Impossible Scissors

Visibility was poor. A dead raccoon was lying in the intersection. A green Dodge Intrepid was coming over the hill. And I made the left turn. The Intrepid honked and tried to stop, but my tail end got clipped. I walked over to the Dodge, its right fender torn off (and caught in my bumper) and found that the woman at the wheel was shaken and bawling. The incident has affected me as well. I got lucky in that the police officer (probably through my calm and respectful demeanor) didn't issue me a ticket. But I keep asking myself, why did I hesitate in the turn? Why did I take it in the first place? Was there anything else I could have done? Was the woman who clipped me really going at the speed limit? The incident is tearing me up inside, and I just hope that everyone involved will be alright in the end.

Yesterday I found out that mother had accidentally given some cherished childhood toys away to charity before allowing me to review them. She and my sister had collected two bags worth, but only one of those bags made it to my father for review and eventual donation to the JROTC toy drive (for which they were collected.) Mother, in her infinite wisdom, placed one bag on the porch for charity. I only hope that the toy dogs who were my friends during the days of my youthful innocence will bring happiness to other children.

The big news of the week is the thwarted chemical weapons attack in Jordan, arranged by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group and financed by sources in Syria. The level of planning was sophisticated; the first wave of attackers would kill the guards at the U.S. embassy, then a bomb-laden truck would explode at the gates, and finally three trucks filled with explosives and chemical weapons would detonate inside the compound. The chemicals included sulfuric acid (a blister agent) and a nerve agent that has not yet been specified. An unlikely but possible scenario is that Iraq's WMD found its way into al-Zarqawi's slimy paws.

The Jordanian government estimates that 80,000 people would have been killed. I don't know how they came up with the number, and it seems on the high side, but the attack cartainly would have been worse than 9/11. It looks like we dodged a major bullet here.

I remember back a few months when terrorism expert Monsoor Ijaz was predicting "a spectacular WMD attack," citing Kurdish sources who had intercepted enemy fighters and weapons coming in from Iran. Was this what he was talking about? Or is another chemical attack just over the horizon?


Getting back home is very hectic. I had to get back to Nate Dogg's place to dig out some stuff I had prematurely packed, then take him to Fazoli's for dinner and some good conversation. I also had to make an appearance at Dave's birthday bash. Happy 21st, and don't get too wasted. Later I found out that my whiteboard was still attached to my wall. I think I will let Brian take that home. Still, going home is great. I haven't been this excited since I was accidentally poked in the shoulder by a girl's boob.

Operation Revenge II ended today, almost as soon as it started. Domino's Pizza was spared from my full wrath, no thanks to a toolish driver and his insistence upon taking the coupon. The plan cost me four bucks over two days.


In other news, Boeing launches its 7E7 Dreamliner program with an order by All Nippon Airways for fifty jets. A few things should be drawn from this. One, "Dreamliner" is a sissy name. It neglects Boeing's heritage of names that begin with the prefix "strato" : Stratofortress, Stratotanker, Stratolifter, Stratocruiser, Stratoliner, Stratojet.

Here are a list of possible names Boeing could have went with:
1) Stratoguzzler
2) Stratoflyer
3) Stratowinger
4) Strato-Airbus-Beater
5) Stratomover

And why ANA as the launch customer? Perhaps the American industry is too weak to afford the Boeing jet right now, particularly at a time when they're sending exiting 757's and 767's to desert hangars due to low volume. Meanwhile, the Asian airliner market still has potential. However, if Boeing fails to deliver on the 7E7, the company's reputation will be ruined. But the size of the ANA order surprises me; Airbus has only strung together 125 or so orders for its A380 superjumbo airliner. Boeing may be catching up as we speak.

ANA's decision to be the launch customer speaks volumes about the effects of globalization. The fact that part of the jet will be built in Japan probably enticed ANA to proceed. Global trade can be a force for good as long as its creating more jobs for the unemployed and better jobs for those currently employed.

