Apologies

for the absence, but I am up to my eyeballs in work suddenly. I can go months without talking to another human, and now I'm buried. I guess it's good to be busy. I guess.

But I did want to bring this to your attention. The New York Post reports that Hill (of Bill & Hill infamy) said: The GOP would have booted Jesus. (Registration required to see the whole article - try www.bugmenot.com for a login that doesn't require you to give a blood sample.)

Now, I won't worry about the headline, which is Post standard. What I do think is worth noting is that Hillary Clinton, guiding light (to many) of the modern, liberal, democrat party, is invoking the name of Jesus? And accusing the Republicans of criminalizing Jesus and the Good Samaritan?

Let's analyze this, shall we? Her party stands for the normalization of Gay marriage, undermining 5,000 years of normative society and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Her party stands for the breaking down of the traditional family structure, and she herself argues that a village raises a child better than parents. While not officially, elements of her own party scorn and mock the practitioners of traditional organized religion.

And now she's citing Jesus? Jesus would somehow identify with her and the leftist, socialist, secularized Deomcrat party? Where did that all of a sudden come from? Oh, I know politicians will say anything, but she's really opened herself up to criticism here. I can live with questions being raised about a bill. There's room for disagreement on the immigration question, and I agree that she should bring up her reservations if the bill as written if it really bothers her.

But how about we drop all politically motivated references to the leading figure of a major religion? [ed. You'll have to forgive me if I choose not to identify Jesus as the Lord; I have some personal issues with that concept that have no impact on this particular post] Oh, I know I'm asking for the moon here, but let's think twice before we decide we have personal insight into the will of a deity, hmm?

Purim Madness

Despite my unwellness, Purim follows immediately on the heels of the fast. Normally I wouldn't have eaten until the services were over that night, meaning in effect the fast continues into Purim, but as we have seen that didn't work out this year.

Off to services to hear the Megillat Esther (what you all know as the Book of Esther.) It's incumbent on every adult Jew to hear the entire Megillah every year on Purim, once at night and once in the morning. Since the kids usually can't sit still for the 35-40 minutes it takes, we usually leave them with Mrs. and I go, then she goes to the late reading. This year oldest begged to go, so I agreed to take her if she promised to really sit nicely & not bother me during the reading. You're obliged to hear each & every word, so a whiny, noisy child defeats the purpose.

She agreed, and she was pretty good on the whole. Noodging her friend sitting next to her, and asking to go out & play in the hall with other friends for part of the time, but she mostly behaved. Home, oldest to sleep, Mrs. went to the 9PM reading.

The next day I got up for the 5:30 AM service, on the theory that Mrs. could then get to one of the later services that wasn't terribly full of other people's noisy children. All would have been fine, since I was asleep by 9:15, except I woke up at 1AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Despite that I went to the 5:30, which was pretty crowded, then home. Mrs. went off to the 8AM, which turned out a bit noisier than she wanted, but OK. A friend dropped his kids off so he could go to services undisturbed, since his wife was out of town on business.

I'm not sure I could handle four kids all the time.

He picks his kids up, promises to come back later & help me get the sink fixed (more on that later). I took youngest to a late reading at her request, but she seemed overwhelmed and we left after twenty minutes. We completed our assembly on the Mishloach Manot we plan to give out. These are food packages that can go from the polite, to the fancy, to the outstanding, to the way overboard. One's reguirement is met by delivering two food items to one person. Somehow this has exploded into giving every human on the planet 40 pounds of assorted baked goods and processed sugar crap.

It also often involves themes, sometimes mighty clever ones. We had a great idea, but Mrs. illness last week killed our momentum. We'll save it for next year. My brother's are beyond insane. They're hugely complicated, always very funny, and often make you wonder how he has time for all this silliness. This year his theme was St. Patrick's day, complete with small plastic leprechaun and homemade CD containing a mixture of Irish & Jewish music. And my mom said he made 48 of them. And to think I have too much free time.

