Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers - Politics & Sociology

It was called Operation Overlord and it was meticulously planned and ultimately victorious. But it was a cluster fuck in terms of execution. It was sheer will that won the day, not superior military tactics.

For the past five days, I have stormed the cliff at Omaha beach seized fields and farmhouses. Been sniped out, machine gunned, and gaffled up by pudgy Nazi troops yelling, "AMERICANA!" Finally, I had to massacre about 100 Nazis from a 150-foot cilo as they set up mortar bases in teams of two a mile around me in a total sphere.

But I finally did it.

And my son finally went number two in the potty...and he flushed and washed his hands.

It's the little victories that turn the berries of life blacker and make their taste that much sweeter.

And I didn't post a damn thing this weekend because I've made a new pact with you, dear reader. I'm not going to post something on this blog unless it means something, unless it has weight.

I'm not going to tell you what I think about the mundanities of life. Frankly, I don't give a shit about Dick Cheney shooting a 78-year old lawyer in the face because the truth is that I wish the accidental shooting of lawyers took place more often in this country. But you can't say that and have it come off as funny as when you speak it.

And I'm still holding onto a podcast that could change the world. In less than 25 minutes, Jason and I connected quantum physics, cultural cosmology, artistic aesthetics, and personal psychology into a spiritual silver sabre that will pierce the dragon's heart and rescue the princess from the tower. But I'm savoring the sheen of the blade in the moonlight before sneaking up and plunging the blade into the atrium of the great beast. I want to see its eyes when the blade hits its mark and the bell tolls again in America and around the world.

We storm these beaches every day.

And with little victories come tick mark celebrations that we ingest among solitary cave walls with blood scratched bisons and thoughts of sympathetic magic through spear and rebirth.

David Gilmour, the master guitarist of Pink Floyd legend is coming out with a new album and it makes me want to point my rifle to the sky and shoot bullets at Apollo.

It makes me want to fight through the foliage and wash my dragon weapon in the sea once again.

LINKS:
David Gilmour

TAGS:
D-Day, Operation Overlord, Call of Duty 2, XBOX 360, David Gilmour, Blogcast, Joshua Minton, Jason Patterson, Cosmology, Physics, Psychology, Art, Aesthetics, Dick Cheney

I can trace the beginning of the explosion of my intellect back to one Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and was written by Diane Duane & Michael Reaves.

In this episode, Picard and crew welcome a loud-mouth, self-important asshole know-it-all onto the ship to "reconfigure" the warp engines to supposedly exceed all know warp speeds to that point.

Well, this guy brings a "traveler" assistant with him who Counselor Troi refers to as "not even there" emotionally.

The experiment works, but only because the traveler manipulated space and time to the point where the Enterprise winds up in some "dimension" where their thoughts actually become reality--and this is the "spiritual plane" where the traveler exists.

They eventually get back but the traveler must sacrifice his existence in this realm in order to warp space and time in a way that will get them back to their "reality/existence." Before going, the traveler has a conversation with Wesley Crusher (played by Wil Wheaton of Blogospheric Legendary Fame) whereby Wesley guesses at the traveler's secret by suggesting that space, time, and thought weren't the separate things we think they are--that they are all intricately connencted. The traveler confirms this and speaks privately with Captain Picard, telling him that Wesley is a genius on the scale of Mozart and should be encouraged but restrained at the same time.

Thus, Wesley gets his pin as acting Ensign and the series really began taking off from there in terms of the level of storytelling.

In one of the latter episodes of the final season (Season 7 for those of you who aren't Trekkies out there), the Traveler returns to "claim" Wesley and take him to the other dimension where he will begin existing on that plane.

[Begin Star Wars and Stephen King Digression]

This actually reminds me of the Jedi in the Star Wars Universe hand picking their Padawan learners at very young ages. Also, keep in mind that Anakin and Luke were chosen very late in life for Padawan learnes, during a time when the barriers between space, time, and thought had been well established and they were at the peak of their emotional vulnerability, able to be manipulated by strong forces.

