Kyle Williams asks "Will Dems and GOP merge?"

Kyle Williams has a good piece about the closing gap between Democrats and Republicans over at World Net Daily today. He sees the GOP's increasing liberalism as a sure sign that there is nothing definitive between the two and that something must happen to provide a real alternative. 'Course, some of us out here hold that the Democrats and Republicans are really one party already, only masquerading as a two-party system so that people will be more apt to kill each other about it being "us versus them" while the distraction lets the politicians and partisan hacks rob us blind and encroach on our liberties. Yer not supposed to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, don't ya know...

Say what you will about the Soviet Union: at least the ruling regime there was honest about being just one party. They're starting to positively seem like the model of political integrity.

Read More

Who the hell is Scott Peterson, and why should I really care?

All I know is that he was on trial for the murder of his wife and unborn child and he got found guilty yesterday. Other than that I've been completely ignorant of this entire case.

Seriously, what impact does Scott Peterson have on my life? None, really.

It wasn't long ago that a man killed the pregnant mother of his child not far away from here in Burlington NC, cut the body into pieces and stuffed them into a trashcan. Funny how that never got any national airplay... but then, a double-murder in a blue-collar industrial town just isn't as glamorous as a double-murder in posh, ritzy California. Low-income assailant and victim versus young married couple where she and the baby died so that he could live the party life again: you tell me which one the TV cameras are going to play up and focus on the most.

Chalk up the Peterson murder case as the latest in a string of incidents - like the OJ trial and JonBenet Ramsey murder - that too many Americans got caught up in paying too much attention to, like a long drawn-out train wreck. Tragic as all of these things were, the real tragedy outside of the courtroom is that a nation obsessed with celebrity and fame is so addicted to finding - or making - a story like this to focus its attention on, that it's distracted from the things around them that REALLY matter.

But it's so much more fun to see Scott Peterson looking at the death penalty here than it is to watch dozens of American kids over the past several days cut to pieces in the streets of Fallujah, I suppose. Even though it wasn't their fault that they weren't spoiled rich kids trying to return to bachelorhood.

Read More

If you don't believe that George W. Bush has evil intentions after reading THIS, you're a hopelessly deluded fool

And let me justify that statement by adding this: at age 30, I've spent almost half my life on a farm. Living it. Working it. Blessing it. Cursing it. Laughing at certain times and crying at others. Rejoicing when we had a good year and struggling to help the family during the bad ones.

We were a farm family surrounded by other farm families and that sense of community left an indelible mark on my life. I grew up learning about things like honor and trust from men like my Dad and other men that tilled fields and milked cows. No one around us lacked for the friendly hand of a neighbor.

And no one suffered the agony of being alone when consolation was needed most. My Dad is the strongest man that I've ever known, and I never knew him to shed a tear. Until the day came that a 19-year old kid working on our farm - a young man that Dad had practically watched grow up - was killed in a freak tractor accident. In the short time that he was there Mike became like the older brother that I never had. And Dad, who was a close friend with Mike's father before he died, had taken Mike in under his wing as a protege' and apprentice... and even as a second son.

Every farmer within a five-mile radius of our place descended on our farm that day, as the emergency workers and others worked to recover Mike's body from beneath the tractor. If unable to do anything else they were there for our family, offering words of comfort and prayers. Just letting us know that we weren't alone. If it hadn't been for that kind of sense of common sympathy, I don't know where any of us would have wound up. Without the support we found around us I don't know if I would be sitting here now, years and countless circumstances later, interested enough in things to write my thoughts out to a blog for everyone to see.

You could trust someone back then, even if you barely knew them. At least until they gave you a reason not to trust them... which was so scarce in happening that no single occurrence comes to mind. In retrospect I must lament this observation: Those were the last days of that time when a man's word was his bond.

Farmers - and especially small family farmers - are at once the most critical and the least appreciated segment of any society. Ever stopped to think about the vast influence of the average American farmer? If it weren't for the toil and sacrifice of their long hours, this country would not possibly be able to not only be the only nation in human history capable of feeding itself, but also a good fraction of the rest of the world's population. They get nowhere near the thanks that they deserve, yet they keep doing the work they know and love best... because deep down, they have the satisfaction of knowing that they do the work that the rest of us don't desire but couldn't live without. They've found contentment in their place because they understand its importance. If you want to know a man who is sincerely humbled by his sense of power, talk to a farmer.