For our part, I made gingersnaps and choclate chip cookies, we added a piece of fruit, some hershey's miniatures, mini twix bars, and a sprinkling of candy corn. We made twelve, and people just kept showing up all day. We recycled a lot of the bags we got, subsituting our food in other people's bags to make up the shortfall. All this despite participating in two separate synagogue group baskets.

We closed out the day at a potluck festive meal, which was a blast. Now our house is filled to the brim with all the junkfood we could ever want, and more besides. I think I'll bring the leftovers to work.

After I pick out the good stuff, naturally.

Dehydration

I meant to get to this, but life intervened. Anyway, Monday was The Fast of Esther, the precursor to the holiday of Purim. The Book of Esther relates that the Queen fasted for three days prior to seeing King Achashverosh (Ahaseurus is I believe the standard Englsih for it, but that always makes me think of a nasty foot fungus.) We fast as well to commemorate the occasion.

I do not fast well, but things had been better for many earlier fasts. This one was an exception. By the middle of the day I was really headachy and a little spaced. Normally that hits towards the end of the fast, and by 3:30 I called it quits and headed home to rest. By five PM I was feeling nauseous and light headed, so for the first time in many years I broke my fast before it was over. I had some water and plain pasta, and if anything I felt worse than before. That led me to conclude that I had gotten dehydrated, since that's how I felt the last time I got dehydrated.

It's a minor fast - it starts in the morning instead of the night before, and many people I know skip it, but I was kind of disappointed with myself. Not enough to have to go to the ER like the last time, but I do like to try & complete these things.

Snackdown!

Or Thursday three, your choice:

1) What are your THREE favorite sugary snacks?

I'm quite partial to the British Mars Bar - there's no nuts, and I like 'em. I also like the Mily Way Midnight, and Crispy M & Ms work nicely for me too.

2) What are your THREE favorite salty snacks?

Wise BBQ potato chips, over which I have no control so I don't buy them much anymore. Tortilla chips with Salsa. I also like Garden of Eatin's Red Hot Blue chips. I tend more toward salty than sweet, so I'm more likely for this type.

3) What snack food do you dislike, even though everyone else raves about it?

Probably popcorn. I don't mind the taste, but I always get those hard shells caught in my teeth and throat, and it seems like more work than it's worth.

I was

going to catch everyone up on everything, but now I have to go to an all-afternoon meeting offsite to talk about web stuff.

So my thrilling tales of derring-do will just have to wait.

There will

hopefully be time later for a dehydration update, a Purim update, and a Vanity of Vanities update.

But first, a special message to the obnoxious woman/man in the white SUV in front of me this morning on both the Southern State Parkway and the Cross Island:

I saw you toss out of your car window, in succession: one (1) empty box of what looked like Parliament Cigarettes; one (1) plastic cellophane covering from a new box of cigarettes; one (1) foil covering from inside said box of new cigarettes. There was another driver in a white SUV, which may have been the same one, who later threw additional items out the window onto the roadway.

I can appreciate that you like to keep your car clean. I can appreciate the possibility that you don't have a garbage bag in your car. But I do have to ask - did your parents bring you up to be a disgusting slob of a pig? Would you drop garbage in front of your own house, let alone inside your living room? Would it be that much trouble for you to keep the trash in the car until you reach your destination, then find an actual trashcan? You are a selfish, filthy, thoughtless person, and I think a sizeable portion of your eternity should be spent shoveling up mounds of trash while thoughtless demons drop more empty wrappers, half-eaten sandwiches, and cigarette ash on, around, and near you.

Thank you. Now back to the regularly scheduled stupidity.

Thank goodness

Thursday three is here. Now I don't have to think up anything original.

BONUS - Sweet tea: your first choice of beverage, lemon or not, Lipton or Luzianne?

Not first, with Lemon, I've only ever heard of Lipton. Snapple is a sometimes, as is Nestea.

FOR WORKING FOLKS:
1. What do you drink the most at work, and do you bring your own?

