When A Good Idea Becomes A Great Idea

I write this Blog as a way for me to do two things which I enjoy: exercise my God-given right to freedom of expression and write. This Blog is not a myriad of passing, scatterbrained thoughts swimming through my brain like a dog chasing cars, which I then sporadically post at my whimsy. They are well drawn, thought out, and delivered articles.

Some of them are crazy things happening in the World, which I like to highlight because they get swept under the carpet to more important issues like who's dating Jennifer Aniston. Others are things I think about which build up until I have to write it down. All of them are tempered with humor and wit.

When I started this Blog, I did something that many would say is a bad idea--I turned the comments off. Although some would definitely spin that fact into me not being able to handle the heat, the truth is actually a lot simpler.

I have avoided partaking in the more popular aspects of the internet for a long time. I didn't blog when blogging was the new big thing. I didn't join Myspace until it was already yesterday's news, then I realized how useless it was and I dumped it. I don't have a Facebook page, and I'm still trying to figure out why I should care about Twitter.

When I came to the realization that I wanted to write, and that no one in their right mind would ever let me write articles in a newspaper, I decided blogging was for me. When I started going through my thought process and planning my Blog, I made two major decisions:

The first decision, was that I would remain anonymous as long as I could. I don't need death threats or general pathetic drama because I'm expressing myself on the internet. I'm not afraid of the quote "Cyberbullies", I just don't have that kind of time. I suppose it's kind of ridiculous and doesn't matter, but whatever. It gave me the option to not post my real name, and I took it.

The second decision, was that I would turn off the comments. My posts are genuine articles. The subject matter is my opinion. When they're posted, that is the final word. When you read an article in the newspaper, you don't get to write your opinion of their opinion down on a blank spot underneath the article and then redistribute it for everyone to read. You get to write a letter to the columnist and tell him what a twit he is. This is why my e-mail address is in the top right corner of this blog.

I don't know who made this picture, but trust me, I give them full credit.

I have been on the internet since its inception. If there's one thing I know about, it's how easy it is for someone to hijack a blog, post forum, or any website which allows for posted comments.

Do I value your opinion? If you write me an e-mail, whether in agreement or disagreement, maintaining civility and restraint (no expletives), then the answer is yes. If you give me a garbled, incoherent, expletive-laden brain-flush, then the answer is no.

If required, I have all the time in the World to reply to your mail. However, I do not have time to get into a big internet drama where I get 4200 comments to one of my post and then spend the next week rebutting every comment. I don't have that kind of time or energy; I have another article to write and post.

Some people would consider this to be the coward's way out. I consider this to be the subject of this article.

Young Nathan and a few others have a blog called St. Eutychus. Nathan decided to post a blog entry entitled "Five things that would make atheists seem nicer". PZ Myers didn't like Nathan's post and decided to make his own blog entry "Advice for atheists?", and that's when the circus came to town.

Approximately two hundred comments from angry Atheists flaming Nathan ensued. This is my rough estimate, because some of the two hundred and twenty-two comments made were rebuttals from Nathan. Due to the influx in both comments and traffic, the blog was killed for nine hours until Nathan and his fellow bloggers could find a new host.

There are moments when we think we have good ideas. Then events happen which make us realize those good ideas were actually great ideas. As I'm standing in that moment, I would like to impart some wisdom to someone who is not.

Dear Nathan,

1. Turn the comments off.
2. Next time, and we all know there will be a next time, entitle your blog entry: Five things that would make me care what an Atheist thinks.

Then leave the entry blank.

The Director, The Dictator, & The Direct Democracy

Besides being a melting pot for not only its multicultural society but also some of the finest chocolate in the World, Switzerland is possibly best known for its staunch neutrality. For years, it has maintained this neutrality, but as time has gone by, piece at a time, their neutrality is waning.

All of this asks the question, without the neutrality Switzerland is famous for, what appeal will Switzerland hold? Sure there's Swiss Army Knives, Swatches, and Toblerone, but in all honesty, people like Switzerland because of Swiss Bank Accounts and it's a place to escape to with a certain amount of anonymity.

Recently, Switzerland has been the subject of much ado in the press when Filmmaker Roman Polanski was detained in Switzerland this weekend while attending the Zurich Film Festival. Officially invited by the Swiss government to attend, Mr. Polanski was greeted by a less than hospitable welcome as he arrived in the nation's largest city.

Roman Polanski's arrest in Zurich at the weekend has caused headlines around the world and anger among many.

But legally, Switzerland's extradition agreement with the United States is clear.

The US had issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Polanski. US officials apparently pointed out that the film director would be on Swiss soil on Saturday, and asked the Swiss authorities to detain him.

Switzerland's Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf did not hesitate.

"We have an agreement with the US to apprehend those wanted for offences," she said.

"When we knew Mr Polanski was here and the US asked us to act, it was our duty to do so."

The arrest has caused an enormous backlash and garnered fierce criticism and outrage around the World, but in particular amongst the Swiss citizens.

Many Swiss - especially those who turned up at Zurich's film festival expecting to see Mr Polanski receive a lifetime achievement award - feel the police action ordered by the government was clumsy, even cruel.

"How the Swiss can invite him to an official event to receive an award, and then arrest him, I can't understand it," said one visitor. "It's ludicrous, ridiculous."

"I think it is shameful, bothering an old man like that," said another. "I am ashamed to be Swiss."

Swiss political parties on the left and the right have their doubts too.

"For me this arrest is impossible to understand," said Ueli Leuenberger of the Green Party. "He was an honoured guest in our country."

On the Swiss political front, there is much anger from both sides considering this a political ploy and is being criticized as "Switzerland's eagerness to carry out US instructions."

"It's ridiculous and just shows what happens when we try to serve foreign masters," said Mr. Toni Brunner of the Swiss People's Party.

Notwithstanding all of the criticism and disapproval, the Swiss government is still sticking to its guns on the issue stating:

"What we are talking about is the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, one of the most serious crimes there is," said Christophe Darbellay of the Christian Democrats.

"I think Mr Polanski should be extradited to the United States as soon as possible."

It is very clear expeditious extradition will not be the case. In mere minutes of Mr. Polanski being detained this has already become a highly politicized international incident. The US has sixty days to serve its extradition request at which time not only can Mr. Polanski appeal it in the Swiss courts, but so can France and even Switzerland itself.

It is not clear whether the critics of this arrest condone the actions of Mr. Polanski or merely despise the deeper ramifications this action holds on the international reputation and intranational fundamentals of Switzerland.

It is suspected that Mr. Polanski's lawyer will request bail due to the length of time it will take for the Swiss courts to come to a final decision in the matter; however, given Mr. Polanski's prior history of fleeing, it is questionable whether or not it will be granted.

The All New MacGyver Snacks, direct from Switzerland.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Polanski's woes occurred three days after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. In his address, he criticized the United Nations for being unfair to small nations. Even more interesting, a few weeks prior to his address, the Libyan dictator submitted a proposal to the U.N. to abolish Switzerland and divide it up into three parts, giving them back to France, Germany, and Italy respectively.

Gaddafi, who randomly gives improv performances as a fruitcake, has a new found angst towards the vanilla nation after Gadaffi's son Hannibal and his wife were arrested in Switzerland for alledgedly beating two servants at their hotel. He immediately retaliated by closing all Swiss interests in Libya and withrawing more than five billion dollars from Swiss bank accounts.

Public outrage grew from chocolate-covered pistachio lovers everywhere, then they realized pistachios come from Iran, and grew unanimously silent from the subsequent embarrassment.

Although the motion was thrown out because it violates the U.N. Charter, which states that no member country can threaten the existence of another, some Swiss leaders are still concerned that Libya could use its yearlong presidency of the U.N. General Assembly, which began on Sept. 15, to keep up Gaddafi's vitriolic attacks on their country.

