Archive for January, 2008

Criminal Sexism

Monday, January 14th, 2008

> A woman in Washington, D.C., has apparently murdered her four daughters by starving, strangling, bludgeoning, and strangling them. For the moment, she is said to be blaming the deaths on demons who possessed the victims.

> A man in Alabama has apparently murdered his four children by throwing them off a bridge. He said he wanted to punish his wife

I am very interested to see how the courts treat these two cases. If they follow the pattern of similar cases, the woman will be given “treatment” while the man will be imprisoned for life or executed. The differing jurisdictions could be a complication.

I Am Legend…

Sunday, January 13th, 2008

…is what 28 Weeks Later meant to be.

A viral Frankenstein’s Monster turns people into raving, mindless cannibals, only there are no helicopter people-blenders, and there’s actually some acting going on. I thought the stretchy-mummy-jaw thing was kind of stupid, though, and, really, human vocal cords can only achieve so much volume.

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Bo 5768 – Egypt Is the World

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Genesis 11:5 

And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die… Although the Torah is explicit that the firstborn males of God’s people belong to him, it is implicit that the firstborn males of all other nations also belong to him. No matter one’s cultural inheritance, God’s intent for the firstborn is to act as his family’s kinsman redeemer. In taking the firstborn, as opposed to the youngest or the strongest, God denied the Egyptians their kinsmen redeemers. It was the ultimate declaration of ownership.

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Ron Paul with Jay Leno

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Jay Leno had an absolutely fantastic interview with Ron Paul tonight.

Who’s Who in the Primary Circus

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

-Although Barrack Obama wants to invade Pakistan, he seems to be better than his cohorts when it comes to military adventurism. He’d rather use bribery and subterfuge to rule the world. On the other hand, his desire for a larger military and more Arabic linguists makes me wonder if he might just be completely full of it. He’s just fine with the PATRIOT Act, which qualifies him to mow my lawn if he’s shackled and wears a GPS collar.
-Hillary Clinton wants to start shooting wars pretty much everywhere under the cover of NATO and the UN. She consistently supported expanding the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq until she began her campaign for the presidency. Then she conveniently changed her mind. Uh-huh. Even worse, she wants to export our public school system to every third world country that threatens to make something of itself some day. She thinks Hamas should renounce violence. I guess with all that foreign affairs experience, she forgot that Hamas literally translates to “violence.”
-John Edwards wants to get his hands on all the children of the world. Get ‘em early, as they say. He wants a new and improved Patriot Act to make domestic spying more efficient. According to the CFR, he wants to maintain a permanent force in the Gulf so that we can invade more Middle Eastern countries when he gets the urge. Iran seems to be in his sights.
-Rudy Giuliani thinks the prison at Guantanamo Bay (sans fingernails) is just dandy. And domestic spying? Sweet! He wants a war on Americans, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis, Afghans, and just about everyone else he can think of but probably can’t find on a map. And there’s no way those foreigners would ever get upset about it. It’s our right as Americans to run the rest of the world, and they’re grateful. And if we can have a gay parade and kill some babies while we’re at it, more’s the merrier!
-Mike Huckabee‘s kindergarten attempts at subliminal manipulation make me wonder if he might actually be a good choice for president. At least we’ll all know when he’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes. All of us but Iowans anyway. Pretty country, but all that corn in their diets and manure in their air has done something to their heads. He thinks Guantanamo Bay is way better than dandy. It’s practically a resort! A veritable vacation spot. Bring the family. You can all waterboard together on your way to your new post in Tehran! Won’t that be fun?
-John McCain says a lot of good things about Bush’s treatment of Americans except that he wants to continue spying on them, denying them due process, habeas corpus, and all that mamby pamby sissy crap. He’d like to close the prison at Guantanamo and move the prisoners to Kansas. Apparently he wants to convert the state into a POW camp to house the entire current population of the Middle East. The ones we don’t kill first, that is. If they’re all dead or imprisoned in Kansas at least we know they aren’t trying to blow up buildings in New York, right?
-I think Mitt Romney owns the complete collector’s edition of Uncle Joe’s Manicure Kit, and he’s just aching to put it to good use down there in Cuba. Let’s go get us some jihadists and have some fun! Maybe we can get them to baptise all their ancestors while we’re at it. “All your islamo-fascist-commie base are belong to us!” Maybe he’ll take a pay cut and save us a few bucks on taxes after he lands some hair care product endorsements.
-Fred Thompson wants to…Wait a second. Fred who?
-Ron Paul has a goofy grin and seems more grandfatherly than presidential. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to invade anyone, torture anyone, spy on Americans, take more of your money than the government absolutely needs TO DO ITS JOB, or destroy your ability to get decent healthcare. Doesn’t he want to kill anyone? Blow anything up? Force Britney Spears and Pepsi products onto any third world countries? Well, where’s the fun in that?

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Things in Heaven and Earth

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

Almost twelve years ago, John Barlow wrote a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. It wasn’t so much a statement of rebellion as it was a statement of fact. The realities of existence in cyberspace are transforming the concepts of freedom and information exchange. Those who try to manage the electronic marketplace of ideas via legislation are hopelessly out of touch.

Barlow wrote, “You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits.”

When I first read those words in 1996, they seemed hyperbolic, true in intent, but not in reality. The Ron Paul rally on Whisperwind’s World of Warcraft seems to indicate something more. The independent world of Cyberspace began with news groups, Fidonet, and independent BBS’s. Now we have online forums, chat rooms, communities, and entire worlds the likes of which the average D.C. politician has never dreamed. We have barely begun to feel the effects of the Internet on world politics. I don’t think even William Gibson could predict quite where this will end.

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