u235

Yeah, have you seen the cost of gas? Fucking amazing isn't it? Right before the fucking elections suddenly it's down. Coincidence? Hardly.

Betcha it goes right back the hell up, within a week or two after the elections... Not that I'd complain if I turn out to be wrong.

It's almost like they want us NOT to notice how badly we've been gouged when they want something... like to keep their jobs.

You know what I hate? It's people who make my life suck. It happens so many times in so many ways, I'm pretty much inured to the petty shit the ordinary folk dish out. After so many years as a parent, a professional, a purchaser of electronic goods that fail while under warranty, a resident on this fucking planet dealing with all the other petty, self-interested residents I've come to realize that most people just fucking blow. It takes nothing less than a small tactical nuke to slap them into the awakening that to fuck with someone might just mean that someone might try and fuck them back.

I'm tired of assholes who I encounter in my life and think "well I'm upset about something, here's an opportunity to share that burden with some unsuspecting yahoo". On second thought I don't believe people even think about it. It's more like some fucking knee-jerk reaction. Unless someone is blissed out on drugs or sex I believe they're actively trying to screw with the nearest person they can reach. The more different you are from them the better.

You're a white guy, on the scale of screwability things go from: african to asian to latino to middle eastern, and it only gets better if the screw-ee is a woman. Guys love to fuck with women professionally. I think it's a macho thing. Sure, sure if you're intelligent and possess a half-way decent set of morals this doesn't mean you, but you know most people as stupid as three-week old oatmeal left in a dish. Stupider even. They're barely capable of the essential stimulus-response test of a single celled organism. What sucks is that they're also allowed to own guns, drive cars, vote, and worst of all, interact in my life.

You know that slogan "this Bud's for you"? Well I have a new one, just for me. It's "this finger's for you". The best part is by now I don't even have to perform the motion, I just think the thoughts and it's like a warm blanket that makes me feel all better.

"Ahhhh'm about to whip somebody's ass...."

So the official response to the Pope’s quotation from Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II on the topic of Islam and diplomacy:

''You infidels and despotic, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism when God's rule is established governing all people and nations,'' the statement said. “We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword.''

Doesn’t seem like much has changed since ol ‘Manuel made the statement:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Yup. Nothing like proving someone right in the process of trying to prove them wrong.

I always find it amusing when people elect leaders based on reasons other than experience and qualifications. No, I'm not talking about the president for a change, this time I'm talking about the Palestinians.

Lets say you're the Palestinian Prime minister and you're off to a day at the parliament building. You get out of the car and you're faced with an mob of protesters. These protesters are upset because even though they elected you to improve their lot, they haven't been paid since you've been elected. When blocked from entering the building by these protesters do you:

a. Turn around and go home and call in by phone?
b. Appeal for patience and try and explain you're doing all you can?
c. Break out the guns and shoot the people who elected you?

If you guessed 'c' then you'd be right:

Palestinian PM's Bodyguards Open Fire
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Bodyguards for the Palestinian prime minister opened fire outside the Gaza City parliament building Monday, trying to clear the way for him through a group of unemployed workers, police said.

You know, there's an old saying that "you get what you pay for". They wanted leaders that took action, I'd say they're paying for that now.

There comes a time, now and again, when everything seems old. I read the news and it's the same news as yesterday, and last week, and last month, last year, the last few years. The Chinese have a phrase "May you live in uneventful times". Well it's less that the times are uneventful, there's certainly enough killing and mayhem for anyone, instead it's more that it's the same killing and mayhem as previously described.

You know I'm tired of senseless murders, kidnappings, rapes and injustices visited on us by our neighbors, co-workers, family members, church leaders. It's been done. Yes it sucks, but it sucks the same this time as it did last time, only to different people.

I'm nauseated every time our president-brat kicks his heels and whines about how his was is the only way to "keep America safe" and that if things aren't handed to him on a silver platter well then he's just gonna take his ball an' go home (see his rose garden speech on the topic of prisoners of war, in effect he says if congress doesn't work his way then he's not gonna interrogate the prisoners at all, oh noes). Old ok? Just old.

There's people winning lotteries then blowing it all or winding up getting mugged in the parking lot of some sleazy strip club for a suitcase of money they shouldn't have been carrying in the first place.

Of course the bi-monthly prisoner escape story. Lock your doors if you live in the area, keep your car windows rolled up. Report any suspicious shadows in the leaves under your junipers.

Hostages. Yeah, people going places they shouldn't for philosophical reasons that don't convince the person on the other end of the gun. Families sniffling about the contribution their person made to the world, righting wrongs, fighting the good fight.

Kids getting fatter. Adults getting fatter. Fatter people dying as kids. Salt is bad for ya, don't cha' know?

Coffee is good, butter is bad. Butter is good, margarine is bad. Fat is bad unless it's carbs. Carbs are good unless you have too many then it kills your liver.

Religions running amok. Muslims against Jews, Jews against Christians, Christians against Muslims. Everyone against Jehovas because that's how it should be because those people are so fucked up and proud of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it, you've heard it, we've all heard it so many times that it's just become a litany... a checklist of topics... an endless regurgitation of the same...old...crap.

So what is there to write about anyway?
Well, the same old crap, obviously.