It's hard not to chalk all of this up to an increasing feeling of a great negative change which is saturating life and the World as we know it. It's hard not to ask, what kind of World are we living in when you can't even trust Switzerland to be neutral anymore? Quintessentially, everything does change. In general, change is random, but as time moves forward it increasingly is not for the better.

Though this seems to be, in a way, marking an end of an era, one has to question the common sense of such a policy change. With a World which seems to be gearing up for the next World War on a day-to-day basis, is it really a wise decision for Switzerland to give up its neutrality?

It's Only a Movie! - Part 3

Invoking fear is definitely a task which is easier to talk about than perform. Fear comes in all shapes and sizes. There are over 600 documented phobias, including Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, or fear of the number 666. Try saying that ten times really fast.

Although there are many ways to go about this, I tend to lean towards the Less is More doctrine. One of the classic cases of this, is the movie Jaws. It's one of the scarier movies ever made, and it's all because Spielberg couldn't get the mechanical shark to work. Spielberg even admits that if he showed the shark as much as he wanted, it wouldn't have been as intense when Brody finally saw the shark. The scene where Roy Scheider first sees the shark, which is the first time the audience sees the shark, is one of the most memorable moments in movie history.

The one fear that is inherent in every human being, is the fear of the unknown. We all fear what we don't know or what we can't see. In a movie, once you show the monster, you've basically let the cat out of the bag, and it's just a weird looking tabby at that point. It also becomes increasingly difficult to maintain an element of suspense and fear once the audience has seen the monster. Once again, to reference Jaws, the shark shows up at about the end of the second act.

Introducing the evil to your audience is a matter which goes back to that prenuptial agreement you made with your audience. You don't build the audience up and then introduce them to a midget in a red jogging suit wielding a smoked herring. Even if he can chop down a tree with it, or bring about the Zombie Apocalypse, you've broken the contract.

I've always theorized that you could make a successful Horror Film where you never actually showed the monster. Of course, no one in Hollywood would ever have the guts to try it. Even in a movie like The Entity, you still had the four-cheese ending where they froze the demon so the audience could see the unseeable before the movie ended. At the end of the day, there's always going to be that movie executive who wants to see the monster.

He's right behind me, isn't he?

Possibly the biggest problems with the entire horror genre, is that it's become a cliché infested laundry sack. For some reason, when a filmmaker gets on-board a Horror Film, he feels the need to pay homage to every Horror Film he's ever seen. A director, who couldn't even make a battered wife's tale of triumph for the Lifetime Movie Network, all of a sudden becomes a walking, talking encyclopedia of Horror Film knowledge, and doesn't pass up a single chance to inject a cliché into a scene.

One of the worst clichés, which has probably been used more than the Wilhelm Scream, is the Kitty Cat Double Jump. They hear a noise in the house, slowly creep around to investigate it without making a noise, and the cat pops out and scares them (Jump 1). Oh, it's just the cat...then they calm down, turn around, and the killer shows up (Jump 2). It's been used to death.

I always wanted to see it go another way. They see the cat, turn around, then you see the cat's head grow ginormous, and then he opens his mouth and devours them. That would definitely teach them not to write off the cute little cat. Eh, you're just a stupid little cat, I'm not afraid of you--CHOMP!!! (If any Horror Filmmakers out there are interested, that idea is on sale this month for only $4,999.)

Today's filmmakers need to stop cannibalizing and get their own ideas. They need to get creative and actually earn their paychecks. I don't want to see the same thing I've seen a thousand times. I don't care about your inside jokes, clichés, or homages which you hold so dear because you think it makes you clever. If I cared, I'd go see one of the movies you're ripping off, because in most cases, it was infinitely better than the tub of lard you just belched out in front of me and called a movie.

Hey, Kid, you want to see a magic trick? No thank you.

I don't want to be barraged with mind-blowing visual and sound effects at the expense of absolutely no character development or reason for me to care about the movie. Anyone can come up with a visually stunning way for someone to die, but it takes real talent to use it to kill a character in your movie and make me care. More than ever, I'm sick of Barbie-esque teens running around screaming, while large men with butcher's knives who don't know how to die stalk them. But--Hey, it sells tickets.

It's Only a Movie! - Part 2

To create suspense and a suspenseful environment, you have to hold your audience by the hand. The most important thing to remember, is you're leading them to the thrills. You're not rushing them to it on a forklift and then smashing them into the wall. There's a rhyme and meter to suspense, which leads them where you want to take them, then it skips a beat, and then you're there.

Today's Horror Films tend to go two ways on this. They either speed through it to get to the payoff, because after all, they did spend millions of dollars and hundreds of manhours making the special effects, who cares about all of that character development and suspense hokum?, or they over-exacerbate the suspense to the point where the payoff could never make up for the anguish you just had to endure getting there. I call the latter The De Palma Syndrome.

The most important factor to suspense and the subsequent fear that follows is character development. The audience has to actually care about the people in the movie. They have to feel something about them--good or bad. They also have to be able to connect with them. If the characters are completely unlikeable, where's the horror? You don't care if they live, and in all actuality, you want to see them die.

But Ashley is a 16-year-old teenager who never hurt a fly, and the big man with the butcher's knife is going to kill her... Who cares!?

When the audience cares about the characters and connects with them, they begin to put themselves in their shoes. They begin to think, what if that were me? What would I do in this situation? That's when you have them where you want them. That's when you can scare them. This has been the number one downfall of practically every Horror Film for at least the last fifteen years.

In case you were wondering, this is a Director.

Notice, he's not holding a turkey.

The thing filmmakers need to realize, is they're magicians. They're making illusions, doing sleight of hand, and every other trick in the book. They have to treat their audience just like a master magician would. The audience is not stupid, you're going to have to work your rear off to pull the wool over their eyes, and don't forget--never let them see the wires.

No one would know who Houdini, Blackstone, or Copperfield were if they made even a fourth of the mistakes most filmmakers do, and filmmakers have the luxury of multiple takes and editing. As many people as there are who go over a film through its creation process, it's completely unforgivable to botch it up as bad as your average Horror Film.

There was no greater director in the history of film than Alfred Hitchcock, and his success was completely based off him always staying at least one step ahead of the audience and understanding the value of suspense. To quote Hitchcock, "There is no terror in a bang, only the anticipation of it."

It's not how they die, it's how bad the audience defecated themselves before they died. Today's Directors would do well to take this advice and realize suspense is greater than blood-splattering gore. It's also cheaper.

It's Only a Movie! - Part 1

In order to make a working Horror Film, your audience must suspend their belief. Suspension of belief is the primary element of any film, but in the Horror genre, it's an imperative. This is something which is not only lost on today's filmmakers, it seems to be completely beyond their grasp.

Today's Horror Movies are nothing more than fluff, and most of them border on pornography. It's eighty to ninety minutes of who-ever-heard-of-them teen actors running around screaming while the killer stalks them, so he can kill them in the next really cool way the writer or director thought up from watching a billion other lousy slasher flicks.

Why is the killer killing them? Because he's crazy. If you're looking for something psychologically deeper than that, there's always Transformers 2 next door. After all, we all know that is what you do when you are crazy. You don't smear peanut butter all over your naked body and go streaking through the mall; you relentlessly kill new and uninteresting teenagers in new and uninteresting ways, because it's what you gotta do!

Oh, and sometimes...ssshh come over here. Okay, now don't tell anyone...sometimes, other people are in on it with you. I know Dude, true story.

I saw Prom Night the other day--the remake. I'm going to try and keep this as brief as possible, because I generally don't aim for people to fall asleep in the middle of my articles. I also want to preface this by telling you that at about twenty-five to thirty minutes in, Countdown with Keith Olbermann actually looked like a viable viewing alternative.

