To the Indigenous People of the World,

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the wonderful World of Warcrafting.  The internet is, finally, useful again. 

The battle has ended, but the war continues.  Many a synaptic footsoldier did fall as I pushed my legion forward forward forward against the seemingly unending waves of model codes, federal statues, and restated judicial holdings.  A shattered phalanx, a decimated regiment; but ah yes…I crossed the Rubicon and now taste the sugary Triumphal Progression leading to the palace I’ve not seen nor enjoyed in a fortnight or four:  the soft and buttery folds of my tempur-pedic.

Try as I might, I cannot ignore the call of my genetic code.  With but a fine misty haze squatting in my head, a force stronger than my divine will beckons me.  And so I relent, and will shutter my eyes and dream of the final exams I somehow completed.  Pray that the nightmares do not extend beyond my slumber, for when I rise from my cave I may be greeted with the dreaded email, dispatched by the cruel and calculating administrators giggling as they destroy Christmas break by the dozen, releasing the sad and sordid curve and resulting grades just in time to make my season dim.

Be well, my adoring mass.  I shall return, a happier, healthier, and more coherent man.

Of course, moaning about taxes is nothing new, but never have I seen discussed what I consider to be the most paramount issue with it.  Having just finished with the first (and only) Federal Tax course in my legal studies, I’ve become quite familiar with the code’s innerworking, developing a level of intimacy as appealing as Michael Jackson’s with the tan little boys giddilly scampering ’round his surreal DisneyHell estate.

My biggest complaing with the code is its absolute disregard for the fundamental legal concept of notice.  Ignorance of the law is not an excuse because, in theory, a democratic government provides laymen (not laypeople, hippie) like me with some access to the laws to which I am subject.  It’s unethical and archaic for a government to draft laws and hide their parameters from the populous the laws control; mens rea is central to criminal punishment because nearly everyone understands the immorality of punishing people for behavior they were never told was illegal. 

Our tax code is perhaps the most egregious example of failure to notify on the part of the government, and millions of Americans fall to the repeated blows of the 1040 “EZ”’s convoluted structure every spring.  And as we curl into fetal positions of intellectual meltdown, the IRS hurls its mighty foot deep into guts and groins when processed “EZ” forms throw up an army red flags in D.C.  Honest mistake on your taxes?  No problem…as long as you’ve got personal property and free time on your hands the IRS is happy to send vengeful dorky-tax goons, grown cold and callous from decades of exclusion from the society cool kids hang out in, to sieze what you own and throw you in prison until you’re able to pay the deficiency. 

Their facial explanation makes sense:  they need to make examples of tax cheaters because the government fails without revenue.  But draconian and mercilous punishment is never just, especially when the punishment is dished out for failure to understand a 31,000+ page pile of gibberish.  I spent 3 years examining government accounts while serving in the Marine Corps, hold a degree in history from UCLA, and am halfway through my three years of legal “academic” hazing; I don’t say that to brag, but when a guy like me would rather eat the barrel of a shotgun than try to understand the tax code, how can the IRS expect compliance from average citizen lacking the benefit of any higher education? 

At the very least, the Federal government should ensure that it supplies us with free, friendly and knowledgeable guidance each year.  That’ll never happen, however, and anyone stupid enough to rely on an understandable and effective flat tax or VAT replacing the 8,000-lbs gorilla brooding in the corner needs a serious reality check. 

The most powerful (and most ignorant) voting block in our society, the lazy and the poor, absolutely loves the annual bonus (aka: Earned Income Tax Credit) the IRS bribes them with; their welfare/afdc/social robbery income can barely afford the 22″ SPINNAHZ on their deep rollers, and there’s no way they’ll oust the meal ticket that provides them with their annual trip to Vegas.  And without a filthy torch-and-pitchfork-weilding populist mob chanting for more more more, politicians have little incentive to make anything substantive happen.

But I digress.  AMT?  Someone email me and tell me how to care, because honestly I don’t anymore.         