I sat next to a bunch of guys in church who didn't seem to be taking the mass seriously. They were snickering, talking, joking, and zipping zippers througout the service. And the funny thing is that at least one of them had been a greeter before mass started. It really disturbed me, to the point that I almost moved to a different seat in the middle of the service. But I had to remember that God wants us to love our neighbors, even the jackasses.


It seems like the media and the national consciousness has stopped caring about PFC Matt Maupin and Thomas Hammil. Again, I find myself asking, "Where is the outrage?" Jesse Jackson had volunteered his services to free Mr. Hammil, but he quit after he realized that nobody knows who the kidnappers are or where they can be reached.

Jesse has done the nation great services before, by securing the return of Robert Goodman in 1984 and the Serbian-held POW's in 1999. But I think he's let it get to his head; his offer to negotiate the return of American POW's in Iraq in 2003 never went anywhere. It's also certain that Jesse will only negotiate if he feels that it will advance his political agenda. Notice that he never offered to travel to Iraq and solve the Scott Speicher mystery. Why's that? Because it would make the Iraqis look really bad, and hence give President Bush another way to villify Iraq.

We should find a way to give the Iraqis Jesse Jackson in exchange for PFC Maupin and Thomas Hammil. It sounds like a fair deal to me.


Add Domino's Pizza to the axis of evil. I had a "free" pizza coupon, so I called them Friday night to get a pizza. Turns out they're closed at 1 AM. So I got Papa Johns instead because I was in a pizza mood. I called tonight to use my pizza coupon. Turns out that they won't give me a Philly Cheese Steak pizza for my coupon, and they're charging me $1.06 for the delivery cost (in addition to the driver tip.) Well, the joke is on those bastards. Good things happen to those who tip the driver.

Pat Tillman, formerly of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals, was killed yesterday in a firefight in Afghanistan. There was something special about Pat Tillman that made him stand out above all other men. He was never a person to take the easy way out. He actually cared about college and graduated with honors instead of a degree in basketweaving. When his nation was attacked, he gave up a cushy lifestyle as an NFL celebrity so he could take the fight to the enemy in Afghanistan. It was there that he gave his life. Rest in peace, and Godspeed.

May the spirit of Pat Tillman inspire us all to never take the easy road.


In other news, photos of coffins being unloaded at Dover Air Force Base have been revealed to be more than they appear. I had suspected that some of the flag-covered caskets may not have been from Iraq, and I was correct on this count. Drudge is running the headline that some of the photos are actually the crew of Columbia. I checked around the cable news outlets' websites to see how they reacted. CNN has a story about how Bush is saddened by the images, considers them a breach of families' privacy, etc. Nothing on MSNBC. ABC News has a blurb at the bottom of the page about this monumental screw-up, and adds that other images are of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. AP was so sloppy, they showed an image depicting NASA deputy administrator Frederick Gregory with the coffins.

I'm still waiting for CNN to say "We f*cked up royally," but I'll be waiting for hell to freeze over. Obviously, thememoryhole.org was in such a rush to condemn "Bush the evil-doer" that they didn't bother checking the photos, looking up facts, and considering other possibilites. It doesn't help that The Memory Hole asked for photos dating back to Feb. 1, 2003, a month and a half before war broke out in Iraq. Likewise, the media was so anxious to run the "scandalous" pictures barred by the Pentagon that they ignored the facts. Shame on AP for not identifying Frederick Gregory. And shame on the enemy progandists who want to rerun the Tet Offensive by using dead heroes to further their aims.

Last night's intellectual Royal Rumble pitted Jim Strayer, Reinhold Schleiper, and Luther Reisbig (debating evolution) against Kent Hovind (debating creationism.) I think a lot of people left the arena disappointed.

Kent Hovind was the best natural debater of the group; he did his homework, had a slick powerpoint show, and he spoke fast and clearly. His downfall was his sarcasm and willingness to get cheap shots in at his opponents. On the evolution side, Jim Strayer did most of the talking. In response to Dr. Hovind, at the end of the debate he did sneak in a few cheap shots of his own, including poo-pooing the Bible because "it lacked footnotes." Prof. Schlieper kept on arguing from a philosophical standpoint that took the Kant-ian view that we do not have direct knowledge of anything. Dr. Reisbig hardly spoke at all, except to say that he gets a charge out of eating chicken because it makes him feel like he's eating a dinosaur.

