Another Argument Against the Death Penalty

In a recent pronouncement of The American Board of Anesthesiology, Inc., this organization has finally spoken against the use of their profession in a way that defies or ignores the Hippocratic Oath of preserving human life.

According to this document: "The majority of states in the United States authorize capital punishment, and nearly all states utilize lethal injection as the means of execution. However, this method of execution is not always straightforward (1), and, therefore, some states have sought the assistance of anesthesiologists (2). This puts anesthesiologists in an untenable position. They can assuredly provide effective anesthesia, but doing so in order to cause a patient’s death is a violation of their fundamental duty as physicians to do no harm."

Yes it IS! And to those that argue the rightfulness of the death penalty not-withstanding, this is the accurate and ethical reading of the Hippocratic oath. Yes it means that medical people should not participate in the death penalty, and yes it means that those involved in the medical professions should never consider dealing death as a part of their calling. While I strongly disagree with those that argue that it is the right of the state to take life, I also strongly disagree with those that would take life and couch it in terms that it is somehow "painless" or "humane." The problem is deeper than that. The argument that it is a reflection of biblical texts makes the issue a method in ethics in the christian west. That is, by the way, what we are.

We here in Texas have always enjoyed the strength of law and somehow pretend that the old Calvinist attitudes of the Anglo settlers here must prevail in the arguments of law and ethics. I am here to tell you that the old Spanish laws of anti-slavery could have prevailed in the old Texas, and the modern Catholic understanding of capital punishment deserve an audience. The old Spanish laws of preserving the right of women to own property were outside the common law of the United States and were a unique milestone in the US until much later. The modern view that the right of the state to take a human life is a throwback to an earlier and violent age when that was the only reserve of a state that had little alternative compared with the numbers of crimes committed in this day and age. We no longer live in that day or age and other considerations have to come to the forefront.

The death penalty has not proved to be a preventative measure to violent crimes, but it does provide the state with a lot of ethical problems. It appears that the best measure against violent crime is to have an armed and educated people that are trained to use their firearms and the willingness to only use them in times of severe distress. The result is what Robert Heinlein offered back in the 60's, in that an armed society tends to be a polite society. When the State is armed with this measure of taking human life, something else seems to happen. It happens this way because ethics is not a normal measure of the strength of a bureaucracy, but rather the small letter attitudes of what a bureaucracy does.

It happens the same way with the total and unrelenting stupidity of the so-called "Zero Tolerance" laws that have infected this great nation. What is more stupid than a zero tolerance law? It means that literally our judicial system is not able to cope, and when there are things that occur that NO PERSON could have possibly predicted, then what we have to do is abandon good sense. How can we say that a kid that had his hunting rifle in hus truck when he went to school is in any way related to the wack-job that killed their parents before bringing their firearms to school and then opened fire?

I will tell you how. It happens when we, as parents and uncles and guardians and mothers, decide to abandon our own good sense and our own willingness to participate in society and leave it to the government to make these decisions on our own behalf. In other words, we decide that we cannot deal with these people but need to have someone else make these decisions.

The death penalty is the same abrogation of our right as a society to think. If we actually kept a murderer behind bars until he/she could clear their name, then we do not have to take on the abrogation of human life by killing them. It does not mean set them free until that happens, but rather that a life sentence have actual teeth. It does mean that when we find the state's evidence wanting, we can actually free the innocent that has been incarcerated. It also means that we can free the victims of a wrongful death the thing that makes them most afraid; namely, killing the wrong person in the name of justice.

This is the kinder and gentler Phelonius that some readers have asked for, and thus ye receive.

Fine for Some but Not for Others

In a fine piece of irony, our friends at the Associated Press have discovered that the smarter future Republican candidates for 2012 are, in fact, listening to the Tea Party advocates rather than dismissing them as nutbags and racists. The nation-wide Tea Party movement, for certain, has its elements in radicalized people that are actually nuts and racists. So does the left in this country have its share of them.

Currently, in the national press, it is the vogue to portray ALL of the Tea Party people this way, but suggest that the moonbats on the left are now just fine to have in your presidential cabinet and in key positions in the House and Senate.

Your intrepid reporter and commentator, Phelonius, was myself at one of the earlier Tea Party rallies, and I saw nothing that suggested either racism or a radical agenda, unless you happen to believe that the US Constitution is a bad thing. If you believe that, then there were a LOT of radicals there. Radicals like housewives and their kids with picnic baskets in hand. Radicals like elderly veterans and businessmen in their suits, and radicals like me, who came to see what the fuss was all about. There were plenty of placards saying things like "Preserve the Constitution!" and "Don't Tread on Us!" (a really radical message for students of our history.) There were people shouting and chanting things like "get rid of Obama" and "remember to vote." I saw no burning cars, effigies or flags. I saw no rioting, no people being violent in any way whatsoever, and certainly no disrespect to law and order. In other words, I saw nothing there that you could not take your 5 year old to see, and there were a lot of kids around with their parents. There was a lot that I was proud to see our kids witnessing, such as the peaceful gathering of citizens voicing their concerns about the politics of this great nation.

Why would any politician in his or her right mind ignore the vast majority of people in this country that are really dismayed and concerned about our government's recent huge power-grab? The fact that these people are normally very quiet and fairly flexible in political debate is a disturbing element to the left, as they see themselves as the vox populi, in spite of the polls that argue very much to the contrary. It is noted in this article that "...the fastest-rising Republicans seem to be those most in synch with tea-partier's aversion to taxes and Washington-based programs and taxes."

I posit that the vast majority of this country still prefers that limited government is the best choice. I posit that the people in general see the so-called "centrists" of the Republican Party as being at least partially to blame for this most recent debacle in the House, Senate and Presidency. If a political party ceases to speak for its members, then the members either leave the party and form others, and that political party becomes irrelevant. The last time this happened was when the Whig party dissolved to make room for the Republican Party. The anti-Jackson elements of the Union were dismayed that some of the old Whig Party had stood with Jackson (later the Democrats of the old south) and the increasing tension between the north and south over issues like slavery and trade tariffs forced voters to look for a voice that agreed with what would later be Lincoln's party. Now, I ask you, was that the use of a "litmus test" that has the left so badgered about the tea partier's insistence on a political platform that reflects their views? Very much so, I would suggest, and very much needed and necessary.

Our current regime tolerates none of this kind of activity. If you disagree with the left, you can be attacked by the Presidency itself if you have a large enough following. They scalped their own following before the last presidential election, and if you were a Democrat bold enough to support the war on terror, for example, you could be driven out of the party on a rail. Ask Joe Lieberman how that works.

Let us examine just how that kind of attack works. If you are a Republican that perceives that his electorate is sick and tired of a socialist agenda and do not want a Republican in name only, then he or she moves to where at least most of the electorate are comfortable. That is called being intelligent. Republics work that way because the majority is SUPPOSED to rule. It is in the Constitution, read up on that. Elections are supposed to put people in representative places that represent the opinions of the majority. Now, if you do this and the opponents of the Republicans catch wind of it, then that person is labeled as a radical. They are obeying a "purity test" and are reacting out of fear. Of course the Republicans want to get back in sync with the majorities in their electorates, as in the last election a great many were not and they lost fearfully. It is the solemn duty of every representative and every senator to represent the interests and concerns of their constituents in Washington, DC, and those that do not fully deserve to lose to their opponents. If you wish to label that solemn duty as a kind of "litmus test" then do so, but realize that it is the way that elections work. Do not elect people that do not represent your views.

If this last Congress and Senate passed a bill or two that you find objectionable, do not listen to the populist cries of the Democratic Party while they go through their death throes, because what they claim to popular opinion is clearly not that. If they find it objectionable that you want representatives and senators tha actually reflect what you believe to be the truth, do not be ashamed to say it, and say it loudly. Let your friends and neighbors know. If nothing else, you will be enlightened by what they think, or perhaps they will.

That is what the freedom of speech means. You have the right to lawful assembly and lawful speech. The tea parties are lawful and healthy assemblies, and far less violent than many of the left-wing assemblies. Speak, show up, and vote. The more people that are interested and informed voters the healthier our Republic is going to be.

I beg all of you, dear readers, to do the exact thing being complained about in this article. LOOK at the voting record of the incumbent, and decide if that is what you want in Washington. LOOK at the opposition and see if that is what you want, but for the love of all that

makes this nation great, vote along those lines. Vote in November, and do not let anyone that is eligible to vote 'slack off' and ignore this sacred and important duty.

Tired of the status Quo?

Are you one of the millions that are tired of the status quo?

You then fall into one of two camps. You are either one of the peoples that feel that the new invasion of the federal government is a good thing and we need more of it, or you are one of the peoples that read, understand, and appreciate the Constitution of the United States.

