Mythless

2011-06-21T15:08:00.001-07:00

Lest we Forget
It was a quiet dinner party, a few friends, some family, even people I had never met before. It was a comfortable evening in a small Belgian suburb of Brussels where ideas were exchanged, experiences shared and discussions coming and going with no particular direction. It was a nice time, good food, impeccable wines bred from good taste, solid dependable upbringing, good breeding and decent schools.

Into this quiet and tranquil pond suddenly a large rock hit the surface and rippled out, and continues to ripple in my mind, three years later and an ocean and continent away.

As I recall, the conversation went from what does an American do when he returns to Belgium with his children, in my case I always took my daughter and son to Fort Breendonk between Antwerp, where I was brought up, and Brussels, the new capital of Europe. Breendonk was where the Germans assembled the Jewish population of Belgium before sending them east to Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen and other extermination areas. It is a place where political prisoners, resistance fighters and harmlessly insane people were sent to die. It is a small piece of a puzzle that all Americans should know about.

“But Peter that is such old history, why would you impose such horrors on your children?” asked one of the guests. “You have to understand the context, the times were different, the Jews owned everything and they were resented. It is no wonder that they were rounded up and killed.”

The year is 2008, the place Belgium, a small country. Belgium is a small country with a big heart that fought like tigers in the First World War, and put up a stronger resistance than their neighbors in France during the Second World War. And yet in this living room, a gentleman who was too young to have been in the war, a product of twelve years of Catholic upbringing by the Jesuits and university studies at one of the top Belgian Catholic schools calmly mouthed an explanation for one of humanity’s greatest crimes.

Being an invited guest and in the absence of any negative reaction from the rest of the guests I did not react at the time. Later I had the opportunity to revisit that moment with some of those who were present. They all agreed that it had been an appalling statement, and we all agreed that something should have been said or done, and yet none of us did.

This could be why, forty years after the holocaust, with Pol Pot, Tutsi, Darfur, Burma, Serbia and countless ongoing genocides, no one still has the nerve to just stand up and tell his friends and relatives that it was and is wrong to kill people. I certainly regret to this day not opening my mouth.

2010-09-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Gay Victim.

Welcome to a shadow world, a world where children walk in fear of their parents trying to confront questions to which they have no answers. A world that will ostracize them, bully them and eventually even kill them. They are trapped in the cruel reality that their bodies are not what everybody else's bodies are. They crave what others fear and loath.

Welcome to the world of gay America, a land that forces its citizens to perform incredible mental, psychological and physical gyrations just be allowed the right to exist. It is a world where they are advised to lie and dissemble, that in the pursuit of that most precious commodity, love, they sneak around in fear of their own feelings and lives.

These are normal people, they are your family, your friends and your business relations. They are the ones who cannot defend themselves because in many cases they are not comfortable with who they are or what they have been told they are. They do not live in a closet so they cannot come out of a closet. They are already out there but often wish they had a closet to hide in.

Most are grateful to live in more enlightened times and places, but vast parts of the world, most organized religions, political parties, the Boy Scouts of America, schools and countries ban them. No wonder, with so much unfounded hatred, very often they die not for what they do but for what they are.

Hitler routinely put them to death, so do Muslims, Ugandans, South Americans and other primitive cultures. In America we are more subtle, don't ask don't tell for the gay warrior who will put his life on the line for a country that in reality abhors him or her. In California, with Proposition 8 outlawing gay marriage, the least attractive aspect of our inhumanity was given the right to bray its ignorance. The proposition passed with a slim majority, funded by that Utah based organization that encourages well dressed men to travel together in suspicious community.

Again, there is no argument here just the usual hatred of those who are not like me and probably not like thee. In Germany jews, in America and around the world, gay people.

My advice, as usual when you are being singled out for attack, lay low, make noise and wait for enlightenment, take heart in the fact Zeus is gone, can Christ and Allah be far behind? With religion dying, your day will come.

2010-09-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

Muslandia for Women

In the mythical land of Muslandia women hold an honorable place. They have come from further back than the men,faced greater adversity in fighting slavery and subjugation and recovered so much of the space taken over by their "betters"; males from all over the world.

They have also developed a fine sense of irony aver time, an irony that translates into keen insights on how Muslim women in the rest of the world see themselves. The simple wearing of the head scarf has, in and of itself, become a benchmark. In Muslandia you wear a headscarf because of the cold because they know that only the kept women of the dead prophet wore the scarves so as not to be bothered by the demands of the followers. Muslandian believers, and yes there are true believers in this make believe land, know that the wearing of the scarf is really a vast act of arrogance since the wearer truly believes that she is one of the dead prophets wives, concubines, mistresses or just plain whore.

In a way this is no different than those Christian ladies who wear a wedding ring because they are, in their minds and hearts, the brides of that other famous dead but undead prophet, Jesus Christ. Although Muslims as a rule have no problem with polygamy,as long as the male of the species is the bride collector, Christians as a rule tend to shy away from it. The brides of Christ appear to be quite comfortable with the idea of the unfaithfulness of their Lord.

In Muslandia, women are the equal of men in all ways. They have established that right through centuries of putting up with their oppressor to a point that even the oppressor had to admit that he was a dick. How many times have the actions of one side of society lead to the destruction of the innocent on the other side? How many times has it been obvious that there is always a better solution than bashing heads or planting bombs. As the Muslim world descended into the chaos of self immolation, it was the women, with their clear idea of how the world should be, who steered their sisters into Muslandia, and to their eternal credit left the doors open for the idiots to enter and learn and like.

But as we all know, Muslandia is a mythical land that exists only in the minds of of those who hope one day to transform their mythology itno the reality of the real world.

2010-09-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Muslandia!

Muslandia is a mythical place, a place where Muslims can come and actually live as real human beings and not Prophet Surrogates or PS'. There are very few connections between Muslandia and the real Muslim world because the real Muslim world is not a happy place.

In Muslandia, for example, women are not required to cover themselves with bags over their heads, or tents around their bodies. On the contrary, women are treated as normal human beings with feelings, intelligence and respect. In Muslandia you will actually see Muslim women driving cars, treating sick people and talking to their male counterparts without shame. Muslandia is a dreamworld for Muslim women because it is so far from the reality of their existence that they dream of Muslandia every day.

In Muslandia no one feels the need to kill people in random acts of violence as dictated by the Prophet, and Prophet Surrogates do not take it upon themselves to tell others how to dress, what to read, what to believe and how often they have to bang their heads on the ground. Atheists are tolerated in Muslandia because we all have moments of clarity and doubt, and in Muslandia those moments are tolerated and even encouraged because humanity progresses on doubt, not certainty. The long list of people that Muslims have to detest and abhor is pretty much reduced to fairly normal groups such as assholes, dictators, over bearing preachers and anyone who invades your space. In Muslandia you are not allowed to kill these people, which is a big surprise.

In Muslandia education is an ongoing thing, new ideas are forever being brought forth, challenged and accepted or rejected. Really old books based on dictatorial dogma get changed, reviewed and adapted to Muslandia's time and not the other way around. Books are allowed to develop a life of their own and take on a life of their own. Small children read fairy tales and sorcery books and Muslandians approve and encourage reading.

In Muslandia, fairy tales like the Koran and the Bible are given as much credence as any other fairy tale because all words are born equal in Muslandia. How they string together in random thoughts is not a topic for debate or hate, just wonder. The paper they are printed on is the same paper used in Muslandia's famous toilets. And who is to say which usage is the most useful?

Yes Muslandia is a lovely place, it is a place so far from the reality of the real world that it has become almost the other Mecca, the Mecca we could all visit if the real Mecca was not such a closed shop.

2010-06-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

STOPPING THE OIL SPILL NOW

EMT specializes in alternate fuels and has experience in environmental security concepts. The following is our best effort concept to prevent further damage from your oils spill off the Louisiana coast. Please don't hesitate to contact me or to pass this on. I sent a preliminary concept to your online suggestions email, but I am concerned that it may be overlooked. I have spent many years in PR and handled press relations for the Canadian nuclear group, Canatom, during Three Mile Island. I realize that your team on the spot is probably overwhelmed with just trying to keep abreast of the damage control efforts.

Please excuse the rather off the wall naming of the idea, but I believe that in the strange world of the Oil People, the name will at least give our ideas a 15 second recognition factor. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me.

A way to arrest the oil spill from the BP Platform
The Kevlar Kondom Koncept
Summary: The effort to date have been aimed primarily at capping the well head without spending the time or effort to understand how best to recuperate the oil and pumping it back into the system. This proposal will allow for 95% of the oil to be contained in a storage facility as deep as the surface of the ocean to the wellhead floor.
Once contained within that storage it can be pumped out into large tankers who will deposit it directly into the Louisiana processing center.

1) Concept:
Manufacture a Kevlar or other suitably resistant sleeve that will have an interior diameter large enough to encompass the wellhead as well as the surrounding ocean floor. We estimate a 30’ diameter should be sufficient, but are still waiting for actual dimensions of the project.
The bottom part of this sleeve will be in the form of a rolled up and sealed ring that when lowered will conform to ocean bottom, provide a flange-like extrusion and be flexible enough to shift as the sea bottom shifts. Heavy mud, such as pumped in the recently unsuccessful TopKill operation can be injected into the flange.
A one way valve of sufficient diameter will be placed at the base, but on the side of the flange to allow water to be pumped out as the oil pushes upwards
The sleeve will rise from the bottom to the ocean surface in a sealed and uninterrupted tube, with no leaks or openings.
On the surface, a large floating doughnut, for want of a better term, will rest on the surface with a retractable top to allow sealing off of the tube. It is believed that this may be required in order to optimize the ability of the oil to propel the water downward and ease the work of the water expelling pumps.

2) Operation:
The bottom flange is lowered along guiding cables anchored to the sea bottom in order to completely surround the wellhead.
The flange is filled with heavy mud so that it rests securely on ocean floor conforming to undulations of the floor. Mud is then pumped inside and outside the flange to completely seal off the sleeve and pin it to the bottom of the ocean and avoid the entrance of any water.
As the oil rises, it is rising in its own column and independently of the surrounding ocean. Although the weight of the oil is a delta factor, the volume displaced is not, so water can be expelled from the bottom of the sleeve as the oil rises.

3) Result:
You will have created a flexible storage tank about a mile high and 30’ in diameter containing pure oil at the surface which can be pumped off as it rises and shipped to the processing facility in Louisiana.

4) Why this will work:
It is pressure independent because it is a “soft” solution based on ambient pressure and conditions
It immediately isolates the oil from the water in its own environment
It allows the flexibility of increasing or decreasing pumping ratios
It will permit all parties enough time to review their options and come up with a permanent solution
It will allow repair operations to be performed inside the sleeve in a “sterile” environment
It is relatively inexpensive compared to other operations because it allows the recuperation of the oil for sale.
It uses existing technologies and materials that can be used should this type of disaster ever occur again.

2010-06-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

Shit Happens, or does it?

It is a very old expression, something along the lines of Kismet or Inch Allah and it explains nothing and allows for horrors to be repeated.

Shit happens and thousands die such as the elections of George Bush. Yes the shit happened and its name was George. Shit happens, and the coasts of Louisiana, Florida and who knows where else the shit will happen, and yes here again shit happened and its name was Halliburton and BP.

You see shit has a name, and those names can be published and punished. Shit never just “Happens”, it needs a helping hand, a murderous incentive, a need for someone to come out on top, and as the other expression goes, shit floats. Yes, shit does float and who is floating to the top, usually the biggest piece in the toilet, here again that shit has a name, Halliburton and BP.

Make no mistake, when the dust clears, the shit will hit the fan, the guilty will be pursued, but not punished and how do I know that shit, because BP provides the majority of the petroleum products our government needs, that’s right. Our planes, boats and trucks that we send around the world to defend our way of life are doing it on BP petroleum. As we say with a hint of surprise and humor, no shit?

We all know that money talks and bullshit walks, and the money is on the big boys, not the little shrimp and crawdads. So when all the people who live on shit’s creek have lost their paddles, then we will know that BP and the oily boys will be there to sell them a new one. What the small fry should be seriously considering is ripping them a new one also.

But, again this is not new shit it’s the same old shit from long ago. This time it will wash up with the dead birds, fish and other innocent animals. It will be sucked up by plants and coat the bayous and the marshes. And once again BP and Halliburton will act as if their shit don’t stink as they say down there.

2010-04-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

Jesus only had one cross to bear.

Because of my complete lack of belief in a god, any god, many of my friends question my need for spiritual sustenance. They remind me often that they take great comfort in knowing that Jesus, the savior, son of man and god, the pure, the beautiful etc; you get the picture, died for ME on the cross after suffering horrible pain at the hands of the Jews and the Romans.

Those were harsh times, and I will not minimize the pain and suffering of anyone hung on a cross and allowed to die a long painful death, but Jesus was not alone. Thousands of citizens were crucified, there were two others nailed with Jesus that day. And yet the mythology prevails, Jesus died a horrible death so that we could ALL be saved, and to that I say bullshit.

Jesus had it easy, he took the simple way out after an exciting life as the head of a small local cult, adored, not unlike Jim Jones or David Koresh, by his immediate followers and a small coterie of the citizens around him. If recent history is a guide, he enjoyed the best from the table and probably had his pick of the women around him, not a bad life in one the worst hell holes in the world.

The manner of his death, as I remind my friends, was actually a blessing because JESUS HAD ONLY ONE CROSS TO BEAR, he did not, like my friends, bear the burdens of daily life. To us the crippling horrors of sick children and dying parents, the daily heart stopping pain of meeting financial and moral obligations, the sadness of betrayal from friends and family, the physical pain of medical conditions are all the crosses that we shoulder, one by one, and often alone. Those crosses are a symphony to his solo act.

So what does it all mean? The simple fact that we live and die as well as we can is less a reflection on who we are, but a sadder reflection on how we divest ourselves of the heroic dignity our lives truly are. And we suborn our own greatness to the lesser life lived out in the plain knowledge of where Jesus was going and how he would die.

