Son of God, Christ) but don't profess to be Christians. This does not seem to fit together because the Jews are waiting for the coming messiah and if he was already here 2000 years ago the entire faith would have to be redefined. So although i have not researched enough to find examples of people who preach these concepts, they do exist and are at odds with the faith that they claim to be part of. And with that i'm checking the Jew's box too, even if their contradictors aren't as loud or dishonestly wealthy.

Step Four: Muslims who go against the teachings of Mohammed and reach positions of prominence. I did a bunch of research on this and i was going to tell you all about the discord within Islam and then it hit me. Mohammed promoted peace and telling teenagers to blow them selves up and kill innocent "infidels" is in direct conflict with everything Islam. I don't know for sure but i'm pretty sure that forming a theocratic regime and killing the citizens of that country for disagreeing with the iron-fisted government ruled by Islamic clerics is not exactly text book Koran following either. So, we check the Islam box twice, once for hypocrites and once for stupid violence.

Step Five: Hindu's who go against the teachings of ... um ... Hinduism. For starters they are trying to eradicate the caste system which is a basic tenet of their faith where by certain people are excluded from society because they behaved poorly in their past life and are also pacified with the "knowledge" that if they are really good at being completely excluded from everything (eating?) next time around things will be better, they might get to be a cow, or a person with food. There are four major sects of Hinduism but they are not very fun, in fact, "there is a healthy cross-pollination of ideas and logical debate that serves to refine each school's philosophy. It is not uncommon, or disallowed, for an individual to follow one school but take the point of view of another school for a certain issue." And we combine with that very un-religious cooperation and sanity with the fact that their teachings are not at all cohesive and barely coherent as a single faith ( i do know that Ganesha is an elephant and that Krishna is the super cool uber-god) and someone is not going to get their box checked. Way to go Hindus, you ruined our perfect streak of hypocrisy! (side note: when Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the first atomic bomb test he quoted the Bagavagita which is a sacred Hindu text "I am become death, the maker and destroyer of worlds" there is no evidence of it, but i think he let out an evil cackle after saying it.)

Step Six: Buddhists. Deep breath, here we go. I think that Buddhism is the most misunderstood religion in the world and we've seen glimpses of that and brushed them aside. The picture is of the quiet little Asian man living in a monastery wearing an orange robe and chanting and being peaceful and stuff ... and the Dali Lama who is cool because he laughs funny and is friends with Richard Gere. Anyway, try to justify that whole thing with the pictures you've seen of the monks in Vietnam lighting themselves on fire in the streets in protest of war. Peaceful solitude and self immolation do not go together, there is no passion in peaceful solitude and nothing in the world takes more passion then pouring gasoline on yourself and lighting a match to make a statement. So are there people going against the teachings of Buddha? What did he teach? Basically the eight fold path which is: 1. viewing reality as it is, not just as it appears to be. 2. intention of renunciation, freedom and harmlessness. 3. ethics or morality, or abstention from unwholesome deeds. 4. speaking in a truthful and non-hurtful way 5. acting in a non-harmful way 6. a non-harmful livelihood 7. mental discipline required to develop mastery over one’s own mind. This is done through the practice of various contemplative and meditative practices 8. making an effort to improve 9. awareness to see things for what they are with clear consciousness, being aware of the present reality within oneself, without any craving or aversion 10. correct meditation or concentration, explained as the first four jhāanash. Now ... doesn't that make sense, i know, it's complicated ... for example how can an 8 fold path have 10 steps? I don't know. But the Buddhists get a check as well due to the one and only Dorje Shugden. "Who?", you ask. He is a living Buddhist deity, reincarnated from some Lama guy and worshiped in Tibet as the guardian angel of Dharma ... the Dali Lama used to like him and in 1996 changed his mind ... now he does not like him, in fact the Dalai Lama stated during Buddhist Tantric initiation that Shugden was 'an evil spirit' whose actions were detrimental to the 'cause of Tibet'. The Dalai Lama concluded that henceforth he would not give Tantric initiation to worshipers of Shugden, since "the unbridgeable divergence of their respective positions would inevitably undermine the sacred guru-student relationship, and thus compromise his role as a teacher (and by extension his health)." Check mark for you Buddhism!

So i hope that clears all that up and it all makes sense now, only the Hindus don't get a check and that's only because their entire religion seems to be a "do what you want, worship who you want" kind of thing, that don't have a strong opinion on much except that they hate Pakistan. Happy Monday!