All of the above and more applies to farmers around the world, not just here. They might vary in technologies and procedures, but they share a common appreciation of the role that they play and the humbleness in which they accept it. Wherever they may be found, farmers are an honorable lot... which should lead us to be honorable toward them. It should compel us to appreciate them and give them all the honor that's due them.

Except that isn't happening in some places. In fact the United States government - under the direction of President Bush - is not only failing to honor one group of farmers: it's actively insulting them and destroying one of their chief means of livelihood.

I've never met an Iraqi farmer and doubt that I ever will... but I hope all the above has made it clear that growing up on a farm tends to attune one to the demands of being a farmer anywhere. Like farmers elsewhere, our Iraqi brethren have long practiced seed-saving: using the seeds from one season's crop toward the planting of the next. It saves money and it lends itself toward making the farm more self-sufficient. It also has the unintended effect of creating quality assurance: strains of vegetables are inclined to be consistent across several seasons, with the occasional mixing of strains keeping a crop from becoming genetically "stale" across several generations. Turns out that Iraqi farmers are pretty good at seed-saving, and if anyone among that country's population should be given free reign to manage their own affairs as they see fit, it should be their farmers.

Except the Iraqi farmers aren't going to be allowed to cultivate their crops as they believe they should be, thanks to George W. Bush. Turns out that Bush directed his man Paul Bremer to institute a wazoo-load of crazy laws for Iraq's new government when the U.S. handed over sovereignty a few months back. One of 'em makes it illegal for Iraqi farmers to practice seed-saving! Check this out from Grain.org:

Iraq's new patent law: A declaration of war against farmers
by Focus on the Global South and GRAIN
October 2004

When former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the so-called "transfer of sovereignty" in June 2004, he left behind the 100 orders he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Among them is Order 81 on "Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety." [1] This order amends Iraq's original patent law of 1970 and unless and until it is revised or repealed by a new Iraqi government, it now has the status and force of a binding law. [2] With important implications for farmers and the future of agriculture in Iraq, this order is yet another important component in the United States' attempts to radically transform Iraq's economy.

Now, why the hell is Bush purposely mangling the livelihood of farmers in Iraq? Read this and if you still think that profit wasn't a driving motive for sending our soldiers over there, I got some ocean-front property in Nevada to sell you:

For generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and the free innovation with and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This has been made illegal under the new law. The seeds farmers are now allowed to plant - "protected" crop varieties brought into Iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural reconstruction - will be the property of the corporations. While historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources, the new US-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds. Inserted into Iraq's previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the "protection of new varieties of plants." PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety. So the "protection" in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.

In other words, Bush used the power of the United States government - as it was "nation-building" in Iraq - to force Iraqi farmers to abandon their ages-old practice of seed-saving. It's now a criminal act in Iraq to use the seeds that you harvested from one season's harvest and use it in the next! Iraqi farmers are thus compelled to purchase outright only the seeds - genetically-engineered seeds that have expensive patents all over 'em, mind ya - that are being brought into the country by giant corporations like Monsanto and Dow. They stand to make a staggering fortune from the spoils of this war and its reconstruction.

Take a wild guess whose ear a lot of those companies had a long time already before the first troops crossed the Iraqi border?

Here's a hint: he's the same guy who wants to enforce mandatory mental screenings for all Americans so that his buddies in big pharmaceutical companies can make billions from the compulsive medications that will result.

I defy anyone to tell me that forcing the farmers of Iraq to do this - for benefit of companies here - is anywhere close to being an act of humanitarian assistance and goodwill.

It's not. But if you want another term for this, a powerful government bent on controlling everything allying itself with big corporate interests, I'll give it to ya: "national socialism".

Wasn't anything Christian about it when the Germans practiced it back in the 1930s and 40s either.

Read More

San Jose school to gymnast: "You vill NOT turn cartwheels undt you vill LUFF it!!"

A few months ago I published "People who should be shot when the revolution comes", a handy guide on who to hunt down like rabid dogs when the breaking-point is reached. It was all tongue-in-cheek, 'course, although there was an ulterior good that it served: when the revolution gets unleashed I want this to help keep the civilian casualty figures low.