Cutting over bits that would make this movie actually seem interesting, the basic idea is a teacher, who is crazy and obsessed with a student, kills her family and almost kills her. Fast-forward to whatever randomly decided upon time increment later--usually six months or three years. She's living with her Aunt and Uncle in a new place where no one seems to know about her past issues. It's Prom Night. As she's getting prepped and heading to the Prom, the psycho teacher breaks out of the loony bin and makes his way to the Prom.

The Prom is in a swanky hotel, the dance is held in one of the auditoriums, and if you haven't already guessed, he starts killing everyone. Here's the problem with this movie: The Killer. Okay, so that's far from the only problem, but it's the one I've narrowed down.

Since when does being crazy make you a Ninja Master? I really wish someone could explain this to me. Political Pundits said racism was the elephant in the room no one was talking about. I say the idea that just being crazy and having the urge to kill makes you James Bond meets Jack the Ripper is trumpeting like the brass section down at the Copacabana over in the corner, and we need to take it down and sell its tusks on the Black Market to bankroll a real movie.

If anybody asks, I'm not here...hic!

There are three key elements to making a working Horror Movie. For the purposes of this Blog, I will give you four:

1. Suspension of belief.
2. Suspense.
3. Fear.
4. $$$$ CHA-CHING $$$$ (aka Profit)

When you make a Horror Film, ninety-five percent of the elements which make up the story exist in the realm of fantastical. When you make the film, you are making a pact with your audience--a prenuptial agreement. You are saying:

If you, The Audience, do solemnly promise to accept the fact that Robot Zombie Ninjas, which will hereafter be refered to as Ninzombots, could indeed exist in all of the badassitudinosity we are about to display, I, The Director, do solemnly promise not to deliver you Wank Handerson, the gun-dropping Hero who expends over 2,000 bullets and only hits 3 Ninzombots, yet dodges every projectile sent in his direction minus the one that grazes his leg just because it looks cool to kill Ninzombots with a limp. I additionally promise not to forget exactly what the message or plot of my movie was at approximately 15 minutes before the end, making you feel like a complete sucker.

It is very rare that the subject matter of a Horror Film produces suspension of belief from the audience without asking, and usually asking very nicely with buttered popcorn on top. It is at that point, however, when you can actually start to get down to business.

The business of a Horror Film is to scare and frighten the audience. Once they've accepted the demons you've created, then you can get to the fun part.

Sticky Fingers and The Sultan of Swat...Sort of

It was the summer of 1989 when two kids met for the first time out on the baseball field in New Sharon, ME. I remember the first time I saw Brett Andrew Griswold, he was the spitting image of Bart Simpson and just as mischievous. Although I was a little bigger than Brett, we were both bigger than most eleven-year-olds--a fact that made us both popular and beneficial to the team.

We became friends from the first time we talked. We had many things in common. We had both had health problems when we were younger. I had suffered from Asthma, and he had issues with a congenital heart condition. Because of this, we had both been frail and hadn't ever been very physically active.

I'm not sure what the driving force for either of us was to play baseball, but we both had a want and a need to play. We had both tried out for the local Little League team and had been rejected. They were a bunch of elitist jackasses and told us both we would never make it. Neither of us were much into being told no, especially from a smug Dairy Farmer who thought he was a baseball coach, so we didn't give up and tried out for the Farm League.

That was where we met, out on the baseball diamond. Brett made Pitcher and I made Second Base. As I said before, I'm not sure what drove us to play baseball to begin with, but after about the fourth week of practice, we both saw the movie Major League and the rest is history.

This guy's the out you've been waiting your whole life for.

Brett was a very sweet kid and had a big heart, but he also had a temper. One of the funnier stories of our childhood friendship was how I got my first BB Gun. I got twenty-five dollars from my dad and bought it from Brett's mother. He had shot a neighbor kid who he didn't like after they got into an argument, so his parents had taken it away from him. They were afraid he would just do something like that again, so if I hadn't have bought it, they would have thrown it away.

It was due to one of his fits of temper that our friendship became cemented. During one of the early scrimmages in the season, he got into a fight with one of the kids from the opposing team and the Umpire over a call on a pitch, and after a few expletives, he was benched for three games.

He was not only our best pitcher, he was basically our only pitcher, so the coach asked for volunteers to replace him for the three games. Being a good friend, I volunteered. If Brett couldn't pitch, at least he could rest easy knowing someone who wasn't going to try and steal his position was substituting for him.

It turns out that not only was I good at it, I had the best fastball in the league. My first game, I pitched a perfect game. Not exactly what we had planned, but I still didn't take his position. I remained on Second Base and only pitched as an alternate.

We were a new team in the league, and we were waiting for it to come down from the powers-that-were as to what our team's name would be. I'm not sure if it was a cosmic joke or some kind of crazy fate, but we were designated The Indians. We wore that mantle with pride and made it stand for something. Between Brett's Rollie Fingers pitching and my Babe Ruth hitting, we brought the team to victory for the two seasons we played.

As for our moment of glory, the first scrimmage of our second season was against the Little League team that shot us down--The Yankees. We beat the pants off of them, and then rubbed it in. They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I don't know about that, but it's pretty damned tasty.

Around the beginning of 1992, my parents had decided they wanted to visit Israel. Family friends had moved there some months earlier and the father's boss called my father to offer him a job. It was an opportunity of a lifetime that neither of my parents wanted to turn down, so they went for it.

Brett and my relationship was somewhat strained for the rest of the time we had together. We were more than friends, we were brothers, and we were about to be separated. Neither of us officially knew how long it would be, or if we'd ever see each other again, but in our hearts, we both knew it was the end. We even tried to get his mother to let him come with us, but she understandably said no.

In August, we said our goodbyes and that was that. I wrote him a few times, but in the end it was too painful, so I just stopped writing. There hasn't been a day of my life I didn't think about him. A few years back, I searched Myspace and saw that he had a page. He looked happy and like he was doing okay.

I thought about re-establishing a connection with him, but in the end I thought it would be best to just leave things the way they were, with all the good memories intact. Last night I found out my friend, Brett Andrew Griswold, died on April 17th, 2008. He died of natural causes, due to his congenital heart condition. He was 29.

His mother, Ellen, died three days ago. I'm still not sure, but I think if I had it to do over again, I can't say that I would have been any better at staying in touch with him, but I think I would have at least sent him an e-mail when I found him a few years ago.

He was my best and only friend in my childhood, and he will be missed.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Article 1 Article 2

I've heard of getting blood from a turnip, but this is nuts:

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida woman was sentenced on Monday to a year and a day in prison for keeping her dead mother's body in a bedroom for years while collecting more than $230,000 in pension benefits, prosecutors said.

Penelope Sharon Jordan, 61, of Sebastian, Florida, pleaded guilty to theft of government funds in June, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said.

I can't even begin to imagine what has to be going through your mind to do something like this. To say that it's heinous is the understatement of the Century. The worst part is, I know someone is out there right now saying, "I'm sure she had her reasons..." Let the cringing begin.

Jordan told the court she concealed her mother's death in order to continue collecting her Social Security and military pension benefits. Over a six-year period she received $61,415 in Social Security payments and $176,461 from the military pension.

She was ordered to repay $237,876 to the government.

I can haz phat lewtz?

Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Let's forget all about this woman's greedy, ghoulish acts for money, who cares? The government is going to get their money back! After all, we're sending the rest of Society a message. If you hide your mother's dead body in your spare bedroom and collect her pension for more than six years, all you'll have to do is one year and one day in prison and pay the money back.

I'm sure by the time Penny gets out she'll be able to declare bankruptcy and not have to pay back a dime, if they don't just auction off her house. Either way, the punishment definitely does not fit the crime. It just seems to me like we would want to put more value on human life and on dignity in death.