The Three day sleepy post

In the winter, when the temperature drops and the air becomes crisp and clear, when everything gets a little brighter, the constellation Orion stands ready, right over my house at about midnight. I can stand at the end of the driveway and stare up at the hunter in the sky, so clear, just awesome. It makes me feel small and "speck like", it makes me love the God that created such a beautiful thing, it makes me feel at peace with everything in the world. I've always been terrible at finding constellations, when they taught us in school about the dippers and the bear and casseopia and all the rest i could never find them at night, when i got frustrated my father would try to show me and i would tell him i saw what ever he was explaining to me, but the truth is, i did not. Later he made a telescope and took us away from the light pollution to see everything more clearly, and the stars were brilliant through that telescope ... i still could not see the pictures in the sky. Except for Orion. Maybe that's why i love it so, maybe because i've been able to see it everywhere i lived and so it's been the constant, the one thing i've always had. Most cultures think Orion is a hunter, there are some that see other things, a deer, the last Pharo, a canoe (?), a warrior ... my favorite is the Hungarians who have an "ancient Hungarian myth which states that Orion is also a great hunter and warrior, his name is Nimród and he's the mythological father of Hungarians" Seriously? So that's where the word Nimrod comes from, you thought it meant idiot when really it means father of all Hungarians. Hooray learning.

1. In personal news my wife's friend has suffered an unimaginable tragedy ... the kind of thing that would break most people, and i don't feel at liberty to give out a bunch of details, but if anyone can survive this it is my wife's friend and i love her for that (even though i barely know the woman) but please, if you believe, pray for strength for mothers everywhere; in Haiti, in the war torn regions of Asia and Africa and right next door.

In not-the-bikini-team Sweden news a weight watcher's weigh-in meeting was disrupted when the ladies got on a row of scales and the floor collapsed beneath them. I'm serious and you can come up with your own punch line for that. Don't worry, no one was hurt and they put the scales in the hallway and finished their weigh-in without further collapse. Authorities claim that they are investigating the cause of the cave in, i'm guessing that over loading is going to have something to do with it in the end.

In ... i don't know what news ... i don't even know what to say about this, here's the AP article "TACOMA, Wash. - A Washington state blood center is offering donors a deal: Give a pint of blood, get a pint of beer. Cascade Regional Blood Services in Tacoma says its "Give blood, get beer" promotion has worked so well that it's being expanded. The News Tribune of Tacoma reported Monday that donors who are at least 21 years old are given a coupon for a free pint of beer. Participating pubs and restaurants must wait at least four hours after the blood drive ends before donors can collect their free pint. Cascade's director of donor resources Dan Schmitt says it's a fun way to get more donors, and it's good for the participating businesses as well." I'll bet that less blood does wonders for your B.A.C. so, after i give blood and then drink my free beer and then drive home and kill someone or myself and everybody sues the blood mobile, do you think that they'll rethink this one?

Today we close with Yemen news, Friday the Yemeni military (with the help of US couterterrorism and intelligence) bombed a village 118 miles north of the capital, maybe. This information came from anonymous sources because they are forbidden to discuss any details with the media. So what does the headline read, (on page 9 section B) "Yemen: Six al-Qaida Militants Killed in Airstrike" really? You're not sure enough where the bombs went to talk about it but you're going to call it an "airstrike" and claim success? Well good job Yemen! Certainly we trained you in that, after you bomb a village with hundreds of people in it, act as if you have assassinated a few very bad people. Because the least messy way to accurately kill a single person is to decimate a population center that the person may or may not be it ... makes sense to me.

What do you know about Haiti?

So my request for 500,000 views and comments got me 6 views and no comments ... folks, if this relationship is going to work you are going to have to put some effort in it, i mean if you got me 200,000 views and 50,000 comments at least i could feel like you were trying. No, seriously, thank you to the 6 of you for checking it out. If you leave comments though i can; 1) know that you were here and 2) help me shape the posts around what you want to talk about. The entire global warming post came from a comment in the previous post, so let me know what you think or ask questions and i will research them for you.


1. That being said, today is all about Haiti. On Tuesday there was a 7.0 earth quake right outside the capital and it caused massive destruction ... right now the phone lines are down so no one is completely sure what is going on. Buildings collapsed and fell down the sides of mountains in the immediate aftermath. It struck me as i read about this that i don't know a whole lot about Haiti, and one of my good friends is from there. So i did some reading.