In a cosmic sense, Jesus did not die for our sins; we die to atone for his lack of sin and pain.

2010-04-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Guilt Tripping Over Dead Issues.
Recently the Governor of Virginia discussed Civil War Month and he seems to be re-visioning history once again. My approach to that whole period is that it is history and whether I am an African American, a Georgia cracker or a Boston Banker, it has NO, repeat, NO effect on me. I am neither guilty or even involved in any of what happened so long ago. My genealogy wanders upwards into Belgium and Germany on one side and Ireland on the other. We probably sold and bought slaves through the Roman conquests and went into the Congo for harvesting rubber and people. But in my particular situation, I can only say, not guilty nor even aware of any guilt.

You know, I sold my last slave about a year ago and I am now pretty much clear of all that guilt and pain. But it still rankles that the South has issues admitting that they killed, maimed and enslaved a bunch of foreigners. I mean, the whole illegal immigrant issue was bypassed by simply selling the Africans to the highest bidders. If I had known that then, I would not have an army of Spanish-speakers doing my lawns, cleaning my yard and generally carrying on like real citizens. The one thing I do miss from the good old Southern times is the music, I cannot get my head into mariachi and Chinese chants. After all, Rock and Roll was the only good thing to come out of the whole slavery thing, oh, that and bible thumping! I do miss that good old time religion when the earth was flat and evolution was something your peach preserves did in the pantry.

Sign me Free of Guilt, Great God Almighty I am Free of Guilt !!

2009-12-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

A Mythless Christmas

The winter season is upon us, and soon all good and not so good Christians will become insufferably pious and good. There will be weird chanting, and symbolic displays of affection, wealth and merriment. Soon there will be no escaping the fact that he was born on this day, or so some believe. His arrival was to introduce a new round of peace on earth and good will to all mankind. His arrival would unleash reigns of terror across the world that no other single event will duplicate.

Over the centuries, because this one man was born on Christmas day, so named because Christ’s birth date was superimposed on a variety of pagan myths, more people have grown to rue the day,the man and the date.

So what if we could remove the mythology from the day? Separate out the horror of his coming and bask in the glory of a winter celebration in honor of the horrors of the cold and misery that our ancestors must have felt at the start of what has become a weird celebration of life in the face of certain death?

Think about third century Europe on December 25, the knowledge that the food would run out before the first harvest would be in, that the cold could not be alleviated by fire because there was never enough wood, or the walls themselves leaked cold wintry blasts, the stench of animals brought in for protection from predators. Even the castles where the learned bishops congregated to accept or dismiss bits and pieces of the lore surrounding the man, were never warm, and bundling under covers led to spontaneous sex and nine months miracles, not unlike the weird way our savior was born by spontaneous cohabitation.

Later, when women were relegated to secondary status in this misogynistic culture, they would attempt to grab some of the glory that the holy bastard had stolen by touting the sexless mother, from whose unsullied womb sprang the little lord Jesus.

Imagine the pageantry, the noise, the adoration of carved images of our boy hanging there thirty some years later in his underwear. It all started with the myth of Christmas and it masked some horrible truths.

2009-12-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

White Slavery

We all know what the term white slavery means, or do we? In Victorian times it referred to women sold in bondage in the illicit sex trade to provide income to certain privileged individuals variously referred to as pimps, procurers, and other less savory terms. Sometimes, as in Chicago in the late 1800s, the white slavers formed corporations and distributed dividends along with certain “special” favors to their members.

It should come as no surprise that there has been an increase of this filthy trade over the years with absolutely no interference from our elected officials, I am, of course referring to the white collar slaves of America. This form of slavery is indiscriminate and is based on the need of people to work for a living. In a way it affects women more than men, since they are usually paid less to do more for more hours that their male counterparts. The scam, and it is a truly North American scam, works like this:

As you work your way up the career ladder you go from an hourly rate to a salary rate. You leave the protected environment that masses of workers before you have staked out and secured and plunge into the open world of the white collar wage slave. Regardless of how much you are paid, it is loosely, very loosely, based on the forty hour week. That forty hours a week is a standard that slowly, and usually brutally, brought the working class into a more humane environment from the upwards of twelve to sixteen hour workdays that were the norm for the serf and miner of yesteryear.

That same movement gently pried our children from the sweatshops, protected women in the garment trade and finally forced society to recognize that humans, qua humans, had rights and dignity.

The salaried man escaped those constraints, his work day increased, sixty hour work weeks are the norm for young aspiring lawyers, and I myself have worked twelve to fourteen hour days to meet company imposed deadlines.

The interesting thing was that we did it gladly because we were career oriented people, and we gave up vacation time, we travelled on weekends and redeye flights because the company did not allow travel time. What society praised was our spirit, our good nigger adaptation to harsh conditions, burn out and loss of identity within society. We penalized our families for no compensation and if we considered that our hourly rates were so much higher than the simple wage earner, we never stopped and considered that with the extra hours we manfully put in, we were earning less and less

In fact, we became slaves, working up to a quarter of our time for no compensation, no benefits and certainly with absolutely no loyalty from the slavers. The reason was that we had become our own slave drivers, happy to whip ourselves for the good of the masses.

We still have not learned that our jobs were never the reason for our living, they should have made it possible to live better, and they eventually destroyed us, our society and our morals.

You want to know the difference between here and everywhere else? Simple, they stopped being slaves, demanded protection, organized and took back their lives from their companies. Pension plans travel with you from job to job, health benefits come from the collective, not the drivers, vacation time is plentiful and needed, sickness is treated as a serious threat to the individual and to all around him.

Maybe the white collar slaves could learn a lesson from the freed blue collar workers, or from their brothers in more civilized cliamates.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

2009-11-19T00:04:00.000-08:00

My Imaginary Friend

A long time ago I had an imaginary friend. And because I was an extremely creative six year old, I called him Mister. My mother, who had a better grasp on reality then, never thought this was strange. I had the advantage to be able to take Mister wherever I went, could make him say whatever I needed him to say, and I could convince myself, and some of the people around me that he was real.

Mister was really cool, and he served me well until I outgrew Mister.

I needed to replace Mister somehow, so I was enrolled in Sunday School in a small town in Argentina where my family was living while our next stop was made inhabitable again after the Germans trashed it, followed by the Canadians and finally the Americans.

Sunday School was a hoot, I learned about a new imaginary friend called God. He was almost as cool as Mister, but he was also more grown up. He screwed Virgins, drowned humanity, killed off people he did not approve of. He was a grown up Imaginary Friend, and he was not at all under my control. He told me what to say, what to think, what to do and mostly what not to do. Unlike Mister , I was totally not sure that he was real. On the other hand, most of the people around me were convinced that he was real.

Later I learned that there were imaginary friends for all kinds of people. These Imaginary Friends were just as real as Mister, but a whole lot scarier, and totally out of control of anyone who did not believe that they were real. A whole army of Imaginary Friends, one for each man woman and child in the Universe. So overpowering were these imaginary friends that they were handed to you, whether you wanted them or not, and told to believe that they were real.

Along the way, I also found out that there were large herds of Imaginary Friends that had expired because people no longer needed them, believed that they were real or just outgrew them.

Nowadays I really miss Mister. He was mine, he was real, and he did what I needed him to do; keep me safe in my belief that my small world was safe for a six year old who really only wanted to be safe.

I truly believe that all those Imaginary Friends belonging to other people have made my world unsafe for even my Mister.

I want him back!

2009-11-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

Death
Really is the ultimate frontier, the one very few of us come back from, the one we all choose one way or another. It is also the ultimately negating frontier, once you are dead, no wrong done to you can be negated, no recourse is given, once you are dead, well, guess what? You are dead.

So why is it important to stop just before crossing into that zone? It is important because it is the only zone of no return. It is where the possible becomes impossible and it is where we, as human beings, must accept that we have no right to intrude. The ultimate obscenity is to push someone else into that zone.

Think about how many ways society condones that push, the death sentence, the ritual suicide bomber, the starvation of the innocent, road rage, murder, medical expediency and thousands of other instances where death is not your decision to make or take. Deadly decision are taken so lightly these days, a random bombing where everybody is a victim, an invasion that targets civilians more than soldiers, death literally lurks on every corner in any town in any country.

We also set up intricate systems to try and stop death, medicine, police and legislation are all in league to arrest the wanton proliferation of deadly events. The same groups that support the wanton proliferation are also actively engaged in its propagation.

So where do you start to arrest death? In identifying the behavior that most sponsors its propagation. Religion, weapons, health are all good places where respect for life could go a long way to mitigate the damage. But deep down you all know what needs to be done, and for so many reasons cannot get around to doing the obvious.

2009-10-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

Self Evidence
Last night it all sort of came together.
There is an inevitability in the cosmos that we all know is there. It is so obvious that given time certain things are going to happen and we can accept it now and move on, or waste time, lives, face and finances. We can continue to trash the world with these stupid stances, or get over it earlier to allow mankind to move further up the evolutionary ladder.
Iraq, we all know the US will leave, whether we leave now, or in twenty years, it will make absolutely no difference except in the number of dead and wounded, in the amount of money we spend there or in our own land, in the ways we develop our technology and how we perceive the enemy. Just as Iran will have a nuclear capability one day, and why not? They have signed the non proliferation treaty, our allies have not.
Guns in the street, of course our colonial forefathers allowed us to carry weapons, they also allowed us to have slaves. But one day, and it cannot come soon enough, the number of dead and dying will overcome even the powerful NRA. We all know that our right to bear arms is a stupid throwback to a time when bears, not homies, were the threat. The idea that a common criminal can throw out more lead than was used at Pickets Charge is abhorrent, and even Mr. Heston would understand that stupidity on that level should be curbed.
One day Israel will allow their prisoners to live free, and those prisoners will accept that killing themselves is really a dumb idea. One day, we know this to be true, and one day it will be true. So why are we wasting all this time and effort to make the blind see the obvious. You stole their land, let them live on it!
There are thousands of these inevitable outcomes. We all have our list, may it be abortion in the US, or health care for all, or the return of nuclear power, or biofuels, or vaccinations, support for Africa, the eviction of tyrants by their own people. Just look around you and decide which one’s you would like to see happen; Gay marriage? Elimination of male pattern baldness? No the South shall not rise again, get over it, yes there was a time when a lot of people were slaves, get over it!
Fight for the cure people, stop looking back all the time.

2009-06-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the garbage truck.

Every Wednesday night I remember, usually late in the night, that tomorrow is garbage day. That is the day that the two garbage trucks come by my house and pick up my weekly offering of superfluous stuff.
The first truck is actually a team, a bucket loader that removes my ecological pure waste like grass clippings, tree branches, flowers and other vegetable waste products from the garden. We have been told that that waste is turned into compost and recycled; I cannot doubt that because I live in ecologically pure Northern California. The second truck removes straight garbage like coffee grounds, weird biological experiments gone bad in my refrigerator and stuff I should have eaten before it became gross. The second bin is for paper and plastics, the so called clean garbage that can also be recycled into useful things.
It occurred to me that our Government is just like my garbage. We also have three levels of information and support based solely on how palatable they can make it. They too separate out the unmentionables of their deeds and bury it deep in the landfill of history, winnow out the good recyclable stuff and try to ignore the mountains of paper that can only confuse the electorate.
Torturing people is garbage of the highest order, instead of shining a light on it it is being buried in a landfill. We are however recycling a number of things, although very discretely, such as the economic reform, the health care plan, war on various things we don’t like, but need the attention and even the really poor state of our energy policy. All recyclables are a clear indication of not going anywhere, not thinking clearly, not bringing out the best of what we have to offer.
I believe that once a week every level of Government should clear out their garbage, they need to decide consciously what they want to bury, recycle or compost. Recycling is a static operation that brings nothing new to the table, but composting is where new ideas can be generated, new programs developed and new avenues charted. Composting brings forth from the decomposition of organic and live activities a new hope and a new beginning.
We should be composting our health care and pulling it out of the recycle bin, we should compost our war policies and our peace initiatives, we need to compost our judiciary on a regular basis and compost our election policies.
To sum up what can only be a very confused and random editorial, we should compost more and spread less BS.

2009-05-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Contract From Hell:
I am self employed, I earn a precarious living reselling other companies' products on a commission basis and over the years I have linked up with a number of serious producers of some outstanding devices. Recently I decided to investigate a small company in Europe and asked them if they would sign my standard sales agreement. They retaliated with the following contract which in my mind has to be a classic of obfuscation, illegality and downright stupidity.
On the other hand, when I attempted to put it through spellcheck it came back that I did not have an Ukrainian dictionary, so the terms may mean something in Ukrainian, although the company is located in Romania and the legal representation would have been Belgium.