A very liberal translation by Altavista Babel fish of an Austrian folk song: Ein Abend Auf Der Heidi

Once I would like still Lululu, once I would like to be lulustig still Lululululu. Why are you, are you Lulu, you Ludmilla, my girl, went? So fast in the Klo, so fast in the Klo, so fast in the monastery and left me alone. And at the Popo, and at the Popo, and at the Popostamt, there I wrote fully demands, leave me wiwie, leave me wiwie, let me be more wiwieder lucky. If the bosom of my wife full wine more waer, egg there I liked to be so gladly a Knaeblein. I could drink egg as there, needed no wine to buy, because the bosom of my wife becomes never empty. Oh woman hearts are as so deceitful! They do to us men in the misfortune sterzen. The man is the lighter, which is woman the scale, and if the sparks ummihupft, burns the whole deadwood. Leaking me at the Oasch Marie, my money never kriegst you, I in France the whistle burned yourself, everything for the native country. But Muaterl DO schau ago, me A Tschipperl Hoar at the belly, I moan i become wochst at bear, Jo owa Muaterl DO schau ago! All small birds are, all small birds all already there. Blackbird, throttle, finch and Meise, and the whole bird crowd. One must give three times daily fresh water to birds. Each Congo negro hot at suspenders, but hot more unseraner nix, but hot more unseraner nix, but hot more unseraner nix. Each Bauernlackel has is money in the Sackel, but hot more unseraner nix, but more unseraner nix, Hollriooooh hot. Each Mulitreiber hot at ball-point pens, but hot more unseraner nix, but hot more unseraner nix, but hot more unseraner nix. Each south Frenchman has which in the trousers, but more unseraner hot nix, but more unseraner hot nix, Hollriooooh In a glacier column, there found I mean old persons, you was ice cold. It held the pickel in the hand, on which written stood, with this verflixten instrument found I mine ends. It held the pickel in the hand, on which written stood, with this verflixten instrument.

For anyone not yet fully convinced that our media is in the pocket of our president, consider the new release from Disney of a two part mini-series called “The Path to 9/11”. Our beloved leader must be madly rubbing one out over the idea that historical fact can be used as a basis for fantasy entertainment. The best part is that Disney (and their network ABC) are not beholden to the facts. Any facts.

What’s their goal? The goal is to prop up the image of a president that lied and deceived his country into a war that isn’t popular any more. Worse, members of his own party are now starting to distance themselves from the hawk propaganda and calling into question the viability of our “mission”. The Supreme Court has told him that he’s not allowed to just make laws up as he goes along where it concerns prisoners of war. No, it’s not a happy time the commander –n- chief.

The obvious answer is, well it worked before, more lies. Ok, so the WMD thing didn’t work out – let’s try a new tact: blame the Clinton administration, show how the mistakes of the past led to where we are today. It’s key, especially since it’s election time and America is starting to have second thoughts.

Lies, like Ms.Albright refusing to support a cruise missile strike against Osama. That never happened, but they have a scene that shows she did. It’s a lie.

The producers admit they didn’t just base their story on the commission report on 9/11, but on books and opinion interviews. The problem is that the public, the VOTING public, isn’t going to know where the factual evidence ends and the “opinion” begins. They’re going to buy it as gospel.

It’s true that TV is supposed to entertain, but when did the suffering of a country wind up on the same channel as ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and ‘Extreme Makeover, Home Edition’? What happened wasn’t entertainment to me – and unless you’re willing to present me the unfettered truth I don’t need anyone else’s fucking imagination to fill in the gaps.

It's time once again to suffer. Yes, with the predictability of the well oiled axe at the end of the pendulum, I await the next 9/11 event from the pit with feeling of disgust mixed with angst. The angst doesn't stem from any innate fear. No indeed, not fear of terrorism, not fear of flying on planes, not a fear of religions run amok, not even fear of nuclear threat. My angst stems from being a victim, yet again, of the banner of patriotism wrapped around the corpse of our memories.

I have a genuine pain when I think about the world trade center. I have an honest dread recalling where I was, what I saw, how I felt. It was bad when it happened, and the aftermath even worse. But the legacy of a president, dogmatically waving the bones of our dead at us as a justification of repression and war is more than I want to stand. At least when I'm sober.

I don't fault the man for grandstanding at the site. Honestly people wanted him there with the bullhorn to say that we're not cowed, never will be cowed, that we will have our revenge for what had been done to us. That was a necessary act, and the people of our nation needed it said in the most direct of fashions, with the most direct of images. But as the cliche goes - that was then.

So, apart from devastating a nation that was in no way related to the terrorism of 9/11 where are the heads we were promised? Yes, we did dismember the Taliban, push them back into who they were way back when their enemy was Russia and we were giving them the toys to shoot back with. But the "mastermind", where is his head? Weren't we promised that?

So here we are again, years later. The man in charge is once again going to shake the specter of fear at us saying:"Our great country, our way of life, our freedom is under attack by those who envy what we have. There is only one way to fight this threat, and it is his way. We must unite under one man and have faith that his vision is the only solution to making America safe again."

You know, there's no nice way to say "You fucking asshole, you're the real problem now. You're the one stripping our freedoms in the name of saving them. You're pissing off the world and leaving us holding the bag as you walk away into a nice, protected retirement for the rest of your life."

Yes it's that time again, time to remember how a bad situation can become worse. It's time to face up to the fact that what terrorists failed to do, our government can to with complete impunity.