The Republic of Haiti was the first independent country in all of Latin America, and it gained its independence from France by means of a slave revolt (how cool is that?). It was the first independent nation in the modern world that was lead by black people, again, very cool. Their entire history has been marred by foreign military invasion and occupation. Early in their history (1792 and 1803 and 1825) the French tried to retake the republic as it was extremely profitable, in fact the most profitable colony in the world. Also in the 1800's they were invaded by the British, Spain, Germany and the United States, leaders were kidnaped and murdered by foreign governments and then in 1915 the United States invaded to "protect the Haitian people" and occupied the country until 1934. Since that time there was 50 years of King-like tyranny and then 25 years of chaos. Elections are held and winners declared, coup-d’etat and another election, Presidents live in exile and corrupt leaders bleed the country dry. Which brings us to yesterday. Yesterday a massive earth quake rocked the small island nation and brought buildings down upon the heads of their occupants, the news today is saying that as many as 100,000 people may be dead and that they are having a very difficult time getting basic needs met; food, water, shelter, first aid. There are bodies in the streets and the effort to excavate the living from the rubble is going around the clock. Russia is sending help, the United States is sending help, China is sending help ... you know how in your family when someone gets sick or dies all the people who don’t like each other get along and help out and work together for a little while, I guess the world works that way too. President Clinton is heading up the UN relief efforts and has set up a system where-by you can text in a donation ... technology rocks! My heart bleeds for the people there and I pray that God will be with them and comfort them and meet their needs, furthermore I pray that the people of the world don’t forget Haiti when the crisis is averted.

In other Haitian news Pat Robertson is about as out of touch with reality as a human being can be without LSD. Another quick history lesson; Christianity is the worship of Jesus Christ as God incarnate and following in His teachings. While on earth Jesus taught things like humility, acceptance of the rejected, putting others above self, the virtues of poverty, longsuffering, meekness, ministering to the needs of widows, prisoners, the sick and often missed is his rejection of all religious hierarchy or man made rules pertaining to God. Any way, Pat Robertson is a hateful old man who has become rich saying stupid things that excite the fears of well meaning people who have been tricked into believing that Robertson is some kind of teacher, tricked into believing that he is legitimate. I’m not a close follower of his but as far as I can tell he hates gays and democrats and believes that every natural disaster is the result of God’s wrath at the sinfulness of certain people ... not him. Katrina was God killing bad people, the tsunami in Asia was God killing bad people, and now the earthquake in Haiti is God’s wrath against the Haitian people. Are they bad now? No. Pat has it on good authority that the slaves who revolted against the French did so with the assistance of one Lucifer ... that’s right the devil helped the brutalized and exploited slaves of western Hispaniola win their freedom and God has decided in his ever loving mercy to kill their decedents 200 years later . The Bible is full of examples of God doing things like that ... oh, it’s not? God doesn’t do that? Pat Robertson is a psycho who teaches false doctrine and brings the wrath of God on himself? You don’t say. I just hope that in Pat’s case that God doesn’t wait 200 years.

So it was brought to my attention by lovely reader #3 that I can’t spell. I read it in the comments section. No, I don’t read it there because she waited to tell me in person. So here’s how the comments section works. You read the post and then write a comment about it, for example, “I think you are a bad writer.” “You can’t spell.” “Your opinions are stupid.” etc and then I can respond with my next post.

Love you guys!

If you and 500,000 of your friends read this and comment i think i can get a sponsor and quit my job!

Today's post is brought to you by "Gotcha!" a new board game invented by your government. It's a great game, you'll love it, and here's how it works; you wait until one of your opponents says something that they shouldn't and then you go to every media outlet available and tell the world that they are bad people and that their comment proves it and that they should resign from their job in politics. Gotcha! And then one of your friends says something that they shouldn't and your opponents go to every media outlet available and ... Gotcha!


