Oh my God! Tomorrow is Halloween! Happy Happy Joy Joy!

I know what you’re thinking, “Eric up your medicine dose.” I say to thee nay! For Halloween is most verily my favorite holiday. Alas, gentle reader I have to make yet another complaint against all that which is trying to kill my fun. Namely, Hollywood can’t make a decent horror movie to save its life.

I love movies really I do. Give me a good old scary movie and I’m one happy nerd. The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project and Psycho all make me giddy. Granted they all work on different levels by they all rock my socks none the less. That being said The Blair Witch Project was the last decent horror movie I’ve seen and that didn’t even come out of mainstream Hollywood.

Stephen King’s fine work about horror fiction Danse Macabre said that there are three ways to scare people, you can horrify them, terrify them or gross them out. Hollywood has forgotten the first two almost entirely and has settled for movies that are one long series of gross outs. Granted the current level of Hollywood’s film making in general is sad. So I should suppose that horror movies would follow suit. But I don’t really care about other movies really. So with that in my I shall save Hollywood a lot of research money and tell them what needs to be done.

1.Have characters people care about. See that when it really hits the old fan, we will care and feel for them. That makes it scarier for the viewer. You don’t want bad things to happen to people you like. By having stupid or annoying characters in the movie the audience loses all interest in a big hurry.
2.STOP IT WITH ALL THE GROSS CRAP! I get it you can show me all this nastiness. I understand. But it’s not scary. It just makes people want to barf. There is a large difference.
3.Build some tension. The Blair Witch Project builds a lot of tension by making it almost first person. You see the events as the characters see them. You don’t know what’s out there and neither do they. That’s why the movie works. If there’s no tension in the movie then no one cares and you’ve lost.
4.Stop trying to make all the villains cool. Hannibal Lecter is a crappy villain. He is way too likable. You should never like a horror villain. Never! Norman Bates is not snuggling material nor should he be.

I hate to sound so whiny but I want some good horror movies. It’s in the spirit of the season after all.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I hate going for long rides. I can’t sleep. I can’t read in a moving vehicle all that well. So unless someone is feeling gabby, I’m one bored little monkey. My bus ride to Washington DC was no different. The seats weren’t all that comfortable. I couldn’t sleep. Reading was going to be a no go. So there I sat one bored little monkey. I looked out the window and saw Mars shining brightly off in the southeastern sky. I found it almost poetically ironic that as I traveled to DC for a rally promoting the end of the war in Iraq that the brightest light in the night sky would be Mars, the planet named after the God of War.

Mars the so-called Red Planet was thought to be red because it was covered in the blood of the soldiers slain in battle. It turns out the real reason for Mars’ coloration is less brutal; it’s covered in iron oxide dust or rust if you will. Also Mars is far from red really. It’s more of a pale orange like a baby aspirin.

Percival Lowell once saw what he thought to be canals on Mars. He thought some civilization must have been using the Martian Polar ice caps to irrigate more arid terrain. He was wrong. Later observations of Mars revealed no such features on Mars. In fact, there is still some debate about if he really saw the canals or what it exactly he saw.

Some of you may have received an E-mail stating that Mars this August will be as big as the Full Moon and as close to as it has been in 60,000 years. That’s wrong to. Mars is as close as it’s going to get to us, for about fifteen years, right about now. It will never be as large as the Full Moon in our sky unless something very drastic happens to our orbits. It was 2003 that Mars was as close as it’s been to us in 60,000 years not this year.

Though you may be thinking that Mars is a bit of a let down as a planet, nothing could be farther from the truth. The Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano on Mars, stands 88,600 feet tall and it’s width stretches 335 miles across. It is the biggest mountain in our solar system and would cover Ohio if it was placed on Earth. The Valles Marineris, a canyon on Mars, is 4,500 km long by 200 km wide by 11 km deep. It is ten times longer and seven times wider and seven times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Though Mars has a tenous atmosphere it is occasionally covered by planet wide dust storms that obscure Mars for any observation.

Mars is far from a let down. So is the rest of our universe including our planet, Earth. Our Universe is brimming the fasinating things. Yet, people don’t care. I just don’t get it. How could you not want to learn and observe and come to understand the world around you and where that world calls home? After all, the more you understand the world around you the more tolerable that long bus trip is going to be.

