My Brother's Phone

My brother's a stand-up guy. If he says something, he means it, if he commits to something, he does it. he's honest, thoughtful, considerate, deeply spiritual. You know, all the qualities you or I would have if we had the energy or inclination. Once he stopped a table full of ruffians in a Snohomish Washington bar from relieving me of my box of Sherman cigarettes. Just by grabbing one of the guys by the arm, looking him in the eye and saying "no". My response would've been more along the lines of asking them if they needed a light. He also walked into Manhattan from Brooklyn on 9/11, somehow found his wife and daughter and walked them back home. Like I said, a guy you can count on.
In most respects. Let's just say he's technologically "challenged". The 21st century doesn't quite fit. I get the impression he'd be perfectly content to live out his life in a moss covered hut on the coast of Ireland, writing, painting and reading Joyce until his eyes bled. No cardigan is too ugly (or fuzzy), no natural fabric is too itchy (or ugly), imagine a sartorial cross between Mr. Rogers and Grizzly Adams and you get the idea. My brother will send my kids a tofu sculpting kit in lieu of the copy of Call of Duty III that I suggested. He sends me freakin' letters, for Christ sake. He approaches the computer like it's going to burst into flames at any second. He borrows my niece's laptop and she stands behing him rolling her eyes so hard I'm afraid she's going to need corrective lenses.
Our dad has ended up in the hospital for a few days so I tried to contact my brother on his cell to give him daily updates:

ring ring ring ring ring ring...the Alltel customer you are trying to reach is unavailable, please try again later. (click).

WTF? Did you know you can get a cell phone plan without voicemail? I didn't. When I finally get ahold of him I suggest that he pay the extra 50 cents a month and get voice mail. This I think irritates him but the connection is so bad I can barely hear him. Somewhere in the static he keeps telling me there is nothing wrong with his phone. I suggest texting. No go. I suggest pulling out the antenna and hooking up the knapsack battery pack to a car battery. This irritates him further and he repeats that his Verizon service is just fine. Then it disconnects. I call back and get the Alltel message. Maybe that's the problem. My his phone doesn't know who it belongs to. We need to straighten this out. I'll send him a letter.

Heeere's Jesus!

Looks like Death knocked on Ed's door to deliver his prize for winning the Eternity Clearing House Sweepstakes. Too bad. All the late night heroes from my boyhood are fading away. Johnny, Sammy, Joey, Mike, Merv, Frank, Buddy, Milton, Sid, David (oops, still kicking)... all gone. Makes one stop, reflect on his own mortality and realize just how precious our fleeting time in this life is...Ok, enough of that, I think SpongeBob's on.

Peace Latte

Vacation in Rehoboth Beach over. Finally an end to all the crying and whining and complaining. And that was just me. Since we stay about a mile south, I like to walk up the beach to the boardwalk. Usually by myself and sometimes with one or two of the grandkids (we had three with us this time, ranging in ages from 2 to 8). It's nice. The only sounds the murmur of the sea and the voices in my head. I get to the boardwalk, meet up with the family (damn cell phones), and am informed in no uncertain terms that "we" are hungry. So here's my thinking: there are two adults, three very young kids and me. I suggest Victoria's first, a pretty classy sit down restaurant as I know she'll turn that down for logistical and financial reasons. That leaves me an excuse in case any of my much more reasonable (and cheaper) fast food places goes south. I lead everyone to 5 Guys burgers, voted #1 in something or other poll from somewhere or other. How bad can this be? Well, pretty bad, as it turns out. Imagine being trapped inside a tanning booth with a thrash metal band and a hairlipped auctioneer with a megaphone and you get an idea of the ambiance. Between "songs" and all the furniture being thrown around (tables too close together) I was informed that my significant other has not eaten red meat in a year. Now how the hell was I supposed to know that? In Five Guys defense, my burger was pretty good. Thankfully the music was blaring when she opened up her wrapper and gazed down at the sodden mass of grease and bread that was her grilled cheese. I could see lips moving, something about eating a bucket of Crisco, but there was no escaping that look. So I swore to God that something like this will never, ever happen again and ran across the street to Whole Lotta Latte and got her a quad. That helped. At least the hole I dug didn't get any deeper.

