Oh, I need to start "Accepting" things now?

Republicans are now attacking liberals on their "pathetic" belief that all ballots should be counted. Many people unhappy with the prospect of another four years of Bush want to see if Ohio's provisional and Absentee ballots might be enough to tip the state and the presidency back into Kerry's column. Many Conservative columnists are now saying "LOL! DUDZ U NEED 2 JUST GIV UP & ACCEPT IT ALREADY!!!!1" Normally I would have to agree. Mathematically speaking it's pretty goddamn unlikely that 125,000 votes are going to materialize out of thin air, even if you were to count the shit out of those ballots. I mean, if you count really really hard you might get another 8000 votes, but even the greatest counter of all, Count Chocula isn't going to deliver Ohio's 20 electoral votes to Kerry.

Republicans don't actually seem to care about the accuracy of the voting systems in this country, as long as they like the results. Now that I can sort of understand. If my bank accidentally transferred $20,000 into my checking account I'd be ok with that. I probably wouldn't ask for a recount. What I can't stomach however, is that people who don't even believe in evolution are giving me a condescending lecture on statistics and probability. Guess what assholes: the probability that Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth are approximately %0.00000000000000. And unless the "virgin" Mary was sitting on some really nasty toilet seats in Nazareth, I seriously doubt she conceived that Savior guy without a little of the old in-out in-out.

The point is, you are probably right about the election. However you are wrong about almost every other thing on Earth. So don't get cocky. You chastising me on what I do or do not need to accept, is like Jar Jar Binks correcting me for ending a sentence with a preposition.

Tractor Beams, Walking Carpets, Short Stormtroopers

I've noticed of late that whenever one of my friends gets into turmoil with one of their girlfriends I generally seem to take his side over hers. Somethings wrong and he's generally the victim. Maybe my friends are a bunch of sissies, getting manhandled by their women. Maybe it's not me, but I've noticed a pattern of seeing the guy's side of things over the gal's side of things.

So I think I've come to realize what the dynamic is that makes me love all ladies, but give the ones who date my friends a hard time. Why would I give any ladies a hard time? They smell nice, their body has way less hair, etc etc. Shouldn't all ladies get a blank check from the Brian Lord?

Here's my theory: I hold these specific ladies to a higher standard because I don't want anything from them. They're going out with my bros, so my relatio0nship to them is indirect and limited. The normal dynamic between the man (me) and the woman (my friend's lady) is dissipated, that dynamic being the man desiring the woman and pursuing her and laughing at her jokes and finding a legal parking spot for her at 6 in the morning to avoid a ticket et al.

Women have this forcefield that eminates from certain regions of themselves. Maybe we'll call it the "Jedi Pu_ _y Mind Trick." When a woman wants a man to do something she waves her "wand" around as if to say "these are not the droids you're looking for." Men are defenseless and so they do as they are commanded. Ladies you know what I'm talking about! Let me hear it from the ladies!

But the hypnosis can be neutralized by one thing: dating one of my friends. So what happens is the ladies go about their day waving their thang in the air, getting their way. But then they come to me and their powers are neutralized. Their powers don't work on me. I see what's up. But with that force-field gone a brotha can start to see the short-comings of the lady's argument, her logic, etc etc. That forcefield was the mortar in between their brick and now without it, those bricks drop like a, well, like a brick.

I'm not sure if I am detecting lady's bullshit here, or my own bullshit. Maybe it's not the people, it's the systematic bullshit that binds us and surrounds us. I'm not sure. I've been questioning myself of late and now perhaps I've found an answer. I love my friends and their girlfriends, and I now realize that I hold them all to the same high standards that I myself have spent a lifetime avoiding. It's a strange sensation. But ladies love cool James and being equal, yes?

The Blame Game or Kill Bill Vol II

To expand a little on my last post, there is a problem with this war, and those who pleasure themselves to it. It's a no-fault war. It's nearly impossible to collect a "My Bad" from anyone involved. Despite the fact that America initiated the "War" part of the Iraq War, we feel no resposibility towards anyone to improve our tactics or react to changing events. No one has been fired yet for not doing their job. Paul Wolfowitz, has gotten "Employee of the Month" 14 times in the past two years despite all evidence to the contrary.

Q: If hundreds of US troops are killed by unsecured explosives, because they have not been provided with adequate armor, who's fault is it?
A: The Bad Guys!

While it's comforting to blame the enemy for attacking our invading army, there is a minor problem with this. The bad guys do not respond to editorials. Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi isn't going to read an article on the National Review Online, and decide to stop attacking convoys. The reason we criticize the Bush Administration is because, in theory, the President is supposed to be a servant of the American People. Not the other way around.

Now it's time for a game:

Who Wants to Be Blamed for Shooting an Unarmed, Wounded Man!

