Say...

It may be the cough syrup, but the CD players in the Eagle control room sound sped up. In a classic rock format?!

Where I Been

Exactly two weeks ago today, I was knocked on my ass by sinus and allergy troubles, with fever, sweats and headaches. It took exactly one week to shake the illness. Then last Tuesday evening, a relapse occurred and I was stiricken with the same crud once again. Never has that happened to me and I was pretty p.o.'d by it. Yesterday, I was in meetings and otherwise with my nose to the grindstone. Thursday night had been horrendous, with insomnia followed by nightmares akin to Mel Gibson's Passion. Whenever I have dreams like that, I am in a haze both mentally and spiritually for days.

The reason for expounding on this is basically so you'll let me off the hook for not posting. Last night and most of today I have been focusing on my personal issues. Sorry but with all the cough syrup in my system, I just had to get my head together.

Dirty Moves Shut Down School Dance

"'There's no other way to dance besides being up against the other person,' said Mat Baker, 17, a senior. 'It's just the way people dance these days.' "

Come on! I call bullshit on that guy. Dirty Dancing was a recent movie when I was in high school, but everybody knew that only sluts and scumbags did moves like that. Of course, this was fifteen years ago and we were a bunch of white kids in the deep south at a 99%-white Catholic school with mostly intact families living in a town where everybody talked. The fact that this happened in Bend, Oregon begs the question: how close to the fruits and assorted nuts in Portland is this town?

Debate Over 'Passion of the Christ' Turns Violent

Passion over The Passion:

A married couple "left the theater debating whether God the Father in the Holy Trinity was human or symbolic, and the argument turned violent when they got home."

The play-by-play:

"I say he's one of three!"
"I Say he's three in one!"
WHAP!

Actually, and you should know this already, God the Father is not human. God the Son, Jesus, became human...wait a minute. Let me just post the Nicene Creed and that will answer all:

Credo in unum Deum Patrem omnipotentem; factorum coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula [Deum de Deo], Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt; qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis, et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est; crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est; et resurrexit tertia die, seundum Scripturus; et ascendit in coelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris; et iterum venturus est, cum gloria, judicare vivos et mortuos; cujus regni non erit finis.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit; qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur; qui locutus est per Prophetas. Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum; et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi seculi. Amen

Okay, now that you're payinmg attention...:)

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Although the source on the Net I pulled this from had them, I took the brackets off of [and the son] aka the Filioque because that's a moot old argument that has been settled long ago. It's all there folks, and it's been there since 381, predating even the Bible itself. All one of these two battling bickersons had to so was find this and read it. Instead, somebody gets beat up and somebody goes to jail. Stupid.

'Passion' rising toward box-office history

"The Passion of the Christ, the movie personally financed by Mel Gibson because no studio thought it commercially viable, could become the highest-grossing film in history."

One man with a wild idea changes the world. Impossible, the cultural elites say...now they have egg on their faces. This proves how wide the gulf is between Hollywood and the American viewing public.

"Box-office prognosticators point out that few predictions about the filmhave proved accurate. Its success in the Bible Belt was expected, and [Bob] Berney [head of Newmarket Films, the movie's distributor] reports a strong showing in Houston, Dallas, and other Southern cities.

"But no one expected 'one of the highest-grossing theaters [to be] the AMC Empire in Manhattan,' Berney said. 'Urban areas, such as metro Detroit, are doing great.... There's a strong African American and Latino component' to the audience."

It's time for Hollywood to get out of it's rut and absorb some of the life experiences of the rest of the world. Passion clicked not because it relates specifcally to the lives of its audience, but because the story is at the center of the lives of 75-86% of Americans, depending on whose figures you believe, who are Christian. We've heard the tale and come to view it as central to our lives. When I hear a George Carlin go on about "superstition", I can only imagine how comments such as that make average ordinary folks cringe, which is precisely his point.
Yet it represents how those on the coasts view us in "flyover country".

Hollywood had better stop insulting "average America" either by open hostility or ignoring what beliefs are held dear. Otherwise, Average America can and will ignore Hollywood.

Rove: Kerry Has Taste of Bush Campaign

Let the real "Shock and Awe" campaign begin!

