Saturday, December 25, 2004
The dawning of another Christmas morning brought the following, familiar thought...
No one can say that I leave Jesus out of the season. I use his name often this time of year. Especially in the car.
The kids had another wonderful X-mas though, and for me that's where the joy comes from. Religious hypocritical implications aside, I figure that there has been some sort of celebration of hope and promise and children for centuries before Christianity, so even if I don't like the official version of events, I can still allow myself the happiness for a day or two.
Then again, the world is different from when I was a kid.
You know that the state of affairs is royally fucked when you wax nostalgic for the days of the Cold War. Somehow I take comfort in remembering that the only worry back then was total anhilation of all life on earth with only 28 minutes warning. In a way, it's cool to think that we would all go out with a bang. It's a sexy kind of armageddon. That, of course, didn't happen. But some of the bad checks we were writing, and continue to, are coming home to roost in a big way.
It's been said before by people bigger than I, but perhaps at the end of year two of the Occupation we should take a moment to look back and reflect on what we are doing, and what that says about who we are.
Saudi nationals trained in and supported by the Afganistan Al-qaeda (government back then) leave France and Germany to enter the US via Canada. The person most to blame for developing, supporting, funding and executing the biggest terrorist attack is Osama bin Laden. The Trade Center persists in not being there. Three thousand americans persist in being dead.
There are 18,000 US troops in Afghanistan. We did a good job of kicking out the government there. That's plus one for us.
There are over 130,000 in Iraq. A nation that had tenuous ties, at best, to al-Qaeda. We've killed Uday and Qusay, and captured Saddam. These three people are displayed as most prominent successes in the "war on terror".
The United States is in Iraq because Dubbya felt that Dad was a wimp the last time around. Why no one, or at least 52% of the United States voting population, ever asked themselves why Saddam was captured and Osama is free, and why there are 7 soldiers in Iraq for every 1 in Afghanistan, and what occupying Iraq has done for the war on terror anyway? Nothing. It's farce. Always was. My blood boils every time I think about it. I watched the smoking ruins for days. I smelled the awful smell that lingered for months downtown. I want Osama's head on a stake. I want Bush's on one too for not getting it, but getting Saddam. Asshole, yes. Evil dictator, yes. But there are lots of them in the world. Why do we not have the guy who attacked us? Why are we looking with 1/7th the effort?
Why did we re-elect this prick.
Long run-up, I know, but there is a point to all this. I've talked to many people who voted for Bush. And Kerry. And I have noticed two very strong themes.
People who voted for Kerry were almost always under 40. They told me they were worried about security, the economy, and the war on terror.
People who voted for Bush were almost always over 40. The ones I talked to told me they voted on "moral issues" like abortion and gay marriage. Think about this for a moment.
Now, there are undoubtably exceptions to the above, and if you are one I really don't want to hear it. The thing is, we as a nation essentially elected Bush on good, christian morals, not on running the government.
The people who did this are the same ones who are appalled a the gall of Islamic governments imposing their beliefs on their own citizens. That religion has no place in ruling such affairs of state is a basic fundamental of our American mores. Unless, of course, it's ours.
These are the same people who put "Peace on Earth" on their front lawns, and a yellow ribbon on their trunk saying "Support our Troops". The same ones who are proud that we got Saddam Hussein in custody, because he was a terrorist who represented an imminent threat to the US.
The hypocracy boggles me. There are certain things I have come to accept, like pro-lifers who support capital punishment. But even this astounds me.
See, while all this religious warfare is going on, the country is a train wreck.
The economy is a shambles. Oh sure, the statistics are looking good. The dollar is tanking on the world market because we are spending 500 BILLION dollars more than we have THIS YEAR ALONE. For those who don't know, the Fed prints money. As much as it wants. So it has to print all of that and shovel it out the door as fast as possible to keep us from defaulting on our debts. And the people who would hold that debt are worried. So they aren't buying it. So the dollar devalues. A lot.
No biggie for now. But we import so much shit that it is getting more and more expensive. Oil, steel, wood. All imported. As the dollar drops the CPI increases, indicating inflation is running. So up go the rates. So the economy slows down. People will invest again supporting the dollar, but risking a recession. This is a result of the spree dubbya is on to goose the economy. It's a short term burn, and it will ultimately burn us all.
For those who don't care about economics, or about the war on terror where the terrorists are free and the guy daddy didn't get is captured, ask yourself what government is supposed to do.
See, I always thought it was supposed to run the economy and military. To secure the nation internally and externally.
Apparently not. No problem though, because the people have spoken. I guess the gays won't marry, now. Might plant an anti-Roe judge or two, also. To hell with the rest of it, right? Why save a nation when you can save their souls?
Thanks.
And we're keeping religion out of other people's governments. Well, THEIR religion.
Merry fucking Christmas.
Peace on earth.
Bring them home.
:::::posted by erratic :: 04-something PM EST linky
Monday, December 20, 2004
Happily some other people had the time to sum up the year of REAL current events. Thanks to the diligent AFP, I can bring them to you, with minor commentary in bold.