Anyway, the second group of people on the list that we should be gunning for are "'Zero tolerance'-happy public school principals" and this next story should make it clear why some of them should be booted down to the pariah caste on... no, beneath the totem pole:

Student Of The Month Suspended After Warning (about turning cartwheels)
WEST COVINA — Doing cartwheels and handstands got an 11-year-old West Covina girl bounced out of school.

Deirdre Faegre, a sixth-grader at San Jose-Edison Academy in West Covina, was suspended Tuesday when she disobeyed school officials who had repeatedly told her not to do gymnastic stunts during lunchtime, ABC7 Eyewitness News has learned

"They told me I can't do it anymore because I can hurt other people or myself," Deirdre told a local newspaper. "There's other kids that do ... but it's obviously only been told to me and I don't know why."

San Jose-Edison Academy Principal Denise Patton said she's warned Deirdre numerous times, talked to her parents and given her lunch detention, but the 90-pound gymnast won't stay on the ground, so she had to suspend her.

"Our first concern is the safety of all of our children," Patton said in the newspaper report. Her acrobatics have "created an unsafe situation for herself and others."

She could accidentally strike another student or hurt herself, Patton asserted.

Mash here for the full story. The principal elaborates further that the REAL reason little Deirdre was suspended was because other students might see what she was doing and try to imitate her stunts.

Let's see, students can now be suspended or expelled for: bringing 2-inch long action-figure guns to school, drawing pictures of guns, accidentally leaving a butterknife in the back-seat of a car, kissing a first-grade classmate on the playground, wearing a t-shirt that offends a faculty member while off-campus, Heaven knows what else, and now turning cartwheels because other kids might hurt themselves copying the tumbler. Sheesh, aren't kids allowed to have a little fun anymore?

One or both of two motives are at work here I think: Deirdre is obviously a very talented young lass... too talented for her own good. She's smart, and she's an excellent gymnast (I found where she trains at: turns out it's the same team that's produced a couple of Olympic athletes). Plus her dad obviously is showing her how to think for herself: double-plus ungood that is citizen. Sad to say but ours is a culture that frowns upon individuality and achievement. The school policy wonks probably look at Deirdre the same way that the Matrix's Agents see Neo: someone who threatens to show everybody how to question the system. They couldn't stand to see her showing off her talent so they slammed the hammer down on her.

Either that, and/or because I've come to believe that for the most part our schools - and our entire current system of government - is hellbent on making the American people into a race of children that will look to the Big Daddy state for all their needs. Think that's worth defying and revolting against? Yer damned right it is. And I'll tell y'all this: any state trooper or police officer in North Carolina that someday tells me that my future six-year old daughter has to be in a baby seat is going to calmly, and quite confidently, told to stick it where the sun don't shine. Why should any of us give a flying rat's butt about these penny-ante tin-plated autocrats?

As ticked-off as I'm coming to be at how screwed-up things are, don't be surprised if y'all read about me getting arrested for taking a ball-peen hammer to one of those red-light cameras someday. Don't think that thought hasn't crossed my mind anyways...

Read More

It's from the same college that wildly celebrated the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr...

...parse that as you will.

Bob Jones University president Bob Jones III has sent a congratulatory letter to George W. Bush on his re-election(?). I'm not going to post it here: you can find it at that link or - in case it ever goes down - I found it on Google archived here. But I'll note this: that Jones claims that God is using Bush to grant America "a reprieve from the agenda of paganism," that Bush owes "the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you." That he is eager to follow Bush because "you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly."

Somebody inform Bob Jones III that so far as anyone can tell, Bush has never gone to church - in regular worship with other Christians anyway - since coming to Washington. That's something that's not just encouraged: it's a necessity of the Christian life, that we might hold each other accountable. But I guess when you're hand-picked by the Almighty and somewhat considered God's Second Begotten Son you don't have to be held accountable by anyone, right?

By the way, that bit about the college and Martin Luther King's death is an all-too-true story: when Jones' father, Bob Jones Jr. announced that King had been killed, the assembled students applauded and cheered... especially as Jones declared that King was "an apostate". Jones' daddy didn't get it then and Jones doesn't get it now: that Christians are supposed to rescue lost people from a dying world, and not rescue a dying world for lost people.