Water, fresh from the cooler upstairs.

2. Nutrasweet (aspartame) or Splenda (sucralose)?

Fie! A pox on ye, all chemically laden sweeteners! Good ol' C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ for me, please.

3. Do you keep candy at your desk/work area?

Sometimes. I have a candy jar on the desk I got from a patron a while back, & sometimes I fill it.

FOR AT-HOME FOLKS:
1. What do you drink the most at home, and do you change on the weekend?

Water & Seltzer, and not really. Occasionally there's some Lemonade, and once in a great while I buy a six-pack of Dr. Brown's Cream Soda, which will usually last 3-6 months or so.

2. Nutrasweet (aspartame) or Splenda (sucralose)?

Ick.

3. Do you keep a candy stash? Change its location periodically?

Not a stash - the kids are too short, even on the chairs they drag over, to reach the upper shelves of the pantry. Sometimes we're good & there's nothing in the house, other times not so good.

FOR TRAVELING FOLKS:
1. What do you drink when traveling? (Marc had “by plane” for this one, but I’ve changed it to be any sort of travel)

Mostly the same as at home.

2. Nutrasweet (aspartame) or Splenda (sucralose)?

Blech.

3. Do you chew gum to help your ears pop on a flight? (Obviously, this is for airplanes, not cars or buses or trains, unless you happen to be on one that flies.)

Sometimes. Sometimes just regular sucking candy. None of it helps much.

Here's an op-ed

that actually made me think a bit, which is not a bad thing. Unfortunately for the author, one Michael Kalin, I don't think I reached the same conclusions he did. The short version of the author's point is that Jon Stewart's impact on the best and brightest of America is actually negative. He believes the smirky, humorous approach of Stewart and the Daily Show have led to the "declining influence of progressive thought in America."

He then proceeds to set up a straw man of a fictionalized, prototypical Stewart watcher, who, taking the message that there is no decency or honesty in politics, heads for a six figure salary as an analyst at Morgan Stanley instead of becoming the next Teddy Roosevelt. He concludes as follows:

Although Stewart's comedic shticks may thus earn him some laughs Sunday at the Oscars, his routine will certainly not match the impact of his greatest irony: Jon Stewart undermines any remaining earnestness that liberals in America might still possess.

So, allow me to analyze this to the best of my ability. In the first place, his prototypical Stewart viewer is the kind of white, Jewish liberal overachiever who tends to think they know more and better than the rest of us. The implication is that unless you end up with a high GPA at an Ivy League school, you can't possibly be seen as a future leader of the Democrats. All of that presupposes an importance on the children of the upper middle or upper classes of America, and a Harvard Education (more on that later). How then to explain Harry Truman, product of Missouri farmland? Eisenhower? Ronald Reagan, son of a drunken door-to-door salesman? The point here, of course, is that the idea that the best and the brightest, evidenced by Stewart's viewers, are lost to America is laughable. It's ahistorical for one, and elitist to boot. Great men become great men regardless of the social conditions around them. Teddy Roosevelt becomes TR whether he reads the Iliad in Greek or watches Ren & Stimpy. I grant you environment contributes greatly, but I don't believe the drive & ambition that leads some men to be great can be destroyed because a TV host looks at the news in a funny, cynical way.

Similarly, the idea that Kalin's fictional Stewart viewer will be turned by a TV show to sell his soul to Corporate America instead of joining the political march to progress is disingenuous at best. People make decisions for a lot of reasons, not just because of a cynical culture. The fictional Mr. Goldberg of the article makes a choice, carefully elided by Kalin, to take a career as a financial analyst instead of becoming a politician or party leader. He may do this because he wants a comfortable life without the pressures of government; he may do this because he likes the challenge of being a Morgan Stanley analyst; he may do this because his girlfriend works there. Again, people determined to become great politicians, great athletes, great opera singers, don't let things get in the way of their dream. Stewart's show won't deter someone committed to being a leader, and a non-cynical approach wouldn't suddenly create whole new legions of progressive leaders. The author is simply ascribing too much power to this show.