Gasper the Friendly Ghost

Maybe this is too soon and I have wrestled with my conscience a bit in deciding to post this but I can't let one of life's little absurdities, even the tragic ones, pass unnoticed. I would hope that if I were found dead in a hotel closet, with a rope around my neck and my pecker in my hand, someone would take the time to write a few words about me. It would be immortality of a sort and I can think of more embarrassing things that you may actually live through, like this. Besides, who knew whacking off could be so deadly?
Since I go home at lunch and have broadband access I have been tasked with the job of researching this particular behavior. Any novel masturbatory techiques invoke great interest at our company, particularly in the Drafting and Engineering department. I hope any information I share doesn't spawn a series of copy cat incidents that end up decimating the technical wing of our company. I could lose my job. Or at the very least get a stern talking to.
According to the Thai police report, David Carradine was found dead in the closet of his hotel room, with ropes around his neck, wrist and genitals. The mechanics of this tragic mishap are what fascinates me. Now the rope around the neck I can understand - that's the whole point. The rope around the wrist is more problematic. I figure he tossed the rope over the clothes bar in the closet, tied the other end to his wrist, assuming that as he lost conciousness during the act, his arm would relax and the rope would loosen around his throat and he would revive. Now I would think that to be safe you would hold the rope in one hand and as you passed out it would release, increase the odds of a non-fatal outcome for this particular bit of self gratification. Of course, it is possible that the wrist rope was also tied to the genitals. But you would need a free hand somewhere so it could have been one rope linking wrist, neck and genitals in an intricate series of pulleys, cables and sliding knots. That's some Kung Fu shit there. The whole genital rope thing bothered me, too and I'm kind of sorry I even looked into it. It may have had something to do with prolonging or preventing an erection. Take your pick. Somewhere between 250 and 1000 people in the US, mostly male, die from auto erotic asphyxiation every year. I knew one, and, take it from me, you don't want to be remembered as the guy they found hanging from a doorknob with his pants around his ankles. Then again, you may not care, but that's a subject for another post. So boys (and the occasional girl), unless you were an Eagle scout or a sailor, and have mad knot tying skills, better make this particular activity a team sport.

Shout out to the asshole at work who came up with the title. I liked "Hung Fu" but I'm sure it's been used. I said you wouldn't get any credit. And you won't

The Process

"Scripto, how do you do it? How do you take a marginally interesting idea and turn it into something almost unreadable?" It isn't easy. The words to make them come out right is hard to sometimes do. In my mind I am a great writer. I am lucid, concise, well reasoned. The narrative flows inexorably and effortlessly towards a well defined conclusion. But all that gets lost somewhere between my brain and my fingers. It's hard to lure the muse back when she left in a huff due to me sitting on my ass watching television for 50 straight years. But I keep plugging away. All the lack of talent in the world can't keep me from not doing what I am incapable of doing. So here's how I do it. It's a little secret I like to call The Process. First I take an idea that I find funny or irritating (or both), say, like, my wife swearing at me on Christmas Eve or Sarah Palin pretending to be my friend. Then I throw words at it until it kinds of sticks to the screen. That is what we authors call "fleshing it out" (a good idea if you are getting paid by the word). Now comes the hard part. Editing. Many times I will go back, reread my post, and discover that it makes no sense whatsoever. Even to me. That's where those handy little fuckers known as punctuation come in. Every blogger has their strengths and weaknesses in this area. Myself, I'm a freakin' genius when it comes to: ', I'm pretty good with: ., not so good with: , but my favorite and the ones I find most handy are these babies here: (). Oftimes (not a word I suggest you use) I'll be meandering (a nice word, don't you think - so peaceful) along, trying to make some point or another, throwing in a comma here or there, when I will think of something somewhat unrelated to the point I'm making (a fragment of a thought or a snotty aside) but I don't want to set it on its own because I'll probably forget it so I wedge it in with these: (). I also use a lot of these: - for the same reason. They are indicators of my unique style and separate me from the other bad bloggers. Proper grammar should not be a consideration. End a sentence with a preposition if you want to. Split infintives, mix declensions; so what, no one hardly cares. It's a LOL world now.
Speaking of style, I've tried a few. Minimalist: Time saver. Lacks development. Dry scientific - borrrrrinnng. So I settled on a style I like to call faux conversationist . Light, breezy, kinda now, kinda Charlie, just the ticket on a hot summer afternoon and a good way to connect me to you. Throw in a bunch of .hyperlinks and a couple of images to distract from the prose and voila!, I be blogging. And you can too.

