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Twice this weekend, I was asked what it would take in a candidate to get me to show up to the polls.  Yeah, you read that correctly… I haven’t voted in years.

First, I’ll address the likely outcry you’re having right now:  In my opinion, the system is broken.  Go back and read about red and blue shit from way back in March.  The voting process in this country is a sham.  It is specifically designed to lure fools into the fools game of believing that the system works.  Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, I’m fine with that.  Until we convince the American populace that candidates don’t have to be rich, self-serving members of their political party, the vote will continue to be a waste of time and resources.

Given that we fix that problem (BIG given here), I will vote for a politician who will provide the following:

1. Corporations are not people.  Round up all of the existing congress that voted for this bullshit and throw them out.

2. Government should be only as big as it needs to be.  The only reason that our current congress “spins up” new focus groups or sub-committees is to line pockets with cash.  Let’s take the “payback” out of the equation, and I think you’ll see a lot fewer groups like this.

3. Cap the pay of ALL political offices to something reasonable.  Teachers, cops, and soldiers making $20,000 a year and congressmen taking hundreds of thousands home is a slap in the face of reality and reason.  Serving in our congress should be an honor taken by honorable people, not someone looking to increase their wealth.

4. “Pork barreling” stops NOW.  Stop all influx of campaign money that leads to law.  Anyone caught doing this is immediately removed from office and arrested for treason.

5. Rip out the Bush administration’s policies.  No more rich-kid tax cuts, no more “Patriot act“, and get us the fuck out of the middle east.

6. SEPARATE church and state once and for all.  If a candidate spews religious shit in any light, they are instantly out of the race and done with politics.  We need a government of reason and accountability, not children’s bed-time stories and fear-mongering.

Well, that’s a start anyway.

I received an interesting email from Elizabeth Potter from myfellowamerican.us.  Based on my blog post on the insanity that recently took place in Norway, I guess I became a candidate for spreading the word about what their website is doing about Islamophobia.

Here is what the email said:

My Fellow American is a film project in the United States devoted to recognizing that Muslims are our neighbors. I am reaching out to you because you addressed the recent events in Oslo, Norway, on My Ex Wife Is A Whore.com and I am hoping you will share this message of tolerance with your readers. We’ve put together a 2 minute film that I believe you will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us

I would love it if you could post or tweet about this and share the video. If you can, please let me know. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth

First, let me address the content of the MyFellowAmerican site.  I think it’s good stuff, and I feel like showing the world that people from other cultures are just like people from yours is a fantastic idea.  We need a hell of a lot more understanding and tolerance if we’re going to progress as a society and stop killing each other for no fucking reason.

That being said, let’s get to the meat of the issue (which I thought I made perfectly clear in my last post).

Religious fundamentalism is specifically designed to pit people from different regions against each other while demanding that others within each region never question or refute the region’s commonly held beliefs.  This is a fucking fact, and there is no arguing it.

Teaching American Christians tolerance is like teaching a tiger not to bite you.  Looks great on stage, but at any minute that cat can (and often does) eat your face off.  You can’t erase a lifetime of church, media, and news-casting-propaganda any more than you can erase a wild animal’s desire to eat.

Elizabeth Potter, I think what you are doing is great.  I think pushing the world to be more tolerant and understanding is awesome.  But if you really want to solve the problem, you’ll have to figure a way to eradicate religious fundamentalism in ALL of its forms.

Good luck with that.

Norway, July 22nd 2011:  A self-described “Knights Templar” and “Freemason”, Anders Behring Breivik murdered 68 people in a combination explosion and shooting spree in Utoya and Oslo respectively.

More important (for the purpose of this blog) than the crimes themselves, is the motive.  Breivik posted over 1500 pages of his “manifesto” in which he describes the ”deconstruction of Norwegian culture and mass-import of Muslims“, encourages Christians to “embrace martyrdom” and calls for others to see him as “the savior of Christianity“.

In my years of study, I can’t remember a single time I’ve seen Christian crusaders cast as heroes.  Even in the oldest, most fundamental sects of Christianity, do you rarely even hear a mention of the crusades as they are almost universally an embarrassment to the church.  But that certainly didn’t stop Breivik from idolizing them.  In a twisted propaganda video he posted to YouTube just before the attack you can begin to see the depth of his devotion and eventual madness.