Anakin built the foundation of his spiritual projection onto the world with the force of power pulling him in every direction to make things right so that he could enjoy his time with Padme and his new child.

Luke, on the other hand, fought against this will to power and embraced the path of individual enlightenment supporting a strong and clear headed Democracy of leaders who were concerned with building and maintaining peace instead of a constant series of war in order to better secure the space and resources of the single planet (or galaxy) they existed on and in.

Luke supported a social outward turning mental projection with a very strong and independent spiritual turning inward.

Darth Vader supported the turning inward of everything--into himself and for himself alone. This is also the choice we must each make for ourselves. George Lucas is a quiet genius of the magnitude that artistic criticism has never been able to embrace in the times which the artist actually lives.

I also consider Stephen King to be an artist on this level. These men have allowed themselves to become golden tools of creative spiritual channeling so that each of us as individuals can better turn inward while focusing outward at the same time.

But I digress.

[End Star Wars and Stephen King Digression]

But getting back to the point of my Awakening of Intelligence which was inspired by this episode of Star Trek; it changed the way I thought about everything.

The entire story arc of Wesley Crusher going to one day come back to save all of humanity by showing them how they will elevate their thinking to the next level of existence completely changed the way I thought about the nature of the inner and outer universes.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was a perfect piece of television art because, at an early age; I was able to digest a very high-brow concept of Theoretical Physics, Cosmology, and Philosophy without knowing that I was being exposed to it and that my brain was processing it in the background. I saw right through the metaphors and something remained without my knowledge, a small litle tear in the complacency of my inquiry towards the deeper mysteries of life and the universes both inside and outside of us (which I believe are ultimately the same universe viewed from two different angles).

And that small tear grew into a very big hole, full of the thrust of quantum questioning. There was a fire in the mind and not the pompous explosion of a Supernova star, too fat with its own weight to contain the energy being channeled into it and through it. But it was a cool blue pulsing neutron star that pulled all things into it but yet still exerted such gravitational force and luminosity that if completely unveiled in the light of day, it would drown out all other sensation and destroy the flimsy separation that exists in the mental and spiritual spaces between people and objects in the rational natural world.

The question eventually turned back on itself to reveal a dual-sided coin. One one side are planets, asteroids, black holes. On the other side are the churches and the books, the lofted notions, and don't forget the bombs and bullets. The images of god that we kill for just wouldn't be the same without bombs and bullets, right?

So I still don't have any answers yet; but if you hit me up in about eighty years, I should at least be able to tell you which one's my ass and which one's the mud-hole walked dry by big mouth bloggers who are arrogant enough to think they actually know it all.

LINKS:
The Enterprise-Inspired Nissan Terranaut
Wil Wheaton's Blog
Star Trek.com
Star Wars.com
Stephen King.com

TAGS:
Star Trek, The Next Generation, Star Wars, George Lucas, Stephen King, Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Captain Picard, Wesley Crusher, Wil Wheaton, Art, Cosmology, Philosophy, Physics, Traveler, Where No Man Has Gone Before, Diane Duane, Michael Reaves

It's almost jaw-dropping, how far Western medicine has advanced in the realm of pharmacology. We have a plethora of pills designed to make specific organs act in specific ways to as to relieve the symptoms and side effects of almost any disease.

But one has to wonder what it would be like if we were to push our enormous resources into the grand effort of actually curing disease, which really means promoting the body's utmost health so that it does not begin suffering from "dis-ease." Oh, I know the media is always talking about dieting and how to eat and exercise properly but is the government truly concerned about the health of the sheep?

Let me put it to you this way: anyone who has even the remotest experience with the Atkins Diet knows that excess carbohydrates of the wrong type are bad for your health and could even be deadly if abused.

Yet, for several decades, the United States Department of Agriculture put forth a suggested mandate that US citizens live under a food pyramid which over-emphasized that exact type of dietary behavior. Follow the money here--the Department of Agriculture is concerned, not with the health of the citizenry, but with supporting the agriculture industry in America.

