Sunday, December 28, 2003

 
Oh man oh man.

I saw it again last night. Man. I remembered a number of things incorrectly because, holy cow the first watching is like surviving an assault, especially at the cinerama dome (world's largest, suckers!) where it's so loud it's probably damaging to your ears. I was crippled the first time, this time I had enough energy to notice the bitch behind me saying "Who's that?" every time they'd show someone in shadow or "What's gonna' happen?" every time something was about to happen. What the hell is the matter with people? Ten freaking seconds you're going to find out who it is and what's going to happen, why the hell, why in the name of all that is super-duper would you blurt out-loud "Who's that?"

I mean, what the fuck?

And people talking, through the whole damn thing, that same woman laughing a high pitched giggle at every inappropriate moment, and the freaking popcorn breath... ugh. 3 hours engulfed in nasty, greasy popcorn breath...

And yet somehow it still kicked ass and made me want to weep like a little girl.

posted by Tim 2:21 PM

Monday, December 22, 2003

 
Only cursing can tell the tale...

Here is my review of The Return of the King:

At the beginning we get to Gollum before he heads to the makeup chair. His brother gets his ass handed to him by a trout, for chrissakes, and falls ass backwards into the shizzle of all shiznit, the One Ring. He likes it OK, but Smeagol wants it pretty bad. Considering he just now laid his eyes on it for the first time, he can rightly be called a "ring whore". or a "whore for the ring". The movie should have been titled: The Whores of the Ring. Because basically it's all about folks willing to do anything to get some ring action, am I right?

Anyway, Smeagol wants the ring so bad his throat is already constricting to produce that Gollum voice (which is pretty freaky to see a regular guy do) and he's already referring to himself in the plural, as in "It's our birthday and we wants it." WTF? If I was Deagol I'd be like... WTF? "We"? Maybe Smeagol already had a history of eccentric behaviour, what the old little folk would refer to as "touched", which would make his murdering of poor Deagol all the more poinient because Deagol was the only guy in the village nice enough to hang out with this freak.

So then Smeagol gets kicked out of the club, or whatever, and slowly starts to turn into Gollum by getting wet a lot and never patting himself dry over hundreds of years.

After that I forget what happens for a long time because holy jesus from down the street...

Wait... I do remember something. Frodo and Sam and Gollum are makin' their way up a mountain (ain't that the truth?) and Frodo gets that thing when my girlfriend's cat smells bleach and starts walking right into Minas Morgul, which is this super-cool, Fritz Lang sort of place that's all lit up by an unearthly green glow and it looks so cool you can see why Frodo wanted to visit. Anyway they drag him back and this dude, this MOTHERFUCKER from HELL, this ass-kicking, ass-punching, basha-you-face MOFO comes screaming out of the place on his winged dragon thing.... oh damnit! Wait! No, first the whole Fritzopolis explodes in this ass-krunching FOOM!! as this green light shoots up out of the main tower, rattling you jaw like... some kind of thing that rattles your freaking JAW, man. And then this unholy bastard, looking impossibly cool and badass, but in a bad evil sort of way, not good evil like the Flanders devil, comes flying out on his thingy and perches on the top of the gate to the city as his hordes of minions come marching out.

Man, you think "someone whom, the sight of which, I shit myself" then you're half-way there, dude.

So Frodo and Sam have a falling out but it don't really matter because, for the love of... only mass amounts of profanity will do- shit. For the love of shit... we're building up to the sphincter-twisting moment of the year...

OK, OK... gotta keep it cool. Stuff happens. There's all kinds of cool stuff that happens, and then the orcs come and start catapulting Minis Tirith, and then Minis Tirith starts catapulting them- with entire whole buildings practically- and that's really cool, because we're talking about the, I don't know, some root farmer's shop is conscripted by the army so they can fucking fling it at the orcs and squish 50 of them in one squish- but basically they're getting the crap kicked out of them because the flying things are knocking over the catapults and making all the soldiers run around screaming like sorry bitches... (oh yeah I forgot to mention when Osgiliath was overrun Gandalf fended off the flying things when the dudes were escaping and how the caretaker of Minis Tirith made his kid ride out with his best men to get slaughtered- sorry, my head is clouded with...) but then....