MTV show abandons Philadelphia

MTV's Real World, just about to start its 15th season (amazing), has abandoned Philly because they didn't want to be forced to use union labor. Some choice quotes:

"'Every other production company comes in, sits down and bargains,' said Tony Frasco, vice president of Teamsters Local 107, whose members drive and unload vehicles. 'The unions are not out to gouge anybody, but this is a union town.'

And if you believe that they're not out to gouge anybody, I have a gold-plated monkey wrench to sell you, perfect for whacking those no-account scabs in the back of the head. The fact that chauffers are unionized means that the cost of menial labor is probably too high.

"It's a matter of 'preserving the way of life in Philadelphia,' said Pat Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council."

No, it's a matter of preserving your control over the market and thus your power.

"'We ask for fair wages and benefits, and [then they] make a fuss and take their ball and go home - what kind of real world do they represent?'" said Gillespie, of the Building Trades Council. 'We'll be called the Neanderthals and the pug uglies because of what we're trying to do.'"

Oh come on! Labor in the United States has the best benefits in the world, and yet somehow the unions still exist, and still rant about how these workers are being stepped on. I'll bet supermarket baggers are unionized in that town as they are in California.

"The series had sidestepped organized labor in 13 previous cities, including union strongholds New York City, Chicago and Boston, without incident."

New Orleans is on that list. Louisiana has been a right to work state since the 1970's. Never mind that we have a whole lot of unskilled labor that wouldn't be eligible to join a group like the boilermakers' or plumbers' unions. Here in Baton Rouge, the Associated Builders and Contractors organization is strong, training hundreds of workers each year in a non-union shop.

Not everything down here is rotten, and not everything up there is golden.

Tenn. County Wants to Charge Homosexuals

Groan...this kind of nonsense only emboldens gay marriage activists in painting anybody who is against their initiatives as backwards. Didn't these idiots realize the PR victory this gives the gay lobby? Worst of all, it had to be in the county in the south where the "monkey trial" was held, a watershed event in the eyes of secularists (and pretty much every thinking person and advocates of freedom). I can hear the rhetoric now, "just as John Thomas Scopes fought for the freedom to think, we fight for acceptance" and so on. Hey you morons, thanks a lot.

Dean blames W for Spain terror

This is outrageous. How dare this Vermont governor with no foreign policy experience and expertise lay the blame at the feet of an American president a terrorist act in Europe. Even Kerry is distancing himself from this one.

GO FIGURE

From one blog to another, as originally posted in "The Corner" on National Review Online by John Derbyshire:

"Grossly obese Roslyn Hines (51) of New York City was taking her 3-yr-old boy to the bath when she suffered a massive coronary and fell on him. Mother and child are both dead.

"Hines lived on public assistance. Her oldest son (34) is homeless. Her daughter (25) is 'emotionally disturbed' (apparently autistic). Hines herself suffered serious health problems: lupus and asthma, as well as, obviously, a heart condition. She had also suffered a stroke.

"The little 3-yr-old boy was adopted."

SPRING BREAK: KERRY RETREATS TO HIS SUN VALLEY MANSION FOR 5-DAY LUXURY UNWIND

Well! So much for the "common man" touch.

"Gorgeous, 19.5 rooms at 7,749 square-feet, with a market value of $4.9 million [property taxes of more than $30,000 annually], Kerry's Idaho vacation getaway will be the setting of a Spring Break regroup and unwind, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT."

"While rejuvenating in Sun Valley, Kerry may meet with neighbor George Soros."

The plot thickens.

France Says It Received Threat by Islamist Group

Et tu, France? Will you be asking fort our help if and when you are hit?

SoCal city falls victim to Internet hoax...

...and almost bans dihydrogen monoxide -- H20 -- due to its perceived health risks.

"'It's embarrassing,' said City Manager David J. Norman. "We had a paralegal who did bad research.'

"The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as 'an odorless, tasteless chemical' that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled."

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

PJPII@9,281 Days & Counting

China executes 10,000 people a year

"Every year China has nearly 10,000 cases of the death penalty that result in immediate execution. This is about five times more than all the other death penalty cases from other nations combined," this according to chinese insider.

