Firestarter

What the hell? I'm pro-choice (only up to the point of viability, though) without parental notification and even I know that most Americans do NOT agree with me. If you seriously believe that's a "mainstream" position, it only proves Mike's point.

It was some guest speaker twit from a foreign country I'll refrain from naming at a vigil mass who had the incredible brazen gall to ask people to pray for "George" (ie, President Bush) and pray for him to gain a "better understanding" of the virtues of love and mercy and faith and renounce war before "the Adversary" could use his "anger" to "claim his soul." After the service I collared my archbishop and told him that his guest's language was completely inappropriate, deeply disrespectful, and practically criminal - in fact, verging on high treason if he'd been an American. He agreed and we went to see the fellow at the little reception afterwards. When I explained to him the problems I had with his sermon the cretin laughed and patted me on the cheek, and I saw red.

A clergyman. I didn't mean a chess piece if that's what you were thinking.

I worked directly under Dr Rice for a little over two years and I can say without hesitation that she would be one of the finest presidents we ever elected. Whether or not she'd be willing to stand, though, I couldn't say.

Turns out it wasn't Tyler... my wife says I decked a bishop. Well, it could've been worse.

To start drinking earlier in the day, especially if I'm working. It helps me deal with morons.

Is it okay if I classify you as a worthless fucking idiot?

For some reason I can't quite grasp, my knuckles are bruised this morning. I hope I didn't maim anyone permanently. Um... happy New Year!

Mostly, the point is that I'm humming it while I'm doing my make-up and I felt like posting it.

Happy New Year! Here are Burns's words, in case you have to, or want to, sing them tonight - over 99% of the English-speaking people in the world don't know them, so be one of the less than 1% tonight who gets it right. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne! ~Chorus~ For auld lang syne, my jo, For auld lang syne; We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine! We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. ~Chorus~ We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine; 'T'we've wander'd mo'y a weary fit, Sin auld lang syne. ~Chorus~ We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin auld lang syne. ~Chorus~ And there's a hand, my trusty fiere, And gi'e's a hand o' thine! We'll tak' a right guid-willie waught, For auld lang syne. ~Chorus~

I love this. "Simple as that! You're gonna hear this giant sucking sound, see? Simple as that! It's just that simple!" Looks like our brave little molestomp is going to grow up to be Ross Perot without the money. Or the charisma, the intelligence, the good looks, and fashion sense...

I've answered this question countless times already. You're just asking it again and again and again. 1. Keep doing what we're doing. Make it clear that if any state anywhere in the world funds terrorism or encourages extremism they'd better start looking skyward and building bunkers, for all the good it'll do them, because they'll be next on our list. 2. Export liberty, justice, truth, democracy, and the American way aggressively and unapologetically. We don't give a shit about your evil cultures or your savage religions. You're going to be dragged into the 21st century whether you like it or not. You can either live peacefully and morally and adopt civilised norms, or you can be shot like the animal you are. Choose. 3. Refuse to cater to Moslem victimhood. You've failed of your own accord and because of your own weakness, barbarity, and depravity. The fact that you live in filthy hovels is not a result of the fact that we live in skyscrapers with central heating and indoor plumbing. If you're going to live in the real world, rather than in your fantasies of Saladin and global conquest, you have to drag yourselves up by your own bootstraps and work. We owe you nothing but we still give you more than you deserve. You've had any number of chances. Stop snivelling, stop complaining, be grateful, stand up by yourselves, and act like men for once in your miserable lives. Read this article by Victor Davis Hanson for more analysis.

This explains everything so much better than I ever could.

See, this is where we have our difference. I fundamentally do not care about Arab opinion. A lot of them hate us. So what? Honestly, so fucking what? The notion that we should mollycoddle them and pretend we give a shit about their culture not only holds about as much water with me as a sieve, I find it downright offensive. Stop bombing them during Ramadan? Excuse me, are you out of your fucking mind? Rename Operation Infinite Justice to Enduring Freedom just because Moslems think "infinite justice" only comes from their god? Well la de fucking da, we're not Moslems but our military is the clenched right fist of God Almighty, so try to deal with it while we're killing you, if you have such a big problem with it you can take it up with Allah in a couple of seconds. We'll call in another airstrike just for you. The President getting criticised because he called this a "crusade" and that could seem historically insensitive? Please give me a fucking break, okay? The President called it by the numbers. This is a crusade. It's a crusade to take back your lives and your God-given freedom from the evil people you've allowed to enslave you and brainwash you because your lives were miserable and you had no power and no food and no education and no hope and you needed someone to hate. That's what this crusade is about: the eradication of evil, and there is no truer definition, nor a better name. You're crying and fighting because freedom is frightening, because light is hard to bear when you've been crouching in darkness for so long. But we don't care. We don't need your thanks and we don't need your gratitude; we don't even need your approval. We're going to drag you out of the prison you built for yourselves and then we're going to blow it up so you can never go back, and you'll have to stand on your own two feet and live like human beings instead of rabid animals, and someday, when you come to your senses, you or your children will get down on your knees and thank us for it.

Why should I bother? You made up your mind about what I was saying long before you wrote your post, or even before you read my posts. As for wanting the Moslems "reduced" to a second class people, that's a laugh. It'd be a step up. They're barely a third class people right now. And in any case everything I wrote had the express intention of forcing Moslems in general to become more like us in certain respects (acknowledging that women are human would be nice) and less like the terrorists. To any rational person, that should make it obvious that I want to raise them up.