In this same sense, we have a healthcare industry which isn't concerned with creating healthy citizenry, but rather with desigining and producing a surplus of pills and treatments aimed at the biggest market in human history--disease.

I wonder how it would affect the economic windfall profits of pharmacy companies if Americans truly were to get healthy. If each of us took the initiative to exercise and eat a balanced diet, we wouldn't need elaborate and ridiculous public health spending programs.

TAGS:
Pharmaceutical Companies, USDA, Food Pyramid, Atkins Diet, Health

...comes from JD over at the Mouth of the Brazos blog:

Looks to me like, if you have a single lick of common sense, and even an Austin lawyer should have one lick or so remaining, you’d know to keep the fuck back out of range when another dumbass, especially a politician, is waving around a loaded shotgun.

I don't care what side of the aisle you hang your hat on--that is some funny shit!

Links:
JD's Post

**The following came from my local Libertarian chapter (of which I am not a member of but I am an "interested" observer):**

Congress Attempts to Kill the "Third-Party Threat"

Proposed Legislation Creates Treasury-Funded Campaigns for the Two Major Parties, Leaving Third Parties with No Means to Run

(Washington, D.C.) On February 1, congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Obey of Wisconsin, introduced a bill, H.R. 4694, that would end viable, third-party competition in races for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill, ironically named the "Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act,"
would mandate public funds (taken from the U.S. Treasury) to candidates for the House of Representatives and forbid candidates from taking private funds such as contributions from individual donors.

The ambiguously-written bill provides funds for candidates of the "two major parties" but essentially scuttles any campaign efforts of third-party or independent candidates.

For third-party candidates to be eligible for the same funds that Republicans and Democrats would receive, they would have to obtain enough signatures to exceed 20% of votes cast in the last election within their district.

The catch under the proposed legislation is that third-party or independent candidates cannot pay petitioners to collect any signatures, making it impossible to fund their campaigns.

H.R. 4694 is yet another attempt by our politicians in office to shut down Libertarian Party candidates and other competitive third-party and independent campaigns.

"The Republican and Democratic parties exist to maintain power for their own benefit. The Libertarian Party exists to grasp power for the benefit of the nation," stated Shane Cory, chief of staff for the Libertarian Party.
"American voters are waking up to this reality, and as they do, the two parties are trying everything within their power to shut us down."

Links:
The Libertarian Party of Ohio

TAGS:
Libertarian Party of Ohio, Libertarian Party, Third Party, US Elections

...is the issue of publicly-funded art. So Rush and Hannity can humbly kiss my ass as I disagree with them on this point.

I have been without cable since the last night of the Republican Convention of 2004. I did this for the main reason of purchasing a new computer while not having it affect my monthly budget. So, for almost two years, I was living without the influence of any mainstream media source upon my intellect and judgment. I chose every avenue from which I received my information on a daily basis.

But until I started watching my local PBS HD channel (which is the best looking channel on my $50 antennae); I had no concept of what fantastic programming they hosted on there. This is worth funding; but I believe it is paramount that partisan political thinking (the worst kind of thinking there is for everyone) must be kept to a minimum or always brought back to the center.

That is being fair and level and letting your audience decide; Right?

I support PBS for the same reason I passionately support the private funding of local libraries who participate in a large-scale sharing program. It's far better than the alternative...

...Imagine a world where the poor and disinterested had no avenue to gain the information and skill sets to encourage their passions to become their livelihoods while giving back a significant portion of that wealth to the social structures around them.

That is what living in a community is all about and it seems that we should be making more of an effort to sanctify the ground around us and see it reflected in the other inhabitants of this planet who immediately surround us in life.

A significant part of any "compassionate conservatism" should be compassion and neither sides in the political rift in America have any abundance of compassion. That's where we as individuals must step in, step up, cock our weapons once again and aim at the tyrant who seeks to take away that which Providence allowed a great nation to be built for the sole purpose of--bringing to light the freedom of the individual acting in the best interests of themselves and everyone around them.

And this tyrant is not any one man or group of people--the tyrant is fear. The tyrant is ignorance. The tyrant is compulsive disregard.

