The Paperboy

Such A Nice Day

2007-09-11T18:00:00.000-06:00

There's talk of healing. Forgetting 9/11. Moving on.

Discontinue the four hour reading of names at the annual memorials in New York, Washington, Shanksville. I say heal the horror, but remember the lesson forever. Vigilance. Freedom is not free.

The tolling of the bells. The moments of silence. It's a timeless memory, come back to me again. I wonder how I would be memorialized, or how I would memorialize a loved one. I scan through the dog-eared pages of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in search of the passage that talks about a life unfolding out of the womb of a mother, unfolding out of the history of the world to be here, now, for a still unfolding purpose. I can't find the passage, but turn off the news reports of the ceremonies and pass into sleep.

Fire cannot melt steel. But it compromised the structural integrity enough to cause a collapse. I question my own mental integrity. I imagine those in the midst of the disaster, and feel as though my soul could disintegrate.

Two of us wore black for the day. Others are baffled by the significance.

The color for the day is blue. 9/11 blue.

That day, I was downloading and listening to music. U2, Wire.

Innocent, and in a sense I am
Guilty of the crime that's now in hand
Such a nice day
Throw your life away
Such a nice day
Let it go

To think that some would hold all Americans complicit in those attacks. To think that I'm responsible for what happened over there. It enrages me. I don't listen to U2 much any more. I've rejected my friends who don't share these views. I don't want a job any more. Nobody would hire me, nobody would give me a chance.

Atlas shrugged. Now I know who John Galt is.

The thousands of dollars spent on business startup coaching. Wasted. Useless.

Thousands -- eight of them -- gained in the market over the course of a year. Five lost over six weeks. Every day, a thousand down, a few hundred up, fifteen hundred down. Now back up to six. Success is so fragile.

The gibbering apes in congress. Mocking the factual reporting of the General of his report of the progress on the task that has been given to him. By these very same congressmen. What happens in '09? Success is so fragile.

It's time to walk away from the gibbering apes, the naysayers. Focus on success.

Napolean Hill. Think And Grow Rich. Create a plan, marshall all the resources Napolean described. The Secret. Gratitude. Bob Proctor. Norman Vincent Peale. The Power Of Positive Thinking. My friends who will be true are always welcome. The sky is often blue in Colorado. It is indeed such a nice day.

Sleep Apnea

2007-08-13T11:17:00.000-06:00

It sounds funny. But it can be dangerous.

Imagine being asleep. Dreaming. Dreaming that you can't breath. Like you're under water. You just can't get air into your lungs. Something in your brain screams WAKE UP AND BREATH!!! When you wake up, you gasp for breath. But you can't help wondering, "What if I didn't wake up? Could I have suffocated in my sleep? How close to death was I?"

Sleep is elusive as you wonder. This happens more than once. How often do you stop breathing without waking up? Is this why you're so tired during the day? What if you fall asleep at the wheel? Is there permanent brain damage? Is that why I can't concentrate? Why I lost my job?

Mealy-Mouthed

2007-08-08T15:29:00.000-06:00

Mealy-Mouthed:

ADJECTIVE: Unwilling to state facts or opinions simply and directly.

As in, when your boss writes a cryptic memo directed and distributed to everyone that begins with the statement "For those of you who keep your bench and work area clean, you can stop reading now...."

WORD HISTORY: It seems fitting that Martin Luther, a man noted for the forthright expression of his ideas, may have had a hand in giving us the contemptuous term we apply to those unwilling to state facts or opinions directly.

It seems fitting that the founder of the second most autocratic sect of Christianity coins a term that divulges a fear of the consequences of what one says.

Cunt

2007-08-08T15:24:00.000-06:00

The second edition of Cunt has been published, and is available on Amazon.

An ancient title of respect for women, the word "cunt" long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim "cunt" as a positive and powerful force in their lives.

Boobzilla

2007-08-08T15:15:00.000-06:00

A listener of 103.5 The Fox suggested that Boobzilla be one of a long list of liberal celebrity idiots to join Sean Penn permanently as one of Hugo Chavez' useful idiots in Venezuela. I just had to know who/what Boobzilla is.

Dinosaur Safari

2007-07-15T20:54:00.000-06:00

I got my dinosaur safari. At least, as much as I'm likely to get any time soon. Had more dreams of dinosaur attacks, possibly while Mega Disasters: Asteroid Apocalypse was on the TV while I was napping. Later, The Lost World: Jurassic Park came on. So I got my donosaur safari. Big game hunter Roland Tembo apparently has no basis in real life.

Man Crush

2007-07-13T08:47:00.000-06:00

Man-Crush on Ted Nugent
I think I got a Man-Crush on Ted Nugent. He's been on The Fox at least a couple of time. And he's been on Hannity & Colmes a couple of times. I can't believe The Ted pissed off Alan so much he cut him off in mid-sentence. You da man, Ted! I like what Ted has to say.

I was having nightmares of being trampled by big animals. So I turned it into a dream of going on a hunting safari. I want to go on a safari with Ted Nugent. Some day, before my life is over, I vow that I will go on a safari with Ted Nugent. So I went to Ted Nugent's web site, and he hosts safaris! You da man, Ted, but that's just a bit too spooky.

Another Fred Thompson Fact
Monsters hide under the bed because they're afraid of Fred Thompson.

Could Fred Thompson Be Gay???
Say it isn't so! I can't believe that. I know of one good place to verify such an unfounded rumor. I know Frank J. has a man-crush on Fred Thompson. That's where I get all the Fred Thompson Facts. No mention of Fred Thompson being gay. Just lots of mention of John Edwards being famous for lots of suspiciously gay-like facts.

Could I be gay because I have a man-crush on Ted Nugent? Let's check. I'll close my eyes and think of Floorwax naked... Floorwax naked... Floorwax naked... GAAAGHHH! I just threw up a little in my mouth. I guess not. Maybe it's just Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent naked... Ted Nugent naked... Ted Nugent naked... EWWWW!!! LEMME OUTA HERE! Same thing. Okay, now lets see... Kathy Lee naked... Kathy Lee naked... Kathy Lee naked... mmmm yummm, slurp! I guess it's settled then. It's down to Andrew Sullivan and John Edwards.
(Thanks: Van Helsing)

The Numerology Falacy

2007-07-07T08:56:00.000-06:00

July 7, 2007 -- 07/07/07. The 7-7-7 date of the 21st century. The 21st century being the product of 7 X 7 X 7. The newspapers are filled with stories of weddings being heavily booked for this day. Stock market analysts are recommending online wedding planner, The Knot, Inc. (KNOT). At least one metaphysical website is discussing the magical energies released by the mystical 7-7-7 date. And there's the Live Earth concerts kicking off today.

News analysts are hearkening to the two year anniversary of the infamous attacks in London on this day. Numerologically, 07/07/2005 was also a 7-7-7 date. Will this 7-7-7 bring some new world-altering event? We experienced the 6-6-6 date on June 6, 2006, and nothing extraordinarily evil happened on that date. What makes these dates so significant?

It's my contention that numerology, magic numbers and so forth are self-perpetuating artifacts of human culture. They have such truth to them only because people believe in them, pay attention to the supporting evidence, and disregard contrary evidence.

Numbers, as we know them are represented by the symbolism of numerals. A visual mnemonic that is associated with a specific quantity. The evidence is obvious that the arabic numeral system, and for that matter the Roman numeral system, is based on the fact that human beings have ten fingers. I propose that when primitave cultures invented numeral systems, they began by counting on their fingers, and created symbols to represent the quantities.

Imagine, if you will, an alien race from the planet Zork. These beings have three hands, with four fingers on each hand. Counting on their fingers, they would have to "carry the one" and start over when they reach the quantity that we call twelve. They would have a base twelve number system. A race with seven fingers on each of two hands would have a base fourteen number system. A quadruped race that counted with four fingers on each of their four limbs would have a base 16 (hexadecimal) system.

When our hexadecimal digited counterparts encountered us, they would have to make some numeric conversions. I have a calculator that does just that, designed for computer programmers. Not to say that computer programmers are hexadecimal digited. It's just that hexadecimal is the most convenient conversion for the binary (base two) system that is indigenous to the design of digital computers.

But getting back to the numerology thing, the symbolism doesn't translate across number systems. The common practice in numerology is to reduce numbers by repeatedly summing the digits until a single digit is obtained, and then describing the mystical symbolism of that digit. Thus 43 becomes 7; 88 becomes 16, which becomes 7, etc. But when you convert number systems and do this, the sums of digits doesn't translate. 43 (base 10) becomes 2B (hexadecimal), which then becomes D, which is 13 (base 10). Anything that reduces to a digit above 9 in hexadecimal doesn't convert to a single base 10 numeral, let alone the same value. In binary, every number reduces to the digit 1. The numerology of reduction doesn't translate across different base number systems.

Dates have a problem in translation too. The date 07/07/07 is based on the Gregorian calendar. The year in this calendar system is inaccurately based on the birth of Jesus. If Pope Gregory XIII had used some other year as the traditional birth of Jesus, this would be some year other than 2007. And what about the months? The number of days in the months appears to be somewhat arbitrary. If a month is supposed to approximate one lunation, then the seven day week could be derived as one fourth of a 27 day, 7 hour lunation. But the periodicity of the lunar cycle is peculiar to our own moon of Earth. And the length of our year is peculiar to the sideareal orbital period of our planet.

If our alien counterparts were from Mars, their year would be 687 days, their day would be 37 minutes longer than ours. Who knows what historic event would be the basis for their year zero. And what about months? With two moons, they could have a month system based on one moon or the other, both, their conjunction, or a double overlapping month system.

The result of this analysis is that number and date systems are both a result of our human experience on this planet. While numeric quantities are universal, number systems are dependent on our expression of our symbolic numeral system. Numerology is not a universal truth, but an expression of particular human beliefs, culture and history. The assertion that there is some mystical power to magical numbers and dates such as 7-7-7 and 6-6-6 is simply misleading.

More Boulder Moonbattery

2007-07-05T08:33:00.000-06:00

(The) One thing I learned from Loral Langemeier's business building programs was to focus on revenue producing activities. That's why I haven't been blogging much lately. But some days, the moonbattery gets so thick, as Bert Deckers says "you could cut it with a chainsaw."

Independence Day seems to be a day for the nuts to come out and protest our independence. Boulder celebrated their right to tax carbon emissions by exploding exotic pyrotechnics that filled the sky with smoke.

Boulder Colorado. Where the Nutty Professor, Ward Churchill gets paid by our taxpayers to teach kids that employees in the World Trade Center deserved to die on 9/11/2001. Where investigators were powerless to solve the murder of Jon Benett Ramsey, even when John Mark Carr came forward and admitted to the crime. Where a seven week old baby is beaten to death for crying, and the murderous parents are turned loose after the "accidental" death. Where Ron Swerlein sets up an explosives production lab in his garage, stockpiles more amunition than the entire Longmont police department, and is then sent home while neighbors are told that they are safe. Where Boulder High School, at taxpayer expense, teaches teenagers to freely experiment with sex, gay sex, unprotected sex, sex inducing drugs, illicit drugs, any form of licentious behavior they want to. We can only imagine that taxpayers will also pay for abortions resulting from teen pregnancies.

Today the Daily Camera's headline story starts out lauding the taxation of mythological anthropogenic global warming,

Chances are good that Boulder is the only city in the country that kicked off its Fourth of July celebration Wednesday night with a tune about how great it is to have a carbon tax.
"Intentional development is oh so relevant," sang Open Space and Mountain Parks rangers Jeff Kagan and Mark Wesson. "It's a futuristic vision to reduce carbon emissions."

No mention of how insignificant of a greenhouse gas CO2 is. No mention of how much more CO2 is put into the atmosphere by animal life, volcanoes, decaying forest vegitation, especially the earth's oceans. No mention of how weather balloon data indicates that upper atmosphere warming is not occurring, as would be the case with greenhouse warming, human induced or not. No mention of how self-appointed climatologist and inventor of both the Internet and anthropogenic global warming, "former future President of the United States" Al Gore is on record for exaggerating and fabricating data to support his newfound self-perpetuating career. Yet the City of Boulder is taking taxpayer's money to pay for pyrotechnics to celebrate their right to transfer more of taxpayers money to the high priest of moonbattery in the name of carbon taxation.

On the same page is an Ass. Press article decrying President Bush's support of our troops and the ongoing war against fall of western civilization to Islamist extremists.

Burdened by sagging polls and an unpopular war, President Bush sought a friendly audience on the Fourth of July to deliver a patriotic, gung-ho speech about supporting U.S. troops and sticking it out in Iraq.

Apparently the failure of the President is more important than the success of democracy and overcoming the fascist Islamist theocracy. The situation in the middle east has been decades if not centuries in the making, and it's not going to be a simple or quick task to reverse the problem. The article cites previous July 4th appearances along with the perennial troops death toll. Articles such as this are clearly designed to ostracize the President, make issue into a one-man war, and ultimately sabotage the war on terror. Some days the Bush Derangement Syndrome is so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw.

Life In The Blob

2007-06-27T14:17:00.000-06:00

I was browsing through the blogs today and found that the New York Times has been talking about Tom Tancredo's constituency being the "whitest congressional district in Colorado." Here's the NYT article. It seems the premise is that since Colorado is a white state, that concerns about illegal immigration is over the top.

I don't think that the NYT has ever been to Greely, or Highlands Ranch, or anywhere else in Colorado. I worked in Greely. Greely is an agricultural center with a high hispanic population. Greely is on the eastern plains, where there are lots of farms. Farms that attract undocumented, uneducated, cheap Mexican labor. I think Pueblo is likely to be the same way. Probably somewhere around 60% of Greely is Mexicans. It might be un-PC to call them "wetbacks", but they're Mexicans, illegal immigrants.

Highlands Ranch is an upscale white neighborhood, full of people that work at places like Martin Marietta, or somewhere in the Denver Tech Center.

I used to be a Computer Engineer. College degree and everything. After I got laid off about the tenth time, I figured out that a lot of the high-tech jobs were being farmed out to foreign places like India, Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, China. I worked for CADIS Inc. until they sold the company to an India-based competitor. I must be repressing their name, 'cause I can't remember it. I decided to go write my own software to do sophisticated analysis for trading the stock market. Without knowing how to start up my own company, and without having real resources to finance such an ambitious venture, I still needed a way to pay the bills... and finance my business ambitions, while I figured out what the heck I was doing. So I ended up delivering newspapers.

So the NYT thinks illegal immigration is a non-issue. I deliver the New York Times. Let me tell you what the newspaper delivery business is like. The newspapers have all been in big trouble. They're going down the tubes. First, the Denver Post bought out the Rocky Mountain News, and called themselves the Denver Newspaper Agency. Somewhere along the line, they contracted for delivery of six nationals papers: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, USA Today, Financial Times, and Barrons. Last January, they added on the Boulder Daily Camera to their growing list of local publications. There's rumors of printing the Camera downtown Denver, and trucking them down to Boulder along with everything else. It's getting to be like The Blob, or The Thing, that keeps absorbing sickly or injured bodies into it's sprawling monstrously hideous incoherent collective.

So life within The Blob/Thing is, well, not good, but almost adequate. As long as you don't wiggle too much. Maybe, like being stuck in quicksand, one can slowly float one's way out.

This was supposed to be about Illegal Immigration. Yes, there's lots of Mexicans here in The Blob. Like Greely, like Longmont Foods, like Monfort Beef, I would loosely estimate that there are about 50% Mexicans in The DNA Blob. They don't speak English. Yes, they can speak English, they just don't. Would you think they're native Coloradoans? I don't. There was some problem with getting valid ID; i.e. a legal drivers license and a social security card. They probably came here to get the cheap newspaper delivery work. We're not employees of the DNA; we're contract workers. I guess that means the DNA doesn't have to check immigrant status. At least very carefully. They certainly don't have to pay any kind of health insurance, FICA tax, withhold income tax. A family of Mexicans works right next to me. I see them every night. When another white paper carrier had a stroke and had to quit the route, who did the managers give the open route to? Not me. It went to the Mexican family next to me. I've had a perfect record for weeks on end. The Mexicans can barely go a day without a complaint from customers.

So the NYT thinks illegal immigration is a non-issue. Just as long as the non-issues who anonymously deliver their papers do so without wiggling.

But there may be hope after all of escaping The Blob. I made $500 in the stock market today.

Moderate Muslims Against Jihad

2007-06-22T20:14:00.000-06:00

Banned By PBS: Muslims Against Jihad
Is airing this weekend on FoxNews channel, Saturday 6/23/07 at 9 PM EDT and Sunday morning 3 AM EDT. Be sure to watch. I'll be recording it. It's that important.

Red Faced Rag Wrangler's Blues Redux

2007-05-15T11:17:00.000-06:00

For want of bread
The dog is dead
For want of meat
The dog is eat

For one bogus complaint
Paperboy's bonus ain't
For a mislaid TV guide
Paperboy's bonus denied
For too much bad luck
There'll be no forty buck
He said it was my fault
So the bonus gets a halt
It could've been worse
His death would be Paperboy's curse
For misplaced TV guide
That customer could've died
That man shouldn't have lied
That he got no TV guide

Obama: Disasterus Exageratus

2007-05-09T09:09:00.000-06:00

Speaking of blacks exaggerating disasters so as to victimize themselves at the hands of whites, Barack Obama recently said that 10,000 people died in the Greensburg tornado. That would be quite an extraordinary feat, given that only 1,600 people lived in the former town. The last I heard, the total death toll from the Greensburg tornado had climbed to an astounding... 12.

If Obama's exaggeration factor is roughly 1,000 to 1 then that should put the death toll in Iraq at 3,000,000. That's right three million black soldiers died in Iraq. Every day.

Battle Of New Orleans

2007-05-08T16:34:00.000-06:00

It's time to revisit this. Especially in light of how Greensburg Kansas is responding to their disaster.

Remember Somalia

2007-04-27T10:32:00.000-06:00

This week congress passed a bill that makes conditional funding for our military troops in the Iraqi theater of the war on terror dependent on a fixed timetable for withdrawal. President Bush promises to veto that bill, and most certainly will do so today.

On December 8, 1992 President George H. W. Bush (the senior) began Operation Restore Hope, to provide food and humanitarian aid to the impoverished and war-torn African country of Somalia. What security forces encountered was a country hardened by civil war being conducted by war-lords who use starvation as a weapon against each other's people. The situation escalated to a point where it was necessary to use force to remove the top militant, Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

On August 22, 1993 under newly inaugurated President Clinton, Delta Forces undertook Operation Gothic Serpent to capture Aidid. In what has become known as the Battle of Mogadishu, or the infamous Black Hawk Down incident, Somali militants shot down two US Black Hawk helicopters with rocket propelled grenades (RPGs). The dead body of at least one soldier were desecrated and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, while television images broadcast the event across the world. Pilot Michael Durant was captured and held for eleven days. A total of 19 American soldiers were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu.

President Clinton, under pressure from Congress, ended the US deployment in Somalia and ended diplomatic ralations. Now, civil war, war-lordism, starvation, poverty and violence are once again rampant in Somalia. Participants of Operation Gothic Serpent expressed regrets of their mission being cut short by political pressure.

"You're talking about a lot of highly trained type-A personalities who had a job to do, and were prevented from doing it.... If you're going to do that, why send us in in the first place? Why lose those lives if you're not serious about it?" -- Lee Van Arsdale, Special Forces "Operator"

"We stopped, ceased all operations, and turned what was a hard-fought, brutal victory into an absolute defeat by handing over the advantage to the Somalis, and giving them, now, the very victory that we had fought all day for." -- Dan Schilling, U.S. Air Force Combat Controller

Thank you, Mark Bowden, for writing the story of Black Hawk Down. And thank you, Ridley Scott, for producing the movie Black Hawk Down. And thank you History Channel for bringing us The True Story Of Black Hawk Down. And thank you, George W. Bush, for not repeating the mistakes of the Clinton administration.

Sell Picks And Shovels

2007-04-26T09:07:00.000-06:00

When there's a gold rush, sell picks and shovels. In the 1849 California gold rush, people flocked to California hoping to strike it rich, expecting to just pick up gold off of the ground. The people that made the real money were the ones that sold the equipment to the '49ers.

The Great eBay Gold Rush is much the same. There's a ton of people selling those eBay startup kits, complete with supplier contacts, auction management software, research tools, website setup kits and hosting services, all for a convenient monthly service fee of only $39.95... no, $49.95... no, $59.95 per month. I should know, I bought one of those. The professional business coaching was $6,500. But that's okay, I'll be making that much every month before you know it. The incorporation fees were $1,200. But that's okay, I'll save that much on taxes every year, and I'll be making that much every week. Never mind that the coaching didn't teach me anything that I didn't already know. Never mind that the suppliers are just re-marketing stuff that I already get for less from the original wholesale supplier anyway. Never mind that the name-brand suppliers won't deal with eBayers. And never mind that the ones that do will gladly sell me merchandise at the going rate on eBay, leaving me with no margin to make it worthwhile to sell the stuff. It's too late to get a refund. Like in college, you can't refund your tuition. Especially in the school of hard knocks.

Allright, I'm done blowing my stack about the Great eBay Gold Rush scam. The next big industrial gold rush is to this fake environmentalism, and Al Gore's carbon credit shell game.

The Financial Times is usually going off on some marxist ideas, but this time, they busted the scam on carbon credits. They report that the growing concern that Al Gore has generated over environmentalism and global warming has resulted in a "green gold rush" -- a burgeoning economy in the trade of carbon credits. DuPont has convinced concerned enviroweenies to pay them (DuPont) $4 per ton of CO2 that they will then eliminate from their plant.

Pardon me, while I eliminate some intestinal gas. You now owe me $4 for eliminating green gas in the house.

Carbon credit trader Blue Source is taking payments for pumping CO2 into oil wells in order to pump the thick, energy-rich, albeit carbon-laden crude oil out of the ground. What's the price of a barrel of crude now, $50? $60? $70?

Oh, and look out for that oil slick that came out with my green gas. That'll be another $4 you owe me please.

Really, I think Al Gore is on to something. Crude oil is getting too expensive to buy and sell at any decent profit margin. So instead, sell these carbon credits and pretend that it does something. And never mind that CO2 does not drive the climate. Never mind that sunspot activity does drive climate. And never mind that CO2 changes lags climate changes by 800 years. Never mind all that. Move over Al Gore. As of now, I'm going to be competing with you by selling fake carbon credits to concerned enviroweenies. I fully intend to become fabulously wealthy doing so, and I'll have a mansion even bigger than Al Gores. To donate $4 to my carbon credit conservation cause, please send your payment via the paypal button below, and I will immediately eliminate some green gas.

Nominalizing Violence

2007-04-17T07:55:00.000-06:00

I watched the news from when it was breaking. There was a report of playgrounds that had been covered with sulphuric acid, and how a little boy was hospitalized with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. I wondered if this was some sort of lame terrorist attack, or something related to 4/20.

Four Twenty, April 20th, is the anniversary of the Columbine massacre. And Hitler's birthday. And the prophet Muhammed's birthday. After some further investigation, I learned that four twenty is an emblem of marijuana for the pop counter-culture. Boulder, Colorado -- where I work -- is the marijuana capital of the United States. But the 420 phenomenon has "nothing" to do with Columbine. Right. It's just pure escapism. In fact, it's an anti-Columbine, anti-Hitler, anti Islamic extremism. Denial.

Later in the morning, while I was hoping for more information about the playground acid attacks, news came out about a shooting at Virginia Tech University. One dead. It was reported on the university web site. How Fox News channel keeps abreast of breaking news that is reported on a web site, I do not know. While I looked for more information about the playground acid attack, Fox News went into story loop mode.

Sometimes when they start story looping, they get stuck on something insignificant. I remember a time when they spent all day story looping on an avalanche up on highway 40. Only two cars were covered, but they made it sound like the whole mountainside came down, and dozens, maybe hundreds of cars were buried under miles of snow. Once they got pictures, it was just a little tiny snow slide that covered a couple of 30 or 50 yard sections of the road. I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of the coverage.

Then there was a press conference at Virginia Tech. 20 reported dead. The scroller reported 22 dead according to the AP. That was the first indication that this was something serious. Throughout the day the death toll climbed to 32, then to 33.

One of the questions that continues to haunt the authorities is why didn't they take action sooner to secure the campus. The explanation was that the initial shooting with two fatalities appeared to be an isolated incident. Sounds like denial to me. Denial that a killer on the loose is a threat. One of the students was told to go to class but proceed with caution. "Caution of what? A gunman running loose killing people?"

Another person reported how people play violent video games as a means of training. The Columbine killers played Doom. Grand Theft Auto has been condemned. The violent, ground-breaking movie Matrix came out shortly before Columbine, and has been implicated as an inspiration. There's the Super Columbine Massacre RPG that made the news last year. The current interviewee continued that people like this will specifically train for hours, with the intent of desensitizing themselves to the violence that they are about to inflict, so that they focus on their horrid task, without being overcome by either emotion or adrenaline.

As I write this, there is another school in lockdown in Texas at St. Edwards after receiving a bomb threat. There were bomb threats at Virginia Tech last Friday, and earlier in the month -- 4/2 and 4/13. And there was a shooting at that university in August, where a policeman was killed. I think that these events have desensitized the Virginia Tech community to the threats. As if every time somebody calls in a bomb threat or shoots someone, it's just somebody else crying wolf. Maybe that's why the original response by the university and the police was so limited.

I wondered if this might be the beginning of a rash of Columbine-style copycat shootings over the whole week, leading to Friday 4/20/07. If this happens, this would be the beginning of the end. If the nation ends up in a police state because of rampant violence, then there will be an uprising, a revolution.

As I pulled into my driveway this morning, the radio guys, Lewis and Floorwax, were talking over the incident. Their observations were that these school shootings happen about once or twice a year now. Charles Whitman in 1966. Columbine. 9/11, which changed everything. Platte Canyon High School last year. The Amish school last year. There's a long list of school shootings. When I grew up, violence didn't touch my life. There were the schoolyard fist fights, but never guns. Now, these shootings and massacres are becoming so prevalent that one must just turn off the news, tune out, get high, get lost. Sorry, but I don't smoke dope.

Returning to prognostication of possible future events, how do we deal with this trend? I believe in solving the root cause of problems. We all would like to live in a peaceful world. But when a person or a culture becomes violent, the threat must be met with deadly force. I support second amendment rights. But the right to bear arms also brings responsibility. And that responsibility can be instilled by education, community, family, faith, and communication. These values must be cultivated, and not alienated as a right-wing conspiracy or a political football.