Here's To The Losers

In a CBS interview with Katie Couric which airs tonight, Glenn Beck has said, "I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama."

When asked about Hillary Clinton, Beck said, "I can't believe I'm saying this...I think I would have much preferred Hillary Clinton as president and may have voted for her against John McCain."

Beck is very open about the fact that he did not vote in the last election.

This interview and Beck's statements have become fast controversy and are all over the internet. In one article I read from The Huffington Post, there were already 71 pages of comments. However, there was one comment in particular from user Sadie1976 that got me thinking:

I've heard several conservatives make this remark, that they "might have" voted for Hillary! (Operative word being "might"!) They must think this makes them sound "cool" or "open minded"! I'd like to hear details about that thought process! Hillary is pro-health care, pro-choice...all the ideals that make the president a "demon" in their eyes, Hillary pretty much stand for also! I don't buy it for a minute!

Although Hillary may share a lot of the same ideas as Barack Obama because they are both leftist Democrats, the major difference between them is that Hillary lacks charisma. This is why she would have been a better choice at this moment for President.

Because she lacks charisma, and definitely the amount Obama seems to display, she would be limited in what she could feasibly pull off. Which means, we wouldn't be in the whitewash that is the Health Care Bill right now. Hillary would never have been able to pull it off. The last time she tried, it killed the second term of Bill Clinton.

Now with 99.99% more Pork!

The Health Care debate is the stuffed monkey being shaken over the crib to divert the attention off the real issue at hand--The Economy. While the economy is still in the dumps with no visible signs of improvement, we're being told that "The Most Important Issue of the Day is Health Care". Not only is this statement completely false, it's ridiculous.

The most important issue of the day is the economy, but because Barack Obama has no idea how to fix it, and hasn't done a single thing to improve it in his nine months in office, he's diverting everyone's attention with health care. Oh, but don't worry, every so many days we get another propagated lie thrown to us about how the economists are saying we've hit bottom, or how unemployment rates aren't so bad this month.

They actually said in the news that because last month's unemployment rates were far less than that of January's, that proved things in the job market were getting better. All it proved was a decrease in the number of jobs to be lost. You can only fire or layoff so many people in a company before you're going to have to close your doors. That's a math equation you can't argue with.

Because Barack Obama is President, and holds a great amount of charisma (which is still lost on me), he can pull off these diversions. If Hillary were President, she'd have to focus on the issue at hand and take care of it. We wouldn't be talking about Health Care, we wouldn't still be smearing on the ointment from The Obama Stimulus Plan, we'd be seeing the economy improving and more importantly, we wouldn't care about any of this, because we'd be at work--oblivious.

They say that Beck is a "pot stirrer" and that he's only doing this for more attention and to stay in the public eye. That may be so, but he's got a point.

With Friends Like These...

Article

The anti-Zionist oratory of Dovid Weiss drew an impassioned crowd of about 30 people on the UA Mall yesterday, many of whom held signs or wore stickers to protest Weiss’s appearance on campus.

Dressed in a dark suit and a wide-brimmed hat, Weiss dismissed the different sects of Judaism, and called for an end to the Jewish state of Israel.

“There’s no such thing as reform, reforming, be more conservative, there’s one thing: the acceptance of the covenant that God gave us on Mount Sinai,” he said.

There has been an issue which has been on-going for a great many years. An issue which has both gone on unchecked and without any form of real criticism. It is known to all, but is the dirty little secret which no one talks about. I speak, of course, about the American Jew.

American Jews like to talk a good story. They like to pull the Jewish card out whenever they can for whatever it gets them, but at the end of the day, they are the furthest thing from Jewish you can get. American Jews are spoiled, pampered, and have no idea about what it means to be Jewish or what the Jewish Struggle is even about.

They mostly live hedonistic lives, completely devoid of any Judaic practices or beliefs. By enlarge, they are Liberals and Leftists; if you really looked into it, you would probably find that they're not just left, they're fringe left. There are also a great many who are Atheists.

You can always spot them, they're the ones eating pork, seafood, and anything else they can find that goes against Kosher Law. They're the ones working on the Saturday Sabbath. They're the ones constantly smack talking Israel and trying to stab them in the back. They're the ones finding any way they can to rebel and repel their Jewish heritage.

However, all of this is quite okay, because at the end of the day, they donate a sum to The Jewish National Fund or some other Jewish organization. They're in no way Jewish, but they pay other people to be "Good Jews" so they don't have to be. They pay others to bare the brunt of the Jewish Conflict, so that it soothes their conscience for completely betraying their heritage and way of life.

They get to experience America, its liberties, its freedoms, its dream, 24/7's, while the real Jews fight the good fight.

Ha Shalosh Haverim

While the Jews in Israel don't know whether they're going to live through the day, American Jews are trying to decide whether they want soy milk in their latte from Starbucks, or if they should say to hell with the few extra calories and get the whole milk.

While the Jews in Israel struggle in vain, day in and day out, to find some solution to a peace with the Palestinians so they can save every Jewish life possible, American Jews are trying to figure out whether they want a BlackBerry or an iPhone, and whether or not they should ditch their Myspace page and start a Facebook page or have both.

While the Jews in Israel struggle with the issue of whether or not to damn the torpedoes and tell the World to mind their own business, and just do what they all know they're going to have to do, American Jews are trying to figure out how they're going to spin their next leftist Blog or Op-ed piece in the New York Times admonishing the Israelis for trying to survive and save their country.

One of the passages of this article which really stood out for me was:

Azad Molla, a political science senior, came to the protest after being invited by a friend via Facebook. He said he hadn’t heard of Weiss before, but came to see what he had to say.

What struck him most, he said, was how two opposing groups could peacefully disagree with each other.

Molla was born in France to Middle-Eastern parents, and said this type of discussion could not have taken place in the Middle East.

Of course this type of discussion could not have taken place in the Middle East. Why? Because over there, this type of discussion is about Life and Death. In America, where everything is hunky-dory, we have the luxury of such things. In Israel, where rockets are flying and buses and buildings are being blown to pieces by Hamas, they don't have the time or the inclination to entertain such discussions.

It's really easy to be an Armchair Quarterback from the safety of your little American homes. Where were you when 9/11 happened? Crying about injustice and atrocity, screaming for blood, and demanding vengeance.

9/11 was one event. This is what Israel has to live with every day. It's not about whether or not it's going to happen; it's about whether or not it's going to happen before the terrorists have their shawarma and Mitzli or after.

I'm not sure which is the sadder state of affairs, that an organization like Neturei Karta International exists, that it was started in Israel, or that they would find receptive ears to their message amongst Americans. As the saying goes: With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Mr. Peanut? Dr. Kevorkian Will See You Now.

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Being the worst President to ever hold office, and someone who disgraced the Oval Office worse than Richard Nixon and William Clinton put together, it was really no surprise when Jimmy Carter opened his comically gigantic mouth this week. When speaking of the public outcry against President Obama, and more to the point, Senator Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's speech to Congress about the health care bill, Mr. Carter had this to say:

''I think it's based on racism,'' Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. ''There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.''

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

''Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,'' he said. ''It's deeper than that.''

To this, I quote one of the greatest American Presidents who, oddly enough, said this to Mr. Carter during a debate, right after he was prattling on about national health insurance (aka government health care): "There you go again." Shortly after that, Ronald Reagan saved America from the utter degradation and despair Mr. Carter had imposed upon this great nation.

Although the jury is still out on whether or not Obama will indeed hold up to being worse than Carter, it's no small wonder that Obama would retain Carter's empathy. As they say, birds of a feather can't accept the fact that Americans don't like a President and his sophomoric policies...or something like that.