It seemed like the Riddle ratio wasn't in effect that night; the balance was upset by all the people from the First Baptist Church who showed up to provide manpower for the event and moral support for Dr. Hovind.

The best point Dr. Hovind made is that time, space, and matter are a trinity and a continuum. All three must exist at the same time. He also invoked the law of entropy to point out that systems should evolve, not decay, over time. Reisbig countered by saying first that the second "law" of thermodynamics is really just a postulate (then why does he fail so many students for not knowing the "second law" when it's not even a law?) He then said that diversity is a measure of entropy, so maybe the second law does allow for biological evolution.

Essentially, Reisbig's answer was a qualified "I don't know." And there is so much we don't know about evolution; the three evolutionists failed to admit their theory has a lot of holes. When my question about the future evolution of mankind came up, Strayer first answered by saying that humans would go to war over religion but never science. He then gave a giant "I don't know." Prof. Schlieper poo-pooed the question and didn't really answer it, instead giving me some cock-and-bull story about how chimps and dolphins are smart.

I'd have liked to see the debate focus on the flaws in evolutionary theory, such as the observed fossil record, which suggests periods of revolutionary biological change instead of continuous, slow change. The debate just reinforced my belief that, while I cannot believe in a fundamentalist Christian six-day creation, the current evolutionary theory is too flawed to provide us with a comprehensive model for universal creation. I think the truth lies between the extremes, with evolutionary methods being God's mechanism for creation, and some unknown accelerating mechanism speeding up the process.

With all of the points that Dr. Hovind made about evolution (and a few he neglected to mention,) it clearly takes a leap of faith to believe in current evolutionary theory. The real shame is that the public schools continue to teach evolution as fact and do not show students its problems. The debate is not between science and religion; it's between Humanist religion and Christian religion.

Abdul Aziz Rantisi is dead, less than a month after taking the reins of Hamas from the flattened Sheik Shmed Yassin.

From an American perspective, this couldn't come at a worse time. We already have Moqtada al Sadr thinking that he's the "striking arm" of the Palestinian terrorists. This follows just days after Ariel Sharon met w/ President Bush over the Gaza-West Bank plan. Predictably, the so-called "leadership" in Palestine is more distraught over the Israelis claiming four settlements in the West Bank than they are excited about Israelis pulling out of Gaza. The linkage between the US and Israel will no doubt have grave consequences for our boys in Iraq.

From an Israeli perspective, the assassination was brilliant. They're telling Hamas that no matter who they choose as a leader, he is a marked man with an approximate life span of thirty days. The hope is that Hamas will be thrown into internal chaos, and potential terrorists will be deterred from joining because of Israel's ability to target individual members of terror groups.

Private First Class Keith Maupin is apparently alive after the explosive fuel convoy attack on Good Friday. This contradicts the statement by fellow captive Thomas Hamill about being the sole survivor. If the four burned bodies they found are indeed those of missing contractors, this still leaves three men unaccounted for. If you're reading this, please pray that PFC Maupin, Thomas Hamill, and any other survivors come back unharmed.

The Punisher comes out today. At this point, one wonders if the comic-book-movie genre has been overdone. Surprisingly, it all started with a little known comic being made into the Wesley Snipes film "Blade." Since then we've gotten some long-awaited and generally-good comic movies, like X-Men 1&2, Spider-Man 1&2, and The Hulk. But do we really need to see the likes of Blade II, Daredevil (starring Ben "Pancake-head" Affleck,) Hellboy, Bulletproof Monk, or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? The creators of comic movies should stick to the most popular comics, lest they exhaust the genre. However, there's still a place for The Punisher. After all, Marvel needed to apologize for the Dolph Lundgren version of The Punisher from about fifteen years ago. One can only hope Captain America will get the same treatment.

There is no denying it: I'm a rage-a-holic. Rage is keeping me from being a gentleman and a scholar, and its hurting the people around me. My only hope is to find a healthy outlet for the rage, or maybe a Buddy Reidel who will help me manage my anger.