NON CIRCUMVENTION, NON DISCLOSURE AND CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT

THIS AGREEMENT, MADE AND ENTERED INTO THIS 8th DAY OF MAY, 2009, SHALL OBLIGATE THE UNDERSIGNED PARTIES, AND THEIR PARTNERS, ASSOCIATES, EMPLOYERS, AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, PARENT COMPANY, NOMINEES, REPRESENTATIVES, EMPLOYEES, SUCCESSORS, CLIENTS, AND ASSIGNS, HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS (THE "PARTIES"), JOINTLY, SEVERALLY, MUTUALLY, AND RECIPROCALLY FOR THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS EXPRESSLY STATED AND AGREED TO BELOW, AND THAT THIS AGREEMENT MAY BE REFERENCED FROM TIME TO TIME IN ANY DOCUMENT (S) OR AGREEMENTS. THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT APPLY TO ANY EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION WRITTEN OR ORAL, INVOLVING FINANCIAL INFORMATION, PERSONAL OR CORPORATE NAMES, CONTRACTS INITIATED BY OR INVOLVING THE "PARTIES", AND ANY ADDITION, RENEWAL, EXTENSION, ROLL-OVER, AMENDMENT, RE NEGOTIATION, OR NEW AGREEMENT, HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE "PROJECT/TRANSACTION" IN SELLING, INSTALLING, STARTING AND COMMISSIONING XXXXXXX.
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS AGREED:

1. THE "PARTIES" INTENDING TO BE LEGALLY BOUND, HEREBY IRREVOCABLY AGREE, AND GUARANTEE EACH OTHER THEY SHALL NOT, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY INTERFERE WITH, CIRCUMVENT OR ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT, AVOID, BY-PASS, OR OBVIATE EACH OTHER'S INTEREST, OR THE INTEREST OR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE "PARTIES" WITH PRODUCERS, SELLERS, BUYERS, BROKERS, DEALERS, DISTRIBUTORS, REFINERS, SHIPPERS, FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, TECHNOLOGY OWNERS, OR MANUFACTURERS, TO CHANGE, INCREASE, OR AVOID DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY PAYMENT OF ESTABLISHED OR TO BE ESTABLISHED FEES, COMMISSIONS, OR CONTINUANCE OF PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP OR INTERVENE IN UNCONTRACTED RELATIONSHIP WITH MANUFACTURERS OR TECHNOLOGY OWNERS WITH INTERMEDIARIES, ENTREPRENEURS, LEGAL COUNSEL, OR INITIATE BUY/SELL RELATIONSHIPS, OR TRANSACTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT BY-PASS ONE OF THE "PARTIES" WITH ANY CORPORATION, PRODUCER, TECHNOLOGY OWNER, PARTNERSHIP, OR INDIVIDUAL REVEALED OR INTRODUCED BY ONE OF THE "PARTIES' TO ONE ANOTHER IN CONNECTION WITH ANY ON-GOING OR FUTURE "TRANSACTION" OR "PROJECT".

2. FURTHERMORE, THE "PARTIES" IRREVOCABLY AGREE THAT THEY SHALL NOT DISCLOSE OR OTHERWISE REVEAL DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, TO ANY THIRD PARTY, ANY CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION PROVIDED BY ONE PARTY TO THE OTHER , OR OTHERWISE ACQUIRED, PARTICULARLY, CONTRACT TERMS, PRODUCT INFORMATION. OR MANUFACTURING PROCESSES, PRICES, FEES, FINANCING ARRANGEMENTS, SCHEDULES, AND INFORMATION CONCERNING THE IDENTITY OF SELLERS, PRODUCERS, BUYERS, LENDERS, BORROWERS, BROKERS, LENDERS, DISTRIBUTORS, REFINERS, MANUFACTURERS, TECHNOLOGY OWNERS, OR THEIR REPRESENTATIVES, AND SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL NAMES, ADDRESSES, PRINCIPALS, OR TELEX/FAX/TELEPHONE NUMBERS, REFERENCES, PRODUCT OR TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION, AND/OR ALL OTHER INFORMATION, ADVISED BY ONE "PARTY" (S) TO ANOTHER AS BEING CONFIDENTIAL OR PRIVILEGED, WITHOUT THE PRIOR SPECIFIC WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE "PARTY" (S) PROVIDING SUCH INFORMATION.

3. THE PARTIES AGREE THAT ANY PARTY HAVE THE RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE DIRECTLY WITH BUYERS, LENDERS, BORROWERS, BROKERS, DISTRIBUTORS, REFINERS, OR THEIR REPRESENTATIVES.

4. THIS AGREEMENT SHALL BE VALID FOR A MINIMUM PERIOD OF ONE (1) YEAR FROM THE DATE OF THE AGREEMENT, AND FOR TWO (2) YEARS AFTER COMPLETION OF EACH TRANSACTION OR EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION, WHICHEVER OCCURS LATER, WITH ADDITIONAL TWO (2) YEARS AUTOMATIC ROLL-OVER/RENEWALS AT THE CLOSE OF EACH TRANSACTION OR EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION, AND THEREAFTER AT THE END OF ANY ROLL-OVER PERIOD, WITHOUT THE NEED FOR ADVISEMENT, UNLESS MUTUALLY AGREED IN WRITING TO BE TERMINATED BY ALL THE "PARTIES", WHICH TERMINATION CAN OCCUR ONLY AT THE END OF ANY ROLL-OVER PERIOD, AND MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY NOTICE THROUGH CERTIFIED MAIL THEREOF; IF NOTICE IS NOT GIVEN BY ALL THE "PARTIES" WITHIN TEN (10) DAYS AFTER THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ROLL-OVER PERIOD, IT SHALL BE CONSTRUED THAT THE AGREEMENT IS IN FULL FORCE, AND IN EFFECT BETWEEN THE "PARTIES" FOR ANOTHER TWO (2 ) YEARS.

5. LEGAL REMEDY FOR BREACH OF ANY OF THE ABOVE AGREED TO COVENANTS SHALL HE GOVERNED BY THE LAWS OF BELGIUM; THE "PARTIES" DECLARING SUCH BREACH. IN THE EVENT THAT AN AMICABLE SETTLEMENT CANNOT BE AGREED TO BY MUTUAL DISCUSSION AND/OR ARBITRATION BY A THIRD PARTY, EACH 0F THE "PARTIES" SUBJECT TO THE DECLARED BREACH SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN LEGAL EXPENSES, UNTIL A SETTLEMENT OR JUDGMENT IS REACHED, PROVIDED HOWEVER, THAT THE PARTY FOUND IN DEFAULT BY A JUDGMENT SHALL COMPENSATE IN FULL THE AGGRIEVED PARTY FOR ALL OF ITS LEGAL EXPENSES, NOT WITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISIONS OF THE JUDGMENT.

6. COMMISSIONS, FEES, COMPENSATION, OR REMUNERATION'S TO BE PAID AS PART OF A TRANSACTION COVERING ANY "PARTIES" TO THIS AGREEMENT, SHALL BE AGREED UPON BY SEPARATE WRITTEN AGREEMENT BY THE "PARTIES" CONCERNED AND SHALL BE PAID AT THE TIME SUCH CONTRACTS DESIGNATED, CONCLUDED OR MONIES CHANGING HANDS BETWEEN BUYERS AND SELLERS, UNLESS OTHERWISE AGREED AMONG THE "PARTIES". THE "PARTIES" HEREBY IRREVOCABLY, AND UNCONDITIONALLY AGREE AND GUARANTEE TO HONOR AND RESPECT ALL SUCH FEES, OR REMUNERATION ARRANGEMENTS MADE AS PART OF A COMMISSION, "TRANSACTION" EVEN IN THE EVENT THAT THE "PARTY (S)" IS NOT AN INTEGRAL MEMBER TO A SPECIFIC COMMISSION AND FEE/REMUNERATION AGREEMENT.

7. THE EXECUTION OF EACH TRANSACTION SHALL BE COORDINATED BY AN INTERNATIONAL BANK WHICH SHALL SERVE AS AN INTERMEDIARY, HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE ("CLEARING HOUSE"), WHICH SHALL HAVE FULL RESPONSIBILITY AND AUTHORITY TO: (I) VERIFY THE ADEQUACY OF THE DOCUMENTATION REQUIRED TO COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CONTRACTS, LETTERS OF CREDIT, MARINE INSURANCE, BILLS OF SALE, AND OTHER DOCUMENTATION, (II) CONFIRM ASSAY/CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, PRICE, QUANTITY, DELIVERY, AND LOCATION OF THE PRODUCT BEING BOUGHT AND SOLD, AND (III) EFFECT PAYMENT AND TRANSFER OF AMOUNTS, OUT OF THE LETTERS OF CREDIT OR OTHER ASSET, DUE TO SELLERS, BANKS, BROKERS, INTERMEDIARIES, AND OTHER PARTIES TO THE TRANSACTION.
IN WITNESS Whereof, THE "PARTIES" HERETO HAVE EXECUTED AND DELIVERED THESE COVENANTS BY MUTUAL AGREEMENT THE DAY AND YEAR FIRST WRITTEN ABOVE. ALL FAXES ARE CONSIDERED ORIGINAL, LEGAL & BINDING.

EACH REPRESENTATIVE SIGNING BELOW AVOWS THAT HE IS DULY EMPOWERED BY HIS RESPECTIVELY NAMED COMPANY TO BIND IT TO THE COMMITMENTS AND OBLIGATIONS CONTAINED HEREIN.
COMPANY NAME #1
XXXXX
XXXXX
Name___________________________
Signature

DATE:

COMPANY NAME #2
ME
BY:___________________________________
Name___________________________
Signature

DATE:

2009-02-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

In defense of a Flat Earth
It occurred to me last night that with the rapidly increasing assault on some of our most cherished institutions, and the knee jerk reaction to defend them, the time had come to revisit the flat earth concept.
For thousands of years, way before even Jesus was born, killed, reborn and born again, mankind has maintained that the earth was flat. I believe that this is till the truth in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, and my reasons are not based on cold hard facts but on an abiding faith sustained by millions of now dead believers and certain undeniable facts.
After all if God has more lives than a cat and Christ is still alive although he was beaten, dragged through the streets of Jerusalem and hung on a cross like a piece of beef jerky, then the earth should also remain flat.
So let's look at socio economic model, if the earth is flat, according to age old tradition, it is bordered on all sides by water. This actually true, you will look at any of the revisionist maps of the world, even though they maintain that the world may be a round ball, every land mass is surrounded by water. Need more proof? no matter where you go, and how far you travel you will always be exactly where you are.
In other words, no matter where you go, there you are. That is something that you do not have to take on faith, but can observe on your own just as you can observe the greater glory of God anywhere you want to look for it. Of course blinders are useful, but that is another story.
Now, from a purely psycho-economic point of view,you would expect that the more grounded personalities would stay in the middle, while the slowly rotating disk that is our flat old earth, would gently move the more volatile members of society onto the outer edges. That is called the spin factor or centrifugal force of a rotating disk. You can observe this in a child's playground where the merry go round, if spun fast and hard enough will eject the smaller and more volatile elements first.
Ever notice who ends up on the side of the oceans, not your rock steady Iowa farmer, but your hippy, degenerate reformer. Check out California if you don't believe me.
Since the earth is undeniably flat, the more recent theories about travel around the globe do not apply because on a flat surface you can only go from point to point, no matter what the airlines tell you. Any distraction from that point of view can only be clear evidence of a complete lack of faith in the assertions of the learned few who know that the earth is flat.
Care to dispute these facts, then speak to my inquisitor, he has not evolved either over the millenia.

2008-12-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

Burning Bush Day!

On January 20, 2009, George Bush will finally be pried out of the White House. He will leave behind the legacy of what may be the worst president this country has ever known. His malice and greed went beyond stupidity; it encompassed evil at every level. There are over a million Iraqi dead who have been avenged by the throwing of a pair of shoes. But what of the foreclosures and ruin of small to large businesses, the 4,500 dead American soldiers, the 3000 WTC dead, the prisoners tortured and killed on our soil and in foreign lands in our name?

What of the unavenged, the restless victims of this administrations pervasive evil? What gesture will unite the citizens’ of America, and serve as reminders that never again will such crass mediocrity and evil come together to destroy our nation.

I propose that at the stroke of midnight on January 19 bonfires be lit across the land. I propose that the ceremonial Bush burning be spread from town to village to lonely farmhouse and from Times Square to the Hollywood hills.

I am asking America's citizens to save their Christmas trees, symbols of hope to Christians and non-believers, and to light them in harmony across our country in a gesture that will symbolically purge our hearts and souls of the evil we will finally be putting behind us.

By making this an annual event commemorating our renewed faith in our institutions, we remind ourselves, never again will we allow such degenerate evil to control our lives, our land and the world in general.

May President Elect Obama please light the first candle so that he starts his administration cleansed of the evil that came before him?

2008-11-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

Elections and Election Days
It is finally here again, the day we assume control of our country's delicate future, the day we dispose of George Bush and his slime. The day we can pull the chain and flush the man and his evil into the cesspool of history, relegate him and his team into that leaching field where Hitler and Goering, Menachem Begin and Idi Amin reside festering into the future.

We know the nature of the animal, and the two past elections should have taught us that he or his clones could be back, but the day of election is a day of hope. It is the type of day that asks to be remembered and it creates a joy and a hope in all of us.

It is the day that the penicillin will take, that the wound starts to cauterize, that the pus no longer oozes. It is the day for those of you who voted for the beast can atone and, hanging your head in shame, shuffle to the polling station and do the right thing.

In San Francisco there is a measure on the ballot to name a sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush,and I would urge voters to make sure he is placed in it before naming it after him.

I cannot in good conscience urge you to vote, I can ask you to use your vote carefully. I can suggest that the time for fairy tales and raw greed is over. I can assure you that things will get better if you exercise caution with that ballot, the last eight years have proven that the ballot in the wrong hands is a dangerous, murderous thing.

And if you have any doubts about how to vote, please stay home.

2008-10-09T16:05:00.001-07:00

Lest we Forget

Two times this week I have received emails headed by that awesome title "Lest we Forget". The first was something that I had never known, and therefore could not forget, the incredibly nasty actions taken by men against women looking to vote in the United States. The second for having used the words "Arbeit Macht Frei", the cynical slogan atop the entrance to Auschwitz.
Both efforts to remind me forced the issue of what those words really mean; lest we forget. What they mean is that someone with some sort of hidden agenda seems to feel that his personal reflection on some far off disaster expresses the urge to remind himself that attention may be flagging.
Face it, lest we forget some of the more blatant miscarriages of sanity in the last hundred years is an elitist statement saying that I have more empathy than thee. It takes to himself the high moral ground of the philosopher or sage pointing your dirty nose into something that has not weighed on your mind in the last ten minutes.
But from what position does the asker express his opinion? What prompts the statement that we must be reminded of 9/11.01 on a constant litanical basis? And what if your interpretation is so far off the asker's base that you literally look on in wonderment? Asking a Muslim about Auschwitz may provoke gales of laughter, especially if the question is asked in Palestine where one ethnic group victim of Nazi intolerance has become the local fascist thugs.
Also, how long must we not forget? For Holocaust victims the waiting period appears to be endless, for Hutus and Tutsis about twenty minutes. Is there a mourning period dictated by the nature of the victims? Do the dead of WWI risk being supplanted by the dead of WWII? Can we roll them all into one mass remembrance since the conflicts over time blur into a feeling of a single war, never completed? Do dead Africans have less mind time than dead stockbrokers in the twin towers even though the kill ratio was 300 to one?
Lest we forget is a complicated statement that assumes more than it should because some things are eminently forgettable, but should not be, and others are burned into our collective memories although they may be quite benign. The dead of Kent State should never be put above the dead of Uganda, and yet they are. The killing fields of Laos never became a lest we forget for Western sensibilities, but Custer's last stand is branded in our collective intelligence.
As we approach the next election, I would like to postulate that the one thought we should keep in mind as we vote is to never forget the damage done to so many people in so many places by one person who never could remember any lesson of history.
Lest we forget indeed, we already have.