Now, Cluck Like A Chicken

2007-04-13T12:05:00.000-06:00

Killer Snow Storm Hits!
The national weather service forecasted a major snow storm with accumulation of 3 to 7 inches. The scene outside this morning was anything but that shown here. Apparently, the storm moved some 100 miles south, leaving us dry.

When I was in college, there once was a stage hypnotist performing. He had a group of students, all performing various feats. They all did that "cluck like a chicken" stunt. That girl that I had the unfortunate and embarrassing crush on put her pet Martian in her blouse. There was this one guy that was given special instructions, and sent back into the audience. When the name "Fort Lewis College" was mentioned, he jumped out of his seat, ran up onto the stage urgently shouting that there was a killer snow storm on the way, and that we all had to evacuate the college immediately because our lives were in danger. It was immensely hilarious. Whenever the weather service forecasts a killer snow storm that doesn't happen, I think of that stage hypnotist and the dramatic post-hypnotic suggestion. They may have got me to put my boots on, but they didn't get me to drive the 4WD.

Let's see who else is clucking like a chicken.

Imus' Wife Clucks Like A Chicken
Hate mail being directed toward the nappy headed hos should now be re-directed to Imus. If Al Sharpton has his way, Imus will be clucking like a chicken for the remainder of his natural life.

Snoop Dog Refuses To Cluck Like A Chicken
Rapper Snoop Dog explained that his use of the H-word, the N-word, the B-word, the other B-word, and of course the F-word was all due to a racial double standard. Black rappers have the obscenity license, but dirty old white men must cluck like a chicken.

Sean Hannity Clucks Like A Chicken
Describing the Snoop Dog lyrics on Wednesday's Hannity & Colmes show, Sean Hannity repeatedly used the "bleep" word. In explaining his difficulty with using the "bleep" word, he reverted to using terms such as H-word, N-word, B-word, and F-word. I feel the urge to cluck like a chicken and refuse to use the W-word, I mean W-W. Shit. I mean S-word. I mean S-W-word. S-W-W.

Sanjay Clucks Like A Chicken... again
And so does American Idol judges. And the fans. And the anti-fans. Rumor has it that "Sanjay" means "sits down to pee."

In the papers...

Paul Wolfowits Clucks Like A Chicken
After being driven from the Bush administration on conspiracy theories, Wolfowitz is now being driven from the World Bank presidency.

N. Korea Refuses to Cluck Like A Chicken
In spite of repeated requests, condemnations, sanctions, pleas and other lame hypnotic attempts, N. Korea will not disarm it's nuclear weapons.

Local High School Students Cluck Like Chickens
The school has decided to use strategic paint colors to program the students to cluck in calm blues and greens, rather than excitable, violent oranges and reds.

Dolphins Cluck Like Chickens
The Navy has programmed a group of dolphins to cluck like chickens whenever they see mines or seaborne terrorists. No word on what they taste like.

Imus Attacked by Nappy Headed Hos

2007-04-11T18:56:00.000-06:00

You've probably heard of Radio shock jock Imus' inflammatory comments referring to a group of black female athletes as "nappy headed hos." In retaliation to these obscure comments, Don "The Pit Bull" Imus has been the target of attacks on a multitude of angles.

Not only are the nappy headed hos calling for his censure, his suspension, his firing, the destruction of his career without any possibility of ever making a living ever again, even for his very life, but sponsors Staples and Proctor and Gamble are withdrawing support of his program.

Imus decided he would attack a nappy headed ho; but being brave and stupid, he learned the hard way that you can't always win, no matter how tough you are. The veterinarian sedated the radio host and removed 1,347 barbs. The shock jock survived and hopefully learned a lesson.

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity (shock jocks are known for being bold and brave).
Choose your fights wisely.
Don't mess with nappy headed hos!

Thanks: Dad

God Damn The Paper Man

2007-04-07T09:33:00.000-06:00

You know I've thrown a lot of Posts
O' Lord, I've tossed a lot of News
But I never made 'nuff money
the gas bill makes me blue
You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round
With Cameras in their eyes
But the Paperman don't care
Ah, if you want it or if you lie

God damn, The Paper
God damn, I say The Paper
I said God damn, God damn The Paper man

You know the d'livery boy, the d'livery boy is a man
With the Journal in his hand
Oh but the Paperman is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
The delivery boy for a nickel
Lord, will show you where to be a buyer
Ah, but the Paperman ruin your life
Lord, he'll break your winda's, he'll slash your Caddy's tires

God damn, The Paper
God damn, God damn the Paper
I said God damn, God, God damn The Paper man

Well, now if this rag was placed in my hand
You know, I would not ever cross The Paper man
I'd tip him if he prompt, and I'd thank him if he late
Yes that complaint hotline makes him oh so irate

God damn The Paper
Gad damn The Paper
I said God damn, God damn The Paper man

apologies to: Steppenwolf, The Fox

DST Causes Gasoline Surge?

2007-04-06T12:27:00.000-06:00

The Moonbat Today has determined that the change of daylight savings time coming three weeks earlier has backfired, causing drivers to use a massive 2.8% more gasoline. Moonbat Today believes that the extra hour of daylight encourages people to go driving more, resulting in increased gasoline usage. "Daylight-saving simply pushes us out of our houses," author Michael Downing reports to the liberal rag. "The extra hour of light at day's end leads people to drive to places, such as golf courses, parks and shopping malls, that they otherwise wouldn't."

No scientific evidence is cited linking a gasoline usage to daylight savings time. Meanwhile, my calculator reports that one hour is 4.2% of a day, not 2.8%.

Wikipedia attributes the relationship to cum hoc ergo propter hoc, "correlation does not imply causation." Other examples of cum hoc ergo propter hoc include,

Since the 1950s, both the atmospheric CO2 level and crime levels have increased sharply.
Hence, atmospheric CO2 causes crime.

and

Scientific research finds that people who use cannabis have a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders compared to those who do not.

Personally, I think the increased gasoline usage is related to personal stockpiling resulting from the increased gas prices and tensions around the 2007 Iran hostage crisis.

Meanwhile, the Investor's Daily BS notes the nonsense of global warming politics.

Tale Of Two Houses

2007-04-05T11:20:00.000-06:00

Remember that report about Al Gore's house being an enormous energy hog of a mansion? Well, there's more intrigue to the story. I have to admit, although this has been circulating on the Internet, I didn't get this in the email. It was reported on the radio this morning.

Look over the descriptions of the following two houses and see if you can tell which belongs to an environmentalist.

HOUSE # 1:

A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and
natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.)

heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it's truly "an inconvenient truth."

============

Now, I know you're saying "this is just an urban legend." But it's true. Snopes reports it as true.

Thanks: The Fox

Chuck Norris Fact

2007-04-05T10:57:00.000-06:00

When Chuck Norris gets mad, he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets mad, he turns into Chuck Norris.

A Plethora of Diseases

2007-04-03T15:17:00.000-06:00

Alzheimer's disease. Attention Deficit Disorder. Asperger’s syndrome. Peripheral Artery Disease. Restless Leg Syndrome. Epstein Barr Syndrome. Chronic Fatigue. Adrenal Fatigue.

I don't remember any of these diseases existing twenty or thirty years ago. What used be called senility is now Alzheimer's disease. Kids that used to be disobedient brats are now coddled as having Attention Deficit Disorder or Asperger's syndrome. Kids used to call me wuss, adults said that I was shy. A shrink once said that I had clinical depression. Now I find out I've got Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome. It reminds me of the SUV commercial where the adrenaline deficient guy is tying his shoes a few inches away from a vicious dog. That's different than Epstein Barr Syndrome, which is a bit more specific than Chronic Fatigue. I have no idea where Restless Leg Syndrome came from. I think that's just "medicalese" for tossing-and-turning-at-night. And that peripheral artery disease is a new one on me too. It's supposed to be numb legs, and cold hands and feet. I'm not sure what blood circulation has to do with reluctance to socialize. Do you suppose Jennifer Willbanks could blame her Runaway Bride condition on PAD?

Honestly, I think doctors are inventing all these new diseases, just to have something to treat us for. Why don't they do something useful, and come up with a cure for being stupid, deluded, moonbat, liberal or Democrat?

War: What It Is Good For

2007-04-01T16:39:00.000-06:00

Some of you are not old enough to remember that nearly every family in America was grossly affected by WW II . Most of you don't remember the rationing of meat, shoes, gasoline, and sugar. no tires for our automobiles, and a speed limit of 35 miles an hour on the road, not to mention, no new automobiles. Read this and think about how we would react to being taken over by foreigners in 2007.

This is an EXCELLENT essay . Well thought out and presented.

Historical Significance

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials .

At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war .

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan , and the following day on Germany , who had not yet attacked us . It was a dicey thing . We had few allies .

France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers . Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.

Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico , as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.

America 's only allies then were England , Ireland , Scotland , Canada , Australia, and Russia . That was about it All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel .

The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).

Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could .

Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.

Ironically, Russia saved America 's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .

Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone . . . 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers

Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war .

All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world .

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated . They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel , and purge the world of Jews . This is their goal.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US , European, and Asian economies.

The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . . . in Iraq . Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades Saddam is a terrorist! Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians .

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed .

WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own a gain . . . a 27 year war.

WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack .

The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism .

This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay . The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be .

The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it .

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England, in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.

The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless some body prevents them from getting them.

We have four options:

1 . We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2 . We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran 's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

3 . We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.

OR

4 . We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.

If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win . The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them .

Remember, perspective is every thing, and America 's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!

Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany !

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan . World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq.. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944 , the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.

In WW II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far .

The stakes are at least as high . . . A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms , or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law) .

It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America , where it's safe.

Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc . , but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raymond S . Kraft is a writer living in Northern California that has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hidden SUV

2007-03-31T10:36:00.000-06:00

Hidden somewhere in this photo is a sporty SUV. See if you can find it. Take your time.

I Got A Basketball Jones Song

2007-03-30T15:25:00.000-06:00

Ever since I was a little kid, I remembered this song. I think I heard it on a Cheech and Chong album. But when I bought the album, my mom took it away. Now it's just a memory, ship's smoke on the horizon, fading into a depressing Pink Floyd song. Another brick in the wall.

Then it comes back, out of nowhere. I listen to it every day. That Basketball Jones song was like a Basketball Jones song to me. I couldn't sleep at night without that Basketball Jones song under my pillow at night. I need help, ladies and gentlemen. It's big. It's bigger than life.

Thanks: V the K

Turning Up The Heat On Al Gore

2007-03-29T16:13:00.000-06:00

Rather than type in the whole article, I'm just inserting a copy as a picture. You'll have to open the picture to get a legible version. Of course, it's copyrighted. But I think Al Gore would more likely request it's removal than Jonah Goldberg of the Fort Collins Coloradoan.

Gradeschool Lego Capitalism Banned

2007-03-28T08:19:00.000-06:00

It seems that a Seattle school has banned Legos as being too competitive and promoting the immoral concepts of imagination, industrial growth and development, and competitive business venture. Apparently, the kids built an enormous Lego-town, investing emotional involvement in the development of resource allocation, city planning, inter-corporate negotiation, and labor division. When the Lego city was obliterated by a wayward classroom meteorite, the classroom government blamed the ensuing grief of the disaster not on their own lack of anti-trust laws, but on the evils of private property, industrial greed and unfair capitalism. In a Marxist move toward socialism, the post-apocalypse classroom is ensuring equal allocation of Lego blocks to each child regardless of race, creed, skill, responsibility or ambitions of Lego industrialization.

Soon, each child will be allocated an identical parcel of Lego blocks, and will be expected to build identical structures at an identical pace. In order to ensure equality in Lego construction, the children's hands will be connected with rods and motorized with a computerized build-pacing machine. This practice will more efficiently train the kids for later work in factories and cafeteria lines where uniform, precisely paced production is essential to a modern Brave New World.

Frequent Sex Is Good

2007-03-27T14:16:00.000-06:00

... for the prostate. Advice from Bottom Line Personal.

Very Very Personal

Recent finding: Men who ejaculate at least 21 times a month have one-third lower risk of prostate cancer than men who average four to seven ejaculations monthly. Possible reason: Frequent ejaculation may remove potentially carcinogenic cells from the body. It does not matter whether a man has intercourse or masturbates.

Hippy Parakeet

2007-03-26T12:52:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid, my grandma used to raise some chickens with long feathers on their heads. We called them "Hippy Chickens". It looks like somebody has "Hippy Parakeets" now.

Hidden Sports Car

2007-03-25T18:55:00.000-06:00

Hidden somewhere in this photo is a high powered sports car. See if you can find it. Take all the time you need, but keep both hands on the keyboard.

Mary Jo Kopechne

2007-03-24T14:32:00.001-06:00

In honor of V the K blogrolling me as a regular on Caption This, I'm starting up The Paperboy blog again. Maybe I'll even write something original from time to time.

Mary Jo Kopechne

My name is Mary Jo Kopechne. I would have been 65 years of age this year. Read about me.

When Sen. Ted Kennedy was merely just another Democrat bloating on Capitol Hill on behalf of liberal causes, it was perhaps excusable to ignore his deplorable past.

But now that he's become a leading Democrat attack dog against Republicans positioning himself as Washington's leading arbiter of truth and integrity, the days for such indulgence are now over. It's time for all people to stand up and remind America why this 'chief spokesman' had to abandon his own presidential bid in 1980 - time to say the words "Mary Jo Kopechne" out loud.

As is often the case, Republicans have deluded themselves into thinking that most Americans already know the story of how this "Conscience of the Democratic Party" left Miss Kopechne behind to die in the waters underneath the Edgartown Bridge in July 1969, after a night of drinking and partying with the young blond campaign worker.

But most Americans under 40 have never heard that story, or details of how Kennedy swam to safety, then tried to get his cousin Joe Garghan to say he was behind the wheel.

Those young voters don't know how Miss Kopechne, trapped inside Kennedy's Oldsmobile, gasped for air until she finally died, while the Democrats' leading Iraq war critic rushed back to his compound to formulate the best alibi he could think of.

Neither does Generation X know how Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard on his ear 15 years earlier -- for paying a fellow student to take his Spanish final.

Or why the US Army denied him a commission because he cheated on tests.

As they listen to the Democrats' "Liberal Lion" accuse President Bush of "telling lie after lie after lie" to get America to go to war in Iraq, young voters don't know about that notorious 1991 Easter weekend in Palm Beach when Uncle Teddy rounded up his nephews for a night on the town, on evening that ended with one of them credibly accused of rape.

It's time for Republicans to state unabashedly that they will no longer go along with the "gag" when it comes to Uncle Ted's rants about deception and moral turpitude inside the Bush White House.

And if the Republicans don't, let's do it ourselves by passing this forgotten disgrace around the Internet to wake up memories of what a fraud and fake Teddy really is.

The Democratic Party should be ashamed to have the national disgrace from Massachusetts as their spokesman.

The financial settlement her family received was never published and there was no autopsy conducted to see if she was pregnant.

Stuck In Iraq

2006-11-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

I kept trying to decipher John Kerry's remarks...

"Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in Iraq... If you don't do your homework, you'll get Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in Iraq... If you aren't smart, you'll get Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in Iraq... If you aren't a good little boy, you'll get Stuck in Iraq... Every good boy deserves fudge... Every good boy deserves to be F----- Stuck in Iraq... Stuck in ... "

I think I got it! Bush is God, and Iraq is Hell. If you don't say the Rosarie every night, your Humvee will get stuck in the mud in Iraq! What religion is Bush/Hitler/Satan/God again? If you don't pray your Cataclysms every night, you'll get stuck in the Iraqi quagmire! Don't they have sand instead of mud over there? If you don't pray for Cataclysms, you'll get stuck in the Iraqi quicksand!

Okay, okay, okay... Okay.
Okay then.
Okay now...
Okay.
I think I'm stuck on something stupid here. Yeah, that Kerry guy's acting stupid. Again. He's a veteran, but military people are supposed to be retarded. He voted to remove Saddam Hussein, but the war was a bad idea, and we didn't send in enough troops because they keep killing innocent children and raping women in the dead of the night. Because they're retarded. Like him.

I think John F----- Kerry should shut the F--- up while he still can. After all, he already lost the election. Two years ago. And he's still campaigning against George W. Bush.

"Winners never quit. Quitters never win. But those who never quit and never win are idiots."

Q: What's long and hard on John F----- Kerry?

His nose
The third grade
His ongoing 2004 presidential campaign
The public outcry about his "Stuck in Iraq" comment
All of the above

9/11 Remembered

2006-09-11T13:42:00.000-06:00

The news shows are having continuous coverage of the 9/11 memorial events being held today.  I think it’s appropriate that I give my memories of what happened five years ago.

They say that people remember where they were and what they were doing at times like this.  I had been laid off from at least my 10th job in May, four months earlier.  My dreams of being a respected Computer Engineer had been shot down one more time, by another company that lacked the clarity and resolve to stay in business, and the commitment to support it’s employees careers.  I had already lost faith in humanity, and the computer industry in particular.

September 11, 2001 was six days after my birthday.  That day, I was wrapped in despair, just like every other day.  While I worked up the motivation to do another mass mailing of resumes, I whiled away the day downloading music.  Someone from the UK was commenting on a discussion board their sorrow for the attacks on our country.  I had no idea what this was referring to, so I went to the TV.  The repeating footage of the World Trade Center towers collapsing, and of the airplanes disintegrating into the buildings told the story.  Shepard Smith of Fox News had his own, almost juvenile commentary, grasping at straws to make sense of what happened.

Up until that time, New York City represented a group of people that I… disliked.  All so rude, selfish, unsociable, quick to take advantage.  I didn’t distinguish the WTC buildings from any other skyscrapers in that big, overcrowded, east coast city.  Terrorists were only something in other parts of the world, or in movies.  Even New York City was a distant place, that didn’t affect my life.  Only in the days following that event did I begin to understand its import.

I was mad.  Mad at myself for not paying attention, for my ignorance of important world events.  But still consumed with despair.  Even more despair than before.

Today, I still see people in denial of the importance of that event.  People want it to fade into the past.  People in Colorado think of it as something that happened “over there,” as if “over there” might as well be Beirut, or the Gaza Strip, or somewhere by China.

When the conspiracy theories came out, I was taken in.  I thought long and hard about the 2004 presidential election.  I concluded that President Bush ought to finish what he started with Iraq, and that he had a plan, while John Kerry had no plan.  I cast my vote early.  Not long after, I discovered the Democracy Now! program on FSTV.  The reports there, and on web sites sent to me had me convinced that Bush had actually assisted in coordinating the 9/11 attacks, and the cover-up afterward.

When evidence to the contrary surfaced, debunking the conspiracy theories, I was mad again.  I was mad at myself for having been fooled by people who had created lies with nothing more than political gain in mind.  It was about that time that I made a commitment to stay informed.

I already had the paper route as a temporary means of income, while I figured out how to start and build my own business.  One of my New York Times customers had generated an extraneous subscription, which I took home and read a few times.  The global scope of the stories in the New York Times opened my eyes to a world outside my hometown and region, outside Colorado, and outside our national borders.  Later, I encountered some of the bloggers, many who are blogrolled in my blog’s right-hand column.  The conservative bloggers opened my eyes to the political agendas that often obscure clear judgement.

In 2003, I had the painful experience of my pet’s death.  By then, I had determined that such painful experiences are also sacred.  I decided that tragedy happens so as to give us an opportunity to make positive change.  I had committed to give back the best that I have to offer in return for whatever is given to me.  In answering a friend’s idle question of “When does it get easy?” I said, “It gets easy when you give up.”

Dark Side

2006-08-06T20:52:00.000-06:00

Enough Is Enough
There are some symbolic parallels in what’s happening with the paper route, my professional (?) life, and what’s happening in the Middle East. Israel has essentially decided that it’s had enough with the threats of Hezbollah, and has taken it upon themselves to rid Lebanon of this menace.  Unfortunately, since Hezbollah is in the habit of embedding themselves in the civilian population, the Lebanese civilian population and infrastructure are being destroyed along with Hezbollah.  The appeasers of the world, the UN, all cry out ”stop the hostilities!” as town after town is reduced to rubble.  The UN is an ineffectual bureaucracy that produces useless resolutions.  UN resolutions and calls for cease-fire are about as ineffectual as squirting a garden hose to get two dogs to stop fighting.  Hezbollah refuses to stop fighting until Israel leaves Lebanon, and Israel refuses to stop fighting until Hezbollah stops firing rockets into Israeli cities.  The conflict is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood in “Every Which Way But Loose” where Philo Beddoe and Tank Murdock are matched in an unsupervised brawl, where they slug it out, neither one winning, neither one loosing, until they both collapse in exhaustion.

I don’t know why I have repeat chronic complainers on the paper route.  Maybe the guy is just dumb.  Maybe somebody downtown wants to deny me my bonus every week.  Maybe one of the other paper carriers doesn’t like me because my political views differ from his, or that I’ve previously had a perfect route for weeks, even months on end.  But I’ve decided that the chronic complainer has got to go.  Meanwhile, at least one customer loves me for the special attention I oblige her with.  If only compliments would cancel out complaints.  Instead, the one customer that calls in the first complaint that puts my complete rate over the acceptable threshold costs me my $40 bonus.  That’s a lot of money to lose for delivery of a Sunday only newspaper subscription.

Israel sometimes imposes censorship rules on the media, so that they have to put their hand over the camera so as not to show the layout of the city and their position.  Other times, the camera pans back and forth across the city, looking for signs of incoming Katyusha rocket strikes.  It’s wise not to further describe tactics and strategies.  The newspaper agency won’t allow me to give the customers a means (cell phone no.) to contact me directly to correct my mistakes, since that would be “subverting the company.”  I find myself on the wrong side of a confict, engaging in more terrorist-like tactics to defend my income.

Would You Like Brain Fries With That Sir?
The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paperboy brings more.

I compare the global war on terror to a thunderstorm.  Like a thunderstorm that's been building and throwing nothing but thunder and lightning around, it's time for the full fury of a good thunderstorm.  It'll do the earth some good.  There's too much energy in the air, too much hatred and weapons in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Somalia.

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Killer On The Road

2006-07-23T17:02:00.000-06:00

Pissed
I guess I won’t write much of a blog this week. I’m too upset about too many things, the mideast war being just one of them.

Route Terrorism
I’m convinced that someone downtown has been intentionally entering bogus complaints on my record, just to deny me my $40 bonus every paycheck, and fatten the accounts of the Denver Newspaper Agency. Maybe I should hire a private investigator to figure it out. Hell, I should just take matters into my own hands. Maybe I should just sue somebody for fraud. I could call one of these people and verify the complaint. You can tell that my clarity of thought is compromised. Which, of course, results in more complaints, due to lack of concentration. The vicious cycle snowballs out of control.

They also entered a bogus subscription, just to keep me off balance. “Trojan, Sheik, & Bogusmann” sounds to me like some made-up customer, maybe because the first two names are those of condom manufacturers. Anyway, I don’t see how every single publication that I deliver would be subscribed too at the address of a construction site. The day after the construction workers yelled threats at me, the number of Wall Street Journal Subscriptions at this “customer” was increased to ten. Sorry people, I’ll only deliver enough papers that I can throw out the window with one motion without stopping. Just in case they try to ram my truck with a forklift or something, I’m arming myself. I already told two managers about this, and my instructions are to continue to place myself in a dangerous situation for the newspaper agency’s benefit.

All that lost pay has been adding up. Or should I say, “subtracting down”? Apparently, I’ve been bouncing checks, the cable company has been threatening me, I’m losing money each month. I’ll just have to borrow more money, and ratchet up my credit payments.

So, how can I handle the chronic complainers?

I could deliver extra papers to make sure they get their paper.
I can hit their door with the paper and wake them up.
I can kick their door real hard, and make sure they wake up.
I can dump their newspaper out and scatter it all over their doorstep.
I can fill their newspaper bag with urine.
I can throw the newspaper through their window.
I can throw a rock through their window.
I can slash their tires.
I can build a potato cannon and launch a potato through their window.
I can soak a potato in gasoline for a week and launch a flaming potato through their window.
I can build a pipe bomb and throw that through their window.

Hamas Implodes
The PLO elected terrorist group Hamas for their leadership. Then, they’re too busy plotting the destruction of Israel to actually pay the people in their so-called “government.” Now, those people are rioting, crying, “We’re hungry!” Hamas is too greedy, too self-absorbed to be able to run even a tentative government. One thing the soothsayers got right is that the Palestinians are going to have to sort out what they need to do to create a workable government.

Bee Attack
I got stung by a bee. Damn thing. I was just minding my own business, throwing the paper route, and the bee came into my truck and stung me for no reason.

As above, so below.

The liberal peace-niks want to call for a cease-fire with Hezbollah. UN ambassador John Bolton said in no uncertain terms that you can’t negotiate a cease-fire with a bunch of terrorists. If a bee stings you on the road, you smack it, and go home. But if bees build a nest on the eaves of your home and keep coming through the window stinging your family, you don’t call for a cease-fire; you call in an exterminator and get rid of the bee’s nest. Condi Rice also rejected the possibility of a cease-fire. The terrorists just can’t be reasoned with.

More War News
I keep the TV turned onto the news most of the day. The coverage of the mideast crisis non-stop. I seriously think that Fox News suffers some sort of OCD. Before this started, Hannity & Colmes had become the “Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal News Hour.” After that was the “Natalie Halloway News Hour.” Now the news all day is the “Israeli-Lebanon War Coverage Channel.”

One useful bit of information that came out of this was that these Islamofascists want to create war as a means of bringing forth the Islamic Messiah, the “tenth Imam”, and bringing about the end of the world. I suppose so that they can all go live as happy little dead Islamofascists in heaven with their seventy-two virgins. I could never understand how that works. Do they get to deflower the seventy-two virgins? That makes for seventy-two whoopies. Then what? Once they use up the seventy-two virgins, then they’re as good as married. Seventy-two times over. Which is like being in hell. Multiplied by seventy-two.

More Players
Last week, I forgot to add some important players to the list.

Iran supplies the rockets, the inspiration, the funding, the training, and the tactics, even the terrorists to Hezbollah.

China builds the rockets that Iran modifies and sends to Syria who supplies Hezbollah.

Equal Evil Rises Up

2006-07-15T16:55:00.000-06:00

I’m establishing a pattern of updating this blog on a weekly basis, except for special occasions. The developing situation in the Middle East might have been such a special occasion. On the other hand, I’ve been rather busy lately. The newspaper agency decided to charge me for printing my route lists, and I decided it would be more cost-effective to maintain my own database and print my own route lists. So that’s what I’ve been working on.