Third, earnestness is the one thing not missing from the liberal side of the aisle. Every liberal I see or meet is full of earnestness and progressive (as opposed to Progressive) ideas. They tend to be loose generalizations of "social action" and helping those less fortunate. What's missing from modern liberalism is not earnestness, but a healthy dose of realpolitik. The kinds of people who are prepared to balance social needs with the reality of American life. There's a squishiness about liberalism that is fully prepared with a lot of airy fairy goals and very short on the hard numbers and tough decisions that getting things done requires. Kalin's desire for more earnestness is precisely why the Democrats are losing elections - I don't think Americans want earnest people, they want people to make tough choices and sacrifices that will lead to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit, not the handing over on a silver platter. It's an open question whether the Republicans are those people, but I think that's what the average American really wants.

I don't disagree that too much cynicism is a bad thing - I'm a lifelong cynic, and it's not the healthiest outlook on the world. On the other hand, there's an assumption in this op-ed that Stewart has a wider impact than I think he does. Sure, a certain subset of Kalin's focus group here are Stewart watchers, but a) not all of the future of the Democrats fits that demographic, and b) people like my wife, conservative in outlook, are also watchers of Stewart. I can tell you she hasn't lost or gained any idealism - she just thinks the show is funny. There's a note at the end of the article than Kalin is a 2005 graduate of Harvard. Frankly, it shows. He sounds like a kid just out of college, full of energy and concern and handwringing over the future of America. He also sounds like Harvard did a poor job of teaching him basic reasoning. I think I've poked some large holes in his logic, and I'm just a dope from Brooklyn. To think this kid's parents (or perhaps us, the taxpayers footing some kind of scholarship) paid for him to go to Harvard for four years. If this is the best Harvard can do, I think the school has some issues. Like his ideal, his thinking is squishy.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to shred this guy out of political issues. And no, I don't think the Daily Show is the world's most important subject. But I do think that someone writing for a major newspaper should think his argument through more clearly before committing it to electrons.

What a weekend

Everybody, including me, was sick on Friday, so I was out. A lot of running around. Oldest feels better, wants to go to school. Oldest to school (over my vague objections that she was too sick), home. Mrs. to doctor. Call from school. Oldest needs to come home (a whole HOUR after I dropped her off). Youngest in car, off to get oldest, stop by Dr's office. "We're closing for the day, go to other location 25 minutes away at 2PM." Home, cleaning, wife calls, looks like she has strep.

She comes home, shlep the kids to other office, oldest has strep, youngest might. Two MORE prescriptions on top of Mrs', home. Good thing we have meatloaf in the freezer & bought chicken soup for dinner. I skip shul Friday night, we have soup, I'm in bed by 9PM & out cold by 9:03.

Wake up at 6, kids running in & out, get out of bed by 7:30 or so, leave them home & head to shul. Back, have meatloaf for lunch, send Mrs off to nap, fall asleep on the couch & then upstairs in oldest's bed. limp through the rest of shabbos and eventually watch a lousy hockey game.

Sunday. Ah, Sunday. I shall attack the bathroom, and try & crank this sucker out. Start off with pancakes - youngest, who crawled into our bed around 6, is still asleep until about 10 - very unusual. Head across to neighbors with tools, install door sweep. Back home, and get the new mirror/medicine cabinet in. Without using a single swear word, I might add. Out to garage to retrieve useful plumbing bits off the old sink. Use a LOT of swear words.

Back inside, line up the vanity, screw in place. Begin assembling new faucet arrangement. Most parts are simple, sink stopper is not so, dry fit the sink on and...

The new down pipe is shorter and smaller than the old one.

Off, believe it or not, to the first hardware store trip of the day, find a plastic, flexible J joint that looks like it might work, buy, back home to discover - still too big around.

SIGH.

Quit for the day, go make burgers (which perked everyone up considerably), and call it a weekend.