I’m the type of person who simply cannot live within the parameters set by this process.  The way my mind is wired makes following the prescriptions of others hard to do because I’m constantly in search of a better way to do just about everything.  I’ve accomplished enough in my life to understand and accept this fact, regardless of how little the loved ones around me do.  For 31 years, I’ve battled with both outside pressures to adapt and internal compulsions to be my own man ruled by my own mind, and I’ve finally decyphered life’s code and hacked it to better suit my personality.

I cannot fathom a “career” as others see it, because I simply have far too short of an attention span and have a tough time committing myself to improving someone else’s dream.  I’m experienced enough to know that traditional labor benefits primarily an employer, and I simply don’t want to spend the rest of my life benefitting someone else.  Furthermore, the traditional career path in Southern California is an exercise in frustration once commuting, housing costs, overpopulation, and ridiculous social practices are considered.  I won’t do it, and I’m not going to run away to some other community where my SoCal woes will likely be replaced with whatever downside the new environment presents. 

Millions of people each year opt to chose their own fates, and thousands successfully take control.  These are the folks that refuse to listen to the “you can’t”, “you shouldn’t”, “get real” and “are you insane” responses to their ideas.  They stop trying to innovate in markets bursting at the seams with narrow-minded competition.  Freed from the chains of peer pressure, they create markets of their own and watch as the rest of the world rushes to it.  

I suggest you dump your chains.  It’s hard to do, because it’s contrary to everything our parents, teachers, friends and employers tell us.  But until we recognize that the “authorities” of our lives are incapable of grasping the nature of our brains, we’ll never accept the reality that they are unsuited to review and evaluate what our brains produce.  Don’t misunderstand me:  I’m not saying we should reject these people from our lives, shun them, or ignore them altogether.  But when that big idea strikes, when we think we’ve created the next big innovation or struck gold, we need to seek out others like us, not others who don’t understand us, when looking for an honest evaluation.

Hack your life.  Write your own code and listen to the beat of the drummer inside your mind.  The only other option is conformity with a process not tailored for you.  Recognize your ability to create your own rules, live by them religiously, and watch as your life blooms.    

We wanted the reassuring gravity Fred injected into his acting roles, the comfort with which he stood alone on the senate floor, and the confidence that compelled him to run.  We wanted a president able to speak his mind, not carefully worded talking points censored by greasy advisors.  I’m not convinced that we got anything close.  

Of course, he still has time to salvage a victory.  There’s no evidence that his acumen is flawed, nor has he blundered himself into campaign hell.  If he is simply “finding his campaign legs”, a quick scrotum-check and pimp’s backhand to his staff would put him solidly back in the game.  But I’m not holding my breath.  If he’s too weak to prevent his “experts” from painting over his polish, I don’t see how he’ll have the strength to recognize, admit, and correct the error.

Mr. Thompson, if you’re reading this, could you find it within yourself to do me a favor?  Spare me the tease…either man up or stop wasting our time.  We’ve got better things to do (like prepare for Clinton pt. Deux) than watch you melt.            

The dizzying array and complexity of the commercial transactions that occur on any given day (a natural and healthy byproduct of our fractional reserve system, by the way) sends ripples throughout the world’s economy, triggering events that trigger events, often culminating in a profit (in U.S. dollars) realized by our government.  Many people would presume that this profit is used to pay off government debt, and most presume that debt reduction is the prudent thing to do. 

However, for reasons I struggle to understand, using government profit to pay down government debt has a habit of leading to a stagnation in the creation of money.  As money growth slows, the Federal Reserve’s money supply dwindles, shrinking the cash disbursements it makes to reserve banks.  The end result is less money distributed to member banks and, ultimately, private citizens.

In order to keep a level of liquidity in the market sufficient to foster monetary growth, the government reintroduces cash profits into the market by procuring large private securities acquisitions.  This practice looks no different than Uncle Jim investing his excess cash into the stock market: he’s converting his profits into a liquid security that should back his cash investment by increasing in value over time.  However, unlike Uncle Jim’s portfolio, government-owned securities (valued in U.S. dollars) cannot secure the U.S. dollars that purchased them; even the government can’t fool logic enough to secure currency with secured currency…

So what secures the U.S. dollar?  From where is it granted its value? 