I don't ever want to hear any claptrap from about the American government being oppressive when this blatant cruelty exists elsewhere in the world. Somehow, we must stop this.

'The Passion' Tops Box Office For Third Week

I can hear the naysayers: "Yeah, but wait until lent is over, then it won't be so big..nyah!"

Forlorn Search for Decency: Life (and TV) after Janet

WFB, the grand old man of the right, has the most perceptive take on the Janet Jackson boob business:

"The Janet Jackson display at the Super Bowl crossed the threshold and awakened some latent sense of decorum. The public sense of it was that to bare a breast as part of the half-time entertainment at the largest annual sports event in the world was an excess. An excess is defined as something the public thinks of as inappropriate and perhaps, even, wrong."

It's not that a bared breast is intrinsically right, wrong or inconsequential. It's all about protocol: time and place and the circumstances aurroudning the event. In light of the non-stop assault on our sense of decency that advertising has engaged in, and the fact that the whole halftime show was an assemblage of the most crass elements in popular culture, the boob-rip was seen as excessive, a cross over the line. It was the exact point where the American public said "enough. Now you're going to get it."

Newcomers Fuel Bush Money Machine

-OR- Why Bush will win.

When ordinary individuals are compelled to raise money for the President because it helps them network, and they do it at this amazingly fast rate by bringing previously untapped souces of revenue into the political giving arena, we are seeing nothing short of a fundraising revolution.

Take THAT, McCain-Feingold!

For those who didn't know...

The dictionary defines curmudgeon as "An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions". That's George Carlin in a nutshell.

Carlin Responds to Indecency Uproar

As George Carlin ages, the less funny and satirical he becomes. He sounds more like a bitter, crazy old fart:

"'The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. ... There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.'"

Getting old + not eating right + no booze or drugs + wife died + can't get it up like he used to + Irish = grumpy old man. Sorry, I prefer the Carlin from the cocaine days. Bring back the blow!

Law, morality and order in a society has to come from somewhere. Even a true atheist should realize that no one human's rights extends beyond another's, and to prey on the least of our society's members (yes, children) is bullying. I would have hoped that Carlin would have picked up on the reason behind the coarsening of our society - it's not for the sake of intellectual discourse (few are as literate and wittily vulgar as he) rather it's to profit via titillation at the expense of the young and impressionable. Unfortunately, Carlin's world view is one of survival of the intellectually fittest, where the most intelligent - not the strongest, as Carlin is anti-military and anti-alpha-male - rule the rest of us, if only the dolts out there didn't have a conspiracy against the truly brilliant (i.e., him).

By the way, I happen to love Carlin because his work is brilliant, and I do have a serious cynical streak. Yet I do not subscribe to his jaded world-view like so many northeastern, elitist, atheist former hippie types do (think Kevin Meeks on WJBO, as perfect of an example as there ever has been of a Carlin-worshipper.) Unlike those folks, I didn't smoke doobies in my garage while listening to Occupation:Foole and suddenly have an epiphany that the world is rotten and the whole damn establishment was one conspiracy after another. I'm smart enough to know that while ignorance is the enemy that Carlin believes it to be, the answer nonetheless lies elsewhere, for he provides no response other than curmudgeonly demeanor.

Fines Against Passengers Draw Fire

The sub-head of this article rads: "Passengers fined for knives, box-cutters say they're treated like criminals."

That's right - because you ARE a criminal! Where have you been for 2 1/2 years?! Fines on incidents like this are meant to deter incidents such as this! Next thing you know, we'll catch some al-Qaeda operative with a box cutter trying to explain his way out of it with "oh I forgot...and you're racially profiling me!"

Dumb people!

Mom Who Refused C-Section Had Prior Conviction

What?!

"The 2000 conviction of Melissa Rowland stemmed from a supermarket incident in which she punched her daughter several times in the face after the toddler picked up a candy bar and began eating it, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Witnesses said Rowland screamed, 'You ate the candy bar and now I can't buy my cigarettes.' "

Oh man, put this bitch in jail!

High court asked to review wine shipping

I wouldn't be surprised to see Jim Benham testify before the Supreme Court on this one!