It is really hard to be in the middle ground on this one, as there are really no choices but a couple of stark ones:
1. you are ok with the Federal Government taking over your private health, or
2. You are not ok with the Federal Government taking over your private health.

Oh, yes, you are going to see the sob stories over the next few months. There are illegal immigrants that have never had health care (a lie). There are people that have contracted serious health problems and now cannot afford the costs. There are people of every description that truly believe that while they have had no real problems so far, it is good that the federal government take over health concerns because they truly do not want to be accused of not caring about the lesser fortunate.

No matter which of the above that you fall into, every free person in these United States has to address the question of whether or not the people that have a viable income and/or business is somehow morally bound to provide for those that do not.

I mean that literally, as does this latest catastrophe of a health bill does. There are provisions in this bill that will guarantee the federal government will have the right to fine you even if you do not want to have health insurance. There is a provision in this bill to hire thousands of new IRS agents because they are going to become the enforcers of the new law. How can that be a bad idea?

Since I work in higher education, I can tell you about another added benefit of this giant incursion into our rights. So far we have had kids that want to go to college, right? We all depend on our students being able to take a loan to cover the costs, unless they are among the lucky few that have the kind of scholarship and/or parental income that makes money a non-concern. This bill has basically made loans from private companies for the subsidized and unsubsidized student loans illegal. Your students are now going to take loans from whom?

You guessed it! From the Federal Government, and the lenders are the already bankrupt taxpayers! We are in debt to the amounts of trillions of dollars, but the feds want control of our student loans to the extent that even private universities are going to spend thousands of dollars each to conform to this newest regulation. Until recently a University could choose what kinds of loans they could give out, but no more. Our socialist friends on Capitol Hill have decided, in their superior wisdom, that private banks are no good for school loans. How could this be a bad idea?
The bottom line is exactly that, the bottom line. We are ruining the value of the US Dollar by driving this insatiable government of ours further into debt by virtually every vote that this idiotic legislature takes, and they are being signed by an equally idiotic president.

What does it take to change this “bad to worse” situation? It is simplicity itself.



Vote them out.

Vote them out in November and vote them out in every following election. We can make this appeaser President and his corrupt lackeys jobless by the measure of the ballot box.

If you are tired of hearing how bad this nation is, and how terrible our fight to free people is, and how bad our corporations are for being productive, and how terrible our judicial system is, then for the love of all that is holy, vote. Vote your conscience and vote your common sense. They describe us in the Tea Parties and Town Halls as being radical, race-hating bigots, despite the overwhelming evidence that we are not those things. The socialists are going to slur us with every hateful thing they can think of because they fear YOU! They fear what you are going to say when the lies they spout are put under the light of the sun. They fear how you are going to react to this latest subterfuge of the “Health Bill” when brought under the scrutiny of people that love their freedoms.

Vote your conscience, and you will never disappoint Phelonius!

Keeping a Civil Tounge

In the light of recent events and the proposed scope of this new blog, I wish to start things off with a quick comparison of things now to things past. I thank the gracious host of this new blog for asking me to join in this endeavor, and I hope we can generate some interesting dialog.

This republic just finished a contentious and generally aggravating presidential election, coupled with many many races across the country that reflected the presidential campaigns in both tone and content. One of the chief characteristics in this election cycle was the continual advertising that slung personal attacks against all the contenders involved. This characteristic in many ways hid the other chief component of this last election; namely, the deeply divided political stances of our citizens. The mud-slinging was an illustration of the deep-seated frustrations that were and are present, and generally worked to literally beat the citizens down by a non-stop stream of invective. I do not know about you, but I sure got tired of that, and I am happy that this last election is finally over.

I was reminded of another election in 1829. This was also a terrible election that consisted of personal attacks and political hatreds that very nearly tore the nation in half. I quote from the prologue of Arthur M. Schlesinger's book "The Age of Jackson" (copywrite 1945, Little, Brown and Company):

"It was no year for righteous men: everywhere they sat in darkness. Two months before, General Andrew Jackson had been elected President of the United States. The ungodly were now in the ascendancy, and those who walked not in their counsels had little but Scriptures for consolation. 'There is more effrontery,' Samuel Clesson Allen, retiring Congressman from Massachusetts, had exclaimed, '...in putting forward a man of his bad character - a man covered with crimes...than ever was attempted before upon an intelligent peoples.' The good Reverend Robert Little, pastor of the Unitarian Society of Washington, sadly chose this text: 'When Christ drew near the city He wept over it.'"

The sentiments reflected here are no exaggeration, as the Federalist opposition to the populist Jackson was bitter and deep-seated. It had begun with the opposition of the Federalists, such as Hamilton and the Adamses, to the utopic, agrarian vision of the Jeffersonian Republicans. As Schlesinger points out, the national need for our own manufacturing and middle class slowly outweighed the vision of Jefferson's nation of gentleman farmers, and it was in Jefferson's own administration that the retreat of the Virginia leaders began, and continued through Madison and Monroe. A National Bank had been established, and while the Federalists were out of power in the executive and legislative branches, they had firmly fixed themselves in the judiciary branch "...as to an ark of future safety which which the Constitution placed beyond the reach of public opinion." (p. 15) The general opinion of the Federalists were that Jeffersonian thought encouraged the rough and uneducated public to gain power that they were not fit to hold.

The four year disaster of the second Adam's presidency was the result of the legislature being generally entirely at odds with his Federalist tendencies. Much like the presidential race between George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, there had been cries of stolen elections and under-handed dealings, and the legislature was in no mood to cooperate with him. Now, with the second contest between Jackson and Adams, the populist President had gained control of the seat of power by using "Mob-ocracy," and the doom of the nation was immanent. Jackson was strongly in favor of dismantling the National Bank, and for the firm establishment of gold as the money of commerce and trade. Jackson represented the unruly and unwashed masses of the new, western states, and he did not look favorably on the "rich bankers" and the new, industrial wealthy class of the north-east.

The comparison I am drawing is, of course, not perfect, but there are some interesting similarities. I noticed that George W. Bush has been accused many times of representing the wealthy interests, most notably companies like Haliburton and the oil interests. He has also been a supporter of the so-called "religious right" in his opposition to things like abortion and the use of human fetuses for stem-cell research. Obama has been anathema to the religious right, and he speaks of strong federal control to bring down the wealthy and force them to enrich the nation further by legislative action. Obama and his party speak to the poor in this country, and, whether you agree with what he said or not, his campaign brilliantly brought them to the polls and they used their franchise to elect him to power. Since that time, I have heard many conservatives say things that are remarkably similar to the arguments against Jackson in the aftermath of his election to the Presidency.

Along political lines, that is where the similarities end and, because of almost 180 years difference, there are newer considerations that have to be taken into account for a fuller understanding. One, for example, is that the modern conservative viewpoint is actually closer to the older Jeffersonian view that a limited government is the better government. Whether George W. Bush actually represented that or not is a point for another debate. The modern conservative viewpoint further maintains that involvement in foreign conflicts can be a necessary place as a policy. Obama has maintained that our involvement in foreign affairs should be limited to diplomacy unless it is absolutely necessary otherwise to use force. That was at one time a conservative view, going all the way back to the first Virginian President, George Washington.

The last, and I think, most essential difference, is that at the time of Jackson, the ideal of the redistribution of wealth was simply a concept that did not exist. The control of wealth was certainly one that the Federalists would have maintained, but the idea of taxing the wealthy to give to the poorer elements of the country through a government entity would not have occurred to either Jackson or Adams. It would not have occurred in the minds of any of the founders, in fact. The evils of slavery did occur to them. The possible abuses of the wealthy class in control of the government occurred to them. The dangers of foreign involvement occurred to them. The question of wealth was for the earlier generations of this country not a question of "do we have the right to accumulate wealth," rather, it was a question of "how much power should the wealthy have in a Republic?" There was never an idea that being wealthy was, ipso facto, being a bad person that was just greedy. That is the newer controversy and one that must be considered whether one is a conservative or not.

My own place in this, and the reason for this analogy, is simply to provide perspective enough to give modern conservatives a hope and a prayer. The movement has been placed in a position that seems hopeless for the moment, and, yet, we have survived as a nation through disappointing results in the past. I am truly enamored by the old Jeffersonian ideals, yet, through the lens of time, I can see that not having an industrial base would have been a devastating blow to this nation. Jefferson hated it, but he also understood that as well. I hate the idea of redistribution of wealth as a "save-all" ideal, yet at this point my own grandmother, father and mother are counting on the government check that they spent years of paychecks buying into. Rather than bemoaning the latest defeat in the election, let us instead look to the future. We have to be able to fight these political battles by winning the minds and hearts of those that vote. We cannot win future elections by wishing for this or for that. We will win elections by having a real set of political goals. Anything else is either outright treason or, at best, a political daydream.