Space Odyssey 2006
I remember the movie “2010: Odyssey Two” based on Arthur C. Clarke’s novel. There was a scene where the astronauts reached the abandoned space ship, and had begun their work of investigation and recovery. There was news of international political unrest, and worry of how that might affect the mission.

That scene is familiar now, as the NASA Space Shuttle program is once again underway, with Discovery. The reports and images of the astronauts’ space walks and work on the International Space Station have been coming through among reports of an escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza. At the same time, the UN Security Council has now formulated a historic resolution condemning North Korea’s missile firings last week. That’s the seven missiles that North Korea test fired on July 4th, Independence day, the day of the shuttle launch.

The International Space Station is being called a “toe-hold” to deeper space exploration, e.g. manned missions to mars. There are astronauts from countries that don’t have their own space vehicles. So the International Space Station is also a toe-hold to greater international cooperation in peaceful scientific development and space exploration, and as such serves to unite the nations of the earth under a common purpose.

Fox News issued a call for questions to send to the astronauts. I sent in the following:

Is the middle east political turmoil on the ground while you do your work in space reminiscent of a similar scenario in Arthur C. Clark's novel/movie, '2010: Odyssey Two'? What news do you get from Earth, and is that it all distracting for you?

WAR!
There’s been a lot of talk about whether or not this is actually war. Lebanon declares this conflict as open war. Bill O’Rielly declared (as if he has the authority) that this is in fact World War III. Last year sometime, some other military commander pundit declared that the Global War On Terror, which began with 9/11, is in fact, WW IV, with the Cold War being WW III. As World Wars go, they aren’t recognized as such until after the fact. Other more moderate pundits are calling this conflict a “border war”, not quite all-out war.

The events, as I know them, are as follows. June 25, Hezbollah terrorists abducted two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with increasing attacks on Lebanon, blockading the country. July 12, Iran’s deadline to respond to the incentive package to cease uranium enrichment passed without the required response. The same day, Hezbolla began firing rockets out of Lebanon into Israeli cities. Rockets were also fired out of Gaza into Israel. Israel responded by destroying the Beirut airport fuel tanks in a spectacular blaze. Lebanon responded by firing more missiles into Israel. July 14, the UN condemned Israel’s response as being “disproportionate”; USA immediately vetoed the resolution. The Israeli ambassador agreed that the response was indeed “disproportionate”, but disproportionate in the sense that any other country would respond with much greater force to the provocative act of having it’s third largest city attacked.

On the Korean issue, today, July 15, the UN passed a compromised resolution condemning North Korea’s missile test launches, demanding that they stop, but with no “or else” clause. North Korea immediately thumbed their nose at the UN by rejecting the resolution. The UN is busy dealing with one issue at a time.

The Players
Lebanon is on the northern border of Israel, and lies between Israel and Syria. Lebanon is 4,015 sq. miles, same area as a square 63 miles on a side, equivalent to Delaware or Connecticut. Hezbollah is a terrorist militia faction that is effectively in control of Lebanon, in the same sense that the Taliban was in control of Afghanistan. Existing treaties required that Lebanon disarm all of its militias. Lebanon has done so with all militias except Hezbollah. Hezbollah is said to have 10,000 rockets stockpiled. Hezbollah gets its financial backing from Iran. In effect, Hezbollah is a hand puppet of Iran, which they are using to take over Lebanon, and carry out Iran’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map”.

Israel is on the east coast of the Mediterranean, the same land where Israel existed in biblical times. Israel is 8019 sq. miles, equivalent to Massachusetts. Israel was established in 1948 as a homeland for displaced Jews from WW II. Since then, Israel has been surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors, and has had the support of the USA.

Gaza Strip is a tiny strip of land of 135 square miles on the southwest corner of Israel. 135 square miles is a rectangle 5 miles wide, 27 miles long, which is the approximate shape of Gaza. The entire area would fit inside many American cities. My paper route might very well cover 135 square miles. The area is not recognized as belonging to any sovereign country. Israel withdrew its occupation of the area in 2005. Gaza Strip is where Hamas operates, similar to Hezbollah’s stranglehold on Lebanon.

Syria lies to the north of Israel, also on the east coast of the Mediterranean. Syria is 71,498 sq. miles, equivalent to North Dakota. Iran lies to the east. Syria has never had a direct conflict with the US, but has strong connections with Iran.

Soothsaying
International conflict isn’t the only source of turmoil. For the last few weeks there’s been an unusual rash of newspaper customers calling in complaints. Bogus complaints, legitimate complaints, non-consequential complaints, repeat complaints, you name it. And it’s not just me. Lots of paper carriers have seen this, though they don’t talk much about it.

Whenever there’s a lot of insanity going around people like to look for some cause. Who put what in the water? Ever since the Y2K scare, there’s been a lot of concern about End Time prophecies. Edgar Cayce prophesied a pole shift and geological disaster in 2005. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012. There’s prophecies of a huge meteor smashing the earth in 2012. War and rumors of war. Fire and brimstone. Dogs and cats living together. Your mortgage payments will be going up, some by as much as 50%. Those with weak credit histories will need help the most. Sorry, I’m OCDing on some annoying mortgage refinance commercial.

Turning back to my metaphysical background, astrology offers some hope of prognosticating the future. Not the fake sun-sign horoscope astrology that you read in the newspapers. Real astrology computes the exact position of all the planets, the sun, the moon, and the horizon at the exact time and location of an individual’s birth, and any other event of interest, along with the angular relationship between all of those points in relation to the zodiac, and all of the symbolic meaning of these things, all woven together in an artistic synthesis.

One of the general global influences that professional astrologers concern themselves with is the mercury retrograde. A mercury retrograde is supposed to be a time of missed communications, bad decisions, plans going awry, fire and brimstone. Well, guess what? Mercury went retrograde… get this… July 4th! This mercury retrograde will last until July 28th.

Another means of forecasting mental malfunction is the Geomagnetic Storm report. When there’s a lot of geomagnetic activity, radio communications are interfered with, spacecraft and satellites are effected, birds have difficulty navigating, people are upset more easily, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together. Okay. So, the report for July 1 – 15 shows a bit of activity around July 4 – 6, but not quite enough to endanger spacecraft or make people go crazy, cracking open each others heads, feasting on the goo within, babbling like idiots, firing pistols, missiles and rockets into the air, calling in bogus complaints about “missing” newspapers.

I’d like to put together a graphic tying together all the facts in a timeline. Realistically, I would have to attribute the insanity to the instigators of international turmoil. And all fingers seem to be pointing back to Iran. Iran just can’t leave Israel alone. They’ve got to keep stirring up trouble. And when they do, the turmoil goes out into the world in waves that affect everyone, and rebound like a ball in a pinball game.

Machiavelli
Radio DJ “Mancow” has been a regular guest on one of the morning news shows. Recently, he came on, explaining that he no longer had a radio show. He said that after 9/11, he was changed, he embraced Christian values, supported the war on terror, always talked about positive developments. But the radio station fired him because his values apparently didn’t agree with those of the radio station. He quoted Machiavelli

When you do good, equal evil rises up against you.

N. Korean Missile Crisis

2006-07-08T15:10:00.000-06:00

N. Korean Missile Crisis

North Korea, led by Kim Jong Il, commonly recognized as a maniac, utilized our Independence Day as an opportunity to taunt the US by test firing seven missiles into the Sea of Japan. These missiles are supposedly Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. However, the Korean ICBMs are actually little more than three SKUD missiles duct taped together, filled with enough fuel to reach Detroit, and (potentially) a nuke strapped on the top. The media duly has each other and the public in a panic, thinking that they’re intent on nuking the USA.

Meanwhile, the military is beside themselves with amusement as the “missiles” fail, fall apart, blow up, and fall into the sea 40 seconds after launch. To observe and monitor this charade, the navy has a few ships over there, tracking each one. Just in case one of these “missiles” actually gets over Japan, gets over the Pacific, and gets close to Hawaii or other US soil, there’s a Missile Defense System in place in Alaska and in California, ready to intercept and destroy any incoming missiles.

Some of the congressmen are of the opinion that we should preemptively destroy one of these missiles on the launch pad, or as soon as it gets in the air. Unfortunately, such an action would be an outright act of war, and would further encourage the Left-Wing lunatic moonbats that keep bleating “Bush Lied, People Died, blah blah blah”, and that (aside from WW II, WW I, Vietnam, the original Korean War, Bosnia, Somalia, etc. but excluding Afghanistan) the USA has never preemptively gone to war with another nation that did not attack us first until Iraq.

The position of the military and the Bush administration is that while Korea is essentially harmless, their theatrics are a threat to the region, very upsetting to Japan and world economy. Most importantly, they broke their word when they said they wouldn’t build nukes, missiles, and put the two together. The United States will not act alone – unilaterally – but is pressuring the international community to speak together with one voice.

Inside N. Korea, people are starving to death. Except for in Pyongyang. Pyongyang is where the privileged few live in the lap of Kim Jong Il’s luxury. The Pyongyang residents are systematically brainwashed, from grade school on, to think of Kim Jong Il as their divine savior and the United States as the incarnation of evil itself. Satellite photos of the region show all the surrounding countries lit up at night with electricity and industrialization, while N. Korea is an island of darkness. One reporter who visited the country, described it as being “frozen in time, stuck with 1953 technology” from when the Korean War ended. When the people were without food to eat, they were told to go into the country and eat pine needles, tree bark and grass.

Over at the UN, Japan has the place in an uproar. Everyone agrees that they should pass a “chapter 7” resolution, which paves the way for sanctions, and then war. Everyone, except Russia and China. China is said to be using N. Korea as a stick with which to poke the USA in the eye, while looking the other way. But since N. Korea refused to return the trains that China sent their food in on, China has moderated their position, to only supporting a “Presidential Condemnation” of N. Korea’s belligerent acts.

So the USA is putting pressure on China to put more pressure on N. Korea to stop pressing the “Fire” button. And it becomes a big international chess game, where there are contingencies on contingencies on what the response to the counter-response to the other guy’s response might be if we announce what we might do if they don’t tell the other guy to stop doing what that other guy doesn’t like. It would take a computer to run through all the different scenarios twelve steps into the future to determine what the most optimal course of action would be.

Response To My Independence Day Message

I sent my Independence Day Message to several friends and family. My conclusion was simple.

Support our troops, our Commander In Chief, our government, and their mission. To do any less is nothing more than hypocracy.

The maniac response was almost immediate.

Thanks, but if Bushco et al have their way, we'll all be fundamentalist christians who do only as the government tells us. I do support the troops through the USO and independent charities, I don't however believe a word that Mr. Bush and his cronies say and think that our freedoms are being pulled right out from under our feet in the name of never ending war for profit and complete control of the masses. Wake up and smell the fascism.

Okay. Fascism, huh. I suppose that this isn’t the Islamofascism that we’ve heard so much about. The terrorists have been coming back at us with the term “Amerofascism.” I suppose this person agrees with the terrorists then.

My response was simple:

You should take care of the BDS. It could lead to brain failure.

I didn’t mention the hypocracy of supporting the troops through USO while not wanting them to do their job in following the orders of their commanders and the Commander In Chief. Oh, and he’s now on my blocked sender list. Alright, enough.

Financial Times Still Commie Pinko Rag

Since the FT published the Imadumbjihad article, I’ve been watching some of what they publish. It’s really amazing how extremist this rag is, and how little attention they get for their views. I don’t have copies, but here’s a sampling.

Anti-family sentiment
A feature article expresses amazement that people still bear and raise children. Since child labor is now illegal in civilized countries, there is no economic reason to produce children, since they consume resources without adding to the labor pool.
Endorses Corporate Criminal, Ken Lay
In a memorial article dedicated to the late Kenneth Lay, founder of failed energy trading corporation Enron, the FT once again proclaims the accolades of an enemy of society. It’s okay to commit corporate fraud, as long as you make a profit.
Supports Atheism
Since it’s usually Islamic extremists that turn up as terrorists, apparently it’s a crime to be religious. Civilized people should give up on primitive, childish religious ideals and embrace peaceful atheism. Like Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler (!), and Saddam (?).

It seems the FT embraces ideals very similar to those of communist bloc countries. Sure enough, the FT thinks of Kim Jong Il as a strategic thinker, and not the least bit a madman.

In an online article,

“He appeared articulate and very knowledgeable about what was going on in the outside world,” says Moon Chung-in, a political scientist

Pyongyang Radio last month reported that Mr Kim’s favourite song includes the catchy line: “I will go my own way with hope, even though no one understands my mind”. The leader apparently sings it often and tells his senior officials that he will do his best to lead the army well.

Maybe it’s because the FT is a bunch of communist sympathizer pinkos that their paper is printed on pink paper.

Holy Rolley-Polley Rolling Fast

A bunch of Hollywood actor-activists (actor-ists?) have started what they call a “Rolling Fast” in protest of the war on terror, where everybody takes turns going for 24 hours without food. The thing got started by Mother Moonbat herself, Cindy Sheehan, on none other than Independence Day. 2,700 activists have joined the hunger-out, including Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover and novelist Alice Walker.

An erratic diet from a 24-hour fast might actually contribute to weight gain. But I can see the point of “load sharing” by making the hunger strike a rolling fast. Right. And if I clean my dinner plate, not only will the rolling fasters share in my nourishment, but also the people in China no longer go hungry.

Of course Al Jazeera was among the first to repeat the story of their useful idiot Dhimmis to their terrorist constituents.

Celebrate Your Freedom

2006-07-04T15:11:00.000-06:00

Consider the arrogance of the Islamists, who presume their religion as the one and only Islamic Nation, whose aim is to subjugate the entire human race to their theocracy under Sharia Law, and to subjugate non-Muslims as Dhimmis.

“Because the West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad.”
- Jihad Watch

"Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution...Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash.... Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim…then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain... Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed.... Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them."
- Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, F. J. Goulding, translator, London, 1970.

"Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the legal superstructure that global jihadists are laboring to restore everywhere in the Islamic world, and wish ultimately to impose on the entire human race."
- Dhimmi Watch

Now consider the usual celebration of our Independence Day in America. We live in blissful ignorance or our past and of threats outside our continent, or even outside our hometown.

Then we'll eat and laugh, shielding ourselves from the heat of the fire with our free hand while holding our hot dog roasting sticks in the other. When the darkness finally begins to gather we'll throw another log on the fire, toast marshmallows and sit back to watch the fireworks rising in the sky over Conneaut Lake Park, just a half mile across the water.It is unlikely there will be any discussions of the meaning of liberty or reflections on the Declaration of Independence and the men who signed it. No history lessons or patriotic readings. We'll just relax and joke and maybe sing a little, and after the fireworks we'll look at the stars as we herd sleepy grandchildren back to our cottages or drive home to tumble into bed to the sound of the last few firecrackers and bottle rockets.That's the whole point of it, you know. The whole point. To be so free, so much a part of something unique and strong and wonderful, so safe inside that wonderful thing called the United States, that you really don't even have to think about it.
- TCS Daily

But now consider the reality of what took place 230 years ago. The founding fathers put their lives on the line to secure not just their own fundamental freedom and human rights, but as a precedent to secure that freedom for the future of the human race.

"It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of present sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed…

"Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Great Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind: bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant."
- Thomas Paine, “Common Sense”, January 1776

"56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor… In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.
- Ronald Reagan

It is unfortunate that discussions such as this are often unacceptable because it is “political” or “religious” in nature. Yet the freedom to hold and discuss political and religious beliefs according to one’s own conscience is one of the basic rights that our country is founded on.

“I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
- Voltaire, “Candide”, 1759

I only ask that you not condemn those who fight for your freedom for doing so.

Freedom is not free. Support our troops, our commander in chief, our government, and their mission. To do any less is nothing more than hypocrisy.

Imadumbjihad

2006-07-01T16:46:00.000-06:00

Maybe I should commit to writing a bunch of stories once a week. I can’t seem to come up with enough time and stories together to write a blog every day like the professional bloggers do.

Maniac Too

No more sign of the maniac that chased me down the street last week. But the preponderance of maniacs has got me to wondering. And watching out for more of them. Could this be another Summer Of Shark Attacks? Oh, this year it’s alligators.

Let’s play a little game (queue music).
One of these things is not like the other.
One of these things is not the same.
One of these things is not like the other.
One of these things does not belong.

Maniac: Mahmoud Imadumbjihad
”There was no holocaust. It was a hoax.”
”Imagine a world without Zionism.”
”We will wipe Israel off the map.”
”Iran has a right to have nuclear weapons too.”
”We’re not refining uranium for nuclear weapons, we’re developing nuclear energy”

Maniac: George W. Bush
”Threatening the world with nuclear weapons is no civilized way to start negotiations.”
” Now some people would be willing to trade in my liberty in order to strengthen the hand of the madman in the whitehouse.”
”Make no mistake. The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. We will do whatever is necessary to protect America.”

Maniac: Kim Jo Ill Lee… North Korea
(… silence… )
(… missile launch… )
(… silence… )
”My people are starving. Please give us some food.”
(… silence… )
(… bigger missile launch… )
(… silence… )
”Give my people food… or I will do something… awful… to you.”

Hint: “Deep Throat” on The X-Files said that a truth is best hidden between two lies.

Dog Blog

There’s a notice up by the mailboxes at the StoneHead Condominiums stating that mail is not being delivered because of an “aggressive dog” that attacked the mailman. Residents are supposed to pick up their mail at the post office. I don’t know if the dog that attacked the mailman is the same one that attacked me, or if it’s the same one that I hear snarling from behind the door as I walk down the hall.

Never mind that Ruteger’s Spoon Footpath is the shortest street with the longest name. I think the residents of the StoneHead Condominiums must be a bunch of stoners. There’s been two separate occasions of chronic complainers not being able to locate the newspaper that’s delivered right to their very door. Both of them are from StoneHead. Maybe the vicious dog is the newspaper thief.

A New Conspiracy Theory

I wouldn’t want the left wing loonies to have all the fun with inventing crazy conspiracy theories. Back when I was an X-File fan, I thought the conspiracy theories were intriguing. Now, they just piss me off.

First, nobody’s talking about the details of the secret anti-terror program leaked by the NY Times except for Al Jazeera. The American MSM is just talking about who leaked, who and whether or not to prosecute, that the President has been talking about tracking banking transactions since the beginning. Nobody except Al Jazeera is talking about the SWIFT program, that it only tracks international transactions, that only very large transactions are of interest, that only transactions involving suspect terrorists is subpoenaed, that domestic transactions and ordinary American citizens are completely out of the picture.

Here’s a new conspiracy theory for current events surrounding the NY Times leak of the secret anti-terror program. It should be obvious that with the extensive coverage of the SWIFT program, any intelligent terrorist operative will henceforth shun large international transactions through any bank connected with the SWIFT network. My theory is that the SWIFT program has run it’s course, and that the CIA wanted to preemptively change the scenario. By intentionally “leaking” this deal to the NYT / Al Jazeera news channel, the CIA is shifting the financial transactions into some other new funding channel, which they are now carefully monitoring. I obviously don’t have details, but I can say that,

It’s not through banks associated with SWIFT, and

It’s not large transactions, and

Whoever starts getting a lot funds flowing in matching the above two criteria are possible terrorist suspects.

Financial Times Loves Imadumbjihad

I don’t see why anyone subscribes to the Financial Times. It can’t even catch the plane from Dallas to Denver in time for distribution half the time. Yet the small readership remains loyal, even through all the non-delivery and delayed delivery days. It must be because The People’s Republic of Boulder is so full of a bunch of left-wing liberals that are as head-over-heals in love with the Islamofascists as the Financial Times is.

FT recently ran a headline story highlighting the accolades of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad (hyphen and capital “N” included in FT’s spelling) AKA “Imadumbjihad.” This calls for a corroboration of FT’s reporting with other sources. Primarily, there is a Wikipedia article that discusses the controversies surrounding Mahmoud Imadumbjihad.

Going back to the 1979 hostage crisis, there are five former hostages who have positively identified this man as one of their captors. Regarding the 1979 events, FT says

“On one hand, his victory in a lively election [2005] boosted Iran’s ‘religious democracy’ and showed the egalitarian slogans of the 1979 revolution could still motivate the masses and rewrite a political agenda that had divided Iran between ‘reformists’ and ‘conservatives’.”

So 1979 was not a time when Imadumbjihad banded with a bunch of Islamic fundamentalist student hooligans, over-ran the American embassy, took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, and broke off diplomatic relations between the countries, but instead was a year when Iran came into it’s own, joined the civilized world, and recognized human rights. Elsewhere, the article simply says that the student leaders of the 1979 hostage crisis denied Imadumbjihad’s involvement.

Fast forward to the 2005 election in which Imadumbjihad gained power. Wikipedia article details allegations of election fraud, in which he essentially strong-armed his way into power. The FT is quick to point out his rising popularity and altruistic shepherding of the Iranian people toward success.

“Mr Ahmadi-Nejad won on a slogan of “bring oil money to the people’s sofreh” (dining cloth) and quickly showed an understanding of the Iranian masses lacking not just in Mr Bush but in his own predecessor, the reformist Mohammad Khatami.”

February 2006, amidst the much-publicized Danish Mohammed Cartoon controversy, Imadumbjihad denies that the holocaust happened. It was another trademark “in your face” response to western civilizations outrage at the Islamists alarmist response to the Danish newspapers cartoon contest. All those old photos of bodies from the Nazi death camps stacked up like firewood must really be doctored photos of a mannequin factory. Meanwhile, the FT denies that Imadumbjihad denies the holocaust. That feature of the Islamofascist leader’s rise to fame is conveniently forgotten by the FT.

Maniac

2006-06-24T12:43:00.000-06:00

Sighted, 6/23/06:

3:30-ish AM. I notice that the Carbon Monoxide Nazi Bitch has willingly parked her car far away from me so as not to be affected by the miniscule amount of emissions from my vehicle. I decide to let my engine idle, as is my habit, while reviewing my route list before heading out. Five minutes later, I've completed the review (beats spending 10 seconds per address en route like a newbie Camera carrier). I notice out of the corner of my eye that Miss Carbon Monoxide is peeking around the corner of the door to check on my (in)activities. As I pull away, the five seconds of elapsed time has been enough for the invisible cloud of Carbon Monoxide that I have created to dissipate so that Miss Carbon Monoxide's alergies won't be activated, and she can safely cross the parking lot to her vehicle. All is well.
4:30-ish AM. I turn onto Blackbird Road, drive 3/10 mile, get into turn lane to turn onto Femur Road. Notice that Maniac #2 is tailgating me, trying to pass on left to get into left-hand turn lane around me. Cut off said tailgaiter. Tailgaiter continues to tailgate another 2/10 miles until my next turn. Speed estimated to be 5 MPH over speed limit. Distracted by the tailgaiter, I neglect to use turn signal, knowing that my brake lights will indicate an impending maneuver. As I turn, the tailgaiter honks his horn, blasts past, accelerates to an estimated 20 MPH over speed limit. Let me guess. "OHMANOHMANOHMAN IGOTTAGOPEEREALBAD!!! JESUSCHRISTIGOTTAGETHOMEIGOTTAGOSOBADICAN'TSTANDIT!!! WHYISTHISGUYGOINGSODAMNDESLOWJESUSCHRISTJUSTGET OUTAMYWAY!!!!!"
6:30-ish AM. A fat walrus-like figure, apparently female as evidenced by a pair of breasts, fluffy Bozo-like hair sticking out of the sides of a ball-cap, chasing my truck down the street like a rabid dog. Shouting something, mostly unintelligible, but something like "BLAAAH! BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAAAAAHHH! BLAH BLAH!!! I SAW YOU BLAAAH!!! BLAAAH! BLAHBLAHBLAH!!! YOU BLAH! BLAAAHH!! YOU JUST BLAH BLAH!!! GET BACK HERE YOU BLAHH BLAH!!!!! BLAH! BLAAAHH!!!" You saw me what? Delivering newspapers? Driving down the roadway? Massacring some microbes upon the roadway with my vehicle as I drove over them? I drive away from Maniac #3 unscathed, but wonder to myself, "What am I, flypaper for freaks? Is there a Freak Vortex here in GumWrapper?

NY Times: Useful Idots

2006-06-23T15:57:00.000-06:00

The New York Times proves yet again to be the definition of the term "useful idiot." Within hours of publishing the story leaking classified info about tracking movement of terrorist funds, the same story was published on the terrorists' Al Jazeera web site. The Al Jazeera article discusses details of how banking data is obtained, and what types of data is obtained. Al Jazeera also describes the ever-shifting nature of the Global War On Terror, and how strategies are constantly adjusted.

"We know the terrorists pay attention to our strategy to fight them, and now have another piece of the puzzle of how we are fighting them," (Deputy White House press secretary, Dana) Perino said.

"We also know they adapt their methods, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement officials."

The White House had asked that the story not be run, but the NY Times and the Los Angeles Times both ran the story any, in spite or requests not to do so "for national security reasons". Conservative bloggers, Fox News, and other news entities have been actively speaking out against the publishing of the story.

Useful Idiots

The term "useful idiot" was used during the Cold War era to describe the Soviet attitude towards Soviet sympathisers within the US. The actual origins of the term are obscured, but are strongly rumored to have been coined by Lenin. In a private memo during the Genoa conference of 1922 considering post-WW I economic reconstruction, Lenin wrote
Henderson is as stupid as Kerensky, and for this reason he is helping us.

It suits us that Genoa be wrecked... but not by us, of course.
In effect, when an opponent takes a position to "be fair", an unscrupulous individual, group or government finds it useful to take full advantage of their opponents compromised position. Just as the Soviets found comments by American peace activists and Soviet sympathisers to be useful to their cause, so to stories by the NY Times and LA Times which disclose classified security operations are useful to the al Qaeda terrorists.

In WW II, the slogan was "loose lips sink ships." Today, it's quite the opposite.

UPDATE: I know it's been a while since I've been actively blogging. Oh well, life happens. I feel that this is important enough to write about, and draw some supportive attention to. Thanks to the following:
Cao's Blog
Blogs For Bush
Dr. Sanity
The Daily Brief
Neo-Neocon
Michelle Malkin
Moonbattery
Outside The Beltway
The Nose On Your Face

Ted Roosevelt on Imigration

2006-03-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Others have been blogging about the border security issue. Some have said that this has been reaching a boiling point. Today there were walkouts and work stoppages across the country in protest of proposed bills that would illegalize support of illegal immigrants. I think it's a good time to bring this up.

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Fog of War

2006-03-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

I received the following anecdote in an email this morning:

A Japanese company and an American company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

So American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles! Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceledall capital investments for new equipment.