Ask ten random Americans what one U.S. dollar is worth, and you’ll likely get ten answers.  Some will equate it to a tiny gold nugget stored in a mythical vault at Ft. Knox; others will equate it with a proportional increase in individual rights.  Many economic theories explain that it represents a tiny but uniform fraction of our economy, whereas a few very unhappy conspiracy theorists think it holds absolutely no value whatsoever.

These theories fail to accurately explain our currency’s real value: government sponsorship.  By awarding “legal tender” status to the U.S. dollar alone, competitors have never had a reason to issue competing private currencies.  After all, if a government offers legislative, judicial, and executive protection only to markets trading in dollars, little incentive exists to risk anything in a market trading unprotected slips of paper. 

In order to protect the dollar, the government asks us to bestow “full faith and credit” into the inherent value of a dollar, not because they’ve promised to protect whatever value the marketplace assigns to the dollar, but because a marketplace will always find value in a currency system backed by a large and capitalistic democracy.  And there’s the twist many don’t see - a dollar doesn’t represent what a buyer can do in the market, it represents what lengths the government will go to when protecting domestic market transactions; its value is proportional to its secure status as America’s only ”legal tender”.  

This inherent value makes the dollar a flexible and fungible item that people will gladly take in return for goods or services they own.  A baker will exchange bread he produces for a dollar because he knows another merchant will accept it in exchange for something the baker may need later. 

You and I swipe electionic bank cards because writing checks is a pain in the ass.  Our parents wrote checks because carrying big sums of cash can be a risky proposition.  Gramma and pop-pop carried cash because hauling around tradeable property cramped their style.  Just as a debit card (tied to an account with a positive balance) acts as a proxy for a personal check, and just as a personal check (guaranteed by a bank) acts as a proxy for paper money, paper money (guaranteed by the government) acts as a proxy for goods or services.  A swipe of a card attached to an empty account can purchase nothing; a check drafted from a closed checking account has no value; and a dollar protected by nobody has no legal force. 

So what does it all boil down to?  The entire world’s economy unwittingly rests on the backs of 535 spoiled members of Congress, 1 embattled and unpopular president, and a Supreme Court fat and greasy with power.  Full faith and credit indeed…           

1. Develop a niche product and image that spawns hordes of elitist and loyal fanboys.
2. Eliminate low class customers with prices higher than those of your competitors.
3. Introduce new product into the market after creating 6 months of buzz; price it at $599.
4. Sell 1,000,000 units. 
5. Discount new product two months after introduction to $399.
6. In the case of fanboy revolt, issue a blanket $100 refund check.

It worked for Steve Jobs…it may work for you as well.  He risked alienating close to one million loyal Apple fanboys by charging them a $200 premium for the honor of being the first guy in Brentwood to accesorize with an iPhone.  Some people scratched their heads when the iPhone was introduced, wondering how the tiny consumer electronic device could have cost so much to manufacture.  The scratching stopped after everyone realized that 25% of the sticker price was pure fluff…excess cash covering nothing except Apple execs with liquid gold. 

Jobs isn’t stupid, nor does he employ milque-toast market operatives.  An iPhone priced at $399 covers the cost of development, manufacturing, and marketing, leaving Apple a likely gain of $15 profit per unit.  At $599, however, Apple’s profit per unit swells to $215 profit per phone.  Jobs and Co. correctly forecasted 1,000,000 units in two months, giving them the option of making either a reasonable $15 million profit or a greedy $215 million profit.  Most of us already know which option was chosen.

So how does a company, successful because of its image as the “alternative” to evil and greedy Microsoft, bilk its most loyal fanboys out of $200 million without being branded as MicroSoft Part Deux?  Simple:  hedge the risk of “early adopter” alienation with a contingency plan to issue $100 refunds in the event of vegan revolt. 

It was a brilliant plan, and it worked.  Feeling betrayed, Intel-o-clasts revolted when the price dropped by $200, and Jobs salvaged his reputation by giving up half of the $200 million he stole.  Fanboys rejoiced at the new iPhone price, emo-techs salivated over the news of an updated touch-version, and salad-tossing journalists glossed over a devious business tactic that even the most ruthless at WorldCom and Enron wouldn’t dare attempt.

