People who use the term "Flyover States" or think "Middle America" is interchangeable with "Dumb-Ass" should be kicked in the nuts. Seriously. Just because you live near an ocean doesn't make you special. You want culture, we've got plenty, and we don't consider it to be just something for the elite. We have some of the best universities in the country. I've been to art museums in New York and London and they don't hold a candle to the Art Institute. Yes, New York and LA have an international reputation, but that reputation doesn't give the people who happen to live there some sort of special magic. Oh, and by the way, without us... you'd have no damn food. So, shut the hell up.

A group calling themselves "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War" disrupted Easter Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. Apparently, they determined that the best venue to voice their opposition to the war was:
A) In a Church
B) In a church that has vocally opposed the war
C) During a service
D) During a service on one of the most important Holy Days in the Christian Faith
E) By splashing fake blood on people at the service who were dressed in their Easter best.

Regardless of your opinions of the war, or the Catholic Church, I think you should be offended by the actions of these people. I don't understand what kind of logic goes on the heads of people like this. These actions will alienate them from people who are religious and oppose the war, and will definitely add fuel to the fire of people who do not oppose the war who feel that protesters are generally misguided and more concerned with getting attention than accomplishing anything useful.

First, the name of their group: "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War"; I don't know about most people but "Catholic Schoolgirls" brings to mind soft porn more than anything else. Clearly, at least some of the group were not schoolgirls in any sense of the word (being male) and if they were actually Catholic they would most likely have more respect for their faith than to interrupt mass in this fashion. Then there's the choice of venue. It takes no guts at all to protest in a church opposed to the war. You are, quite literally, preaching to the choir. It seem that the only reason to stage a protest in this fashion is because you are afraid of actually having to face opposition to your protest. They knew there would be cameras, but security would be minimal and inclined to be gentle. No one is likely to attempt to shout down your "message". Finally, if you're going to commit a felony to further your political aims you should make sure it counts. The fundamental voice that Americans have is their vote... and felons can't vote. If convicted, these people have sacrificed their long-term voice for a single whisper.

There are people defending them, but I can't help but wonder if they'd be so inclined to defend them if they had staged the same protest in a synagogue, a mosque or a Buddhist temple on a major holy day. While I believe these people have the right to protest the war, and if they truly believe that it is wrong, that they have an obligation to do so. But their actions were misguided at best, and outright stupid at worst. They should be ashamed of themselves and others who oppose the war should be ashamed of them as well.

Friday evening, when I got home from work, I noticed that my internet connection was down. A quick check showed that my cable was also out. I called Comcast and they had my do the usual things. You know, check that the connections were tight... check other channels. Because when both cable receivers and the modem are down, it's likely a connection on one of those units... right? Anyway, after it was determined that it wasn't something they could fix over the phone, the CSR scheduled an appointment for a technician to come out on "Monday between 4 and 6" and gave me a confirmation number.

Monday, having skipped a chance to work a side job, and missing one of the Mustaches for Kids events, I waited at home for the technician to arrive. When 6:00 rolled around, and no technician had arrived I called and was told that my account didn't show that a service call had been scheduled. Needless to say, I was a bit annoyed. Apparently, when they scheduled the appointment, they set it up in the wrong account, one not even in the Chicago region. Although they did apologize for the "inconvenience" I had to specifically request that they credit me with something more than simply the time the service was out.

Considering that I have to confirm my account information twice before I even start discussing the issue with my service, I cannot fathom how they could enter the information into the wrong account. And now I'm without cable, phone, or internet at home until at least Friday.

Uhg.

From NewsTarget.com by way of Digg

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA).

The actuall bill (which despite the author of the original article's authors insistance on referring to as a "law" isn't) is written to create a comittee to study what makes people become terrorists, and to set up an ongoing comission to study this. There are no provisions in the bill for any kind of policing, nor are there any provisions for any kind of enforcement of anything at all. It sets up a comission. That's all it does. The comission is given no authority, only items to research. Law enforcement organizations are not given any powers or authorities by this bill. The comission and the study group are expected to "study", "report", "research", and "understand".

There is absolutely no provision in this bill to "arrest and incarcerate any individual" at all. Seriously. This is why politics in the country is such a mess. Even the people who claim to be paying attention can't be bothered to read the bills that they rail against, and the mass of the population diggs articles like this without doing any research of their own.

A quote from "The Audacity of Hope" by Barak Obama

I'd begun to see how any challenge to convention harbored within it the possibility of its own excesses and its own orthodoxy.... In this slow, fitful process of sorting out what I believed, I began silently registering the point in dorm-room conversation when my college friends and I stopped thinking and slipped into cant: the point at which the denunciations of capitalism or American imperialism cam too easily, and the freedom from the constraints of monogamy or religion was proclaimed without fully understanding the value of such constraints, and the role of victim was too readily embrace as a means of shedding responsibility, or asserting entitlement, or claiming moral superiority over those not so victimized.

I know too many people who repeat what they've heard without adding any knowledge of their own. What's worse, is that their sources are limited to a single stream, so there is little chance of a new idea developing. I'm sure I'm guilty of it myself from time to time. Too often now, a statement is critiqued not so much for content, as it is for who has created it. A singer who agrees with you is now considered a better source of information than a scholar who does not.

So, there are commercials for Sonic Drive-In restraunts on all the freakin time. They look good. They make me want to eat at Sonic. Their advertising is so good, it gives me an almost Harold & Kumar-like craving for Sonic. And yet... yet... the nearest Sonic is in Champaign.

120 Freakin Miles Away!

Damn you Sonic! This is beyond mere late-night-road-trip range. It is no good for sitting around watching TV and saying "Damn, I could go for some Sonic about now." This is like, take-vacation-time-and-get-a-hotel-room distance. Why do they taunt me?

TBWITWW and I were discussing government today after one of my comments about "dirty hippies". I mentioned that while I think my ethics match well with the fairly activist, leftist people that populate the areas we frequent, my politics don't. I'm probably most closely matched to libertarians, but really I just don't trust government... at all. My theory is that as soon as an organization of any type gets large enough, that every member is not known personally by every other member, leadership becomes political. Power now has to be surrendered to someone who is an unknown, and by not knowing you personally, is going to have less interest in your well being. I firmly believe that no government can ever be truly be fully benificial to the governed. Does that mean I'm an anarchist? Not by a long shot. There are, and need to be rules for how people interact, and the wider the sphere of interaction, the more of those rules need to codified... unfortunately. In small groups, if you do something that angers another person, you are likely to know immeadiately what you've done and why it has angered them. (Not always true, of course, or there would be no divorce, but that's another issue entirely.)
Is Government necessary? Yes. But to me it is a necessary evil. We must always remember, when government can become a career, the people that the governors know best will become other governors, not the government, and we all protect those we know best first.