Maybe I forgot

to pay the vig or something, but Blogger wouldn't let me see my own blog today. Seems to be worked out now, but somebody warn me if they see the electronic equivalent of a couple of strong arm gorillas that want to talk to me in a meaningful way.

Thursday has arrived

And with it the return of a few people's favorite entertainment, the Thursday Three.

1. Whatcha reading?

I just finished a couple of Fantasy novels by Raymond Feist, the "Conclave of Shadows" series. Meh. Not bad, but he has a habit of repeating himself. The whole fantasy genre has become kind of stereotypical - elves, troubled hero, dark, mysterious enemy, etc., etc.

2. …Listening to?

Right at this moment, the Tony Kornheiser show over the net, from his Washington, DC home station, WTEM. He's very funny, and even though we're on opposite sides politically, I try not to miss a show. Musically (see yesterday) there's a lot of Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler, which is pretty standard for me. There's also been a lot of Kinks, some AC/DC, and my favorite Celtic rock band, Off Kilter.

3. …Watching?

Not much recently. TV is largely about hockey for me in the Fall/Winter/Spring, and I skipped the Olympics. The Rangers are back on the ice tonight, so there will be some hockey. I did catch an episode of Overhaulin' the other night, as well as some Monster House.

AND, in one of the biggest surprises of all, A BONUS QUESTION— Whatcha cooking?

Last week there was a ton of cooking, but most by the wife. We had noodle & squash kugel, and a delicious corned beef. I made eggs for dinner last night. I'm waiting for it to get slightly warmer and a little less snowy to get back into the grill groove, and then we'll see what I can come up with.

We've got

to install microwave ovens
custom kitchen deliveries
we've got to move these refrigerators
we've got to move these color teeeeeveeeeeeeeeeeeees

Just thought you'd like to know.

7 years

of happy, glorious marriage. Every day a winner. Not a single bump on the road.

Seriously, I'm just glad there was a woman on earth willing to sacrifice herself for the benefit of the rest of womanhood. It's been a long, hard slog for her, but other single women elsewhere are grateful for her martyrdom.

Like most men, I married far above my station, and for that I am a lucky dog.

Bonfire of the Vanities

I should update you folks on my Terry-like adventures in home repair. Me & the Mrs. set out to rearrange our half bath downstairs a while back. Mrs. got some paint sample cards, taped them to the wall to see how they looked, and we kinda forgot about it. So last week she gets the bug again, and we decide to get underway.

Now, normal people, seeing a long weekend ahead, would have thought to go out Sunday AM, get the stuff we need, and spend the two days of President's weekend working on it (bear in mind, of course, that we lose Saturday as a day of work, it being the Day of Rest and all that.) Do we head out to Big Orange on Sunday AM? Sunday eve? Monday AM? Not us, no. We have to wait until Monday Afternoon, when the whole weekend is gone.

Be that as it may, we went & got paint and brushes and stuff and came home. Got the kids to bed, and started on the room. I took the tank off the toilet, and got working on the sink. Regular contractors would've bolted the pedestal sink into the wall, but not ours, oh no. He just slapped that mother full of Liquid Nails and squished it against the wall. Needless to say, no dopey putty knife was getting that thing off the wall, so we just yanked out an inch deep crater into the sheetrock.

Oh well, I've been meaning to learn to use the joint compound anyway. Drag out the little bucket that's been in the garage for four years, and whaddaya know? It's a cake of brick hard grey sludge. Next trip to big orange, but at least this time Mrs. made her choice on the vanity, so I picked that up too. (MUCH more on this later.) Back with the fresh stuff, a little joint tape & some fresh goo later, and it looks not bad for an amateur.

Next day Mrs. gets to work painting. The spackled bit wasn't really dry yet, but she did a lovely job painting the rest of the walls. She also took her own trip to the store to get new TP & towel holders. I get home, sand down the patch (I did a pretty decent job on the whole, though my tagline was "the vanity will cover that bit.) I also yanked out a piece of molding from the back so the vanity would fit flush to the wall. I gouged quite a bit, but see above tagline. Paint over that stuff, and call it a day.