Is this how b-schools will educate future students?  Will Wharton and Harvard focus on studies in “image development” capable of insulating companies against immoral and greedy behavior?  Sounds a bit silly, but in a world where business is no longer a profit/customer retention balancing test, not much else is needed.  Indeed, when Apple can be greedier and more manipulative than Microsoft could ever dream, and when Apple’s pristine and innovative image survives unscathed, the argument is a valid one.

I don’t expect a company to act in my best interests, but I do expect a company to find a way to produce a product that gives them a (reasonable) profit while providing me with quality and utility.  I’ve not given up on that ideal, and there are still a number of companies out there that understand the benefit of treating customers well.

I have, however, given up the hope that blind Mac devotees will snap out of their fog and recognize that they bought a laptop, not their personal idendity.         

Luckily for me, the TV was on, and David Morrow (the Editor-In-Chief of TheStreet.com) was a guest on one of the 24-hour news network’s financial hour.  The Dow had just hit 14,000, and the host of the program asked Morrow if this was a good time to sell.  Like any worthless douche willing to sell his character to make a dime, Morrow gleefully declared that the Dow would continue to rise, and that investors should continue to invest.

He’s the editor-in-chief of TheStreet.com…he must know what he’s talking about, right?  I hastily called my stock broker and told him to float me a couple of grand. 

This was against my better judgment, but what do I know?  I’ve never been a stock broker, nor have I invested enough to really undertand the market.  What right does a prole like me have to question the sage advice of Morrow, who’s spent his entire adult life writing about the market?  (I’m still waiting for a response to an email I sent him asking him about his investment experience) 

I trust Morrow, the same way my buddy trusted the REALTOR (registered, trademarked, and copyrighted term) who told him the $615,000 Fontana home he was eyeing last year would be worth $1 million today.  Common sense be damned!  Ceilings don’t exist anymore (unless you’re a woman!), and after 6 years of unrelentless growth, how could there possibly be a correction?

Uhhhh….wait.  How many points has the Dow lost in the last week?  How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did my buddy lose in his home?  How many thousands of foreclosures have nailed Southern California in the gut? 

TheStreet.com, a question:  HOW THE HELL DID YOU FIND THIS GUY, AND WHY THE HELL IS HE YOUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF?  At least there’s no doubt about your business model:  Pump a market/stock stretched thin and short the ever-loving-hell out of it.  Perhaps I should submit my resume.  Beats handing my cash over to casino management.

(Disclaimer:  I know this will ruin the effect of my little blog post, but I did not invest after Morrow sold his soul last week.  I’m being feces-ish.) 

I was bit miffed at his tasteless and vitiolic insult against 9/11 victims, but what really got my goat was the revelation that he crafted a story used by ulra-liberal high school teachers to sour the sweet taste of America’s identity in the minds of impressionable kids.  I recall a history teacher, Mr. Rasmussen, “enlightening” my class on the evils perpetrated by the U.S. government; the most impactful and effective tale was one of U.S. Army soldiers handing out to American indians (I refuse to bow to the PC Nazis) blankets infested with anthrax…a 19th century Auschwitz if you will.  It’s no wonder so many college freshmen and sophmores are so absolutely militant against our government.  (Note:  Mr. Rasmussen was a chronic closet alcoholic, and was released by the school after having a nervous and drunken breakdown in the middle of a class lecture).

And this is one of the reasons why the Regents at the University of Colorado canned Churchill: no historical record shows that our government ever distributed blankets with the intent of exterminating American indians, yet Chruchill made the claim in an essay published in 1994.  Mr. Rasmussen and other hate-filled “educators” never thought to question the veracity of this great lie; the hunger to legitimize their dusty and faded hippie ideologies clouded their better judgment, and they gleefully used Churchill’s fraud to influence teen-aged students and possibly spark another useless era of flowers and love.

I’ll never see an apology from Mr. Rasmussen, and I’ll bet my life’s income that no teacher will come forward and express his guilt over misleading kids into hating our government.  And that’s a shame, because it shows that their hearts aren’t telling them to educate, but rather to indoctrinate, and I’m certain many of them don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt over their errors…ends justifying means or some such nonsense.            