That's all that "Christians" like Jones and Falwell and Robertson and Bush and Ashcroft and too many others are concerned with. That's all they see: a world split by factionalism. Where it's practically considered a justifiable biblical mandate to hate one another because those other people are "liberals". It saves them the hassle of having to consider the lives of individuals.

They want to save America... but they don't give a damn about even one person who's hurting for not knowing about God's love for them.

And it's because he really DOESN'T give a damn about other people that Jones is bragging about in this letter.

Read More

"Jesus speaks through the Republicans" or: how some Christians use politics to self-destruct their own religion

Nope, this ain't from The Onion and don't think that I didn't mistake it for parody either 'cuz at first I did. Boyz and goylz, this is legit... unless this was some disgruntled anti-Bush person who took this route to make Bush supporters look ridiculous. After THIS election I'll concede that ANYTHING is possible, that the bar is now so low that there's nothing that people on either side won't do to destroy the other. Anyway, this is from The Morning Call newspaper out of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Here's the direct link if you be so lacking in faith that this is legit. But just in case that link goes down I'm gonna cut-'n-paste the full letter right here:

Jesus speaks through the Republicans

I hope the election of George W. Bush is seen as a wake-up call to all the liberal Democrats who oppose God's will.

It is His doing that George W. Bush is still our president. Millions of born-again Christians helped win this election through our prayers and votes. Jesus speaks through the Republicans.

The Democrats will not be able to win elections until they renounce their sinful ways and stop encouraging abortions, gayness, and trying to take away our guns.

Earl Balboa
Washington Township

Ummmm... no Earl, it wasn't God's will that George W. Bush was elected and if you believe that it was, then you are destroying a bedrock foundation of your own faith because by stating that the outcome of this election was God's choice then it logically follows that there is no free will or choice at all on the part of the individual. And if the individual has no free will then it follows that a person cannot choose whether or not to turn away from sin. Therefore, it logically follows that there was no reason for Jesus Christ to have come... or worse, that He did come but His sufering and death were ultimately meaningless and served no purpose at all. Which lends itself toward only four possible conclusions that can possibly come from what Earl is suggesting here: (1) Jesus Christ was not the Son of God but was a lying ordinary human being, (2) Jesus Christ was not the Son of God because He was terminally insane, (3) God exists and He is insane, or (4) there is no God.

GOD DID NOT DIRECT THE OUTCOME OF THIS ELECTION TO SUIT THE REPUBLICANS. And anyone who suggests that He did had better accept that God made the German people vote in Adolf Hitler or (some will shudder at this) that God decreed that Bill Clinton would be the American President from 1993 to 2001. No doubt that God could have done so, given that He's all-powerful, but He couldn't do that in this situation without violating everything that is in accordance with His nature. Just as He gives each person the choice of whether they will serve Him or not, God gave we the people of the United States the free and clear choice to govern ourselves... which more often than not directly correlates to how much we allow Him to govern our own hearts. But we still have the final choice of determining how this plays out. That does NOT mean that we can make God's plans go awry though: as my best friend beautifully put it to me a few years ago, "you can't mess up with God no matter how bad you do something." Whichever way we screwed this election up - and we're going to screw up regardless of outcome so long as we remain good little slaves to the two-party kleptocracy - God's plans are going to win out in the end. And without anyone, much less a political party, playing a role in it "lest it should boast."

Did God know the outcome of this election (whatever outcome that may turn out to be) beforehand? Given that He's omnipotent, of course He did. But if anything, He allowed it to happen... meaning that He's letting us live with the consequences of our own choices and actions... instead of directly intervening to tilt things one way or another. I mean, c'mon: does anyone not a few cans short of a six-pack seriously believe that Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, Architect of the Heavens, Delver of the Depths, Maker of All Things Great and Small, Sovereign of the Visible and Invisible, Final Arbiter Between Good and Evil, Perfect and Righteous Judge of the Living and the Dead, the Authority From Which All Authority Derives, the Glory Defying Comprehension, the Peace Beyond Understanding, the Wisdom Surpassing All Human Foolishness, the Justice Without Question and yet the Love Without Bounds, the Lord of All That Is Or Ever Will Be... what need or interest could God possibly have with the Republican Party?

But if some people would rather that we wait for a puff of white smoke to come out of the chimney of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to indicate that God has chosen a new President, I guess we can change the Constitution to allow for that too, huh?