Keep looking up.

Rosa Parks died on October 24th and her courage in the face of oppression is inspiring. Her act of defiance helped spark one of the truly great revolutions ever. Her courage in defying an unjust law made this country a better place for us all.

October 25th marks the passing of the 2000th US soldier in Iraq. I know the hawks are saying this is some arbitrary number. That it really doesn’t mean anything. I suppose in a small way they are right all deaths in Iraq are tragic. Unless of course you’re like Ted Koppel and try and read all the names of the fallen and show their faces on late-night television. In which case you’re a total subversive but I digress.

But if I may be so bold I have a few questions. What happened to the swift war we were promised? What happened to be greeted as liberators? What happened to “Mission Accomplished”? What exactly is our “Noble Cause”?

Let us not forget the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis. Their deaths are a tragedy as well.

The war in Iraq is wrong, end of argument.

Iraq was no threat to us.

Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

There was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Simply disposing an evil dictator is not a reason for war. If it is, shall we invade China next? They have a lousy human rights record and have weapons of mass destruction, so why not them? Maybe we could go in and depose all the corrupt leaders in Africa that are letting their people starve and allowing genocide to occur? Why was Iraq special? Was it oil? Was it a grudge left over from the Gulf War?

It is not better that we fight the war over there rather than here. If this war is keeping them so occupied how did they find the time to attack Britain, Spain and Indonesia? Just because we haven’t been hit again doesn’t mean they aren’t plenty busy attacking elsewhere. Remember this is not a regular army we are fighting. This is a loose band of rebels. They are driven by an idea. It’s awfully hard to stop an idea with bombs and bullets. Plus they don’t need to come to US soil to attack Americans we sent them 140,000.

Rosa Parks wouldn’t leave that seat on the bus because she knew the law was unjust. I will not stop opposing this war because it is unjust. Not that I am even one-hundredth as brave as the great Mrs. Parks. But, I shall continue to fight none the less.

Rest in peace Rosa Parks you have earned it.

It’s kind of funny how much coincidence there is in the world. A little while ago I read a rather good article in the Findlay Courier by Mariah Mercer about how a lot of Christians get it wrong. They get so worried about gay marriage and the like that they forget all about doing charitable works and that happy goodness. Well what inspired Ms. Mercer to write her column was hearing one of her favorite hymns “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Well, I’m sitting at Mass today and guess what the recessional hymn was. You guess it; “They will know we are Christians by our love.” So I’ll give you three guesses what I’m going to write about.

For those of you who don’t know me or are new here, I’m Catholic. I’ll admit I’m Catholic that struggles with his faith and the idea of faith in general. But, then again I over-think everything so self-doubt is one of my more natural states of being. That being said I do have twelve years of Catholic education and due to some involvement in some ecumenical groups I have a small insight to some other faiths. So I feel like I have an OK theological base of knowledge to work with. I shall ignore non-Christian faiths because I’m not knowledgeable enough about them to make a sound criticism.

That being said I think a lot of Christians get it wrong. They get so worried about saving their own souls and condemning sinners that they forget how we will be truly be judged. We will be judged in how we treat the least of our brothers and sisters. Yes I know I’m paraphrasing. Many Christians are so consumed with how evil some music or video game is they don’t take the time to correct the evils of poverty and bigotry. They get so busy looking through the Bible for some off quote to condemn gays that they forget to read about Jesus’ work healing the sick and offering comfort to the outcasts. I believe these people are rather neatly summed up by a lyric from the song “Eulogy” by the band Tool, “Ranting and pointing his finger at everything but his heart.”

See if pressed I’d say the mission of Christians is to be an honest, ethical and generous person. It is not to condemn people. Do you remember, “Judge not lest ye be judged”?

I’m not writing this to condemn all Christians; in fact, I know a rather large number of good ones. Unfortunately it’s the ones with the least positive message that make the most racket. The empty can rattles the most you know.

Thank you Mariah wherever you are.

And away we go!

There’s this duo of pretty little thirteen year old pop princesses called Prussian Blue. What the big deal you may ask? Aren’t there about a jillion under talented teenage pop star in the making out there? Well these two little precious moppets are different. See they’re Aryan. They sing about how happy they are to be white. They call Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, "man of peace who wouldn't give up." Read all about it here.