2008-09-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

My Fatwa

A fatwa in the Islamic cult is a legal opinion or ruling from an Islamic scholar. It is that simple and that deadly. So when you hear that somebody in a remote village of some far off land has issued a Fatwa that legalizes the killing of an individual, or a whole nation, it is actually one man's opinion expressed as a statement wrapped up in some sort of undefined Islamo Legalistic wording.

Notice that the definition does not specify who can issue Fatwas, and what the criteria of support really are. A Fatwa, in reality, is one man's opinion based on his very own interpretation of the holy books that Islam revere as the word of their peculiar God, in this case called Allah.

Having studied Islam these last thirteen years with growing concern and contempt, I wondered if I qualified as a Scholar, and if yes, could I issue a Fatwa? After consulting with a Muslim friend, and speaking to an Imam who will remain nameless, we concluded that in reality anyone can issue a Fatwa. How it is received is based on each Muslim's opinion of the ruling and the person who issued the Fatwa.

Remarkably, the faithful have to exercise their judgement in deciding which Fatwa merits his support. In effect absolving the Fatwa issuer from responsibility for the actions of his followers.

On the other hand some Fatwas are less serious than the usual suicide bombers, ritual killing of women and other psychotic rulings that Islam seems to expect. My favorite is still the Fatwa that forbids married couples to be entirely naked during sex, the other is that for an unmarried man and a woman to work together without offending Allah, she must breast feed the man eight times, that appears to suffice in establishing some sort of legality to work together and allows the woman to"show her hair" to her co-worker.

I am not a prude, but the idea of an uptight Saudi oil executive requesting to suckle his admin's teats is, at the very least, interesting.

My personal Fatwa at this point is very simple, since the present Islamo-Fascists have taken over the responsibility to kill and maim innocent people, I hereby declare a Fatwa on all radical Muslims who in thought and in act express or carry out the desire and the purpose of murdering anyone for any reason, those people may be hunted down and killed on sight. There is, of course, no trip to heaven and its numerous virgin Djinn, for anyone who carries out these acts of terrorism.

I have studied Islam and other religions for many years, and I believe that this is the true will of God.

2008-09-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Critical Questions for the Candidates.

The recent spate of incredibly ridiculous election activities has caused a number of us to pause and wonder how silly will this election really become. For example, is the latest Palin brat actually Sarah's or Bristol's? I don't know how many of us have blasted off to the maternity ward once the waters have broken, but I suspect quite a few pregnant women had only one idea when that happened, get to the hospital, little Trig or Track is on his way!!

Sarah is made of sterner stuff, her reaction to the imminent arrival of Trig, while noodling around Texas, was to casually get on a plane and fly all the way back to Alaska, then jump in a car for another couple of hours to finally birth the babe in an out of the way discreet hospital. Sounds logical, or is it? I have five bucks that shortly before Bristol is supposed to whelp, she will miscarry so that the whole adventure can get swept under a rock, and one day, little trig will have a DNA test and find out who Daddy and Mommy really were.

Then, of course, on the other side, we must ask the burning question, why does Obama hate women?

There are four theories and none of them pretty, which would explain his latent sexism. The first, going back to his infancy, is that it is but a reflection on his early day's Muslim upbringing. We all know about the deep respect that that particular cult harbors for the fair sex. After all their answer to women in the house is to put a bag on their heads. There is little need for education and even less for any skills or intelligence. Could this early theo misogyny have deeply imprinted baby Barrack? Who knows, but attitudes can be learned in the cradle, and his was rocked by Big Mo.

Second theory, and closely allied to the first, is that he did not have an early male role model to impress on him that although all men are created equal, women do have a place in our society. Theory three is pure speculation based solely because of where I live, could the good Senator be gay? Homosexual friends assure me that they believe that either he is in denial, stuck in the closet or just plain double dipping. They all agree that the Senator from Illinois is one of them and they are as proud of him as the women of America are of Palin, in other words, not at all.

The fourth theory is what I like to call getting up and movin' on. Obama does not like women because they remind him too much of the years he's spent doing Stepin Fetchit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit) work for the Chicago ward bosses. Having spent his early years doing little, and his elected years doing less, he is acutely aware of the amount of work that the women in his office were responsible for, and he, being a good red blooded American, did not appreciate being put down by uppity females, then he had to face off against Hillary, a truly remarkable person compared to his mediocrity, no wonder that he be bitter, like the American middle class he so despises.

I have a number of other questions for the candidates like does McCain still like Vietnamese food? Or is Palin a better shot than Cheney? Is Biden really incorporated in Delaware or is he just a resident. Curious questions for strange times.

Happy September Eleventh, nothing changes, nobody came back, the war goes on.

2008-08-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

Who really cares?

The two presidential candidates squared off in a church recently to discuss what their moral and religious beliefs really are. Who is the better person because he is best able to relate to god, amazing because,who the hell cares?

Our outgoing national disgrace claims to talk to his particular god, and see where those two idiots have led us? These mythological beliefs have taken on an enormous significance, and yet all around the world real thinking people are bailing on their godlets. In Europe the number of non-believers is mounting steadily, they are now a majority in several countries. This enlightened attitude is probably due to the rise of the more radical mythologists like Islam and Mormonism. If what allah allows is truly godlike, then allah is a monster and so are yahweh and all the other god critters.

If you think about it, religion is sustained less by faith than tradition. "My family has always believed in the lord." Of course some families have always had slaves, practiced incest, and molested their own children, sometimes even in the name of their peculiar lord.

So for two grown men, each aiming to becoming the most powerful person in the world, to abase themselves by the false humility of declaring their relationship to some strange fairy tale bodes ill for our country. And, guess what, our country needs clear eyed, straight thinking pragmatists to get it out of the hell hole that our last religious nutcase dropped it into.

As an atheist, I mistrust people who actually express the idea that they are not responsible for their actions. I cannot understand how shelving responsibility onto an imaginary friend is in any way laudable or even relevant. Sure,as my christian friends always tell me, you must believe in something.

And I do! I have an abiding faith in the extraordinary powers of snorgle bunnies. I believe that only the snorgle bunny can redeem humanity and that it is my duty to hunt them down and kill them to bring about that redemption!

Hey, you place your faith in allah, yawheh, god or zeus. Me, I'll take snorgle bunnies any day of the week.

2008-07-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well here I am.

I reconnected with an old friend the other day, someone I had lost touch with for about forty years and someone I used to love very dearly but lost in a really messy relationship. We used to share everything together, working on cars, swimming in a lake, bothering people, playing the guitar and just hanging out together.

My friend had the amazing capacity of always seeing the other side of where I was standing, and gently guiding my thoughts to his side. Oh, he had no illusions since we were both dealing with idiots, and so one day we just lost sight of each other. I went away, and so did he.

He took a very large part of me and replaced it with big words like responsibility, and career options, and the need to progress. He took away the joy of the single song on a twelve string guitar, the slide into a corner with a disintegrating bicycle, the subtle pain of the scraped knee and bloody nose. He took away a lot and left me with security.

He took away danger and love and pain and beauty, he grabbed for my soul and forgot I never had one.

But I found him again. I found him where I left him, on the second fret of an old guitar, in the soft memory of a whitened pair of bluejeans. I found him in the grease of a bicycle chain and the hard rasp of a saw, I had him in my hands and he gave me back my skill. My old friend gave me back what we all gave up as we grow older, more respectable and infinitely dumber.

We are what we started out to be and never made it to where we are going because we are no longer on the road to what we want to be now. Finding yourself is one of the rare pleasures of getting wiser, because wherever you are, you are never that far from who you were.

No matter where you go, there you are!

Amazing?

2008-04-08T18:03:00.001-07:00

Invasion and Occupation

There seems to be some confusion about the context of invasion, occupation and immigration. Let me explain because the terms may soon become interchangeable.

What we did to Iraq was an invasion, that is the correct term for coming into another country without any clear reasons and assuming complete control of that country's assets, population, natural resources and imposing your own rule of law. In he same vein, under the terms of invasion, the invader is allowed to impose, by force, his will on the weaker local population. Notable invasions are Hitler's unprovoked attack on Poland, the Soviet Union's clear grab for the Baltic states, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and the George Bush delusional attack on Iraq.

Needless to say George is in good company, along with Attila the Hun, Imperial Rome and the Israeli invasion of Palestine. Invasions are blatant land grabs by a stronger force without either reason or provocation, as I said.

There are more subtle invasions, such a the Israeli invasion of Palestine, these are based on slowly infiltrating the victim's country and one day rising up in an attack after carefully accumulating weapons and personnel. It is one of the reasons for the fall of Rome, the loss by the Native Americans of all their land and culture.

Another subtle invasion is now taking place in the US. When over 20 million hostile illegal immigrants start making noises that our land still belongs to them,and when these same people are already in place in every major city in the US, then you have an invasion. When a majority of them are not law abiding illegal immigrants most with only a grade school education, pumped up on daily doses of "reconquista" from the mother land, then you have the real potential for violence.

And the violence is mounting on a daily basis. A high percentage of our prisoners are here illegally, major crimes related to "Gang warfare" are on the rise in most US cities. Crimes of violence with weapons are also on the rise as these invaders arm themselves as well as they can with their limited budgets. One thing we are learning from Iraq is that it takes very little to stop the US military, a couple of tons of explosives become thousands of IEDs, rifles, pistols, machine guns and incendiary devices are cheap, murderously effective and available in any city in my country thanks to the NRA.

We even make it easy for the invaders to recoup and assemble in sanctuary cities like San Jose or Boston. Places where even the illegality of their presence is an asset ensuring them of aid and comfort as they pursue their attacks on our values and system.

What do you think that any other leader of any other country who was aware that an invading army was already camped inside his borders with a force estimated at 10% of his population, and the homeland politicians were already claiming supremacy over the invaded country, would do? I doubt that he would make every effort to open his borders even wider. I suggest that he might start evicting the invaders in large numbers just to protect his own people.

The more I learn about the illegal invasion of my country by Mexican nationals, the more confused I get. It is time to stop the invasion, repel the invading army and evict the troops already inside our borders.

It is time to do it now, 30 million foreign armed foot soldiers with an absentee general staff in Mexico and Washington should be enough to scare even George Bush and his supporters.

It sure is starting to scare me.

2008-03-29T00:36:00.000-07:00

My highway rules

It's never the life you lead but the truth you follow that bring you to your end at another man's bidding. Your own values and convictions should be strong enough to maintain your integrity and ensure your existence. It's when I follow another man's thoughts, another man's delusions or dreams that I run afoul of myself and afoul of the others.
Two enemies face you the day you are led astray; yourself in conflict with your intelligence and the others who have abandoned their own. There is no easy road back from the mistakes of the follower, his road is no longer his own path, and trying to make sense of the small paths, and large highways that others open up for you is no easy matter. Your own footprints get blurred in the masses of cattle tracks that belong to no one, and your small little footpad, the animal track of your frightened awareness, can never be picked up once you have walked away from it.
It is a small thing to stray, and a small sidestep is no big matter. But remember that going back is always harder the further you run from your own true path. Explore on the side, look it over and move on. Pick it up, carry it with you, whittle it and change it and adapt it to yourself. Never, ever lose sight of your way, and lighten your load as you move along that road.
You may not know where you go, and you may never get where you wanted to be, but dying on your own trail, with your own baggage and no one else's burden or cant is a sweet death indeed. You may not choose the time, but you can be in the place you wanted to be at the moment you want to be there, and if that is your last stop, then you have arrived at the last.

2008-03-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

The Lessons of History
Or what did the last war bring you?

It is an oft repeated chestnut that he who ignores the lessons of history is bound to repeat them, and it may even be true. But what about the lessons you learn from history and modify them to your advantage.

We must ask, what did the Republicans learn from that war, compared to what the Democrats took away from the conflict? To start with, the Democrats clearly learned that the war was a fractious exercise in national disruption. They learned that it destroyed families, it killed off over 50,000 young Americans, and it left an indelible stain on our national image.

The Republicans learned that there was money to be made in War.

The Democrats took their lessons to heart and have implemented policies to mitigate the possibility of future conflicts. They stood down from confrontations, increased foreign aid, worked assiduously to minimize strife around the world. The image of Jimmy Carter brokering the only lasting Middle East agreement was inspirational; Clinton's ill favored attempt to allay the crushing poverty in Africa, and his equally tempered response to Libya's terrorist activities stand in stark contrast to later events.

The Republicans learned that there is money to be made in War.

The Democrats dissociated themselves from terrorist organizations and totalitarian regimes. They made clear decisions to wind down the war machine and they attempted often futilely to deal with arms merchants and deals that could only lead to more strife and pain. For some obscure reason, probably ethical, they did not become business partners with killers and religious fascists.

The Republicans learned that the best way to make money in a war is to become business partners with your enemies.

It is hard to imagine a Democratic President being closely allied to terrorist organizations that spend vast amounts of money trying to destroy our culture. The Democrats do not appreciate the beauty of dealing weapons with both sides at the same table. From Iran Contra to Saudi participation in the Carlyle group, there is a clear business strategy at work. And that strategy is whatever works.

So we must applaud the Republican Party for endorsing this open minded approach to war. It will certainly not harm the party bottom line, and it will keep jobs for the elite on both sides.

The Republicans have a much better understanding of the lessons of history; it's a shame that our country has to die for it.

