Man, it's been since Saturday since I've written...should probably write something now then. Not that there's anything to say. Nothing going on. Only thing to even mention is that I'm in a bad mood all of a sudden. Mad about women, really. Women that bitch and moan about dickhead boyfriends or shit-head preps at the bar that they thought "were nice" when I could have told them all along that they were dickheads or preps willing to say or do anything to get in their pants and then move on once their sick of it or find something better. Women that claim that "there aren't any nice guys" while I'm standing there, mouth gaping, arm raised in the air waving frantically. I can't stand it. I really can't. I'm about to give up on them (again). Fuck it.

I want to believe: F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region

Man. All kinds of tornado warnings on tv, but all out of range of my car. Guess I'll have to wait for another day to chase one down.

Damn. I had this whole rant about bar sluts and the like...but I closed my window when I shut down the firewall I have up in order to post. Damn.

I orginally posted this on the WWDN Soapbox, but I liked it...so I'm reposting it here:

Good ol' Ben Shapiro haunted my dreams last night (I know, I'm sad)...but something occurred to me. If Ben were in charge, hypothetically, what exactly would prevent him from using, say, nuclear weapons in a "war" such as the one the US is fighting against terrorism? With absolutely no regard for the loss of innocent life (as long as it's the "enemies") and an obvious nationalistic superiority kick, what would prevent him from doing so? I'm not suggesting that we need to worry about this kid launching the ICBMs, but his attitude is similar to a lot of his republican kin (even those in office) these days...

It boils down to one question: How close are we to using nukes (in Iraq, wherever)?

Ashcroft's Terrorism Policies Dismay Some Conservatives: Liberals have always hated him, now the conservatives are starting to feel the same way. Who's a lonely facist gonna turn to for love? Not any nude statues, that's for sure.

Speak the truth brother!

Can Liberals Save Capitalism (Again)?: Yesterday's conservative clichés are today's political embarrassments. Americans are getting a vivid if painful education about the limits of the marketplace and the salutary role of government. It will be a very long time before anyone can say with a straight face that markets always work better than governments.

Sometimes I have to close my eyes and whisper to myself, head shaking, "this isn't happening. It can't be happening." But it is, like it or not. And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it because everyone is so fucking clueless as to what is happening. I don't know if it's because they are so scared that having our every step recorded is better than the slim to none chance of dying as a result of terrorism. Or maybe we've all just succummed to the attention-span-draining that has been attempted ever since the installation of cable television and the internet. Myabe we're just dumb. Maybe we're just numb. I don't know, but I refuse to give up. They'll have to drag me, kicking and screaming all the way to the re-education camps or whatever they'll do to the lot of us who are just too damn proud of FREEDOM in this country to let some wanker or two in a judicially appointed administration take it all down in hopes of making the big bucks in the stock market after the game is done or making Jesus come back or whatever the fucked up reasons for all of this are. I don't know. Shit, I feel as though I'm condemning myself as I write. Enter the Thought Police. Stage Right.

from Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror Probe:

"I can't reveal my source, but a federal agency involved in espionage actually did a rating system of almost every citizen in this country," Ponemon claims. "It was based on all sorts of information—public sources, private sources. If people are not opted in"—meaning they haven't chosen to participate—"one can generally assume that information was gathered through an illegal system."

I would have thought this was published in the Onion, but sadly -- no, frightenly -- it's not:

"I am getting really sick of people who whine about "civilian casualties." Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don't really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian."

"If only Israel had acted as decisively as America did in Kabul, it would have gone in with F-16s and leveled Jenin. Civilian casualties? So be it. That might have struck a note of fear into the Palestinians -- putting in ground troops sure doesn't."
Enemy 'civilian casualties' ok by me

This was written by an eighteen-year-old by the name of Ben Shapiro. 18. It was found on the TownHall.com website by Tom Tomorrow and is, possibly, the sort of shit that way too many young conservatives believe. I can't even fathom thinking this way, thinking that one life -- the life of a soldier who signed up knowing that there is a chance to die in combat -- is worth more than the life of an innocent civilian...especially considering that those soldiers are in a warzone because of tthe same sort of thinking from the other side. I mean, I used to be a Young Republican™ and all, but I don't remember ever being this...so...callous and wicked in my regards to other human beings. What are we doing? How are we raising children that actually feel this way about things like this? How the hell do does a kid like this get repspected enough by a major political website that his vitriol can actually be published?

I'm starting to get a headache...

There is nothing really to say right now, but that I took an on-line test thingy and found out that I am "very random". I don't know why I am addicted to those damn tests. I must have taken hundreds, even thousnds, of them by now. Damn.

I went up to my Aunt's this past weekend. While there, she asked me if I had put flowers on my Mom's grave any time recently. Well, I haven't, and I suck as a liar, so I told her that, no, I haven't. I didn't say so, but the truth is that I haven't been to my Mom's grave in a couple years (she died three years ago). The thing is, I feel nothing when I'm there...In my mind, I only feel what I should - that I am standing on a more or less random patch of sod six feet under which lie the remains of my mother, the only reason for knowing this being a large, smooth rock with my Mom's name on it. I don't know. I think about her every day, always something -- a woman her age, a note she had written me, a photo, a random thought -- reminds me of her and causes me to think about how much I miss her. The tangible things are what more meaningful for me, the things that link me to some experience with my mother, and that sort of thing just doesn't exist there at the gravesite. I didn't explain this to my aunt, but she still kind of made me feel like a creep, like I had some sort of moral obligation to drive forty-five minutes and drop some flowers in front of her headstone even though it means nothing to me to do so. As if I am obligated to show my love for my mom in such a way that other people can look upon it and say "yeah, he really did love his mum". Am I wrong in thinking that this line of thinking is full of shit? If I get nothing out of visiting her grave, and assuming that she doesn't get anything out of it, I can't think of any good reason to do so. I don't know. I know that probably nobody reads this and will therefore not reply, but I needed to post this nonetheless.