What really happened in Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947? Did aliens come crashing down to earth, or was it just a balloon? It's fun to believe in aliens, conspiracies, and Fox Mulder, but the facts just aren't adding up into any coherent picture of what really happened.

On one hand, we have the military witnesses. In my pro-military mindset, these people automatically have 100 times more credibility than the civilian witnesses. These people have talked about the strange wreckage: balsa-like material that wouldn't burn, I-beams with heiroglyphics, fiber-optic cables, and memory metals. A few talked about flying wreckage to the infamous Hangar 18 in the belly of a B-29.

On the other hand, we have the civilian witnesses. This motley group has consistently proven to be gold-diggers, frauds, and hucksters. The civilians were the ones who spread all the stories about alien bodies only to have their credibility challenged. I mean, with a hokey story like "I was so important, the Army had me guarding the Norden bombsight," it's hard for these schmucks to maintain any credibility. Throw the tabloid money into the picture and any remaining credibility goes out the window.

The only reliable source we have for what really happened is Major Jesse Marcel, who went out to the crash site, and his son, now a retired chopper pilot, who saw pieces of wreckage. The debris only covered an area the size of a few football fields, and it sat in the field for an unknown period of time. My first impression was that a few football fields was a pretty big debris field. After Columbia burned up, it's easy to see that a few football fields is a miniscule debris field for an object disintegrating at high altitude or high speed.

Again, the few seemingly-incontrovertible facts don't add up to any coherent picture of what happened. But if I were a betting man, I would say it was a German VTOL or saucer-aircraft that was captured in World War II and being tested at an Army Air Force installation in New Mexico. Just a theory, and unless there are some major revelations during my lifetime, it's the theory I will hang onto.

Perhaps sometime soon I will blog about the Kennedy / King assassinations, or even my favorite coverup theory--bombing the Chinese embassy in Kosovo.

The question facing the U.S. in Iraq is one of hard vs. soft.

In my view, we have been far too soft with Iraqis. Look at this so-called "cease fire" that's been going on in Fallujah. We still got over 20 guys killed across the country over the weekend. The abductions of foreigners (and apparantly a few Americans) continue. And two helicopters were shot down over the course of three days.

The only successful approaches to controlling Iraq have been iron-fisted ones. The British would drop bombs on cities that didn't pay their taxes. However, this was in a day when the Kurds were both Turkish allies and enemies of the occupying power, which is no longer the case. In more recent history, Saddam kept people in line by sending them off to prisons and rape rooms, or having the Fedayeen Saddam drop you off a building if you dared to defy the government. These are very extreme examples of the "hard" approach. The unknown here is how exteme you will have to get to put the population in line.

The entire country is an ammunition dump, and the 60% Shiite majority doesn't trust you because Bush 41 (the king of all pussies) didn't support your rebellion in 1991. And we're asking the armed forces to fight with one arm behind their backs in the face of a hostile population. No wonder things are going the way they are. The sad thing is that the Democrats are fielding a candidate who thinks everything will be solved by sniveling on your hands and knees to France and Germany and the other UN turncoats who were taking Saddam's kickbacks from Oil-for-food.

The biggest morons here are the insurgents. They want the foreign powers out, yet their resistance will only delay their departure (at least as long as Gearge W. Bush is president. But if Hanoi John Kerry can't get French help, just watch him turn into the same pussy he was back in '71.) The insurgents are fighting against Iraqi democracy, yet they should realize that democracies, especially weak and fledgling ones, can be manipulated like Hitler did with the Weimar Republic. If I were an Iraqi insurgent, I would tell the Americans how wonderful they were, wait for them to leave, then get my cronies into power and impose some hardline Islamic law on the infidel asses who voted for me. Frighteningly, this looks like what Ayatollah Ali Sistani would be doing if not for the other insugents who haven't gotten the memo.

They brought Christopher Titus to Riddle! How cool is that?