This is the enemy to be defeated in the War on Terror. This is the whole point of fighting a war, right?

Or is the goal still taking away the toys and essentials of others, call them us, and move on to the next unlucky culture? If this still is the goal, then someone at the committee forgot to copy me on the memo because I was under the impression we were trying to get to the whole "I Have a Dream" world, just over the mountaintop, where everyone eats at the table regardless of their skin color, where they come from, or who they are?"

If this isn't the goal then what the fuck are we celebrating on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday? Are we rewarding ourselves for slipper further into the nightmare? Or are we celebrating the ideal as a substitute for the action?

I believe in a world where every human being whose lungs are filling and emptying with the correct oxygen to atmosphere ratio, on regular basis, has complete and total access to the creative thoughts and artistic productions of fellow human beings.

Art should be both publicly and privately funded. It will be the true mark of historical social progress for us when artistic funding has been unleashed from the corporate and political fence post it has been tethered to for three thousand years. But when art is totally funded by private citizens, you will know that we have reached a milestone in our social evolution.

TAGS:
Art, Funding, PBS, HD, High Definition, Sociology, History

Forget the State of the Union speech--it's all bullshit.

The Bush you need to be paying attention to is the one that spoke at Kansas State University on January 23, 2006. The man is brilliant on his feet and anyone who doesn't see that is getting duped at expense of making themselves feel smarter by thinking dumber.

America has come a long way since the Washington administration.

John Adams passed The Alien and Sedition acts which were like The Patriot Act on nuclear steroids.

Thomas Jefferson pissed all over the Constitution by purchasing the Louisiana territory from Napoleon, breaking every fundamental rule of the separation of powers that the government he helped build was founded upon.

Andrew Jackson indoctrinated a campaign of genocide against the American Indians which almost obliterated their entire culture from the face of the earth.

Abraham Lincoln became a tyrant for a just cause; he was a brilliant and good human being who got caught up in an impossible war between the freedom of man and man's freedom to pursue happiness unfettered by government control. Believe me, both sides lost in the American Civil war and yet both sides still won; and this is what makes it the most important war ever fought in human history.

Woodrow Wilson, the racist buffoon and arguably the biggest outrage of a US President in our history, put the United States (and the world) on a course of disaster when he intervened in a European civil war which was long on its way to petering out through attrition. The insult to the Chinese by completely denying them in The Versailles Treaty; accompanied by a face-spitting insult to the Germans (who were only half complicit in the most ridiculous war ever fought in terms of social gain versus social loss); allowed the Soviets time to build infrastructure and powerful ambitions second only to Der Fuhrer and, ultimately, far worse.

In fact, I'll take it one step further and say that Woodrow Wilson is responsible for starting the War on Terror by entering the US into World War I. Let's not forget that Gavrilo Princep, the man who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War I, was a Muslim.

And we all know the sad (and sometimes glorious) history of the latter half of the twentieth century, with the Cold War, the Information War, and now the War on Terror.

Yeah, we've come a long way since 1783.

And if recent world history has shown us anything, it is that the modern man standing alone is incapable of managing power.

He always makes the bargain with Mephistopheles or his agent, Jack Abramhoff.

No one person is capable of morally steering the ship of state. There must be a team.

And this is why I voted for George W. Bush twice, because I liked the people he had surrounded himself with. Like Lord Voldemort, they had done great (but sometimes terrible) things. And, to be honest, I was curious what they would do with the world. It's been interesting watching the team move to secure resources in the world that will steer this ship into the next generation; a bit like watching a child building Legos on a cluttered kitchen table while tipping his chair back on two legs.

No one can convince me that the Bush administration has not done a far better job than the alternatives would have.

Bush and his team have been steering an out of control orange truck straight downhill off a high ass cliff drop for five years now and not so many of our side has died as has theirs.' And isn't this the point of war?

To kill more of them than they do of yours'?

To make them stop, make the shut up, or make them just go away forever?

Just watch the President's speech from Kansas State and look for the sparkle in his eyes when he hits a bulls eye or a triple twenty and you will know what it is that I love about the Bush administration.