Yes, Virginia, we are serious about defeating terrorism.

“We don’t understand how they weren’t all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks,” he said. “It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights.”
How bin Laden's huge convoy gave American forces the slip

This is from the Washington TImes, so I have no idea if it's reliable or not, but it does seem to offer some good news which makes it worthy to post here. I think. I'm not a prude or anything, but I'm happy to see that maybe, just maybe, kids are putting off sex "until they're older" and maybe, just maybe, that's because they're doing it (or, rather, not doing it for good reasons.

Reported number of teen virgins rises -- The Washington Times

Paranoia. Things aren't even starting to simmer down from Sept. 11, in fact they almost seem to be getting worse. Everyone's on edge that Terrorists™ are going to attack and/or kill them at any time. No one realizes that more people die of domestic violence every year than do people of terrorism. Hell, more people died last year of e coli poisoning than of any terrorist-related activities. But, of course, every white powder and every plane/helicopter sends people into a panic that They™ are coming to get us. My question is this, what the hell's the point in living if you're gonna be this fucking scared all the time. "This", of course, pertaining to the following news story:

"Chwaszczewski told police the shooting was "a natural reaction," after having watched the events of Sept. 11.

Yahoo! News - Virginia man opens fires on helicopter, thinking occupants are terrorists, police say

Okay, this TIPS thing has me pissed off. If you haven't heard about it, it's Dubya's idea to organize a spy network for American's to spy on one another. You know, like the Stasi in East Germany or bloody everyone in Maoist China. Anyway, it seems that not everyone's bowing down to take it up the butt. The USPS is now refusing to help out. God bless them.

From the article:
Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites)'s spokeswoman said that the program, still in the development stage, would set up people to spy upon one another in their homes and communities.
Barbara Comstock said the agency had no intention for people — such as utility workers — to enter or have access to the homes of individuals. The idea is to organize information from people whose jobs take them through neighborhoods, along the coasts and highways and on public transit, she said.
Said Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge: "The last thing we want is Americans spying on Americans. That's just not what the president is all about, and not what the TIPS program is all about."
The ACLU said the concept was worrisome, nonetheless. <"worrisiome" is an understatement>

Yahoo! News - Postal Service Won't Join TIPS Program

This blog being new, I need to explain myself a bit. Some of my posts will be serious, some not. This is one of the latter, I just find this news story to be hilarious. If any reader ever finds pictures from this lil' shin-dig, e-mail them to me, I'll love you until the end of time.

PalmBeachPost.com:Tonight's Reno dance party a hot ticket

I rode the bus home from work (again) today and had yet another ephinany (for some reason, the bus does that to me). Anyway, it was a man and what I presume was his daughter that triggered the thought. They got on, carrying a rented video tape and a black case that VCRs tend to come in when rented. Normally, it may not have phased me, but this was in an area where a lot of homeless and very poor get on and off so I presumed that these two were of the latter (after all, their clothes and hair appeared of the sort). Well, it occurred to me that this man had, maybe in a rare instance, custudy of his daughter and he had rented this VCR in order to give her a sense of what's "normal" in our society. He rented it because he couldn't afford it. He didn't have the spare $60.

"So what?" you ask...well, I'm getting there. It reminded me of this time, a couple years back when I was waiting tables sometime around Christmas. In my section, was an obviously poor man and his obviously estranged son, together for the holidays so that the man could give his kid the gifts that he had wrapped up for him. The smile on that kid's face was priceless. Not that he was getting stuff, but that he was with his dad...that he knew that he was LOVED. That was nice, but then I started thinking about the lives that these two lead. This kid, he was so damn lucky, and I couldn't help but think that he had that good, but that everything else in his life was shit. He didn't have enough money to ever go to college. He didn't have what it takes to be "cool" in school and therefore have a bunch of friends. Hell, he might not even have much support at home, his parents may be working all the time to scrounge up enough money to eat. I realise that a lot of those things don't really matter in life, but they sure as hell make life easier...their lack making life difficult to point of near impossibility. It made me think about how kids like this...damn good kids with a good smile and the ability to be kind to others...can't get ahead in life. This kid could be a great writer, a genious scientist, the fucking greatest President in all of history, but he won't, he just won't -- all because he can't fucking afford the little things that are necessary to really get training, accredidation, and just good old fashioned education that it takes to move from fucking great individual to just plain GREAT. It makes me sick.

But I got to thinking today on the bus. I started to wonder about how those that have it better than me view me. If such a sight depresses me because something as stupid as money can hold them back from impacting the world, do those with money view me in the same light? I wish they did, but I don't think they do. If they did, I can't help but think that the world would be a better place to live in. I mean, if people actually felt shame (as I did) that they had so much while others have so little in comparison, maybe they would share. And I'm not just talking money here, I'm talking about spirit, ideas, compassion. Hell, maybe nobody would be left to starve or feel so trapped in life that they need to commit crimes and hurt other people to get by. I don't know. Maybe I'm just letting molehills become mountains in my mind, but it really has gotten me thing. Really.