2008-02-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

McCain and Guantanamo Bay

The recent announcement that Senator McCain may not be allowed to run for President of the United States has numerous repercussions, some of them devastating to the Bush prisoner policy. There are only two possible outcomes should anyone challenge the legitimacy of the McCain right to run; he is either allowed to run because the base where he was born is considered US Territory, or he is out of the race.

In a nutshell, he was not born on US soil. That fact is indisputable, he was born in Panama What is less clear is what the exact interpretation of the word natural born citizen in the Constitution actually means: Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, entitled the President, means s/he has to be born in the U.S., meaning the 50 States (and not, possibly, D.C.)

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption o f this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

The definition hinges on natural born of course. But for the purpose of this article, that is not the issue, what is the issue is that should this subject come up to any court in the United States, the territory of Panama and US bases overseas will come under very tight scrutiny. If McCain is allowed to run because contrary to the strict interpretation of the Constitution, the US base on which he was born is deemed to be US territory for the purpose of his Presidential bid, then, by golly, it remains US territory for the purpose of enforcing US criminal laws.

If it is decided that Mr. McCain having been born on a US base in Panama, and therefore is qualified to run for President, then any person presently incarcerated on any US base anywhere in the world, should come under the protection of the US court system. I can think of a number of US bases that would not relish being under the civilizing protection of our system. Places like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where up to 1300 people have been randomly pulled off the streets and dumped to the tender mercies of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other non-tortuous information-gathering techniques.

Should these prisoners suddenly have access to our court system, because Mr. McCain wants to be President and needs his birthplace to be recognized as US territory, then there will be a long hard look cast upon our flawed military justice system. The United States frowns upon information submitted in court gathered as a result of torture. They frown upon six years of incarceration without trial, access to attorneys, or any semblance of due process. They frown, as does the rest of the civilized world, on suspending habeas corpus and not allowing access to one’s accusers or evidence. Our country not only frowns on this high handed method of dispensing justice, they also may frown on other aspects of what we have done to our prisoners. And frowning judges, irritated voters and angry overseas families are not a good basis to challenge McCain’s right to run.

The polite way to handle this would be to compensate the victims of the Bush parody of justice, send them home and never ever speak about it again. But I believe that we will go the other way, just as we have gone the wrong way on the war. We will persist in our criminal attempt at justice, and to do that we will have to tell Mr. McCain that we regret, but your birthplace has denied you the birthright to become president.

And since Mr. McCain has been an ardent supporter of our need to go to war, to interrogate forcefully prisoners and support the rule of Guantanamo Bay, then that is the obvious definition of hoisted by his own petard.

Let the fun begin.

2008-01-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

It is a new Year!

It is a new year when we know for a fact that George Bush will be sent away. A new year when we can watch as one of America's greatest group or arch-criminals will be allowed to walk away. A group of serial killers, war profiteering, murdering, lying, influence peddling, money laundering scum will be allowed to smirk into the sunset.

Amazing, because we all know, even their henchmen know, that these may be the most serious traitors our country has ever had to face. These people, our President, our Vice President, the secretary of state, and all he way down to the lonely interrogator in a Cuban jail, they all know that they are part of a sickening, stench-filled conspiracy to destroy all the was once good and noble in my country.

No crime was too base that these filthy defilers did not feel compelled to embrace. Sexual perversions up to the highest levels of our government, outing our own agents, desperately trying to grub the last little penny from a child's health care, creatively stopping any effort to turn back the deterioration of our planet, nothing, absolutely nothing was sacred to these perverted maggots.

And they will get away with it, not because we don't know what they have done, but because our own government still supports their putrid agenda. The least we could have asked for is impeachment, and even that has been taken off the table. In some states the smallest of their crimes would lead to jail time, the aggregate to an execution. Why are we hesitating? Is it that the stench that would emanate from any careful look into their activities would overwhelm this nation?

Have we lost the will to fight? Is there no crying mother asking why her child had to die? Is that mother speaking an incomprehensible language like Iraqi, or Ebonics?

Has the thuggery of our own lawmakers rendered this nation totally terrified of requesting retribution? Is there nothing left to steal, kill or mutilate and so they will now drift off, like buzzards from a carcass into new ventures in safer havens?

Where is the rage?

2007-11-27T23:39:00.000-08:00

Two Prisons and two warps in time

On my way to Babi Yar I met a man from Abu Graib. He was like me, but not like me, he was thin, and so was I, he had no hope and neither did I. He was the man on the road from Abu Graib and I was coming through him to my own prison.

I met a woman from Auschwitz on my way from Abu Graib, she was hungry and so was I, her child had died on the train, and she never made it to the gate to work and be free, she was from Auschwitz and so was I.

I met a child from Uganda, he had no hands and his brother had a gun. He was a prisoner of himself and I was walking in front of his jail.

We build so many jails, so many places to hide our crimes and our nightmares. We hide the truth and we hide from the truth, we are free and we are not. I met myself the other day, I was hanging a man by his thumbs in Guantanamo Bay, and I was being hung by my thumbs in Buenos Aires. The language can change, the meaning remains, the pain and the joy are mingled in the sweat of the beater drinking the blood of the beaten.

I think that I can no longer see myself in the prison mirrors of a tormented land.

I met a man from Birkenau, and he was on his way to Lubyanka after an hour or so on a gurney in San Quentin.

Only the dead meet themselves coming back, going home.

2007-06-04T23:25:00.001-07:00

Impeach, Hell no, Impale!

Has the time come to apply some hair of the dog to the dog? Seems to me that George W has redefined the way we handle tricky situations, dangerous people and legal niceties. Could we possibly use his rules in his sandbox?

Think about it, can we rendition George? Could we ship the bugger off to Syria and ask him, in a Syrian way, what really motivated his move into Iraq? Wouldn't you like to know how well he stands up under waterboarding, that wonderful non-torturing ride into near drowning? Is there any reason why we would have to tell Laura that her husband is lodged in a suite in Cuba? I'm sure that thousands of wives are wondering where their husbands have gone off to after a night out with the boys in the Northern Command.

Would Dickie bird be happy as a cave dweller in Kabul when the bombers come on by? He could see for himself how all the Halliburton dollars are doing such a good job of protecting the population of his conquered land. Maybe we could feed him his own slops, and check his blood pressure at the same time. Personally we should serve him up for target practice wearing one of the vests that are not available to our troops, after all, he is a crack shot at six feet.

If we can kill with impunity, should we put our own leaders at the head of the line? After all, an IED made with surplus explosives that we sent Saddam many years ago, appears to be a whole lot better at making a point than the millions spent on the Carlyle group. As a matter of fact, the wholesale killing that we implemented by our clear policy of invading without purpose should not be wasted on the Iraqi population, let's bring it to Washington. Let's shock and awe Congress and the Senate and see how well they appreciate our friendly invasion.

As a matter of policy, let's clean the Augean stables, what we don't capture, we kill.

2007-05-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Great Moments in Recent History.

It appears that the course of history can be changed when great people confront the realities brought on by crucial stresses and literally take over the roller coaster. We remember Yeltsin as the Parliament was being bombarded, and who can forget the lone man who stopped the Chinese tanks for a few moments? Or Jimmy Carter brokering a handshake between Egypt and Israel, the Sadat-Begin Kodak moment immortalized in the flash of Jimmy smile?

Great moments picked up and run for significant yardage in our daily struggle against mediocrity, stupidity, venality, greed, graft and incompetence. Make no mistake, in the recent past there have been innumerable opportunities for great men to pick up the yards, opportunities for real people to make significant changes when faced with overwhelming opposition. But somehow we are letting these chances for greatness slip through our fingers. Somehow the national and international potential for immortality is falling into very very stupid hands. It’s not that the ball is being fumbled, most of the time the ball is being sold to the highest bidder, or it is being taken home because the rules no longer apply. Looking for greatness in the current crop of faces is a thankless task, which is why we are in the mess we are in.

Our smirk and sneer presidential cartoon will never rise to any heights, he is impregnated by venality, layered by stupidity, surrounded by corruption and basted in superstition. Every single opportunity to rise above the slime he created has been an exercise that would put the Keystone Cops to shame. His pestilential entourage can do no better as they wallow in greed and corruption. For every moment of sheer mediocrity, he adds three incidents of criminality disguised as an honest attempt to protect us from an enemy he went a long way to create.

What was good and noble in our country has become dirty and suspect. Laws grounded in 1215, supported by a world that envied us our freedoms; laws that served as the common ground for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, have become mere slogans for a system that is eating itself. What can you say when the Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, due process, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, have all been twisted by the leprosy of our national dishonor? Every braying utterance of the man is a slur on our honor, every single statement by his henchmen, an insult to humanity.

And yet we allow it. Yet we think nothing of letting it continue to take on more power, more derision for our values and our morality. From crypto science that denies our origins and destroys our future, to environmental policies that assure the destruction of our children’s world, this country has touched all and smeared most of the world. There is no spot left that will not feel the full consequences of this administration.

And I am the optimist, because I know that he too will be gone, sooner if we impeach, later if we do nothing. But he will be gone. I can only hope that somewhere there is a Hercules who can divert the Potomac to sluice the Augean stables on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Frankly, I do not see the great candidate who will change the course of this sad episode in our history.

2007-02-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

An Open Question to The Christian Right and The Muslim Extremists

I am in the process of trying to understand the great love people with religious backgrounds profess for their fellow human beings. The latest effort required some research because I am unable to understand why anyone would really care about those of us atheists who really do not accept the mythology that is so prevalent these days.

I mean, why would you care if your neighbor does not believe that there is a great mythological beast out there that sees all, understands all, and has a record of being nasty? Surely an atheist is the least of your christian worries since he does not prevent you from either adoring the great mythological beast of your choice, or fighting the great mythological beasts your religion has created? Why do Muslims have strict rules that atheists must be killed? Something most christians obviously agree with?

As an atheist, I am flattered that you take us so seriously, and have responded in such a typically christian way, kill them all! But can you explain the attitude? As a human being, not as a religious fanatic, can you honestly tell me why I need to die for my lack of belief in your beast? Surely if the beast is that powerful, he would have shown me the way, he would have taken care of getting me on board. If this beast actually existed anywhere but in your faith or sick mind, he would have made sure that people like me had no option but to believe.

I am merely asking the question because the idea that there is a vast horde of caring and adoring people out there who think nothing is wrong in killing other people who do not accept their beast can be quite scary.

Their laws are clear, as clear as my beliefs.

2007-02-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

Living a mythless life.

As we grow older we tend to gravitate in one of two directions in everything we do. The first is to reassert and conserve the old values, beliefs and thoughts we developed at an early age; the other is perversely the opposite as we dig deeper and deeper into unresolved questions that bedeviled our youth.

In the first case, the assumption is that we have received all we need to know about a certain facet of our lives and are content to ride that information trail to our death. In my case, I find myself reliving the music of the sixties, and enjoying the feelings it brings much more than trying to wrap my head around new versions of old tunes, from classical to hard rock. The same applies to really enjoying mechanics on classic cars, or the simpler joys of a three speed bicycle. I am of an age when I mastered those skills a long time ago, and am now become the master of the art, transcending the skill into an art form.

But the second mindset gives me no rest because I am being forced to delve into areas that are terra incognita not just for me, but for the body of culture that is being built up around the mythology. Take two of the thorniest issues in today’s society, religion and politics. Religion, long a genteel intellectual dance between consenting adults of like mind and upbringing has now become a serious threat to humanity, reason, freedom and health. In that same vein, politics is no longer the career of people with an altruistic bent, eager to promote and support the will of the people and the ability to provide services to those most in need and with the least representation.

Both religion and politics, no matter where they are practiced in the world, have become sisters in intolerance, murderous brothers and divisive harridans of affliction and pain. The horror of this situation is reflected in the fact that those no longer wishing to participate in the global stupidity have become the arch enemies of the intolerant. Religion can conceive of no worse crime than the atheist. The Muslim faith, or creed, is quite clear that atheists must be killed whenever and wherever they appear. The Christian religion, according to a large number of emails I have received for some of my writing, is just as clear. If you do not believe in their rather nasty god, you also must die.

In politics the extremist rules, and no place more blatantly than in my own country, the United States of America. All that was good has been dropped in the name of a nameless terrorist. All of our protections, our rights and our ability to look the politician in the eye and tell him that he has overstepped the immutable laws of mankind have disappeared. Are religion and politics finally coming out of the closet and admitting that they do not apply to those who wish to live the mythless life? Those of us who do not swallow their myths are condemned to live them or face the punishment? Is that the only god and country alternative now on the table?

If you choose to deny their power you will not only go to hell, but we will expedite your trip there. And the same applies to dissenters against the might of the state.

Personally, we may be seeing the blending of hell on earth and salvation for the dead.

2007-01-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

Was it the Uniform or your own personal failure?
We now have 3,000 konfirmed killed in action (KKIA). We have 3,000 young men and women who went off to a war that only a handful of people wanted. We have 3,000 grieving mothers and fathers who are searching for answers to the question, why their child? Why did he or she have to die when so many did not?

I have some questions of my own. What were you thinking, Moms and Dads of the KKIA when your child decided to become a soldier? Why did you ever let them go so far away from you to die in a meaningless incident in an innocent place invaded for no good reason?

Mom, did that uniform mean so much to you? Did he or she really look that good in dress blues, or combat fatigues? Did the useless and meaningless medals for marksmanship, technical training or whatever else they bribed your child to get him to die, really mean so much that you willingly encouraged him to go?

Dad, when you were in 'Nam, or Kuwait, or even Panama, did you leave something on the table that only your kid could bring back to you? Did you really tell him that you were proud of him to follow in your useless, killing footsteps? Did you want him to be better than you, or did you just dare him to measure up to your drunken standards?

No matter why they enlisted, the process started a long time before the child could make that decision. And you started it for them. In many ways, they are doing your duty to God and Country because they believed in you. Your dead "hero" died because he or she thought you would not lead him to harm. That your high opinion of the military's might and right to train killers was reason enough to go.