Remember in The Two Towers how the calvery comes down the mountain? That's the spit of a shit compared to what happens next. OK, so we're talking... like 6,000 horsemen. Man, they line up on the horizon and look down at the thousands of orcs and it's like, you are soooooo going to get fucked. We are going to pound your asses so hard you will beg for death before we even do it because you can fucking imagine it, can't you?, and you know you don't want any of that shit, my friend.

They come charging down the hill, they got like a quarter mile to cross, so it gives the orcs time to think. They're acting cool and they fire their arrows and take a few out. They fire a few more and take a few more out. They... They're running out of room, and these assholes keep on coming. They're pounding that ground so fast and so hard the orcs start to look concerned and you're like, "Oh, man." They're moving so fast and the orcs are getting a little bug-eyed and you're like "Oh, fuck." They're charging so damn fast they'd bust through a brick wall and the orcs start feelin' behind them and backing up like the guy behind them isn't shitting his pants too. And then they panic. And then- KRAM!!!! BBUH-FAMMMM!!!!! KRALAMMMSHHH!!!

Wait, wait. I got to get this right. What word would properly describe what it was like when those horses smacked through those orcs like wet shit?

PAD-DAAAAAMMMMMM KRUMBA-KRUMBA-KRUMBA-KRUMBA PLASH!!!!!!!

Except x10.

And you're like "Shize Non Bast Toom Jibes Beeg Fope!" Because you're trying to scream profanities but you're practically in the fetal position from all this.

Oh my god. All your bodily fluids would shoot out of every orifice if you weren't also flexing every muscle you've ever had. They plow through orcs like ants, except orcs are bigger than ants and squish a lot bigger. They fucking MOW them fuckers. Mow them like GI Joe figures you left outside.

Then the elephants come and step on horse heads like popping a sesame seed. It's so goddamn brutal.

At one point that Rohan chick who loves Aragorn (I forget her name) fucking takes out the main badass Nazgul's flying bat thing and, AND!, she also takes out jack-shit himself. Pushes a sword into his face, man! GOD!!! A SWORD STRAIGHT INTO THE FACE!!!!

But those elephants are pounding the crap out of everyone, but then Aragorn shows up with his ghost soldiers- which I forgot to mention- and they play clean up and basically wipe out everyone.

But then there's another 10,000 orcs behind Mordor.

Whew. So, the remaining guys left, a thousand or so, I don't know, they have to draw the army of Mordor out so Sam and Frodo can do their thing (oh yeah, I forgot to mention the spider. whatever), so they get the balls to walk right up to Mordor and knock and out comes 10,000 orcs that surround them. Aragorn shows what a stone-cold sonofabitch he is and just runs right into those bastards and starts hackin'. They're getting their asses kicked because the flying things show up but then the giant eagles show up and start clawing those bats, showin' them who's king of the goddamn giant flying animal skies.

Then the ring goes kerplop in the lava courtesy of a seriously strung-out Gollum/Frodo duo, and the tower with the big eye collapses and FOOM!! a big FOOM goes out across the land and the orcs start getting swallowed up by the ground and/or running their asses off.

Now this is the only part of the movie I didn't like. When all the guys realized they won they all started yelling "Frodo! Frodo!!!" in this exultant yell. It just made me uncomfortable because, well... Here, you stand up and yell "Frodo!" as loud and exultantly as you can. Go ahead. Big smile of joy on your face. "FRODO!".

Yeah. See? You feel like the mayor of ass town.

Anyway, everything ends up OK after thousands upon thousands of people and animals get killed.

Good movie. Still trying to come down.




posted by Tim 8:11 PM

Sunday, December 21, 2003

 
You are so getting played, people.

Guess what? The terror alert has been raised.

The Department of Homeland Security raised the U.S. terror threat level from elevated to high Sunday, warning of possible terrorist strikes more devastating than the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the move was the result of a "substantial increase" in the volume of intelligence pointing to "near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11."

Ridge urged the public to be patient with stricter security measures "in the coming days and weeks" and to proceed with holiday plans despite the threat.

"America is a country that will not be bent by terror," he said.

A senior administration official familiar with the decision said the volume of threats was "significantly higher" and was coming from known sources but that there was "nothing site-specific."

