It's The End of the World as We... Wait, What?

Well it is now Saturday 5/21/11 1:28pm. Do you know where your apocalypse is? If you are still reading this from an earthly computer that is because god thinks you are a dick and were not lifted up to heaven during the rapture. Welcome to my world.

Looking around outside I am not at all surprised that hell on Earth looks a lot like Vegas.

As of this point, the content of the "The End Is Nigh!" pages have not changed. Maybe they are waiting until midnight just to be sure.

This is just a quickie (was it good for you?) but you can bet that I will be posting more on this topic in very short order. I will be posting, that is, of course, assuming that I have not been wrong and the entire world bursts into flame at midnight.

In the mean time, feel free to point and laugh at all those who whole-heartedly believed that they were going to be drawn up in the rapture but made no effort to donate everything they had to the poor unfortunates who would be left behind. Isn't giving to those less fortunate the "Christian" thing to do? Apparently not.

I'll Be Back... You Have Been Warned!

Hey! Nice Underwear!

Sagging pants that expose the underwear, this has got to be one of the stupider fashion trends in recent memory. Not as bad as bell bottoms but it is certainly within kissing distance. I mean, past a certain point you are no longer wearing pants, you are wearing thigh-highs. While I am a big fan of thigh-highs, they really don't do it for me when worn by underage boys with a perma-scowl etched on their faces. If you are gonna wear your pants down around your knees, just loose the pants. You don't look tough, you look ridiculous.

Now, as bad as normal jeans down around the knees are, there is an even more insidious fashion cancer growing in the world. For quite some time there has been a trend of adolescent boys wearing jeans so tight that just looking at them makes my balls hurt. This was bad enough but they have also added the sagging thing. If you are wearing pants so tight I can tell what religion you are from across the room, I don't need you dropping your drawers to confirm the point.

I am a big supporter of the concept of a clothing optional society but this isn't really the way to go about it. If you don't want to wear pants, don't. As long as you are still wearing underwear you are still not considered "indecently exposed", quite possibly one of the stupidest laws ever composed by mankind.

The thing that really bothers me about this is not the exposure, its the whole attitude that seems to go with it. There is an incredible amount of hostility that seems to come along with this "fashion". I find it interesting that a guy who has to hold his pants up with one hand to even walk glares at me like I just question the legitimacy of his parentage. You shouldn't be pissed at me, you should be pissed that you can't find a working belt.

Now, one might suggest that the glare is due to the fact that I am staring at them. Let's say, for the sake of argument that I am staring. I am not, but lets just say that I am. So what if I am? Staring is the natural response when seeing something unusual. If a guy rolls out on a unicycle wearing fishnet stockings, juggling flaming hamsters and sporting a three foot day-glow orange mohawk, I am going to look. Hell, if that happened I might even toss a few buck in the hat for him. The point is, if you don't want people to look, wear something that blends in. Granted, if this trend continues those of us who know how to work a belt will be the ones being stared at.

As I said, the attitude that goes with this fashion is what really irritates me. Sorry, chuckles, showing me your underpants doesn't make you tough. Not even a little bit.

There are two stories I have heard to explain the origin of this look, both of which say it originates in prison.

The first, is the one I am really hoping is true because if it is, it really puts a bit of a hilarious spin on the whole tough-guy attitude thing. In this story, the look was one used by guys in prison advertising that they wanted to be someone's bitch. The hilarity jumps up a few more notches when you consider the homophobia that is so prevalent in the intercity black culture where this look seemed to first gain a foot hold.

The second one is a bit more likely but much less funny. The story goes that the inmate uniforms in the LA county prison system were usually too large due to there not being the funding to give every inmate one that actually fit. All the belts, shoelaces and what have you were confiscated to prevent suicide and to prevent them from being used as a weapon. As a result, the inmates had to hold their too-large pants up with one hand for fear of the first story becoming swiftly and violently true.

Even if the second story is the true one, those that choose this look are still emulating failure! Everyone who has ever been or ever will be in prison, rightly or wrongly, is there because they failed in some way. Now they may have simply failed to prove their innocence in a corrupt court system that gives only lip service to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" or they got caught committing a crime, it is still failure. There is just no way around that.

