Archives for October 2004

As I have been surfing through blogger land I have noticed more and more posts from people who are in touch with G-d. And it occurs to me that lately I have read articles that talk about G-d speaking to Pat Robertson, George Bush, Osama and even Charles Manson.

Wow, G-d sure is busy. I wonder what I need to do to gain my own platform to discuss what G-d thinks the world needs and why he/she/it needs me to do it. Maybe you can send me money so that I can live in a deluxe apartment in the sky where I can broadcast to the world the real message.

Have I told you that G-d wants to give me 17 wives. I asked G-d for 21 and all I got was 17. What the hell is going on.

Did I ever mention how much fun it is to play with people who think that it is ok to try and press their religious beliefs upon me. Yesterday at the mall some guy confronted me about my soul. Yes, he said that he wanted to confront me about my immortal soul. I suggested that he go play Tiddly Winks but he didn’t catch on.

If you are easily offended, stop reading now.



The conversation progressed and I asked him if G-d enjoyed a good blow job. He didn’t pick up on my disdain or chose to ignore it. He told me that within a loving, committed relationship it was ok and then added that by committed he meant married. So I asked him if he meant that it was ok for my partner to pleasure me. Slow man didn’t catch the reference, so I spelled it out for him.

And then he offered to pray for me. So I replied in kind and said that I would pray for him. He told me that it was not nice of me to try and bait him. I told him that I was a master fisherman and that given time I could change his mind and make a real believer.

At that point he grew somewhat incensed and moseyed away from me. Why was he surprised that someone might be offended by his actions and show this by being “obnoxious.” More to the point, how many times do you have to be told that what you are saying is of no interest before it sinks in.

I won’t apologize for my behavior. Witness to me and I will politely tell you to go away. Continue and it is time for Jack to play.

I love reading. I just love to read anything and everything. In the P.C. era (that is pre-children) I would routinely read around 6 or 7 books a month, and that was a drop from the P.M. era )pre-marriage) in which I read more than that.

My choices in reading were not unlike many others. I loved a good fantasy, solid fiction, mysteries. I enjoyed biographies and histories of things/people/places that were interesting to me. And I found that not only did books provide a great education, but they gave me connections to people I might not ever meet and the ability to carry on conversations about virtually anything.

One of my favorite series was written by Stephen Donaldson. Here is a link to Amazon’s review of the first of the 6 books in the series Lord Foul’s Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 1).

I just loved it and found these books to be very compelling. And like some of my other favorite series I was disappointed when I finished it. The ending was just bittersweet, you were thrilled to have read it all, but at the same time you want more.

Anyway, I think that the last book in the series was written around 20 years or so ago. But now, Donaldson has taken up the pen again and crafted The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 1).

I am really excited about this and very curious to see if the magic is still there. Sometimes these stories can be extended and developed and sometimes there is nothing left to say. Will this be like a bad reunion tour of a band in dire need of money, or a new beginning. I don’t know. But I am ready to find out.

Oh well. This should be the least of her problems. Not to mention that her sister is known for being a huge dope. I’d focus on the more important issues.

Yesterday we took the children to the mall to have professional photos done. My daughter is now 3 months old and we felt that it was time to get something better than the shots we have, not to mention we really wanted to have pictures of her and her brother done professionally.

BTW, I am really tired and cranky this AM so my posts may reflect this. Nah, not may, they will. Anyway the pictures came out just beautifully. We were really happy with them and only have to wait until November 16th for the incredibly efficient people to produce copies for us. It was ever so easy to show us the digitial proofs, but really hard to give us copies on the spot. Oh brother.

It was a bit of an effort to keep my son entertained while his sister made like Cindy Crawford and by the time we got the two of them together he had just enough patience left to cooperate.

But what I really remember at the moment was the lunch we had aftewards. It was at Wood Ranch and I had a great Tri Tip. It was awesome, just tender, juicy and the smell is still in my head. Yummy.

Thoughts at the end of an evening. Memories fade over time, they just do. Love, pain, success, joy, whatever, the memories of these events fade.

That doesn’t mean that you cannot bring up the same feelings again, but the deeper feelings, the kind that you can just taste, the feelings that envelop your whole body, well they fade a little. And I think that is both normal and necessary.