Oh, the nostalgia...

The public disdain for Barack Obama couldn't be the fact that a Democrat President, with a Democrat Congress, and a Democrat Senate can't even get a pizza delivered. Of course not. Americans love to fail miserably and be complete ineffectual jack-asses, right?

Forget about the Constitution, Capitalism, Cotton Gin, Railroad, Gold Rush, Mount Rushmore, Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Panama Canal, Twin Towers, Women's Suffrage, Affirmative Action, Microsoft, or electing the first African-American President. Americans aren't achievers! We're lazy, ineffective, bullying, terrorizing, racists who love to spend money like it's going out of style, cause when it all runs out, we'll print more!

We should all be listening to the wisdom of Jimmy Carter. Anyone who is not only the worst American President in history, but also the worst Former American President in history, has to have something of value to tell us. Who better than the President the World laughed at to tell us all about the President who is making the World laugh at us all over again?

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should not listen to Mr. Carter. Maybe we should send him a message. Maybe we should tell Mr. Carter, "Your time has come and gone. Please Sir, have the common decency Edward Kennedy had and exit, stage left."

Tweeting Doctor Freud...

I don't hold much appreciation for the "prophecies" of Nostradamus. I don't think a civilization which ended due to their practice of sacrificing humans to paint the walls of their temples got it right just because their calender ends at 2012. Perhaps they were running out of people to sacrifice that day and the calender-dude's time was literally up. I didn't think the World was going to end because the turn of the Century was going to make some computers shut down, and I would suggest to you not to hold your breath if you're waiting for the asteroid/comet to hit. All of that being said, I think the Zombie Apocalypse is upon us.

I'm not sure what word can describe the face I pulled when I saw the news today. If I were to guess, I'd say it would take at the very least two words connected by a hyphen, or just a Top Ten List. Shock, surprise, horror, disgust, fear...then my mind did a 360 inside of itself and traveled via wormhole to another galaxy for about six nanoseconds before returning with a hard thwack! up against my cranium. If a Jager hangover had sex with a crystal-meth detox and they had children, that's what my brain felt like, and then I got a nose bleed.

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A 35-year-old Michigan woman, who for the purposes of this blog will be called Aimee Louise Sword, which happens to work out nicely because that's her real name, decided to track her long-lost son down via the internet. Ms. Sword, who had given the boy up for adoption, used the various tools at her disposal, Google, Myspace, Facebook (You heard it here first, Facebook is The Devil!), et al to find him. It's rumored she even used Bing, but we all know no one uses Bing.

Now, I understand this is something we've all heard about--thousands of times, but what you don't understand, is this is the part where John Denver rises from the grave and starts munching brains down at the 7-11 while the elevator version of Rocky Mountain High plays in the background.

Aimee Louise Sword of Waterford Township, near Detroit, was arraigned this week on three charges of criminal sexual conduct for the alleged rape of her biological son, whom she put up for adoption more than 10 years ago, MyFOXDetroit reported.

Prosecutors say the boy is still a minor, but won't disclose whether he knew the woman was his mother — a situation that has horrified mental health experts who are calling the case "an abomination."

You can blink now.

"I don't think I've heard of another case like this in my career," said Dr. Gerald Shiener, chief of Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry at Sinai Grace Hospital in Detroit.

"Our first reaction to hearing about something like this is that this is every man's nightmare. It's an abomination," he told MyFOXDetroit.

"I'm at a loss for words because it's something that we consider to be so out of the normal, so prohibited in every culture that it unnerves every man just to think about it."

At this point, I really wanted to use the "I'm at a loss for words" line too, but it obviously doesn't work when you're in the middle of the article.

This is what Evil looks like. I always knew Evil was a woman!

The only absolute in all of this, is Sigmund Freud wishes he was still alive for this. Of course, with John Denver already up and at 'em, who knows?

I have to say I completely disagree with the good Doctor. This is not every man's nightmare. Why? Because even in the fantastical places my mind goes, I never in a million years would have thought up something this sick and messed up. I'm a very intellectual person, I practically live in my mind. My imagination is so vast, I dream in Pixar animation. Yet, upon reading this, I threw up my lunch, and when it hit the floor it landed in a formation which read WTF?!?!

Sword's attorney Kenneth Burch told the Press that his client "maintains her presumption of innocence" and said the accusations of incest have been very difficult for her.

But Sword herself has spoken since she first was arrested, writing on her MySpace page that she was inspired by rapper and former jailbird Lil' Kim because "she rises during the worst of obstacles."

"Reminded me of myself," Sword wrote on the Web page, where she uses the name Aimee Pope.

I sure feel relieved to know she "maintains her presumption of innocence" and has accepted Lil' Kim as her personal savior. I'd sigh right now, but the only way you can do that in written form is to quote something from Sylvia Plath, and my higher brain functions are starting to shut down causing me to lose the ability to Google, copy, or paste.

A very wise man, who for the purposes of this blog will be called Solomon, once said: There is nothing new under the sun. I have a feeling that if this is indeed a new occurrence, it's only because the internet works better than carrier pigeons.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

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Living in America, if my name was Muntazer, I'd probably change it. Of course, I'd probably change my name if it was Lance too, but that's something for another blog. However, one thing is for sure, if my name was Muntazer al-Zaidi and I lived in Iraq, I'd go out and immediately get a t-shirt that read: I'm Muntazer al-Zaidi.

Muntazer al-Zaidi will come home to a hero's welcome tomorrow when he is released from prison. He will be coming home to his many fans, some who have also offered him tribute:

• The Emir of Qatar has pledged a golden statue of a horse.

• An organization headed by the daughter of Colonel Gaddafi of Libya awarded him a medal.

• An Iraqi living in Morocco has offered the hand of his daughter and women from across the Arab world rang his newspaper asking to marry him.

• His company has bought him a new house.

• Businessmen have offered to pool together to buy him a sports car.

• He has been offered jobs by several Arab television networks.

• A Saudi businessman offered to buy one of his infamous shoes for $10 million, but they were instead tested for explosives by the US military and then burned.

Women want him, men want to be him.

That's what it means to be The Muntazer.

Zaidi, who is a journalist for al-Baghdadiya, had mostly made a reputation from reporting on the deaths and injuries caused by American forces' raids. However, it was another kind of reporting which landed him as a household name around the World.

Zaidi catapulted into the international spotlight when he stood up in the middle of a press conference being given in December in Baghdad by President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

"It is the farewell kiss, you dog," he shouted before hurling the first shoe. "This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq," he went on, as he threw the second.

He was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state, later reduced to one year. He has served nine months, with time off for good behaviour.

Now, I had once thought only horses throw shoes, but apparently irrate journalists do as well. It was never confirmed if The Shoe Heard Round The World was Gucci or Prada, but one thing is for certain--Muntazer was fast, but ol' GW was faster. Which gets me to my real point here. Although the World thinks Muntazer is on some deity status for throwing shoes at George W. Bush, I say he's a loser because he missed. Twice.

Is this the World we live in now? This guy is being treated like he's the shoe-thowing second coming of Roger Clemens, and he missed! Way to aim high, people! Seriously, if you're going to throw shoes at someone, especially The President of the United States, wouldn't you put some stank on it so he can't get away from it? I realize Texans are spry, but come on.

Then there's the fact that he threw shoes. To quote Austin Powers, "Who throws a shoe?!?!" I realize that in Arab culture, it means something to hit someone with the bottom of your shoe. I get it. To this I say, "Find a new insult."

How stupid are you, that you go into a press conference with The President of the United States, take your shoes off, and throw them at him? What exactly was your exit plan? You weren't going to get far without your shoes!

Although it would have been really cool to have seen GW pull a sixgun and start blasting, I was still proud of him that day, if for no other reason than he proved what an agile SOB he is. Dude has game.