By the end of Wednesday eve, we had painted on the second coat, and Mrs. had gone & gotten a sink she liked. We're all set to load in the lovely vanity, and guess what? The fershullgener thing has a drawer support right where the shut off valve is. There's no real way we can get around the problem (remember this was supposed to save us money on a contractor), so guess where I'm going? You betcha. Vanity back in the car, me back to big orange, and let's refund this bad boy. No, of COURSE they don't make the no-drawer vanity in maple, why should they?

So Mrs. goes to the competing humongo warehouse place on Friday, picks up the other vanity she had seen & liked, and shleps it home. Also a trip to Targêt to get bathroom rugs to go with the new plan - five, I think, with plans to return four. (That becomes ironic, as opposed to ha ha, funny later). She calls me from home to say "well, there's a spot near where the handle goes that someone obviously colored over with marker, and the doors don't align, but if you can fix that I guess we can keep it." I get home, friddle with the doors, then see the huge crack she hadn't noticed on one side, and NOW where do you think we're going?

We had guests coming for shabbos, which is why Mrs. hoped to have this finished before, but no dice. Pack all the crap into the non-functioning restroom (though I got the throne back in order earlier, we decided to shut the whole thing down.) So yesterday we head to a different big orange to check out MORE vanities. They had something we kind of like on display, but it's the last one and it's cracked. They do, however, have it in cherry (we've already been through maple & cinnamon, which would be delicious in french toast, but not so much fun here.)

Naturally the cherry are all on the tippy top shelf, and they need a forklift. We've at least found the one guy in the whole place who knew anything, evidenced by everyone else in the place interrupting him to ask for stuff. So they shut down not just the aisle we're in, but the next one over, too. All this just so we can look at the stupid thing. Both me & Mrs. are wondering how mad he'll be if it turns out we don't want it. He gets it down, opens the box, she likes, we see a scratch, he opens a 2nd, we don't notice the inside scratch until later, so we take it. Off to other warehouse to return the piece of junk, and home.

We don't love the sink, which is white instead of offwhite, none of the rugs really match, and we haven't put the stupid thing in yet, but for the moment we seem to have settled on the final answer. It's always an adventure. (BTW, I left out like seven other trips to the store for the bits & pieces we forgot. Oy.)

This article

should be of interest to those of you down 'Bama way. These are the sorts of discoveries archivists love to make. Somebody says something about a storage closet, and all of a sudden you're hip deep in a treasure trove of archival material.

It actually happens to me occasionally. I had a conversation with someone at one of our hospitals, and she said in passing "Oh, I just send stuff to the basement." Basement is a magic word to an archivist, and down I went. I discovered piles of medical board stuff, departmental reports - all the kinds of things I depend on.

Anyway, there's also (as I imagine some of you may know already) a full section on it at the paper's website.

Heh

Small things in life that give me joy.

I should point out that the description of the channel as involving "citizen journalists sending in their own videos" sounds suspiciously like public access cable tv. Where, as a rule, weirdos buy time to fulminate on interstellar communications and how Jesus told them the end of days would come when the Mets win the world series.

As I said, heh.

I'm late, I'm late!

For a fairly meaningless trivia game!

1) Are you the sort of person that's always late, always early, always right on time?

I USED to be on time for everything, maybe even a little early. Then I got married. Then I had kids. Mrs. claims it's not her fault, but I think she just gave me a good reason to stay home. Now I feel like I'm late more often than not.

2) Is that true all the time, or are there things that will make you change your normal patterns (e.g. you're always early, but get to the dentist late)?

Well, when the kids want to go somewhere badly, we can change that, but otherwise it's become universal that we're running behind.

3) How good are your time management skills? Do you know exactly how much time you have, or do you look up at the clock & realize three hours have somehow disappeared?

Most of the time they're very good. Certain books and video games can so distract me that I look up and notice it's gotten REALLY late and I should've been in bed hours ago.

