More old time radio quality programing

I pinie for the good old days of old-time radio when America got to listen to healthy family radio like:

Crime Scene Photographer

Broadway Police Beat

Johnny Speed - Worldwide secret police

Dragnet

The Adventures of Philp Marlow - "The day was hot and sticky. To make things worse there was a Xylophone playing...etc...etc..."

Doe!

Many who are infavor of the war on Iraq say that it will solve the problem of islamic extremism in the long run. They argue that there was no US war in the mideast prior to 911 and look what they did to us then. They will also point out the US withdrawl from Somalia as an example of the US running away when attacked, thus emboldening the terrorists.

All this is a load of crap. For one thing the civil war in Somolia was between rival warlords and had really nothing to do with islamic extremism. And any Somali who was unlucky enough to get caught in that fight knows that the US inflicted 63 times as many kills than they recieved. That is to say the Rangers killed 63 Somali malitia for each US soldier killed. It was a slaughterfest. Nobody questions the American ability to kill thousands in a matter of hours, or minutes.

All actions like Somalia and Iraq I and II do is feed the islamic terror machine. The toughguys are correct in saying that the suicide bombers et al will not be persauded by talk and negotiations. So why hold up Iraq as a solution? It is a terrorist hot-house, nothing more. Iraq is currently a far graver threat to the US and the world than it was under Sadam.

1 It is a war zone
2 It is occupied by US troops
3 It is a hot house for terrorists
4 It provides a justification for violence against the US and its allies.
5 It validates Osama Bin Laden's claims about US aggression

I also say that even if Iraq had been a success, it would have made no fundemental difference in our war with Alqueada. Our enemy does not care if a democratic government takes hold in Iraq. They leadership of the enemy wants instability to grow in the West that is a goal. They want us completely out of the mideast. They wish the destruction of Isreal. They infact scincerely believe in the perfection of an Islamic state based on the litteral interpretation of the Koran. And they will continue to garner sympathy and support as long as we do litterally everything according to THEIR plan.

It would be better to fight them with as little fanfare as possible. Basically swatting the flys as they come by. It would be far less costly, just as effective, and would endanger fewer citizens of the world, the US included. Treat them as criminals and the scum that they are. To do more is to elevate them to the status of world players and that also feeds into their megalomania. Currently our actions are empowering to the enemy. By raising them to the level of prime threat to the superpower we give them a legitimacy that they do not deserve.

The desire to appear tough, while also attempting to glean political capital, has converted these people into a super-power. And this effect, brought on by 9/11, could not have been more sought after by Bin Laden and his cohorts. It was the prize to be handed to them by the likes of Bush and his John Wayne wannabees.

Liberal Radio

The conventional wisdom, a term refering to incorrect wisdom, states that liberal talk radio doesn't work. Conservatives like to beat up on Air America after that networks early flounderings.

One year ago Air America was indeed floundering, with mismanagement and bad cashflow. Little is ever said about FOXNEWS losing $142 million in its first year, and that it continued to loose money for the next several years.

Air America started out with less than 10 stations nationwide. Today they have 67 in every major market in America. At the current growth rate, Air America, in two years will surpass 300 stations.

Now if this was the only dog and pony show out there even those numbers would be sad. However AA is only the largest liberal network. It is not the only game in town.

Ed Shultz, a former conservative talker, is heard on over 100 stations and also in the top 10 radio markets. There are also dozens of other liberal and progessive talkers outthere with small audiences but who are also gaining.

The fast is that progressive and liberal specific talk has as broad a reach as conservative talk.

I am not tring to stick up for all that is said on these stations. They are as spun as the rightwing crapmeisters.

How to talk to a conservative if you must...

You know how to tell the difference between a liberal and a conservative?

The conservative is the one who always has to appologize for their past. A liberal never has to do that. For instance if you are a conservative here is a partial list of positions your kind has held in the past:

Sorry for opposing the Continental Congress and their idea to seperate themselves from Britain

Sorry for not wanting to vote for a Constitution that contain the bill of rights

Sorry for making it a crime to critcize the President in the Alien Sedition Act.

Sorry for wanting only white men who owned 1000 acres of land to have the ability to vote.

Sorry for supporting states rights to adhere to the policy of slavery.

Sorry for being carpet baggers, stealing poor southerners land then blaming the black people for it.