I guess what really depresses me is the hypocracy of so many liberal activists and voters.  Claiming that “Bush lied” and “Cheney manipulated the truth“, they march in the streets and burn the flag in protest.  Presented with hard evidence that Churchill lied as well, they clamor around him and defend his honor.  This is they way liberals work:  they fling handful after handful of poo, hoping to make everyone around them as filthy as possible.  The minute someone flings poo back, a terrible and outrageous injustice has occured.  They are able to bend the truth, to lie and to fabricate, because their cause is “just” and their enemy (liars and fabricators bending the truth) deserve destruction.  In their warped and negatively influenced minds, there are no consequences to  liberal action, only victims of conservative greed.  And their masterful manipulations ensure they’ll always be able to dodge and deflect guilt, using their pointing fingers to distract those around them from the truth.

Liberalism used to be a virtuous ideal, one that championed the rights of man and the virtues of truth.  Swooning from the power they stole in the 1960’s, they inadvertantly wrapped an anthrax blanket around themselves and are now too sick and too infected to recognize how deeply the rot has compromised their souls.  Their fever-induced-confusion tells them to march against the most benevolent government in the history of man; to criminalize virtuous people and virtuous actions; to justify the means by envisioning an impossible end; and to victimizing the guilty and prosecute the innocent. 

Watching Churchill go down is hardly satisfying, because he’ll simply claim to be a victim (again), and his supporters will blindly follow him and rally in his defense.  What’s the old adage about absolute power?  Doesn’t matter much, because only right-wingers like me can be corrupted, right?

This is best illustrated with the splitting of the atom; Enrico Fermi observed odd behavior in uranium bombarded with neutrons as early as 1934, but little fanfare followed because, at the time, the world had no apparent need for such activity.  Eleven years later, Fermi’s random scientific discovery blossomed into a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Faced with the crisis of ending a world war, the United States spent the equivalent of $23 billion transforming Fermi’s observations into a weapon most devastating.

Does this mean, however, that we should ignore impending crises in order to force great advances once the crises mature?  Should we manufacture a “crisis environment” that will force people to make great advances? (more…)

For example, I may feel compelled to keep cash found in a lost wallet because the money will help me survive.  However, my sentience allows me to recognize that returning the wallet and its contents benefits me more because it helps to strengthen the cooperative bond that men have created to battle off the harsh realities of nature.  I subscribe to Kant’s categorical imperative, and I think that returning a wallet with the contents intact should be a universal law because it promotes identical action from others. 

Which brings me to my point (and yes, I am making an effort to shorten my long-winded diatribes):  in the face of continued disappointment, roadblocks, trespass, and frustration, why fight?  Why should I continue to write what I write when few read it and even fewer take from it anything of value?  Why should I try to help others see the damage a media so filled with hate has done to our national fabric when few believe it and even fewer care?  Why should I attempt to help people understand the path that needs to be taken in order for our nation to become a single entity again, when everyone is preoccupied with the luxuries of modern life?

This is why I fight.  Watch it - the whole video - and learn why I do what I do.  The victim in that video never gave up hope that survival was possible; the victim’s family never gave up hope that the victim could be salvaged.  Combined, they slapped their aggressors in the face, and overcame overwhelming and absolutely stunning odds. 

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing to stop it.  And even if those seeking the destruction of my political ideology succeed in my lifetime, I will hopefully fall to their spears with a shield in one hand and a bloodied sword in the other, not for the sake of glory, but for the sake of example.  I am cognizant of the fact that I alone will do little to change the world; but I am certain that my fight will inspire others to do the same.  I may never see the wrongs I have witnessed made right, but I fight with the hope that future generations will.

Winston Churchill said it best:  “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”   

I bring this up not to criticize what I was working on, as I still believe it’s the best option for many of us.  But I have realized one thing:  I can rely upon only myself to do the things I feel need to be done in this world.  As consumed with the difficult issues facing this nations as I am,  I must either bring about the change I seek in the world, or remove myself completely from politics.  Hoping that others will remain unaffected by the silver platters adorned with stacks of greenbacks offered up by slick and smiling business interests is an exercise in futility, and unless I’m willing to kick the platters away myself, I shouldn’t expect others to have the strength to do it.