Read More

The only thing I intend to say about the death of Yasser Arafat

All I'll say is that Yasser Arafat was by admission a very devoted disciple of his "uncle" and that those beliefs are what no doubt played the central guiding role throughout most of the decades of his life. Understanding that, it became very difficult for me to judge the man without the harshest subjectivity.

A Google search for the "grand mufti of jerusalem" string should readily provide everything that you need to know, if you want to know what I meant by all that.

(And for any other historians/students of the occult out there: what Dietrich Eckhardt was to Adolf Hitler, so Hajj Amin Al Husseini became to his close relative Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini... better known as the late Yasser Arafat.)

Read More

Iris Chang - author of "The Rape of Nanking" - dead at age 36

Hardly anyone in the western world had ever heard of Nanking, or cared about what transpired there during 1937-1938 when the Japanese invaded the city. Then came 1997 and the release of The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Suddenly it seemed like everybody was talking about it. The Rape of Nanking became to those of us in our college's history department what Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was to the residents of Savannah: if you asked one of us "have you read it?" they would instantly know what "it" was referring to.

In a lot of ways Chang's book evoked the same time-delayed reaction that started happening about twenty-five or thirty years after the Holocaust in Europe: it wasn't until people were confronted with the fact that, yes, this REALLY DID HAPPEN that the full brunt of the horror was felt. That's not to suggest that the Nanking occupation was intentionally ignored by those of us in America and Europe, but the sheer weight of firsthand accounts on our own soil about the Nazis' atrocities simply overwhelmed - and unfortunately so - those of the other horrors of World War II. And it took a pretty long while for even all those eyewitnesses to open up and start confronting the rest of us with what happened.

What literally millions did in bringing the Holocaust to the fore of western conscience, a mere handful of scholars did the same to make people aware of what happened at Nanking. And it must be said with very little argument that none did so much to accomplish that as did Iris Chang. She was young - only 29 when The Rape of Nanking was published - but already a dedicated researcher and model historian. In pulling together the story of Nanking she revealed herself to be a master of the narrative. Stephen Ambrose - author of Band of Brothers and other WWII books - described Chang as "maybe the best young historian we've got." And if I might add with all due and sincerest honesty, Iris Chang was a very beautiful woman.

I didn't hear until a little while ago that Tuesday she was found dead - by self-inflicted gunshot to the head - inside a car along a California highway.

Here's the full story that got sent to me with the details. I know that there's a zillion other things in the news right now that are gobbling up everyone's attention, but I felt really compelled to make a note of her passing, and lament the loss of one of the very few of my own generation's greatest historical minds. Thoughts and prayers going out to her family today.

Read More

A hearty hello to all the good folks making their way to this blog from Democratic Underground

I just hope this doesn't put the brakes on any of the friendships I still have with a lot of the good folks at Free Republic.

It ain't easy being me, I'm tellings ya...

Hey guys, please remember that I'm like Michael Corleone in The Godfather before he pulls the gun out of the toilet and shoots Sollozzo and that scumbucket police captain: I'm "a civilian". The whole war for power is something I don't want a piece of action in. And I'm gonna be friendly with anyone no matter their affiliation. Just don't want either side gunning for me is all :-)

Read More

A picture so funny you’ll choke on your haggis

Had a friend in college who was a nut for Scottish history and heritage. Every Saturday at noon he and his roomie (who was an Irish nut: what are the odds that Campus Housing could put two guys like that together) would crank up Braveheart on their VCR and spend the next three hours getting all liquored up drinking Scotch while watching William Wallace crack open English skulls. Drew's dorm-room closet had at least three swords, a couple of daggers, a mace and – no joke – a flail: history professors used to come by his room to ogle his armory. The title of his history thesis – arguing that a well-known index of Scottish tartans is inaccurate – was "The Good, the Plaid, and the Ugly". And every Saint Patrick's Day Drew and his roomie, and usually about two or three other guys that he conned into the gag, would run around campus wearing Scottish kilts.

Drew kept asking me if I wanted to wear a kilt, and I never took him up on it: I would have probably looked too "dude looks like a lady" if you know what I mean. So I guess that I'll never know what it was that I was missing by not wearing one...


...on second thought, maybe that's a GOOD thing. Sheesh, what can be said but "God save the Queen."

(Click here for the full story about the above picture.)