When they hand you that folded flag that draped the coffin you dared not open because IEDs make such a mess of loved bodies, ask them to give you back your child. Don't be too surprised if they laugh at you, the few, the proud, the assholes like you.

2006-12-21T22:29:00.000-08:00

Come and get it, shithead!!
It’s not the dead, it’s not the lies it’s not even the arrogance and the blind stupidity that gets you, it’s the fact that after all that has gone on, there has been no impression made. When you split skulls, destroy buildings or rape women, there is a long term attrition that affects both the victim and the killer, here nothing, no sense that an impression has been made, no sense that the dead count, the wounded still have feelings, that the gangrene from the presidential brain has infected the whole fabric of our society.

Where is the anger, the fury that stops tanks and armies in their tracks?

The blind and asinine parents proud of their sons and daughters as they wear the oppressing uniforms, the support the troops stickers, we can win this thing we can stay the course a few thousand more troopers, a few thousand more corpses whose blood runs black now because they have been there too long. Bloating in the sun, smelling to high heaven, mute and smelly testimonials to a failed policy, a stupid rush into oblivion.

You want your children back? Make your own coffins! The army provides neither armor nor boxes. You get a zipper bags for the child you nourished in your arms. A waterproof zippered poncho to keep the precious fluids your own milk gave him on his way to hell in Iraq! How proud the parents of the fallen marine, how proud the parents of the bloody bomber, how proud we are of our dead, sacrificed for whom, for what? For an arrogant idiot pointing to a vial of water in the UN, anthrax by any other name is still a lie! The only terror came from our planes, our missiles, our idiotic, moronic, arrogant techno killers.

Join the NAVY, cozy up to the coast, launch the Tomahawk, and watch the body parts waft into the air like meat in a market. Be all you can be, incinerate at arms length, rape the women, who cares they are but Muslims, kill the raghead, who cares they are infidels, they are heathens they are not you and they are not me.

Germans had no trouble with their Jews; we have no trouble with your Muslims. Those we do not kill, maim or destroy, we ship to places even less sensitive than we are and have them “Handled”.

Proud to be an American, my ass. Never has our country sunk as low as we are now. Our killers roam the four corners of the world; our pollution kills what our bombs leave behind. Internally we are under surveillance, we are incarcerated, we are tortured and our children are harassed, join my team today, be a hero and die tomorrow!!

Is this land worth dying for? Is our legacy worth the blood shed everywhere in its name? Is the only answer to the croaking sound of dying crows the deadly sounds of bombs and guns?

2006-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Unrelated Christian Alternative Explanations

And what about Mary?
My personal theory of the virgin birth of Christ is based on some assumptions, deep understanding of the guy culture and the fact that life was pretty basic back then. If you recall, an angel came unto Mary and told her that she would give birth to a king. Angels are apparently pretty persuasive because she swallowed the whole story, hook line and sinker (A useful trait for someone who would mother a fisherman)

She not only accepted the story, but got her husband, Joe, to go along with it. Now Mary was apparently still a virgin at this time, so she was either not married and playing hard to get, or she was married and Joe needed a serious course of Viagra.

Either way, Hymen Intacta was the order of the day, and apparently the nights.

So off they go, JC is born in a barn and we all know the Christmas story.

BUT

What if there was another explanation? What if the whole cockamamie story was not true? What if Mary was far from being a virgin and had a bad rep from the get-go?

Mythless theory or the alternative explanation of Mary’s “Virgin Birth”
Mary was a prostitute. She was really good at her job and she had a great following up and down the Sea of Galilee where sailors and carpenters gathered, and talked. She had a pimp called Joe, and he took care of her.

She also had an amazing capacity to regenerate her hymen after each interlude. She was known for this and was referred to as that “Virgin Mary” in every bar, brothel and barn.

Imagine the consternation in those same venues when the word got out that the “Virgin” was pregnant! In a scandal that endures to this day in one of the major religions of our time, the concept of virgin birth is not only accepted, but taken over, touted and expounded as a virtue. Amazingly this is what appears to have happened and continues to happen, never more strongly than during the Christmas season.

Because the “Virgin Mary” may have been a virgin during conception, but ask any obstetrician worth his salt, she was certainly no virgin following the birth of JC. And yet, amazingly to the good folks of Christianity, she is still referred to as the Virgin. This is a tribute to the strength and holding power of her hymen, or just a restatement of her obvious ability to regrow it?

Something to ponder during midnight mass, I wot.

2006-11-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

Instead of God, What?

On the one hand denying up to the existence of a large mythological beast is one way to fight ignorance, but there has to be an answer to the desires of humanity for more to life than what we are. Actually, what endures in this land are hate and love. There are longstanding hatreds based in fear and ignorance that have poisoned our reasons for living and pushed adherents into the waiting arms of the true believers.

Think of the KKK, the Nazi Party, the Inquisition and the Jones Town masses who died and killed in an orgy of belief. Think of the legacy left behind that created an Israel, molded Africa and fulfilled our imperial aspirations in the Ghettos of America. Hatred of the Jew, the black man and the communist has destroyed more futures than the love of the sixties. But in lives saved, and salvation is all about not killing, it is the love that endures.

When we blindly follow our policy in Iraq, the opposing stream remembers other conflicts, like Vietnam, like Algeria and like the Slavic genocides that peaceful alternatives slowed and stopped. The price of love is high, much higher than the price of hate. It is slower to act but it endures longer. Solving conflicts with love, in the absence of faith is always the better solution.

WWII was a massive bloodletting, and the solution was forgiveness for three generations, and counting. The Marshall plan was not based on hate; it was based on the simple expedient that happy people, even in defeat, are loving people. These people are unlikely to greet you with the hollow end of a gun.

So let’s talk about the gun, the bomb, and the murder at night and the power to destroy those who stand for a better way. Let’s shine a light on the evil that the gun allows, on all the evil brought home in the brass jacket of a hollow point bullet. It is the evil of oppression, mitigated only by our ability to build better bullets. It is the evil of rape in Darfur, drugs in your home, murder in the jungles and cities. The gun is the apposite of the heart, there is no middle line to follow between these two symbols.

And we make choices; the choice is to follow the heart, and freedom, or the gun and slavery. The gun enslaves the user and liberates the victim because dead, there is no hold left. And yet, with faith, you can be pursued beyond death. At some point there must be peace, and that point lies either here and in loving communion with your friends and peers, or beyond the grave where all things come to a close.

2006-11-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

Thank God for Evolution.
On reflection, evolution is alive and doing really well up in Heaven. In my last posting I postulated that God might have the physical shape of a monkey. This simple observation was based on His own words as they were transmitted to us through the Old Testament. He states that God made Adam in his own image, and at the time Adam, being a first generation Homo Erectus, could only be more apelike than George Bush.

But with evolution coming into play, we get a modern and improved model in the shape of His son, none other than Jesus Christ. This new and improved model roamed the earth some 2000 years ago spouting amazing platitudes and inanities. But I digress.

To remain focused only on the physical aspects of the new version, as depicted in any number of non-contemporary eyewitness accounts, we can say that JC was tall, bearded, amazingly thin and looked really good in his underwear hanging on a cross. He is also invariably white, and in his last sighting, scarred on wrists, feet and chest. He can also levitate, something he should have done to relieve the stress of just hanging there above the crowd.

As you can see, God 2.0 is a much more acceptable model. This may explain why he was so visible for the 38 years of His life. If you recall, personal appearances by God 1.0 were few and far between. Adam and Eve saw him, and after that His presence was relegated to the odd burning bush, shining lights and various angels bringing telegrams. My personal theory is that He was ashamed of his physical form, so He avoided actual sightings like the plague. I can just imagine the problems Moses would have had if he told his masses, already hell-bent on adoring a golden calf, that the Real Thing was a short, hairy and apelike critter. He would have been laughed off the Mount and his tablets tossed away like junk mail from heaven.

On the other hand, if that had come true, then we probably could have kissed this whole religion thing good bye right then and there! After all, no one wants to show up at the prom with a ten year old, dented and battered, family van, let alone worship an ugly Australopithecus.

Thank God for evolution, it has allowed us some really neat one on ones with the deity, suitably refurbished for public consumption. I can hardly wait for the Second Coming, when His presence will embody all the races of mankind. I can already see Him now, more than likely a whole lot browner, with Asian and Latin overtones and he may even be Gay, which would finally confirm His latent aversion to all things feminine as evidenced by all three major Biblical religions.

2006-10-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Is God a Monkey?

In the early days of Creation, when God created Heaven and Earth, then light and dark and finally he created man “in His own image” (His words, not mine), we must ask ourselves what model of man did He use?

The theory of evolution, although still just a theory according to a large number of people, states very clearly that man (and woman) has evolved over time. We are very close to finding that crossover humanoid between mankind and monkey-kind. But one thing is certain, in those hoary days when God was a-creating, the model for man was not a pretty picture.

Lucy, and Australopithecus were ugly little warts. They were short, squat, hairy examples of smart little monkeys with an unfair advantage over the competition. They could think, they made tools and they wandered around in small clans surviving as best they could. If you had been a betting man in those days, the odds on them eventually becoming the dominant race we are now would have been incredibly long.

Something along the lines of a billion to one in the long term species handicap.

So it is not in the least way blasphemous to suggest that those happy little hominids were actually created in God’s own image. Their survival is nothing if not miraculous and in the betting world, that’s known as having an unfair advantage or even, may we suggest, having an inside track, or being a ringer.

We have nothing to be ashamed of. Lucy was a plucky little mammal, doing the best she could, secure in the knowledge of something we would invent hundreds of thousands of years later; that she was shaped in God’s own image.

The modern believer now has a serious self-image problem. All three major religions based on the Old Testament, assume that God is either a white Anglo-Saxon bearded “Old Guy”, or a totally unknowable entity with no definite shape or form. Some even postulate that to speculate on His appearance is blasphemy. To state the obvious, God Himself opened the speculation box as to His shape and substance. By saying we were made in His image he clearly tells us that the first hominid was the mold from whence we begat Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise.

The religious person has also, in a typical knee jerk reaction to scientific methodology, vociferously rejected the concept of evolution, and that pretty much fixes God in a permanent hominid position forever. Because we all agree here that evolution accepts the fact that species evolve slowly over time not individual examples within the genus. God, being a sole individual of a long standing genus that includes a mixed bag of Rha, Zeus, Odin and other losers, can not evolve. Nor would the true believer accept that his genus has been evolving over the millennia.

So there you have it, God created man in his image and that image was not pretty. The image itself is unchanging, all powerful and omniscient.

As I said, we are the descendants of some really smart little monkeys; a living tribute to our Creator.

2006-10-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

We Must Ban Religion, for the Common Good
The time has come to get rid of religion, at least as an exterior force. In recent years it seems that religion has become the absolute criteria by which mankind judges its enemies and gives itself the right to kill them. There are thousands of variations to these cults of hatred and all ultimately end up destroying that which it professes to protect.

The Christian mythology based on the sacrifice of an almost cartoon-like character, has a rich history of intolerance and death. Most recently, in its covert actions in Muslim countries, its support of pseudo science that denies life giving therapies and research, its willingness to sacrifice mothers to the advantage of unwanted blastocells and its ongoing genocidal attacks around the world may not be the absolute leader in theo-cretinism, but it is a strong contender.

The Christian right has been, for a number of years, the center of what is both evil and enslaving in the United States. In its name, a vicious and tainted president has survived for two terms destroying the very foundations of our democracy. It allowed every one of our cherished freedoms to be stripped and discarded and winked at torture, illegal imprisonment and death squads.

On the other side we have the Muslim community based on an equally faulty interpretation of the acts and speeches of a bloodthirsty prophet. Loosely based on an equally frangible interpretation of a number of old folkloric texts, these descendants of Ismael also preach brotherhood, peace and the absolute respect for life. Along the way they have discarded any vestige of honor or integrity gladly embracing the concept of fratricidal and theological retaliation for whatever offense they may perceive.

Violently opposed to allowing anyone, including their own wives, mothers and daughters the right to think for themselves, they expect that at the very least we must allow them the opportunity to pray five times a day while denying us the right to have our own beliefs.

I will not even get into the flawed concept that now motivates the Jewish community. To oppose Judaism is to be a Hitler equivalent, with no grey area allowed. To follow the concept that they were given the land that they abandoned over two thousand years ago is to invite the future reclamation of America by the native Indians, or even putting the Mongols in front of the gates of Vienna. Real estate transactions spanning millennia are the stuff of dreams.

No seriously, in this incredible cocktail of warring mythologies, the only answer is to demand that religion be taken off the table. Who cares if your mythology demands that you bang your head on the ground five times a day, that you raise your demanding eyes to the heavens for some sort of boon or even that you whine about your sad fate? Who really cares?

Atheists will tell you that whatever mythology you embrace, you have already been diminished by its contact. By adhering to something as vague, as deadly and as ridiculous as the almighty power that is all around but never there, you lower yourself to the level of that ignorant shepherd who invented god to explain away things that have now become totally understandable.

And as for using religion to excuse murder, that is akin to a psychotic person’s ability to hear voices and to follow their dictates. The only difference is that the voices you hear are real; they come from your imam, priest, rabbi or your local politician. They are all saying the same damn thing: “Gott mit uns” regardless of the god you embrace and the killing he desires.

2006-08-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Israel V. Lebanon

Touted as one of the more important events in the world-fuck contest, the Israel V. Lebanon rematch ended in a PR draw, a Lebanese moral victory and an Israeli blood "red" card. Hopefully the red card will keep them out of the next few games against Palestine and whoever the Axis of Disgust decides to attack.

I was in a bar the other night watching the game, in direct from the censored Israeli lines and really in direct from Al Jazeera. We had just come off a cathartic review of the endless overtime match in Iraq and started to argue about the IDF V. Hezbollah match. I should have noticed the yamulke, but didn't. His unassailable position was that Israel only had to lose one war, and they would be wiped off the map.

My position was that they really needed to stop killing each other.