There can be absolutely no doubt that religious fundamentalism, weather Christian, Islamic or otherwise leads to murder, torture, and the continued suffering of the entire human race.

Thousands of years have passed in which we spend countless time, monies, and effort in effectively eradicating each other based on which “God” we believe in.  Haven’t we, as a human society had enough of pointless murder?  Isn’t it clear yet that genocide doesn’t “solve” any problems?  Why can’t we see that RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM is the cause of all of this pain and loss?

I spent a week (actually, we’re still here if you count some unexpected car trouble, but that’s another post…) in Georgia’s smallest, deepest, bible-belt-i-est towns.  We stayed in Cleveland, Helen, and Demorest to name a few.

Small towns are often subject to inbreeding and redneck jokes, but for good reason: Often, as they say, reality is stranger than fiction.  And this vacation proved to be no exception.

But beyond the quite literal “living cliche” representation of the locals we met, you couldn’t help but notice the constant repetition of “American owned” and “Christian owned” signs attached to the hotels, restaurants, and gas stations.  At first, this just seems like a joke;  maybe it would make for a funny photo posted to your Facebook page.

But with more thought, it opens a pandora’s box of questions and commentary.  Try to imagine what the outrage would be like if a Miami Publix mounted an “American owned” sign on their building.  Maybe a Shell gas station with a great big Christian fish on the sign, imagine the photo on the front page of the Sentinel that weekend.  Imagine the picketing, the calls for boycott, and the news commentary.

Yet, here we have hundreds, if not thousands of that exact occurrence and no one bats an eye.  It’s amazing to consider the complete lack of religious and racial tolerance in a country literally founded on it;  especially when you consider the average southerner’s claim to American life and patriotism.

You read the title correctly.  The CDC said today:

“Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.”

News source

Now, combine this with the “fact” that the world is supposed to come to an end this weekend!

I’ve been saying it for years.  You read it here first, folks.  The world is coming to an end, by way of ZOMBIES.

A while back I blogged about zombie ants, and they’re back in the news today.  Check out some of these zombie ant FACTS.

New gruesome details have emerged explaining how a parasitic fungus manipulates an unfortunate ant, filling its head with fungal cells and changing its muscles so the ant can grab a leaf in a death grip just when and where the fungus wants it.

The bizarre sequence that leads up to the ant’s death is completely out of step with its normal behavior and appears to be a way for the fungus to get itself to the perfect spot to spread its spores, according to the researchers.

Take a look at some of these photos, specifically #3 whose description is “In a scene worthy of a horror movie, one zombie ant bites the neck of another, already dead, zombie ant.”

Currently, there is a bill in discussion in Florida’s house pertaining to the open carry of firearms.  Unsurprisingly, this bill has caused a great deal of debate.  The NRA and pro-gun committees have been trying to sell the necessity of the bill “to prevent the arrest of CWP holders who may inadvertently, or accidentally, expose their firearms”.  This is all fine and good, but I think this “reason” has missed the point.

Essentially what we have here is a “solution” to a problem by passing more legislation instead of fixing the original law.  I’m certainly not pro gun legislation, those of you who know me know that I am an avid gun owner, competitive shooter, and overall fan of firearms.  But the open carry legislation passed as a “fix” for the concealed carry law is a misdirection.

Also, it seems to me that some scenarios where an open carrying citizen might inadvertently cause an escalation.  Before the hate mail starts, let me play out a scenario for you.

You are in a gas station, looking through the candy bar isle when an shotgun carrying bad guy comes through the front door and demands the clerk turn over the register’s cash.  Normally you’d be carrying concealed, but since this law passed, you figure “what the hell” and suit up with a waistband holster.  Now the robber turns his attention to you, as he never even noticed you back there on his way in, and you have a gun on your hip.  Had you been carrying concealed, you might have decided to do nothing to stop the robbery, assuming the bad guy would take his money and run.  But now we have a good old-fashioned wild-west showdown taking place, as the criminal is convinced you’ll draw the minute you get the chance.

This is how people get shot.