I Used to Like Dick

Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words in this post title. I hope it doesn't result in unwanted attention. Hell, who am I kidding? Any attention is welcome. I'm dyin' here. What I meant was that I used to like Dick Cheney. Wait! Don't go! Hear me out. Follow these here thought processes: I didn't so much like Cheney himself as I liked his calm, reasoned manner. It stemmed from his debate performance against the two colorless (and no doubt odorless) Democratic VP candidates. Cheney's well modulated avuncular manner gave me some hope that he could tether Bush to reality if the Republicans were unfortunately elected or re-elected. Maybe keep George from doing something really stupid like accidently sitting on the big red button and launching a nuclear strike on Canada. Little did I know that, underneath Cheney's calm, reasoned avuncularity, lay a bottomless well of incompetence.
I can understand the tough guy stuff from Dick, George and Rummy. George had that whole boola boola thing to live down so he went off to fly fighter jets and maybe tap Laura after a day of manly ranching. Dick was another story given that I'm fairly certain that his doctor told him he was not healthy enough for sexual activity. Given that Viagra was out I imagine the whole process was somewhat difficult for him. His pacemaker beeping wildly as his doughy thighs slap ineffectually against his leather chaps, straining to climax as beads of sweat run down his bald head, thinking of reports of enhanced interrogation ; a tear runs down Lynn's face as she turns her head away, her sobs muffled by the water soaked cloth covering her face, and prepares to accept a dribble of his poisoned seed. I don't even like to think about it. Well, I like to think I don't like to think about it.
But it's not the macho stuff or even the evil as much as the incompetence that gets to me. Now I'm sure there will be entire libraries dedicated to Bush's uncanny propensity to appoint the wrong people to the wrong jobs at the wrong time but since Cheney went to all that trouble to set up a shadow government , mirroring the real government in most executive functions, is it too much to ask that one of them was actually able to govern or maybe even keep a secret? The reaction to Joe Biden spilling the beans about Cheney's secret bunker where he was transfused with the blood of virgins to keep his vitality is symptomatic. Now I'm no terrorist mastermind but given that the neighbors surrounding the Naval Observatory were complaining about the noise and the blurring the image on Google Earth...

Sweet Ida

Not really knowing my ass-bone from a hole in the ground I got nothing intelligent to say about this exciting early primate find. You can access the original paper through the above link and some of the controversy here. The great thing is that the authors of the paper published the research on an open forum that anyone can access. This took some big stones considering all the hits they knew they'd take from the other science guys by teaming up with the History Channel for the big unveiling. I don't blame them. It took a lot of bones to buy that specimen and someone has to pay for the research.
It is a fascinating look at how real science operates, complete with egos aflame, backbiting, and conflict. Just like any other human endeavor. Only better because it eventually arrives at a consensus based on evidence. You can take a couple things away from this find. One; you can see the absurdity of the idea that there is some sort of monolithic Darwinist conspiracy to suppress the truth among biologists. It's obvious the knives are always out and you better have your shit together before you publish. And two; contrast this with the approach taken by the Creation Scientists and Intelligent Design crowd. You can see the reason they don't poke their heads out of their hidey-holes very often. They got nothing.

* Attention bloggers - Urgent Update!: This is not a transitional between humans and mammals. We are mammals. Your mom had tits, didn't she?