Sorry for supporting the idea that a black person is only 75% equal to a white man.

Sorry for standing in the way of the creation of the National Parks system.

Sorry for standing in the way of anti-trust regulations

Sorry for opposing a woman's right to vote

Sorry for opposing childlabor laws

Sorry for opposing workers right to organize

Sorry for opposing the 40 hour work week

Sorry for opposing unemployment compensation

Sorry for opposing the Social Security Act

Sorry for persecuting Jews and Catholics and saying that Hitler might be a better trading partner than England.

Sorry for supporting Jim Crowe laws in the South

Sorry for trying to get rid of all the Jews in the FBI

Sorry for all that

Hey can we have your vote!?

War of the Worlds: Review

While navigating a course past all the truely original movies, such as Bewtiched, Star Wars, Herby the lovebug, King Kong, The Bad News Bears, Willy Wonka, and The Longest Yard, I plopped myself down to see yet another original movie.

The movie had this really bad soft focus crap going on, particularly in the begining. I think this was to subdue to CGI vs live action parts. The film did no homage to the original movie which is a classic, a great SCI-FI film, and more interesting and terryfying than this movie. The remake is boring. It strips out all of the good parts of the first film and leave nothing but a bug-eyed Cruise, his screaming kids, and that is about it. It is really thin.

I really hate these remakes or sequals. You already know what is going to happen. All the loud Dolby Digital, and silly special effects can't hide the end. War of the Worlds is aptly named. It is the most recent view of the battle between filmakers who want to make films that have not yet been done to death, and studios that cannot gamble on anytyhing but a tried and true formula.

If this continues I see the extermination of hollywood-based American cinema. Like the overblown spectaculars Cleopatra, these films are condeming modern cinema. More than likely things will contract and we may get back to something more akin to Hollywood of the late 60's and early 70's. Not creating the same pictures but a new breed of films going in different directions than the current corpratocracy can create.

I am not looking to Asia with any more hope than looking at Hollywood. Asia has been cranking out formula pictures for at least as long as Hollywood. How man variations on Crouching Tiger can we watch? I am sick of seeing movies that contain thousands of people and gigantic battle scenes. They get boring. Narnia may be a good story but the noise from all the block-busting, superflous cinema will probably relegate it to near instant DVDhood.

General Westmorland is dead

Not to complain about the dead but...
In his summing up what happened in Vietnam he stated that we failed to fullfill out obligation to South Vietnam. Well that is bunk. Tell that to the 58,000 men who were obliged to get killed defending South Vietnam. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of men who were obliged to get wounded and crippled defending South Vietnam. Tell that to the American taxpayers who spent hundreds of millions of dollars defending South Vietnam.
It was a stupid waste of American life to fight that stupid waste of a stupid war. And the men who propagated that stupid waste of men, treasure, and honor, I am sure are going to have a sore time explaining to GOD what the hell they were trying to pull.

Review of Cleopatra

Watching this movie is like eating a huge Domino's pizza. When you are finished you feel like you have consumed a giant cardboard slop pile. Filling your arteries with gunk, your gullet with bland clay.
This movie is terrible. It is an epic disaster like the Titanic, not the movie but the real thing. All the characters are sniveling little brats who want to be gods and kings and queens. The spend the whole movie whining. It is also a T&A film peopled by muscle men in little pants and cleavage women in little dresses. The only three character worth anything are Caesar, Octavian, and Rufius (Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, and Martin Landau) They are the glue that is disolved by the tiny-panted Marc Anthony, and big bossomed Cleopatra.
Here is the basic plot as told by the master story tellers of this epic slop fest:
Blah-blah-blah the end.
This movie gets a 1.

The ugliness factor and faux Christianity

One thing that the media seems to ignore in their dumping Christians together into a single pot is that there are big differences between some sects of that faith. While the mostly Protestant republicans court Catholics they need to understand that from Romes point of view they have fallen away from the "true" faith. And from the Protestant's point of view Catholics have fallen away from the "true" faith; whatever that is.