Texas Winter Warning

The big news in north Texas today is that we are actually under a "winter storm warning!" Now, for those of you living in, or are from, a northern state, you have to realize something. Down here, the next best thing to sliced bread is a good, healthy panic over a winter storm.


You are going to DIE, DIE, DIE !!!!

It does not mean that there will actually BE much in the way of ice heading our way, it is all in the entertainment value of running to the local 7-Eleven and buying them out of all of their beef jerky, toilet paper, beer and Ding-Dongs "just in case" we have more than 1/8th inch of ice on the road sometime in the next few days. If one were to take the level of excitement over the possibility of a winter disaster that is portrayed by the evening news seriously, you would think that nature is about to totally wipe out humanity in a nuclear winter-style holocaust. This kind of news is SO much better than the recent humdrum of casualties in Iraq and the ceaseless harping on a hunting accident in south Texas that you can practically see the news weather folks wetting their pants in anticipation.

We do, in fairness, have a serious ice storm about every decade or so. Ice is not the same as snow. You can build a snowman in snow. You can make handy little things called 'snowballs' and whack your sibling if you have snow. You can walk in snow, and usually it is not bad to drive in snow as long as you remember that snow is not conducive to a fast application of the brakes. I have raised my children in the same house all their lives, and I remember them building their first snowmen at the young ages of 12 and 16. I took pictures. In Dallas, as a rule, we do not ever have snow. We get, if we get anything, ice.

Ice is not nearly as much fun. If you are driving, you generally cannot see it even during the day. Whipping a chunk of ice at your sibling is tantamount to felony assault with a deadly weapon. If you do go outside in a real ice storm, you are likely to break your ass-bone if you manage not to make a triple-gainer on your skull. Ice is cold, thin, and wet, and there is never enough to do anything more than slide around. In Dallas, generally, if there is ice then everything shuts down. Even if the ice is most likely gone by 9am the next day, ALL of the schools shut down. Businesses close, the government closes down, people start boarding up their windows, dogs start sleeping with cats, and chaos and pandemonium rule the day. And nobody, but nobody, is happier than the weatherman:

NEWS ANCHOR: "And now, the weather. Bob?"

WEATHERMAN: (drooling, with a crazed look) "Thanks Tim. As you can see from the Weather Disaster Map, there is the possibility that WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AN ICE STORM!! Thank God my life has meaning.....er....I mean....The temperatures are GOING TO APPROACH FREEZING and there is going to be something we weather guys call pre-sip-i-ta-shun. That means that there is going to be ICE ON THE GROUND!! There may even be enough of it on the ground to actually be VISIBLE!"

NEWS ANCHOR: (getting into the act) "Bob! You can't mean it! This ...er.... pre-siper-a-ta-shoning could mean the end of life as we know it?"

WEATHERMAN: (splitting open a goat and staring at the entrails) "Why, ...er...yes Tim. For the love of GOD, and all that is HOLY, I am declaring a WINTER STORM WARNING! Remember, folks, when things get bad, and you do not think you are going to make it, just remember to eat the old first, then the sick, then the children, and lastly draw straws. Salvation only goes to the strongest!" (breaks down weeping)

Well, I better end this and go down to the 7-Eleven and see if there is any beer, jerky, toilet paper and Ding-Dongs left as this could last at least 48 hours.

Sheesh.

How I became a Gigolo

Aww, man, it was great. One lunchtime, one massage, and fifty hot bucks right in my wallet. That's, like, espresso money for the MONTH, babe.

It all started out when I realized just how hot my late-50's Jewish-Princess boss is. You know, the ones with eyebrows like wrinkled raisins, and skin to match, with all her kids bugginer her for the cash she picked up by dumping the hell out of her no-good workaholic lawyer husband? Oh, yeah, man, you know that's where the money's coming from... stressed out bosses I can do evil things to for cash... once a week would pay for my parking, espresso, AND lunch the whole year round... for bosses who will then be less stressed out, making my cushy day gig that much cushier.

So, rule one for doing bodywork on one of your bosses: know what you're doing. If you've got to have your hands on some gal's chest where people are likely to walk into the office they only thought was a good empty spot to eat their bag lunches, be cool about it: do something horrific and painful to a gal's chest in order to loosen up the bound-up muscle fibers on the second rib that are keeping a stressed-out boss from breathing right, make sure it REALLY HURTS. Nothing protects you from getting brutally sued, and cements your reputation for "not hitting on old wrinkly women with bad boob jobs" like doing something excruciatingly painful to one of your bosses, and being both thanked and paid for the pleasure of doing so. In fact, I strongly recommend saying things like "close one eye and start shaking your leg like a cat coming out of a swimming pool, because this is going to hurt like you only thought childbirth did."

And try to avoid having to do anything but basic manly stuff on guys. Not the gay angle, or some stupid stuff like that, but let's fact facts: gals smell better, even when they're wearing that "eau de something disgusting" from Nieman's, and more importantly, much more importantly, if you outweight somebody by sixty pounds, and have 40% more skeletal muscle pound-for-pound anyway, you don't have to work as hard. What's easier, hoisting some crabby old lady over your head in order to set her up for an atomic drop while simultaneously making sure that her back sounds like the percussions section at a Lindy Hop revival... or doing that to some 45-year-old investment banker who weighs 240 and hasn't seen the inside of a gym since he tried to get laid once by playing racquetball in college?

Now, unfortunately, the way I do bodywork tends to teach you how to not screw your body up more in the future, so, unlike chiropractors, I can't just farm it out forever. But oh yeah, to support my lavish corporate espresso-lunch lifestyle, I could be a once-a-week Office Gigolo...

Glow In The Dark Pigs

According to the BBC, a group of scientists in Taiwan have mixed the genes from a jellyfish with those of pig embryos in order to create green, florescent pigs.

On purpose.

No shit.

I have read enough comic books and seen enough movies to know what happens when you give a mad scientist time, money, and a lab. In this case you get green pigs. That is better, I guess, than a living body made of parts of corpses or a death-ray laser pointed at the Earth from the Moon. Mad scientists are great. I want one. If I were a billionaire and had a mad scientist working for me, I would want a holodeck, my own "Bigfoot" or a flying saucer. So why green pigs?

"In daylight the researchers say the pigs' eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge. In the dark, shine a blue light on them and they glow torch-light bright...The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research."


"A green pig? You da MAN!!"

Oh, I see. Research. Instead of spending their valuable time working on my long-overdue flying car, these madmen have, at last, addressed the dire need for pigs that can shine like a blacklight poster at night. I do not have a flying car yet, but dammit, I can now finally have my own glow-in-the-dark pig. It is about time. Think of all the uses that florescent pigs will have! If you are a farmer and want to know where your pigs are at night, why, you can see them for miles. Personally, I cannot wait to serve up a great big, steaming fresh green ham with a salad and lime jello.

Hmmmm, come to think of it, pigs don't have many uses besides eating scraps, tearing up the mud and being eaten.

So the next step, naturally, is to breed them. What is better than three mutants? 3,000 mutants of course. Look what breeding mutants did for Monster Island. I am sure the mad scientists in Japan are all pointing their fingers at Taiwan and yelling. They still remember Godzilla, and now Taiwan is breeding "Jellypigs," or whatever they wind up calling this mutagen-powered menace, and I bet the Japanese are laying odds on how long Taipei is going to last. (Unless the Communists get there first, of course.) There is no word on whether they become super-sized or shoot beams out of their eyes. You just cannot predict how a mutant army is going to destroy your city.

Be on the lookout for "Jellypig," coming soon to your locality.

An Annoying Article

The geniuses in Congress, along with His Imperial Majesty King George W. Bush, have fired another salvo in the War on Freedom. I was first alerted to this jewel of legislative brilliance by a well written article in NEWS.COM. I could not help but investigate further. Buried in a bill recently signed into law, the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act," is a little clause that will make things very interesting for believers in the first amendment to our Constitution. For those who want to look this up, it is in Section 113.

Allow me to quote:

Whoever
(1) in interstate or foreign communications
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and(ii) initiates the transmission of,any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
(B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and(ii) initiates the transmission of,any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication;
(C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (emphasis mine)

What, exactly, do these idiots mean by the phrase "with intent to annoy?" I pulled up a dictionary to make sure I was still using the same English I was educated in as a boy, and found the following:

an·noy v., -noyed, -noy·ing, -noys.
1. To cause slight irritation to (another) by troublesome, often repeated acts.2. To harass or disturb by repeated attacks.