The World's Worst Catholic Explains Blood Sacrifice

If the above graphic totally creeps you out - you are an atheist, agnostic or possibly a Jew and you are headed for eternal damnation. If the above graphic moderately creeps you out and you view it as a symbolic representation of the sacrifice Christ made to save us all - you are some sort of Protestant and you also are going to take a nice long dip in the lake of fire. If the above graphic makes you wince a little and you feel that it is an accurate (but too graphic for the kiddies) representation of Christ's blood sacrifice - you are some sort of Cafeteria Catholic and you better take a doggie bag and book your room by the century at the Motel 6th Level in Purgatory because it's going to take a while to burn the heresy out of you. If the above graphic seems like some sort of cartoon fit for Nickelodeon and you are disappointed the image lacks accurate blood splatter patterns and photo-realistic depictions of crucifixion wounds - you are true OG RC so grab your best hair shirt and strap on your cilice and join me as Sister Mary Joseph breaks it down old school for the rest of these clowns:

During the mass the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Real blood and real flesh?
Yes.
It doesn't look any different.
It is.
It doesn't taste like blood.
It's a miracle. You have to have faith.
But...
Now, be quiet.
Yes, Sister.

Torture - It's What's for Dinner

Real tough guy Jesse calls out pretend tough guy Dick

Party at Dick's house! Bring your suit and boogie water board! Boy, for a guy who was so jealous of his privacy that he fuzzed out the Google Earth view of his house, Dick sure has become quite the social butterfly. It's almost as though he's trying his case in the court of public opinion before he's even charged with anything. Trying to obscure the fact that the two guys in charge when everybody shit their pants on 9/11 weren't named Obama or Clinton. Even George has enough sense to keep his head down.
Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about counter-insurgency, interrogation techniques or the capacity of the human body to endure pain. Here's a couple of reasons why "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "torture" as I like to call it, is a bad idea:

1. It's illegal
2. It's against the law

The legality of waterboarding should have raised some flags in the Bush Administration considering that we prosecuted not only Japanese soldiers after WWII but our own guys in Vietnam for the same practice. Then there are the practical problems. How do you know that the intelligence gained is accurate? Take this guy(please). A little outsourced Egyptian torture and we got all the information that we needed on those WMD's in Iraq to make Gen. Powell look like a total retard in front of the whole UN. How do you corroborate the information? Torture everyone until some sort of pattern develops? Seems kind of unwieldy. Maybe our torturers are better. Maybe they all got 2 year degrees in Enhanced Interrogation Techniques from ITT Tech and only produce actionable intelligence.
The primary motivation for the right wing in this country is fear. Fear of Islam, fear of sex, fear of drugs, fear of Mexicans, fear of socialism, fear of flying, fear of dying, fear of termites, fear of their pipes busting, fear of homos. In short, they are all a bunch of pussies. There is no bad situation that can't be made worse by the right wing overreacting. Dumb motherfuckers (and I include all the dumb motherfuckers in the FAA from 1965 on) should have reinforced the cockpit doors and ordered pilots to stay in the cabin and fly the plane and we wouldn't be shuffling around the airport in our socks.
The pro-torture guys like to go on the talk shows and make up some sort of ticking bomb scenarios like: " Suppose a terrorist planted a pocket nuke in your baby's day care and only he had the code for the detonator and you captured him would you dip his balls in boiling oil to get him to give you the code? Huh? Would ya?". OK, maybe one ball, but that's as far as I'll go. C'mon. Is any of this stuff likely enough to base policy on? The Bush admininstration didn't see the initial threat coming and so now everything or everyone looks like a ticking time bomb.

Cars I Have Known (and sometimes loved) Part 1

Before I die I thought I'd better post a list of vehicles I have owned in order to have this information cycle uselessly and eternally in the intertubes. I don't know why, it just seems like the right thing to do. In more or less chronological order:

63 Plymouth Valiant - push button trans, no floor, caught fire on the way to see the Dead. Bummer.

62 Ford F1something or other - well worth the $125 - many cold mornings knocking ice out of the filter bowl, though.

53 Chevy Sedan Delivery - custom, 283 auto, road sign orange, got me, the old lady, two dogs, a cat, a goat and all our stuff from Ohio to Seattle. All the while towing her Volvo P544.