I don’t hate these kids. I feel sorry for them. It’s not their thoughts they’re thinking. It’s their parent’s bad ideas that they are singing about. These kids can’t help it that their parents are douche bags. It’s a shame when people feel the need to spread hatred.

Plus to name your kids Lamb and Lynx, that’s bad enough, but to then make them racist. It reminds of a lyric from the song “Flagpole Sitter” by Harvey Danger, “Been all over the world and found out that only stupid people are breeding.”

I hope we’re all done with the hurricanes this year. I hope for this not only to end the pain and suffering of the victims but also so the news channels can give it a rest already. CNN is my Hurricane Headquarters or some other such nonsense. Since Wilma is now a category 2 storm and could be considerably weaker by the time it makes it to Florida we’ll have to endure 80 reporters standing outside in the storm just to show us how bad it is. Then we’ll have to watch them tag along on rescue efforts. So they can help save old people and puppies. God it’s sad.

Admit it, you’d laugh if some obnoxious news reporter like Geraldo Rivera got sucked up in a hurricane and shot about halfway to Africa. Adios!

Until next time.

I see how you people are. I post helpful hints for the happiest day of the year and I get nothing. I mock our President and our country's foreign policy and you people won’t shut up. It’s like you people read and have priorities or something.

Relax, I kid. I appreciate any response I get even if it disagrees with me.

Again today I shall now inflict upon your fragile psyche some random musings.

Anger is maybe our trickiest of emotions. Some people would like you to believe that being angry is bad, that you should learn to reign in your anger. Anger is destructive they say. I tend to disagree somewhat. It’s not anger itself that is destructive but rather what you do with it. Anger is like a gun, guns don’t kill people idiots with guns kill people. Anger doesn’t kill people idiots that can’t control their anger kill people. Anger is sometimes, as the religious like to say, righteous.

Just so you know I’m not defining anger as getting a little impatient in the check out line or when someone cuts you off in traffic. That’s more of a reflexive action and generally doesn’t lead to the need for a large stash of body bags. The anger I’m talking about is the struck speechless or blood boiling type.

Anger at the abusive, bullying and downright evil elements of our society is ok. As long as that anger turns into something productive, like say an effort to help battered women or get laws passed to help people who need help. Then your anger was productive and it’s all good.

If you walk around picking fights and angry at the world, then you need a nice long vacation in a padded room. You have issues that need corrected. Please seek out immediate medical assistance or call Tom Cruise and he’ll make you too crazy to ever be angry again. Just look at Katie Holmes. (I know that was a cheap shot, but it was funny.)

On a completely unrelated note, have you ever know someone who used the dreaded F-word “fuck” as about every other word in his or her vocabulary? You know the type that uses it as an adjective, noun, verb and exclamation. Now I must admit it does find use from time to time in my own vocabulary. But, I try and save it for special occasions. To do otherwise would mark me as a moron and there are those among us who feel I have more than enough marking me as that.

Sleep tight.

YAY!

It’s getting close! The hap hap happiest time of the year is almost here! Halloween is less than two weeks away and I’m a geekgasm just waiting to happen.

Unfortunately most of you don’t share my adoration for Halloween. So you don’t show it the love it so richly deserves. This leads to that most heinous of unreported crimes bad candy dispersal on Trick or Treat night. It’s tragic. Wide-eyed and hopeful youths racing about, collecting as much sugary goodness as possible only to have their little hopes dashed by people who don’t care. It is in the spirit of the holiday that I offer to you these little tips to make Halloween more joyful and keep a lot of angry kids from toilet papering your house.

The following items are truly evil and should never under any circumstances be distributed on Trick or Treat night, ever. This list is as follows: popcorn balls, apples, pennies, and loose candy corn and candy that cannot be identified as to its flavor or purpose. Popcorn balls don’t taste good and make better sporting goods than treats, so leave them out of my bag please. Apples are fruit and fruit stands against all that is sacred about trick or treating. No one wants health food we need sugar bombs. Pennies couldn’t buy anything when I was trick or treating 20 years ago. Their buying power has not increased. Loose candy corn is evil. Just feel free to scatter some free roaming little bits of something that taste like neither candy nor corn in my bag Mr. Wet Blanket. Why not just break up that bag of M&M’s and dump that in to? Unidentifiable candy is plain evil. Would you eat unidentifiable meat? Then don’t pass out candy that needs DNA testing to figure out what it is.

