Hajj

It occurred today that it's more of a pilgrimage of sorts, more or less a ‘Journey To The Center Of Chris And His Asshat Motivations”.

Anyways, for whatever reasons, here are the projected dates:

Report to in-processing 17 January.

Begin BMT @ Ft. Sill, OK, 26 January.

Begin AIT @ Ft. Sam Houston, TX, (fricken TEXAS again!) 16 April.

Return to loving family and friends on or around 10 August. (Swimsuits and hamburger buns, yay!)

More to come

Asshats Among Us

"The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran,"

Rep. Virgil Goode of the Commonwealth of Virginia
postulating on the future of the Democratic process.

"I will not be putting my hand on the Quran,"

Again, Rep. Virgil Goode of the Commonwealth of Virginia at a news conference Thursday at the Franklin County Courthouse where he was apparently afraid that physical contact with a holy book from outside his own religion would cause the flesh on his hand to curl and smoke.

Honestly, what is the big scare here? What is this guy so afraid of? His asshat grievance is tantamount to saying that I shouldn’t be allowed to swear an oath using a Roman Catholic bible… that the only acceptable thing to swear an official, non-secular, governmental oath on would be a selection from his personal collection of King James bibles or some such.

Not being particularly adept at scathing word-play, I have not used the links above to let the gentleman in question know how I feel, however, if you, my gentle-enlightened-hypothetical reader would like to, please be my guest.

I have a feeling that prayers don’t work like this, Lord, but if you could see to it that the Ghost of Diversities Future visits this asshat and makes him into a communist, homosexual, mulatto, Islamic-Jew, that would be just great. If that’s asking too much, perhaps it’ll be enough that he simply loses his seat during the next election cycle… and that his children don’t grow up to be like him… that would also be just fine.

Words’ Worth

I’ve started noticing something interesting involving the power of words and terminologies lately. Here are a few examples and a clumsy segue:

'Secularism' isn’t the opposite of religion or spiritualism… honestly; it’s the desire for an absence of religion and religion-based value judgments from government. Recently ‘secular’ has turned into a denigration thrown about by the modern religious entities, including politicians. Its curious to me that such a term, its utilization prescribed clearly in the first amendment, can be twisted like this.

Another example of the twisting of a words’ meaning to fit into a political or religious lexicon is the term ‘Liberal’. Politically speaking, it wasn’t until the 80’s that the term picked up its negative connotation, literally stepping up into popular use to replace the term ‘Communist’ when it became convenient.

There’s no doubt about it: words have power. But it’s not always about obfuscation or ridiculous political shenanigans. Sometimes its about trust and mood.

The last example is ‘Civil War’. Recently the mainstream media have decided to call a duck a duck and use the term ‘Civil War’ to describe the sectarian violence in Iraq.

"use the term ‘Civil War’ to describe the sectarian violence in Iraq..."

Firstly, kudos to the Times and NBC news for stepping up to the plate and doing the job by publicly stating that they wouldn’t be a part of a semantic, hair-splitting argument with this country’s imperious leader. Secondly, no one who has been paying attention could, in any honesty, describe the ass-hattery in Iraq as anything but a full-fledged civil war. That being said, I was sorta hoping the subterfuge would hold, at least for a while longer.

You see, when you make a big deal about a name-change or a terminology shift, you tend to create a spectacle and attract attention, which is, I am sure, the point. The problem is this: We, as a national collective, are responsible for the instability in Iraq.

"...one of the greatest falsehoods... is that America is thankful for her soldiers’ service..."

Yeah, we went under false pretenses, yup, the post-war was (and IS being) grossly mishandled and (/sigh) yeah, one of the greatest falsehoods perpetrated on the American heartland today is that America is thankful for her soldiers’ service. None of that changes the simple truth that, like it or not, Iraq is a reality and our nation is responsible. And now, with this latest shift in terminology, we have given ourselves the long lost exit strategy, the ‘out’ from the situation that we have all been looking for: Dubya’s ‘cut and run’ come to terrible reality.

Confused? I will explain. Here’s the power of these words: by definition, a ‘Civil War’ is an INTERNAL matter, resolvable only through internal (see: Iraqi) means and without external influence. As though the west would have ANY viable influence in the area if simply left tomorrow, ja? With the terminology’s popular use comes the inevitable sentiment that we should just leave and let them sort it all out.

Doing this would be madness, just as idiotic as picking the fight to begin with. The long-term humanitarian effects would be catastrophic as there still are not even basic services running reliably and the only independent aid organization, the Red Cross, is a very popular target for kidnapping and murder. But that’s not the worst reason.

"...(prematurely leaving Iraq) would be madness... The long-term humanitarian effects would be catastrophic..."

The most compelling reason is, sadly, strategic. Say that stabilization happens overnight, immediately after we withdraw our troops and in spite of the lack of western ‘aid’. This means that they either subjugated their enemies or, worse, they realized that the differences between their ideologies were slight enough to overlook. You would now have an openly hostile, aggressive nation sitting on 2/3 of the petroleum reserves in the Middle East… sitting next door to an historical enemy of the west with strong religious and cultural ties to its populous. This very situation is the reason why we didn’t depose Saddam Hussein in 1991. It’s also the reason why we helped put him into power in the first place.

Folks, we as a nation have an opportunity now to do what’s right by owning up to our collective mistakes. Its only a sad coincidence that supporting the mission means the same (superficially) as supporting Dubya. Our troops deserve better treatment, their sacrifices should not be diminished through intellectual legerdemain and the people of Iraq deserve their shot at peace and a better tomorrow. Particularly because we are responsible for their crappy 'today'.

p.s.
Speaking of the power of words, Kramer dropping the N-bomb on a couple hecklers isn’t the end of the world, hell, its barely even news. There are more important things we should be discussing atm (see above) and it seems to me that hypocritical sensitivity to idiotic name calling shouldn’t even be on a rational adult’s radar.

Me versus The Cosmos

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist.

What Tarot Card are You?

Take the Test to Find Out.

Genesis in DOS (an excerpt)

And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 3.

C:>LET THE WATERS UNDER HEAVEN BE GATHERED TOGETHER UNTO ONE PLACE AND LET THE DRY LAND APPEAR

Too many characters in specification string. Try again.

C:>CREATE DRY_LAND

Done.

C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH

C:>LET THE EARTH PRODUCE FRESH GROWTH, LET THERE BE ON THE EARTH PLANTS

Too many characters in specification string. Try again.

C:>CREATE PLANTS

Done.

C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH

So it was; the Earth yielded fresh growth, plants bearing seed. And God saw that there were 0 errors.

And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 3.

The rest of this joke is a bit long but very funny... especially great for us old DOS fans=)