But beyond this realization, I’ve also accepted the notion that people in power, corrupted by the black sticky hands of political back-scratching, aren’t just the slow, dim-witted bricks who tripped into power.  Legions of good faith men and women have attempted to wade into the tar pit of politics, only to find themselves sucked into the dark, thick depths of a network of power-brokering and forces far stronger than the will of the human mind.  I won’t act to push anyone into this pit, nor will I offer an outstretched arm as aid to anyone stuck in the morass.  But I will sit, for now, on the sidelines and pray for the victims of politics, and I will remind myself each day that politicians are no different than I.  And instead of blaming them for their weaknesses and faults, I’ll carefully consider whether I am strong enough to withstand the pressures they face each day. 

[start blog post]Obama Might Save Us From Bush’s Neocons[end blog post] 

But I’m not that blogger, because:

[start blog post]Ben Stein Renders All Other Punidts Troglodytes[end blog post] 

references neither a tiny nugget, nor is it from a useless internet back alley.

Beyond these essential functions, the federal government is relatively limited in its power.  Not by law, I’ll grant you, but by reality.  Take, for example, Hurricane Katrina.  Ignoring causes posited by both partisan hackery and the astounding level of stupidity within our citizenry, the federal government failed to mobilize relief efforts in a reasonable time because the physics of a large govenment make a quick response impossible.  As a nation, we’ve grown accumstomed to the federal government being a large, cumbersome, wasteful and inefficient body.  We rarely put our faith in the government to do the right thing the right way, yet we respond to its failures as if some blatant betrayal has occured. (more…)

I was dealing with my morning in the regular fashion–watching my tea steep–when I heard bird-chaos erupting outside. Curious, I peered out a window and saw a Cooper’s Hawk clutching in its talons a very unhappy sparrow.   The hawk was facing me but clearly couldn’t see me in the window.  I stood frozen, afraid that the slightest movement would alert the hunter and cause it to fly off.  I watched the sparrow struggle to escape, its efforts met with a rhythmic downward thrust of the hawk’s talons.  I thought of a man strangling another, and the jerky throttles applied near the end of the deed.  (more…)

Gore’s no Manfred Man, but he is blinded by the light, and most definitely revved up like a douche. (Disclaimer:  I know those aren’t the real lyrics; chalk it up to artistic license)

Some say his light is a virtuous one that will grace everyone on planet Earth with its wisdom and foresight.  Others say his light may be very slightly flawed, but the message sent is a good one we should listen to.  Few say his light is a figment of his imagination and that he’s gone insane.  I’m one of those few.

Gore is a man made famous through his quest to ascend to the American throne.  Thwarted by a right-wing conspiracy so large and so invasive (which would still be hidden were it not for Hillary Clinton’s sharp eye in the 1990s), Gore’s fame became legend, and it wasn’t long before the former mild-mannered Senator from Tennessee was cannonized into an unintentionally-burlesque ideologue, using his notoriety to accuse righties like myself of being “digital Brown Shirts.”  Someone should have told Al about Godwin’s Law.

I’m not throwing a stone here, because I’m mildly retarded when it comes to the sciences.  But I think it’s worth noting that Gore:

1. Scored 488/800 and 519/800 on College Board science examinations. 
2. Earned a D in ‘Natural Science 6–Man’s Place in Nature’ as a sophomore at Harvard.
3. Earned a C+ in Natural Science 118 as a Senior at Harvard.
4. Earned an F in ”Theology and Natural Science” while a graduate student at Vanderbilt’s Divinity School.  In all, he earned five failing grades as a graduate student.  Mindblowing…simply mindblowing.

 There’s more bad news regarding his piss-poor scholastic record, but I don’t think it’s relevent or important to harp on a person’s grades without warrant.  However, I have a problem with a man unable to maintain a 2.0 GPA in the natural sciences lecturing the world on how the Earth’s ecosystems are tied into its climate.  And I have a bigger problem with the people who lap up his attention seeking-antics without a healthy dose of skepticism.