1. So Senator Harry Reid said that President Obama made a good candidate because he was light skinned and did not talk with a "Negro dialect" ... and let's get this straight, what the Senator from Nevada was saying is that a dark skinned man who doesn’t "talk white" is unelectable. I do not like Harry Reid, but he's not lying ... how does Rev. Sharpton do in national elections, Jesse Jackson? So the Republicans come out and say he should resign from the senate because ... (no, not for what he said) former Senator Trent Lott. Gotcha! Eight years ago Trent Lott was majority leader of the Senate and went to Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party and told Strom that the country would have been a better place if he had been elected President in 1948. ***Quick history lesson; Strom Thurmond invented racist old white guy and then ran in 1948 as a pro segregation democrat "Dixie-crat".*** So when news of this terrible remark reached the ears of the saintly Democrats they insisted he resign by going on TV and telling the world that Trent Lott wanted to segregate America and that he was a racist, and they did it all day every day until two weeks late they got their wish. So now the Republicans are trying to say that the two are the same and that Reid should be forced to resign as well. First of all, the two are NOT the same, Senator Trent Lott told a senile old man that he would have been a great president 54 years after the fact, and Strom was shocked because he thought that he WAS the president. Senator Harry Reid said that America would not elect a black man that the white people couldn't identify with ... except he's old and an idiot and he said the word "Negro". Neither of them should resign for that! Lying to old people and telling them that they were great is what you do, everyone does that! I do that and it does not mean that i'm bad at my job. Harry Reid told the truth and that DOES make him bad at his job, he's a politician and they are only considered good at it if they lie really, really well ... so maybe he should resign for telling the truth. I'm sorry, old people say "negro", my grandfather (not a racist) called blacks "colored" and Asians "oriental" because that's what they used to be called in this country by nice people who didn't hate them. There was a time when racists brutally murdered people and got away with it, and non-racists used what is now considered offensive language. Actually Reid should resign because he is a disgrace to this country and is pushing "heath care reform" that doesn't really help anyone except for insurance companies who are going to get a bunch of new customers and then they get to raise our rates. But readers listen to me a second, people say things poorly all the time, you do ... all the time, and you don't talk that much. Imagine if you talked all day without a script and everything you said was recorded and dissected and you could never make a mistake. There is not a racist bone in my body and i guarantee you that if you made me talk all the time and recorded me i would say something stupid with in the first two days. Here's what i say; forgive Senator Reid for his comments and forgive equally the next Republican that says something stupid. Don't use the NAACP to attack one person and defend another. I mean there are actual things going on right now, this health care debacle, a war in Afghanistan, our soldiers are still dying in Iraq, the coming invasion of Yemen, the ice age that has begun in Florida ... we've got real problems that are important!

In crazy Walmart news, the retailer fired one of their greeters after he tried to see a receipt and was punched in the face by the customer/thief. He asked the guy on the way out to show his receipt and the shopper flashed the receipt quickly, the greeter followed him to see the receipt because he suspected that the man stole something, when they got outside the shopper punched the employee in the face before running away and then Walmart fired him because going outside after a shop lifter is against policy. The greeter in question is 69 years old, the assailant was caught and arrested for battery, so the police think that a crime was perpetrated on the old fella, and i agree, but the assault was committed by Walmart. You can't fire an old man who is trying to protect YOUR assets, an old man who was battered in the line of duty. Give the old guy a medal and tel him privately to never do that again. All i know is that if i worked at Walmart i would never check anyone's receipt, In other crazy Walmart news really fat people go to Walmart at night and wear mesh shirts and fishnet stockings and generally make everyone else uncomfortable.

In sports news, athletes cheat! Olympic runners cheat, cyclists cheat, football players cheat, boxers cheat and yes, Mark McGwire cheated! Are you shocked? A baseball player? A baseball player that dominated the time in the history of the game called the STEROID ERA took steroids? Next they'll be telling me that Jose Canseco took steroids ... oh, he did? Well next they'll be telling me that Rafael Palmero took steroids ... oh, he did too? So what you're saying is that all of baseball hit a ton of home runs and that it suddenly stopped when they started testing for steroids and i'm supposed to believe that it's because the players were cheating? Yes, you're supposed to believe it because they were cheating! We knew it at the time, if i'm 10 years old and i realize that there is something wrong with the Oakland Athletics (Canseco, McGwire, Parker, both Hendersons ... ) i really hope that the sports world could see it. They cheat because you want them to, they cheat because a great defensive outfielder that always backs up the throw to second base doesn't get butts in seats, they cheat because you want new world records every Olympics, they cheat because they get paid well to do it, they cheat because they're afraid "the other guy" is doing it. Oh, Barry Bonds was juiced too and so was Lance Armstrong ... i love them both and they were both great ... and they cheated. So don't cry Mark, just tell the truth, "I did it so that i could hit a ton of home runs and be a hero and get paid a ton of money and if i could do it over again i would do the same thing, except that i wouldn't commit perjury in congress, i am sorry about that part."