I don't have the time to look all of them up but all through the Iraq war, up until now, the terror alert remained the same. Within that time were the Rhiyad bombings, a couple of white supremicist plots were taken out including a Texas cyanide bomb plot that hasn't really been touched by the media much. The Rhiyad bombing prompter the terror alert for overseas to be raised, but not hear at home. Nothing happened prior to the take down in Texas, and if I recall the justice department claimed to have thwarted a couple of attacks a few months ago. The terror alert never changed.

That's because it's all bullshit. Its only purpose is to scare you. Remember the government telling you to tape up your house? Did you do that? Really? So, you're a complete moron, hmmm? Think about it. The federal government is telling our entire huge nation to tape up their windows because a dirty bomb is going to go off somewhere- a bomb that could effect a few city blocks! A chemical or bilogical bomb would do even less damage- it's difficult to use that stuff effectively. One stiff wind and your WMD kills 5 people.

So, let's say the threat was credible. Does it makes sense to tell the entire nation to tape up their windows? Well, first of all, you can easily die from suffocation by taping up your house. If you seal your house so tight that nothing can come in, you're going to suffocate, it's that simple.
And if you don't tape it up that well the whatever that's out there can get in. Second, 98% of the country is in no way shape or form going to be attacked. In order for one of these things to work it has to be released in a heavily populated, urban environment. So we're talking obvious places like Seattle to LA to Chicago To New York to Boston, etc., etc. These are the only places that could possibly be at risk.

Imagine you're the president or head of homeland security and you get rumors of a chemical attack that are so vauge you have absolutely no idea of where or when this thing may or may not happen. You know all of the above and you know the only way taping up could work is if the bomb went off right next door to someone and it dissipated before they ran out of oxygen and had to untape everything- of course they'd have to have the presence of mind to untape their house while they're oxygen deprived before they pass out. Are you going to tell the entire nation to tape up their house? The whole 98% that could not possibly be in any danger at all? Of course not! Not unless you want to purposely scare people.

Taping up your house isn't going to work anyway and only 2% of the landmass of the country could possibly be targeted! It's a cynical, fucking sham, people!

It's meant to make people like this idiot bastard vote for the incumbent. That's all.

Jesus Christ. He's in rural Connecticut and he's taping up his entire house. Yaaayyyy! Vote Republican!!

Man, sometimes I think you should have to take an IQ test to justify your existence.

posted by Tim 3:26 PM

Friday, December 19, 2003

 
Things are perfect. Vote Republican

I got into another protracted argument over at Calpundit yesterday. I'm really sick of getting sucked into "discussions" with people completely unwilling to challenge their own assumptions. It's a goddamn waste of time. Yeah, everyone brings baggage when they argue, but an honest person can stick to the terms of debate and defend their ideas with specifics and well articulated thought.

I'm really getting tired of putting myself in those situations. Sometimes I'll take the bait from some troll and regret it immediately, other times I'll try to seriously discuss something only to get that whole range of tactics used to avoid actually engaging the issue. I hate people who do that, it's pathetic and disgusting. So, I get profane and stop bothering to pretend an adult conversation is taking place.

Same old story yesterday- anyone that wants solid public education and a safety net that allows people to live with a modicum of dignity is a whiney loser who just can't make it on their own. Or something....

Apparently because I think being poor and uneducated puts one at a disadvantage I loathe my fellow man. See, I don't trust people to live their own lives, apparently. I'm contemptuous of them because I think having no health insurance, little education, working for shit wages at Walmart and never reading a book that isn't about angels is somehow less than ideal.

Somehow, because I'd like every kid in this country to get the finest education in the world I'm full of hate.

See, your average online Republican seems to be someone who wants lower taxes, an end to SS and medicare, etc., because to them the "system", this country, is just fine as it is and would only be better if they didn't have to pay so much in taxes. It would be better in part because people would stop "relying" on the government and start to... I dunno, open their own donut shops or something... basically people would start being more productive if they weren't hooked on that welfare.

See, absolutely anyone can make it if they try, if someone hasn't made it it's because they didn't work hard enough. Now, they don't mean everyone could make it, they mean everyone would make it. The difference is they seem to think the only reason someone is homeless or in a low paying job or whatever is because they didn't work hard enough because if they worked hard enough they would have made it. Make sense? See, there's no chance. There's no context. It's that simple- if you work hard you will make it.