RELATED LINKS:
President Bush's Kansas State University speech

UNRELATED LINKS:
President Bush ('41) and President Clinton have become good friends

TAGS: George Bush, Kansas State University, History, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Gavrilo Princip, Franz Ferdinand, The U.S. Civil War, The War on Terror

"Nothing in this post is true...

"Mr. President, your 10:30 appointment is here."

The President looked up at his aide, his half-spectacles positioned on the tip of his nose. "Who am I meeting with?"

"Tony Pierce, sir. He's a A-List blogger who has consistently questioned your character and agenda; and has used many four letter words in doing so."

The President seemed mildly interested. He sat back in his chair and slid the spectacles back up his nose. "And why am I meeting with this young man?"

"Because of your agreement to soften the tone in Washington and online."

The President was losing interest fast. "Uh-huh?"

"Mr. Rove thought it would be beneficial for you to meet, get some photos, and shake the young man's hand in a gesture of goodwill."

A light went on in the President's eyes. "Pierce...this is the guy who said, 'how can george bush not want to put the barrel in his mouth and squeeze?,' right?"

The aide shifted, becoming nervous; "That's correct, Sir."

The President smirked and gestured to the door with an open palm, face up. "By all means, show the young man in."

Tony Pierce was shown into the Oval Office. He was wearing khaki shorts, sandals, and a Tsar T-shirt. The digital camera he had brought was confiscated along with the pad and pen. Tony would have to write later from memory.

He sat down in the overstuffed, oversized, leather armchair that was intended to make a person feel smaller than the man sitting behind the big desk.

President Bush didn't get up.

"Welcome to the White House, Mr. Pierce. What do you think of our operation here?"

"I think you're a lying scumbag who has murdered 100,00 Iraqis, spied on the American people, ignored the minorities caught in Hurricane Katrina, lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction, and are guilty of stealing both elections, running up the biggest deficit in history, making gas the highest price it has ever been, and that you are behind the worst lobbying scandal in the history of our country?"

The President seemed mildly amused. "Uh-huh..." He sat forward and shuffled through some papers on his desk, pulling out a manila envelope. He opened the envelope and scanned the top page.

"It says here, Mr. Pierce, that you have recently agreed to travel to Amsterdam for a corporate online advertiser; is that correct?"

"Yeah, so what? Fuck you."

"Well, it also says here that your lil' world famous website is one of their big-time money makers. Is that correct?"

"It does all right...fuck you."

The President smirked again. "Mr. Pierce, there is one corporation in this world and it has many subsidiaries. That corporation is what speaks in and from this office regardless of the name on the door or the party written on the voter registration card in the wallet of this chair's occupant."

The President now stood up and began walking around the desk. The secret service flanked him, hovering over Tony who was still seated in the throne-like leather chair. The President and his henchmen stood looking down at Tony like he was a five-year old who just pissed all over the toilet seat.

"I want to thank you for your support of my administration, Mr. Pierce; through your hard work in poor mouthing me on a daily basis. You have done your country a great service. Now you have a good time in Amsterdam."

The President turned his back, signaling that the meeting was over. The secret service men moved in on Tony to help him to his feet.

The President turned again and said, "Oh yes, Mr. Pierce?"

The secret service stopped and Tony turned to look at the President again. "Feel free to call anytime. When the White House operator asks you for the password to my private line...tell her "Cultural Hegemony" and that should getcha right through."

The President smiled as Tony was escorted through the door and on sudden inspiration, he called out, "See ya' in the funny papers, Mr. Pierce."

LINKS:
Tony Pierce's Post that Inspired This
Cultural Hegemony

TAGS:
Tony Pierce, busblog, President Bush, White House, Cultural Hegemony

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**The following came from my local Libertarian chapter (of which I am not a member of but I am an "interested" observer):**

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The following came from my local Libertarian chapter (of which I am not a member of but I am an "interested" observer):

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**The following came from my local Libertarian chapter (of which I am not a member of but I am an "interested" observer):**