Apparently big-name comedians work cheaper after their shows have been cancelled by FOX. Well, Chris Titus hasn't lost the edge at all. Nothing is too taboo for him to joke about. He hit up everything from hijacking to Iraq, from Columbine to Columbia. He talked a LOT about his baby daughter. We also learned about Titus justice, which involves using Scott Peterson as fishing bait and crucifying pedophile priests. I'm Whitey, and I apologize. A lot of the stuff in his show made it into his routine. Yes, his father was a rage-a-holic / alcoholic, his mother was psychotic, and Titus loves fast cars. He talked about when his dad died in 2001 and joked about his odd final wishes.

You've got to stand up, or step aside. Useful advice from Ken "Papa" Titus.

It's been one year since Saddam's statues crumbled and Baghdad fell. Today in the same square, posters were briefly hung representing the power-hungry cleric who threatens to unite disaffected Shiites and Sunnis in armed rebellion. Capturing the country was the easy part; restoring peace and order while building a free society will be very difficult.


One hundred thirty nine years ago to this day, General Grant accepted General Lee's surrender. It took many years to restore peace and order while establishing a free society in this strange and inbred land we had conquered: the Confederate states.


And most importantly, today we honor the death of Jesus Christ, about 1972 years ago. Mel Gibson, more than anyone else, has made us aware of this. His powerful, artistic film has been attacked on two fronts: one, that it's anti-Semitic, and two, that it's gratuitously violent.

To call "The Passion of the Christ" anti-Semitic is to call the Gospels anti-Semitic. After all, the movie uses the Gospels as its primary source (unlike that sacriligeous nightmare, "The Last Temptation of Christ.") No doubt, the movie will give ammunition to a few people with IQ's lower than 50 who choose to hate Jews and may even be dumb enough to hold contemporary Jews responsible for the death of Jesus in 32 A.D. Such people also use the Three Stooges as justification for their anti-Semitism.

The violence in "The Passion" is admittedly over the top. But in a two hour movie, how does one convey the savagery of scourging and crucifixion? For that matter, how can a director portray the sadism that defined history's largest empire?

The point here is not only that the Jewish church of Herod's day was corrupt and the Romans were sadists, but that they were sinners and Jesus was the victim of such sinfulness. Expanding this argument, EVERYBODY was, is, and probably will remain sinful. Any society would have persecuted a figure as pure and wise as Jesus. Yet Jesus died for all of us because he loved us. I hope the lesson we can take from "The Passion" is to be forgiving and merciful, to love before we persecute. I really hope that I can practice even the smallest fraction of this teaching, straight from Jesus, and surviving throughout history.

After over fifty years of trumping the world's most cunning villians in the worlds of literature, film, and video games, it looks like James Bond will finally meet his match.

According to rumors coming out of Hollywood (confirmed by "Die Another Day" 's Michael Madsen,) Pierce Brosnan is not coming back for Bond 21, and "an Australian actor" will replace him.

There is a tremendous impasse here about the direction of the Bond franchise. "Die Another Day" is generally recognized as an abherration of the Bond tradition. It had some really good moments (Bond is captured and tortured, a great sword fight, and a decent cat fight.) But it was totally ruined by weak puns and dialogue, a plot that felt too sci-fi, excessive use of gadgets and special effects, and that awful song by Madonna. So it was time to return to the drawing boards and re-invent Bond.

Pierce Brosnan envisioned Bond 21 as a character-driven story, much like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, and For Your Eyes Only. These were all fine movies, and representative of the direction the series should take. The movies always centered around some element of Bond's personality, and they created great supporting characters for Bond to interact with. They had plenty of intrigue and suspenseful chase sequences, and the gadgets never stole your attention away from the story. However, producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli want to have a younger Bond, more action, more gadgets, more violence, more sex, and more explosions. Essentially, they want an instant-gratification popcorn flick that will be forgotten after it's made hundreds of millions but been panned by critics for appealing to our basest pleasures.

Over the years I've fostered a few ideas for a Bond flick that would be worthy of series creator Ian Fleming. The movie would retain all of the "Rule Britannia" British nationalism of Fleming, combined with the "sex, sadism, and snobbery" that defined his books, and plenty of character development, intrigue, and action sequences that create genuine excitement without stooping to the senseless destruction of 1970's chase scenes.