The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses, and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India....

How true, how true. In my experience, I would add only one modification. The money saved would be distributed to the Senior Executives as multi-million dollar severance packages, and the rowing team would be sold to the Japanese. The American Senior Executives would then add the experience to their resume as another “success story,” and form a new American rowing team with a group of Indian nationals with visas for working in the US. Witness Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, who was paid an estimated total of $42 million in severance to leave the company after the merger with Compaq failed to produce the benefits that she promised.

I was thinking just this morning about another micromanagement experience I had as a Software Support Engineer. As a computer engineer, my imagination can run wild when I get bored. So when I’m out driving around, throwing papers, I get to think about, remember, and dwell on all sorts of things.

As a Software Support Engineer, it was my job to investigate and resolve problems in my employer’s software components, which were used by other professional software engineers in their development projects. The issue that I remember was interesting because it involved some actual investigation, instead of simply reading appropriate publicly available knowledge base articles to the customer. Shortly after I got down to the “meat” of the problem, I got a phone call from what turned out to be a manager leading her team in a conference call. The manager wanted to know why I hadn’t resolved the problem, how long it would take, how many people were working on the problem, what criteria defined the problem as being “complex,” if I could provide hourly updates of progress, and what she could do to get more resources on the problem. I explained as tactfully as I could that it would take a day or two, that the process was a one-person job, and that the best thing that she could do to help would be to leave me alone and let me actually do the work.

In retrospect, I think that now I would conference call in my manager, and say something like “Hi, this is Mark here with a customer for issue number 987654. The customer’s manager wants to micromanage my work instead of letting me do the work. You know how it is, fog of war, Mythical Man Month, that sort of thing. Can you take care of this for me please? Thanks. Bye.”

The fog of war is a well-known phenomenon where the various unknowns in war make it impossible to plan or coordinate with much clarity. The battlefield would be clouded with smoke, and the troops would loose sight of each other and the enemy, and go charging off in the wrong direction and get lost. It also refers to the lack of intelligence of the enemy’s plans and tactics, and results in surprise attacks. In the context of computer problems, I’m using the term to refer to the lack of knowledge of the cause, nature and extent of the problem, which prevents any accurate forecasting of the eventual resolution of the problem.

In the context of the current global war on terror, there is a fog of war in that the enemy has no national identity to go to war against. The enemy hides among us, and uses our own resources for their purposes. The enemy elicits the sympathy of the gullible who feel compelled to defend the rights of the oppressed, without realizing that they are empowering the oppressors. The enemy abuses the media that finds the terrible to be the most newsworthy, transforming them into useful idiots. Witness the effects of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, and others. These people want the war to end immediately, want immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Yet they have even less idea of the problems and potential problems being faced by both the Americans and the Iraqis if we were to withdraw. The anti-war protestors are in a fog about why we’re in a war in the first place.

The Mythical Man Month was a book that was required reading when I was a senior in college. It describes how IBM developed the OS/360 operating system, and how over-managing a project results in a later project because of additional training, management, and coordination required.

So what happened to my Software Support Engineer job? The executive management was on its third CEO in as many years. The Sales organization appropriated the Support organization away from the Engineering organization. The product line that I was to support was scheduled to change every two weeks. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, and I insisted that I be left on one product for a minimum of three months so that I could get established. Two weeks later, I was laid off for poor productivity. Shortly afterward, 9/11 happened, the company moved on to its 4th CEO, then was sold to a competitor. And because I hadn’t spent 20 hours a day for the past 15 years learning the newest technology, nobody in the computer industry wanted to hire me. And I decided that I could at least make a living delivering newspapers.

Muffin Top

2006-03-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

There's another "My world has gone to hell again, and I'm fighting valiantly to regain some sanity" post in the works to follow up for another anger management / succumbing to entropy series.

While I rebuild my computer, and recover my data that's lost in limbo-land, I'm having a hell of a good time following some of the humor / pull-my-finger / fart-joke / moonbat documentary blogs. Might as well. This photo from Caption This is an example of what's called a "muffin top". Not referring to the hood.

Which brings me to my next wikipedia term of the day:
Muffin Top - slang for people who wear both tight pants and midriff-bearing tops. The resulting spillage of skin resembles a muffin top.

Oh, and the photo is of Cindy Sheehan being arrested yet again, blah blah blah blah, whatever. I suppose the pink bib is a police issue drool bucket or something, I don't know. Be careful of the gnashing teeth too, I think they drip acidic saliva.

"Gentlemen, do not look at her face; her gaze can turn a man to stone. For your protection, we've placed a protective hood over her eyes."

Brokeback Hollywood

2006-02-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

I used to get the impression that hollywood producers believe that everyone gets laid as often as they eat a meal. In my case, we're still collecting enough data to produce a meaningful statistical analysis, but so far it looks like the next time I get to eat is 8.4 year from now. I used to look forward to eating, but after finding out about this I don't think I'll ever eat anything again.

At first, the movies were about cowboys and indians. Then it was marines and aliens. Now they've gone back to the westerns, except this time it's cowboys and cowboys.

Entropy Again

2006-02-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Snow day. Day 2, Part 2. Low of 6 deg. F, wind chill -3 deg. F. Last week (part I), I could barely stay on the roads going 15 MPH. Spun out, doing a 180 in front of some guy that was shovelling his driveway right about the time that I'm contractually obligated to have the route completed. He looked at me like I was a terrorist. Had to go back out into the intersection, make a U-turn in the intersection, make another pass at his cul-de-sac, then deliver his paper at his feet.

Somebody else thought I was a terrorist. I don't know if it was his car that barked at me as I walked past it, but his comments of "I hope that was a newspaper you just threw... BOOM!!!" were ever so slightly rattling.

Whenever there's a snow day, the truck - the one that brings the papers from Denver to the warehouse - is an hour late. That's an hour later than they are usually late, which makes them two hours late on snow days.

"How are the roads out there?"
"Are you an olympic figure skater? 'Cause if you're not, you ain't gonna have a very good time getting to work"
You'd think that the Denver Post could check their own weather forcast, and step up production and delivery of the paper when there's bad weather. But it's not like an organization that big to have any sense of the big picture.

"How come you're so late?"
"Dude, on days like this, hurrying just makes it worse."
I wonder if that's why the truck driver was drunk when he finally showed up at the warehouse. On a snow day.

President Cheney shot some lawyer. Or maybe it was Dan Quayle. Either way, good for him. Oh, and all the newspapers all felt jilted that he didn't report the crime to them for 18 whole seconds. "It was as if the country was decapitated for those 18 seconds."

I managed to get 245 MB worth of spam from the past three years to my postmaster account at emporium-sw.com cleaned up. That's 31 spam messages a day for 3 years. Some 33,169 messages. Uh-huh, yep, and that's right. I got Outlook set up with that account, and set up a rule to delete everything that comes into it. And everything that comes into the server for some made-up account that doesn't exist gets dumped into a blackhole.

Now that I'm not hitting my disk space quota on the server, I can put some ebay listings up there. I even got the new auction software installed. 'Cause the old software quit working, 'cause they quit maintaining it, 'cause ebay changed their rules so those people couldn't write their software like that anymore. So they're basically out of business, until they can re-write their software all over again.

And the truck's been overheating. Well, not since it's been so freakin' freezin' cold. But before that, it was boiling over. I don't know what's going on, everything is new again except the engine block itself. Since I replaced the power steering for a cool $800 just a week ago, I'm a little embarrassed to take it in right away and say "You know that new radiator you put in last summer? Well it's plugged up already."

But still, the overall cost of repairs is still less than the combined cost of payments and insurance on a new vehicle. So I'm happy that every repair is one more major component that I shouldn't have to worry about for a while. Stoicism is the only thing that keeps me sane anymore.

Wait, there's still more driving me to the edge of going postal. Some guy was taking his dog out for a pee, and the dog turned vicious and was ready to rip me a new one. Probably 'cause I was wearing the burglar hat that day, 'cause it was so cold. Oh, and some lady whispered under her breath "I don't like you" at me in my burglar hat that day. So that's when I got the pepper spray. You know, just in case.

Well, it seems the idea of wanting to protect myself has been drawing in all the more wierdos. Even the ring of bag-thiefs at the distribution center is having a hard time, since they stopped getting the designated national's bags for us. Now I have to put all the papers in those cheapey rice bags that fall apart as soon as you think about them. I went to throw a USA Today over the top (of the truck), and the paper flew out the bottom of the bag onto the street. In the snow. Furtunately, its too cold to get a wet paper complaint. Stoicism again.

The USA Today was extraordinarily fat today, so that's probably why it flew out of the bottom of the bag. It's probably full of coverage of Cheney's shooting rampage.

Although I did get a wet paper complaint on a perfectly dry, but windy day. The explanation for that was the phone menu on the complaint hotline. Remember the Springfield Emergency Hotline when Bart tried to report Flanders as a murderer? "If you are being murdered, press one..." [Bart presses random key] "You have selected 'Regicide.' To report the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one..."

I should just refuse to deliver any more national newspapers until they get more bags for us. 'Course, I'd lose my job right away. My boss takes every opportunity possible to threaten me with my livelihood. The memo congratulating us on winning the lowest complaint-rate contest also ended with a threat to our livelihoods if we didn't improve the complaint-rates.

I was also threatened with my livelihood when I bit some girl's head off for parking too close to my truck, then complaining that I was in her way.

According to the liberals, if I use enough of words like 'terrorist', 'target', 'suspect', 'bombed' and 'killed' in some out-of context way, the NSA will pick up these blog entries off of the internet, report my suspect activities to my employer, give me a 35% pay cut for some made-up reason, cancel my (non-existent) health insurance, put me in the FBI database, have me shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, where I'll be beaten with rubber hoses, hosed and raped with a Koran, have rubber bands tied around my gonads, then be beheaded by some Special Forces commando dressed up as one of those wonderful Islamofascist thugs, er, I mean terrorists, er, I mean "insurgent", er, I mean "freedom fighter."

And one of these guys wants me to listen to talk radio while I work. Dude, they know that the only people that listen to talk radio are pathetic liberal losers that can't formulate their own opinions and need opinions spoon-fed to them by some anti-American Democrat's tool. I don't need to listen to something that's just going to piss me off while I'm trying to work.

Jelly Jihad Continues

2006-02-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Another Danish pastry containing an apparent image of the prophet Mohammed has surfaced today. At a bakery in Detroit Michigan, Joseph stopped by for some donuts. “The idea was to celebrate the Superbowl victory of the Steelers,” Joseph explained. “When I saw those danishes, I decided they were so tasty, I asked for a dozen of those instead. It wasn’t until I got to the office that I found the one with the li’l Arab dude.”

That was only the beginning. “Bill was just going to eat it, and Sue said something like ‘Don’t eat that! Isn’t that one of the 9/11 terrorists? You might hurt somebody.’” Sue was on to something that would change all of their lives in a profound way. “So we gave her this look, like, WTF, and she says ‘You know, hurt somebody’s feelings.’ I was about to take a bite, when Sue grabs it out of my hand and heads over to Mohammed’s desk.

“We always thought Mohammed was just one of the guys, kind of a mamma’s boy, you know, knew his internet protocol stuff pretty well, but kind of secretive. Well, Mohammed just goes postal. It really surprised all of us. It was really unexpected.” It turned out that Mohammed was a secretive but avid knife collector. Omar produced an 11-inch dagger from his desk, and began absent-mindedly stabbing the Blue Angels calendar on his cubicle wall while muttering “no more blood for oil… no more blood for oil…” The stabbing quickly turned to hacking, followed by violent thrashing, as his targets became more human, and his chant turned to something Arabic, followed by a shouted “JELLY JIHAD!!! JELLY JIHAD!!! JELLY JIHAD!!!”

Sensing the growing unrest in the American heartland, Iranian police (yes, police, from Iran, as oxymoronic as that sounds) knew the embassy of Denmark, the pastry’s namesake country, would be subject to the inevitable jelly jihad. As if a hundredth monkey episode had overtaken their conscious minds, a group of protesters appeared at the Danish embassy just moments after the cartoon Danish appeared, and Mohammed lost it. Some of the protesters carried signs with slogans such as “Behead Pastry Chefs,” “Daneland [sic] Will Have It’s 9/11,” and “Exterminate Those Who Bake Jelly.”

At the office where the offending Danish appeared, the building was in flames. Sue grabbed a black tablecloth from the company cafeteria, cut an eye-slit in it, covered herself, and ran outside as the sole survivor, only seconds before the building exploded in a huge mushroom cloud. Speculation persists as to whether the suitcase nuke that apparently caused the explosion originated from Iran, or from President Bush.

Investigators have located and examined the charred remains of the offending Danish, and have traced the jelly to the Sucker’s Jelly company. Local Muslims, having learned from the internet that Sucker’s created the jelly that spontaneously generates Mohammed cartoons, confronted company president, Richard “Dick” Sucker. Mr. Sucker at first explained that the morphing jelly technology was obtained from the pantry on board the alien spacecraft from the 1947 Roswell New Mexico crash. The Muslims protesting the cartooning jelly would not accept, or understand the alien origins of the cartooning jelly. Without attempting to further explain the spontaneous cartooning of the jelly, Mr. Sucker eventually apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you guys are such jerks. I’m sorry that you just don’t get it. And I’m sorry that you have to throw such a temper tantrum over our little publicity stunt. But I’m not sorry that we made the cartoon danishes.”

In Tehran Iran, President Ahmadinejad has announced a bake sale where participants are encouraged to bake camel dung containing images of President Bush in bed with Hitler, Hillary Clinton in bed with Hitler, Hillary in bed with President Bush, Bill Clinton in bed with Satan, and endless such combinations.

Special Thanks: Moonbattery.com, Willisms.com, Outside The Beltway, The Nose On Your Face, little green footballs, Clarity & Resolve, Dr. Sanity, Michelle Malkin

Zealot Seen In Pastry, Fajitas Ordered

2006-02-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

Mary was enjoying her coffee and the morning newspaper at a Boise Idaho coffee house when she decided to order a danish, a jelly filled pastry apparently invented in the country of it's namesake. When the breakfast treat arrived, she was shocked to find a clearly insulting caracature of the renouned prophet/zealot, Mohammed within the jelly and swirls of sweetened bread. When Mary informed the waitress about the faux pas, the waitress insisted, "Oh I don't know anything about that. I just deliver them, I don't have anything else to do with them. You'll have to talk to the chef about that."

Mary asked to talk to the chef, and the waitress also refused any knowledge or responsibility for the whereabouts of the chef, as that was not in any way, shape, or form specified within her contract as a waitress. Filled with uncontrollable jelly rage at being snubbed, Mary stormed the kitchen shouting, "There's a zealot in my danish!"

The chef, upon inspecting the pastry, claimed that he didn't intentionally create any image of Mohammed within the danish, but the image spontaneously appeared on it's own. "It's just a trick of your eyes! You're only imagining it! There is no picture of Mohammed in this pastry" the chef further backpeddled.

Meanwhile, Mohammed, sitting at a nearby table wondered what all the excitement was about. Always spoiling for a good Jihad, Mohammed glanced in the general direction of the table containing the offending danish, and rose from his table. "WHAT!!! Another disrespectful cartoon of my beloved prophet!!!" the shiek shrieked. "I am hereby ordering a Fajita against this... this... INFIDEL chef!!! And all other non-muslim chefs throughout the world!!!" The shrieking shiek then produced a 59-year old AK-47 model Russian machine gun from his turbin, and fired a volley of rounds into the cieling.

At the same moment, further unrest eruputed at several muslim political communities known as "countries" contained stronghold fortress "embassies" held by non-muslim european "countries". Nearby these infidel strongholds, groups of angry muslims, subconsciously sensing unrest withing a foreign land, spontaneously stormed the embassies, at first marching with protest signs, and burning flags. The violence quickly turned to throwing of molotov coctails - a homemade gasoline bomb - , pushing down of gates and fenses surrounding the embassies, and a series of suicide bombers exploding within the embassy walls.

In Iran, president Ahmadinejad, who is also offended by cartoon danishes, promised his minion that he would complete his work on a nuclear bomb, and that the first ICBM would be headed straight for Boise, Idaho. Meanwhile, non-muslim chefs everywhere were ordered to behead themselves with their own cleavers. Those who do not own cleavers, or refuse to cooperate will be beheaded by the nuclear shiek, the shrieking shiek, and any compassionate jihadist muslim who feels sympathy for the plight of muslims oppressed by the appearance of cartoon danishes.

Addendum:
Credit where credit is due. Special thanks to moonbattery.com, Willisms.com, Outside The Beltway

Blame Bush: a photo essay

2006-02-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am so sick to death of the democrats, liberals, and moonbats blaming everything possible on Bush. I'm not even going to bring up John Conyers' and Ray McGovern's silly trial and indictment of the Bush administration's crimes against humanity. Why, the evidence is overwhelming. Here's a parade of witnesses speaking out against the attrocities of the Bush Administration.

Not only has President George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States of America rigged both of his elections...

George Bush has personally permanently altered the New York City Skyline.

George Bush not only created hurricane Katrina and blew up the levees in an effort of ethnic cleansing,

George Bush created a massive hurricane on Jupiter, big enough to swallow a thousand earths, that has destroyed countless civilizations throughout the entire universe, and thousands of parallel universes, for trillions of years. Trillions, and trillions, and trillions.

George Bush washed the soil off of my farm, right down to the bedrock!

George Bush dumped toxic nuclear waste in my favorite fishing hole!

George Bush looked up my dress!

George Bush made demons posess my cat.

George Bush turned my dog into a zombie!

George Bush turned me into a hippopotamus. Well I got better. Mostly.

George Bush turned my teeth into corn!

George Bush sold me these glasses.

George Bush stole candy from my baby!

George Bush made me cry too. And he killed my baby with his bare hands! Baby killer!

George Bush made my butt look fat. Or something. I can't tell anymore.

And George Bush made my butt look fat too.

And mine too.

All in all, George Bush has made a total wreck of the whole country! How could this happen?

Chappaquiddick

2006-01-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

I probably don’t need to apologize for not posting much lately. Seeing as how only random visitors read my blog anyway. The truth is that I’ve been busy getting my state sales taxes straightened out, which means getting the rest of my accounting straightened out. And I’ve just been fatigued, depressed, and not really sure what I want to do when I grow up. I know, I’m 42. I’d like to write about some of the fascinating metaphysical stuff that I’ve been finding. At the same time, the politics and the war really bug me with the way so many moonbats keep blaming everything possible on the president. And I’m not so sure if my metaphysical friends would understand how I feel about the politics, and I’m not sure if any potential political allies would appreciate my metaphysical interests. I guess that’s just one of my life’s missions.

Chappaquiddick
You know how in the X-Files, how Mulder would always go visit his mom at Martha’s Vineyard. I never knew where that place was, or if it was real. I suspected it was real, ‘cause I’d seen the name in other places. It turns out that Martha’s Vineyard isn’t a real vineyard, but it’s an island off the coast of Massachusetts. And there’s this little island right next to it called Chappaquiddick. They’re connected by a little sandbar that gets flooded over during storms, and the only way to get across is by 4-wheel drive. So they have a ferry that goes back and forth called the On Time Ferry, which only holds three cars. And once you get to Chappaquiddick, the place is tiny. There’s only one store, that’s also a mechanic’s garage. It only has 150 residents, but somehow 450 houses, the rest of which I suppose are rented out to vacationers or time-shared or something like that, I don’t know. And these people think of themselves as their own little country, separate from America, which isn’t really a country, but a pair of continents that has several countries, one of which is the USA. But that’s not the point.

Well, there’s this senator, Ted Kennedy. I found out that this Senator Ted Kennedy is actually the brother of president John F. Kennedy. That’s right, the one that got shot in Dallas, and caused all those conspiracy theories. And his other brother, Robert, got shot too. I guess having that much tragedy in the family could make some people go crazy. I understand that JFK’s wife, Jackie lost it and went and did some weird stuff. But I’ll have to go read about all that some other time.

So this Senator Ted Kennedy started drinking. I mean, a LOT. And like most alcoholics, he denies it, and refuses any kind of help. And the guy’s big. I mean ENORMOUS. Maybe it’s the alcohol or something, ‘cause I don’t think it’s genes. His other brothers, Jack (what they called JFK), and Robert never got fat. All this, and they still let Ted Kennedy be a senator for some reason. I think maybe there’s a lot of people that had similar family tragedies, and sympathize with him, so they keep electing him senator. Which is really unfortunate, ‘cause we don’t need a nation of losers being run by a congress full of losers.

The connection is that Senator Kennedy made Chappaquiddick Island famous one day. They were having some sort of frat party political drink-a-thon sort of thing there one day. This was back in 1969, by the way. And Senator Kennedy, drunk as a skunk, went driving off with some hooker. They called these girls “boiler room girls”, which sounds like hooker to me. Except instead of prostituting themselves for money, they prostitute themselves for some politician’s campaign.

And, drunk as a skunk, with a political hooker in the passenger seat, Senator Kennedy went driving off of a bridge into a canal. He said he dove into the canal to save the girl, then rested on the bank, then went to call his lawyer. I’m not sure how successfuly a big lard-ass like that could dive into a canal to save a girl from a submerged car. Blubber floats doesn’t it? That’d be like a 10-foot cork trying to dive. It ain’t gonna happen. It wouldn’t surprise me that he got all out of breath and had to rest on the bank either. But when they pulled the car out, there wasn’t any water inside. Not enough to drown someone. And I’d think that the girl would be able to get the door open herself. For some reason, they never did an autopsy to find out whether she drowned, or suffocated.

The whole thing was real, real suspicious. Maybe that’s just another of the family tragedies that made Ted Kennedy go crazy, and drove him to drink, and get fat. Fatter. I don’t know what physical condition he was in at the time.

Alito Confirmation

Fast-forward 37 years later to the present day. There’s this judge, Sam Alito, that they’ve been trying to get appointed to the Supreme Court. Well, here’s Senator Ted Kennedy, making an ass of himself, ‘cause he and some other liberal and democratic congressmen don’t want Alito confirmed to the Supreme Court. Instead of just voting against the confirmation, and letting the votes speak for themselves, they gotta pull a bunch of stupid stunts. First, they drill Alito on anything they can come up with, put words in his mouth, don’t let him answer the questions, even though he answered the questions anyway with a lot more wisdom than the senators that were posing the questions. They even threatened to filibuster, you know, where they read from War And Peace, from recipe books, phone books, and other nonsense just so nobody else can talk.

Why don’t they want Alito on the Supreme Court? As near as I can tell, it’s ‘cause they’re afraid he’ll reverse Roe vs. Wade. That’s the decision that makes abortion legal. Senator Kennedy was only pro-choice after Roe vs. Wade; before that he was pro-life. That’s like when I was a kid, and didn’t care about football, I would root for whichever team was ahead.

Abortion is one of those fringe topics that only affects a select few people. I hate to offer an opinion on abortion, because whichever side I take, someone will hate me for it. I have a certain sympathy for the unborn soul that has it’s life prematurely ended before it ever got started. It sounds a lot like my computer career. But I would have to say that abortion is one of those procedures that we should be grateful for, but on rare occasions where it really serves a positive, useful purpose. Abortion should remain a legal option, but I would strongly urge pregnant mothers and doctors to consider all possible alternatives before opting for abortion.

Over at Moonbattery.com, Van Helsing tells about how Senator Kennedy rants that all hell will break loose if Alito is confirmed. Of course by now, he already has been confirmed. But he says women will be force-aborted en-masse, slavery will be re-instituted, cub scouts will carry out the works of terrorists, dogs and cats will be living together. He says he’ll eat a baby for every vote to confirm Alito. He threatened to roll around on the senate floor, and throw a temper tantrum. Whenever I behaved like that, I was sent to my room without supper. Yet, for some strange reason, they still let Ted Kennedy be a senator.

This isn’t the first time that Senator Kennedy has attempted to harass a Supreme Court nominee out of confirmation. Apparently, he said the same things when Robert Bork was appointed in 1987. I can’t find who was saying it, but some other blogger was saying that this sort of Supreme Court Appointee bashing goes on when these lib-o-crats can’t get their way, and they’re afraid that it’ll upset the political balance of the court. As if the court has to be exactly half liberal, half conservative, at all times. What if the views of the people shift toward the right because more people see what a nutcase Kennedy and his liberals are? I don’t know, but I’d say that dogs and cats living together doesn’t look all that bad after all.

New Year's Anti-Resolution

2006-01-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

I don’t normally make New Year’s Resolutions. I think that resolutions should only be made after a dramatic, life-changing event, or a transition from one phase of life to another. Such as resolving to never pass a cop after being pulled over for speeding when you passed a cop. Nevertheless, I feel that the past three months have been a lot of hard work, leading up to the big Christmas shopping season, which actually paid off a tiny fraction of the work that I put into BazaarMart.com. I’m real tempted to make a positive, life-changing resolution. I wanted to resolve to give up the sarcasm, or maybe just cut back a bit, but the folks downtown at the Denver Newspaper Agency are making it real hard.

Some donut-head in marketing decided to make a Christmas gift of free newspaper subscriptions for us newspaper carriers. So instead of a list of New Year’s Resolutions, I’m making a list of reasons why I don’t want to subscribe to the newspaper that I deliver.

I already read the comics while I’m waiting for the truck to show up at the warehouse with the front-page section.

I’ve got a whole warehouse full of newspapers that I can take one home from any time that I want.

I can steal a sample from one of those forcibly subscribed “customers,” and they’ll probably thank me for not delivering it.

I can read the left over paper that I don’t deliver to that guy that never picks it up and builds a pyramid in the corner of his porch.

I don’t want you putting my name on your list of people that you’ve “previously done business with.”

I don’t want you calling me telling me that you’re giving me a free newspaper anyway.

I don’t want you giving me a free sample paper without calling me.

I don’t want you selling my name to one of your “associate companies,” whoever they are this week.

Last but not least, I see more damned newspapers every single night than I care to see in an entire lifetime, and the last thing that I want to see when I get home is yet another newspaper in my driveway that some other carrier delivered.

And one more just make it an even ten, I don’t want to have to get mad and threaten the other carrier, because I know that there’s nothing he or she can or would want to do about it, and even if I did, I would probably lose my job if not go to prison for murder, and they’d still replace the other paper carrier with someone else the very next day.