Take a look at this picture and answer the question below:



The soldier in the photo above shot a wounded prisoner to death a few days ago in Falluja. The marine declared "He's fucking faking he's dead. He's faking he's fucking dead," shot and killed the unarmed man and said "He's dead now." Now my question:

Assuming that someone somewhere should be blamed for this type of atrocity. Which of the following people is the culprit:

A. The Soldier
B. The Dead Guy
C. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the Pentagon
D. George Bush
E. Bill Clinton

If you chose (A) The Soldier you are wrong. First of all, he is a "The Troops©" and the troops must be supported at all times. Also apparently he got shot in the face a few days before, so you can forgive him for being a bit testy. If you chose (B) The Dead Guy, you got punked! It's a trick question. In this incident the bad guy is not the one to blame. Mostly because of the dead thing. And the unarmed thing. (C) Rumsfeld et al, would make sense if it were possible to assign blame for the fact that the insurgency was enabled by the lack of any post-war planning. Unfortnately this is not possible. In fact the problem with this war is that it's actually TOO SUCCESSFUL! It's so fucking sucessful that even actress Julia Roberts is like "that is some successful shit." Some liberal senators from a state like Massachusetts might blame (D) George Bush for starting this war on false pretenses, and hiring all of the assholes who lied to made this war happen, and for playing grab ass with phonies like Ahmed Chalabi. Unfortunately that would send mixed messages to The Troops, who might feel really bad about that, since they arent really occupied with any more pressing concerns.

So the answer is (E) Bill Clinton. Because he gutted the military. Also he had sex! In the Oval Office of all places!

To be fair, no one has yet found a way to blame Clinton for this particular murder, but he has been blamed for everything from 9/11, to the failing economy to the bad intelligence on Iraq. I know one thing, I'm definately not going to vote for him again!

Sorry, "Stuff Happens" is not an adequate excuse for thousands of dead kids. Try Again.

I've been reading a blog called Fallujah in Pictures it's full of pictures of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Insurgents, and American Soldiers. If you truly believe that we are doing good in Iraq than I implore you to take a look at these photos. Unfortunately however, the blog allows comments, so there are pro-war geniuses making comments like this:

First off, yes its tragic that there is death in war. Its tragic that any loss of life happens, whether its soldiers or innocent civilians, BUT, this is a WAR and that stuff does happen.

With all due respect, posting these pictures with the intro you provided just tries to make everyone feel guilty for what we are doing. Yes it sucks for everyone involved, but its either we get them, or they get us.

The comment was posted anonymously. Personally, I think it was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but I can't prove it. Anyway, are you finished? Well then... allow me to retort. If those pictures make you feel guilty there's a very good reason, do you want to guess it?

Anyone?

BECAUSE YOU SHOULD FEEL GUILTY YOU FUCKING MORON! This is your war, and you own it. Those dead babies aren't just George Bush's dead babies, they belong to everyone who supports this war. You are their Dead Baby Daddy. I must admit though, I do love the perfectly logical argument that the person publishing the pictures is the bad guy here. It reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld's initial solution to the Abu Ghraib problem: Ban cameras!

And the assertation that "stuff happens", while true at the Applied Physics level, does not quite do it for me as a moral and ethical justification for homicide. Why is it that no one said after Princess Diana died "HEY, STUFF HAPPENS! THOSE PAPARAZZI DID WHAT THEY HAD TO DO. WHEN YOU BRING YOUR 'A' GAME TO THE FIELD SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET HURT. TOUGH TITTY" Why does the callous and shallow disregard for human life only apply to certain forms of human life?

I Haven't Seen A Doctor In 3 Years And My Marriage Is In Shambles, But Did You Hear About Porter Goss And The CIA?

I liked it better when the world was boring. I built my whole life around that Ideal. The world is boring so I better get exciting. That's how it is and I accept it. My rich inner life will nourish me. I turn into Rainman and fuck all that external data.

So I started a band, The Hypertonics. I wrote lots of songs because Bush sucked and Sublime sucked and Ricky Martin sucked and the Squirrel Nut Zippers sucked. Sisters were now doing it for theyselves.

Then I moved to New York City and got my inner world on there. Everything was working fine. But something's gone wrong of late. The world is an exciting, if not violent, place and I can't get any work done...

I need to get new glasses. I need to get a physical and have my hernia checked out, not that I have one. I gotta email some radio stations in England and ship off some posters to Ohio for our shows out there. But guess what I'm doing instead? Yeah that's right. I'm reading about Porter Goss and Colin Powell and General Sanchez and James Carville and all that bullshit. I got a butt-load of things to do, but instead I'm fast becoming an expert on military tactics used to subdue a city of brown people.

I don't know who's fault it is, and I know it isn't mine of course, but I think something's up here. I think somebody in power likes it when everybody gets glued to the idiot box and all motor activity ceases. Is it any coincidence that "channel surfing" and "web surfing" rhyme with each other? When people are mesmerized, they're impotent.

The world news has become a giant trivia contest, extracted of all it's real world consequences. It's like a soap opera, "oh my, did you see yesterday's show? Porter Goss is banging all the rookies in the CIA and now they're fleeing. Oh man." It's all one big soap opera, it reminds me of some illness where virus cells replicate looking like the healthy cells. Those virus cells gradually replace the healthy ones and you got a body full of sickness. Porter Goss has taken the place of my hernia, no offense to him.

Bullshit Detection will be down later this week

My hosting company tells me that they are changing to a different ISP sometime this week. I'm not sure exactly when it'll happen but I expect up to 24 hours of downtime when they do. So don't worry. If you can't reach the site on Wednesday or Thursday it doesn't mean that Alberto Gonzales is torturing me in some dimly lit cell in Gitmo.

Well, it probably doesn't.

I know this is a bad timing for this, since bullshit is erupting all over the world, we will detect the shit out of that shit in no time.