Finally, it's hard for me to find a moral in all of this. I can't decide whether I should be telling Muntazer to just scream, "You lie!" next time, or if I should be telling Senator Joe Wilson to just throw shoes next time. I guess it must be true what Liberals tell me, it's not always black and white.

El Jesucristo es Mi Copiloto

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A Mexican singer and former drug-addict-turned-Protestant-Priest hijacked a plane in Cancun yesterday. Jose Mar Flores Pereira, 44, claimed he was just doing the Lord's work, after he had a revelation. From the pictures, I would think his revelation should be a career change as a Liberace impersonator, but much to the chagrin of the Mexican Authorities, this was not the case.

While Flores Pereira acted alone, Mexican officials said they originally detained five other people because the hijacker had told a flight attendants he was acting with accomplices, referring to himself and "God and the Holy Spirit."

Flores Pereira told authorities he acted to protect the country after having "a revelation that Mexico was facing a great danger, and was threatened by an earthquake," public security official Genaro Garcia Luna told reporters.

The priest, brought out for questioning by the media, told reporters his actions were linked to Wednesday's date -- September 9, 2009 -- because the numbers 9/9/9 were the opposite of 6/6/6 the numbers associated with the AntiChrist.

The movie documenting Flores Pereira's revenge on God and the Holy Spirit for leaving him holding the bag at the heist is due out next Summer. Don't bother trying to see it in the theaters, it's already sold out indefinitely, and I just gave them the idea two minutes ago.

All the passengers -- most of whom had no idea they had been taken hostage -- were safely evacuated as security forces swarmed Mexico's international airport within minutes of the plane landing.

The airline said it was originally alerted to the situation after it "received a bomb threat while in flight," according to a statement.

"It wasn't a bomb," a smiling Flores Pereira told reporters after his arrest. "It was three Jumex (juice) cans that I filled with sand and put some little colored lights on."

Finally, a crime involving juice that OJ Simpson can truly say he's innocent of. For someone who had a revelation from God of impending doom, and was then sent forth on a mission to save all of Mexico, this guy didn't really do a lot of planning. He had time to fill three juice cans up with sand and glue lights to them, but he didn't have time to call in his bomb threat until after he was on the plane? No wonder no one on the plane knew he was hijacking it.

When you absolutely, positively have to hijack that plane...Jumex.

Flores Pereira had demanded to fly over the airport "seven times" and to speak with President Felipe Calderon, Garcia Luna said. Calderon canceled his afternoon meetings to head to the sprawling airport.

The alleged hijacker was also said to be a former prisoner and drug addict from Bolivia, who has lived in Mexico for 17 years.

Sources in La Paz confirmed Flores Pereira was of Bolivian nationality, and recounted that Mexican authorities had said he "apparently suffers some sort of mental disorder."

And that's how you avoid being the laughing stock of the World. I just want everyone to be aware, not only is he insane, he's Bolivian--NOT MEXICAN! Now that we've cleared that up, go get me some Jumex, Pepito. Gracias.

The Craigslist Killer Strikes Again!

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I know there are some out there who would consider this no laughing matter. To those people, I politely say: Lighten up. It would appear that the latest victim of the renown Craigslist Killer is none other than Legal Prostitution. According to the above article, through an oversight of the Rhode Island legislation, they created a loophole in a law which allowed the legal exercise of prostitution with the singular stipulation that it be done indoors.

All forms of prostitution were illegal in the state until 1980, when legislators -- while amending the existing law to speed up prosecution -- inadvertently deleted the section that addressed the actual act of prostitution. The result was that the only thing that remained illegal was street solicitation, since police mostly use anti-loitering laws to arrest streetwalkers.

This legal loophole went unnoticed and police weren't thwarted until 2003, when Providence lawyer Michael Kiselica was representing sex workers in a case before the state district court here. He acknowledged to a Providence city prosecutor that the women had offered sex for money to undercover police but asserted no state law was broken. The case was dismissed.

Kudos to Mikey and shame-shame on RI legislators. At this time, I would like to slowly enjoy this moment as I point out the irony of the situation. The legislators were amending a law to allow them to rush prosecutions on prostitutes and ended up rushing the amendment instead, overlooking a major line of verbiage, which then allowed for the legalization of prostitution.

It wasn't me! It was the one-armed man with the white out!!!

Somehow I get this vision in my mind of a man standing on a beach with an umbrella. He looks up to the sky, opens the umbrella, and lifts it over his head. Then the Tsunami hits.

State legislators have tried to restore the law for years, but fell short in the face of opposition by some lawmakers, civil libertarians and academics, who said that allowing the arrest of prostitutes could end up punishing victims of human trafficking.

This year, however, momentum to change the law has grown. Bills have passed both the Rhode Island House and Senate, and the two bodies are now meeting to craft a common piece of legislation to send to the governor.

The new momentum is partly a response to the so-called Craigslist killing. Medical student Philip Markoff was indicted in Massachusetts in June on charges of killing a woman at an upscale Boston hotel who had advertised on the "exotic services" section of Craigslist. Rhode Island officials also charged Mr. Markoff with assault and intent to commit robbery of a stripper he had arranged to meet at a hotel in the state.

It always perplexes me how we can't ever make a stance on something and make a change because something is wrong; we always have to use something that's virtually unrelated to make our point stick.

Oldest profession or not, prostitution is immoral and wrong. You can argue all day long about how it's going to happen no matter what, so why not legalize it and then bring out the grocery list of things that legalization will stop. It makes no difference. If it's wrong, we shouldn't be advocating the benefits of legalizing it, we should make a conscious effort to stamp it out. Instead our politicians, city officials, judges, and law enforcement let prostitutes walk in exchange for free service.

So now we're going to grasp at straws and try to use an unfortunate set of events that has no real correlation to fix the law we broke. How politicized and bureaucratized is our system that we can't just fix a simple mistake like this without an act of God or Congress?

Mr. Markoff has pleaded not guilty to the Massachusetts charges and has not yet appeared in Rhode Island to answer charges there. His attorney did not immediately respond Friday to a phone message seeking comment.

At this point in the article, we would like to make a brief, obligatory announcement that we have no juevos and don't want to get sued, so we're not going to say that the guy, who we know is completely guilty, is in fact guilty (HE'S GUILTY!!!). Just to repeat, he said he was not guilty, and as far as this newspaper is concerned, that's good enough for us (HE'S GUILTY!!!). Thank you for your understanding in this matter (HE'S GUILTY, I SAY, GUILTY!!!).

Opponents of the change argue that indoor prostitution is safer for women, among other things. Tara Hurley, a Rhode Island filmmaker who did a documentary on sex workers, this summer organized prostitutes who are opposed to the law change to testify at the State House. A reporter accompanied her on Thursday to a Providence spa that she says offers sex. The spa was on the second floor of a mostly vacant office building.

After ringing a buzzer, guests were admitted by an older woman. Ms. Hurley said most spas have an "Imo," the Korean word for aunt, who cooks and cleans. In a den, off a dimly lit hallway, another woman who said she was an employee sat on a couch in pajamas, munching popcorn and watching a Korean movie.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said she is 41 and that she works at the spa for the money, some of which she sends back to her native Korea to help her family. She said she hopes the state law is not changed. "Nobody likes this work, but they are taking care of their families," she said.

Okay, they pulled out the, "I didn't know how much badder things were for these bad people until I made a movie about them and then it, like, changed my sociopolitcal views on the subject cause, like, just fifteen minutes of filming anything and you just, like, understand all of this...stuff about things." defense. That changes everything. They should have said this at the beginning of the article, then I would have avoided all of those paragraphs of using my brain and judging the situation for the bumbling mistake it was. Sheesh. These people need to take a Journalism class or something. Oh, and like, think of the children. Whoa...I think I just blew my mind!