Last Minute Shopping

2005-12-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've honestly finished my christmas shopping three days ago. I only went down to WalMart this evening because I ran out of milk, which signals the necessity of a regular grocery shopping trip. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that the last-minute Christmas shoppers had overwhelmed the store. Ad to that the announcement being broadcast over the store loudspeakers at regular intervals:

Attention WalMart Shoppers, it is now 5:00, and the store is closing at 6:00. Please make your final selections and proceed to the front of the store for checkout. Thank you.

I swear I heard them make the same announcement twice for 5:15. I made my shopping list on the way out the door, and checked it twice while in the drink aisle, only to behold that I had yet to retrieve a bag of cat food. Having made my final cat food selection, I proceeded under pressure to the front of the store, only to find that the first checkout clerk was closing her lane. The second clerk, a miniature three-foot high 60 year-old lady, was finishing up with another miniature three-foot high 60 year-old lady, when she bungled the approval of the customers check. The customer wanted an extra $20 cash returned, and the added complexity was more than the two of them could collectively fathom at such a late hour. Customer Service was called in. Meanwhile, another customer placed his half-dozen articles on the belt behind my dozen articles, only to retrieve them upon seeing what was transpiring (or not) at the register. I had already had the same thoughts, but had determined that by the time I gathered my dozen articles back into my cart and had gone to another register, all avaible checkers would have either closed, or been transformed into Dumb Doris deer in the headlight register flailers. Or the impending 6:00 deadline would have passed, and I would have to spend Christmas locked in a WalMart store full of low-grade food, leftover Christmas merchandise, women's lingerie, and piles of beanbag furniture. So, I perservered, and remained in line while Dumb Doris (her name was actually Barb) mechanically checked an item, placed it in a bag, turned the bag turnstile, and repeated the process untill she eventually realized that she could put more than one item in a bag, and that she could actually fill both bags on the side of the turnstile before proceeding to the next side. So after enduring thirty minutes of last minute shopping horror, I managed to make it home, safe and sound, where I could snuggle sound in my bed with visions of Little Debbies cakes dancing in my head.

System Overload

2005-12-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

I can’t keep up with all the nonsense that’s going on out there, and still blog about it all, and not only run an internet business, but build it up to sustainable levels, get more education in needed skills, do my Christmas shopping, and run a paper route, along with all the extra promotional campaigns the papers are running, all at the same time. To put it simply, System Overload! So I’ll just mention some headline stories that I wish I could write a full article about.

The War On Christmas. It’s now improper to use the word Christmas at Christmastime, so as not to offend those who do not actually believe in Christ. There was an article on this in the Denver Post, and somewhere else, probably many somewhere elses in the blogosphere. Somewhere in Kentucky, I think, school kids were sent home for saying “Merry Christmas” to each other. There’s even a book on The War On Christmas. Someone sent me a video clip (I wish I could post it) of some redneck reading the PC rendition of ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas. And the non-denominational holiday figure laughed “Lady of the evenin’! Lady of the evenin’! Lady of the evenin’!” Crap, can’t even say “Ho Ho Ho!” Any more. Now they got me counting the Christmas cards that mention the word Christmas, and those that don’t.

Iraq has a huge, successful election. Of course, nobody in the media seemed to notice. It’s one of those things that’s deeply emotional to me, because it’s a sign that we’re accomplishing what we set out to do in Iraq. And the clueless democrats and liberals wanted an immediate withdrawal. It’s a good thing they caught those trucks full of bogus ballots, ready to rig the election.

The Government is spying on you. According to a poll in USA Today, 52% of Americans are engaged in some illegal activity that they don’t want the government to know about, 47% of Americans have nothing to hide, and the other 1% presumably don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

What’ve You Been Smoking? (I’d sure like some of that) I’ll bet the 52% are all smoking pot. I never did use the catch-phrase, “What’ve you been smoking?” I found it offensive when that phrase was used in reference to me, because I’m not a stoner. It’s always the stoners that use that catch-phrase. If I asked a crowd of people, say, company employees, “Everyone who’s drug free, raise your hand” I’ll bet the 47% would proudly raise their hand, and I’d know that the other 52% were all stoners (and 1% are too dumb/stoned to know the difference).

Patriot Act is Killed. It’s always the democrats that use the polls to make their decisions. Since 52% of Americans are opposed to the Patriot Act because they have something to hide, then the democrats are in support of the legalization of marijuana. This has parallels to prohibition, somehow. I just don’t care to figure it all out right now. But it doesn’t seem to have much to do with finding the terrorists.

Medicine Kills. Now, even more slowly. A good friend of mine has an elderly mother that is in the hospital dying. I’d rather not, and don’t have explicit permission to give all the details. Over the past few months I’ve heard reports of this elderly woman going from a relatively healthy, although diabetic and wheelchair bound person to a dying, half-dead person, carved up like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Every step along the way, the doctors were careful to point out the worst of all possible outcomes. And then, the worst of all possible outcomes happens. Have you guys ever heard of psychosomatic illness? Have you guys ever heard of the power of suggestion? Far be it for them to actually encourage a person’s will to live. It’s been said that more money is spent on health care at the end of a person’s life than at any other time of their life. I’m convinced that doctors like this take advantage of the health care plans of well-to-do families in such a way as to prolong the demise of the elderly, maximize the amount of extraordinary health care services provided, and extract the greatest amount of revenue from the insurance companies. I think it’s disgusting.

Tookie Who? Okay, so this guy started the Crips gang, was convicted for murder, never confessed his crimes or showed remorse, but managed to write a children’s book. So, because he wrote a children’s book, some moonbat wants him pardoned. And since Governor Schwarzenegger won’t pardon the guy, poor, poor Tookie gets the death sentence, and Arnold gets a bad rap as Governor Terminator. Arnie, you can terminate all the Tookies you can find, as far as I’m concerned. More power to you.

Angels among us. I’ll end this rant on a positive note. I’ve discovered one of the best Iraq-based military blog I’ve seen. Michael Yon’s Online Magazine. Reading through his archives, I’ve gained a lot of respect for his perspective, just how much progress has been made there, how little of that progress has been reported in the media, and what the soldiers stationed there experience. In one of the most interesting posts: Lost In Translation, Michael interviews a family man who spent most of his adult life either imprisoned or conscripted in the wrong army because he believed in Yezidism, an ancient offshoot of Judaism that believes in angels as central to their faith. Another interesting article is Angels Among Us, where a group of marines get their humvee blown up by an IED. When asked how they all escaped being killed, a soldier looked straight at Michael and without hesitation said, “We had angels watching us.”

Christmas Wish List

2005-12-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Well, the Christmas tips have started to roll in, and I’m looking at how I should spend the money. As I said before, I’m not going to disclose how much I get in tips, because it makes people jealous. If you have such feelings, consider how much BS I have to put up with from idiotic management and angry and forcibly subscribed customers, all the risks I take, having to save for and pay my own income taxes, having to run around in the cold at night, wearing clothing that makes me look like a burglar in order to keep warm, having to pay for auto maintenance and gasoline – don’t you think I deserve some consideration? So I smile when I get a $50 check from someone in the rich neighborhood, and I pass the smile right back to them with the best possible service. After all, TIPS stands for To Insure Proper Service.

It’s not really in line with the Christmas giving spirit, but in keeping with the commercialization of Christmas, I’m giving my Christmas tip money to the merchants and service providers in exchange for much-needed goods and services. So here’s my Christmas tip spending list:

Gasoline to feed the ever-hungry gas hog. With the price of gas down to $2 per gallon and my mileage hovering around 13 MPG, depending on the temperature, gas only cost me $7.70 per day, instead of the previous $10 per day when it was at $3 per gallon. It’s nice to see that the gulf coast refineries are back in operation, or whatever is making gas relatively affordable again. Thank you.

Lunch. This is another item that a certain portion of the pocket cash goes to. In fact, with gasoline, and an occasional random purchase at Wal-Mart, this is the only other item I spend cash on. For all those who send me cash in the mail (which you’re not supposed to do anyway), that just offsets the amount of cash that I take out of the paychecks in order to sustain a standardized cash level for the gas fund. But those paychecks always feel like something worth celebrating, and I do so by splurging on lunch from the value menu at Wendy’s. Thanks to the cash givers, doing so just feels a little bit easier.

A new clutch. Here’s where I start into the auto maintenance category. Last year about this time, the clutch started making a funny noise. Funny noises from the truck really make me nervous, so I had the mechanic investigate, and he said the clutch would eventually go bad, and have to be replaced. Like, any day now. He offered to replace it right then, but said it would slowly go bad over the next few months. I haven’t done the clutch in the 100,000 miles that I’ve driven it, so like Yellowstone Park exploding, it’s due right about now. Like “The Big One” knocking California into the ocean, it’s due any day now. I keep listening for that funny noise again.

A new steering wheel cover. I like cheap things. They cost less. When I decided that I needed a special steering wheel cover with enough grip to quickly spin the wheel around while flying through all those cul de sacs, I found a cheap one with knobbies at Wal-Mart for $8. Well, like all cheap things, it’s falling apart, so I’d better put another one in the grocery cart at Wal-Mart next time I’m there.

Body work. They told me that this model of Toyota had problems with the bed rusting out along the seam. The rust is starting to work it’s way along in a big bubble. And the paint is peeling in other places. I don’t know how much the discount auto body repair guy would want, but the Bump Shop offered to replace that panel for a mere $2,000. Outch! I think I’ll save my money until it becomes as critical as the clutch, then talk to that discount guy.

Software. I’ve pre-spent some of my Christmas tip money on this item. Preventative maintenance, and spending money to keep spam, viruses, and other people’s nasties out of my system. Here, I have to make a sub-list
- System Mechanic 5, and
- An expensive upgrade to System Mechanic 6. This might actually have saved my butt a few times.
- Diskeeper 9 defragmenter. I’ll skip the upgrade to Diskeeper 10 defragmenter. It just doesn’t solve my system performance problems.
- Error Nuker. Like Diskeepr defragmenter, it didn’t really fix my performance problems. But it’s already paid for.

System Mechanic, after having the system do a boot-time disk check, which I could have and did do anyway, seems to be telling me that my hard drive is unreliable, and that it can’t quite pinpoint and flag exactly what spot on the drive is causing the problem. To compensate for this, I should probably buy another hard drive, possibly from a different manufacturer. But then I’ll have to clone the drive data. Yuck.

Since all that maintenance software won’t change the fact that I’m just running way to much software on my computer, I should be thinking about getting a new system. It’d really be nice to have one of those 3 GHz systems – are they up to 4 GHz or something higher now? – instead of my old 800 MHz system that can barely keep up with itself. Then I’ll have to contact all those software makers and get my licenses transferred to the new system. Maybe I should take the traditional do-it-yourself approach and just get a new 5 GHz motherboard, and a case to match it. And then watch the system try to re-configure itself, and end up in some crippled state that I have to fix manually. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

I’ve really been wanting to get that Access 2000 book, so I can do more better database work. I haven’t seen any good classes for Access. Classes cost ten times as much as books anyway, and you still have to buy the book.

Before I do that, I might want to upgrade to Access XP++ 2006, or whatever is coming out next. Naw, why buy the same software twice?

In spite of what I just said about classes, I want to take the AWAI copywriting class. I’ll probably have to commit myself to a year of studying to match the year’s worth of monthly payments. Or I could just pop for the $500 right now. Are you kidding??? My Christmas tip money is already spoken for by everything else on this list. This is one of those potentially get-rich-quick schemes. Besides, I was fired from my first job for “poor communication skills,” and now, it’s my life’s mission to learn and practice good communication skills. Why has nobody bothered to use even the 10% discount coupon code I set up on BazaarMart.com? I dunno. Either just saying there are discounts and freebies, and one is a storewide discount isn’t “good communication,” or my web visitors are all illiterate.

Income taxes. Sigh. I must’ve been blocking this out of my mind throughout the rest of the list. Well, I’ve still got four more months to save up enough to pay my income taxes. See, as contract labor, my “employer” doesn’t consider me to be an employee, and so doesn’t withhold income tax for me. So I have to come up with the money myself on tax day.

Credit card debts. Sigh. Another thing I’ve been blocking out of my mind. When I get the time and energy, I’m going to invent some scheme to take advantage of these zero interest, introductory offer type things to actually pay down the principle instead of continually throwing money away at these creditors.

There’s an options-trading newsletter that makes claims of having an 80% success rate of recommendations that at least double your money in an average of six weeks. The cost is $89 each month. If I can start out with some $500 out of my current portfolio, and if it does what it says it does, I should be able to leverage that into a substantial sum fairly quickly. Call it a get-rich-scheme. Call me crazy. But I’ve been a gambler for these types of things before. I’m willing to give this one a shot. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll hold them to their money-back guarantee.

Well that’s about it for my Christmas wish list. Now, to go do some actual Christmas shopping for the family.

Merry Christmas

Wind Chill Factor

2005-12-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

With the onset of cold weather, my thoughts are turning from politics, business and the holidays to the hazards of an outdoor / nightime occupation in the cold winter months.

Last night, the low temperature was 17 F. Winds were especially strong. I estimated gusts up to 20 to 30 mph. A quick Google search for "wind chill factor chart" brought me to this page, with this chart. That puts the wind chill factor down to -17 F to -26 F. I could feel it. Even though I wore extra layers of clothing and nylon ski pants over my blue jeans, the thinness of my hat and the exposure of my face felt like I was going to freeze my face off. According to the chart, there is greater danger that exposed flesh will freeze.

Tonight, the low is again 17 F. But Tuesday and Wednesday, the low temperatures will be down to 3 F and 1 F. I don't get wind speed forcasts from my desktop weather tool, downloaded from weather.com. If the wind continues, the wind chill factor could easily be in the region of -40 F.

There's one fella that oddly shows up wearing shorts and sunglasses, no matter what the weather, or time of night. If you're a religious or spiritual type, prayers for myself and the others in the newspaper carrier business would be appreciated at this time. If you have to be out in the cold weather, be sure to dress appropriately.

Happy Thanks-ri-abso-freakin’-lutely-diculous-giving

2005-11-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

I didn’t get a chance to write about Thanksgiving. The newspaper made Thanksgiving not only bonus day (everybody gets the paper, regardless of their subscription schedule), but they had to give us five, no, six sections. Three sections devoted exclusively to advertisement. And they decided to give every carrier an extra 50 papers per route. All “sissy pissers.” Sissy pissers? Sigh… someday I’ll have to write up my paper carrier lexicon. These are all delivered on the Saturday and Sunday schedule: abbreviated “SS,” which I pronounce as “sissy.” And the edition is the Denver Post Special (special comics), abbreviated DPS, or simply PS, which I pronounce as “pisser.” They go in piss-yellow bags, and they just piss everyone off. Hence, 50 new “sissy pissers.” And, of course, I still got until 6:00 AM to deliver – fold and deliver – 300 and something enormous papers. And that lady that consistently calls in a complaint if her paper isn’t there by 6:00 AM, the same lady that last Thanksgiving sat and watched at the window until I delivered it at 7:13 AM before calling to complain that she didn’t get her paper (as soon as I delivered it, on Thanksgiving Day), well she got her paper before everyone else this year. Even though driving out of my way to do so made the rest of the route 10 minutes later.

Then, I got to drive 50 miles across the state to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family. For some mysterious reason, I decided that I would enjoy my visit with the family more if I could pre-visit without the fatigue of the Thanksgiving Day route dragging me down. So that meant two 50-mile each-way trips, for a total of 200 extra highway miles.

And, there’s the Christmas card situation. I won’t publicly disclose how much money I got last year from Christmas tips, because it makes some people jealous, and I really really need that extra money. I didn’t get my order of 350 cards in until the Monday before Thanksgiving. That’s three weeks later than last year. The Christmas cards went out with the Sunday edition following Thanksgiving. Much of my energy the past two months has been on efforts leading up to this day. I’ve been importing between 20 and 40 items each day into my web store, BazaarMart.com each day since October. All this so that I could have all (most?) of my supplier’s products in the store in time for the Christmas season. To kick off my part of the Christmas shopping season, I decided to set up some Christmas specials (go there! There’s discounts and freebies!), and print up a promotion on some card stock to be included with my Christmas card distribution. The card signing and stuffing party took place over the two days following Thanksgiving.

All that work left me just wore out. And now, the credit-card checkout system on the web store isn’t working right. That’s okay, I’ll just keep poking around in the dark until it goes in somewhere. Did I actually say that just now? I get kinda punchy when I’m wore out. Maybe you’ll understand why I play solitaire and procrasti-blog instead of fix things like the checkout problem.

The Struggle, The Dream

2005-11-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

I’m Procrasti-blogging again. I was running a system repair in System Mechanic 6 yesterday, but I aborted it because wanted to get some more work done, and wasn’t sure if the system “repair” would spontaneously reboot my system, and lose unsaved work. It got to 90%+ finished, and just sat there. For hours. Not making any more progress. Still responding, still working, just not showing progress. Today, I’m running it again. That’s symbolic. I should have read today’s news yesterday.

From Breitbart.com, via Cao’s Blog,

The House voted 403-3 to reject a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate troop withdrawal.

And again,
On Tuesday, the Senate defeated a Democratic push for Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal.

Dr. Sanity writes about the same thing, but compares it to the struggle between Good and Evil in the latest Harry Potter story. I never read Harry Potter. The Lord Of The Rings was much more of a heroic epic for me than anything else. The Dr. compares what the movie describes as the difficulty of the decision between what is easy and what is right with that same difficulty in supporting the war against terror.

The Lord Of The Rings may have been considered a metaphor for WW II in the period following that war, but I would argue that it is at least as good a metaphor for the current war as Harry Potter, and in general, as a metaphor for all struggles between Good and Evil. Some probably said that Star Wars was a metaphor for the Cold War. But I would agree with others’ statements made elsewhere that neither Harry Potter nor Star Wars hold a candle to LOTR. Tolkein designed a whole world, integrated a mythos, populated it with distinct races and unique languages, and created characters and cultures with complexity and depth. True, I’ve never read Harry Potter, but from what I know it’s just boilerplate pulp fantasy spun off as children's stories and mass-marketed in a never-ending, self-perpetuating meme.

Other than that, I agree with the premise behind the “Good Vs. Evil” stories. For me, the most memorable line in LOTR was when Frodo lamented that he had the burden of the ring, and wished that he had never been given it. Gandalf replied, “So do all who live in times such as these. But that is not for us to decide. We have only to decide how to use the time that is given to us.” That line, seen in the movie released not long after 9/11, not long after I lost my job, was the line that changed my life. It echoes the same sentiments of choosing between the easy and the right. Again, in The Two Towers, Frodo laments his burden and the impossibility of their mission. Sam encourages him with “We've got to go on, because we've got to believe that there's still some good in the world that’s worth saving.”

When I lost my job, on May 16, 2001, it was clear to me that my Computer Engineering career was not moving forward as I had hoped. It was clear that others weren’t interested in supporting my ambitions as much as they wished to use me to advance their own ambitions. After sending out some 600 resumes and getting fewer interviews than I could count on one hand, it was clear that I wasn’t likely to get a job in the computer industry anytime soon. 9/11 was the final nail in the coffin. I was worried that my education was becoming increasingly out of date, even as I was looking for a job. When I expressed my concerns to a friend’s aging parent, who echoed my fears in the simplicity of a bygone age by saying, “Does that mean you’re a failure,” that obscene “F- word” hit me with more force than any other vulgar obscenity in the language.

I had been working on the idea of writing and selling my own software. Being somewhat of a stock market dabbler, I had started working on some investment analysis software. I developed this, packaged it with security and licensing measures, payment options, and sold it under the “try before you buy” shareware model.

Somewhere in the middle of this is when the LOTR: The Fellowship Of The Ring, and that line that I quoted above inspired me to continue my work. I felt that the world needed something, and that I was the right person to create it. Getting yet another entry-level job at some startup company that didn't have the commitment to stay in business longer than six months would short-circuit my dream.

My success was very modest. Not anywhere near enough to support me. Marketing became a major consideration. My project wasn’t go anywhere unless I could effectively promote it. That’s when my plan took a hard left turn. I’ve had difficulties with communication skills all my life. I was fired from my first job because they interpreted my soft-spoken nature and privacy of thought as “poor communication skills.” I’ve taken jobs like sales, and customer service, as a way of giving myself opportunities to practice good communication skills. Blogging is just one more of those practice efforts. Another is my web store, BazaarMart.com, which I’ve been working at most enthusiastically in recent months. Search engine marketing is one thing. The real art of sales and marketing is in charisma, and persuasion, and most of all, cultivation relationships with customers, clients, associates, and service providers. That’s something that’s taught in certain little known courses, which I have yet to take.

The progress towards success is slow and uncertain. I have a little book titled “New Work Habits For A Radically Changing World” (Price Pritchett, 1996). In the chapter titled “Accept ambiguity and uncertainty,” he describes how people like to have their work clearly defined for them, but must ultimately define their work for themselves, especially in uncertain times. Most of the liberals and democrats want their work defined for them, their income assured, their projects unhesitatingly funded by the infinite resources of the government, their wars fought and won according to a schedule that they could fit on their Palm Pilots. It doesn’t work that way, sir. E.L. Doctorow described how it feels like to write a book as "like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." In a sense, the war on terror has become a bit like driving at night in the fog. It worries me that people like John Murtha want to immediately stop all activity because there’s no signs of progress. I'm just glad that the rest of Congress understands (according to the Dr.'s article) that if we turn around now, that we won't get there for sure. For my part, by funding my activities at this time with a mere paper route, I might be driving down some wayward dark, foggy frontage road with only a vague notion that continuing ahead can only take me to someplace new. But at least I know that by continuing ahead, I’ll eventually get there.

The MSM Agenda

2005-11-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging again while procrastinating. The newly-installed virus scanner is at around 97% complete with it's complete scan of my system after running 27 hours 33 minutes. System Mechanic 6 thinks my sound card driver is a virus, or at least "a dangerous or unnecessary program [that] is currently lowering performance." Whenever I killed the process, the system would spontaneously reboot itself. The system fitness is rated "poor", and critical repairs with the comprehensive repair wizard are recommended. Ho Hum, what else is new?

Neo-Neocon talks about Pankaj Mishra's book review that

"Iranian democratic elections indicate the will of the people is for a hard-line theocracy"

I was about to comment that elections are not always fair, or an accurate indication of the will of the people, even in the United States. But I was a bit concerned that this might invoke the liberal conspiracy-theory hogwash-meme (here's another wikipedia-based article) of "Bush rigged the election(s)." But after further reading I realized that Neo-neocon is way ahead of me. She followed the Iranian elections, and lists the activities that took place, swaying the elections in favor of Mohammad Ahmadinejad. The same guy that american embassy hostages recognized from the Iranian Hostage crisis in 1979. The same guy that has been spouting beligerence such as "Islam will reign from every mountaintop", and "We will wipe Israel off the map", and "A World Without Zionism".

Now this Pankaj Mishra, who it turns out is primarily an Indian literati, is taking the position that the Iranian people freely and enthusiastically elected this Islamofascist, and blindly follow whatever anti-America, anti-Israel, pro-worldwide shariah law rhetoric he puts forth. I have to conclude that when people are paid writers, when they're paid to produce something written every day in as much quantity as possible, that the quality of research that goes into the writing often suffers along with the value of their work. It seems that the primary objective of the mainstream media is to either a) call into question the validity of those in elected office, or b) stir up, provoke, or fabricate controversy so as to have something more to write about. Either way, it's just yellow journalism with the intent of selling more newspapers. But the net effect is an erosion of society.

I could just about imagine the conversation between Mishra and his editor:

Editor: "I want you to expand your horizons. Write about something other than India. Like, maybe Iran. Iran is current news, write about Iran."
In Mishra's mind: "Well, they just had an election I think. I guess I'll write something about why they elected that guy. Elections in America are always fair, so I guess elections everywhere must be fair. There must be a book written about it; I'll do a book review. "

Moving right along, here's something really maddening at Moonbattery.

Representative John Murtha (D-PA) has taken the next logical step in advancing the Democrats' strategy of deliberately causing us to lose the war in Iraq so that the defeat can be hung around Republicans' necks by calling for an immediate withdrawal of our forces.

I don't even need to imagine the scenario: Iraq falls back into the hands of al-Qaeda, nuclear weapons developed, nukes rain down on US cities, dogs and cats living together, the walls bleeding in the twelfth precinct. Okay, the last part was from Bill Murray in Ghost Busters.

Why do people get such nutty ideas like we should immediately hand Iraq over to the terrorists, and have our soldiers all shoot their commanding officers? Turning back to Moonbattery, there's a clue in the phrase, "the MSM's defeatist propaganda barrage". There we are again, the media is mucking around with world politics, just to create a controversy that's "fit to print". And apparently, there's some politicians as well as regular people who don't pay enough attention to what's really happening to make an informed, responsible decision. And how could they, when the media denies reality, either out of ignorance or of intent.

Why We Fight

2005-11-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for the motivation to pay this month's bills, while waiting for a hard disk defragmenter and a system repair utility to make some progress, and cruising through my list of favorite blogs. Procrastinating.

If there's one article today that I would want to share with whoever reads what I write, it would be this: a story of a soldier who gives his heart, his blood, his silent Jewish prayers, and spoken prayers from the Koran in an effort to give an innocent Muslim child who had fallen victim to a terrorists attack a chance to pursue life as just an innocent Muslim child celebrating Ramadan. In spite of all the political rhetoric about lies, pre-war intelligence, WMD's, here's why we're fighting the war in Iraq.

There are many Americans who ask why we’re here. Why are we sacrificing so many American lives and placing so many in harm’s way? What is the purpose of it all? Well, I don’t really know the big picture. But from my small sector of the battlefield, the reason I am here is to give “the least of these,” my children over here, a shot at “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — just like my other children living in America.

I couldn't add any more nobility to the article with my own words. Go read it for yourself.

Intifadah

2005-11-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

I love Wikipedia. I've learned so much in the past few months just by looking things up on Wikipedia. I could easily keep my blog filled with interesting articles just by posting a little something about everything that I look up on Wikipedia. In fact, I think I'll do just that.

Today's vocabulary term is "infitadah". I've been seeing this quite a bit recently while reading about the riots in France. Most recently, I found the term used on Moonbattery.

Intifada (also Intefadah or Intifadah; from Arabic: "shaking off") is an Arabic language term for "uprising".

The article goes on to describe several examples of infitadahs, or uprisings. Including two Palestinian revolts aimed at ending Isreali military occupation.