Some churches actively preach against what they refer to as Unionism, or actively worshiping with members of another sect. They believe that they are going to heaven and they don't want to associate with the people who are going to hell. To them Unionism or Universalism is a bad thing. This springs, I think, from a point of view that all that is needed to understand mans relationship with a God is already setdown and that further development is not required. History has proven this "concrete-christianity" totally wrong in almost every way. Faith has continuously morphed from age to age and will continue to do so. The plethera of Biblical translaions and versions alone are a testament to this fact. Many Christians detest the Jeffersonian bible since he edited out the miracles. Yet they gladdly read the Protestant bible that Luther edited himself, changing afew bits here and there, and dropping 7 whole books, to fit his own philosophy and concept of what the Bible should contain.

Today we read of a Presbyterian based national adoption agency that actively discrimanates against Catholic couples seeking to adopt. Catholics need not apply. Of course the core faith should be a unifying factor, but men like to split themselves into little "holier than thou" clicks. Most Christians I know don't really care much about differences in faiths. Still the movers and shakers, no pun intended, in Catholic and Protestant circles still adhere to a culture of division. If, for instance, Protestants look to the new Pope to be accepting of their brand of Christianity they will be very dissapointed. Likewise Catholics should not be surprised to be descrimanated against by Protestant adoption agencies.

And herein resides the best example of why a government must never attempt to mingle matters of faith with politics. Since there is no true faith, at least none that man can agree on. It has been and will continue to be eternally elusive and mercurial. Faith, like art, is in the eye of the beholder.
There is no common Christian heritage of America. The heritage is one of scapgoating, and persecution. And the persecution of Christian faith has not come from any secular humanists but from fellow Christians. For Anglicans persecuted the Puritans, who persecuted the Quakers and Catholics, who persecuted the Methodists, who intern persecuted the Catholics, and they all persecuted the persecuted the Mormons and lets not even go into the persecution of the Jews. Roman Catholics alone have spent at least 150 years being kept out of political life. In attaining the nations highest office, Catholics have faired only slightly better than African Americans. And in the height of ridiculous irony, John Kerry was accused of being not Catholic enough by Protestant pundits on the right.

Catholics in America are still better seen than heard. They are a convinient prop to be dragged out as an overt symbol of ancient faith, to be paraded around at election time, like some relic to raise funds for a cathedral. Then swept back under the Protestant dominated carpet to await the next election cycle.

There is just a ton of inconsistancy regarding the current leadership and religion. The Protestant right has given Catholics a pass on the massive sexabuse scandle. Blaming liberals for causing poor morals in priests; what a load of crap. While the Catholics give the Protestants a pass on their open support of capital punishment and the war in Iraq. To the non-religious, particularly the youth, this is destructive of future faith since it portrays religion as nothing worthy of persuit. It comes accross as a sham, a come on, and big fat political power-tool. So, like in Europe, a larger and larger segment of the population will withdraw from the low-brow antics of Churchmen while the faith declines here too. And the shame of it will not be on liberals but on the sheisters that have converted faith into a dull-minded weapong to hold onto power while it evaporates all around us.

Poll Crunch for Mid July

As of the 14th of July, a week after the bombings in London and the G-8 meetings and amid Rovegate, here is how the Big P is fairing:

Approval: 46%
Disapproval: 49%
Duh I'dunno: %5

Statistically there is no real change. However an ominous sign for Mr. Bush is that FOX News polling, usually bullish on Bush, is now at even money. Back in March FOX News had Bush with a 52-39 rating. Now it is 47-47. Gallup and Pew Reaserch gives Dubya good numbers and an improving rating. But when added all up he is still laying a big goose egg that ain't golden. There are more signs that Congress is going its own way on policy matters too. They are looking ahead to elections in 2006 and will be more and more reluctant to join in Administration hijinx that are not proving to be popular.