Here's hoping this stupid trend will die off soon. Hey, bell bottoms and the leisure suit died off too, so there is always hope.

Well, that is my grumpy old man post for the day.

And stay the hell off my damn lawn!


Rant Over... for now

Its a Party! Who Brought the Chips?

The end of the world will apparently occur on May 21, 2011. This according to a site called familyradio.com. For those of you keeping count, you have five days to hug your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye.

How do they know this? Well:

"That is why He has given us in advance of the destruction the exact time of the Day of Judgment. The Bible tells us in Amos 3:7:


Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but He revealeth his secret unto His servants the prophets."

Wait. Did I miss a date or something in that passage? To be fair, later in the page they do present an equation that proves, PROVES I say, that the world will end on 5/21/11. That is to say, it proves it if you interpret the bible in a certain way.

I love this one:

"In its original languages (mostly Hebrew and Greek) it has never been changed, and each and every word in the original languages is from the mouth of God."

Paging King James!

Now that we know that the bible has never been changed and is 100% accurate, we have to wonder why it refers to the messiah as Jesus Christ. "Jesus" we know is a corruption of the Greek which is a corruption of the Hebrew name "Joshua" pronounced "Yeshua". That's an awful lot of corruption for a book that has never been changed and is completely accurate!

"The people of the earth, which we call mankind, were created to rule over this earth. God gave laws by which we can live as happily and wisely as possible. He warns, however, that the breaking of those laws is sin, and sin will bring punishment from God. The Bible declares in Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death…."

Can't you just feel the love?

"By careful study of the Bible we learn that in the year 4990 B.C. (Before Christ) God brought a flood of water and destroyed the entire earth except for eight people and the animals that were with them."

Again with the love. Now maybe its just me but isn't 8 just a little small for a viable gene pool? If somehow a pool of 8 people end up producing a world population of roughly 6 billion people there must have been some serious inbreeding going on. Now that I think about it, that much inbreeding would kind of explain a lot of bonehead moves humans tend to make. Moving on.

"The ark that Noah had built was the only place of safety from the destruction of the Flood."

Apparently there was a rash of termites that ate holes in all the other boats.


"We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people (that is about 3% of today’s population)."

Ok, if you are one of the 200 million that are taken up to heaven, I call dibs on your stuff!

For those of you who want to see where all these quotes come from, you can find them at: http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/judgment/judgment.html

I am really anxious to see what their website will say on May 22nd. Unless, of course, they are right and the world has ended the day before. If it does, the Mayans are gonna be super pissed!



Rant Over... for now

In the Army Now...

The other day I was having a discussion with a few friends. Stop laughing, I have friends! The topic of discussion was gays in the military. Two of these individuals were former military themselves. One of them said that while he would have no problems serving in an open military there were certain positions that he would have a problem having homosexuals serve in. I asked him to elaborate and he mentioned a "flamer" in a command position. In this point I agreed with him but that was more a case of a personality ill-suited to a particular job. A flamer would indeed, in my estimation, be a poor choice for command but not all gays set off sprinkler systems. Personality is a different issue entirely than who one finds physically attractive.

A point brought up was by another gentleman was the practical concern of the hetero soldier on the ground's reaction to an openly gay soldier. He said that there would many possible instances of personal backlash against the gay soldier up to and including instances of "friendly fire". While I acknowledge that in many instances that could very well be the case, is that a reason to keep gays out of the military? There are many bigots in every part of society. Many people would like nothing more that to see their own personal prejudices reinforced by official policy. Is the fact that a bigoted individual will behave in a violent way when confronted with the object of his bigotry a good reason to condone the behavior? I submit to you that it is not. There was negative and often violent reaction to the integration of black soldiers into the military. Does that mean it should never have happened? Radical changes made to any social system are always messy and often bloody. That does not mean it should happen. There are military statutes that protect military personnel from being attacked by one another just like there is in the civilian world. A soldier attacking a soldier, in most cases, is a crime and is punished as one. The point was made that these statutes would be "selectively" enforced. I can not argue with that. How many black soldiers were brutally attacked with impunity during integration? Does that mean it shouldn't have happen? Sadly, a great deal of the "old guard" had to "die out" for the change to take root. And the same would most likely have to take place in this instance.

