And just for Rootsburgtownville, OH resident Johno:
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Buckethead
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Is nothing sacred?
Easter Bunny beaten in savage attack, according to the Smoking Gun. Kinda like that scene from Mallrats...
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Buckethead
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Hear, hear!
Can I be the one to do the thowin' out the winda?
Also, hear, hear on your words about that Palestine thingy where they said that stuff about the thing we did with the guy. They got almost as much chutzpah as we do!
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Johno
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Oliver Stone axed
"Commandante," Oliver Stone's laudatory documentary of jack-booted thug and focus of Hollywood adoration Fidel Castro has been removed from HBO's May schedule. At the Sundance Film Festival, Oliver Stone was asked, "What did you think of Fidel?" Stone answered, "I thought he was warm and bright. He's a very driven man, a very moral man. He's very concerned about his country. He's selfless in that way." Stone needs to be defenestrated.
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Buckethead
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More lightness, kittens, and frolicking puppies
Modern Drunkard has posted their semi-final round of Clash Of The Tightest, featuring matches between Sir Richard Burton / Charles Bukowski and Humphrey Bogart / William Faulkner. It's kickass. I strongly recommend you check out all the content on that fine site. Delicious!
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Johno
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Unmitigated Gall
In a Washington Post story, we hear that the Palestinian authority has not requested, not asked, not even pleaded; they have demanded that the United States release Abu Abbas, the terrorist reponsible for the Achille Lauro hijacking and the death of American citizen Leon Klinghoffer. They cite the Oslo accords as the basis for their demands, but considering the fact that the entire intifada of the last two plus years is in violation of the Oslo accords, I think they should at the very least shut the hell up.
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Buckethead
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Spiderman and a "vigorous" American foriegn policy
The whole thing that Spiderman based his whole crime fighting career on was his Uncle's admonition that, "With great power comes great responsibility." The United States is in a similar quandary. Through dumb luck, hard work, clean habits, a few happy accidents of history and a bit of animal cunning, the United States has ended on top of the world in military power, economic capacity, inventiveness1more Nobel prizes than the next four, almost five nations. Physiology/ Medicine - more than the next 11 and ten short of more than the rest of the world combined; about one-third of all the Chemistry prizes; almost half of all Physics prizes; twice as many economics prizes as the rest of the world., and general gumption.
What does that mean? Because we have the power to end rabid little dictatorships like that in Iraq, or North Korea, should we? Spiderman decided that yes, he does have that moral responsibility. If, like the Atlantic article describes, Saudi Arabia is as nasty a piece of work as I think it is, do we have more or less moral responsibility to deal with a problem because we helped create it? Countries like Denmark can't really effect the world the way we can. Less is therefore expected of them. But we get condemned when we fail to act (Rwanda) and when we do (Iraq.) I think we were wrong to let millions die in Central Africa. I think we are right to liberate the Iraqis, and reduce a threat to ourselves.
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Buckethead
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A Little Light Opera
Things are getting a mite serious around here, and I'm dead-set agin' that! So I bring you this. It's a parody of Gilbert & Sullivan's "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General" with Osama lyrics. Wow! Can you believe it?! I sure can't!
Osama is the model of a modern major Terrorist
Who thinks his cause is holy and would seek to harm, nay, bury us.
His methods are abhorrent, and his scheming quite methodical
In fact, his thinking and his plans have been, well .. . Diabolical.
But in his scheme of hurt and pain, Osama did not calculate
That faith and love of Liberty will conquer all his misspent hate.
The USA and allies will not to this Creep capitulate
For Freedom is the concept upon which this nation's frame is based.
Yes, Freedom is the concept upon which this nation's frame is based
Freedom is the concept upon which nation's Fame is based.
Freedom is the concept upon which this nation's very frame is based.
. . . .
Osama is the model of a modern major Terrorist
Who sought to bring us chaos, and to choke the life from in our midst.
In short, he is deplorable, this "jihad" holy war-able
Will never make the world or Allah think that he's adorable.
Yes, yes. He is deplorable! His "jihad" holy war-able
Will never make the World or Allah think that he's adorable.
Adorable/ Holy War-Able. Don't you just love it??
No?
Oh. . . .
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Johno
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On Marxism
But it doesn't even sound good on paper. Dictatorship of the proletariat? It seems to be all about resentment; resentment of those who have stuff, resentment of those who have better fashion sense, whatever. And while religious religions like Christianity and Islam and Buddhism keep the promised land safely in the afterlife, Marxism and its heretical splinters make promises here on Earth, promises that have been proven false over and over again. If you're going to have a secular religion, I might humbly offer the American dream, and the adoration of the republic that used to be common hereabouts.
While the American Dream(tm) is not always, everywhere perfectly realized, the reality of American life gets closer to the dream as time goes by, rather than further away. The idea that anyone, red, brown, black, white yellow, plaid or purple-polka-dotted can come here, accept a few basic concepts, and make good is basically a real offer. All you have to do is not try to kill your neighbors because they don't talk like you, work hard, apply some initative and *poof* you've got the American dream - however you define it. If that is a house in the suburbs, 2.4 kids, a dog, a cat and a convertible; great. If it's a compound in the Idaho mountains, just apply concept #1, above, and you're still fine. If the American dream is living a bohemian lifestyle in a city condemning the soceity that makes it possible for you to be a bohemian in the city condemning it, that's fine too. This secular religion gives you the liberty to do that, and the liberty to screw up, but it doesn't kill you, throw your family in a gulag, force your grandma to work on a collectivized farm, and in general erase history, lie, terrorize and poster the entire nation with poorly drawn portraits of the great leader.
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Buckethead
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Eschatology
Y' know? I just used the phrase "immanentizing the eschaton" yesterday! Ain't that a caution✶In the space of half a day, two of our favorite phrases were introduced to the blog, both of which became categories..
Your point on arrogance is well taken. I'm not enough of a moral relativist to argue that practices like genocide, female circumcision, and going without a bath are right just because they are normal to some cultures. Still, I by nature (nurture?) tend to set the bar very very high when it comes to deciding who gets our blessing and who gets the hook. The idea of cleaning house-- slum clearance, in your parlance-- is an appealing one in the abstract, but as we learned in the cold war, our estimation of good and evil can vary with the seasons, and it still strikes me as a little arrogant. So be it.
That being said, I really don't have an alternative to your model. The UN sure hasn't a leg to stand on-- not as long as Libya heads the Human Rights Commission and Iraq heads the Commission on Disarmament. What a joke.
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Johno
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