In other words, if I slightly irritate or disturb some jackass(es) with an article on this blog there is the potential for jail time and/or a a fine, as long as I do not identify myself. If I put my identity on the article, though, I am still free to annoy anyone that I want. I know that I am not the only one that sees a problem with this. The way I read the first amendment is that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It does not say "unless the speaker neglects to tell everyone who they are first." I am amazed and astounded. Political speech is frequently annoying to the people in power and the reason that "Anonymous" writes so many pamphlets and posts so many blogs is that "Anonymous" wishes to express dissatisfaction without fear of reprisal or harassment.

Who is going to decide what is "indecent" and "annoying?" Why, prosecuting attorneys of course. That makes me feel a great deal safer, as our legal system is stuffed full with ambulance chasing attorneys and politically correct judges who absolutely live for this sort of thing.


Typical Congressmen

Let me be more expressive:

Our Government is a collection of slack-jawed, drooling, mongoloid knuckle-dragging half-wits who couldn't pour piss out of a boot even if there were instructions on the heel. There, is that annoying enough?

Phelonius Jehosephat Blatherskite
111 UpYerAss Street
Anywhere, US 11111

Martyr for the cause

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- A Mormon missionary going door to door was fatally shot Monday night and a fellow missionary was wounded by an assailant who fled, police said…

Talk about taking one for the team. You gotta know this was coming. Who hasn’t hidden from a Mormon or two in their time? Some people are just more proactive than others it appears. Now I’m not advocating shooting missionaries no matter their particular faith but when the black tie, pants and bike have become synonymous with obnoxious god peddlers it might be time to rethink your marketing plan.

Perhaps moving to billboards or funding large epic movies or perhaps a Saturday morning cartoon show with Murray the wacky flaming salamander and his adventures with his ole buddy John. I’m not saying I have the answers but somebody in the temple needs to start asking the right questions.

Not that this is all bad news mind you. Just think of the one that got away. You think this guy doesn’t now have the pick of litter when it comes to Mormon tail your kidding yourself. This guy is like a war hero. The only thing better he could hope for is that the wound is somewhere visible (not all that easy for a Mormon youth mind you). If so that guy is praying for the return of polygamy.

This also gives us a new tool in dealing with the great Mormon menace. Next time a team of cycling sky pilots alights on your front step, simply ask for a moment of silence for their fallen brother… and return your door to it’s upright and locked position.

New Years Resolutions

I’ve never been one to make New Years resolutions. I guess I always thought they were for the weak willed. Those that couldn’t make an actual decision or life change simply because it needed to be made and stick with it, could rely on a special day to help make that commitment stick. Well, now that I’m nearing 40 my attitude has been changing on the matter. I used to give a passing “feh!” to new years resolutions, but no longer. With the coming of middle age I’ve decided to embrace the idea this year and came up with a short manageable lists of resolutions that I will follow as we tumble into the future (or oblivion) that is 2006.

I resolve to get in touch with my feelings. As a man I have been raised to keep my feelings to myself to internalize my thoughts, ignore them but as I near middle age my own health, both emotional and physical have to be kept in mind. I will no longer be the emotional zombie that Western civilization has created me to be. With that, I resolve to no longer suffer the fools that cut me off, tailgate and otherwise drive in a way I find annoying while on the road. I will scream, rant and wave various body parts frantically as a show of my emotional condition. I will release inner frustrations by hurling epithets such as “moron”, “cocksucker” and “assclown” with abandon. I resolve to cast aside my concerns of looking like an emasculated monkey on Ritalin as I “voice my discontent”.

Furthermore, I resolve to no longer care about the shallow façade of beauty. The internal struggles of the modern American male will no longer concern me. I will not be shackled by the need to be “in fashion” or “hip” or even “clean”. No I will embrace the coming age; the age of ear hair, copious wind and bodily odor. I will be content in myself. I resolve to love the man I am, not the one I was.

And finally, I resolve to celebrate my accomplishments. Over the years I have had many accomplishments from sports, to the arts, to my career. With the passing of time I realize that my time is ill spent attempting to surpass the accomplishments of my youth. I resolve to bask in my former glory and be wholly content in my current mediocrity. I will build shrines to my former accomplishments, bore person after person with tales of my great deeds. I will assault the cable man with stories of my prowess on the football field as well as my bed. My children will be indoctrinated into the holy church of Dad, and be made evangelists of my great deeds. In so doing I will be content in the “now”, able to enjoy all that life has to offer me (like recliners, Ritz crackers and easy cheese) while still feeling good about myself.

Yes, this year I resolve to do these things, both to better myself, and the world around me. You can thank me later.

Did You See That?

Dick Clark was recently reported to have been back on TV. You heard me right, the same guy your parents grew up listening to and watching on the first television sets is still around and kicking.


Before Makeup

Amazing.

Not only that, I was watching a small part of the new year's celebrations and I actually saw what appeared to be Dick Clark talking. I feel like one of those guys that has spotted Big Foot on the back porch or Elvis in the Mall. An article from Yahoo News has verified that I am not hallucinating, though, so I do feel a bit better, even if I am a bit creeped out. The same guy that was doing the "Top 40 Village Chants" for Pharoah Amenhotep was right there for all to see in 2006.

Evidently he had had a stroke last year. According to my sources (ALWAYS the BEST) he had just not had enough "Blood of the Living"(tm) and the sunlight had partially destroyed him. At his age, you just cannot get enough of the "Blood of the Living"(tm) to feel just right when going out on the town between sun-up and sun-down.


After Makeup

He is still popular, though. The un-dead seem to be popular at any time. I should know, as I have watched enough movies, and they are all over hollywood. You just have to know a few things to hang around them, like wear garlic, carry a gun with a silver bullet and always wear a football helmet so they can't eat your brains. Even after they crated Dick from his coffin to affix him to the studio desk, he still sounded and looked a tad bit rough. According to the article:

"Clark, sitting behind a desk with the street scene in the background, sounded hoarse and occasionally was hard to understand, but he said, 'I wouldn't have missed this for the world.'...He remained seated during 'New Year's Rockin' Eve,' his right hand resting on the desk and his left arm by his side. Clark counted down the seconds until the ball dropped. He stayed at his desk past 1 a.m. as the crowds thinned out."

The stage techs had forgotten to remove the nails that were holding him to the chair and attached to the desk.

Still, kudos to the guy that can continue to perform well after his body has stopped doing so, and even more kudos to the makeup guys that can make him look like his heart is beating.

Gift Buying Physics

It is well known that gift buying can be a bit of a trial. We have all received gifts that cause us to, well, you know, pretend that you are so happy to have received the latest exercise gizmo or
"Make-Your-Own Origami Kit." Some gifts are even specific to pissing off each sex or taste. Just give your wife a "Thigh Terminator 2006" and see what happens to the Christmas temperature. She is now convinced that you think that her thighs resemble loaves of bread and now she is hyper-aware of this. Likewise, every man at some point has gone to buy a slinky little negligee item at "Anorexia's Secret" and then discovers that his wife's secret fears of having large thighs are not so secret anymore. She is now hyper-aware of her thighs and the Christmas temperature has plummeted to antartic-like numbers. You are more likely to see the Face of God than you are to see her put that string on.

We all remember, as kids, getting the delightful gift of socks. Whoa, socks. How cool is it to get socks? That, or Aunt Josephine sends you a sweater and a pair of slacks that are guaranteed (or your money back) to get the crap beat out of you at school. Kids are easier than adults, though. Electronics have made sure of that. You just have to remember that the "Y-Cube 3800+ with the Forehead Implants" you bought last year is now totally inadequate and you have to pony-up for another king's ransom. Otherwise, they cannot play the 18+ rated "Charlie Manson Kills and Kills Again" game that they think you will buy them later after you have a brain aneurysm and your cash just spills out of your pocket at the store. That, or you just HAVE to get an item that guarantees a visit to the emergency room. Things that roll or can potentially kill are hot items for any kid.

As for men, well, neckties are the cliche but there are other gifts that delight us as well. The $1.95 clearance sale on "Bull-Rump" cologne has inspired more than one kid to make Dad happy, and then Dad is forced to smear "Bull-Rump" on his face at least once that week to show appreciation. Even the dogs won't get close and the cat tries to shovel litter-box sand on you. We, all of us, have that secret cache of ancient colognes and ties that will never again visit the light of day. Just like our wives, who have that drawer where unwearable garments rot alongside the "Stomach Cruncher."

So what are the gifts that work? Well, I have had a few and given a few, and the hell of it is that you only have a year in-between to come up with these brilliant relationship-building ideas. I really love those commercials where the wife surprises her husband with a new Lexus or he surprises her with a rock the size of a football. I guess that economic class exists somewhere, but I sure as hell do not know any of them.

"Look Honey! A NEW CAR! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!"
"My love that is really great! ......Er....why is all of our furniture on the sidewalk?"
"We are going to live in it!"