Happy Monday!

All the answers to Climate Change ... or more questions?

Todays post is brought to you by "climate change" buzz words of today! What i'm going to try to do is present both sides of this, the most heated of issues, and then tell you where i stand on it. I am hopefull that i will manage to make everyone mad enough to leave me a "nasty-gram" in the comments section below.
In my last post i made light of Al Gore and "global warming" and tied in the deaths of five unfortunate people (probably went too far with that one) which had everyting to do with my sick sence of sarcasm and nothing to do with the science of climate change.

For starters i come from a scientific family, my father is a physicist, my Uncle has a couple of PHd's in some kinda science stuff and my brother's degree is in chemical engineering ... DISCLAIMER ... i, however, am NOT a scientist. I mention the family of science not because i did any reasearch, but more that it created a mindset in me that forces me to be sceptical of information, my mind does not allow me to jump to conclusions. Blah, blah, blah, i know. So here's the example; in the late 1990's when the ozone layer and desertification were all the rage (for those of you who either forgot or wern't paying attention or wern't born yet, 10-15 years ago the gas in your refrigerator and the hairspray from New Jersey were creating a hole in the ozone layer that was going to grow huge if we didn't devolop new hair styles and then the sun would burn everything off the face of the earth, at the same time the deserts of the world were expanding by inches every year and eventually would cover the entire earth if we didn't ... i forget what the solution there was) anyway in the 90's  i read an article about the Sahara desert expanding to cover all of Africa in just a few short years in the Tuesday Science Times and i ran to my father to show him the article which he read and then asked, "When did they start measuring it?" The article didn't say and i didn't know. His point was that there may not be enough data to make a conclusion and there might be some general lack of thoroughness in the scientific community. A few years later the desert began to shrink (didn't make the paper) the ozone hole began to shrink (didn't make the paper) and some scientist figured out that both run on an 11 year cycle that coincides with the cycle of sun spots. Which is super fascinating and makes me wonder how many other things we don't understand.
On to climate change. News flash, the earth's climate is changing ... cannot be debated, it has always been changing, ice age after ice age after jungle in Canada after ice age, it changes. Here's the question, are we making it change by being irresponsible polluting bastards?!? Or is it happening all by itself?
First the argument on the side of pollution creating climate change. I'm going to allow the Environmental Defence Fund make their own argument, so here's what they say about it, "Before the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere was in a rough balance with what could be stored on Earth. Natural emissions of heat-trapping gases matched what could be absorbed in natural sinks. For example, plants take in CO2 when they grow in spring and summer, and release it back to the atmosphere when they decay and die in fall and winter. Industry took off in the mid-1700s, and people started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels were burned more and more to run our cars, trucks, factories, planes and power plants, adding to the natural supply of greenhouse gases. The gases—which can stay in the atmosphere for at least fifty years and up to centuries—are building up beyond the Earth's capacity to remove them and, in effect, creating an extra-thick heat blanket around the Earth. Already, people have increased the amount of CO2, the chief global warming pollutant, in the atmosphere to 31 percent above pre-industrial levels. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than at any time in the last 650,000 years. Studies of the Earth’s climate history show that even small changes in CO2 levels generally have come with significant shifts in the global average temperature. Scientists expect that, in the absence of effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, the global average temperature will increase another 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100" I even let them be in green ... wasn't that nice of me? So the obvious problems with this position is the lack of facts about actual CO2 levels and anytime someone quotes "scientists" be afraid, be very afraid.
So on to the oposition ... i thought about letting the "Mr. Burns" of coal power plants respond, but honestly, the people who try to tell you that burning stuff that pours smoke into the sky is good for the earth and should, in fact, be done more, are crazy ... and they are lying. So i found a scientist that doesn't like hippies to respond instead. This is the quote from the web site of Steven Milloy (Johns Hopkins educated science guy), "One point apparently causing confusion among our readers is the relative abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere today as compared with Earth's historical levels. Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective - understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly "catastrophically high." Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years. Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that's a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current 'guesstimations' of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol's irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now? " I made him red because clearly he's evil and he proved it by using facts and big words! The knock on Milloy is that he's super political and preaches against global warming like he's the antiAlGore ... which he is. Plus he writes for FoxNews.com ... boo to you Steven!