May 2005 be half as interesting. Reprinted from here
PARIS (AFP) - Every year, thousands of news stories get overlooked, lost in the welter of major international events.
They are, for the most part, simple tales of a human dimension, not involving war, disaster or political unrest, just stories which illustrate the extraordinary in the everyday, the amusing, the absurd, the often lurid and the downright bizarre.
Here, then, is a selection of some of those "offbeat" stories which offered an insight into human nature in 2004:
Would have made for an interesting prom, though...
ZHENGZHOU, China: A Chinese couple raised their only child for 13 years in the belief it was a girl, until a visit to the local hospital alerted them to the fact that he was really a boy with underdeveloped sexual organs. They did not realize anything was wrong until they were baffled by a "reaction in the lower half of his body" whenever he watched pretty women on TV. Doctors concluded he was suffering from a rare disease causing sexual organs to be somewhat hidden from view and performed a successful three-hour operation to correct the problem.
Where do I sign up for this religion???
RATCHABURI, Thailand: A group of Thai Buddhist monks were arrested and defrocked after holding a spate of rowdy drug and alcohol parties. Villagers complained about their wild behaviour and drug-taking at the local temple. Five of the saffron-robed monks tested positive for amphetamine pills and a sixth was blind drunk.
Perhaps he needed more training?
COSENZA, Italy: A driverless railway engine thundered nearly 200 kilometres (120 miles) through southern Italy at 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour before staff managed to derail it. The driver had set the locomotive in motion, leaned out to see if the line ahead was clear, then slipped and fell from his cabin. Another railway worker tried to jump aboard and stop it but failed and the train gathered speed until it was finally switched to a track with a long incline and it smashed through buffers at a disused station before finally coming to a halt.
Love is not only blind, but really stupid, too...
ZAGREB: A South African who fell in love with a Croatian beauty he has never even spoken to, travelled halfway round the world in search of the woman of his dreams. Keith van der Spuy saw the woman only twice, on a boat and in a nightclub, while on holiday in the former Yugoslav republic but could not get her out of his head and returned to Croatia weeks later, with two diamonds in his pocket, to track down the haunting blonde -- but, sadly, to no avail.
Pate de fraud gras
JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities seized a consignment of 80,000 cans of dog food disguised as gourmet goose liver pate. The Bulgarian product was originally marked as "Chicken for dogs" but was relabelled "Domestic birds' liver pate" and "Pate de foie gras". The importer had also forged a kosher certificate to fulfill the requirements of Jewish dietary law.
She was not amused...
LONDON: An aide to Britain's royal family lost his job after attempting to sell one of Queen Elizabeth's traditional Christmas puddings on Internet auction site eBay. Ben Church, a 25-year-old office administrator, was sacked and marched out of Buckingham Palace after he tried to sell the pudding for 20 pounds (39 dollars, 29 euros). An unnamed colleague told the Daily Mirror: "It's really mean and petty to sack him so close to Christmas, all for the sake of a pudding."
Have you seen Fluffy???
SEOUL: Three South Korean dogmeat lovers face a 70,000-dollar lawsuit after cooking and eating their employer's pedigree dog. The men, employees at a car-hire firm, killed and served up the expensve Jindo dog in the traditional Korean soup dish, Boshintang, while their boss was away.
Oh sure, blame the DOG...
CLUJ, Romania: A dog owner was forced to leave his apartment after a court ordered his mastiff to be removed from the building because its snoring kept the neighbours awake. Whenever Attila Varga's Neapolitan mastiff Sumo snored, the walls of the neighbouring flats shook and burglar alarms went off. A disappointed Varga said: "We share the same bed and I've got so used to it that I don't even hear it any more."
No one has a sense of humor anymore...
ALDERSHOT, England: A drunken soldier sparked a major security alert after leaving a regimental party dressed as an Arab suicide bomber. Fifteen police cars, along with dog handlers were called out after a passer-by spotted someone near an army base wearing an Arab-style robe, a turban and false beard, as well as orange paper, wires and candles stuffed into a jacket to make it look like he was carrying explosives. The soldier, who was drunk, was ordered to pay a small on-the-spot fine.
Waste not, want not. Make that wanted not to know...
HASTINGS, New Zealand: A mother has been breastfeeding her Staffordshire terrier puppy, saying she did not want to waste the milk after her own daughter switched to being bottle-fed. Kura Tumanako, said she saw nothing wrong with breastfeeding the dog as she wants it to protect her baby girl as the pair grow up. "He drinks more than the baby. It doesn't hurt, but it's a little bit ticklish," she said.
Should have been a Thai Buddist Monk...
SLUNJ, Croatia: A Roman Catholic priest beat up a member of his parish, threatened others with a rifle and crashed his car in a night of drunken rage after a quarrel in a restaurant. Josip Stefancic punched a guest in the face, took a rifle and waved it other guests before fleeing in his car and crashing into a tree, refusing a breath test when police arrived at the scene. His bishop, Mile Bogovic, was surprisingly understanding. "Stefancic did not act alone. The wine was with him," he said.