So how was your morning?

Mine was particularly craptastic today. All would have been fine except for one tiny, itty bitty little mechanical detail.

Everybody woke up kind of late, but we got it together fairly quickly & out the door. So, I drop oldest off at school right on time. The schools here are off this week, so the highways actually function as they are supposed to for a change. And I get out of the school building as I always do, get back in the car as always, insert the key and turn it as always, and the car starts...

Exactly as it almost never does. Tick-tick-tick. No friendly red dash lights popping up. No start. No engine running. Bupkis. Uh oh.

So I grab the security guy & ask for a boost, which he gives me. I then decide to head home to try & solve this instead of sitting at work and trying to figure out how to get a boost. Home, change clothes, haul out the offending item, and out to the auto parts joint (in the Mrs.' car) where I got the battery. Well, to their old location nearby to get the address of their new location. Stop for some breakfast at a local bagel place, then ten minutes down the road to the new place.

"Well, you bought this thing in 2003, and there's nothing we can do except take a few bucks off the price of the new one." Now, I remember the last replacement as the summertime, so it's really only 2 1/2 years, but I decided not to argue. Or to buy the battery from him. Down to Sears, buy the new one, home, get it in the car. Dunno if she sold me the wrong battery, as this one seems to have the terminals in the back of the battery, and the old one was in the front I guess. I had to reseat the negative cable to get it to reach, but it seems OK.

By this point I was so late I went & did some food shopping for shabbos, & finally got here. Needless to say I haven't been terribly productive so far. And this explains why T3 is late, both sad (I thought up the questions) and ironic (it's all about being on time.) Next post.

In less funny news

I ran across this article.

Maybe I live in a hole, but I've never heard of Fred Phelps. And no, I will not demean the title and dignify him by calling him Reverend. I can't believe this guy is serious. Protesting at a funeral and saying IEDs are a good thing? Clearly the guy is a nut, and bless those patriots for riding through rain & snow to show honor to the dead.

This is proof that nuttiness is not confined to the militant secular left-wing nutballs. So-called "Christians", and I'm guessing somewhat right-wing types, are fully capable of a level of public insanity and indecency as well.

I believe homosexuality is proscribed by the bible that I hold central to every part of my life. If that makes me a closeminded homophobic bigot, such is life.

However.

I do not believe in denouncing gays publicly. I would not say that God will visit punishment on them - if He's planning on it, that's between Him and the people in question, and for good reason He doesn't share those plans with me. I most certainly would never consider attacking or otherwise causing pain or damage to homosexuals. I live in America where what people do on their own time is none of my business, and I have no right to coerce them to do as I see fit. I might protest when what is not my business is shoved in my face - I don't have to publicly condemn it, but I don't have to stand up and cheer every time another gay character is given a primetime TV slot either.

But this? It's more proof that nutcases are incapable of developing a rational chain of thought. Because there are gays in America it's a good thing soldiers are killed? Young men and women, many of them good & decent Christians, with no responsibility for policy, are somehow deserving of scorn for dying in the line of duty? It's beyond reprehensible, it's sick. People like this would be well suited to living in Muslim lands, where this kind of irrationality (see the cartoon stupidity) is considered normal thought.

Free speech is a fine thing. I do not want these people arrested, killed, or forced to stop saying what they want. But they should be ashamed of themselves, and should get on their knees and beg forgiveness of every family they've spit on, every soldier they see, and they should certainly beg God for forgiveness.

Fun With Headlines

Couldn't resist this one:

Oliver Stone says September 11 movie not political

Stone also Says CIA, Mob Not Behind Kennedy Assasination

Director will Not Comment on Reality of Six Foot Tall, Frog-Shaped Aliens Providing Funding for Next Project, "How Halliburton and the Bush Administration Caused the Attack of the Zorps on Xj'kqlfre VII for Oil and to Bring Fascism to the Galaxy." [ed. This is only a working title.]