56 Plymouth Belvedere - another $35 Plymouth. No reverse - had to do a lot of deep thinking about parking.

49 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pick up - built like a tank. In fact, I think it was built out of tanks. Plywood camper on the back. Took me from Seattle to San Luis Obispo and served as a mobile home backed up to a cliff looking out over the Pacific. Eat your big fat hearts out, rich people. Abandoned in California prior to the Great Migration back north. One of life's big regrets.

Happy Mother's Day, Baby

Three kids and four grandkids later - still smokin' hot

My BFF Jesus

I got a text from Jesus today. I knew it was from Jesus because he knew I didn't have the time to forward the message. That guy, I don't know how he does it. Anyway, I think he's lonely so give him a jingle. Here's the number: (717) 521-3191.

Here's the message:

"I bet you don't have time to do this; but jesus gave his life for you, send this to ten people and see what happens in five minutes"

This One's Gonna Hurt

Text of my $4,000.00 conversation ($444.44 a word):

"Maybe we should check the black one out?
OK"

Friday we bought a 2006 Ford (Motto: We're not bankrupt yet) Freestyle. Bitchin' ride, for a station wagon. Not the base model SE. That would be the one I had done all the research on. We were on our way in the office to buy the SE when I spotted the black Limited in the lot and, like an idiot, asked the salesman to open it up so we could have a look. Brenda melted at the idea of heated leather seats and I liked the backup alarms. The kids are breeding like rabbits. I couldn't tell you how many grandkids we have now but I know I'd feel bad if I backed over one. Like I did my wife's dog when we were dating. I was backing the 72' LeSabre out when we heard a thump and a yelp and my wife started getting all hysterical on the passenger side. I said "It'll be alright - don't panic", put the car in drive and pulled forward a little bit. These was another thump and another yelp. The dog didn't die. Actually didn't even get hurt, just kind of smooshed down in the mud with a tire track on him so Brenda found the whole thing hysterically funny. That will follow me to the end of my days.
So we drive the Limited around and by the time we get back and park it everybody knows I'm buying this car. The salesman, my wife, my grandaughter. Even me. Traded in two cars on this one. A 97 Mercury Villager (140k) and a 97 Subaru Outback Sport (165k). I got 2k for these, I was hoping for 3k so I squawked a little to keep up appearances but folded up like wet tissue paper in short order. What could I do? Everytime I looked over I was getting that "I want this car - don't screw this up" look. Ah well. Still substantially below book when all was said and done, even with the extended warranty. Maybe my wife will quit emailing me real estate ads for awhile. I'd hate to be paying on something where the terms extend beyond my life expectancy.

Thanks a Lot, Arlen

Now I got no Republicans to vote for, except for the local yokels who help me with my auto stuff. Specter's defection to the Democrats is no surprise to Jim "Pol Pot" Taylor, chairman of the local Republican Party. Taylor is quoted as saying that he never "liked" Specter, anyway and that it was time to purge the party of all its RINOS. Well, I got news for him. They've done gone. Whitman, Hatfield, Chafee, Shwartzenegger, Rockefeller... Eisenhower would be out and I doubt if Nixon would make the cut. No room for Libertarians or fiscally conservative moderates, I suppose. Few are worthy. Taylor says it is time to get back to those core Republican principles. I wonder what they could be? Something like this?

Too bad. I was kind of attached to the two party system.