Read More

If Chevy Chase is praying for a career comeback, now's the perfect opportunity...

We now take you live to the news desk of NBC's Weekend Update at Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York City...

"Our top story tonight is this breaking news: Yasser Arafat is dead! No, we're now getting further word: Yasser Arafat is alive! Excuse me, this has just been handed to me: Yasser Arafat is dead again! And this is now coming across our desk: Yasser Arafat is still alive! And now we've been given a further update: Yasser Arafat is dead again! And in further developments it has just hit the wire services that Yasser Arafat is alive! More information now coming in: Yasser Arafat has died! We'll of course keep you fully abreast of the situation as it develops. Back to you, Jane!"

Read More

WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION?! CLICK THIS LINK LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR YOU SCUM-SUCKING MAGGOT!!

If you want to partake in something real real funny that is.

"And that's a fact, Jack!" :-)

Read More

Thank goodness we're going after the REAL terrorist threats: Megatron and Starscream

It's a serious news story but a friend sent along this link and I just had to bring some attention to this pic they made for the story...

Personally, I think everyone's will see how big a wimp he REALLY is when he refuses to say that Unicron is part of the "axis of evil".

Read More

CRAP ON A CRUTCH!! E-voting errors plague too close to home

Okay, NOW it's personal. Guilford County is where we live and a 22,000 vote difference is a MAJOR fraggin' thing. From The Charlotte Observer (registration required) a few days ago...

Winner so far: Confusion
Agriculture, education races change as counties fix vote-tally errors
MARK JOHNSON
Raleigh Bureau

RALEIGH - Winner so far: Confusion Agriculture, education races change as counties fix vote-tally errors Mark Johnson

RALEIGH -- For a few brief hours on Wednesday, N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Britt Cobb saw his Tuesday election loss turn to a win.

By Thursday, he was losing again.

"These results are changing. They are going up and down," said Cobb's spokesman Marc Siegel. "We don't believe any of it until we get the final, confirmed results." That won't be until later this month.

The roller coaster of fate was caused by vote-counting glitches in at least five counties besides Mecklenburg. Foul-ups ranged from stubborn levers to a computer error that changed some results by 22,000 votes and, in Carteret County, 4,500 votes that were lost and may not be recovered.

Two statewide races are at issue: agriculture commissioner and N.C. superintendent of public instruction.

Democrat June Atkinson switched from loser to winner, for now, in the public instruction race.

"Things like this have happened before, but not to this magnitude and level," said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections. "There are more things at stake because there are closer races than at any other time."

Bartlett's staff is working with county officials to resolve problems. Election results won't be certified until Nov. 23, so county and state officials have more time to correct errors.

Mecklenburg officials released corrected vote counts Thursday night that changed the totals, but not the winner in either the agriculture or public instruction race.

The biggest change in vote totals outside Mecklenburg was in Guilford County, which includes Greensboro. The computer that tabulates the totals choked when officials uploaded the early voting numbers, which was a particularly large batch of data.

"So it just threw some of (the votes) away," said Guilford County elections director George Gilbert.

Before the votes were retallied, Cobb, who looked like a loser on election night, had won by 1,500 votes, according to the elections board's Web site. Gilbert, though, had backup tapes that contained the vote tallies.

When he retrieved those numbers and gave the corrected figures to the state board of elections, Cobb had an additional 4,000 votes and his Republican opponent, Steve Troxler, another 13,000. Troxler was the apparent winner again.

The new Guilford numbers boosted Atkinson's votes by nearly 12,000 in the superintendent's race, putting her ahead of Republican Bill Fletcher, who got 3,000 more votes in the update.

The Guilford totals didn't change President Bush's win in the state, but did shift the vote total by 22,000.

(snip)

And electronic voting is supposed to be mandatory everywhere by 2006?

In a sane world, someone would have been dragged out into the street and shot for plotting something like this. What with all the other reports coming in, there's just one thing that really comes to mind if we're going to maintain any semblance of democracy in this country: hold new elections for those places with electronic voting, this time with auditable paper ballots. To Hell with getting sworn into office in December or January or whenever: there's a lot more at stake here than when some politician gets Two Men and a Truck to drop off the furnishings for a swanky D.C. congressional office. This is now something way past "Democrat versus Republican", and to suggest that it is - in my book anyway - suggests the worst kind of treason: selling out America for political partisanship. And if the Powers That Be cannot respect the sanctity of our votes, then We The People are no longer under any moral or even legal obligation to respect the Powers That Be, at all.