And to think I get mad when the cheese goes bad...Then again, how do you know when FUNGUS goes bad?!?!
LONDON: A number of wealthy clients of the smart London restaurant Zafferano clubbed together to buy one of the most expensive truffles in the world for 40,000 euros (53,000 dollars), but it ended up spoiling in a refrigerator. The 850-gram (30-ounce) delicacy from Tuscany was put on display at the restaurant but then the chef went on holiday after locking the truffle in the fridge and taking the keys with him. When he returned after four days, he found it had rotted, forcing the owner to throw the whole thing out.
You mean there are STRAIGHT ones?!?
CORDOBA, Argentina: Macho Argentine types received a slap in the face when a hair salon put an advert in a local newspaper for a stylist -- but said only gay men need apply. "I have nothing against heterosexuals, but women feel more comfortable if the person taking care of them is gay," the salon owner said. "I have had a lot of complaints in the past. Most male hair stylists are trying to pick up the women."
But I bet he felt much better afterwards...
CHISINAU, Moldova: The president of first division football club Roso saw red when the referee awarded a penalty against his team, so he leaped into his jeep, drove it on to the pitch and tried to run the hapless official down. Mikhail Makayev chased the astonished referee around the ground for several minutes until he escaped by clambering up into the stands. The match was abandoned and Roso's opponents Poitekhnik were awarded the game 3-0.
Great...NOW the next time he'll just kill them. Good work.
GUWAHATI, India: An army officer was dismissed and another suspended after a court martial found they splashed tomato ketchup on civilians to make them look like dead Assam separatist rebels in a bid for a gallantry medal. Colonel H.S. Kohli took photos of civilians posing as corpses and gave them to his senior officers as proof of the killings, but records later showed no deaths had been reported.
Welcome to the Am_era Bridge. Notice there's no "p" in it. Please keep it that way...
PALEMBANG, Indonesia: A landmark bridge in Sumatra is in danger of collapse because too many men are urinating on one of its steel pillars. Surveyors have found that the Ampera bridge in Palembang has begun to lean at an angle and rocks slightly when traffic is heavy. Council spokesman Azmi Lakonisaid: "We are concerned that one of its main support piers has been weakened by urine, as it is a popular spot for locals to relieve themselves." He added that the acidic fluid's corrosive forces could lead to the eventual collapse of the bridge.
Bend it like Beckham's...
LONDON: British television watchdogs ruled that a pig which was sexually pleasured on camera by a minor celebrity did not feel degraded by the experience. Dozens of viewers had complained about an episode of a reality television show in which the audience were treated to the sight of Rebecca Loos, the self-proclaimed ex-lover of England football captain David Beckham, stimulating the boar for 10 minutes to produce a flask of semen. An animal charity condemned the scenes as "morbid and sordid" but the broadcasting standards body said the procedure was perfectly normal on a farm. "We don't believe that the scene was degrading or harmful to the boar," they ruled.
Dude, what WAS in those bananas?!?
SHENYANG, China: A Chinese safari park decided to celebrate the New Year and the start of the Year of the Monkey by dying its primates bright red and yellow. But painting the monkeys was no easy matter job as they refused to cooperate. "We had to anaesthetize them first", a park spokesman said. "They seemed to be surprised at their new strange coats when they woke up. But after a while, they indulged themselves in pleasure."
And she didn't even get drunk in Vegas first...
OSLO: Until the divorce papers dropped into her letter box, a 22-year-old woman was unaware that she had been married to a complete stranger for a year. The woman's wallet was snatched some years ago and her identification cards were used in an Islamic ceremony to unite her and a Pakistani man in holy matrimony. She hopes to have the marriage annulled, but investigators have closed the case as they cannot find the man, believed to be operating under several different aliases.
Who had the offensive weapon?
HONG KONG: A five-year-old's innocent call to his mother landed his father in hot water. "Mummy, daddy brought a woman home and they are on the bed," the boy said and the mother rushed home to find her husband and his 20 year-old mistress canoodling and a vicious catfight broke out, which ended with the mother being arrested for possession of an offensive weapon, a kitchen knife she had allegedly tried to use and the mistress giving herself up to police shortly afterwards.
:::::posted by erratic :: 12-something PM EST linky
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Glug glug glug....
That giant sucking sound you hear is the world devouring...well...everything I suppose. I have been spending a lot of spare cycles, and some that I really can't spare, losing a ton of sleep over the state of energy in the world.
Particularly, oil.
Best as I can tell, it is either the end of all civilization, resulting in the slow starvation of 4 billion people capped off by a nuclear exchange between China and the United States over the dwindling energy resources of a world in permanent decline of energy-rich fuels while the survivors return to a neo-stone-age feudalism where the technological prowess of the past is relegated to myth before the whole human race dwindles to extinction....
...or....
I'm still working to pin this one down.
In the mean time...have an Oreo. Christmas is coming and I've been thinking a lot about politics and religion. Watch this space.
:::::posted by erratic :: 06-something PM EST linky
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