I went to look at diamond rings the other day. I saw what I thought was a nice little gold band in the right price range, but the jeweler said there was a diamond on there. Just to prove his point, he strapped his electron microscope on my forehead and, sure enough, there WAS a few molecules of diamond on it. It wasn't like the commercial, though. I think you have to actually be able to see the diamond to enjoy it.

So, as you may have guessed, I am stuck this year. I really do not know what to do about Christmas for my lovely better half this time around. I am not a cheap type, either. My downfall this year is I did really well for the birthday. Now, if it is just a matter of money, I will have to sell my children to make a coup. But, as you all know, that is not really the point either. I have tried the tried and true method of actually asking, and I got the tried and true response of "Oh, I don't really want anything much at all." Boy, THAT is helpful. I hate being in the situation where you are running around on the 23rd and you start thinking about silly gifts, like, say, from "Anorexia's Secret." Wait, I did see a "Grow-Your-Own Banzai Tree kit"........

Allhallowedsuperhappy-thanksmasshanukkahbowl

Ah, don't you just LOVE the seasons? I know that I do, and you can always tell when the holidays are just around the corner. The way I can tell is that it is usually around the middle of September.

What holiday starts then? Why, the buying season of course! That is about the time that you can walk into anything from a "super-center" of some type or something as small as a drug store and see the Halloween candy next to the Thanksgiving decorations next to the Christmas stuff next to the Kwanza next to the Hanukkah and so forth. Don't forget that it is also the football season and everyone is gearing up for the playoffs and the Super Bowl. It seems incongruous to me to see the little snow men and turkeys out when it is still 100 degrees outside, but we are desensitized to seasons now to the point that we think nothing of hearing "Carol of the Bells" when we are shopping for a Thanksgiving dinner.

I think it is high time for an end to the hypocrisy. About ten years ago I started giving some of my friends at work an "Allhallowedsuperhappythanksmasshanukkahbowl" card. It makes sense to me. Allhallowedsuperhappythanksmasshanukkabowl starts in the middle of September and runs until the Super Bowl. The object is to buy presents, alcohol and food in prodigious amounts and run up your charge cards until they spontaneously explode.

Since everything is being sold at once, why not go all the way and just combine them all? In September, you can put up the Allhallowedsuperhappythanksmasshanukkahbowl lights around your house and put up the tree. (Nobody takes down their lights, after all, so this is a great excuse to just leave them up anyway and not worry about it.) I have had friends of mine argue that the holiday should include everything from Easter to the 4th of July as well, and if the truth be told I am not opposed to that. It just means that the name gets longer. I personally think that I may have to amend it to include St. Patrick's Day just because of the amount of beer that is hawked as a result.

Now, as to the tree....

You can decorate it with little skeletons, turkeys, empty beer cans, pilgrims and Indians, Santa Clause, angels, pretty baubles and put carved pumpkins around it. Do not forget to place a few pom poms and memorabilia from your favorite football team(s). As to the top of the tree I am waffling between my favorite Nosferatu figurine and a Dallas Cowboy helmet.

On the front lawn, just put up the faux cemetery and spider webs and a nativity scene next to a full size figure of Michael Irvin (or insert your favorite NFL player) running from the law. There is little limit to the creative impulse here, and you can play songs from any of the old holidays just about anytime. One of my favorites is to watch "The Exorcist" with the sound turned off and a "Mannheim Steamroller" Christmas CD playing in the background.

If you have children, you know that they are already confused as hell about this season, so do not bother trying to explain it to them. Just tell them our national credo:

You can tell how good a person you are by the number of things that you buy.

After all, that is the real message here.

Muse on a Milk Carton

It's hard to say when it happens but everyone that ever even pretends to be creative has had it happen at least one time or another. Muse takes a vacation. The worst of it is you never know if it's a long weekend or a full on "piss off loser, I'm through with you" situation. So you're stuck, uninspired, unmotivated you wander about accomplishing nothing and hating yourself for it. Oh sure, there is the occasional Muse spotting. You think you see her speed through an intersection or just rounding a corner ahead of you at the local mall and you rush home and fire up the computer, drag out the sketchpad or squeeze out a long line of hopeful cadmium red onto the pallet..... then you sit, keys on home row, charcoal at the ready, $26 Windsor newton sable filbert brush (that you bought as a sort of muse marital aid last time the bitch left you) loaded for bear and you realize that what you actually saw was some cross dressing math teacher instead of your one true love. You may have lost your creativity but you've not lost your ability to recognize shit when you see it, and since she left town you've been a fecal factory to rival the largest hog farm.

Now you're all alone with only the memories of your time with her. Those times when ideas streamed in a constant flood through you. When every situation was the catalyst for a hundred new ideas. She was good to you, she gave and gave and you thought unselfishly so, but that wasn't the truth. When you failed to give her the one thing she longed for she left to find another lover, one that would supply the one thing she desired most of all; for you to use the gift that she had given. I lament what I have wasted, what gifts I have cast aside in my youth. I acted as if she were an unending font of creativity. I used her when it suited me and ignored her prodding all other times. Muse was my own personal whore, one so good she could make a dead man cum. Now I can't even get it up any more.

How much was lost to me, to us in that time. I'm not implying that I would of found a cure for cancer had I just spent a bit more time with the drawing pad or that world hunger would of been stated by one of my witty posts, but surely a book or two or a painting was lost to the fecal pool of lost thoughts. Of course I'll never know what could of been, but I still hope for the return of Muse and her arousing embrace to see what might still be.

So, while I wait for Muse's return I can only act as if she were still here, doing what I think she would have me do if she were still softly whispering in my ear and hope that one day she'll see I still need her and return to be my inspiration again. Until then we, you as reader and me as writer have our own suffering to do. Pray for a speedy reconciliation.

A Resume

I have been putting my resume together for a new job I saw advertised on the internet.

Actually my sister-in-law pointed it out to me. I was happy to see it.

The qualifications are way beyond what I have actually done, but that is not the purpose of a resume. The purpose of a resume is to eradicate the past through rose-colored glasses.

So I set myself to writing a resume.

Address:
Phelonius Blatherskite
Go down Whatford street to the big tree
sneak into the backyard area
throw a rock at the barrel say the password, (but not loud, my father-in-law still does not know we are here)

Phone:
what?

Position desired:
Owner. Ruler of Whatford Street, Loan Shark and Supreme Court Justice

The reasons I want the job are:
money, cash, jack, stash and bills.

My qualifications:
well, I am me, dammit. Who would not want to work with me?

Brief Summary of Experience:
I done got learned grammer, math and avoiding confrontation. I am a nuclear physicist, a brain surgeon, never lose at Yatzee, can use a remote, smelt gold, run a 1 minute mile, bench press 500 lbs., cast out demons, am an astronaut, can eat a bag of chips in under two minutes, and I invented fire. Oh, and I do not care what that jackass says, I MADE the internet.

Education:
Dungeons and Dragons level 15 Thief.
Graduated Summa Cum Not from Whipperville HS.
Bachelors Degree in "Third Gear" from Whipperville Vo-Tech Trucking School

Past Employment:
"Boy Wonder" for "The Bat-Man" 1963 - 1977
Weiney Stuffer at "Hot Dogs R US" 1978 - 1985
Septic Tank Sucker at "Suck Yer Crap" 1986 - 1995
Urinal Cake Tester for "Fruity Flavores, Inc." 1995 - 2000
Have no damn idea 2001 - presently stoned

Comments: These qualifications make me emminently employable, not only because I can hold my breath for 20 seconds, but mostly because I am able to concentrate on a single project until my head explodes. That is at least 10 minutes. My therapist tells me that the whole experience of "getting my sloth-like corpse off the couch" will be "a learning experience" that will rival "graduating from third grade." What the hell does he know?

So now we shall see, no?

Oh THAT will help

According to FOX News, in a fit of brilliance, the State of California Department of Corrections has determined that smoking is bad for your health. They have banned smoking from prisons.

"'It just helps reduce the risk of secondhand smoking, helps reduce the risk of tobacco illness not just for employees, but for inmates as well,' said Lt. Ken Lewis, spokesman for the California State Prison, Los Angeles County."

While this new insight will make the air clear, there are some small issues that arise, like, say, the black market. It has been long known that cigarettes are currency among inmates, and with a ban on them the value of this currency is going to be massively inflated. The other things banned in prisons like files in chocolate cakes, shovels, crack, pot, sharp objects and getting pounded in the ass by a 450 lbs. bruiser seem to just happen anyway. At what point did they determine that being a prison bitch was good for your overall health? Somehow, I do not think that as someone is getting ass-raped or worse that their first concern is second hand smoke. At any rate, after dropping the soap in the shower now, you have to pay an enormous amount just to have an "afterglow" smoke.