This is not say the distributors of sugary goodness are the only wet blankets on Trick or Treat night. Far from it, many a trick or treater has ruined a little bit for everyone. I now give you the guilty parties.

If you don’t wear a costume do not go begging for candy. That’s the deal. You put a little effort in by dressing up and I give you enough sugar to ruin your sleep habits for a week. It’s how it works.

If you’re old enough to drive you shouldn’t be trick or treating. Trick or treating is for kids not people to cheap to buy candy.

Speaking of being cheap, if your kid can’t walk or eat candy you have zero business dressing them up and dragging them around trick or treating. Go buy some candy and sit around the house and eat it. Trick or Treat night is for children that have independent mobility. Leave your infants at home please.

Also speaking of Trick or Treat night, you must have it at night. Stop it with this nonsense of having it in the afternoon or right before the sunsets. You need darkness for the full joy of running house-to-house hording candy. Please stop with this lie it’s for the children’s safety. When in our history did little kids lie in piles of broken bodies on Trick or Treat night? So stop the insanity and let the little munchkins go out at night.

Sorry to sound so preachy, but I hate to see a perfectly good holiday ruined.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I must be psychic. Yesterday I ask you to read this fine piece and now today I read Ohio has joined the ranks of the insane. You see gentle reader if you’re a registered sex offender you can be evicted from your home if you live too close to a school, library, park or any other place legislators feel that children may be at risk to be abducted or abused by sexual predators. Just so you know sexual predator is my least favorite political euphemism hands down. We should call the criminals by their crimes not some vague political BS term.

Anyway so if a community puts up say 2500-foot radius rule, like North Canton, Ohio did. Meaning that a sexual predator may not live within 2500 feet of a school or park or whatever the community has deemed as unsafe for these sexual predators to live near. So if you have a house say 2100 feet from a school you get kicked out. This law is worthless. Why is it worthless? Ask any woman who’s gotten a restraining order to keep an abusive lover or spouse away and she’ll tell you they’re not the most effective things. Some imaginary zone to protect the children is almost laughable. We might as well give them imaginary guards with imaginary guns.

Why only these zones for sex offenders? Why not for those people who abuse their children or how about those with a history of burglary? Why is it only sex offenders we’re all worried about? Are our politicians truly concerned with our safety or are they just trying to look all tough?

If there are enough 1000 or even larger foot radius zones in a town it might be pretty difficult for some people to have anywhere to live. You draw enough circles with 1000 feet radii it gets really hard to find real estate really fast. Are we going to have to build internment camps soon?

If we want to be serious about protecting our children, here’s what we ought to do.

First, we need to have tough sentencing for worst sex offenders, rapists and child molesters. People who have a history of doing either are not likely to ever stop. So it’s off to a jail cell forever for these people. These people are a danger to society and we need to keep them away from those they would do harm to.

Second, we need to offer counseling to the victims. The big problem with sexual abuse is that it tends to be cyclical. Those who are abused as children grow into abusers as adults or continue to allow themselves to be abused as adults. If we intervene soon enough we can start to break the cycle and slowly but surely start making our streets actually safer. But the problem is that no one wants slowly and surely they want immediate results. Sexual abuse is not a problem that can be solved with punishment alone there also needs to be healing and that takes patience.

We also need to lose this God-awful umbrella term, sexual predator. It’s far too vague. The words don’t have enough impact. Even the term sex offender is a rather weak choice of words. We need to be specific. If someone is labeled as a rapist you know what he or she did. If someone is labeled a sex offender you got no idea what he or she may be guilty of. So lets call them what they are. Let’s lose our worthless political euphuisms or to paraphrase Malcolm X, let’s all speak in a language everyone can easily understand.

Just to make things clear because I don’t want to lose any of you. I am not defending the behavior of child molesters and rapists. I think these people are vile scum who need to be kept far away from society. What makes me mad is this faux tough guy position these politicians take on crime, when in reality they’ve really done nothing at all.

Again there’s too much going one for my scatterbrain to settle on one topic so away I go.

First go read this transcript.