Parse that as you wi... on second thought, I'll spell it out: if our own government has grown so corrupt as to artificially massage voting tabulations, then the American people hae the ethical duty to overthrow those people in government who are responsible. By any means necessary, if worse comes to worst. Seriously. This is an abrogation of the authority that God gave this nation's citizens over their own country and if we allow THAT to happen, we live in defiance of God. Sedition laws be damned: if government is revolting against us like this, we've the right to revolt against it.

Read More

The Incredibles review

The Incredibles is Alan Moore’s Watchmen as conceived by Ben Edlund (creator of The Tick comic and cartoon). Too bad next year’s Cars will be the last project Disney and Pixar Animation collaborate on, ‘cuz the House that Mickey Built has NEVER before released an animated feature with so much mindless death and violence. I hope they do it again.

Leave it to Pixar to shed the light on the dark side of superhero life: a torrent of lawsuits from the very people saved from a trainwreck, government regulation and an obsessed fanboy who just won’t take “no” to being a sidekick for an answer. The only way out is a fate worse than death: consigned behind a desk as an insurance claims adjuster, damned to watch muggings and bank robberies from an office window but forbidden by law to use superpowers to make a difference in the world. The only thing allowed to be fought now is an ever-bulging waistline.

Welcome to the existence of Bob Parr (voice of Craig T. Nelson). Once the zenith of heroic fortitude as Mr. Incredible, he was forced to hang up his tights after the people he rescued from various disasters turn over-litigious and start costing the government millions of dollars in settlements. When superheroes are outlawed as a result his family gets relocated. He comes home every day to his beautiful wife Helen (Holly Hunter), the former Elastigirl (think Plastic Man doing Mr. Mom) and their three children: fast-as-Flash Dash (Spencer Fox), Violet (Sarah Vowell) - who closes herself off from the world behind a force-field almost as much as she hides from it by turning invisible - and baby Jack-Jack, who hasn’t developed superpowers… well, not yet.

You’d think that kind of homelife would be excitement to no end, but Bob is bored out of his skull. Enough so that after work while Helen thinks he’s gone bowling he’s really sneaking out with fellow former hero Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) to don ski masks and fight crimes. But then a mysterious offer comes to Bob, which happens to coincide with the disappearance of several other retired heroes. Before you can say “Shazam!” Bob is back in the saddle again… or at least the tight spandex. What happens after that becomes a threat not just to the safety of the entire world, but his marriage also.

My wife and I caught The Incredibles yesterday and after seeing all the other Pixar flicks, we thought this might be the funniest thing they’ve done yet. The appeal for me was that the movie taps into that same off-kilter humor that The Tick was known for: superhero action-comedy that’s NOT played for in-your-face gags. Think of the funniest moments in the two Spider-Man movies and make a full-length feature like that. If that’s the kind of thing that makes you laugh, plus if you want to see SERIOUS kick-butt computer animation and one of the most refreshing American-produced cartoons to ever hit theaters, go see The Incredibles this weekend. If you’ve seen it already, see it again. Then, see it a zillion more times. Or perish in flames. It’s your choice, but not really.

Read More

My e-mail to Jerry Falwell: "a more evil person than any 'liberal'"

I've noticed that quite a few "Christian leaders" are barely containing their glee in the wake of this past Tuesday's elections. Even the ministers on the local "conservative Christian" AM radio station have sounded more upbea... no, not "upbeat". "Swaggering" is more like it. If - as the Bible says - all the angels of Heaven rejoice when just one human soul cries to God for forgiveness, there's a lot more rejoicing from many professing Christians when just one Republican gets elected to office over an evil Democrat.

You'd think that must be anyway, 'specially after reading the Revrund Jerry Falwell and his article "Christian voters triumph over Hollywood left" that's up at World Net Daily this morning. "Dear Lord, PLEASE have mercy on America if THIS is the kind of pride and arrogance that we have to look forward to for the next four years." Because if God will look kindly on a people that repent and humble themselves, THIS kind of mindset isn't going to score any points toward this nation's longevity. Go read it if you like, but I hope people understand that this kind of attitude is NOT what we're called to engender as Christians.