Outcome from July's expedition

Well we are done with the first of two expeditions to Yale. Our recent campout had weatehr that was probably a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. It could have been warmer, but on the whole it wasn't bad. We are definitely out of practice at the art of setting up a clean camp quickly. The martial speed, and precision left a lot to be desired. We forgot lots of essentials, such as cooking implements, and the proper amount of tent stakes. Jeff ended up getting some cooking utensils up at courgar store, and others we borrowed from the lone fir motel. Wood turned into one of the largest expenses. We probablhy spent 30 bucks on wood. I will bring a load of wood in August to save money on that. The boat used up about 1.5 tanks of gas ($55.5)
One thing that went by the wayside was our use of a supply tent. This concept is brilliant and required. Using a supply tent not only keeps the camp uncluttered by coolers and bags of food, but also secures our items from theft.
On the last night campsite 42 was piliaged by foodseekers. Nobody messed with our stuff; perhaps becuase we were lucky or perhpas because our stuff didn't look that good. Anyhow in August we will definitely revert to using a supply tent. And all valuables should either be carried on the boat or locked in cars.
Overall we had a blast of a time. Trudy and Jessica left wanting to do it again. And I left wanting to do it again. Jeff, Mike, and I fell into the groove pretty quickly. We did enough tubing to make my neck muscles sore but not enough to leave me in a wheelchair. We jumped off the bridge in the appropriate pythonesque manner, as did Jessica and her freind Megan. Jeff, Mike, Elizabeth and I went tubing too and I found that actually tubing was less scary than watching somelse tube. Also girth is good. The little girls tened to fly off the tubes when they ran into each other while those of us more suitably endowed simply bumped and bumbped again. Jeff was able to dislodge me by driving me throuh a particularly nasty bit of boat swell.
Oh yes, one last thing, after Jeff left we decided to go out on the boat one last time. I had to use all means at my disposal to budge the boat. The lake level fell about 10 inches in one night and the boat was almost stranded. We will be at #42 and there is no easy way to moore the boat infront of that site. So I think we should trailer the boat when we are done, or come up with some way to securely anchor the boat off shore. Any ideas?

For August: August 20-21-22-returning on 23

Get big grille ( I will get)
Get big skillet
Bring enough trash bags
Bring 10 tent stakes for green tent
Bring washrack for drying dishes

Gluttens for punishment

What we sow we reap. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. He that lives by the sword will be destroyed by it.

Using tactics that terrorize people to get your point accross, whether that is blowing up trains, destroying skyscrappers, or invading nations and killing civilians, only causes more destruction to fall upon the perpetrator.

Who paid Bin Laden and his fighters while they honed their skills in Afgahnistan? We did.

Who gave Bush the pretext to invade Iraq? Osama Bin Laden did.

Who is creating a breading ground of terrorists? We are.

Who is causing destruction and mayhem to fall upon their allies? Jihadists are.

As hard as it is for humans to get, we all reap what we sow. People that use violence to solve their problems can't win. All they can do is bring more violence on themselves and the people unlucky enough to surround them.

Happy Birthday!

229 years ago, the most literate bunch of citizens in the world decided that they did not need to have George around anymore. So the selected another George to lead their pathetic, under supplied, under trained, and non-military, army against the most powerful army in the world. In the begining they got the hell kicked out of them. They lost every engagement. 50% of the country didn't even want to be seperated from England. The British army however began to note that the insurgents did not play by the book.
The insurgents would attack convoys of British supplies moving between towns. They would snipe soldiers off horses. They would, in short, fight dirty. Some British soldiers would even get scalped by the insurgent fighters.
The British kept adding more and more troops. They occupied all the major cities, but the countryside was out of control.
While the british soldiers were the best, their commanders were hauty, snobs, who thought themselves invicible. Particularly Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne. He wrote his wife often of the privations of war, while traveling with thirty wagon-loads of personal effects and keeping several mistresses.
Burgoyne decided to invade New England from Canada. At first his troops proved quite sucessful. Then his supply lines were attacked and burned. Then the insurgents started to destroy the infrastructure. They chopped down trees to block the roads and flooded farm land to his front so his troops had no place to forage. Still the insurgents were continously pushed back and out faught by the better trained British troops.
Yet in the end, due to continued sniping, sabotage, and privation, Burgoyne and his grand plan was stopped. He finally through his forces, who were demoralized from sloging through bogs, clearing timber from roads, and dodging terror tactics, at the rebels holding Bernis Heights at the Second battle of Saratogo and was defeated. For his disasterous campaign he was recalled from America, he served as Commander in Cheif of Ireland, grew even more wealthy and was given a state funeral, with hero's honors in Westerminster Abbey. His men, who had sufferd and faught so well in a distant land, were kept starving in America, under the command of numerous lords, for another 3 years until they were surrounded and forced to surrender enmasse at Yorktown. Their leader that day was Lord Charles, Earl Cornwallis, who returned to England to a heros welcome. He spent the rest of his career putting down other rebellions with more success, having learned his lesson in America. Needless to say many of the British soldiers who had suffered in America were shipped to other areas of the Empire to suffer and die in those lands. They never got to Westminster Abbey.