So the story in France goes, a bunch of Muslims immigrated to France, didn't get jobs or otherwise contribute to society, and expected Socialist France to feed and house them, change their diapers, wipe their noses, and so on, yada yada yada.... Boo freakin' hoo. Now they gotta riot when they don't get all the riches that their ancestors had. Sounds like a bunch of Democrat welfare bums. I guess they have some other words for them in France, like citizens. Or whatever French for citizen is. If I could come up with a good "told-ja-so" I would. I guess that's what they get for voting against the War On Terror in the UN. I'm reminded of a line in Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, where Theodin King says "I'll not risk open war", and Aragorn answers "Risk it or not, war is upon you."

So, why don't the French take some action, and quell the uprising? Why don't they just deport all the Muslims to Saudi Arabia? Just why are the French being so... French? Turning back to my history lessons from The History Channel, there was a widely advertised program a while back about the French Revolution, where the French went off on a terror-rampage, beheading everyone who breathed out of the wrong nostril, and could only stop the violence with even more violence, until the whole thing finally petered out in a bloodbath-orgy of such unbelievable magnitude that they couldn't possibly outdo themselves anymore. My theory is that the French Revolution left the country in such a state of shock, that anytime there was any threat of war, they'd rather roll over than repeat the horrors of the French Revolution. The horrors of the French Revolution turned the French into a bunch of pacifists, and they haven't been able to get over it since. Hence, they failed to build any military sufficient to resist the Germans at the onset of WW II. And hence, they failed to recognize the emminent threat of the Islamofascist thugs that had been occupying their own suburbs for generations.

Speaking of The History Channel lessons, I've been watching a bunch of programs lately about the Crusades. You know what? The Arabs invaded Israel. The Crusades were an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land in the name of Judea-Christian tradition. Jerusalem has been thrown back and forth between owners for thousands of years. First the Jews, then the Romans, then the Palestinians. Even though the Romans tore down the holy Jewish Temple, the Jews built the place in antiquity. This could be another Wikipedia article post about the Temple Mount. But even if the Romans did tear down the temple, the couldn't destroy the massive foundation or the Western Wall, which still exists today as a testament to the construction that was done in 350 BCE. That was the second temple; the first was built in 950 BCE.

And the Palestinians had the arrogance to come along and build their mosque on the Temple Mount, and claim exclusive rights to the Temple Mount. The Arabs have been invading and conquering since times of antiquity. And now, they've effectively invaded, and are in the process of sacking France. The Arabs can't contribute anything to civilization; they've always got to go invade and steal. They invaded Israel, stole Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. They invaded the United States, stole airplanes and attacked on 9/11. And now, they've invaded France. I still think France should dust off their guillotines, and start taking care of business. Of course, nothing like that will ever happen. France is too busy apologizing for the terrorists, calling them "youths", calling the Intifadah "unrest", and using other terrorist-enabling, apologistic terminology that would be fit to print in the New York Times.

Fallen Hero Number 2,000

2005-10-28T12:52:00.000-06:00

Before I start, I would like to point out that I’ve been away from my blog lately because I have been working very hard to build up my web store business, BazaarMart.com. For the past month, I’ve been importing from between 20 and 40 new products each day, as well as fixing up some of the details of the web site, and my database from which I’m building the web site. It’s been no small task. As much as marketers of “Get Rich On eBay / The Internet” schemes would like one to believe, it takes a lot of work to get something like this going.

So now, this artificial landmark of 2,000 soldiers killed in Iraq is as good a reason as any to come out of my cave and add to the rhetoric. The mainstream media is simply using the arbitrary statistic as an excuse to sensationalize the news and sell newspa… uh, advertising attached to news, er uh… news serving as a vehicle for advertising revenue. So, in effect, the MSM and their advertisers are capitalizing off of the death of one particular soldier, who happens to be in the slot enumerated by a particularly round number in our base-ten number system, while unfortunately demeaning that soldier into a uncelebrated wasteland of statistics.

I thought I might least find out the name and story of that one particular soldier. Even the New York Times couldn’t get that right. Michelle Malkin reports on a story ran by the NYT titled “2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tour Stretches On, A Grim Mark” about Marine Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr. Michelle tells about a letter received from Cpl. Starr’s uncle Timothy Lickness giving the unreported story. The letter contained an excerpt from a letter to Cpl. Starr’s girlfriend, intended to be delivered in the event of his death, which described his reasons for re-enlisting for the third time, his reasons for fighting for freedom, and for bringing freedom to the Iraqi people.

But there’s still more that’s not being told about the NYT article. Marine Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr died on May 30, 2005. Five months before the October 26 NYT article. Marine Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr was not, in fact, the 2,000th soldier to die in Iraq. In other words, the NYT cherry-picked their own set of soldiers to hold up as their poster-child against the war in Iraq. The NYT used Marine Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr’s death to sell newspapers.

I remember delivering the NYT that day. I delivered 18 of them to the liberal residents of Boulder, Colorado, home of Ward Churchill. The NYT was particularly difficult to fold that day. The paper carrier crew commented that there was a lot of reporting on the 2,000-soldier landmark. I looked inside the NYT to see what was adding all the extra bulk, expecting to find a big section on the war, perhaps listing all 2,000 names. The extra bulk was a special auto advertising section.

Back to the quest for the 2,000th soldier’s name and story. One of my first stops in my search for hero number 2,000 was Cao’s Blog. Cao (pronounced “Key”) is from a military family, and is always a good source of responsible facts and views from the military point of view. Cao wrote on 10/26/’05 that Staff Sergeant George Alexander, Jr. was the 2,000th soldier killed in Iraq. A link on the Michelle Malkin article led me to a Fallen Heroes Memorial web site. A search on that site led to Staff Sergeant Alexander’s story. Here’s what Fallen Heroes had to say:

Army Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr.
34, of Clanton, Alabama.Alexander died at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, of injuries sustained in Samarra, Iraq, on October 17, 2005 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Georgia. Died on October 22, 2005.

To put the sacrifice in perspective Cao offers some additional historical war statistics.

2,403: Americans killed at Pearl Harbor
2,976: Americans lost on 9/11
9,386: American soldiers killed taking Normandy
12,500: American soldiers killed taking Okinawa in WW2
24,000: American soldiers on both sides killed at the battle of Antietam during the Civil War
54,246: American troops killed in Korea
58,198: American soldiers killed in Vietnam
116,516: American soldiers killed in World War 1
133,811: Confederate troops killed in the Civil War
295,000: American soldiers killed in World War 2
364,511: Union Soldiers killed during the Civil War

Not to mention the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War 2.

Should I Be A Terrorist?

2005-10-07T15:53:00.000-06:00

I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I’ve actually been working on putting more products out on my web store, BazaarMart.com.  After all, the Christmas season starts in October; as a retail web store owner, I need to be ready.  And I’ve been making some good progress – when I’m not blogging, or sleeping.  But I like to stay in touch with the blogosphere.  I’ve added a blogroll of my favorite blogs on the sidebar.

This is absolutely freaky.  I was reflecting just this morning how the same thinking that blames the US government for all of the world’s problems, that has brought us radicals such as Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore has also brought us terrorists, both domestic and foreign: the Unabomber, Eric Rudolph (Olympic Park and abortion clinic bomber), Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City), and Osama bin Laden and the whole al Quaeda network with all of their Islamofascist thugs.  Then I found that neo-neocon has written about this with more lucidity and in-depth analysis than I could hope for.  Excellent work.

But what’s really disturbing is that the passage from the crime library article that profiles the mass murderer’s mind describes much of what I’ve experienced in my life, with the fortunate exception (so far) that I’ve been able to control any homicidal urges, and that I recognize and address my anger issues.

Mass Murderers are typically quite ordinary. They're reclusive, have few if any friends, and have no criminal record. However, they do not let go of past grievances and they tend to build and fester, with minor incidents being perceived as major offenses, and impersonal ones as personal. Some stress, such as a broken relationship, a loss, or unemployment, may be the trigger that sets everything in motion.

As most people go, anyone is quite ordinary.  At least, to the casual observer.  One doesn’t know what horrors are hidden within.  I’ve had few friends, beginning with when my family moved when I was in the 6th grade.  Teenagers just don’t accept new kids.  And being a shy kid, I lacked the social skills necessary to make new friends.  And I’ve always tried to do the right thing.  Except for minor traffic violations, I have no criminal record.  Is it a crime not to be a criminal?

But the innate shyness, as I discovered in doing some Theta Healing work, is a result of a past life vow of silence.  Sorry, but you’ll need to have some understanding of, if not belief in, metaphysical ideas such as reincarnation. The reason that I say that it’s a past life vow of silence, is because I’ve been quiet from birth.  At age three, my mother took me to a doctor to see why I wasn’t talking yet.  As a young child, I rarely spoke to relatives at family events.  According to the Theta Healing practitioner/instructor, a vow of silence prevents one from speaking up when they are abused.  The anger and frustration is continuously repressed, eventually expressed years, or lifetimes later, as a seething volcano of anger and bitterness that waits for the right stressor to cause an eruption of immense magnitude.  Maybe you’ve seen the look in someone’s eyes:  a distracted distant gaze, tense upper lip, a clenched fist.  Then the trance is broken with a cheerful “Oh, I’m sorry!  Hi, how’re you?”

I’ve also experienced the other stressors mentioned in the crime library article.  I’ve been laid off from around ten jobs.  I lost my last job four months before 9/11.  As neo-neocon says, “I was mugged by reality” of my situation, and the effect of 9/11 on my situation.  My engineering career is now washed up.  My first and only girlfriend ended our relationship.  My former best friend became a putz when he moved into my basement without paying rent until I demanded it, and then sat at his computer, addicted to computer games, oblivious to the fact that my cat was dying in my arms a few feet away.  Yeah, okay, so uh, break the trance now…

The passage from the crime library article that profiles mass murders departs from my experience with its description of the response to the stressors.

They blame others for their failures and their motive is generally to strike back, to punish, and to exact as much damage as they can manage. The higher the death toll, the better they have succeeded. People who have been dismissing or ignoring them are not going to forget them now. Their choice of targets is typically irrational, and often does not even include the one against whom they wanted vengeance. Some...have shown signs of psychosis, but most have been judged sane at the time of the incident.

There are some who I could hold accountable for lies, bad choices, or other injuries.  There are also other factors that I assume responsibility for.  My washed up engineering career is a result of not continually pursuing technical education.  It’s a result of not cultivating professional relationships.  But I have never acted on any murderous thoughts.  And because of childhood experiences, I do not target random innocent victims out of frustration.

But what isn’t addressed in what I read of the article is if and how a person deals with these experiences.  A person inclined to turn to mass murder will not recognize that there is something wrong.  They may believe that they are entirely justified, or even doing society a favor by their acts.  However, I acknowledge that I have anger issues.  I’ve had some therapy, and done other healing work.  One of the suggestions the Theta Healing practitioner had was to make a list of people I’ve been hurt by, and do some specific release work for each one.  My initial list had 32 names on it.  I should add al Quaeda to that list.  I continue the healing work whenever I get a chance.

Returning to the original theme of neo-neocon’s article – comparing terrorists to mass murders – I’d like to see a more in-depth study of the roots of terrorist thinking.  The Islamofascists have clerics that recruit disenfranchised youth into terrorist cells, and eventually suicide bombers.  It’s not in vogue with the conservatives to offer therapy to the terrorists.

I would submit that it would be useful to psychoanalyze terrorists and their extremist cleric mentors.  Just some of them.  I don’t have in mind rounding up all Arabs and herding them into shrinks’ offices, but something more like the development of some sort of mass de-programming technique.  Put something in the water, or something.  (  Okay, that’s just wishful thinking.  Then we’d be accused of imperialism, global social engineering, or something worse.  It’d be like in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  Oh well.

Red Faced Rag Wrangler’s Blues

2005-09-23T12:40:00.000-06:00

I’ll make this fast, ‘cause I want to try out a printer that someone left out by the dumpster on the paper route. People leave stuff out there all the time. So far, I’ve collected two printers, a TV and a VCR. The TV and VCR work, although the VCR is missing it’s remote, I don’t know about either printer except that one has a cartridge and the other doesn’t.

I’ve been itching to write about the honorable LTG Russell Honore’s now famous line, “Don’t Get Stuck On Stupid.” I’ve also been itching to write about how I managed to get Richard Tolan, who commented irrelevant self-promotional nonsense on my blog, un-stuck on stupid by commenting irrelevant angry nonsense on every single entry on his blog from beginning to end. Instead, I think I’ll start a whole new blog, and a new business putting together silly graphics for stupid worn-out catchphrases like DGSOS on tee shirts, ball caps, coffee mugs and so on. But first, the printer. Before that, there’s this deal with the circulation department of every newspaper in the world failing DGSOS.

While I’ve been stuck on the stupidity of DGSOS, I found Mickey Kaus’s story via Vodkapundit of how he couldn’t say NO to the LA Times subscription. Someone there failed DGSOS. The LAT? Mickey? Both? Both.

I’m going to explain, as a paper carrier, once and for all, how this works.

Several years ago, when I still had a hopeful career as a Computer Engineer, I got one of those pesky telemarketers from the Rocky Mountain News. That was before they joined forces with the Denver Post. Being a naïve kid, I let them say whatever they want, but never agreed to a subscription to the paper, which they gave me anyway. For six months, I got a free newspaper every day, and every day I threw it in the trash. When the customer service guy gave me a follow-up call, I said that I didn’t want it, and please stop delivery. He said he couldn’t do that, and that I should call the subscription department. Not on my dime. When they started sending me bills, then past-due notices, then threats to stop delivery, I considered it extortion and threw the bills away. I finally wrote a nasty note on the back of the bill about pollution or environmental responsibility or something and actually sprang for the cost of a stamp and envelope to send it back. The paper stopped immediately.

I’ve since learned that the best approach to telemarketers is to just hang up immediately. Be sure to hang up in mid-sentence so that they know that they’ve been hung up on. When I sold vacuum cleaners back in college, they taught us something they called “assuming the sale.” Don’t let it happen to you by submitting to your natural tendency to be polite and allowing the conversation to continue.

But better yet, there’s now this thing called the National Do Not Call Registry. After I registered, I stopped getting calls from commercial telemarketers. Go there. NOW! (after you’ve finished reading this.) Know the rules. This does not stop people who call with a survey. It does not stop charities or political orgs. It does not stop people with whom you have already done business. You have to renew your registration every year. The penalty for violators is substantial, but to get them prosecuted is extremely difficult, requiring exacting documentation of the violation. There’s also a state do-not-call registry for most states. Do your own investigation, and get on that list too.

Now, about the newspaper business. Ironically, after my previous experience, I now deliver the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post, the N’York Twymes, the Wall Street Gerbil, the United States of America TODAY, the Investor’s Daily Bullshit, and the Financical Times. My job as a paper carrier has given me some unique insight into the newspaper business.

It’s filled with idiots from top to bottom. They set it up to keep the various layers insulated from each other, so that the whole organization is permanently Stuck On Stupid. It does no good to do things like threaten the person you’re talking to. They’re trained and paid to only hear “yes” no matter what you say.

They don’t get their money from the subscribers. They get more money from the advertisers than from the subscribers. At least, the local papers do. That explains why they’ll let a “subscriber” go delinquent indefinitely without ever actually canceling the subscription. And the advertisers pay by the distribution numbers, so the more papers they deliver, the more money they extract from the advertisers. So, they come up with all these bogus sample subscriptions, and force sample subscriptions on as many people as they can in order to artificially boost their distribution numbers and extract more money from the advertisers.

It does no good to let your papers pile up in your driveway or doorstep, or kick them out in the street, or down the hall of the apartment building. As a paper carrier, I get paid to deliver the paper whether you want it or not. It’s your doorstep, not mine. Technically, I’m supposed to report pile-ups and note-leavers. In fact, there’s nothing in the contract about this, there was just a pile-up policy memo once. But nobody knows or cares about the papers that pile up on the driveways except the resident. Most of the time I don’t even look, because I have to drive so fast, and it’s dark at 4:00 AM. But reporting a pile-up would mean that the managers would cancel it, and I would no longer get paid to deliver it. Since I would lose money by reporting pile-ups, I never do that.

A few of us more intelligent carriers have figured out that if we know that they don’t want it, there’s no point in delivering to those people. Especially when I have to walk around the back of an apartment building, up some stairs, and down a hall, just to deliver one stupid paper that the resident doesn’t even want anyway. I’ve established my pile-up threshold as five papers. At five papers piled up, I start dumpstering them. There’s a balance between the embarrassment of being caught carrying an armload of undelivered newspapers to the dumpster on the way in to the distribution center, and wanting to maximize my income. Dumpstering the pile-up people has proven to be the best policy all around. I get paid to deliver to the dumpster. The resident is happy that they don’t get the paper any more. The managers believe that I’m doing my job. In fact, the assistant manager does the same thing, but I think the district manager (a newbie) is still stuck on stupid. And the advertisers believe that their advertising dollars are well spent. In the end, it’s just the beliefs that count.

And about those freebie papers that they blanket the whole neighborhood with, they call that “alternate delivery”. Everyone gets the freebie paper that doesn’t already get the regular paper. I did that once. Twice. Three times is a charm. Some guy threw the paper at my truck, chased me down the street, and stood there and screamed at me for five minutes. For the next week, I scattered the papers all over his yard while he was asleep, and emptied my urine bottle on his car. I know where he lives; he doesn’t know where I live. There are a small handful of names (about 0.5%) on the route list that are hilighted and marked with big bold capital letters, DO NOT DELIVER HERE! Supposedly those are the people that are so in-your-face about not wanting the papers that somebody has to make a special note. The fourth time I was asked to do alternate delivery, I let them talk me into it, then when I drove down to do it, they had crossed my name off the list and gave that route to someone else. So I swore that if that's how they're going to treat me, I'd never do alternate delivery again.

Now back to that printer that I found….

Widespread Unrest and Grief

2005-09-11T20:09:00.000-06:00

I previously described the effects of geomagnetic storms, and how they affect electrical and mechanical systems, human emotions, and migratory animals.  There have been some recent rather strong GMS alerts and warnings that are associated with some emotional unrest and grief.

Since hurricane Katrina occurred on 8/29/05, there was some GMS activity on 9/02/05 through 9/04/05.  On 9/02/05, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin expressed his outrage in an emotional interview that the state and federal officials, mostly FEMA, were slow in responding with rescue efforts to hurricane victims.  The blame game has escalated out of proportion.  While President Bush continues to encourage continued relief efforts, politicians see this as an opportunity to generate conspiracy theories and portray the Bush administration and FEMA as uncompassionate or incompetent.

There has been more GMS activity recently.  There have been watches, warnings and alerts from 9/09/05 through today, and forecast through 9/13/05.  There was a G3 (strong) warning Sunday morning at 5:37 UTC (11:37 MDT, Monday night, 9/10/05).  And there was a G5 (extreme) alert at 6:46 UTC (12:46 MDT).  I arrive at the distribution center at about 2:00 AM.  This morning, there was a breeze coming through the open doors, while the paper carriers were folding the papers and loading their vehicles.  This was so upsetting to one individual, who has often shown signs of being emotionally unbalanced, that he felt obliged to close the door, and shout and swear at anyone who wanted to open the door.

He may very well be fired for his lack of self-control.  I mentioned to one of the managers how this guy was such a nutcase.  He’s the same asshole who parks his car two inches away from my truck so that I can’t get a cart in to load.  He’s always been like this, never thinks of anyone but himself.  The whole world revolves around him.

Elsewhere, there was an emotional 9/11 memorial service in New York at the site where the World Trade Center once stood.  It took four hours to read the names of the 2,749 people that were lost.  Relatives wept and made brief personal statements as they remembered their loved ones and how their lives were lost on this day four years ago.

Katrina Healing Meditation

2005-09-09T13:53:00.000-06:00

I feel that it's time to stop the blame game for the victims of hurricane Katrina, as well as for the war on terror in Iraq, and the bipartisan politicking, and start some sincere healing. I've been working on posting a meditation from the Theta Healing technique and classes that I took recently. I've realized since then, that I have a mountain of healing work to do. Until then, I'll pass along this meditation that was forwarded to me by a friend who knows some people from New Orleans that are in need of assistance.

To answer the question that few dare to ask, "why does God let bad things happen to good people?" I answer, "So that they can have the opportunity to make a profound difference in their own or someone elses life." When there's nothing that we can do either directly or financially, then prayers and meditations such as this are the best thing to do.

Please join as many as a million people around
the world in a healing meditation and prayer
for those affected by Katrina.

Meditation and prayer powerfully affect our
world in ways we may never understand. And
when two or more join together the effects are
exponential. Lives will be saved, emotional
trauma healed, families reunited, hearts
soothed, and normalcy returned. Miracles will
happen.

1) Everyone will meet in meditation and prayer
at the same time on the same day. Simply
meditate or pray in your own space, and
imagine connecting with everyone else, as
described below.

Sunday - September 18, 2005

11:00 to 11:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time
10:00 to 10:30 pm Central Daylight Time
9:00 to 9:30 pm Mountain Daylight Time
8:00 to 8:30 pm Pacific Daylight Time.

To coordinate with your time zone, visit:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

If you are only available for five minutes,
please do what you can.

If you cannot join us at the appointed time,
please do your meditation and prayer at any
time, and imagine your energy joining the
group.

2) Consider doing the following meditation:

* Breathe slowly and deeply.

* Focus on your heart, and see your heart
filled with the beautiful, warm, golden,
healing light of the sun. Feel the limitless
healing energy of love filling your heart.
Magnify the feeling inside of you. See the
energy. Hear it.

* When you are ready, imagine all of the
people who have been affected by the
hurricane, all of those who are giving so much
to assist, each and everyone one of them
wrapped in this warm, beautiful, light of love
and healing. Imagine them perfectly restored.
Imagine them in a beautiful, loving setting,
free of any pain or sickness, happy, healthy,
their lives fully restored. Use all of your
senses. See, hear, and feel them filled with
hope, health, and happiness.

* When you are ready, feel the love energy
growing as your love and compassion joins the
love energy of millions of others around the
world.

* Hold this picture for as long as you can (5
minutes, 30 minutes, one hour)

* When you close your meditation, imagine this
beautiful healing light of love expanding to
envelope the entire world, every country,
every man, woman and child. Hold this vision
and know with complete confidence, with all
your heart and soul, that this healing is
taking place and be thankful for the love of
the world.

* Express your thanks to God, Jesus Christ,
Buddha, Muhammad, your spiritual guide,
universal love energy, to that which is
appropriate and meaningful for you.

(This particular meditation was suggested by
healer and teacher Chunyi Lin, creator of
Spring Forest Qigong. Feel free to meditate or
pray in any way that is right for you.)

3) Please dig deep into your pocket to donate
money to help those affected by Katrina. For a
listing of ways to donate or volunteer, visit:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/help.center/

4) Please send this email to as many people as
you can. To friends and colleagues, any lists you have,
members of the media, your church, anything and anyone
that comes to your mind. Post it on discussion
forums. Consider getting together in groups,
or coordinating telephone conference calls for
everyone you know.

Thank you for joining us, for your support,
and for your love.

Most Sincerely,

Paul Scheele
Pete Bissonette
and all of your friends at
Learning Strategies

Learning Strategies Corporation
2000 Plymouth Road
Minnetonka, Minnesota 55305-2335 USA

800-735-8273
952-476-9200
Fax 952-475-2373
http://www.LearningStrategies.com

Floodwaters Receding, Emotions High

2005-09-02T18:09:00.000-06:00

Here's a few observations of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The New York Times had a photo on the front page of a dead body floating through the streets of New Orleans. That was in poor taste in itself. Somewhat reminiscent of when CNN aired footage of the dead soldier's body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia. Closer inspection of the photo of the floating body revealed what looked like a large tag with a big red question mark stapled to the end of the dead woman's dress, and apparently a poo mark seeping through the appropriate place on the backside. Rather poor taste. Inappropriate for a national newspaper.

I read a transcript of an interview between the New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and the local TV station. Mayor Nagin was obviously extremely upset, angry, and frustrated that the federal response to the disaster was so slow. I'm sure that he's very passionate about helping the people in his city. It doesn't seem that he's done as much beforehand to mitigate the disaster as he would like for federal and state government to do afterwords. I would say that elected officials are elected more for their passion for the people that they represent, than their ability to plan, make decisions, or direct and coordinate large complex and diverse organizations of people. It's time for that man to quit ranting and raving, realize that there have been and will continue to be losses, and start coordinating the recovery efforts so as to minimize further losses.

I realized that one of the other paper carriers was saving boxes to collect food to send to the relief effort. Feeling some compassion for these people, went to my cupboards to find some unused canned food items, and took a look through my closets for some clothes that I don't use anymore. I took a container of canned food with me as I was out on errends, and stopped by a couple of supermarkets where they might be collecting donation items. But there was no collection effort! Back home, I visited the web sites of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Neither the Red Cross nor the Salvation Army are accepting in-kind donations of collected items such as canned food or clothing. According to the Red Cross article, it's a logistical nightmare for them to collect, sort, clean, transport and distribute such items. It's more effective, they say, to take monetary donations and purchase supplies in large quantities from local manufacturers. As I explained yesterday, because of the high price of gasoline, and how that's such a major expense in my work, I cannot afford to donate cash.

I turned the TV to some of the news stations to get some coverage of what's happening there. There was the President, holding a press conference. The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, wanted to put her two cents in, but there was some trouble in coordinating the audio feed, so she waited a moment while someone figured that out before she spoke. Like the President, she didn't have much to contribute except for words of encouragement. New Orleans Mayor Nagin was there, still too upset to say anything more, knowing that he'd go off on a tear and say something else he'd regret.

On MSNBC, the reporter had some field worker from FEMA on the air for a report. The guy seemed to be emotionally and physically drained. The MSNBC reporter kept asking the FEMA guy questions aimed at placing the blame. "The news stations had pictures before FEMA did. Is FEMA really that unresponsive?" "Has the response been slower this time than in previous disasters?" "How would you categorize the magnitude of the failure? Colossal? Moderate?" "Who's to blame for the lack of responsiveness?" After a few minutes of this ambush, I couldn't take it anymore, and changed the channel. I would think that with the level of destruction there, it would be near impossible to communicate or coordinate anything.

I found this on Am I A Pundit Now, by means of WILLisms.com

The Price of Gas

2005-09-01T10:58:00.000-06:00

I managed to get gas this morning for $2.76. My favorite gas station has always been a penny less than the gas station at the supermarket across the street, even with it's member discount card. When I passed the supermarket, it was priced at $2.79. My favorite gas station was at $2.98, up $0.53 from three days ago. I stopped to fill up, and stood at the pump for a moment, pondering. Why is this station so unusually desolate today? Is the supermarket station out of gas, like they were three days ago? Even if they are, I could go to the one down the road for $2.85, and I know they're open 'cause there's cars there. It's worth a shot. I got back in and went over to the supermarket station, and got gas for $2.79 with a $0.03 member discount for $2.76.