Among those fighting the brothels are nearby businesses. In Middletown, R.I., near Newport, a local toy store relocated 40 minutes away in August after the owners grew frustrated with doing business near what they believed was a brothel.

Eric and Hema Bulmer, owners of Pow! Science! said when they stopped by their store at night, they would see the spa's neon "open" sign lit and cars parked outside. During the day, men occasionally walked into the store and noticed that Mrs. Bulmer, who is a Nepalese immigrant, was a petite Asian woman. They immediately assumed the toy store was a front for a brothel, Mrs. Bulmer said.

"Guys look at you and think, this must be it," Mrs. Bulmer said, calling the unwanted attention "humiliating."

Now I don't know about you, but that's a Creep Factor of about 2,025. If I were them, I'd switch over to a Basque Restaurant just to be on the safe side. Who knows how long it will take them to get the legislative spackle out and fix this one?

The State of the Unions

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CINCINNATI (AP) - President Barack Obama declared Monday that modern benefits like paid leave, minimum wage and Social Security "all bear the union label," as he appealed to unions to help him win the health care fight in Congress.

"It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history. So, even if you're not a union member, every American owes something to America's labor movement," said Obama, whose run for the presidency was energized in no small part by unions.

Obama asserted that "our recovery plan is working," but repeated that he won't be satisfied until jobs are much more plentiful.

It was only a matter of time. His Health Care coup has failed miserably, and he's on the verge of losing everything. Just like Bill Clinton, who fell on his sword trying to pass a similar socialized medicine bill, Barack Obama has shown not only incompetency in his first nine months in office, but also the inability to learn from history. So now, in complete desperation, King Barack finally shows his hand. He has pled to The Unions, of whom he is deep in their pockets.

It was no surprise when we learned that SEIU-COPE-PAC paid $13,355,389.00 to his campaign fund. Their relationship was well documented on King Barack's own website:

"SEIU's members are temperamentally suited to Obama; he is a longtime friend of Chicago's SEIU Local 880 and worked closely with the union as an organizer and later as a state legislator."

There is also a connection between SEIU and ACORN. Which is no wonder considering Wade Rathke, was the founder and chief organizer of both ACORN and the SEIU local 100 in New Orleans. Is it really any wonder why he would be rallying to the SEIU and the United Healthcare Workers Union to help him strong-arm support from Americans for his Health Care Bill?

Yes, we can!

"We have never been this close," Obama said. "We have never had this broad an agreement on what needs to be done." He accused vested interests of trying to thwart it.

For their part, some elements within the labor movement have indicated frustration with Obama, who traveled to Cincinnati to speak to a state AFL-CIO gathering, because some key items such as legislation making it easier for people to join unions has languished in Congress. To vigorous cheers, Obama made a pitch for the bill in his speech. He also noted that the first bill he signed into law was one guaranteeing equal pay for equal work.

Considering his socialist politics, it really is no shock to see that he is a puppet for the Unions. Unions, afterall, are a socialist principle:

"...The need of having unions to improve the immediate situation of the workers and the advantages which grow out of these need not be examined. But the goal of the working class is the complete extermination of capitalism."

"...The object of the labor movement is to increase the strength of the proletariat to the point at which it can conquer the organized force of the bourgeoisie and thus establish its own supremacy. The power of the working class rests, in the first place, upon its members and upon the important role which it plays in the process of production. It constitutes an increasingly large majority of the population. Production proceeds upon a constantly increasing scale, and so is carried on more and more by wage-workers; and the relations of its branches grows constantly more complex. Under these circumstances workingmen find it possible through the strike to bring our whole social life to a standstill."

Everything Obama has done since he has been in office has been to cater to and benefit the Unions. The bailout of the Auto Industry, which heavily benefited and completely catered to the United Auto Workers Union, the second Stimulus Package, which had all kinds of pork and Easter eggs for the Unions, and now his Health Care Bill. I just can't wait for Cap and Trade, can you?

"The more the great body of workers take part in the war on capitalism, the more will labor union conflicts become social cataclysms, great political events; and thus the unions will be forced to take part in the political struggle. In these great struggles the old methods of parliamentary and labor union diplomacy will be found inadequate; the cleverness of sharp leaders and versatile spokesmen will be overshadowed by the power of the masses themselves. In the persons of the leaders, who develop according to the particular demands of each form of action, the political and union movements are different; in the persons who constitute the masses behind the leaders they are identical. Thus where the mass of the workers themselves come into action the dividing line between the two methods of struggle disappears; they march upon the field of battle to a single, undivided warfare against capitalism, armed with the class-consciousness, the discipline, the intelligence and the power of action gained in all previous conflicts; the union constitutes their organization; Socialism, their political intelligence."

It warms the cockles. I wonder how long it will be before he creates an Executive Branch Union? Of course, it will be in his Union Contract that he can't be replaced unless by unanimous decision of the members of the EBU. All Hail King Barack! All Hail the USSA!

White House, White Noise.

I, like many Americans, can remember what it was like watching George W. Bush making addresses and speeches. Although he tried very hard, it was obvious he was no orator. I remember sitting, watching him speak, and flinching as he butchered the English Language, almost as bad as Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Cal-ee-four-nee-uh". I now kick myself for every time I flinched. I would gladly take it all again, and in copious amounts, than one more second of the self-aggrandizing prattle inflicted upon us by President Obama.

It seems like nowadays, you can't even visit the lavatory without having to hear the consistent white noise in the background of Obama. He's addicted to press coverage. You can't go ten minutes without hearing Obama's voice. It's like some Poe-esque nightmare.

"In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls" -- Edgar Allan Poe - The Bells

He's the political equivalent of a two-year old tugging on your shirt saying, "...and you know what? And you know what? And you know what? Mommy...mommy...mommy... And you know what?" It makes me want to scream, but I've resigned myself to blogging instead.

The moaning, and the groaning, and the droning, and the pwning...

Coming from a man and his administration who are bashing Bush's policies on torture, I would think he wouldn't want to employ one of the most common methods used: Repetitive Noise. I guess it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting as to whether it is ironic or appropriate that it's being used on the American Public. Especially considering we've recently been labeled terrorists for opposing The Government Health Care Plan. (I hope you noticed I did not refer to it as The Obama Health Care Plan, I figure since he didn't write it and he hasn't read it, he really deserves no credit.)

Every time his polls start to decline, he hits the airwaves in a filibuster of propaganda trying to stave off the drop in his approval rating. Creating sound-bite after sound-bite without anything new to say. Seriously, we've heard all the propaganda before, Barack. We all remember Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose, and Hanoi Hannah.

Americans are xenophobic, they will believe their own people rather than the adversary, even a friendly enemy voice. --Hanoi Hannah

I remember right after he won the Election. I was talking to my father, and I told him about a friend of mine who had stopped watching the news altogether, because he couldn't bear to hear or see one more second of the Obama hype that had assaulted the media and airwaves. (Little did he know, he was about to get sentenced to four years of hard time.) My father's reply to this was, "Just wait until he takes office." (Little did I know, Nostradamus had nothing on my father.)

Our only ray of hope in all of this, lies in the fact that everything he has to say is fed to him from the guy behind the teleprompter. Maybe, if we're lucky, he'll develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

Have a Cigar!

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Two of the bigger stories going through the Press recently are the growing momentum of The United States' recent interest in repairing relations with Cuba, and the impending revocation of aid to Honduras, which became a reality today. So it looks like we'll now be smoking Cuban cigars instead of Hondurans. It's a shame too, I really liked those Sancho Panza Double Maduros.