He is blinded by the light of fame, by the bright glare of immortality and unending accolades, by the rapid-fire flash bulb brilliance that follows him everywhere.  The light is his God, and he is devout.  In the face of critics pointing out the shameless tactics and fact manipulation he utilized in his Inconvenient Lie; in the face of mounting evidence that Gorebal Warming isn’t the doom on the horizon he told us it was; in the face of waning interest in his cause and his image…Gore plods on, fighting to save not the Earth, but his importance on the Earth.

And now he’s angry because Paris Hilton’s jailhouse drama is distracting dolts like me from [Gore’s fame] our [Gore’s movie] impending [Gore’s embryonic 2008 Presidential Bid] environmental [Gore’s huge intellect] wasteland.   I think he needs to rub the brilliant light of fame from his aftervision and contemplate how he can reduce his 22,000 kilowatt-hour home electricity bill.  And you, my Silicone Sister, should consider the fact that your Manager Mister sold you a bottle of snake oil paid for with your self-respect.               

Knowing that they would never have a voice in the governing of their budding society, the founding fathers faced a dilemma:  assert their liberties against their trespassers and enter into a long and protracted war they were ill prepared to fight, or live as subjects under the thumb of a hereditary monarch.  They chose the easier of the two. (more…)

Joe Klein
1 Time Warner Center
New York, NY
10019

 Dear Joe,

I thought (non-Freudian) snakes were the coolest thing in the world when I was a kid.  I was so fascinated with (non-Freudian) snakes that I even owned a couple as pets.  However, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time calculating the cost of (non-Freudian) snake ownership, and soon found myself spending more than my monthly allowance on the their food: live baby mice.  I discovered one way to remedy my financial crisis:  breed mice myself and save piles of cash.  

As a high D+ math student, it took a while before the extraordinarily large litters squeezed out of mama-mouse began to alarm me.  Three months after initiating my great economic experiment, when three pregnant mice gave birth on the same day to 20+ pinkies each, it dawned on me that I would soon be stuck with 40+ surplus mice.  The cage I had was sized for two.

Needless to say, little Howie’s introduction to natural population control twisted a sub-lobe somewhere in his brain.  Few 9 year-olds are screwed up enough to be unfazed by mama-mouse eating helpless baby mouse. 

Joe, I’m telling you this story because it’s what popped into my mind when I started reading this sob-blog you recently wrote.  I imagined you as the mama-mouse, but instead of you eating 20+ angry, undercooked pinkies, they were eating you!  

Let me explain:  millions of Americans placed their faith in you, trusted you to be “the light”, the wise voice of reason in a society gone mad.  You’ve used that faith to sponsor an eight year campaign of yellow journalism and character assasination against the Bush Administration and those supporting it.  Whether or not it was your intent, you led by example, and in the process gave birth to a cadre of ill-informed mockingbirds, doing their best to scream insults and accusations as loud as you’ve shown them you’re able to.

I’ve never read the bible, and have absolutely no idea what Galatians 6-7 says, but someone I know suggested that you read it.

Sincerely,

H. Roark
Brother Blogger 

In March, he began to flirt with the idea of running for president.  I’ve got a lot of opinions, many of which are arguably silly.  One opinion I can certainly state as fact is this:  Fred Thompson stands 10 feet taller than his competition.  He is the most genuine, most patriotic, and most reluctant man to ever consider the run.  With the exception of my wife and country, I’d give up anything for the opportunity to help him heal this nation.  He is, in the immortal words of Josh Lyman, the real deal.

I say this not as a partisan hack, not as a neocon paladin, and not as an attack against any current presidential candidate.  I’m simply introducing you to the next POTUS. Take a minute to listen to him speak; you’ll find it refreshing.  If you want to help, donate some cash through the big grey “I’m with Fred” box in the sidebar. 

Lucky for me, I’m a blogger, which means that I’ve spent at least an hour dreaming of pennies raining down from the heavens, thrown at me by advertisers killing each others’ mothers in order to get a chance to slap banner ads all over my hot, sweet page.  The hour of dreaming eventually lead to a bit of web research into selling blog space, introducing me to FireFox’s pimping and pandering of weak minded and stupid bloggers. (more…)