Wow. First about this bold move we made. See a bold move is wearing white after Labor Day. Invading a country without a good reason is criminal. Notice the distinction. So apparently this wasn’t a necessary move anymore. It is now a bold move to insure that democracy spreads like little turd blossoms in the desert. (I am unable to resist a turd blossom joke.)

You see with the war getting less and less popular Washington is taking a clue from Madison Avenue and they’re repackaging the war. It’s now a bigger bolder war, with your protection in mind. It’s sickness really. Remember when they called the Korean War a police action? Or we fought Operation Desert Storm? Simply renaming it or adding adjectives doesn’t change the truth.

Also, what’s this “proximate cause” crap? Let me see Al Qaeda has members train to fly plains, they then hijack four jets and fly them into buildings. I think proximate is a bit of a weasely word choice. Al Qaeda planned and executed the attacks on September 11th, 2001. There’s no proximate about it. Al Qaeda is guilty and should be brought to justice. Calling Al Qaeda a proximate cause of he disasters on September 11th, 2001 is like saying the Manson Family is a proximate cause of Sharon Tate’s murder.

Do you get the feeling this administration is trying move the attention away from Al Qaeda? I mean it’s been four years and we still don’t have Bin Laden yet. No need to worry about them. They’re just a proximate threat.

Just a quick word about the North Toledo riots. If you’re not familiar with the story go here. Anyway the biggest tragedy is that neo-Nazis got exactly what they wanted. The National Socialist Movement or the “America’s Nazi Party” came from Virginia up to Toledo and held their little march. When the locals showed up, at least some of them gang members, and began rioting; the Nazis work there was done. The local black community looked bad and their little group got some free publicity. Mission accomplished.

To paraphrase John Belushi, “I hate Virginia Nazis”.

One more little thing, when you travel from Virginia to Ohio and can only muster about 15 people for your rally, your movement is officially sad.

One more thing, please go and read this. All I can say is “Amen Brother”. I hate it when someone says something I’ve been thinking and it does it very well.

Sleep tight.

I’m having withdrawal symptoms. Three days and no posting, I may need therapy.

Anyway I have this rather big idea I shall soon unleash upon you. You see I have a gripe with current state of American socio-political thinking. We seem to have a rather limited idea of how many sides there are on a given issue. We have narrowed the whole spectrum down to two. Well there are usually three in most polls. There’s side A, side B and the always-entertaining undecided. But that’s about the best you can hope for. We’ve over-simplified thought to the point where you don’t even have to think. You’re either for it or against it. It’s all black or white. No need for shades of gray.

Normally I’m a big simplicity fan. But in this case I must make an exception. Most issues are far too large to be convenient yes or no answers. Plus, the truth is generally somewhere in the middle anyway.

Again I shall soon start whining about this soon. You’ve been warned.

Meanwhile, in other news, Harriet Miers is either smitten with George Bush or she’s got the IQ or a radish. “You’re the best Governor ever”, “He’s the most brilliant man I’ve ever met” please pass the barf bag. Was she nominated for the Supreme Court or Homecoming Queen?

Saddam Hussein is going on trial soon. I wonder how that one will turn out? I must admit I’d pay to see Bush’s reaction if he was found innocent. If or more likely when he’s found guilty he’ll be put to death. How does that fit into Bush’s whole culture of life? I’m just curious.

Note to my Republican friends; if you’re going to start a faux news video service do not hire someone named Mercy Schlapp to anchor it.

See you soon kids.

Burger King is attempting to kill us all. Not only does Burger King have some breakfast sandwich, which is meat on top of meat on top of meat. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of meat. They also now have, I’m not making this up, turbo-strength coffee.

First off, do we really need a sandwich with triple meat? Have we not learned as a culture that too much meat makes you a bit larger than you want to be? Sausage, bacon and ham at the same meal would be a wee bit over the top. Pick one and move on. You don’t need all three. Maybe you could skip the meat for breakfast altogether.

Am I the only one that thinks turbo-strength coffee is a sign on the apocalypse? How chemically dependant are we as a culture that normal strength coffee isn’t enough?

I admit I don’t drink coffee. It tastes like crap. But, there have been rare occasions when I needed a pick me up. So I’d go get a coffee somewhere and load it up with a lot of sugar and cream to hide the nasty taste. Let me tell you coffee is quite the energy boost. I see no real need to increase its kick. What does turbo-strength coffee do for you? Make you sit in the corner shaking and peeing your pants? Never sleep more then 15 minutes at a time?