It's a nice philosophy. It makes anyone who spouts it a winner, a hard worker, and someone with integrity, or balls if you will. It doesn't matter if they lucked out and "made it" because it's a self referencing philosophy- Having made it can only mean you made it through sheer force of will. So, that means anyone who didn't make it failed because they didn't have the will.

I'm repeating myself but I'm trying to make it clear the difference is they don't believe it's possible one can make it, they believe there is no not-making-it unless you fail yourself. Since anyone will make it if they work hard, anyone who has made it worked hard, anyone who didn't make it didn't work hard.

I know. It's insane. Usually these people tell you how they were born poor and how they worked hard an made it so therefore anyone can make it and anyone who doesn't just isn't working hard like me. I was born poor and when I look at my life I usually think it could have gone either way. Did my sheer force of will put me where I am? Not really. I mean, it's not like I lucked out my whole life, I've just been living how I figured I ought to be living at the time. No big trick.

But, I can see clearly how had we lived in, say, an inner-city situation, my siblings, myself, we could have all gotten way off track. I wouldn't be the same person I am now had I grew up poor in a nasty urban environment as opposed to a rural one. I don't understand how some people can think the country works the same for everyone, well, more accurately, how it works the same for everyone as it worked for them. It doesn't. I have friends with similar backgrounds as myself doing better, doing worse, doing about the same, and it's not cut and dried along the lines of how hard each of them worked, either.

Anyway, I really gotta stop wasting my time with those people because... I'm not wrong. Check this out:

Americans are the best-informed people in the history of the world. But we are experts at distancing ourselves from any real unpleasantness. Most of us behave as though we bear no personal responsibility for the deep human suffering all around us, and no obligation to try and alleviate it.

Paris, Jacko, Saddam. The world is like one big media show, a made-for-TV spectacular. We can change the channel if things get too ugly. Or just turn the television off. Genuine social consciousness is for squares.
...
Each night more than 39,000 people- nearly 17,000 of them children- seek refuge in the city's shelters. "It's the greatest number of homeless since the Great Depression," said Patrick Markee, a policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless.

The faces of the destitute are changing as more and more families with children - in New York and across the nation -find themselves without the money necessary for food or shelter.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report yesterday showing that over the past year hunger and homelessness continued to rise in major American cities. A survey of 25 cities showed an increase of 17 percent in requests for emergency food assistance and an increase of 13 percent in requests for emergency shelter.

Clearly, people just aren't working hard enough.

update- This is the perfect article to illustrate the point:

The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.

The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society.

A couple of good books to clue one in are Robin Hanel's Panic Rules! and Democracy at Risk by Jeff Gates.



posted by Tim 9:09 AM

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

 
My Bush commercial is up!

Hey folks! I made a commercial for the Moveon.org "George Bush in 30 seconds" contest and it's up!

Find it here!

And you know, it's all about original, unique, compelling content, not slick production values.

Go there, sign up, and vote big!!!!!

Actually, I've watched a few ads already... I'm actually really proud of what I did. Definitely not your typical political ad.

Update- I'm not sure how it'll work for you folks. I can't vote on my own ad apparently. Hopefully by using the above link once you sign in you'll be taken to my commericial, I don't know. It's titled "George Bush (in a) Nutshell Relay".

posted by Tim 7:00 PM

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

 
Pretty funny.

Check this out.

Pretty funny.

You know "fuck" is the only infix in the English language? [prefix goes before, suffix goes after, infix goes somewhere in the middle]

Me? I'm going for most profane blog.

posted by Tim 7:04 PM

 
Which is it?

Are Iraqis smart and capable, or are they, uh, retarded?

So let me get this straight, Herr Bush, Iraqis, who are an ethnically divided people, who have no real history of political democracy, are a natural fit for democracy and fully capable of becoming the twinkle in your eye.

However, even though they were the most industrialized nation in the middle east, even though they do have experience participating in semi-democratic labor unions, even though there's a lot of highly educated engineers there, and even though it's their country and they've been running it for, well, forever, they can't be trusted to run a fucking cement plant??!!!?? Because they're too retarded to run the same damn industries they've been running forever?!!?? Huh???!!??


Next time you or one of your loved ones expresses doubt toward the whole "democratization of the middle east" plan, and is confronted by some jackanape with something like this:

"So you don't think the Iraqis are capable of democracy? You think they're stupid?" [I get that all the time]

Tell them: Well, I don't know. I know one thing for sure though- they could make their own fucking fertilizer!!!