I can understand the glee The Obama Administration has for both really, because since we are now a fledgling socialist country, we need friends like Cuba. I can also understand our stance on Honduras:

The U.S. government joined the rest of the hemisphere in condemning Zelaya's ouster in June and supporting a deal proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that would restore Zelaya with limited powers.

But Honduras's de facto government, led by Roberto Micheletti, has rejected any return for Zelaya. The Micheletti government insists the removal of the president was legal because he had scheduled a public referendum on rewriting the constitution, in defiance of an order by the Supreme Court. Many Hondurans feared that Zelaya, an ally of left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was trying to engineer a second consecutive term despite a one-term constitutional limit.

Naturally, we would favor Zelaya, since he's friends with another left-wing socialist, Hugo Chavez, who many in The Obama Administration continually drop sound-bites of admiration for. You also can't really blame Zelaya, hijacking the system to keep control is nothing American Democrats wouldn't have done, look at Ted Kennedy:

A cancer-stricken US senator Ted Kennedy has asked Massachusetts leaders to change state law to allow a speedy replacement if it becomes necessary for him to surrender his seat, fearing a months-long vacancy would deny Democrats a crucial vote on Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul.

The note has been sent to Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and the state's senate president and house speaker at a time when Congress is considering an overhaul of the US healthcare system, a life cause of Kennedy's.

The letter acknowledges the state changed its succession law in 2004 to require a special election within five months to fill any vacancy. At the time, legislative Democrats were concerned then-Republican governor Mitt Romney would be able to fill any vacancy created as Democratic US senator John Kerry ran for president.

Let's not overlook the new big thing Obama has pulled right out of the Hugo Chavez Playbook:

At 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time (ET), September 8, 2009, President Barack Obama will deliver a national address to the students of America. (Please note that this is a change from the originally scheduled time.) During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

So this is his next step? He couldn't get the Clergy to hock his failed Health Care Plan, so now he's going after our children?

Tell Mommy and Daddy to back my Health Care Plan, Little Timmy,

and I'll give you this nice, new shiny iPod the Queen of England didn't want.

Obama can't sell his Socialism to us, so now he's going to indoctrinate the next generation. I'm sure he got that one from all of those late night conversations with Bill Ayers. Oh, but I'm sure that's just a baseless cheap shot. Obama is just being a good American President. I should go drink my kool-aid and stop being such a racist. Mmmm...cherry...

Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood.

The Enlightenment or Age of Enlightenment was the Big Bang of Humanity. It was the point where Society woke up and smelled the cosmos. What began with French Philosophers and spread throughout Europe was culminated in The American Revolution. We as Americans owe a lot to our French brothers. They paved the way to our eventual way of life.

Our Founding Fathers were all students of The Enlightenment, and as is often done in this country, they took it and made it better. What the French had bore and pioneered, men like Thomas Jefferson cultivated and made perfect. It is no surprise that the tide of the American Revolution was turned by the aid of the French. It is also no surprise that a French Revolution followed.

Throughout the history of this nation, our leaders have cultivated, nurtured, and grown the tenets of Liberty, Freedom, and Independence. They have held the torch of Democracy high and have set the example to the World. When our Founding Fathers declared that all men were created equal and had the inalienable right to freedom, they also knew that such an idea could not be contained or aggregated for personal consumption. The ideals of Liberty and Independence know no limitations and no borders.

John F. Kennedy said, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." He also called upon the public to assist in "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."

Today, these ideals live and breathe as if they were a sentient being. They have held the test of time, and they have spread throughout the World. On September, 11th 2001, The United States of America experienced a small taste of what another member of the Brotherhood of Liberty and Equality has had to endure for decades.

On May 14th, 1948, after enduring the genocide of The Holocaust and a recent civil war perpetrated on them by the Palestinians, the Jews of the United Nations partitioned State of Palestine, ran out the Palestinian aggressors and declared their independence from the British Mandate of Palestine. They have been in war and conflict ever since.

They are a bastion of Democracy, a satellite of Liberty and Freedom, in the midst of a sea of dictatorial oppression. They are a mirrored reflection of everything America and Democracy stands for, and they are our ally. During the commencement of the Iraq War, it was said that we were going to, "bring Democracy to the Middle East," to which I replied, "What is Israel?"

For too many years, the Israelis have been plagued by terrorists and an antisemitic worldview, which has been compounded by US Politicians trying to make a name or legacy for themselves through imposing a peace with their mortal enemies by making them give up the very land they have cultivated and fertilized with the blood of patriots.

What gives us the right to tell them they have to give their land away?

The US is trying to build relations with Cuba right now, to end the conflict between us and begin anew. What if Cuba demanded we give them the State of Florida in exchange for peace? What if the UN thought that was a great idea and told us we had to give Florida to Cuba and kiss and make up? How would we react to that?

Now, condense the USA to the size of Delaware, and that doesn't even come close to what we ask of Israel.

There will never be peace in the Middle East. They have been fighting since practically the dawn of time. That doesn't just end because some slick politician decides he wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, in a World where we are fighting Terrorism and the tactics of vile cowards, we expect for an ally, a member of the Brotherhood of Liberty and Equality, to acquiesce to them so we can all enjoy a good photo op.

I submit that if the Israelis do not deserve Israel, if they have indeed stole it from the Palestinians as many in the World believe, then Americans do not deserve America. The Israelis have done no more than we have; they took a country with great potential, ran the rabble off, and turned it into a great nation. If they cannot turn to us for help, if they cannot depend on us to be the nation that bore the Kennedy Doctrine, where is there hope or a future for Democracy?

Duck and Cough Into Your Sleeve

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I grew up in a small town. Population (approx.) 1200. As I look back on it, I had a good childhood, but I can't deny that I hated it to an extent. I never liked being a child. I always had a thirst for knowledge and experience, which being a child tends to stifle. Although I was given every opportunity to be a child and enjoy my childhood, I discarded it and did everything I could to move beyond it at a brisk pace.

At an age when most people are still naive and innocent, I was neither. That's not to say I did things I wasn't supposed to, but I knew about them. I knew about the things people do behind closed doors and in dark alleys, because I made sure I knew about them. Because of this approach, I spared myself from a lot of ugly moments in my life.

There are reflective moments which come and go where I sometimes wish I were more innocent than I am today. Things happen and I think to myself, "I wish the first thing I thought of when I saw that, was not what I'm thinking." However, one of the most important things I've learned from life, is that naïveté and innocence go hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. Because of this, when I am in those reflective moments, I politely wave to them and stomp on the gas. I would not take a single ounce of naïveté for ten gallons of innocence.

Naïveté is what leads to taking the candy from the stranger and getting into the van. As we've seen here recently with Jaycee Dugard, it doesn't pay. As we've seen with millions of cases, and with the continuing hundreds of thousands of people who go missing every year. Yet, this is only one area where it can lead you.

Is there room in there for two?

In the 50's and 60's, millions of Americans were literally told that if they hid under their desks, or even more shockingly--a newspaper, they could protect themselves from the carnage of an atomic bomb. This was a doctrine which was propagated even into the 80's. Astonishingly, people actually trusted their government enough, they believed it.

Today, as our government lies to us about their level of preparedness for H1N1, and more to the point, their level of knowledge as to what it even is or how it works, we can hear the gears grinding into motion as yet another "Duck and Cover" type of propaganda campaign begins.

This time, we'll be washing our hands a lot, coughing into our sleeves, and staying home from work when we are ill to prevent attaining and spreading the deadly virus. This is told to us by our ever trustworthy Federal Government who is doing "everything possible" to prepare for an outbreak. I don't know about you, but I've already started stockpiling long-sleeve shirts in anticipation. Don't judge me people, I'm just doing my part.

The two deadliest enemies to the ways of the World are Knowledge and Common Sense. They are your sword and shield. It is time for us to arm ourselves and start slaying the dragons.