Here's the problem with the climate change debate as it currently being run (here's where everyone can get mad) on one side they insist that CO2 levels are the cause of the warming of the earth and on the other side they disagree and encourage pollution and polluter-friendly legislation. CO2 levels are really low right now, not if you look at the last couple of huindred years, but if you look at the last couple of hundred million years, they were exponentially higher. A couple of different times in the earth's history spikes in atmospheric CO2 levels coincide with ice ages (not warming) and really there seems to be many more factors at play here than just carbon dioxide, i mean if CO2 was the only issue then couldn't we just get more plants and suck it right back out of the atmosphere? And the answer to that is yes by the way if you were thinking about it. The earth's climate is always changing and sometimes with catastrophic results ... certainly it could be really bad for people all over the world, but there is no way you could prove that one thing, the addition of one variable  is having an impact nor can you say to what extent that variable is changing the climate of our planet. Here are some pollution facts 1) American corporate agriculture is the largest polluter in the world (no, it's not factories or SUVs ... forget the Prius, grow your own food) 2) pollution is bad for everyone regardless of the temperature outside 3) we are creative enough and rich enough (as a group) to choose to stop polluting and to figure out a way to do it 4) God gave the earth to us and we were to be stewards of His creation, that means we were supposed to take care of it, and i don't think that he meant pave it, burn it, pour chromium in the rivers, and to just generally destroy everything we touch.
Anyway, here's where i stand; i completly agree that we need to find ways to be less wastefull and to pollute less. Treating the earth like it's an everlasting gobstopper is just plain stupid. Resources are finite and can be completly depleted, not to mention while we use water to wash our cars and fill our swimming pools there are parched people with dry cracked lips living on dry cracked soil praying for rain to come all over the world. I love those people and they are the reason that i do not water my grass or wash my car ... i just need to figure out how to send the water i'm not using to them. Burning coal (right next to my house) sucks and should be outlawed, not because of climate issues but because it's dirty and lacks creativity ... we've been burning coal for hundreds of years, we can't come up with anything better? SUVs are stupid because you don't need a school bus for you and your one child to go to the store on a Saturday afternoon, take the bus or walk or ride bikes ... then you wouldn't pollute AND your kid wouldn't be so fat ... forget the climate. Common sence should tell you to turn the lights off when you leave a room, common sence should tell you that the Ohio river catching fire is a really bad thing. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you thought the Ford Excursion was practical before Al Gore told you about the homeless polar bears. You bought a vehicle that gets 8MPG highway if you're going down hill with a tail wind and you thought it was a great idea ... but since those polar bears you're driving the Prius and loving it. Now you get to save the world and do nothing all at the same time ... 5 stars for that one.
Bush didn't need WMDs to get our support the invasion of Iraq ... all he had to say is that Sadam and his sons are killing innocents and raping virgins and we're going to stop him. I would have been 100% behind that. The "scientists" don't need climate change, let's stop polluting because it makes sence and after that if the climate reverses itself back to "normal" hooray! We don't need extra reasons to not pollute, do we? I love Africa, and Africans ... it breaks my heart that the people of that continent suffer through so much. Famine, drought, flooding, disease, war ... it is constant, and i'm sure that we can start working on some real solutions, i wish that it mattered to most people, but here's what i know; Africa had all the same problems 4000 years ago (it's in Genesis for crying out loud) and if you send them money the dictator of the minute takes it and puts it in his Swiss retirement account so when he is overthrown in two weeks he can live like a king in Paris for the rest of his life while the people of his country are left to deal with the worst the human condition has to offer. So don't pollute, don't be wasteful. Be a good steward of this beautiful planet that your God has seen fit to allow you to live on, use the resources that He has bestowed upon us, just don't abuse those resources. I'm glad that people are passionate about the world they live in, they should be, but please don't buy the simple solutions that they're selling you. Signing an accord and taxing polluters and sending money to Africa is not a solution ... revamping our entire economic (especially food) system and coming up with real, sustainable, solutions for the southern half of the earth's problems ... i mean really figuring out how to reduce milaria deaths, AIDS deaths, famine (see Joseph's solution in Egypt) drought ... and maybe rewarding "green" innovations rather than punnishing the uncreative (read "polluting bastards") is the way to go.