At least they have the satisfaction that cigarettes can now be as expensive as crack:

"'It's real, real expensive, and that's about as far as I can go with that,' said Thomas Hernandez, a prison inmate."

Evidently this was tried in Maine with a 400% increase in prison violence. Duh. Have you ever watched someone quit cold turkey and NOT have a reaction? However, since the ban is only a month old, Lt. Lewis points out that "We have not seen an increase in violence at this prison or throughout the state regarding the smoking ban." That tells me two things. The level of violence is already so great that you can hardly tell the difference and the black market is healthier than it ever was.

In the end, I think we can all rest easier knowing that the hardened criminals released by the parole boards in California have not suffered from second hand smoke.

The Next Earl of Essex

It sounds like a storybook ending to a long life. There is a retired grocery store clerk in California (where else?) that is in line to become the next Earl of Essex:

"A relative who died last month was the 10th Earl of Essex, and the 11th, another cousin, is 61 years old and doesn't have children to inherit the title. Capell, a 52-year-old, born-and-bred Californian, was largely unimpressed by the news that he might become a nobleman. 'I'm a pretty laid-back guy,' he said. 'I've known since way back in 1966, as a teenager, when my dad got a call. It's always been on the back burner, sure, but I never really thought about it.'"

The most that most people I know have to look forward to in retirement are reverse mortgages, vitamin supplements and Viagra. This guy could wind up in an English mansion running an entire estate and having women in those cute little "french maid" costumes all over the place. Never mind having Alfred bringing him his vitamin supplements and Viagra on a little silver serving plate, he will have the Queen of England calling him on the phone as "Our right trusty and entirely beloved cousin."

Sweet.

Typical of an American, he has a pretty good attitude about it all. The chief concern he has is that he will have to give up his citizenship in the US for one in the UK. Clearly he does not understand this whole Earldom thing. Living in the UK as a regular Joe is not as nice as it is here, if you favor things like personal freedom and so forth. However, if you are on TOP of the pile you get to have things your way. I am thinking that being too laid back in this situation is like sending your lottery ticket back because you think it may disrupt your lifestyle. What is that? He is worried that he may no longer be able to attend the summer cookouts at Kroger's? He WANTS to fight with Medicare about the costs of medicine?

Forget that. I am looking like crazy for long lost relatives that have died and left millions or want to give me an estate because my balls work and I have the right family name.

I am from a noble family as it turns out. Feverishly going through my family history, I found that they were all Scots who magically lost everything in the last rebellion against the crown of England. Yea. Alright. Groovy. Then I learned that after being landowners in Virginia they lost all of that and came to Texas to be dirt farmers and rebels. Far out. Then I learned that I am 422nd in line to be the next Lord of Chuaghmhire. So I raced over to Nobility-R-Us.com and put in my application. Besides having to figure out how to knock off 421 other contenders, I read that Chuaghmhire is 100 miles long and 35 feet wide, being situated on the shore. At high tide it is 12 feet wide, but I never let details bother me. Hey at least it is land, right? Also, as Lord of Chuaghmhire the Queen would have to address me as "Our Most Strange and Distant Cousin That We Will Never Call or Invite to a Party."

Exploding with glee I turned my attention to figuring out how to get rid of the other 421. 421st in line is my Dad. Crap. It looks like I will have to wait now, and my current calculations tell me that if I live for 300 years I stand a chance. At the current date I am now buying lottery tickets. Best of luck to Lord Capell.

Harry Potter falls to the Dark side

In times like this, with Sandra Bullock's wedding, Stars Wars episode III: Revenge of the Sith in theaters (albeit the dollar theaters at present) Tom Cruise dancing on Oprah's couch, Samukeliso Sithole a transsexual arrested for competing as a woman in African athletics and the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-breed Prince released this week, it's important to remember that google drives a huge number of people to to this site who were actually searching for this crap.

I'd like to take a moment to address any of the morons that managed to get to this site from a search of these phrases. Please, for the love of God find a hobby, do something other than search out meaningless crap on the internet. It's bad enough that a children's book has sold over a bagillion freakin' copies, the majority to adults it seems and that Stanley Crouch's latest "The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity" is ignored by all but the terminally nerdy, but you have to actually take time out of your day to go to google, yahoo or where ever it is that the vacuous muttonheads of the internet start their little adventures and actually search for this inane crap. Honestly, how do you live with yourself? What do you talk about at dinner? Or are you as I suspect the sort that sits hunched over your TV tray shoveling canned spaghetti into your wagging mouth as you stare in silence drinking in all the latest on Pop Idol?

Obviously scatter brained simpletons aren't our only visitors at the Salmagundi. Our readers run the gambit from sexual deviants to rednecks all the way to the worst of the worst, liberal arts graduates, and all are still welcome... well, except for the idiots I mentioned before and of course clowns, somethings just wrong with them... oh, and all people with "ski" in their name, they can't be trusted... and people with too many cats, it's just odd... oh, and the left handed, they'll rob you blind, it's true. Outside of that really rather small group, everyone else is welcome.

Other interesting but less inane search phrases that brought people to the Salmagundi are ...

• Salmagundi (an obvious choice)

• Enumclaw (home to the worlds largest adult petting zoo)

• Rabbit meat ('fraid I have to take responsibility for this one)

• Emeril was born in (while obviously it hit my short story , God knows what they were actually looking for)

• Redneck trailer houses (kind of proud of this one )

• White men rape black women (hope they enjoyed my prose)

• Can dogs eat oil (WTF?)

• Ass eaters unanimous ( OK obviously I didn't get to vote on this one, I do hope they meant anonymous, but honestly at the end of the day, does that make it any better?)

• Cock boxing (how can you not do search on cock boxing)

• spillane middle school school supply list (that soccer mom had to be suprized by what she found)

• Scatting (again, guilty as charged)

• Naked pooja (who doesn't love a naked pooja)

• Low labido in menapausal women (hmmm)

• abe vigoda (the KING!)
  

Well, that's it for now. I'll report again in the coming months what google washes up on the Salmagundi shores. With topics ranging from equine impalement to vibro scissors the results are bound to be interesting.

What $50 can get ya

A Seattle man has discovered his 15 minutes of fame the hard way. He died. Now, for most, that is not enough to make some headlines. He had a better go at it than just dying. The coroners office for the Enumclaw, WA area said that evidently "the death was accidental and the result of having sex with a horse."

Damn.

There is no mention of the condition of the horse, but I figure that the horse is feeling pretty good about having taken another rapist out of action. Now, the farm where this little romantic encounter took place is not under indictment currently because having sex with animals is not a crime in Washington State. In fact, only 33 of the 50 States have a law against that sort of thing. Evidently, if humans are not your thing, there are internet chat rooms where you can get details about where you can arrange a love tryst with a farm animal of some kind. I somehow doubt that the applicant takes a personality profile test to match on 29 areas of compatibility to find his ideal mate, but for every market, legal or otherwise, there is always a supplier. What the farm owners are being investigated for is animal cruelty. Gee, I guess I cannot argue too much with that. It does seem strange to me that there are states out there where screwing the livestock is legal.

I have to admit I am a bit conflicted about the legal situation. On the one hand, I simply cannot imagine that the animals on this farm like the results of this web enterprise. That is bad. On the other, evidently, Darwinism can work in this arena as well. For those that would rape a horse, Darwinism is a good thing. I admit to being curious about just how this horse took her rapist down, and then again I guess it is a kindness to humanity to not be very explicit about that either. The one thing that I hope is that however it happened, it hurt him like hell, because, it seems, he hurt more than the horse's feelings. Did he bring the wrong kind of flowers to his date? Maybe the horse just did not like the restaurant he took her to before 'going back to her pad?' Maybe she was just not that kind of horse? The answers to these and other important questions may never be known. The horse is still not talking to reporters.

I have read about places in Africa where you can be executed if you are caught doing something like that. Hell, most of the time they see it as being the result of demonic possession and the execution is more akin to a mercy killing. In the case of bestiality I am not too far from that myself. Humans have brought disease to the rest of humanity for centuries just because they get horny and bored. It defies the imagination to think how farmer Bill gets randy out in the south 40 and happens to look over at one of his sheep and suddenly she looks like a supermodel. Yet, it happens all the time all around the world. Many millions of people (not to mention the animals that have had to endure a horny farmer Bill) have suffered as a result. At least this time one of the animals was able to set things right.

Ignorance is Bliss

Great article contained in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. I can't tell you how many times I've been confronted by the blissfully ignorant. People who think themselves so much more than they really are. God I wish these people would catch a clue. :P

Ignorace is Bliss

It's all about the meat, baby

Since a certain reader seems to have a thing for cute cat pictures I thought I would offer up one of my own. I mean come on, what's cuter than a bunny AND a kitty. Ok, so this kitty is perhaps showing a somewhat aggressive stance and doesn't exactly appear to be the bunnies closest chum but hey, that shouldn't matter... should it? Marlin Perkins would be proud.