Happy F#@king Easter

Worst Easter ever. A little background: I've never been very ambitious and have always tended towards procrastination. In fact, if it didn't come easy it didn't come at all. Couple that inherent laziness with an early desire to turn on, tune in and drop out and you have a guy who has relegated himself to the lower ends of the socio-economic spectrum. But I always tested well. Well enough that I tested exactly the same on my SAT's as my BFF who's a respected, rich and successful professional type doctor. So while I was running a cultivator, or flipping burgers, or dismantling cars, or delivering the mail, or stacking books, or driving a truck, or duckwalking around a mixer with a pressure washer, or cutting firewood, or sitting in my cubicle, I always held close to my heart the knowledge that I had the highest SAT's in my immediate family and even though they all got degrees and shit, I could have been a contender. But it is not for this old man to wander into the twilight of his life holding tight to this illusion. My brother couldn't wait to tell me about his precious daughter's SAT's. 50 points higher than mine, combined. Of course, she's only a junior. She hopes to do better next year. Of course.

It gets worse. No holiday meal is complete without my sister-in-law calling me an idiot. After being force fed more organic food than a bunch of pate bound Whole Foods geese, we were all sitting around the table (I don't know about the rest of them but I'm still waiting for Jesus to show) and I was disrespected in the following manner:

Niece: "My religious teacher is a Flemish Lesbian"
Me: "Maybe it's allergies, she ought to take some Claritin D for that."
Sister-in-Law: "You are an idiot!"

A Kiss is Just a Kiss...

Pat Buchanan has his panties in a bunch over Obama's lack of response to Chavez's 55 minute tirade where he called America a fat ugly ho. I guess the problem lies with the handshake and book acceptance after the speech. Now I like Pat and I suspect he's somewhat of a real tough guy but he's thrown his lot in with a conservative movement that's full of pretend tough guys. Obama's the real deal. Only three months in and he's already shot three guys in the head. At this rate he'll have 48 notches in his belt by the end of his term. I would have figured that would have gotten Pat on board. What'd he expect the Big O to do? Slap Chavez upside the head? Throw a hissy fit and walk out? Look at the body language in this meet. It's obvious who the big dog in the room is and who's just yapping around his heels. There's no bigger diss than throwing a tirade and being ignored.

Get a grip, Pat. America's not your mom. We got all the guns and money. Chavez has a few barrels of oil and some nice blankets. Who cares about his sorry ass, anyway?

Yarrrr! Republicans Set Sail in a New Direction

Republican spokesblimp Rush Limbaugh has unveiled a new pro-pirate plank in the Republican platform. Hoping to gain political traction with the hook-handed, peg-legged, puffy shirted portion of the electorate, Limabaugh decried President Obama's execution of three Somali pirates as another socialistic attempt to stifle sea borne entrepeneurship. Limbaugh went on to say, "These private free marketeers were brutally executed while trying to show a little initiative and make a living in the grandest traditions of our free enterprise system."

I Don't Get It

What's so funny about tea bagging? My grandma used to teabag all the time. Sometimes my mom would, too. I can remember us all sitting around the kitchen table in Scranton dipping and dunking away. Tea bagging our hearts out.
At least Joe Scarborough takes his tea bagging seriously. This morning he got on his fellow talk show hosts for mocking the thousands of Americans who opened their mouths in protest and joined their fellows in tea bag parties in cities all across this great land. Middle school juvenile humor, he said, and unfitting for serious news commentators. I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about. Joe's a lot smarter than me so maybe he sees something I'm missing. I'll be the first to admit that a lot of this tea bagging stuff goes right over my head. Maybe he was talking about Dave Shuster who said if you're having a lot of tea bag parties you need a Dick Armey. What's wrong with that? You probably could use a Dick Cheney, too. If fact, I would think you would want all the Dicks (not to mention Toms and Harrys) that you could muster. Rachael Maddow said she didn't invent the whole concept. It's nice of her not to want to take credit but somebody needs to find the guy who came up with the idea and shake his hand. Maybe there's a patent on file. Anyway, I'm with Joe. I'm proud to be a tea bagger and this whole mockery thing rubs me the wrong way.