I’m not saying the law will cause people to end up in a Hollywood style shootout, but it’s certainly worth entertaining the thought.  I do believe that an armed society is a polite society, and I think firearms have a lasting place in America, as this was a major factor in our history.  I’m only suggesting that the open carry / cowboy lifestyle might be a bit outdated.

Maybe we should spend less effort pleasing the NRA, by passing more laws and more time fixing the laws that are already broken.  Say, by adding a clause to the concealed law that allows for accidental display of the hidden firearm.

Unemployment is still hovering at over 9% (actually more like 11%, but we don’t count under-employed or people who have just plain given up).  We are currently waging 3 wars… At the same time.  As if this wasn’t enough, we’re still buried in the middle of the worst recession in American history, home prices continue to plummet, and a class war is looming as the rich continue to tax the middle class into poverty.  Oh yeah, and there’s a world class nuclear disaster hanging on by a thread in Japan… Almost forgot that one.

But you fucktards are wrapped around some “noble” rich asshat in the UK getting married to some other rich asshat, and a reality TV show douchebag who is running for president as some kind of bullshit publicity stunt.

So, what’s on the front page of the news this morning?  Obama releases birth form, decries ‘silliness’.

Are you fucking kidding me?

GET a GRIP, America!

The most depressing part is, what can we do?  Congress is completely out of control, the President and his cabinet seem to have their own agenda which doesn’t include protecting or providing for any constituent who doesn’t own a corporation, and our government has decided to war us into permanent poverty.  This is really beginning to sound a LOT like the Bush administration.

Normally I don’t post these types of thoughts, but I had a conversation with an acquaintance a few weeks ago, and the thought of it has been compelling me to get this out there.

If I could only give you one tip on how to lead a better life, I would give you this:

Go suck at something.

At first it sounds like I’m putting you off, but don’t be deceived by the tone.  The basic principle here is that if you go and try something you’ve never tried before, you won’t be any good at it;  but that is the point.

There are literally hundreds of things you can try with very little cost or preceding effort (if any at all):

Do you have a car and a driver’s license?  You can enter an autocross race!  You probably won’t win, but what do you care?

Do you own a pistol?  Do some searching for your local IDPA and go competition-shooting.  It’s completely safe, and a hell of a good time!  And, seriously… it’s like $20!  If you don’t own a gun that’s fine!  Call your local shooting range and RENT one for an hour.

Neither of the above mentioned require any training, classes, or special equipment.  Just get in the car, and go!

Buy a camera, and learn to use it.  There are hundreds of weekend photo courses you can take for as little as $25.

Need more horsepower than a camera can offer?  Go get your motorcycle license.  You may never use it, but so what?  You can take the basic rider course for less than $150 in most places.  They supply the motorcycle, the helmet and the instructors!

Want to impress the ladies (or men I’m not judging)?  Go pick up a cheap guitar and watch some YouTube videos.  You can learn basic chords and songs without ever leaving your house.  You’ll sound like shit and have a blast doing it!

Looking for more of a challenge?  Try an auto or motorcycle track day at your local race track, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) in the continental US.

Call your local skydiving school and jump out of a plane in just 5 steps!  (OK, you probably don’t want to suck at this one but you get the point.)

I’m sure you’ve seen this famous quote (or some variation of it):

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!”
- Bill McKenna

Outside of it’s obvious intent to convey a feeling of wildness and reckless abandon, I think there is another message here.  To me, there is more emphasis on the “get out there and do something” subtext than on its “burn the candle at both ends” connotation.

So get off your ass, get out there and go suck at something!

So, I decided to throw out everything in my closet and re-style myself for 2011.

Time to get on the net and find some relevant styled clothing!  And that’s when everything went down the shitter.

A quick Google search for Men’s style returns sites like GQ Magazine, Men’s Health: Style, Esquire, and a site called Luxist (who is responsible for the insanely fucking stupid man-purse you see on your left, on their FUCKING HOME PAGE).

And herein lies the problem.

So I changed my Google search to “Men’s style -douche”, which… Returns the same fucking results.  Here is what’s “hot” this year, according to GQ magazine and, yes… These are actually MEN:

No, seriously… Here’s the source

If anyone has a line on a site I can check out for style that won’t make me look like a flaming hipster douche-bag, please let me know.