ASSHOLE!!

posted by Tim 10:36 AM

Monday, December 15, 2003

 
Is this irony or just stupid?

The pres sez:

President Bush (news - web sites) promised a fair, public trial for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) on Monday....

Asked if Saddam should face the death penalty, Bush said, "I have my personal views. And this is a brutal dictator."

"He's a person who killed a lot of people. But my views, my personal views, aren't important in this matter," the president said.

OK. Obeyin' the rule of law where Saddam was a real fuckwit. Gotcha.

Uhhhh. But what about these guys?

The administration says that the "battlefield" in the war on terrorism spans the globe and that suspected terrorists can be held indefinitely without being charged or having access to a lawyer. U.S. officials say that U.S. citizens, no matter where they are captured, also can be held as enemy combatants to protect national security if they are associated with groups fighting the United States.

So Saddam who, according to Bush, posed a "direct" threat to the US; the man who, again, according to Bush and others, actually had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Quaeda, that guy, the butcher of Bagdad, he's going to get a fair and public trial while some two-bit punk ex gang member is held indefinitely with no access to a lawyer??

I don't understand.

So I guess the lesson is if you want justice in this country, meaning the due process of law, then you better make sure to actually harm and/or kill some people? Because if you just get caught maybe planning to do something, somehow that's more horrible and more dangerous and therefore too important to allow to go to trail than, I don't know, killing tens of thousands of people as a dictator?

Yeah, yeah. Not quite the same situations. I know. The point is Bush is trying to show what big man and how moral and law-abiding compared to Saddam he is. Meanwhile American citizens have been completely stripped of their rights with no due process.

Bush is nothing but an opportunist and a coward. The rule of law means nothing to him unless it scores political points.

posted by Tim 9:18 PM

 
Did you know it meant that?

Tim Robbins sez:

Outspoken actor Tim Robbins has publicly apologized for using the terms "chicken hawks" when describing the administration of George W Bush earlier this year. The politically active star - who alongside partner Susan Sarandon was a fierce opponent of the war in Iraq - spoke of his regret about picking that particular phrase - as it has a double meaning. He tells website Pagesix, "I regret using that term. I meant to refer to their militarism without actual war service, but I was also aware that chicken hawk refers to older gay men who go after young boys. I just used the wrong words."

What the hell??

So what, we can't accurately describe them any more?

[btw- I don't know if the link will work, it's from imdb celebrity news, December 15th 2003]


posted by Tim 9:15 PM

 
Max is always almost 100% right.

From Maxspeak:

To reinforce the notion that anti-war means pro-Saddam, we get anonymous quotes dredged up from Democratic Underground, or otherwise out-of-context phrases lifted from a smattering of liberal blogs. Lies and the lying bloggers who tell them. This is what used to be called scoundrel time.

The purpose is obvious: to win an argument about the wisdom of the war without recourse to the merits of the case. The main theme is the demonization of those who disagree. The secondary line is deference to the implied march of history. It must have been a good idea because we have won. But Saddam's capture does not create weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. It does not generate some collaboration with Al Queda that has yet to be demonstrated. Most important, it does not support the claim that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. The inescapable fact remains that the war was prosecuted under false and hypocritical pretenses.
...
There are respectable arguments for the war, and reasonable people advancing them. That's not what this post is about. After all, the capture has no bearing on the merits of the whole enterprise, one way or the other. U.S. military victory was never in doubt.

Jingoist chicken-hawks are having their day. But it is a certainty that this week, another American will die in this war of choice. Some may see that as an acceptable price for Saddam's date with the executioner. I don't. You see, when you buy the capture, you buy the whole package. You buy the ongoing toll in American lives. You buy the kids in Walter Reed missing assorted limbs. You buy the war profiteering. You buy the Federal budget mess. It's not like a cafeteria where you can skip the broccoli and head straight to the dessert tray. It all goes with the territory.

He's so right. But then he says "bring the troops home" and I can't quite agree with him on that point. Otherwise he's exactly right.




posted by Tim 9:10 PM

Sunday, December 14, 2003

 
OK.