Why would you need turbo coffee anyway? Are you working six jobs? Do you need to jog from Boston to Nome? Or is it that we’ve come dependant on little pick me ups to survive instead of getting enough rest and being more organized and judicious with our time?

Lots to gab about today so let’s get to it.

Remember that porn Website that was trading free access to porn for pictures of dead Iraqis? Well the Webmaster of that particular Website is now been arrested on obscenity charges. Click Here Of course the military has nothing to do with this. I mean if this became a national story it wouldn’t hurt the war effort at all. Of course the Pentagon was never convinced that pictures were real. So this only has to do with that nasty pornography. Sure it does.

My recent post about how to end was had as one of its points that poverty needed to be addressed. My new friend Dave, who often posts to tell me how wrong I am, stated that no country does more to fight poverty than the USA, I had my doubts. I lacked anything backing me up however. Lo and behold today I found this fine article. Click Here Please read the article.

I find it odd we pledged .7% of our GDP and we’re currently giving about .16%. For those of you bad with numbers I’ll elaborate. .7% is equal to 7 cents for every 10 dollars you have. That’s not a lot really. .16% is equal to 16 cents on every 100 dollars you have. That’s really not a lot.

Just to make it worse we’re only contributing about 23% of the amount we pledged to give. That’s just sad. We can consistently come up with 50 billion for Iraq, but caring for the people who need it is a real struggle apparently.

The Smoking Gun has a fine piece about these cops who visited a massage parlor and received sexual gratification, not once, not twice but three times before they made the bust. Click Here See usually cops make a bust as soon as sex is offered. They don’t get the “handy handy”, as its called in the affidavit, before the bust. Much less get it 3 times. That’s just insane.

That’s all for now.

I read today that female Scientologists are supposed to give birth to their children in silence and without taking any drugs. What do you want to bet a man wrote that rule? You see Scientologists believe that a child born into a quiet calm world is better off. Also they discourage their practitioners from taking drugs. So no pain killers and please be quiet, you might disturb the child. Personally I’d like to see L. Ron Hubbard try and pass a watermelon through an opening the size of a dime.

See any religion that denies basic medical treatment to its believers is bad. We were given brains for a reason. If through science we can fix problems then we should. To deny people healing and comfort is wrong.

I know what some of you are thinking, “Gee Eric how can you judge?” I’ll tell you how, if you really must know. I believe that there are many roads to enlightenment and heaven not infinite. Just because something dresses itself up as religion or some pseudo-scientific school of thought does not make it legitimate. Anything that denies people help is wrong.

What about abortion? You may be thinking. An elective abortion is not basic medical treatment. Women get abortions for a lot of different reasons and though I’m not a big fan of the procedure and I’d like to see society get to a place where elective abortions are unnecessary because we have highly effective birth control and people make responsible decisions. I don’t want it outlawed though because the alternative to abortion is as bad as what we got now. If however the women’s life is at danger then it’s her decision. I would never ask someone to die. Same thing applies in cases of rape as well. She had no part in the decision to get pregnant so it’s her decision whether or not to carry it to term.

That little sidetrack aside I understand why religions are usually so anti-abortion. Twelve years in Catholic school and you pick up a few things. The religious argument is that all life is sacred. So even the unborn have right to protection from undue harm. I tend to agree.

It does however infuriate me when someone who is hard line anti-abortion because they want to protect the innocent babies doesn’t care about hungry kids or civilian casualties in war or innocent men on death row. If you’re going to defend life as sacred then it better be all life or your point is moot.

I do wish they wouldn’t make it such an issue however. There are millions of people who have died for horribly unjust reasons, capital punishment and war, and they should oppose those at least as strongly as they do abortion. But abortion I guess is an easier target. Pregnant women aren’t quite the opposition that heads of state are.

Whoa! I started out ripping Scientology and ended up with an abortion essay. Thankfully I never said my blog would be coherent.

Goody for me! I live in the most corrupt state in the union!!!!!!!