In the final analysis we were both right and we were both wrong. There was as much need to invade Lebanon as there was to invade Iraq. Israel like the US was not being threatened. On the other hand he was correct when he said that Hezbollah used the civilian population as a shield all the way to the Syrian border. And destroying the complete infrastructure of the country certainly guarantees the removal of that shield. To be blunt, I am certain that there was a tactical reason for every dead child, every bloody mother and each and every shattered life. Of this I am absolutely sure because to think otherwise would force me, and the rest of the world to think that Israel's time and stewardship of the "holy Land" should be terminated. Maybe the time has come to address the morality of allowing that bloody little country to lose that one war.

Should they lose, the leaders of Israel have cynically put their citizens at the mercy of their victims with their witless invasions, attacks and murders.

The stunning victory that the IDF gained with almost no loss of life to the civilian population of Israel should be a shining example for our own president. After all, Lebanese people do not really count in the broader picture of maintaining a democratic and free Israel. I just cannot understand why the Arab states are unable to comprehend that one Israeli is worth 40 Arab civilians. And thanks to Israel's willingness to pursue the diplomatic path, the two kidnapped soldiers were kept safely away from the combat zone, we hope. Unless they happened to be riding in a UN or Lebanese ambulance, were being evacuated with the women and children or were located in a school, hospital or UN observation post. All of the above clearly marked, and therefore, legitimate targets.

The nice thing about getting loaded in a bar with an Israeli/US citizen is that you will not be interrupted by a pesky Muslim. Something about alcohol does not sit well with Big Mo. On the other hand, the only place where honest citizens can get any sort of peace these days is at a New Orleans Pork Barbecue. But even there we run the risk of meeting up with our glad handing Bush.

Is there nothing that Christian won't eat?

But I digress, and I shouldn't.

2006-08-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

A Wall of Flags

I think that the time has come to put the Iraq War on the map, the American Map. I would like to propose that we install a ten foot mast with a large US flag at half staff every mile from the Pacific to the Atlantic over the most traveled highways of this land.

I propose that this lane of tears be a permanent reminder to all who travel our roads that the stupidity of our leaders, from the President on down, has created a moving and unending legacy that starts in San Jose and would now be visible sixty miles East of Cleveland Ohio. In a few more weeks it will reach Washington DC. Every flag a tribute to a wasted life on a senseless and illegal war.

And if we stay the course, we can have another row of flags coming home from East to West.

2006-08-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

I have been Banned from Ann Coulter’s Website!

I am so proud of myself. I recently wanted to raise a little hell on America’s high priestess’ website, better known as Mein Kampf Zwei, and I was advised, in lovely pastel blue script that I had been banned.

Amazing, the foremost authority on fascist legal ideology refuses to allow me in her sandbox. An all I wanted to do was play a little, move some dump trucks around, clean up some of the filth she leaves there on a regular basis. Well, now I’ve been told, and with a vengeance. To think she even wrote a whole book about me and my ilk, “Godless”. Oh yes, and I’m proud of it, liberal and even prouder, pacifist, left wing stinking democratic pond scum.

It’s the ilk that did me in.

Our fellow travelers who refuse to recognize the genius in George, the almost godlike virtue of supporting big business and fat cats, to push everybody else’s kids into a war based on lies, they are the ones who done me wrong. They fingered me to the goddess of law and order, Auschwitz-style, or maybe it was my own finger to her that got me ousted.

So, fellow readers, it’s official now. It’s all over between Ann and I. Even though the heart still flutters and the stomach still heaves whenever I see her on TV or hear her dulcet screech on the radio, it is... ALL OVER.

Be still my heart, it could never have worked anyway. They closed the camps a long time ago, so she had nothing to guard and nowhere to go and so went willingly into the waiting arms of the Republican Party. No place for an intelligent, thinking animal like myself, and even for y’all out there.

Oh, I highly recommend trying to crash her party, www.anncoulter.org. Go to the chat room and see how long YOU last. Then get back to me.

2006-08-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

In Defense of TWAT

You would think that a country as big and strong as ours that there would be no call to ever need to defend the idea of The War Against Terror (TWAT). But there you have it, with elections less than a hundred days away, it seems that we need to mount a spirited defense of this keystone of the Bush policy. So I will sacrifice myself and mount the TWAT bandwagon to ensure that future generations will live in peace, and George's very peculiar concept of freedom and democracy.

To start with we must examine the origins of TWAT. In essence, when the Saudi Arabian terror machine flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and a fourth into a Pennsylvania farmer's field, TWAT really got excited.

TWAT was on the lips of every red blooded American patriot. WHo can forget the silly buggers with their inane stickers, or George braying about Osama dead or alive. There was something about the TWAT idea that set men off.

Because of TWAT we firmly believed that our institutions had to be protected from all comers. To keep them safe, George immediately took them away from us and has kept them hidden, what a guy! TWAT has wormed its way into all of our activities, thanks to the NSA, we now no longer have to keep records of our phone calls, online searches and even library books, if we miss a call, we just contact our nearest NSA guy and ask for the information. The same will apply to college courses, financial transactions, trips, medicines and even where we made calls from at any time. They are all stored in gigantic computers with TWAT written all over it.

So we can only bless the TWAT and www.moveon.org

Be at peace

2006-08-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Is There No Room for Peaceful Conclaves Any More?

I met a metaphor the other day coming at me with feathered arms,
A peaceful metaphor with a sad look of despair.
My metaphor had lost his place in the world,
There was no place to go.
His nest was destroyed, his wings would no longer carry him.

So I picked up my metaphor, and shared him with friends
And we met in secret conclaves around the world
And my metaphor got bigger and healthier
I think he'll be ready to fly by early November.

A dove by any other name, is still a pigeon to be plucked.

By Peter W. Brown

2006-07-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

The Pledge of Allegiance from an atheist’s point of view.
In the late fifties a group of religious fanatics decided that in spite of all the evidence against their position, America had been founded with and by their God. They chose to honor that position by imposing the addition of the words One Nation under God to the pledge of allegiance.

Since this happened during the McCarthy era, any opposition was squashed as the activities of godless communists, and we learned that it was better to keep our mouth’s firmly shut, or Ronald Reagan and his FBI informers would soon be knocking on our doors. Now, in order to enshrine this obviously illegal attempt by the religious fanatics of America, the pledge of allegiance is being put under special protection.

I would like to ask you to try and see this issue from perspective of the large contingent of American atheists who, as a matter of course and reason are unable to believe in the existence of God. Don’t get me wrong, we are probably the most accommodating group of people you will ever meet. We will never try and change your beliefs and certainly accept with wry good humor your propensity for gathering on a regular basis (up to five times a day in one group’s requirements) lifting your heads up and demanding specific or general assistance from a usually unheeding entity.

We consider your faith at best as a mild form of mental disease that is usually benign and not worth getting worked up over. On the other hand, if the psycho down the street suddenly starts investing in large scale weapons, or the child molester on the other block starts hanging around the playground, we feel that it is imperative to take steps to ensure the safety of the rest of the population. Even more importantly, when the psycho down the street starts leaving NRA leaflets in your children’s lunchbox we get very alarmed.

Our children are brought up in the strict observance that there is no benevolent deity of any sort and he will certainly not attempt to solve their problems. They learn that they are pretty much on their own when it comes to facing the harsher realities of life, and no amount of upward gazing with hands steepled will bail them out of their latest transgression. They also learned that asking forgiveness from vaporware in no way mitigates their guilt when it comes to accepting responsibility for their actions.

So, what to make of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the need to protect its theological existence? Already having to pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth is bad enough, but symbolically acceptable as long as it doesn’t scare the horses or impede the true allegiances that are really important in a child’s life. But to imply that a non-existent, inimical and retrograde invention of a scared cave dweller has anything to do with the workings of a country like ours is a very large stretch for small children. It leads to further complications in life such as the vision of destroying others for eternal gain, be it suicide bombers working for Big Mo, wholesale enslavement of a peaceful population by conquest in the name of Yahweh or the invasion of innocent countries on the flimsiest excuses in the name of JC.

A true patriot, a truly religious person and an atheist should be able to agree as one on a clear concept and that is the fact that whatever our personal beliefs may be, they are personal, have nothing to do with government and national policy and should be kept private. In other words, keep all gods out of reach of the government; do not allow that particular camel to stick his nose into the tent. Because the tent belongs to all of us and there are too many ill tempered religious camels in the desert.

2006-06-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Religion and War

I was recently asked a very simple question about the present conflict in Iraq. It was asked by a person I respect and honor because she is a true patriot, viscerally opposed to war in any guise, but unfortunately, blinded by faith. She asked me where are the churches?

Where are the churches is a provocative question based on the assumption that churches actually care about people. Unfortunately, they have given up that particular niche a long time ago, sometime between the Albigensian Crusades and the wholesale slaughter of innocent opponents of the tribes of Israel as described in the Old Testament. A more cogent question that should be addressed to all participants in any war should be: What are you thinking?

The question can be asked of our leaders and our followers, it should be repeated daily and matched to atrocities. The question should be mandatory to any parent encouraging their child to bear arms, and it should be writ large across prisons, army bases, churches and temples, high schools and military academies.

It should adorn polling places and political rallies. It should be translated into any language spoken by killers and victims. It should be personal and require an honest answer at the time of death and injury. It may be the last question on anyone's mind, because inflicting atrocities is mindless and dying, in the heat of our present conflicts, is rarely a time for reflection.

It should be non sectarian, and not tied to any mythology, either Christian, Jewish or Muslim. It should be the universal cry of the oppressor and the oppressed as they plunge the knife, pull the trigger, let off the bomb or send others into harms way.

Where are the churches indeed? They are lined up on either side of any conflict, encouraging mayhem, promoting violence and destroying hope and pity.

Peter W. Brown

2006-06-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Another Corner Turned.

With the death of Al Zarkawi our administration will announce that once again we have turned a corner in the war on terror. Another day, another turn, a turn for the better or just a bend in the road, one good turn deserves another, to everything turn turn turn. As you can see, our language is full of metaphorical turns.

In the case of the war on terror, and its corollary, the battle for Iraq, the word turn should be used more in the context of the milk has turned, or they have turned on us or even turnabout is fair play, especially in this witless war. These twists and turns of fate are leading us deeper into the quagmire that we all, every American that survived the Vietnam era, had predicted. And yet we should not despair, because according to some pundits, we have now made just enough turns to be right back where we started. You see if you stay the course, and only turn right, as this administration has done, you end up repeating yourself and going over your own tracks.

Now there is one great reason for going over your own tracks, and that’s to cover them up while laying new ones. If ever there was a group of people that needed to cover their tracks it’s the Bush administration. Since we are right back where we started from, we can expect a vociferous and enthusiastic search for weapons of mass destruction. So we can expect announcements that Iraq is the breeding ground for terrorist activities. This time, because the invasion was so well planned, and because of our incredible stupidity in allowing George to lead, they will be right.

After all these turns, they forgot to look back, and by gummy, the terrorist that were not there during the first few turns, have now arrived en masse. Vindication has come at last for all those sleepless nights waiting for the good news.

There is only one miscalculation in this whole war on terror corner turning equation, what George and his crew, in their simplistic way, thought was a flat earth, has now shifted in time and space and become an infinite loop. No matter how many twists and turns you take on the Iraq war Mobius strip, you still never arrive anywhere and are pointed towards an eternity of pain and suffering for all concerned.

2006-06-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

Whacking Civilians, an American tradition.

I have no idea why we are all so upset because a few marines went on a rampage and killed innocent civilians including small children and unarmed women. It's an American tradition, and it carries little or no penalty. It happened at My Lai during the last war, it happened in Panama and it will happen when we invade Iran. There is never any punishment above a certain military or civilian rank, and those that are blamed will only receive a slap on the wrist.

It is also very understandable because our soldiers know that we have no reason for being there, because right from the start of this mess they were lied to about our justification for killing Iraqis and finally because the beauty of our opening salvos in the "Shock and Awe"(TM) period was guaranteed to kill civilians in industrial numbers.

Finally, killing civilians has become the national sport of Iraq, the insurgents do it, the Iraqi militia do it and we do it. It seems like everybody is up for a round of civvie hunting these days. Even our Vice President is gunning for bystanders, although he did try to export the sport to Texas, and even he got away without a penalty.

On the eve of the World Cup opening, can this new sport attract additional sponsors beyond the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, the Army and Marines and various revolting insurgent groups? Only time will tell.

2006-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

TOOLS, THE MEASURE OF HUMANITY
Peter Brown
Through history and pre-history, scientists have learned to understand groups of people by the tools they left behind. Whether small family units or large masses of humanity, society has best expressed itself in the ways they devised to get their jobs done.

Whole eras, sometimes spanning thousands of years, have been categorized by the broadest extensions of their simple implements. The stone age, broken down into the various ways that stones were transformed into useful devices, like the polished stone era, the small chip era where knapping was done in a way to maximize the aesthetics and enhancing functionality. The Bronze Age with its brilliant Greek weapons of war and even more beautiful pottery and jewelry are prime example of the tool being an extension of the tribal ethic.

There are even occasions where the absence of tools has left us wondering about the level of civilization achieved by a society; the pyramids of Egypt were built with tools that have since disappeared. Stonehenge, in the Anglian Plains, is another example where the use of advanced tools for the time and place have all but disappeared and left only the monument to their usage. In the jungles of Central America, numerous Mayan and Aztec structures seem to have sprung full grown from the ground, without even the trace of a building tool. Even on lonely Easter Island, the top knotted heads of long gone gods, or heroes, express a level of toolsmanship that has since gone into extinction or traveled to other continents.

Through the industrial age, with its large banks of chuffing steam engines and into our own era, where the tools of the trade are increasingly intangible, the progress of man is stalked by an equally striking progress in the development of his tools. In some cases, the tool itself is too far advanced for the age and has lead to disasters of increasing magnitude. Think of Chernobyl, but more importantly ponder the wisdom of Hiroshima and the nuclear bomb as a tool of diplomacy.