The first idea (suggested by a Canadian whose name rhymes with Ravin) has been a story told by Bond on trial. I don't find the idea exciting, but it might be interesting to have the story told from the perspective of the Bond girl. Ian Fleming did exactly this for "The Spy Who Loved Me," but became disgusted with his creation and insisted the movie of the same name have nothing to do with his book. Or what about a Bond movie set during Ian Fleming's 1950's? Make it really brooding with lots of cold war tension and an element of mystery.

Along more conventional lines, I've done a little work on a story that follows up on the movie "The Living Daylights." Terrorists destroy MI6 headquarters and kill M, igniting Bond's quest for vengeance. He follows the trail of terror to New York, Corsica, Chechnya, and Indonesia, before finishing in Pakistan and realizing that the face of terror was an old friend. Perhaps that's a little too realistic of a plot for our times.

Well, at least the Bond screenwriters can use George Soros as the basis for their new villain. He's wealthy, Hungarian, and speaks Esperanto. Old George also devalued the British pound through his currency speculation, his investment firm allegedly launders drug money, and he believes (if I understand him correctly) that the redistribution of global wealth is the means for achieving peace and mollifying terrorism.

Operation Vigilant Resolve began today with the aim of putting down the pro-Saddam resistance in Fallujah. This forsaken town has always been fiercy loyal to Saddam (and used to be home to a chem weapons plant.) It's also been the biggest hotspot for anti-coalition resistance. But the acts of animal savagery against the four contractors last Wednesday was hopefully the straw that broke the camel's back.

It's time George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and everybody calling the shots realized that you can't beat an insurgency while wearing kid gloves. Successful anti-insurgency campaigns have historically been brutal. I'm talking about shooting first and asking questions later if people get out of line, and using airpower to break up mobs and pick off resistance leaders. More soldiers need to be put in Iraq (perhaps the only area where I will agree with Hanoi John Kerry.) Fallujah needs to be put under martial law and it should be made clear that they will be treated like dirt until their behavior improves.

Likewise, Moqtada al-Sadr needs to be captured and his followers should be machine-gunned, preferrably by the barrel of an A-10. This is a very thorny situation because you get a lot of heat for pursuing religious demogogues. We can only hope that we can use al-Sadr's involvement in a rival cleric's death to undermine his support among moderates.

I hope that Fallujah and Sadr City can be pacified. Hopefully the anger can subside (through both rewards and punishment) before we have to resort to really ugly tactics. But it seems to me that this administration will continue to restrain its actions to avoid offending its potential supporters in Iraq. News flash: no matter what you do, somebody is going to take offense. By giving the insurgents an inch, they will take a mile. This situation has to be fixed soon before it tumbles out of control.


On the positive side, I found a new tactic of avoiding my stalker. If I tell him that I've finished my homework, he will ask to see the homework. If I tell him that I will work on it tonight, he will ask to work with me that night. But if I tell him that I won't work on it 'till morning, he will hopefully leave me alone in realization that nobody will help him find his way after cutting so many classes.

Went drunk bowling last night. Well, I was sober, but the rest of the gang was fall-down drunk except for Santos. Everybody bowls worse when they're intoxicated. Brian and I got stuck on a lane with two drunk horndogs who were always MIA when their turn was up. The drunk girl made me laugh. She was hitting on Brian, and when she bowled she would squat down and drop the ball in place. The alley was ringing with loud techno music. If I never go drunk bowling again, it will be no loss.

You call it isolation, I call it freedom.

Gala wasn't too bad at all. The food, though in small portions, was good. The entertainment was great too, and they made sure to embarass me with pics from SP2SP.

The beginning of April marks "Heterosexual White Male Awareness Month"...

APRIL FOOLS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In America, we celebrate our diversity by giving every traditionally-marginalized group their own "pride" or "history" month. And this is generally a good thing, so long as it helps people to learn their history, develop self-esteem, and foster respect for America's diversity. I'm simply criticizing the demonization of the heterosexual white male. After all, nobody has to detract from others to gain respect. Despite media reports to he contrary, not all heterosexual white males are evil.