Wednesday Stuff

So today's post is brought to you by my good mood, the kind of good mood you get in when you spend your third day at your new job in a meeting recapping the performance of your predecesor and your peers from 2009. I love meetings in which i cannot possibly get yelled at! Hooray new job!

Ok, so thousands of you responded to my last post and of those there were hundereds and hundreds (or maybe it was just reader #3) of you that wanted to know how i could not give my youngest the Madeline dolls ... and the answer to that is that of course i could GIVE them to her i just couldn't BUY them for her. I'm not really sure that it's legal to charge $18 for a 4 inch high doll, but i was charged almost $3 for a cup of coffee at the same book store and $5 for a couple of chocolate chip cookies which leads me to believe that book store should stick to books, they are not very good at selling other things competitively. Seriously, i bought 3 hard cover books for less than one Madeline doll.

In moronic air travel news a Hawaiian Airlines Jet enroute to Maui landed in Oregon after a "disturbance" on the plane after take off. Not only did it land in Oregon, but it was escorted by two F-15's ... that's right, fighter jets! What sort of diabolical terrorist was threatening this plane? I mean if they couldn't catch a guy with explosives who tried to blow a plane up, if that plane did not get a military escort to the ground, this guy must have done something really awful. Right? I know, maybe they realised that Bin Laden was on board on his was to a sunny beach vacation. No. Maybe there was a large group of terrorists trying to take over the plane with guns. No. Maybe the Taliban was holding a strategy meeting on the plane and we had to stop then. No, actually it was an american-nonterrorist that caused the big fuss. What did he do? You're asking yourself, did he try to take over the cockpit? Did he attack the "Air Marshall"? No, he refused to stow his carry on bag. Here's the quote from MSNBC.com "The Hawaiian Airlines jet en route to Maui's Kahului Airport turned back because of “a suspicious passenger who made threatening remarks and refused to store his carry-on bag,” said Suzanne Trevino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. " And she said it with a strait face. So let's make sure you have this right. You ARE safe from people not storing their carry on, but you are not safe from inept bombers. Hooray! The system works!

And tonight we close with global warming news. I live in Florida, lovely warm Florida where it is 26 degrees right now and has been cold all week. Today set a record cold temperature, the year that it beat ...1999. Wow, 2 record lows in 10 years, the earth must be warming! The ice caps are melting, the ice caps are melting, the ice caps are melting! The ice isn't melting, it's just moving to Florida because it found an affordable retirement community! And yesterday in Tennessee, where Al Gore is from, 5 people froze to death! F-I-V-E 5! All i know is if you're out trying to convince the world that man-made climate change is warming the earth and going to kill us all it makes you look like an idiot when you neighbors (in a southern state) are freezing to death. So my thoughts and prayers go out to them and their famlies and i have to wonder, how many more people have to die from listening to Al Gore before we throw him in jail? Seriously if you believed him you would throw out your jackets and blankets and remove you heater because you don't need them. People are still driving SUV's ... it'll be 300 degrees before you know it. All i know is that i had the heat cranking in my SUV today and there was ice on the windshield this morning ... so i hope that my choice of low gas milage vehicle warms the earth up soon because i'm really cold!

PS. we'll be invading Yemen soon. This week we evacuated our embassy staff so that they don't get hit with the bombs we're going to drop on the Yemeni countryside.

PPS Please comment so i know that someone heard the tree fall. Yes, you too reader #3

Not Pinko Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So this is normally done by "normal" bloggers that talk about their kids and exercise routines and the things they eat ... an i have kids and i eat and i exercise ... and i don't blog about it. So that's why this is "Not Pinko Monday", like i needed an excuse to be sarcastic ... but i did need an excuse to refer to myself in the third person. And now i have one.

Clearly it was not the Pinko who found a way to be transferred from one branch of his company to another ... and even if he did this there is no way that he would be able to transfer back to the division that he started in 7 1/2 years ago. I mean no one is allowed to transfer without moving since we compete against each other in the market place, surely they would not let the Pinko transfer after all the years and training and success (and a few small catastrophic failures). So no, it was not the Pinko who got permission from his boss to pursue this, and certainly it was not the Pinko who verified before making this potentially career ending request that he had a place to land when the dust settled. Certainly the Pinko is so stupid that he would try the impossible without first putting all his ducks in a row, no one would be brazen enough to cross the line of demarcation without permission and then on top of that to skillfully use the false preconceptions of his superiors to get them to let him officially go and "talk" to the other side ... i'm sure that they didn't "know" i would be rejected. So no way, that was not the Pinko who did that and it is definitely not the Pinko who is starting his new job on Monday. Who's happy about it? Not the Pinko.