But always the trend has been the creation of a utilitarian solution to a perceived need, followed by an increasingly complex refinement process that includes improving the tool’s utility and functionality with an equally clear attention to the inherent beauty of the device.

Tool design and designer tools have always been the technology two-step of product improvement. The first transistor from TI was an ugly glob of molten plastic, a far cry from today’s sleek and slender IC packages. The first mouse was a block of wood with small wheels.

A mature industry seeks to increase the appeal of its products. When customers are no longer satisfied with the basic device, design steps in from the technological and the esthetic side to recreate demand. Keyboards have undergone some amazing transformations spurred on by medical (Carpal Tunnel), utility and ease of use reasons. Now we have wireless, sleek devices that add not one iota to the functional basic utility of the board, but improve productivity through comfort, speed and relaxed esthetic considerations. If so the keyboard, so also the mouse with a truly stunning array of options made available to an increasingly demanding buying public.

Our tools need to express our conquest over the basic computing needs. First we unloaded from the IBM mainframe option, and then we created smaller desktops, now we are all in charge of our own computing device. Imagine, there is more power in an advanced cell phone than in the Apollo 13 moon Lander. The moon Lander was appropriate technology and will remain a cultural and scientific icon of an era. The cell phone will be replaced during this transition stage by something even more complex, a 21st. century stone tool that remains a transition product for an era in transition.

2006-05-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

What Is Alternate Energy?
The term alternate energy refers to a number of energy sources that have not reached mainstream production yet. They are considered alternatives to existing sources for a number of reasons, not all of which are rational.

Historically we consider one of the oldest sources of energy as derived from burning wood to produce heat and to enable cooking. The wood stove was first replaced by the coal stove and later by natural gas and electricity. More modern forms of energy for cooking are the microwave, radiant heat and convection. The last three are electrically produced. So what is the alternate energy? Well, in heating, one of the latest forms of energy is derived from wood pellets. This is a situation where an energy source has come full circle.

But in the broader context, alternate energy is anything that is not coal, hydro, gas, petroleum or nuclear. Some would not put nuclear energy as a standard form of energy, and since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, it has been relegated to alternate status in many countries.

That leaves solar, wind, tidal, fuel cells, flywheels and a host of other energy sources squarely in the alternate category. But is that fair?

Surely solar power, with the increased efficiency of the photovoltaic panels and the large solar farms in Germany, Japan and the United States, is becoming a commodity and hence a standard energy source?

Do the examples of the wood pellets and solar power indicate a need to rethink what is alternate and what is standard? The time may have come to actually define the terms Âalternate energyÂ in a more comprehensive manner and relegate the losers to one category and the winners to another.

Where to start? One school of thought looks to the future and says that energy sources that are largely untapped should be called Potential Energy, the sources that are running down, or have been left by the wayside would be called Depleted Energy. How would that work in practice and what are the ramifications of such a classification?

To start with, solar energy is the epitome of the Potential Energy source. Since 99.9% of the sunÂs rays that hit the earth are not harvested directly for energy production it represents a huge waste of a huge potential. It is also a completely renewable energy source, and here is another popular way to differentiate energy sources, renewable and non-renewable.

Where would that category place nuclear energy? Well, depending on the reactor type, it could be renewable or not renewable. The standard boiling water reactor uses enriched uranium and regular water. This presents a number of safety factors such as in a meltdown situation such as occurred at Three Mile Island, the water to cool the reactor also promoted the fission and hence the continued spiraling nuclear reaction that leads to a core meltdown. There isCanadianian reactor that uses natural uranium and heavy water. The CANDU power plant can be cooled down with regular water in the case of a runaway reaction, and to cool it down and stop the fission, the heavy water can be dumped.

So here we have a new classification of energy, safe and dangerous. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is probably one of the most dangerous forms of energy available on the planet. A supertanker loaded with LNG is a spark away from destroying a city the size of Boston. It has not happened yet, and maybe never will, but the potential is there since we know that LNG trucks have been known to blow up with loss of life. Yet LNG cars produce no pollution and require little rework to operate.

Then we have the hoary question of clean energy versus polluting energy sources. Clearly, coal-burning power plants are not clean. There are acid rain polluted lakes in Ontario and Quebec that can trace their demise to Ohio coal burners. But what about nuclear power, surely an energy source that keeps all its pollutants safely stored in a holding tank should not be considered polluting? Although solar power is absolutely clean in its production stage, some of the most toxic chemicals known to man are required to create the panels. Where does one start counting the cost? When does the pollution meter tick in?

Hydropower, the harnessing of large or even small rivers to turn turbines is considered an essentially clean energy source. And in a sense it is one of the cleanest, but then man exaggerates and turns whole regions into water catch fields, the James Bay project, the Hoover Dam and recent Chinese projects have dislocated the environment and caused human tragedies. Wind power has been banned in certain States that happily endorse solar.

Creating energy is a matter of compromise and acceptable risk. No matter which category you select there will always be insiders and outsiders. My personal favorites are personal energy and corporate energy. Personal is the energy I control and produce. Solar panels on my roof and batteries in my garage are personal sources of energy. A small biodiesel production facility in my garage is personal and allows me to produce up to sixty gallons of diesel fuel a day. A wind driven pump to pull water out of the ground and a large tree lot are other forms of personal energy. Corporate ends up enriching someone else, like Petroleum giants, a PUC or a local coop.

2006-05-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

Great, now the Christians are up in arms about a fictional story concerning a mythical character. The Da Vinci Code movie is out, and in the spirit of Muslim tolerance, we are being urged not to see the movie.

The idea of a horde of suicide bombing followers of Christ is pretty funny since that particular form of mythology actually spawns meek and meager victims rather than angry young people with too much time on their hands blowing up airplanes.

No, much better to have irritated Christians than pissed off Muslims, but that can change. All we need is for some Ayatollah to declare that his kids care more for the Prophet than our kids care for Christ and off we go into the suicide finals. Showdown at the Roman corral.

Hey 12 really bad cartoons compared to a very boring, two hour, movie! Sounds like a deal to me, besides, I always preferred cartoons, it kept me from having to think. The old Playboy mantra, it's not the pictures it's the articles.

2006-05-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

I stand in awe of the visionary solution to the imminent threat of invasion by millions of disenfranchised Mexican pouring over our borders on a daily basis (whew, what a mouthful) Seriously, how original, how blindingly simple, let's build a 700 mile long wall to keep the immigrants on their side and the prisoners on our side.

Brilliant, but I would like to offer a solution to the obvious questions that will go begging in the wake of this gigantic building program. Who will build it? I suggest that we round up the illegal immigrants and put them to work on their wall, poetic, no? We get all the illegally imported Mexicans to stay on their side of the wall to build it, we pay them minimum wages and make sure that after working on the damn thing for several years they are aware of the Wall and its purpose, plus, they'll be on the other side of the wall when it's finished, neat and clean.

I already hear your objections, what about our side? Who will build our side of the wall to ensure the quality and esthetic criteria that such a monumentally ridiculous task will entail? Simple, we round up the other group of illegal immigrants, those that failed to qualify for H1B visas, the doctors and nurses from abroad who are cleaning homes, the nannies from India and the refugees who are under employed according to their education, the software engineers working at Frys or the entire Wal Mart customer service department. Let's not forget the Tien Amin square PRC refugees who will have a very important role to play.

Oh yes, the PRC, the People's Republic of China immigrants will have a very special task. Historically, they are the progeny of the people who still hold the international wall building record, over four thousand miles of wall! Awesome, inspirational, totally Texan in outlook when mine has to bigger than yours. Better than the East Germans, longer than the Israelis, stronger than the Roman Hadrian wall in the UK. Yes the Chinese will be the designers and task masters of this wonderful project. They have the history, they have the numbers and they certainly have the drive to get it done. Who knows, they may even ask Halliburton to come in as consultants, and it will avoid having to outsource because the outsource is already here. In-house outsourcing, a new concept in urban planning and renewal that so far was only available to the upper crust in need of nannies, gardeners and chefs.

You have to admire our present administration, the great wall of Mexico (named after the builders, not the designers) will turn our economy around, protect us from Mexican terrorist gardeners and provide work for every failed H1B applicant for years to come.

Once the Southern wall is complete, there is an even longer border to the North, after all we need to protect our great democracy from returning Viet Nam era draft dodgers and Bush era national guardsmen yearning to be free. The only problem with the Canadian wall is that it will soon have to designed to keep our no longer free citizens on our side of the border, but it is more than a thousand miles longer than that puny Chinese effort. So finally, our wall will be bigger than their wall.

Who knows, Canada might even be tempted to pay Halliburton to build it.

Dick, Dick, the phone is ringing!!

Peter W. Brown

2006-04-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Ah India, the last best place to build a bomb.

Give me a break. We arbitrarily decide to support India’s nuclear program even though that country has never signed the non-proliferation treaty, has a very active military nuclear program and is both internally and externally unstable. At the same time we are preparing our own nuclear weapons to take out Iran, a country that has signed the treaty, does not have weapons or even a proven weapons program and is essentially trying to abide by the terms of the treaty.

There is an irony here; the country that has received the majority of our outsourced jobs is now probably going to have our weapons program outsourced. Could it be that Bush has discovered just one more way to be a complete idiot?

Probably not, as usual, follow the money. With India receiving massive industrial support for its nuclear programs, you can be sure that Halliburton will be either first or second in line for the dollars to develop. And, when the weapons that will naturally flow out of these agreements begin to flood the market, the Carlyle Group will have a cheap source for its Saudi weapons deals.

Is this a win/win or what?

2006-03-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

AFGHANI TO DIE FOR CHRISTIANITY

This is delicious! Our country goes flying in to Afghanistan to liberate the people from the Taliban, those remorseless Muslims who went around whacking people on their shins for disrespect to their God. We not only miss the head bad guy, Osama, but we lose a wide receiver in the process for what?

For our soldiers who died to have the right to watch the judiciary in that country decide to kill a Muslim who wants to be a Christian. There are so many ramifications to this one that the mind just boggles! This is almost more fun than Cheney gunning down his best friend.

To start with, we should realize right now that there is no way we will ever convince the Muslim world that there are actually things that are more important than Big Mo. His name trumps all, the ultimate religious, judicious, scientific, medical trump card. What big Mo says is all we need to know.

Must be nice. It’s as much intolerance as JC and his gang. Think about it, out the window with evolution, stem cell research, the right to dick around, the joy of eating pork, the fun of taking Sunday off. All gone because, between Big Mo and JC, there is no room to maneuver.

Women who want to drive cars, the Saudi Big Mo he says no! The right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, the US, JC says no- Have that baby even if your own brother raped you to give it to you!

Of course, in the case of the Afghani wanting to convert we have a nose to nose between Big Mo and JC, and all I can say is that Big Mo appears to have blinked.

But what if the poor bastard had really come to his senses and renounced all religion. What if he had dimly perceived that maybe there is no Big Mo, JC or Bud? Would Condi have reared up on her hind legs and told the Mullah to shove it? Methinks not. Would Mr. Karzai, our puppet leader, have gone down on his knees to ask Big Mo for advice on how to get himself out of this mess? Again, probably not.

And finally, think of George, he who speaks to JC and asks and gives Him advice, where would that leave him?

2006-03-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

OFFICE OF THE COMMITTEE TO SEND BUSH TO BAGHDAD
(A licensed subsidiary of the Bush President of Iraq League BPOIL)
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC
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GEORGE BUSH TO RUN FOR IRAQI PRESIDENCY

Soon to be Former President Says Baghdad “My Kind of Town”

Washington DC and Baghdad, IQ:- Soon to be former President of the United States, George W. Bush, today announced that he will be running for the soon to be opened position of President of the Republic of Iraq (ROI). Mr. Cheney, recently released from a local hospital after a kneecapping incident gone bad during a hunting incident.

“My family has been pouring personal as well as governmental money into this country for the last twenty years,” said Mr. Bush. “And I believe that it is time to get a legitimate return on our investment. In many ways Iraq is just like Texas, there is oil, religious extremism and a docile population willing to put up with almost any excess from their elected officials. But mostly, it is the poster country for my favorite charity, the NRA.”

With the population of ROI in the throes of a rapidly expanding civil war, the time is ripe for a new strongman to enter and seize control. Mr. Bush can count on the support of his troops, which in the last US election handed him an 87% mandate to stay the course. The coming election will test the new naturalization decree that allows US soldiers and contractors to vote in the coming election as citizens of the ROI.

“A large number of the soldiers and Halliburton executives qualify for Iraqi citizenship because of their length of stay in country,” stated Mr. Karl Rove, Chairman of the Bush Presidency of Iraq League (BPOIL). “Since we control the Iraqi parliament, it is a very minor adjustment to allow these fine new Iraqi citizens to vote for the candidate of their choice.”

Although the dates for the various phases of the election have not been set, rumors that Diebold executives are setting up operations to handle the returns have been proven true. The machines, which guaranteed the Ohio election for Bush three days before November 8, 2004, are being retrofitted with existing software and Arabic script. Diebold, according to the terms of the standard no-bid contract so popular already in Iraq and the Southern states of America, will provide their equipment and software expertise to the ROI election officials.

“This is so much cleaner than our previous elections,” said Achmet Baras, head of the Iraqi Election Board. “Under the old regime we had to go through several months of conflicting bribes, local and national assassinations and clear religious and tribal cleansing. Under the new Bush scheme, you decide up front who will be President, and dial him into the machinery. Since anything below the Presidency is up for grabs, we will conduct a simple auction on Ebay to decide who gets what position.”

Although many leaders in the international community have expressed concern at the way the election is being set up, there was universal agreement best expressed by Mr. Tony Blair; “It is a good thing that George will be taking on the situation in Iraq, It offers a wide scope for him to exercise his own, peculiar set of talents. It will also siphon off all the terrorist he created during his eight years in office and put them back where he always said they were hiding, Iraq.”

Other world leaders, too busy celebrating this amazing announcement, were unable to comment, although the Belgian Minister of Foreign affairs was heard to say: “Dat Bush, wat een kloetzak.” An untranslatable but probably laudatory Flemish expression of admiration.

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