Obviously, the terrorists and the extremists. It's possible to practice Islam to a degree and be a decent person, but you can't follow Islam absolutely faithfully and be a decent person. It's not possible. You can't follow every Christian edict absolutely faithfully either and be a good person. There's tons of shit in every religion, and "the people" you refer to need to recognise it in theirs, as we've recognised it in ours, and cast it out. Just like us. Until they do that, until they're willing to condemn sections of the Koran as as immoral and depraved as sections of the Bible, they're going to remain extremists and they may well become terrorists.

That kind of thinking always makes me chuckle. Like the Arabs are so sophisticated and complex that our poor barbaric Western minds aren't properly equipped to handle them. I've got a question: if they're so sophisticated and complex, why don't they have indoor plumbing by now? Seriously, the only way they're "complex" is in that stupid things make them fly into irrational, infantile rages. They're difficult to manage only in the sense that a squalling infant is difficult to manage. You can't reason with it. You can't explain to it why it's wrong to want to kill people for not giving it ice cream. You just slap it.

If we don't have peace with evil people, we've lost? That's a new one on me. Paging Mr Chamberlain, paging Mr Neville Chamberlain. There's a gentleman at the reception desk who wants to borrow Munich...

- Howard Dean Needs to Grow Up by William Saletan for Slate

I think my Victoria's Secret sale idea would reform even the most hardened terrorist. He'd be living in a state of constant nervous anxiety, starting at sudden noises, unable to think of anything but RUN! RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! if he saw a bourka or a miniskirt approaching. All we'd have to do, therefore, is flash huge images of Playboy centerfolds on giant monitors next to every security terminal. Anyone who started shuddering convulsively and whimpering, or otherwise experiencing what appears to be some species of epileptic fit, would promptly be dragged off to a federal prison. And even if it didn't work, at least it'd make airports more fun.

Make it irrational, self-destructive, exorbitantly expensive, extremely difficult, just plain flat-out impossible, or all of the above for anyone to follow its more abhorrent doctrines. No stoning or burning women to death. Sorry guys, you try it and we'll shoot you. We really will. We don't care what your traditions say, women are people, and Israelis are people too. Either face reality and don't try to murder them, or reality, in the form of a United States Marine, will blow off your head with its sidearm. Your women are free to drive. Try to stop them and we'll tie you to a chair and hang a bunch of frilly panties on you and then put up a sign above your head saying "ONE DAY ONLY VICTORIA'S SECRET CLEARANCE SALE EVERYTHING MUST GO." See how long you last in the middle of that... and even if you survive, you'll curl up in a corner and cry like a little girl if anyone with breasts ever raises her voice to you again. No chanting "Death to America." We put up with it for a while but enough is enough. Shut your mouths and learn to brush your teeth. Get a goddamn shave and experience the joys and wonders of deodorant, coming soon to a Safeway near you (you're welcome). Read Plato. Improve yourselves; God knows (no, not your god) you need it. Try to refrain from issuing death sentences on anyone who questions the date the Koran was written. We don't find it amusing and we will throw you in prison to rot. Oh, and no more trying to take over the entire world and making everyone bang their heads against the floor five times a day. Bad Moslem. Bad! We're NOT interested and we will slap you down again if you haven't yet got the message. And don't even think about trying to get WMDs. You saw what happened last time. Will it work? It's already working. Look at Libya.

BS. First of all, there never was any "Middle East" civilisation. There were the Persians. The Israelites. The matriarchal moon-goddess worshippers. The Scythians. There was never any one all-encompassing "Middle East" civilisation, and so your statement about its antiquity has no meaning whatsoever. Even if it did, the Greeks, the Celts, the Romans, the Indians, and the Chinese would have far greater claim. Really? For the last two hundred years, eh? That's quite a claim. In that time, much of what we now call the "Middle East" was sitting around "quiety" (sic) because they were busy fighting each other and the West under the banner of the Ottoman Empire. They didn't have time to send terrorists to our shores. That attitude has always existed in a certain segment of the Moslem population. It has existed since the inception of the religion. Their prophet was its foremost exemplar and it is extolled in their Koran. It is only now, with the advance of telecommunications and technology, that they have had the opportunity to exercise their evil desires. Your ignorance of history, religion, and culture notwithstanding, to claim that the Middle East was a quiet, peaceful region, not bothering anyone until we came along (or more precisely, until President Bush came along, I suppose, since you said they haven't bothered anyone in the last two hundred years - someone should let the Beirut survivors know sometime) is still the height of absurdity. The Middle East has been drenched by tides of blood since the beginning of recorded history.

I am a big fan of George W. Bush. However, there are tons of people in this country who aren't fans of him, I just don't understand why. This isn't attack on anybody because I respect people's opinions about politics. Some people just have different views than others. I just don't understand why people don't like Bush. For those who don't like him, how come? What bad things do you think he did to the US? Fucking mindless topic. Figures it'd be molestomp.

A more accurate two-sentence summary: Dean has contradicted himself more than once, significantly and unequivocally, and it's clearly documented. Other candidates have meaningful and pertinent criticisms to make of him in light of that.

Didn't expect you to; wasn't asking you to. Still, I would have expected that any politician would have preferred to have his balls yanked off with a rope before admitting to a reporter that he expected his party to lose, off the record or not.