This is the one definitely positive thing to come out of this ill-conceived war:

Across the Tigris River from his opulent palaces, Saddam Hussein shuttered himself at the bottom of a narrow, dark hole beneath a two-room mud shack on a sheep farm, a U.S. military official said Sunday.

I can't imagine this changing things that much, really. Sure, in a couple weeks Bush is going to describe how he rappelled out of a Black Hawk, oiled himself up, and wrestled Saddam to he ground himself, and our nation of sycophants will all swear up and down that's how it happened (just as they now argue this was always a war sold as a humanitarian effort and not one to address a "direct threat" to the US)...

But who are we fighting over there? Islamists and nationalists, basically. Why would either give up now? I dunno, it might change some perceptions of the average Iraqi; time will tell.

It is genuinely positive though. Saddam was a real bastard.

We still shouldn't be there though. There were other options, one that didn't cost hundreds of billions of dollars nor cost thousands of more lives. This wasn't like WW2, people. This wasn't a good war which, at best, is still a necessary evil. We were not facing an enemy that quite literally was a threat to the peaceful order of the world. We weren't even facing an enemy that was a threat to their direct neighbors anymore.

It's really fucking easy to sit back in your recliner and make moral pronouncements on who should live or who should die and for what reasons or excuses, it's another thing to powerlessly live the death that's brought upon you by old men in suits.

You know what I'd like to do? I'd like for decisions on whether or not to go to dubious wars settled in a boxing ring. Each city has it's own ring and, say, 5 people selected from the anti and pro sides meet to duke it out and if the pro people can beat up the anti people then we go to war. See, what I'd like to see is an armchair warrior punch an old woman in the face so that he can go home and masturbate to CNN. Let's see how far the armchair fucks at Little Green Footballs or FreeRepublic are willing to go, and let's see how long Ma & Pa Middle America are willing to go along with it. If quite literally the question of whether or not we went to an unjust war rested upon a fight in a ring, I'd like to think if I had to go in there I'd fight to the death. I wonder how easily someone who wanted to see innocents die half a world away would step up.

There's this sick fuck who posts in Calpundit who, whenever North Korea comes up, makes a point to let everyone know he'd be willing to lose a major west coast city in a nuclear blast if that meant everyone would get "serious" about North Korea. Yeah. He thinks it's a sign of his bravery or integrity that he himself, plus a wife and kids, live in LA and so therefore he is living in a potential target area.

Very brave of him, huh?! Willing to accept the "sacrifice" of millions, possibly himself, for the greater good of everyone agreeing with him on the issue of North Korea?!!?

Come on!! He's a true fucking patriot!

Soooooooooooo steadfast!

I'd like to see people like him have to make a real sacrifice in order to get what they want. I'd like to see Bush feel it. I'd like to see some sort of sacrifice, administered by law, every time someone wants to go to war when we're not threatened by the target, like lose a finger, or a toe, or a son.

God knows people are going to be sacrificing a lot, whether they want to or not.

Like war?

Fuck you.

posted by Tim 4:38 PM

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

 
Many things to be the new big hotness

Awright. Finally got rid of the donation boxes. Been meaning to do that cuz I didn't want people thinking I thought I should get paid for this lousy blog. No, it was for movie I shot in September, in case you didn't know. I have scanned the old dude's WW2 photos and now am going to start copying and capturing the actual footage, which I have been avoiding because I'm afraid it might be a disaster. Anyway...

Via Tbogg...

Comes this mind-scarring assault on all that is sane.

Hey, Habu...

How many gods do you have?

"I don't know... I lost count" (says the Hindu elephant)

Wouldn't you rather have just one God who loves you a bunch than a bunch of gods that don't love you at all?

Jesus loves everybody, even the unsaved like Habu! Remember to pray for Habu and others like him that they may find Jesus and accept Him into their hearts!

There's a goat that teaches you about science- The Jesus Way!- and the answer to "Aren't dinosaurs extinct?" is answered by this page:

Propagandists of Evolutionism, in their attempts to discredit research into the true Biblical foundations of Origins, have often accused Creation Science of being a non-experimental endeavor. This couldn't be further from the truth....
...
This Summer (2002), I was blessed to be able to take part in some very important fieldwork which I would like to share with my readers. In order to further support the theory of man/dinosaur contemporaneity, I and a group of fellow creation scientists mounted an expedition to the jungles of Africa to track down and bring back photographic evidence of a living dinosaur, thus proving that these Behemoths had indeed survived the Flood as scriptural analysis clearly indicates.