The image made me think of my own relation to food and in particular my little hopping bags of protein and how much different my approach is to that of the cat's. This weekend I dressed two of the males out. Nothing different than I had done before, but as much as I like to play the hard ass I don't ever look forward to the process, and this one went horribly wrong.

Greek and Roman were on the proverbial chopping block this time. I tend to name my rabbits as it assists in talking about them. It's hard to discuss a single rabbit's behavior without having a name for it. Roman got his name first as he had a rather large nose with a prominent bulge to it.... hence 'Roman'. Greek naturally followed as he looked similar to Roman but was less powerful (lower ranking in the social structure of the colony). Hell, I thought it was witty as far as barnyard naming conventions go. Anyway, I'm clearing out the mix breeds in favor of more productive Californian and New Zealand breeders and as mixed breed males, Greek and Roman's empire was crumbling.

So Greek and Roman were caught and set in cages to wait their day of reckoning. It's said that animals can sense what is going on and while never one to take that idea to extremes, on this day it certainly seemed to be true. As I took Roman from the cage and carried him to "the tree" he began to squirm... and then, squeal, loudly. I don't like to see animals suffer even when ultimately they are to be my dinner, probably more so then. So, I hurriedly llifted him up to do the deed. Grasping his head and pulling down sharply I heard the tale-tell pops and the woods feel silent. Relieved that that ordeal was over, the relatively easy job of dressing awaited.

I hung him in the tree from the two leg straps and readied my equipment. Then I noticed, he was stiff. He shouldn't be stiff. He's supposed to be dead goddammit. Then I saw faint chest falls as he hung upside down. Fuck. So, I grabbed the knife and decided to bleed him out as I apparently only stunned him and broke his back. So, in the knife went to slice the arteries and windpipe as deep as I could manage with him hanging as he was, hoping that the job was done for good this time. Apparently this was just enough stimulation to fire up the rabbits nervous system again and away he went... dancing on the end of those ropes like a marionette on crack flinging blood and gurgling as sat watching, feeling all the world like a backyard Himmler. A hollow feeling came over me as I watched the unpleasantness play out in front of me. Intent to do something to stop the rabbit's suffering I picked up my wood mallet, moved behind it and landed it squarely on the back of the dancing rabbits skull. He fell still.. and limp.

Fuck, fuck, fuck .... fuck. I remember muttering it over and over. Feeling guilty, not for what I'd done, but for how poorly it had been attempted. I completed the job after that without much drama, skinning it, dressing it and bagging it up for the freezer. The second went as expected. Greek was no surprise, no guilt or gore involved at all, but still it wasn't a pleasant thing, simply something that must be done.

This is what got me thinking. What made me stop and pause on the picture of the cat. The fact that killing even to support my family is done begrudgingly, without enjoyment. While the cat is almost entirely defined by it's predatory nature. It can no more look at a toad without stalking it as Josie O'Donald can look at a doughnut and not eat it. It enjoys the hunt and the kill, reveling in the torture of weaker things. Yet we as humans, at least the healthy ones. get no thrill from this activity. The hunt may be enjoyable but from afar not up close with something so much weaker than ourselves, and by our own hand.

I suppose in the end I'm lucky. While distasteful I got something out of this experience. I learned that there isn't anything too broken inside me, that I do still feel for other things. I don't want them to suffer. I learned that ultimately there are core differences between us and the animals. Finally, I learned even cat's aren't always slaves to their nature.

Self-Scatting Breeding Machines

I'd like to talk to you about scat and the roll it plays in my life. Now I'm not talking about the likes of Mel Torme, or my penchant for leaving gatherings quickly. I'm not even talking about the fine folks of Oxnard California and the South Coast Area Transit. No I'm talking about coprophagous, eating excrement, devouring dung, feasting on feces, rectal rumination, wolfing water logs, basically... eating shit and in this case, your own. Now as odd as I am this isn't a practice I participate in personally but in a way by proxy. You see, I raise these....


The cute and cuddly (and self-scatting) rabbit.

Rabbits are one of those creatures that in the modern American eye gets the reprieve from the dinner table due entirely to the fact that it's "too cute to eat". This beauty contest to determine animal value happens all the time. Just how far would the WWF get in it's fund raising if it's logo was an angler fish, or perhaps a proboscis monkey? I've seen the same girl that would shriek over a spider or june bug look adoringly at a lady bug thats crawling slowly over her fingers. SAVE THE WHALES!, fuck the sea cucumbers. It's all such a bizarre bigotry of beauty that we have.

I've often got the comment from folks that know I raise rabbits for reasons other than cuddling, "How can you eat a cute little bunny?" or the "I could never kill a bunny". Interestingly there is also an almost unanimous agreement from those that have ever eaten it to state "Oh yeah, rabbit is great!" and yet they still can't get past the cute.

Strangely if a thing is 'too' ugly it is off the dinner table as well. Can't eat a opossum it's too ugly. Can't eat snails, too ugly. Can't eat a snake it's too ugly and scary. Can't eat frogs their too ugly. It seems you have to be juuuuuust right to be a meal for the modern American, not too ugly, not too cute and of course you must be processed to the point that I can't tell you were ever even alive (but that's another post). Well today I'm here to tell you, rabbits just aren't that cute. Which brings us back to scat.

You see if you're not familiar with rabbits you might not realize their rather odd (to us) eating habits. You see, like most ruminants they have to work hard to extract the nutrients from their food source. Grass is junk food, there isn't much nutrients in it and what are, are hard to get at. Cows have multiple stomaches and chew their cud to deal with it. Goats and sheep have a similar system. Rabbits however are "fringe" ruminants, not fully so but not fully monogastric. To deal with this difficult food source and with the inability to actually churn food through a cud chewing/multi stomach process they have a cecum. The cecum is a sort of (to borrow the analogy of beer making from a former post) a wort tank of semi digested cellulous foods. From the cecum a black viscous paste is produces that the rabbit then consumes again directly from the anus and reingests to facilitate a double digestion process. I'd liken the taking in of the cecum syrup as putting your head under the soft serve ice cream dispenser at Dairy Queen and filling up, but this stuff comes in only one flavor. Once the foods have made a second lap around the lagomorph's digestive track it's time for evacuation in earnest. The semi dry pellets spill out the back side of the rabbit like a broken Pez dispenser as he hopes off to find new food to eat... twice.

Now if this weren't enough (and lord help you if you still think they are too cute to eat .. perhaps too nasty, but never too cute) We deal with the breeding realities of the rabbit. Everyone is well aware of the old saw "breeding like rabbits" and it's quite true, but to what extent? The fact is that rabbits have coitus induced ovulation. That's right guys, imagine your wife, significant other or friend with benefits, ovulating the moment you gave the one gun salute. There aren't enough condoms nor doctors hands to catch the number of babies that would come spilling out of those unions. But with rabbits the problem is multiplied. Rabbits have a dual uterus so, not only can they get pregnant at the drop of a hat (and if you've seen the time it takes a rabbit to have sex, that hat better not have far to fall) they can turn right around and do it again with the other side of the uterus. So, you've got fecal munchin rabbit all knocked up that delivers kits in about 1 month from the moment of carnal knowledge. Normally you'll get a litter of 5-9 kits (7 being about normal) but a double pregnancy can take that much higher, but for discussion we'll stick with 7. The mother can then get pregnant moments after birth and the young can breed at 4 months. So in a 12 month period 2 rabbits could easily multiply to over 300 rabbits, a welfare mom's dream level of production. Of course this is the rabbits strategy for survival, a sort of Normandy beach sort of way of dealing with the dangerous of life for the rabbit. Storm the beaches with enough bunnies and one or two will get through... and we all know what 2 rabbits can do. This sort of breeding would never be thought of as "cute" if our dogs did that, or heaven forbid our cats... or worse, our neighbors, but again it gets washed under the bridge by big doe-y eyes and little wiggly noses. Their very behavior crys out "eat me or I'll fuck you to extinction" and still we think them as only cute.

Well, I've seen through their ruse and I know them for what they are. The pens are full with little shit-eaters and pregnant does doing their part for the welfare state that is my backyard colony. They grow fat on uncle sugar's handouts and bide their time lounging in the sun, eating and screwing, doing their best to bury me under mountains of bunny as I sit transfixed by their cute lil wiggly noses. I however have different plans.

The Home Brew

Me at home

Recently I have undertaken a new hobby: that of the mysterious and greatly feared home beer brewer. You know what I am talking about, as nearly everyone has the crazy uncle that creates concoctions that are supposed to be beer, but turn out to be fermented sheep feces with an "anchovie twist" that puts you in the bathroom for eight hours or, at least, a visit to the emergency clinic.