Salon.com is reporting that Fritz Wenzel, who was working as the chief political columnist for the Toledo Blade and as a correspondent for WTVG at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in between working for the GOP and Republican candidates, was made aware of the scandal known as “Coingate” in early 2004. He however did not give the Toledo Blade the tip until after Bush had won the election. Had this scandal blown up before the elections there is quite reasonable doubt whether Bush could have ever won Ohio. Had Bush lost Ohio we would now be referring to John Kerry as President Kerry.

For those of you not familiar with “Coingate” it involves rare coin dealer and Republican fund-raiser Tom Noe. Tom Noe was given fifty million dollars by the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation to invest in rare coins. Since apparently out Beanie Babies and X-Men collections weren’t doing so hot. Of the original fifty million about twelve to thirteen million cannot be accounted for. Read the article; trust me it just got weirder and more complicated after that. God only knows where the money went.

In the midst of all this our Governor, Bob Taft, was found guilty of four misdemeanors for failing to report four golf outings valued at $5800 he received from lobbyists. This earned Taft the dubious distinction of being the first Ohio governor ever charged with a crime while in office. Under the Ohio Constitution he could be removed from office, but the General Assembly did not push for that. The conviction did however drop his approval ratings down to all of 15%. Just as a reference Nixon’s approval rating was 24% when he resigned.

Never mind that the 2004 elections in Ohio stunk to high heaven. Long waiting lines in poor black neighborhoods were the norm. Vote totals in several locations were impossible. All in all it was nasty ugly election that made Ohio look like a bunch of incompetents.

I understand if you don’t live in Ohio you’ve probably never heard of most of this. I mean there are missing teenagers to report on. Tom Cruise impregnated Katie Holmes! Britney Spears gave birth! Ashton and Demi got married! You can’t be bothered with news about the sad state of the political system in this country, now can you?

It’s venting time!

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are expecting a child. Great Googley Moogley! Xenu’s offspring will soon be upon us. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Harriet Miers is nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Does Bush not get it? All he does is put his little under-qualified cronies in very high-ranking positions. Does Michael Brown ring any bells? I know Supreme Court justices without previous judicial experience have done well. The difference between them and our new friend Harriet is that they had a long history of working in government. Harriet has followed George around like a loyal puppy. Hell, even the Republicans don’t like her. Wonder what the odds are of this nomination even clearing committee?

CD sales fell 2% last year and the record industry blames people pirating music. No, it’s not the pirates. It’s the fact that music really sucks right now. There is no breath of fresh air, no revolutionary acts and no sense of what you are listening to isn’t corporate approved crap. OK, I’ll admit to a scarce few exceptions but taken as a whole the music industry is in the same toilet as the movie industry because they are letting accountants and lawyers make the decisions instead of artists.

Nicholas Cage named his kid Kal-El. For those of you who are geek-impaired, I’ll explain. Kal-El is Superman’s Kryptonian name. I hope the kid gets a bodyguard when he goes to school or it’s going to be ugly on the playground.

Hey kids,

Since the issue seems to be heating a bit since I last posted anything on it, I though I might elaborate a bit on this intelligent design mess.

One of the big intellectual problems it has it makes some huge assumptions. It assumes since some things are complex that there is no way that they could have occurred by chance. Let’s see the Universe is about 15 billion years old. No time for any complex systems like galaxies and DNA to develop. Everything in the Universe has at least some level of complexity. That’s because it’ had time on it’s side. 15 billion years is an awful lot of time and a lot of wonderful things can happen over that kind of time.

Just because something is unlikely to happen doesn’t make it impossible. It’s been said that nothing is too wonderful to be true I tend to agree.

I saw Monica Crowley tow the party line of “science class should teach all possible alternatives” on her little MSNBC show today. Ms. Crowley obviously is not well read in the sciences. Teaching possible alternative theories in science would mean high school science class would take about 50 years to complete. There’s an alternative to everything from the Big Bang to the extinction of the dinosaurs to why the sky is blue. I kid you not. If you’re going to teach one alternative shouldn’t you teach them all?

You see the intelligent design supporters don’t really give a damn about science class as a whole. They just want to get intelligent design into science class since there’s no chance of creationism getting into public schools. So they dressed up an old philosophical argument for this existence of God. Notice how there is a “creator” now not God. See they’re hiding behind the veil of universalism. I’m not buying it. So if a kid asks their teacher who the creator was and the teacher says, “Well it could have been God, Odin, Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster ”. Is that going to be all right?

Sleep tight.