And the caption under a photo of a muddy road reads:

These are the sort of conditions our Land Rovers had to face during our trek. It was times like this that I longed for the Christian-built highway systems of home.

Out of their fucking minds, right?

Tbogg says some people wrote in a told him it is a parody site, or something. I didn't believe it, then I read this:

Some have criticized my stance on triclavianism as being counterproductive, arguing that making a point of doctrinal contention over not making a point of doctrinal contention over adiaphora is itself non-salvific. However, my critics are overlooking the dangers of triclavianistic doctrines: allowing adiaphora to creep into our credenda -- while possibly pushing the theologoumenic envelope and providing exciting new opportunities for supererogative works -- will most often serve to muddy the soteriological foundation of Faith, leading in general to ultramontane excesses and, in extreme cases, ebaptization (which is unacceptable pastoral malpractice, however rare it may be.) Doctrinal integrity, and hence salvific effectiveness, is best served by working to end triclavianism and similar erroneous, or simply adiaphoric, doctrines.

Which has to be a joke, otherwise this guy should not be on the streets.

And then this.

Awright, it's a joke. But good gravy... to what end? If you look around the site a bunch it seems like standard, insane, fundamentalist crap. Fossils are the remains of creatures that perished in the flood, America is a Christian nation... all that crap. I wouldn't be surprised if a visiting fundamentalist wouldn't realize it was a joke for a long, long time.

Is that the point? To hook freaks and then piss them off a little.

Man, awful lot of work...


posted by Tim 7:47 PM

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

 
You've got to read this.

I wasn't aware this was making the blog rounds (cuz I haven't been making the blog rounds) so you might have already seen it. If not, skooch on over to Orcinus and read this:

I decided then that, for the foreseeable future, I could not cast my vote for any Republican on any ballot. The GOP, after its performance in 2000 -- and especially considering its performance in the intervening years -- will not have my vote. They have proven themselves utterly untrustworthy, and thereby unworthy of the responsibilities and honor of public office. And I know that I am not alone in this: The GOP no longer will have the votes of many other middle-of-the-road Americans, including my friends' parents.

That's just a snippet from the beginning, but it's the crux of the piece. I feel exactly the same way, but my political life is much younger than David so it's a more truncated awakening.

I've tried to get the same message accross many times in this blog: it's an entirely reasonable and rational position to believe the Republican party is wholly bankrupt of any legitimacy (John McCain only gets them so far), but not being the best writer I don't think I've ever done that very well.

David's post resonates with me so much because I know, I know I'm generally a reasonable, thoughtful guy and I know my political views are not radical nor naive by any means (yes, I like to rant here sometimes, but that's just blowing off steam). However, I seem to be living in a country that that has accepted as mainstream a totally radical, extreme agenda, which makes my mainly centrist views "far-left". The media, the government, my friends- I had a friend tell me not too long ago that I needed to listen to Dennis Miller because he speaks "the truth". It's... it's a really, really bizarre time to be alive and thinking and having a full meta-cognitive capacity.

It's heartening to read folks like Calpundit or Orcinus or Eric Alterman or Paul Krugman because it reminds me that there are still people out there that haven't drunk the kool-aid, but it gets really, really hard to keep that in mind when someone you were having a casual conversation with turns into a rabid Bush-apologist and "liberal" hater.

It's sad because it's nearly impossible to even have a political discussion with anyone anymore. If they like Bush, even if they're not a partisan, when you try to discuss his many failures and terrible policies people simply don't believe you. What you describe to them sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories, "No really! He appointed 4 guys from the Iran Contra scandal! You know, arms were sold to a nation known for terrorist acts against the US to fund death squads killing peasants in Central America... Yeah, one of them represents us at the UN!". I try to talk with conservatives about politics and they simply don't believe anything I tell them because everything seems so incredible- they simply can't believe people are capable of abusing power so thoroughly.

It's not just me. I'm not the only one who thinks it's clear, abundantly clear, that there is something substantially wrong with the modern Republican party and recognizing that is not an act of irrational emotion, but an act of accurate assessment.

It's a good piece. Go read.


posted by Tim 8:56 PM