But not me. Oh, no. I am in the mindset of producing the best beer since the dawn of man.

Tools for brewing beer:

1. Store bought beer. This is necessary because the whole time you are brewing beer you are thinking about beer, and you'll be damned if you are going to brew beer without being overpoweringly drunk. This should be in the guides listed under "no fucking way," but it is the nature of man.

2. More store bought beer.

3. A boiling pot. This is necessary because you have to boil this viscuous, vile blob of slop that some "kit maker" has canned, deciding that the best way to poison yourself is to just do it the direct way and drink some bile that you have created with your own talented hands and some deadly bacteria.

4. More store bought beer.

5. Some esoteric and fairly costly brewing buckets, various tubes, a hydrometer, good water, and some more store bought beer. After you have sterizied the equipment you are going to use, be careful and read all the directions, because after all the alcohol you have recently consumed, you are going to benefit your careful reading of the instruction book.

6. A lot of bottles you have saved from drinking a lot of store bought beer. Damn, that means no cans, but it restores your faith in humanity because now you have to have the better beers to support your new habit. This means more store bought beer.

To protect this new triumph for posterity I began a diary to record the monumental effects of my future home business. Here are a few highlights.

Day one:
Dear diary,
I am tired of drinking these terrible american beers. Today, I am going to change things and take control! I have inherited a lot of brewer's equipment from an uncle that used to make a really strong Anchovie beer, but, what the hell, he was drunk the whole time he was brewing! So today I have sterilized all the equipment, and generally prepared everything for tomorrow's brewing. I have had a few beers, I admit, but there is soemthing primal about making your own beer. I feel like the real do-it-yourselfer! (Note to self: bleach smells terrible and this whole cleaning thing is for the birds. If you cannot shee bacteria are they really there?)

Day two:
Dear diary,
I am really tired of these american beers! After another dozen I feel like I am ready to take on the home brewing experience. What the hell do they put in this can anyway? It looks like Aunt Jemema's sirrup, but it smells like my underwear...(did I say that?) Oh what the hell, I cannot feel my hands at this point anyway. (Note to self: does blood flavor beer? I cut the shit out of my finger opening the can.) After boiling the contents of the can, though, I see that I have baked on the bottom of my boiling pot something that looks like roofing tar. As a matter of fact, the rest of this fluid smells like roofing tar. These instructions are confusing and do NOT say what to do with roofing tar. Still, one must not hinder progress, so I put this fluid in the brewing bucket and spread the special brewer's yeast on the top of this mess. I put in a few plastic army men. I can still hear the screams of the little blighters as I poured them out, but now the magic of beer musht occur.

Day seven:
Dear diary,
This was the big day! After a few brewskies I am reedy for the bottles now. You now whaat? These bottles have all these different kinds of beer on em, so I spent a few hours with a crayon putting my OWN brand on them. Tres Equis!! hahahahaha......er...well it was funny then I guess. I figured that a few artistic illustrations would help the whole brewing experience. I am not going to change all that now. Sho I mixed them all with some sugar, an I out the tops on, and only one exploded and blinded my dog. Not bad.

Day eight:
Dear diary,
OK, so more than one exploded. In fact, my shed looks like Hiroshima, and when I walk in there my shoes keep coming off and I have cuts in my feet and face, and my hands are still stuck to my shirt, but I am confident that this is a really great hobby! Only two more weeks of waiting and I can enjoy the truly great beer that the home brewer can make!

Day twentytwo:
Dear diary,
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DID I JUST POUR IN MY MOUTH??? I had no idea that beer should have eyes and an attitude, but tentacles?? Jeebus, now the whole room is spinning! This ceature is eating my guts!
AAAAARRRRGGHHHHHH

Day twentyeight:
Dear diary,
The recovery room nurses are HOT. I want to invite them to my house for a home brew, but my humble dwelling is now an environmental disaster and the government is "burning my house to the ground in the interest of mankind". Sheesh, what a bunch of bullies. Where do they get off suggesting that I get a hobby like "more crayon drawings"? I am a creative man, though, and I have my eye on this home brewing kit for wines....

So, Gilette gets the big slap-down...

because apparently you can't design a razor that buzzes and vibrates pointlessly, and then claim that it lifts hairs off the skin for a closer shave.

I have only one question: what morons actually thought these fancy razors did anything of the sort?

Marketing is marketing. We need salespeople, or else nobody would know what was out there. This isn't about to be some bizarre anticapitalist screed. But a certain kind of marketing man should really throw himself off a building for the collective good of humankind.

Our society has matured to the point where we can crank out little tiny pieces of sharp metal, for dirt cheap. There's just no big money to be had in shaving any more, unless you produce custom straight razors... and even those aren't real hard to crank out any more.

So now when you go to shave you have:

The Archaic -- the man who likes his straight or safety razors. This is me.
The Techie -- the man who likes the convenience of the electronic razors.
The Apathetic -- who shaves with whatever he happens to find in the store that day.

But there needs to be a fourth category, The Dumbass, for whoever is so hare-brained as to think that one disposable razor is actually better than another, because it has three blades rather than one (so that it gunks up that much more easily), or because ti has a rotating shaving head (as opposed to a rotating safety hand), or, Lord help you, because it vibrates while it shaves. What is this thing, a marital aid? It shaves, and vibrates your earwax loose?

Are that many people unclear on the mechanics of cutting? You don't cut bread by waggling the knife sideways and humming, do you? Then why on earth would you want your razor blade to do the same thing, as opposed to neatly severing hair?

If there's that little margin in razors, maybe these guys could go into some other line of business, and just let cheap, crappy razors be cheap, crappy razors. For instance, how about a Yo-Yo (a sort of brush tool that looks like an overgrown razor) that's actually outfitted with hard, sharp blades? I'd use the hell out of that, since I have a small but very bumpy yard that is a true pain in the ass to mow. Or failing that, why don't these guys devote that BrainTrust(tm) to developing a pair of serrated, nasty scissors that vibrates its way through whatever I need to cut.

Vibro-scissors. Yeah. Now that's a household product I'd buy.

Viagra Nightmare

Wow, here we go again. There is a sinister conspiracy by the federal government to deny convicted sex offenders a prescription of Viagra. What is the world coming to these days, when a decent hard-working rapist or child molester cannot get a prescription for his failing member? Now he cannot become "SUPER SEX OFFENDER" by taking some pills that we, the tax payer, are paying for. Now his deviant sex drive cannot even be bolstered by a raging chemical hard-on so that he can continue preying on innocents.

Why is this even a matter of conjecture? Simply explained, too many bureaucrats with too many regulations to keep pace with implementation.

"The state comptroller's office called attention to the situation on Sunday, saying audits from 2000 through March found that 198 sex offenders in New York received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Their crimes included offenses against children as young as 2, Comptroller Alan Hevesi said."

Oh that's sweet. That is really good. Convicted sex offenders can attack three times as many victims since they have the advantage of viagra. I do not necessarily blame any one particular agency or person or branch of government, but this clearly abrogates any sense of intelligence. In many places around this world the sex offender, if he is not just executed, has the advantage of having their gonads removed. This is not the case in the USA, however. About the time that regular heterosexuals in legal and happy marriages need a little 'lift' to keep the marriage wheels rolling, geriatric pedophiles and rapists can use the same medication. That should make all of us feel a lot safer.

Instead of becoming a super-hero by taking some radiation pills or absorbing a vile chemical concoction, they can become the super-villains by taking a government backed Medicare re-imbursement. The only difference from their younger days is that they have to get up an hour earlier before they go down to the school yard to pick out a girlfriend.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

" 'The bottom line is, giving convicted sex offenders government-funded Viagra is like giving convicted murderers an assault rifle when they get out of jail,' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He said he would sponsor a bill to close the loophole."

I agree wholeheartedly.

"New York Gov. George Pataki called on Washington to reverse the Clinton-era's 'irrational and misguided policy.' The Republican also directed the New York Parole Division to prohibit convicted sexual offenders on parole from using erectile-dysfunction drugs. He recommended county probation departments do the same."

Well now, hang on there. This kind of idiocy is not regulated by democrats or republicans exclusively. That kind of finger pointing does no one any good whatsoever, and what we have to address is what happens when a bloated bureaucracy has too many laws and regulations and government benefits to keep track of in any sense of efficiency. No doubt that it is misguided, but there is an old saying about committees and bureaucratic nonsense: "There are none of us as stupid as ALL of us." So, the states in the USA that find themselves in a similar situation need to take a deep breath, admit that something is way out of line, and figure out how to stop this kind of nightmare.