It was also not the Pinko who laughed "Ha Ha Ha" a loud and socially awkward laugh at the suggestion that the government was going to start following me because i keep predicting what they're going to do before they do it. I mean seriously the Pinko would not take such things lightly (and in not readers Monday news - It was not my readers who told no one about this blog so that no one would come and read it, it would not be my readers who were so thoughtful knowing that if more than 2 people visited this page the government might actually care what was in here.) So the Pinko is not at all thankful for his total lack of popularity. No, not him.

In other not Pinko news, it was certainly not the Pinko who thought it would be a good way to kill a couple of hours to take 3 children under the age of 7 to Barnes and Noble. I mean only an idiot would think that no books would be knocked over, thrown, ripped ... and who knew that they sold small stuffed Madeline dolls (the favorite of my youngest) At which point it was not the Pinko who tried to reason with a 25 month old child why the 4 Madeline dolls she had a death grip on could not come home with us. The little communist (Pinko Jr.?) was clearly thinking that "to each according to her needs" clearly applied since she NEEDED those dolls. So after dolls were pried from her clutches it was not the Pinko who bribed the tears away with chocolate chip cookies for everyone! It would not be sending a good parenting message to do such a thing and so the Pinko would not stoop bribery ... oh yes he would.

Evil Flu ... i did not invite you to 2010, go home!

So i did not do a Wednesday post because i was consumed by an evil fever/diabolically sore throat/gross stuff coming out of my nose/headache thing, and then i was going to do a New Years Eve post ... but when i tried to type the fever made me think about weirdness and you deserve better (both of you). So after two days of sickness my wife decides to tell me about Tylenol Cold ... (sponsorship!?!) and now i'm feeling like a human again. So today's post is brought to you by the miracle of Tylenol Cold ... i love you little pills!

I don't know if you caught any of it but there were huge pro-democracy protests in Iran the past week and the Iranian authorities responded by being incredibly violent, i'm surprised ... aren't you? So there is no media coverage (Iran does not allow it) but God bless cell phone cameras and YouTube because people filmed what was going on and posted it so you can check it out. Anyway, one of the videos shows a police truck trying to navigate through a crowd of protestors and having a hard time so they run over a woman and then drive away as fast as possible before the protestors kill them. You clearly see the whole thing, it is awful. I included a link to it here so after you read this go watch it. http://bit.ly/8KcLte
It's the second video down. That was a couple of days ago. Today the New York Times, bastion of the news decided to publish the Iranian response to the video getting out, here's what they wrote about it. "The Iranian police say a video that appears to show a police pickup truck running over a protester was faked, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported Thursday. The police statement was responding to the circulation on the Internet of an amateur video said to have been taken Sunday during large antigovernment demonstrations in Tehran. The video shows a pickup truck running over a man; other screaming protesters then run to him after the truck drives off. The police say that the video, which appears to show a police pickup truck running over a protester, was faked and that no deaths were reported in that area."  Oh ... i feel better already, the Iranian police, who have been killing innocent people for days say that the whole thing didn't happen in the face of undeniable video evidence, well let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I can totally see why the NYT would publish the official response of a despotic regime and write it as if the delegation from Luxembourg was releasing a statement. It's the same right? Why would the Iranians lie? Please go watch the video so you can see it and realize how insane this is.

In other insane news, Evander Holyfield is going to be fighting for the Heavy Weight Championship of the world ... in 2010. He's only 47 years old, i'm sure he'll be fine. I mean it's not like he's completly punch drunk, his management team didn't quit 4 fights ago saying that they could not support his decision to keep fighting, he's not medically banned from boxing in multiple US states, he hasn't lost 5 of his last 9 fights ... oh he has? He is banned? That's ok, Uganda sanctioned him, they said he's fine to fight. I'm sure they have his best interests at heart. So go Evander ... go get you a belt and some permanant brain damage!

In closing i want to wish you all a Happy New Year and i hope that everyone had some safe fun last night. I did, i went bowling with my kids and Ang and our cool friends and then the brave people let us come to their house and hang out ... it went really well, i don't think that the kids broke anything the whole time ... as long as you don't count the unfortunate water incident ... sorry Dan.
Oh, don't forget to comment on the Iran video.