Three days ago, I got gas at my then-favorite gas station for $2.45.

A couple of weeks before that, I was getting gas there for $2.15.

Factors affecting the price of gas at this time are:

Hurricane Katrina. Refineries in Florida are shut down. There has been talk in the news of "supply disruptions." I suppose that means that delivery trucks aren't running, and oil pipelines have been shutdown.
King whats-his-name in Saudi Arabia died. I suppose everyone expects the new guy to turn off the oil spigot. I understand that he hasn't, that he's been the guy making all the decisions all along while the old guy was dying for a long time and nobody said anything. I also understand that the new guy has been considering turning up oil production, and that he's also saying it's the supply lines and distribution that's been making the price of gas go up so much. Anyway, I expect that it takes a bit more than a week for oil to make it's way from Saudi Arabia, through the oil tankers across the ocean, through the refineries, through the trucks and stations to my gas tank. It's just the expectation that makes the prices go up everywhere at once, simultaneously.
The war in Iraq. Oh boo-freakin-hoo, the Islamofascist extremists think we're stealing their oil in Iraq. I still haven't seen any sign of our soldiers seizing oil fields, operating oil pumps, pipelines, or tankers, or even having the training to know how to do such a thing if it was even their mission. They're just trying to keep the terrorist sunnis out of the faces of the honest Iraqi citizens so they can set up a new government - any government - so the oil people can get their oil production going again, and sell it at fair market prices. Iraq only produces 20% of the world oil, and the war started two years ago, which doesn't add up to the 50% increase in the price of gasoline in the last month.
Labor Day weekend is upon us. This is one year where I think that the traditional drivingest weekend of the year, marking the end of summer vacations, will come in as a minor blip on a hard uptrend in the price of gas.

Some personal gasoline usage facts

I deliver newspapers for a living. I drive two routes, for a total of 50 miles each night.
20 of those miles are driving to and from the route from my house. It's exactly 10.0 miles from my house to the distribution center.
I have to fill my tank every three days. It cost me $30 to fill the tank now, so that's $10 a day to deliver the newspapers.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I deliver the fewest papers: 236. At $0.10 per paper, that's $23.60 income, minus $10 in gas for a net income of $13.60 for each of those two days.
My vehicle, a 1988 Toyota pickup, gets 15 miles per gallon on the route.
On the hiway, I've gotten as much as 22 miles per gallon.
The truck has 230,000 miles on it. I've put a lot of money into repairs and tires and oil changes, especially since I started doing this.
It now costs me $4 to go into town for that social club meeting. That shall now be eliminated as being a luxery item that I can't afford!
My birthday is this next Monday - Labor Day. Happy Birthday to me! My parents live in Fort Collins, 62 miles away. They always invite me up for my birthday. It'll cost me $20 to drive up there and back. For my birthday, I should ask for the $20 it cost me to go up there and see them. Luxery Item!
A friend wants me to come visit to do some spiritual healing practice together. That's 41 miles and $16 away. Luxery Item!

Some more facts, unrelated to the price of gas, that I'd like to acknowledge

I'm really sorry that so many people down in New Orleans are having such a hard time with the hurricane, and the flooding and destruction and all. There's nothing I can do physically or financially to help out. But I'll send my prayers.

I'm also really sorry that so many people over in Iraq died in a stampede. I hear that someone shouted "suicide bomber!" on a crowded bridge or something like that. It was during an important annual shiite religious festival. Some 965 people were trampled. Again, there's nothing I can do but to send my prayers.

I can't control the weather, or the economy, or the price of gasoline, or the terrorists. I can't go to New Orleans, or Florida, or Iraq, or Washington D.C.. I can't afford to send money to all those people in need, no matter how much the people on TV hold up hungry kids, begging for donations. The best thing that I can do is to send my prayers, and put all that aside, and get on with taking care of my own affairs to the best of my ability.

If you subscribe to a newspaper with home delivery service, remember that generous tips are always greatly appreciated.

Israelestine Est. 2525

2005-08-25T20:10:00.000-06:00

There are theories of a day when Israel and Palestine will come to peace, and form what has would be called New Jerusalem. Perhaps that’s just my wishful thinking or naïve interpretation of various prophetical writings, which are usually vague to start with. At first, I thought it was just one pet theory by some guy that channels an angelic being that’s come here to facilitate Earth changes into a new era, the New Age, the Age of Aquarius.

The city of Jerusalem is a focal point of three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Temple Mount is the place where the original Jewish Temple in Jerusalem stood on the site where Abraham offered his son Isaac in sacrifice to God. The ancient Israelites built the Tabernacle of Moses on the spot. Solomon built the first temple to replace the tabernacle. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon 420 years later, and the Second Temple was built 70 years after that. Romans destroyed the Second Jewish Temple 410 years later in 70 A.D., leaving only the West Wall, the famous “Wailing Wall.” In 691 A.D., Palestinians erected the famous Dome of the Rock shrine, called the Mosque of Umar, on the same spot where it is said that the prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven. Jerusalem was also the place where Jesus preached, performed many miracles, and was condemned to be crucified. I’m beginning to think that Temple Mount in Jerusalem is some sort of holy wormhole portal into Heaven that sucks up all the great enlightened prophets of the ages.

A Google search turns up much more about the New Jerusalem. There’s a poem by visionary author William Blake. There’s a Musical Group (I think) called New Jerusalem Music. There’s a church called the New Church, the General Church Of The New Jerusalem, based on the writings of Mormon preacher Emanuel Swedenborg. Ultimately, the New Jerusalem is described in the Bible, Revelations 21. One web site says that Jerusalem has always been a symbol of God’s presence on earth. Many of these sources say that the New Jerusalem is the end result of human struggle, and is a place of peace and happiness, ruled by reason. Another individual notes that Jerusalem has historically been a place of bloodshed, and is unlikely to be the focal point of Earth’s transition into an age of profound world peace.

Okay, that’s the history lesson. I thought I’d prognosticate how such a euphoric utopia might somehow arise out of a city that is the focal point of two cultures who want to either annihilate each other, or displace and deny the other’s right to exist. Israel, and Palestine. Merging these two states would be a bit like crossing a cat with a dog, and watching the poor creature chase itself to death. Or like crossing an apple with an orange, and answering the cliché “You can’t compare apples with oranges.” I imagine that it would take a very long time for these two cultures to resolve their differences. I can’t help but to think of that 60’s song by Zager and Evans

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive they may find

Only it should be

. . . If Israel is still alive
If Palestine can survive . . .

When I first read about the New Jerusalem and thought about the Islamic extremists, terrorists, Islamofascists, or whatever you want to call them, I wondered in my own Pantheistic way, “How is it that the left hand of God goes to war with the right hand of God?” In my own unique oversimplification of matters, I think of scooping a bowl of ice cream, how one hand holds the bucket steady, while the other hand scoops the ice cream out. Two hands, working cooperatively in opposition to accomplish one goal. Why is it that Israel and Palestine can't be like that?

To stretch my mind into the distant future, and determine how Israel and Palestine could co-rule the New Jerusalem, I think of the ancient Greek Spartan kingdom. Two kings, who had to come to an agreement to make any decisions, ruled the Spartans. This, along with a strong hierarchical government structure resulted in one of the strongest military kingdoms to have ever existed. Historians theorize that the strength of the dual kingship was because it prevented absolutism. Others believed it was a compromise arrived at to end the struggle between two families or communities. Does this sound much like Israel and Palestine?

Switching to terrorist web site, jihadwatch.org, there is an article titled Palestinian Cleric: We Will Enter Palestine as Conquerors, Not Through Negotiations But Through Jihad. The article is filled with more jihadist rhetoric about how it’s the duty of every Muslim to exterminate Jews everywhere, and it’s the destiny of Palestine to “liberate Jerusalem and regain Palestine.” The interviewee cites hadith and Koranic verse
Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews, and the stone and tree would say: 'Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew. . . there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him', except for the Gharqad tree.

Indeed, it will be a very long time, if ever Israel and Palestine can make peace. I feel that these Palestinians are behaving like a bunch of naughty children, and ought to all be sent to their room without supper, and give the Temple Mount to Israel. Let them build their Third Temple, and let’s get this thing over with.

Islam Extremists Accept support of Cindy Sheehan

2005-08-16T20:28:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest flaps in the ongoing media frenzy over the war in Iraq is Cindy Sheehan is protesting at the gates of President Bush’s ranch in Crawford Texas. It appears that her son, Casey Sheehan, was killed in action while on duty in Iraq. And for some reason, Ralph Nader, felt compelled to write a public letter in support of Ms. Sheehan’s presidential camp-in. Or maybe Nader is writing the letter for his own political agenda.

Go visit Islamic web site, aljazeera.com, and you’ll get a feel for how the Islamic extremists really appreciate the support from the liberals. Especially telling are some of the reader comments, such as this one, which was rated a “Good Comment” by fellow readers:

i send my condolences to this poor lady. she is another victim by hands of bush. she is what america use to stand for. bush has no heart, no feelings, and no morals. he sat on ranch relaxing as a grieving lady cries on his door step. all she wants is an answer why her son is ddidd. bush cant even spare a minute for a man who gave his life for the sake of oil. he does not care and he has no value for life.nader who also happens to be an arab showed more respect for this lady then the man responsible of his ddethh. when all you brainless bush supporters get drafted by bush and sent out to dyy i hope you all remember everything you said since the start of this war. you will all turn and run. its easy to support a war when your sitting around at home drinking beer and watching sports. but when your leader comes calling you will all show your true colors and find a rock to hide under because your all kkoowerdds like bush.

If you can keep your spell-checker from going ballistic over this passage, it might be instructive to analyze a few points.

The author believes that President Bush planted bombs beside the roads, sent trucks loaded with bombs into lines of Iraqi children, military checkpoints, sent disillusioned Muslims with bombs into the transit systems of London, and had airplanes flown into the World Trade Center buildings. Last time I checked, it was the Islamic extremists that were carrying out these activities, and this was the reason why President Bush has troops stationed in Iraq to stop these activities.
Casey Sheehan gave his life for oil. Is that why oil is up to $65 a barrel now? Casey Sheehan gave his life so that oil could be more expensive? Less expensive? Hmmm, I must’ve missed the big rush to seize the Iraqi oil fields as soon as the coalition forces got into Iraq. Maybe it’s because they wanted to protect the legitimate citizens of Iraq before they set out to seize the oil fields that the price of oil has gone up so much.
“Ralph Nader is an Arab.” Well, well, well, you could’ve fooled me. As I recall from the last presidential election (in which Nader was a candidate), he did not have any public position one way or the other about the war in Iraq. His primary issues were relating to the environment. Is this what makes him an Arab? Having no position on Arab issues?
The author shows his hatred for “all you brainless Bush supporters…” Now wait a minute. If Bush is responsible for Casey Sheehan’s death, and all the other soldiers who’ve died as a result of their illegal invasion of Iraq, then I suppose that makes Bush an Arab too, just like Ralph Nader. Just who’s side is this guy on, anyway?
Bush supporters sit around drinking beer and watching sports. I’ve got nothing against watching sports, or against drinking beer for that matter - as long as you don’t drink and drive. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had a beer, and I only really watch sports whenever the Denver Broncos play in the Superbowl. Until then, I think I’ll see if I can dig enough change out of the couch to go buy a soda pop, sit back in my office chair, and surf the blogosphere, watching illiterate Islamic extremists make fools of themselves in this hopeless war against Muslim children lined up for candy from our soldiers.

Spirituality, Mudslinging, and Religionism

2005-08-13T20:41:00.000-06:00

I’ve taken the Theta Healing class. I’m going to take the two-day workshop a week from now, and until then, I’ll suspend judgment of the technique. Just a couple of quick notes about it first. The class was not intended to be, and did not serve as, a healing clinic. It was meant to instruct and familiarize the students with the principles and techniques. Three days before the class started, I decided to get some extra sleep, so I wouldn’t be nodding off during the class. That first day, I woke up at 1:00 PM with what felt like plugged up ears. That’s still happening at this time. I have this, and much more to work on. Most of the students in the class were professionals who work in the healing arts or various areas of alternative medicine, such as massage therapy, naturopathy, herbology, and so forth. As far as belief in God goes, the technique respects all beliefs in God, but does not endorse any particular religion or belief system. Students are asked to claim that they “pray to God, and God heals.”

I’ve decided that blogging on political issues is a major drain on my time and energy. If my main objective at this time is to build up the ecommerce web business, and after that has been accomplished, to develop more writing and marketing skills, then blogging extensively about world politics is interfering with my immediate goals, and not contributing significantly to my development of either writing or marketing skills.

But I can’t help but to maintain an interest anyway. I’ve been reading the Islamic web site, aljazeera.com, and the comments that are posted there. I’ve resisted the temptation to add to the already inflammatory comments, which would just be further fueling the terrorist sentiment. I’ve noticed that the articles that are written are often out-dated, and usually distort the views in an anti-American way, or just misrepresent the facts. The comments that are posted are almost universally inflammatory, use extremely poor spelling, grammar and punctuation. I suspect that many of those who post comments are among a small band of hired ghost-writers who post inflammatory comments from the perspective of both extremes, for the purpose of fueling the controversy and the anti-American sentiment.

On another favorite blog, Pedro on the quietist has some good comments that I largely concur with. It’s a little acknowledged fact that negative campaigning is one of the most widely used political tactics: to discredit the other side with loosely supported accusations of insanity or immorality. They used to call this “mudslinging.” I guess calling it “negative campaigning” gives some dignity back to taking the dignity away from one’s opponent. For the record, I voted for Bush in the last election. I thought long and hard about the issue of the war on terror. I concluded that George W. Bush already had a strategy for dealing with the situation in Iraq, and the problem of Islamic extremism, and was familiar with the issues, whereas John Kerry never did present any strategy at all for the war, except to attempt to discredit Bush. At the state level, however, I decided to vote Democratic. Senate candidate Pete Coors, head of the Coors beer dynasty, who I began to refer to as “Senator Beer Baron” represented some rather dangerous possibilities. Coors proposed to cut taxes. It turned out that he wanted to cut corporate taxes, while leaving individual income taxes unchanged. I’ve always been suspicious of trickle-down economic theory. Thinking from the perspective of corporate executives, why would they trickle-down tax savings to the grunt-level employees or even the shareholders, when they could increase their own executive salaries by the same amount? And there was the issue of major funding for Pete Coors coming from the NRA. As much as I believe in gun safety and second amendment rights, I think that the NRA should just keep out of politics. That places the NRA in the position of a militia, which is not what we need when we already have a competent well-trained military. And there’s the fact that the Denver Post advertised for Pete Coors, but not for his democratic opponent Ken Salazar. So I preferred to vote for “Senator Salad-Bar” (Salazar), who would actually do some things for the Colorado citizens, rather than “Senator Beer Baron,” and his self-serving interests.

Another article on the quietist discusses “Religion vs. Spirituality.” I have some strong views on this subject. I’m not sure what the perspective of the original article is; I think it’s facetious, but I’ve always found sarcasm to be confusing, and often take it literally and get in trouble. I grew up in a Christian family. I started seeking broader views of God at about age eight. Sometime during the many years of studying mysticism, I concluded that conventional religionism is suitable only for those who lack the capacity to contemplate the mysteries of life and of the Universe, and derive their own cosmology, that might even be consistent with scientific as well as progressive religious thinking. Religion provides a ready-made package of answers to all of life’s problems. After all, millions of Muslims can’t all be wrong. Except in the eyes of Christians. Okay then, millions of Christians can’t all be wrong. Except in the eyes of Jews. Okay then, millions of Jews can’t all be wrong. Repeat for Hindus, Buddhists, and any other religion you find.

The Mars Connection (Part V, Conclusion)

2005-08-04T17:35:00.000-06:00

In my natal astrological chart, I was born with Mars in Libra; opposite to Aries, the sign it rules. When a planet is in it’s “fall” like this, its effect is weakened. Mars represents the archetype of the Warrior, passion, desire, energy and action. With an afflicted Mars, I express this in life by often lacking those qualities: passion, desire, energy and action.

With the events of May and June, this lack of Mars energy has become apparent to me in several symbolic ways. Running the paper route has left me with an ongoing battle against fatigue. A friend suggested that my symptoms indicated that I needed adrenal support supplements. I’ve since determined that Enzymatic Therapy’s Fatigued To Fantastic Adrenal Stress End has been the greatest help in alleviating the fatigue. DHEA also helps to an extent. And of course, a few extra hours sleep during the day helps too. I’ve learned a great deal in recent months about adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and these and other supplements and vitamins. Mars rules the adrenal glands, which is what these supplements help. The DHEA supports the adrenals as well as the testosterone level. Mars also rules the sexual urge.

Another problem was the urinary problem, that I mentioned before. Getting “pissed off” is more than a pun. I’ve had urinary problems since I was a kid. Yes, I was a bed-wetter. I didn’t even know when it happened. I think I was about ten years old when my mom took me to a urologist, who treated me for a bladder infection.

The bouts of anger were another indication. With properly modulated Mars energy, one would not respond to unfortunate events out of pure anger. Balanced Mars energy allows one to act rationally, with purpose, and with results.

To everything there is a season...
A time to love, and a time to hate
A time of war, and a time of peace
-- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The mechanical problems with the truck have been further indications of Mars issues. The truck had radiator problems – a corroded radiator, and a leaky hose, both of which had to be replaced. Symbolically, with a defective cooling system, you could say that I “couldn’t keep my cool.” The clutch in the truck has also shown signs of wear, and will likely be the next major component to be replaced. The clutch would be symbolic of a “lack of self-control.” In astrological symbolism, Mars also represents mechanical abilities and mechanical things, which covers automotive repairs.

With all of this multiple symbolism of Mars issues coming up, it soon became apparent to me that this is the source of my problems. I’ve learned to use Sanskrit Mantra to adjust mental and psychic energies. When I first became aware that something wasn’t right, I turned to my Mantra book, Healing Mantras (Thomas Ashley-Farrand). Sometimes, important information seems to leap right out at me. When I opened Healing Mantras in search of answers and solutions, the first section that I opened to covered physical and planetary karma. It explained the different types of karma. Prarabdha karma is the karma that has resulted in the current lifetime, and includes the karma that is described by the position of the planets at the moment of birth. This is what astrology is based on. There are mantras described for resolving karma associated with each of the planets. In Healing Mantras, Mars is related to the sex organs, adrenal glands, and red blood cells. The Mars mantra, which I have been using for at least the prescribed period of time, is

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

You will see that mantra in my previous entries. Since I began that practice, I haven’t had any more serious mechanical problems. My fatigue is under control, and I don’t get easily worn out. I haven’t had any more urinary problems. I still get upset from time to time, but it’s more modulated, more easily controlled with humor. I’ve had periods where I have more energy.

My interests have been drawn to other things now. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the problems of the worldwide Islamic Jihad, the war on terrorism, and on the political issues. And, starting tomorrow, I’m taking a three-day class on a form of psychic healing and self empowerment called Theta Healing. I think it’ll be interesting to see, when I “go up and seek God,” in what way I refer to God. But more interesting, I’d like to see what I can make of my life once I identify and remove some of the inappropriate failure-programming that’s been affecting me my whole life. That might be a topic for another blog entry, or series of entries.

There Are No Moderate Muslims

2005-07-26T20:17:00.000-06:00

I’ve spent the last several days reading through a series of political blogs. Up until now, I was convinced that most blogs are either schoolgirls publicly chronicling their social life, or spammers promoting their pornography, mortgage refinancing, or some other web site.

Then, I happened upon The Belmont Club. Then I found a whole slew of other really interesting blogs:

State Of Flux
The Quietist
Neo-Neocon
Rightwing Nuthouse
No Oil For Pacifists
The Wide Awakes
TMH’s Bacon Bits
WILLisms

Maybe some day I’ll have to break this blog up into three separate blogs: one for the newspaper carrier experiences, one for the mystical contemplations, and one for the political commentary. But then, the reader wouldn’t get the sense of what a complex human being I can be, how it might be possible to be all these things at once (and more) and would believe that I really am a 12 year-old kid who rides his bicycle around the block in mid-morning, throwing newspapers at dogs, flowerpots, bushes and windows (none of which is true).

I got to thinking about my political views. When I was in college, my dorm buddies would try to get me to talk politics, and then call me a pacifist because I didn’t want to have my admittedly ignorant views scrutinized and criticized. Am I left, or right? Liberal or Conservative? Republican or Democrat? I’ve traditionally voted Republican, partly because my family, my dad is Republican, and because I, at least used to believe in industry and free enterprise. From what I’ve been reading on these blogs, I suppose I’m liberal. Liberal, in that I think we should wait and see what the Islamic terrorists really want. Wait until we all get so fed up with their senseless attacks that we send bevy after bevy after bevy of bombers and fighters and submarines and aircraft carriers and ICBMs all loaded with nukes and bomb the holy crap out of (insert long list of middle-eastern nations, included Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia repeated several times) until there’s nothing left but a big crater full of radioactive oily seawater connecting the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Surely we can make some sort of vehicle that runs off of radioactive oily seawater. :-)

Okay, that might be a bit too extreme. And we don’t want to end up as bad off as the Muslim extremists, now do we? No, we don’t want to stoop to their level. Besides, not all Muslims are extremists. Besides, as the liberals keep telling us, we’re supposed to “understand” what the terrorists want, why they think how they do, and how we might possibly “appease” them.

In the mystical tradition, the way to overcome the demon – called the Dweller On The Threshold, or what Carl Jung later called the “shadow-personality” – is to lift the veil of darkness, and gaze into the eyes of the demon. Confront the demon directly, and peer into the depths of his soul, so that the demon will not be able to withstand the light of introspection, and will flee.

I was out searching the web for some information about kids being trained to fight in Somalia. I saw a TV program about our aborted attempt a few years ago to liberate Somalia from the grip of warlordism (or thugocracy to borrow another invented word). But when I did some searches relating to Somalia, I found some Islamic web sites. I’ve wanted to find some of these Islamic web sites. Perusing a few Islamic web sites is a far cry from infiltrating an organization, but it’s as close as I care to get.

There was a story where the UK cops wanted to effectively shut down Islamic web sites with denial-of-service attacks, which struck me as yet another form of terrorism. Why don’t they just track down the IP addresses and owners and names of the people that run those web sites? InterNIC is still a US controlled organization, to the last of my knowledge. But I digress.

I found a few Islamic web sites:
Aljazeera.com
JihadWatch.org
zmag.org
Ocnus.net
Of these, I found Jihad Watch to be the most moderate. Of particular interest was a current article titled The Myth of the ‘Moderate’ Muslim, which in turn quotes the same article published in the London Free Press.

The truth is there does not exist an identifiable body of Muslims, substantive in number or an outright majority, who could be described as "moderate" by their repudiation of Muslim extremists.

Violence has been an integral part of Muslim history, irrespective of whether it is sanctioned by Islam, and Muslims who unhesitatingly use violence to advance their political ambitions have created a climate within their faith-culture that any Muslim who questions such practice is then deemed apostate [without faith] and subject to harm.

If you don’t understand what that’s saying, go read the full article, and all the commentary following it. It means that Islam is by its very nature, a religion of violence, that war is the way of life. And there’s more, in some comments posted by “Gorkhali”

You can never trust a Muslim, because deep down inside, somewhere in their heart they cannot completely accept you as a human being unless you are a Muslim.

Nor can they ever be loyal to the country of their birth, unless it is a Muslim nation (ie, betrayed India and created Pakistan, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)).

They will always hold a certain amount of hatred and disgust for other faiths regardless of how "moderate" they are.

Their will never be a moderate Muslim, since this would mean betrayal of Allah and the Koran.

So not only are they bent on our destruction, but you cannot negotiate with them. The only way to effectively deal with the Muslims is to isolate them, or destroy them. Maybe there’s some value to the policy of turning the Middle East into a crater full of radioactive oily seawater. :-)

The Jihad Watch web site describes Jihad both “struggle,” and as the duty of every Muslim – a way of life, although an often violent way of life. When the war in Afghanistan started some American scholar of Islam described Jihad as an internal struggle, a struggle of the soul.

As a pantheist, I think of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, Voodoo witchdoctors, cats, dogs, horses, birds, whales, sharks, tigers, trees, lettuce, wildflowers, rocks, soil, volcanoes, planets, stars, galaxies, quasars, and vast stretches of empty space as all being expressions of God. Yes, we are all God. Jihad is Gods internal struggle to purge the Shadow. OBL called on Muslims everywhere for Jihad. And the US-led coalition forces stepped in to do the job. Here is your Jihad.

The Wall Street Urinal???

2005-07-22T12:55:00.000-06:00

Oh, “Journal.”

We had one of those mass starts of sample papers for everyone’s route for the whole distribution center, and presumably for the whole state of Colorado. Except it wasn’t the Denver Post. It wasn’t the Rocky Mountain News. No. It was the Wall Street Journal. That’s really strange. We’ve never had sample starts of the Journal before. I got 49 new subscribers on my two routes, which in addition to the original four Journal subscribers brings it to a total of 53.

The rumor is that these are all paid subscriptions, not the free samples that the Denver Post is so notorious for. Okay, so if they’re all paid subscriptions, then why are some of these people already canceling? A few of these on my route are going to “resident.” Does the alleged bill also get sent to “resident?” I know that I missed one of these the first day, and never got a complaint about that. If the guy was going to pay for it, and didn’t get it, why would he not complain that he didn’t get it? Just being generous?

I’m not as dumb as I’m being paid to act. Anyway, I’ve decided that it’s good advice to stop delivering to those people that let it pile up. If I’m an agent for the Denver Piss-people-off-with-sample-newspaper-subscriptions Agency, then it’s in my best interest to not piss people off so much that that they call in and stop their sample delivery. According to the rules, I’m supposed to report pile-ups. But if I dumpster them instead, I still get paid $0.50 a week to deliver to the dumpster every day. And the customer is happy, and the Wall Street Journal gets more money from its advertisers for having a larger distribution. And for every two papers that I dumpster, I can get an extra hamburger from Wendy’s dollar menu each week. Woohoo!

Dark Night Of The Soul (Part IV)

2005-07-21T16:18:00.000-06:00

I try to stay aware of what Spirit is trying to tell me. I had become a bit too involved in repair and maintenance to talk with Spirit. Maybe there was an entity interfering. Maybe some misguided Spirit Guide was trying to teach me a lesson. But still, there was absolutely no reason why this should have happened in this way at this time. I decided, and declared “If I ever find out who did this, I’m gonna kick his ass!” How do you kick Spirit’s ass? I’d have to quit this life, go over to the other side, and hunt down the perpetrator. How do you kick Spirit’s ass, even from the other side? It doesn’t work like that, sir.