You can’t function if your day is spent in overwhelming joy or despair, a middle point has to be reached. And now we find ourselves approaching a middle point in time. It is a little more than 3 years since 911 and it seems to me that much of America has decided that it was a terrible event, but that it is long ago.

Now the purpose of this is not to try and scare you. I think that the people who hate America have been around for an awfully long time and I don’t think that it makes a difference to them philosophically whether a democrat or a republican is in office. Party affiliation is meaningless. IMO their issue is with the West and any country/people/organization that will challenge them in their mission.

And that mission is a restoration of the Islamic Caliphate and the eventual extension of Muslim rule throughout the world. This is not going to be a long post in which I cite chapter and verse to support this. If you don’t agree with it, you can stop reading and find something else that interests you more. I won’t be offended. Different opinions are to be encouraged.

But if you accept the premise that this is not science fiction and look at their objective you can see that this is an ideological issue that impacts the entire world. There are people who have a set of beliefs that say that they have divine permission to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals. They are smart, educated, well funded and patient.

Within America I think that there are people who find it difficult to consider this to be a potential reality. It is much easier to look at very simplistic answers. They are angry at the US because we invaded Iraq, because we support Israel, because, because, because.

Other blogs will provide you with simple tests to try and prove those theories to be right or wrong. Again, today is not that day at the shack.

As the memories of 911 fade I think that many think that because there have not been any new attacks there must not have been any attempts. And that is very dangerous. I have had a number of discussions with folks who maintain that lack of proof means that they must not have happened. This is disingenuous and somewhat ostrich like.

Lack of empirical evidence does not mean that our government is not currently and has not been working on securing borders and preventing incidents from taking place. It is safe to say that incidents that have been prevented have not received immense press coverage. We have enough intelligence issues without providing our adversaries with more ammunition.

And broadcasting our having stopped these attacks could compromise our assets in the field.

Now there are those who claim that this is happy rhetoric on my part and that I am just blowing sunshine up the asses of you and myself. But that doesn’t ring true. If you look at the last 11 years you can find multiple attacks upon the US. There was the first attack on the WTC in 1993, the attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the attacks on the USS Cole, the attacks on the African Embassies and of course 911.

We are aware that the millenium bombing at LAX was prevented and have heard of a handful of other incidents. Does it make sense that the attacks would suddenly disappear or that they just haven’t managed to get back into the continental US. Don’t forget that I could have listed multiple incidents in Turkey, Tunisia, Morrocco and elsewhere. They haven’t stopped trying, we have gotten lucky. Eventually someone will succeed again.

So in my mind there are several issues here.

1) What do we do to successfully combat an ideological threat on a global level.

2) How do we rebuild belief in the government internally and externally.

3) What are we willing to do to protect ourselves.

I am sure that this misses a few other areas and that it definitely does not include subsets of these other issues. But all things must have a beginning.

And from a slightly different tack, I ask this question. Many people claim that the war in Iraq has created more terrorists and spurred AQ copycats. If you look at AQ as being a political party wouldn’t it make sense that there would be a left, a middle and and a right. And wouldn’t it be possible that there would be enough members to populate these offshoots, regardless of any US involvement.

Ok, it is getting late and old Jack needs some sleep. See you all in the AM.

I am short on time, but I want to broach a topic that irritates me to no end. I have real trouble understanding why some people make apologies for terrorists. In recent memory I have heard people say that if only the US hadn’t invaded Iraq, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, Bigley and so many others would be alive.

The suggestion here is that because the US invaded there is a legitimate excuse for this inhumane and barbaric act. I am sure that these people will make a similar excuse for Zarkawi’s recent murder of 50 Iraqis. He certainly is working on placing himself in the Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Amin, category. He may not ever get to lead a country and be able to murder on the same massive scale, but he has murdered an incredible number of people. It is shocking.

Anyway, I find this moral ambiguity to very troubling. There are many ways that a person can protest actions. There are many ways that you can “fight the power” but these people who wish to create apologies for murderers are dangerous. They encourage the behavior, they do not deter it.

They’ll counter with silly arguments that claim “that I don’t understand the root of the problem” and that this is combined with an arrogant attitude that makes people angry.

I could respond with multiple examples of murder that had nothing to do with any of the excuses that they provide, but the ostrich doesn’ t want to see what is happening.

It is dinner time so I am going to cut this short now.