Our own tea bag party here in the valley didn't turn out too good. It rained pretty hard and the only people who showed were me, six guys from my gun club and the bag lady with her shopping cart. We all wore our side arms proudly (except the bag lady) in support of our God Given 2nd Amendment Rights and to scare off any hippies who would try to crash our tea bag party with their Celestial Seasonings bullshit. It rained so hard my oversize cardboard Obama Kenyan birth certificate fell apart and the bags I had stapled to my hat swelled up and started dripping tea down my face. We all brought our own bags but we only had one umbrella and after an hour or so our bags were getting so soggy that we huddled together in a circle hoping that we could at least save a couple so we could throw them on the courthouse steps. It was not to be and every bag sogged up and fell to the ground. We just left them. I think the bag lady got them.

Maggie Fights Rear Guard Action Against Gay Stuff

If your organization has "marriage" or "family" in its name (like Focus On the Family, Family Research Council, NOM) you are a douchebag and your entire organization is composed of douchebags. How do I know? The evidence speaks for itself.

Gallagher (not the one with the watermelon but, even worse, Maggie, president of NOM) has written an incoherent op-ed for the National Review Online. Apparently Rick Warren is rethinking the whole homophobic idea because the gays got to him. They got their ways. They probably did some gay stuff to him like they did to Ted.

It's worse than we thought. Not only do we have entire gay countries like Canada and Spain (look what's happened to those countries), we have entire gay legislatures as well as gay activist judges. Hence the need for the above retarded commercial. Notice how the actors are isolated in space. You can't be too careful these days and you don't want to get any gay juice on you. And you definitely don't want any gays sneaking up on you and doing gay stuff to you. Notice also how the actors are surrounded by enormous storm clouds of HIV-positive jiz (I know it's HIV-positive because the lightning strikes are going to HIV-negative ground). Notice how these poor people have suffered the worst sort of persecution - persecution against them being able to persecute other people. The last lady is upset that her kid may be told in public school that gay marriage is OK. Well lady, even if your kid escapes your smotherhood without turning gay, he's bound to find out that is some places gay marriage is legal. This is persecution?

You know what I notice? I notice that these are the same arguments I heard against desegregation in the 60's. Crying that your precious rights to "free-association" are being trampled rings hollow. Giving basic human rights to an oppressed minority is a moral thing to do. So, Maggie Gallagher, go fuck yourself (if you're able), and fuck that douchebag organization you rode in on.

Newt's Old Ideas for a Dying Planet

Part of that is true. The ideas are old but the planet won't die. A bunch of us might, but the planet won't. So the prince of well written dumb ideas has put forth what purports to be some sort of energy policy in the latest Newsweek. This is the same guy that said we needed to use lasers that we don't have to shoot down the North Korean missle launch. As you can imagine, his solutions consist of using a band aid of existing and non-existent technologies to cover a sucking chest wound. More of the same isn't going to cut it. Anwar won't help for long, offshore drilling won't amount to much, there's not enough water to process the oil shale and only a dumb ass who has never lived in a coal mining area would suggest "clean" coal technology. I don't care how clean you can burn it, you still got to get it out of the ground and there goes the neighborhood. That leaves us with the same distribution network and the same dependence on those Saudi fuckers who set up the networks that financed those motherfuckers who flew those motherfucking planes into the Towers. What I am trying to say is that it is a matter of national security. I don't want to see Obama wandering around the Rose Garden holding hands with some Saudi prince like Bush did.
I agree with Newt (and here's where I differ with my tree hugging buddies) that we have to start building more nuclear power plants. Sorry Harry, but Obama needs to break one campaign promise and open Yucca mountain. Transporting the nuclear waste is a concern but with 50 years experience hauling nuclear weapons around the country we ought to be able to handle that. Continuing to store it onsite is a bad idea. Upgrade the transmission facilities, toss in a little solar and wind for a sweetener and we're good to go for awhile.
Now the same guys that voted against extending unemployment benefits and were manning the helm while our 401's were deep sixed, are crying crocodile tears about the impact a carbon tax will have on the poor people. We survived $4 a gallon gas. I don't mind paying a little more if it means we won't have to march off to the Middle East every ten years or so. Keep saying to yourself that we're a center-right country, Newt. That's why we elected a liberal democrat for President.