There is a way to fire one’s Spirit Guides. Maybe “fire” is the wrong word. You request a change, and the old ones leave, and then new ones come in. The catch is that in the “intermission period”, you’re completely without any feeling of connection to God, which is experienced as depression and despair. By requesting what Kryon refers to as the neutral implant, the guide change, and graduate status, you are asking for some major changes in your life. The neutral implant is a way of neutralizing the fear and materialistic drives that compel humans to act on a Darwinian level of self-preservation. It’s a way to free the mind and spirit to pursue higher purposes. I had requested the neutral implant several months ago, but continued to feel frustration over not knowing or being able to control what was happening to me spiritually and materially.

There’s other ways to make adjustments to mental programming, spiritual programming (Karma), exorcise demons, dark forces, wayward discarnates, misguided Spirit Guides and other entities, and dabble in all kinds of other Spiritual influences. Some of it gets kind of messy.

“Hold your nose, we’re going in!”

And there’s even a way to Command Spirit to work for you. It’s our right to direct the energies and entities in the world around us. In this new age that we’re already several years into, there is a growing spiritual awareness of humanity’s oneness with God. It’s becoming more of a natural thing for enlightened light-workers to work in cooperation with Spirit.

But it was a growing into that oneness with God that I was experiencing in June when I expressed my anger and frustration with not knowing what the source of my problems were. “Not knowing” is being out of touch with Spirit. Without doing anything more than having the intention, apparently what I had done ended up with firing all of my Spirit Guides. I was severely depressed for three days. It was real bad. If I hadn’t understood what was happening, I would have been suicidal. Since that change, I’ve had a growing sense of awareness, and a renewed sense responsibility

To Be Continued...

Psychic Disturbances

2005-07-19T14:16:00.000-06:00

You may want to check out the report of geomagnetic storm data, continuously tracked by the Space Environment Center (SEC) section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The web site is http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/index.html, and the current warnings are at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html. I check this site at least once a day now. You can also check historical data in the archives at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html.

Geomagnetic storms are a result of sunspot and solar flare activity. Periods of strong activity are known to interfere with radio communication, navigation systems, power distribution grids, satellites, pipelines, pose radiation hazards to high altitude aircraft and astronauts, disturb migratory animals, and are visible as aurora borealis or "Northern Lights" in more southern latitudes. Geomagnetic storms are measured on a scale from G1 to G5 similar to that used for tornadoes and hurricanes. A "G1" is Minor, causing power grid fluctuations and affecting migratory animals. A "G5" is Extreme, causing power grid disruptions and blackouts, satellite malfunctions, disruption of HF radio communication for days, and auroras visible as far south as Forida and Texas.

There have been studies that link geomagnetic storms to human mass psychology as reflected by declines in the stock market. The theory is that humans are mentally and emotionally affected by geomagnetic storms, resulting in a market sell-off. See http://www.bc.edu/publications/bcm/winter_2004/ll_solar.html, and the published paper, http://www.frbatlanta.org/invoke.cfm?objectid=AFD46B63-2852-4812-BE83E6D0C777F4BF&method=display. I've also correlated some of these storms with declines in the S&P 500 and DJIA averages.

I can personally account for at least three occasions of disruption, specifically mechanical breakdown of my vehicle and computer malfunctions, occuring within a day or two after some geomagnetic storms. Check out the archives at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html. Here's some dates, for which I have repair receipts and dated computer files as proof:

June 12 - 13, and 15 - 17, 2005, level G2 geomagnetic storm
June 18, I had my truck repaired for a broken water hose. It had been leaking the past few days, and began overheating.

May 28 - 31, 2005, level G2
June 1, I had my truck repaired to have a heavily corroded and leaking radiator replaced.
May 27 - 28, a critical system file on my computer is corrupted, requiring a day of repair, and eventually re-installing many software packages. This threatened to interfere with the final project for a class that I was taking. I was very upset over this, made some harsh decisions, and later went into a deep depression for three days. I'm still recovering emotionally from this.

November 6 - 15, 2004, level G4
November 16, I had my truck repaired to have a slipped timing belt, pulleys, and water pump all replaced. The engine had been making strange sounds for the previous few days, and finally lost power and would not run. The vehicle was in the shop for two days, and I was also unable to perform my job for two days, and lost money as a result. Lost pay from job is undetermined.

Think of recent times when things might have gone wrong for you, and see if there is some correlation. You can check the archives for these and other dates. If you find that there's a relationship, as I have, you might want to follow the current geomagnetic storm warnings page, just like you check the weather report.

Commemoration Of The Dawning Of The Atomic Age

2005-07-16T18:18:00.000-06:00

I have to pause in my usual postings. I have several other topics to write about. But this is an issue of profound importance to the whole planet and the entire human race. On this day 60 years ago, July 16, 1945, the first atomic weapon was tested at Trinity Site, White Sands, New Mexico, in the USA.

The entire war had led up to this test, and ultimately the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. From the attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the USA into the war, the sequence of events led the world on a treacherous, but inevitable course that culminated in this. Although Roosevelt was president before, and all through the war, he died of a heart attack, leaving the sole decision of whether or not to use the device to his successor, President Harry S. Truman. Churchill called these type of events "hinge events," because it's like a door opening, the course of history changes with a single event.

It was said that the entire Japanese Empire was involved in the war, that "there are no civilians on the island of Japan." The Japanese people were prepared to fight until the very last man, woman and child. It was decided that this war of attrition could only be won by the total innihilation of Japan; America's genocide. All major Japanese cities were being systematically destroyed with incindiary bombing raids -- the cities were being burnt to the ground. In times such as these, the decision makes itself; it only takes someone to own the decision. So, yes, there were probably many lives saved on both sides by this display of such awsome power that the Japanese Emperor was shocked into surrender.

It has been said that these events sent shock waves throughout the entire Universe, that beings of higher consciousness in other places were aware of what had happened, and that many came to Earth at that time, and in the years afterward to observe the progression of this sequence of events, and their aftermath.

Back at Trinity Site, the first test had profound impact on the conscience of all of those involved. There was a great moral awakening in the USA. "We are nuclear giants, but ethical infants. We know everything about war, but nothing about peace."

J. Robert Oppenheimer had the most notable comments, which I had the privelege of watching him speak on today's installment of The Last Days of WW II today on The History Channel:

"Some laughed. Some cried. Most were silent. I remembered the lines from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, 'And now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all felt the same in some way."

Working For The Weekender

2005-07-14T20:07:00.000-06:00

The weekender edition now starts on Thursday. That makes it Thursday through Monday; a TM schedule. Two more days, and it’ll be the whole week.

In the jungle,
In the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP

In the jungle,
In the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Cops Can't Rant

There's a story about a NYPD cop that got fired for having a web site for cops to rant about their job. He says he's gonna sue for violation of first ammendment rights and file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. More power to you buddy!

I wonder if the Denver Newspaper Agency, publisher of the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, knows that I use this blog to point out all the stupidity of running a paper route. I wonder if I would get fired for pointing out that they pull shenanigans like changing all their weekender subscribers from a four-day schedule to a five-day schedule just to artificially boost their distribution numbers and get more revenue from their advertisers. I wonder if I did get fired, if I could get pull off a successful lawsuit. Not likely, in Colorado, an "Employment At Will" state. Not likely, working as contract labor. I wonder how many people, if any, actually read this blog. Like the owl and the tootsie pop, "The world may never know."

Survey time. Leave a comment if you read this, and it means anything to you. Just one word, yes or no: would I be justified in suing if I got fired for having this blog?

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Succumbing To Entropy (Part III)

2005-07-13T20:14:00.000-06:00

What Happened In May, 2005

This last class, Search Engine Marketing, which I took from April 26 to June 6, was plagued from beginning to end by computer problems. I re-installed Internet Explorer twice, along with the last several service updates. I turned to one of my spiritual practices, Sanskrit Mantra, for assistance. Ganesh is the Hindu expression of God that is called the Remover Of Obstacles.

Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha

That’s the Ganesh Mantra. I was using the Ganesh Mantra, in earnest, to help get rid of the computer problems. The next day, my computer was running a bit sluggish, so I re-booted. That is, I attempted to re-boot. It would not.

It turned out that the one file, NTUSER.DAT, which contains all of the software settings, had become corrupted. “No problem,” I thought. I would just go to my backup, and restore that file. No. The system cannot back up that particular file while the system is running. So, really, there’s no value for doing backups, except to save user data. I managed to shoehorn together the system, using a computerized variation of the “pound in place, and paint to fit” technique that we used to joke about in the machine shop. But I still needed to re-install most of my software. And it was the final week of the class. And I had customers sending me orders that I needed to fill.

I was super pissed off. Of all the files to be corrupted, the one that holds the whole system together had to be the one. If architects built houses the way computer programmers write software, one woodpecker could destroy civilization. There was absolutely no reason why this should have happened in this way at this time. One tiny little beam that holds up the entire tree house of my system, by homework, and my business, and a woodpecker has to come along and drill a hole in it, causing the whole tree house to collapse to the ground.

It appears that the district manager at the newspaper agency has had computer problems of her own in June. Her computer lost its mind. One day we didn’t have any route lists, at all, for any of the routes. Another day, everything was all messed up, the counts didn’t match, there was new addresses in the route list that weren’t on the bundle mail start / stop list. I never hear the details of what happened, but I can tell when something’s up by the way people act all depressed and unresponsive. The manager took a week off recently.

I wish I could afford to take a vacation. Even if I could, I’d need to find a substitute paper carrier. And train him. Fortunately, I have a second route now. Fortunate? Yeah, I can afford to pay my taxes now. I can buy some time, and go back to building the business outside of the paper route.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

To Be Continued...

Don’t Point That Thing At Me!

2005-07-11T18:41:00.000-06:00

It’s skunk season. I saw four of them this morning. Two were “courting” beside the street, one hiding down in a driveway, and another one crossing the road.

I’ve learned to recognize the animals I see out at night by the color of their shiny eyes, and by their movements.

Cats have golden eyes, and they walk fast, stop and look, walk again, stop and look, then run into a bush or under a car and watch.

Raccoons have golden eyes, humped backs and stand defiantly, wondering who’s gonna try and steal his garbage, then they’ll reluctantly lumber away. Racoons often take the whole family along, as many as four or five.

Foxes have golden eyes too, maybe red, maybe white, and run like cats, but don’t stop and look. Foxes are unconcerned with cars, and often sit beside the road and watch traffic.

Coyotes are bigger than foxes, and run like foxes, but turn and look with their golden eyes as they run. Coyotes are shyer than foxes; they usually slip away before you can see them unless you watch the shadows outside the headlights.

You never see the eyes of bunny rabbits, which is weird considering how big they are, but they dart about randomly, sometimes drawn to vehicle tires like moths to the flame, and they occasionally pop straight up in the air when they’re startled. I think they know that it’s their mission in life to be coyote lunch, but they somehow mistake trucks for coyotes, and become road pizza instead.

Skunks are the only animals that always have red eyes (when you can see them). If the skunk is happy, it’ll nonchalantly lumber around in the grass, foraging for bugs and worms. If it’s upset, it’ll be in the middle of the road pointing its ass at you.

I remember the first time I saw a skunk. I looked up from wrangling the next newspaper, and there he was, in the middle of the road, with his pants pulled down around his ankles, fluffy black and white tail in the air, pointing a big rosy red asshole at me, counting off “Ready!… Aim!… ” My reaction was to hit the brake and throw it in reverse, “Back up! Back up! Give that boy some room!” Just give him some distance, and he’ll calm down and go about his business. Then after he’s gone, I roll up the window “just in case” and slowly drive past.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Succumbing To Entropy (Part II)

2005-07-10T16:38:00.000-06:00

What Happened In May, 2001

May 16 was the four-year anniversary of having lost my last respectable job as a software support engineer. The job had potential. The company had potential. I had the respect of most of the support department. I could have worked into a position as full-blown software development engineer. But then, the company’s founder decided that he wasn’t qualified to run a company, and hired a CEO. CEO’s, as they usually go, act out of un-enlightened self-interest. The first one decided to grow the company by buying up a bunch of smaller companies. He was fired for incompetence. The second one was already retired, and only agreed to do this until they found the guy they really wanted. Then the third guy decided to grow the company by shutting down parts of the company, and pointing out how much money he saved the company.

I was pursuing the latest technology, which the sales people never understood, or cared about. The market for those products was never developed. In yet another political maneuver originating in greed and unenlightened self-interest, the sales manager “acquired” the support department, and shifted the focus away from skills and technology to customer satisfaction. The Sales manager told us “Nothing will change. Continue work as usual.” I told the Support manager that I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, and just let me work on this one project for at least three months to get established. We agreed to this. Two weeks later, I was fired for “poor productivity.”

It was about the 10^th time that I lost my job (I actually lost count), and the second time the managers made up excuses and lied about why they were firing me. That’s when I decided I had had enough with working for corporations as an employee. That’s when I decided to go into business for myself. Four years later, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

To Be Continued...

You Can’t Teach The World A Lesson

2005-07-09T12:35:00.000-06:00

My reaction to the London bombings is one of detached, but sad amusement. These terrorist attacks make me think of when as a child, I would stick firecrackers into anthills. The blast would kill or injure a few ants, make the rest of the ants run around in a frenzy, then give them something interesting to work on in rebuilding their anthill. The difference with these suicide bombers is that it’s more like tying a firecracker to your finger, lighting the fuse, and sticking your firecracker-finger into the anthill.

I gave up terrorizing anthills when I was about ten. These Arab terrorist suicide bombers don’t have much more morals or maturity than a ten year-old, or intelligence than a ten year-old who ties a firecracker to his finger.

If you don’t like an anthill, and it’s not on your property, then it’s best to just leave it alone. If it’s on your property, and it’s a problem, then that’s a different story. But firecracker attacks don’t solve the problem.

They’ll attack New York City, Madrid, London, but they never attack Small Town, USA. I feel safe.

Something else that I learned when I was a child is to place the blame appropriately. Someone stole something of mine in grade school, and I got in trouble for beating up an innocent kid out of spite. Meanwhile, whoever did it was happy that they got away with it. I hate practical jokes. But you can’t teach the bully a lesson by beating up innocent kids.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Death Ray

I loaned my spotlight to Sam. Yeah. The 2,000,000 candlepower one.

I’ll bet he was out there, burning holes and writing his name in the grass. Lighting trees on fire. Incinerating dogs. Blinding the carriers for the other paper. Making birds burst into flame in mid-flight. Silhouetting couples making love inside their houses.

You could give the young women the alien abduction experiences.

“And then there was this real bright light. And then I was floating in the air. And there were these strange little men, with big round shiny heads. And they took me up to their spaceship. And there were thousands and thousands of these orange and blue sacks filled with larvae. Then the larvae all turned into newspapers. Then I woke up in bed, all sweaty.”

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Geldof Blasts eBay

2005-06-14T20:58:00.000-06:00

Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof has lashed out at the Internet auction site eBay -- calling it an "electronic pimp" -- after pairs of tickets for the upcoming London event have been listed for as much as 10 million pounds ($18 million).

Well Bob, first off, you're accusing eBay of doing the selling. It's not eBay, Bob, it's the individual sellers who are listing the tickets on eBay. eBay is merely providing a venue for making the sale. Just as you're providing a venue for pimping out these artists for your own profiteering on the backs of the impoverished people that your event allegedly benefits. eBay makes a market where there is apparently desire for both seller and buyer to agree upon a price and a means to make a desired exchange. Accusing eBay of profiteering is a bit like saying the New York Stock Exchange is immoral for selling the stock of various gun manufacturers. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Stock exchanges that provide a market for investors to buy and sell stock for gun manufacturer's don't kill people, people who misuse guns kill people. That example may be an extra layer removed than what you're saying. My point is, target your wrath appropriately.

Second, Bob, not everyone who's selling on eBay is profiteering at the expense of the impoverished. How do the impoverished people suffer by someone else selling tickets for an event that they may never even know about? Anyway, back to my second point... As a seller on eBay, I can say that eBay has been my best bet yet for ketting out of - and staying out of - the clutches of both poverty and of the culture of corporate greed. I'm probably one of the very few people in the world who understand the karmic benefits of working through poverty. While everyone else is whining about the condition of the impoverished people, I'm using the experience as motivation to overcome the situation and make something of myself. And I'm making something of myself by building a business of my own, starting by selling stuff on eBay! I don't care if anyone holds a concert for me; that doesn't mean a thing to me.

By lambasting the free enterprise system, Bob, you're attacking the very means by which an ambitious, capable person such as myself could possibly break free of dependence on a culture of corporate greed, where companies like Worldcom and Enron build their own executive bankrolls while keeping their employees in a state of near-poverty, and stealing from their retirement. It's the free enterprise system that made America great. Don't destroy the opportunity for people to get out of poverty by attacking an avenue to success (eBay), and by mollycoddling people away from such avenues to success with handouts and a fish for a day.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Anger Management (Part I)

2005-06-12T19:22:00.000-06:00

Anger Management

I’ve only had two people scream at me for delivering a newspaper that they didn’t want.

I got a screamer for Christmas.
I really wanted a moaner or a sweater.

That wouldn’t make much sense unless you already heard the original joke:

I got a sweater for Christmas.
I really wanted a moaner or a screamer.

My new mantra:

Om sri angarakaya namaha

You wanna what my what???

If losing my mind is anything like losing my virginity, well then I’m all for it.

Om sri angarakaya namaha

Well Neither Do I!

What should I tell people when they tell me that they don’t want their paper?

Well neither do I!
Oh, I don’t know anything about that.
Well now you do!
According to my list you do.
Oh, we just changed that. Now you do.
Oh, wait… Accessing… You’re supposed to call someone… who gives a shit. Which is not me.
See, that's why I'm delivering, and you're being delivered to, and not the other way around.
You wanna what my what? You wanna kiss my ass??? Okay then, here you go...

Om sri angarakaya namaha

He’s moving into his own apartment

According to my bundle mail, a Mr. Bill Williamson (not his real name) moved into 6565 Bilgewater, apartment 204D (not his real address), and is having his subscription transferred there. But that address isn’t on my route list, so I have to write it in myself, until it can be entered into the computer.

Also, a Mr. Bill Williamson is moving out of 6565 Bilgewater, building D, apartment 204, and wants his subscription transferred. Too bad, I’ve delivered to Mr. Williamson for years.

“But this is the same newspaper with the same schedule at the same address.”

“No, it just wasn’t an exact match, so it didn’t show up in the system.”

“I already deliver there. This change doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“No, It’s a drop-off, so you’ll have to write it in, and remember to deliver to that address.”

“I’m just starting and stopping delivery at the same address.”

“It just didn’t match in the computer because it wasn’t the exact same address.”

Why are you still talking to me about this???

Om sri angarakaya namaha

Virus Volley (Part I)

My computer told me it wanted to do a full system virus scan, so I let it. Apparently, I got a virus in the email on May 17. Not just one virus, but a volley of them. If a group of lions is called a “pride”, and a group of geese is called a “gaggle,” then what is a group of viruses called? A sortie? A colony? An invasion force?

That was about the date my computer lost it’s mind, and I turned into a screamer.

Om sri angarakaya namaha

To be continued…

Competition

2005-06-03T07:16:00.000-06:00

In today's headlines, Sun Microsystems announced plans to acquire Storage Tek. From my experience of getting the short end of the stick in corporate acquisitions, I'll tell you how it will be. 32,000 employees plus 7,000 employees equals 32,000 employees. The other 7,000 will be down at the DNA competing with me to deliver newspapers to the other 32,000. That's what happened when Sun drove Solbourne Computer out of business. That's what happened when Aspect Development acquired Cadis Inc. It was an obvious move to eliminate the competition, and acquire the customer base, while all the former Cadis employees were suddenly no longer needed, nor employed. And when Rogue Wave Software went out of business, it was only a year or two before that I was among the first where they started cutting expenses. Well, sorry your jackass manager couldn't decide what she wanted me to do. For the record, Gail King, you promised to let me work on DBTools.h++ for three months, just two weeks before you "fired" me for poor productivity. I hope that helped fatten your golden parachute, Jack Iacabucci. I see it did Ms. Carly Fiorna a lot of good to run HP into the ground. Some $22 million to get fired. Woohoo! For a cool $22 million, I'll go wreck some computer company. The high tech industry is really on fire now!

Overheard while folding newspapers this morning, another carrier asked the manager, "So, we don't get the special bags for the Financial Times anymore?" The answer, "They only give us what they think we need." And when somebody else runs out of bags, they'll steal the bags off of my bench, and leave me with none. It's like a teenager trying to convince his friends to indulge in drugs, sex, or alcohol: "C'mon, everyone's doin' it!" Even the managers encourage this. I asked where to get more bags from, and they said "Just take some from someone else's bench." Well, if they're going to be like that, I'll just take mine home with me whenever the box runs out. I'll keep my own private stock. It doesn't matter if I only deliver two Financial Times on my route. A couple of extra packs in my garage should last me maybe three months. And those other guys can bite me when they can't find any more Financial's bags, and I won't give them any of mine.

And for that guy in the blue Volkswagon that butt-sniffed me, er uh, tailgated me all the way down Arapahoe Road, I'm sorry I almost smeared the front end of your car when you tried to cut beside me into the turn lane. Okay, I'm not sorry. I did it on purpose. I gotta turn too. And I don't feel like racing this geriatric 220,0000 mile truck against you. But if I can get you to wreck into me, it'll be your fault, and I can get your insurance to buy me a new vehicle.

Okay, time to confess. The reason I'm so angry is because I'm all hopped up on DHEA. I take it to help out with the adrenal fatigue syndrome, which I get because I have to get up at 1:00 AM every morning, and don't get near enough sleep. The DHEA not only bolsters the adrenal glands, but it also increases the testosterone levels. I know this personally because, boy do I get a bad case of the erections. The heck with all this Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra bullcrap. DHEA is $5 / bottle, and over the counter. I've sure been needing this for a long time. But, shhhh... keep it as our little secret. Just keep the road rage and whatnot under control, okay? Go sign up at BazaarMart.com with a premium membership, and I'll get you some knives, and leather jackets, and maybe some hunting equipment at near wholesale prices. I just need to finish this last assignment for my class, and get to work building up that business. I'll see you there.

You Don't Know Jack Schitt

2005-05-21T08:05:00.000-06:00

So uh, you uh, you don’t want your lunch? Can I have it? You don’t want your education either? Can I have that too?

The Rocky Mountain News has been running a series all this week about how so many students in the public schools aren’t graduating. Of 5653 students entering high school in the Denver Public Schools, only 1863 graduated. When I was in school, it would have been a terrible shame to flunk out of school. Now, kids don’t want to graduate. They go so far as to willfully not participate in the educational process, and fail on purpose.

Public education is one of the few things in life where you actually do get a free lunch. It’s not just the subsidized school lunches. But the education itself is paid for by the state. Taxpayers’ money goes towards the teachers’ salaries, staff and administration, the textbooks, grounds, facilities, and transportation. But by saying they don’t want their education, they’re in essence throwing away that free lunch.

I have a better idea. See, I graduated from high school in 1982, and from college in 1987. Now, my education is out of date, and I’m taking some more classes so that I might have enough skills to do something more than deliver newspapers for a living. After I lost my last job as a software support engineer, I sent out about 600 resumes, and only got about two interviews, and no new engineering job. The skills that I learned in college are out of date because the state of technology has advanced so rapidly. I never realized in the early days of my engineering career that I would have to keep getting educated throughout my entire career just to keep up with the competition in the job market. So now, I have to pay for an education in my next career as a web designer on a paper carrier’s wages. I can’t really afford it. I can’t even make ends meet as it is, without paying for an education as well. But I have no choice.

My idea is that with these kids throwing away the money for their education, and me not being able to pay for my education is that maybe somehow I could get the education money from these high school dropouts. It might involve some sort of illegal scam. Perhaps I could adopt one of those high school dropout wannabe’s, and get the government subsidy for him. I understand that the state of Colorado offers private schools vouchers for families that don’t want to send their kids to public school. So, I could do that, and use the voucher for my own education. Do you suppose that would work?

At the same time, the Rocky Mountain News is also running a story about how Denver wants to eliminate homelessness within the next 10 years. Since those high school dropouts are aiming at becoming the homeless, uneducated, unemployable derelicts of society, the question is obvious. It’s not even a question. The working class taxpayers are going to end up paying for subsidized housing for the kids that don’t want their education now. The challenge is, what to do about the dropouts? How do you enforce an education? They should make it conditional that the people who get the subsidized housing for the homeless either get an education and a job, or they go to prison. Then, they’d just get another free lunch paid for by the working class taxpayers. On second thought, the whole idea of subsidizing the dumb shits is a bad idea. Just scrap the whole program, and make them learn the hard way, just like they want to.

Stone Mushrooms

2005-05-12T21:25:00.000-06:00

Maybe it was the cold medicine I took the night before. Maybe it was being exhausted from the trip for Mother’s Day. Or maybe it was something in the Bison meat at the buffet. When I got home from the paper route, I couldn’t stay awake, and decided to get a few more hours of sleep. I kept dreaming about these strange blue stony finger-like stalagmite formations in a cave. I wasn’t doing anything, just looking at them. For hours. All morning long. Once I woke up, I had to figure out what to call them, and what they meant. I decided to call them blue stone mushrooms. But they don’t mean anything.

That’s not the only thing I’ve been fixated on. Once I got my computer restored, again, I’ve been running some defragmentation software. It runs, for hours, and doesn’t do anything, but grind incessantly on the disk drive. So now, I found some different defragmentation software. It runs for hours too, and still doesn’t do anything.

Now that I’m taking the Search Engine Marketing class, I’m doing keyword research. There’s this formula for estimating website traffic based on search engine statistics. But I don’t have the formula. I spend hours trying different kinds of variations. I know that in the end, this is only a tiny portion of the total marketing solution.

And it’s the same thing with the stock market. And the geomagnetic storms. I’ll write about that someday. And here I am, writing when I should be sleeping. What’s the matter with me? Just leave the stone mushrooms alone, and go do what’s important!

And, PS: Thanks to someone for the prayers. I got 57 sample starts on the paper route last Saturday. That’ll mean around $200 extra a month! The only thing is, these sample start campaigns usually only last about a month. Maybe that's why I was so tired.