I am not now nor have I ever been in the military. This is a fact that is usually used by current and former members of the military to discount my opinion as being completely invalid. This is arrogance on a rather impressive level and is completely ridiculous. It would be on par with my pointing out that I am a writer and since someone else isn't his or her opinions on literature are completely invalid. This would be viewed, quite correctly, as a ridiculous idea. It is quite possible for a non-writer to studies literature and the various aspects of its creation and possess well thought out and valid opinions on the subject. Guess what, the same thing is true for the military and any other subject. We all have minds that allow us to logically form opinions on any subject. The out of hand rejection of another point of view simply because it comes from a different set of experiences than yours is false logic at best. Sometime a fresh pair of eyes can be a very helpful thing.

Another excellent point that was made was that was made was that when one enlists in the military they sign a contract that includes the wording banning homosexuality and so breaking the contract by declaring one's homosexuality they should rightly be incarcerated for this breach. I would agree with this statement if it were not federal law that a contract that requires one to commit an illegal act is non-binding. The sanctioned discrimination against a citizen of the United States clearly violates the fourteenth amendment and is, therefore, illegal. Don't forget, military personnel also pledge to defend the constitution. There is a reason "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense. If you signed a contract with me to kill my wife and then did not fulfill the contract, I could not then sue you for breech of contract. Despite the ridiculousness of that example, the principle holds true.

The practical result of all this is, as correctly pointed out by the gentleman, is that one would find themselves sitting in federal prison until the supreme court agree to hear the case. Given the stacked deck that is our current Supreme Court and our government's love affair with ignoring civil rights and locking people away without even the pretense of due process, the prospects of policy being changed in this way are dim indeed.

When you strip away pandering to the bigotry of others, I still have yet to hear even one logical reason why homosexuals are unfit for military service.



Rant Over...for now

And We All Know Who Should Get the Credit for this One, Right,,,, um, Right?

Well as we all know Bin Laden is no longer using up our valuable oxygen. Now, as when most things of note happen it is time to play the blame/credit game. I have heard from some that: "Obama got Bin Laden" and from others: "they wouldn't have gotten him if it wasn't for Bush". Both of these statements are stupid and prove that terrorists are not the only ones who waste our oxygen. The one who should get the credit for the kill is the one who took the shot and those in his/her immediate support ring, you know the ones who were directly involved, not some politicians thousands of miles away who haven't been involved in in even one operation in this clusterfuck we call a war and the closest they have gotten to the desert was knocking their ball into a sand trap on a golf course more expensive than the average American could afford in ten years of saving.

So, now he is dead. Now what? In all likelihood, now nothing. Hunting Bin Laden has not been an even remotely plausible excuse for the war for a very long time. In the intervening years we have come up with many others, all equally ridiculous, that we can lean on now. The only reason the war will end any time soon is if there is suddenly no more money in it. I would say that it wont stand up until the American people stand up and demand it. However, considering how easily the government has gotten us to roll over and hand over any freedom they ask for I think it is more likely that it will cease to be profitable long before we as a people stand up and demand that it end.

In the intervening years since Bin Laden made it to the top of the charts we have: Attacked a sovereign nation without provocation using a flimsy and ultimately proven false connection to the September 11th attacks, we have passed and renewed the Patriot Act, a document that severely curtails the civil liberties of American citizens, We have kept prisoners locked up without due process (in fact, distroying some aspects of due process. Anyone else miss habeas corpus?) and without charge, we have legitimized the use of torture in interrogations as well as just for shits and giggles (Abu Ghraib, anyone), Misused our service men and women and ignored them when they returned, given millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts to political cronies, covered up crimes committed by said political cronies, Made it more difficult to board a plane than to buy a gun and allowed Michael Bay to make three craptacular Transformers films. That last one has nothing to do with the war, it just pisses me off.

So all those things have transpired and we finally killed one skinny, repressed, angry little goat herder. Looks like we one this one!

Don't get me wrong, Bin Laden was scum but when it comes down to whose goals were achieved most effectively, I think he was one or two up on us.

I truly hope that this help end war and bring our troops home, but I wouldn't count on it.


Rant Over... for now