So I wrote Falwell an e-mail, and called him out on a few things. I'm posting it here for public consumption...

FROM: Christopher Knight
TO: jerry@falwell.com
SUBJECT: Falwell, there's no way you really serve Christ after this piece...

...on World Net Daily. You spent most of the time patting yourself on the back and dropping other people's names who also spend too much time patting themselves on the back.

But that's not the worst of it: you don't even pretend to hide your hatred of people you don't like. To you, being a "conservative Christian" is carte blanche to toss aside Jesus's instructions that we are to love one another, ESPECIALLY our enemies.

And that's STILL not the worst even: you do NOTHING in this piece to introduce Christ to people who are sincerely wanting and needing Him. The problem is, they look at people like you and what you're doing and they CAN'T find Christ in your life... because He's not really there at all.

All you care about is putting Republicans into office, making sure Bush looks like God's anointed on Earth that can do no wrong, and condemning those sinful liberals. Well, I'm going to let you in on something that maybe nobody's ever informed you of: there isn't a hair's breadth of difference between you and any other "Christian
conservative" and those liberals that you relish destroying so much. You *and* they are after the same damnable goal: power in this world over other men. Both of you differ only in your methods. And in *your* case you believe that God has put His stamp of approval on your lust.

That last one makes you a far more evil person on this earth than any "liberal" in my book.

If you want to commit the sin of hatred, don't justify yourself for it by acting like one of the Lord's anointed. Because you're only proving to the entire world that you're not... not to mention that you're making it harder for those that DO love others as they love Christ. Your pride is destroying the testimony of real Christians more than you can imagine. If you even CARED about that at all,
anyway.

There's a word for people like you, Mr. Falwell: "Pharisees". They used their ecclesiastical positions to keep other people in their power also. And when Someone arrived who refused to play their silly games of domination, they conspired to have Him killed.

Jesus Christ - and those who TRULY follow Him - would and will refuse to play YOUR silly game here and now. Considering that I seriously doubt if you have any understanding of that, I can't help but wonder if you and the rest of the "Christian Reconstruction" crowd might someday start nailing those of us who will serve the Lord only to crosses - no doubt planted on the White House lawn outside of Bush's window - for refusing to whore ourselves as you have to the god of this earth.

You do more damage to the cause of Christ than you know by lusting for power as you do. Please, stop this now, repent of this madness and turn your heart back to the Lord... instead of keeping it faced toward that which also comes appearing as an angel of light.

Stop using the name of Jesus Christ as your ticket to power. He's our personal savior, not your personal nightstick.

In Christ,
Christopher Knight

This partly came out of some very troubling discussions I've been having with a number of people during the past few days. Every one of them echoed the same concern that's been growing in my own mind: that we may finally - and in defiance of almost all serious consideration that it could possibly happen - be witnessing the rise of Christian Reconstructionism in America. And if THAT ever comes to hold full sway over this land, you're gonna see things happen that will positively make the camps at Auschwitz look like an excursion to Disney World by comparison.

I'm going to write more on this later. But in the meantime, if the Reconstructionists ARE starting to take over, heed this advice: get a gun. Even if you don't believe in guns, get a gun. Learn how to use that gun. Thank God that your conscience won't let you use the gun to take the life of another human being without justifiable cause. But understand also that you may have to use that gun all the same. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto held out against the Nazis for a month in 1943 with only a handful of rifles and pistols. There's a lesson to be learned from them.

I'm a Christian and a historian. Man's capability of inflicting on his brother such cruel horrors in the absence of God from his heart is something that I thoroughly understand. Well, there are some people in this country today that really don't have God in their hearts, and they're a lot less honest about that than the Nazis were. And they're going to be inconceivably WORSE than the Nazis ever were, should they someday take control over this country.

When that day comes, love your family. Love yourself. And love the freedom that God gave you and that thousands died to protect for you. Don't let them take control.

Read More

Star Wars Episode III teaser IS ONLINE!!!

Being a subscriber to StarWars.com's Hyperspace service, the Revenge Of The Sith teaser trailer was available for me to see before it's made available for most people later on this evening (if yer a die-hard Star Wars geek, Hyperspace is well worth the twenty bucks per year, I can safely say).

Well, what can be said but... DAAAAAAAAAMMMMMNNNNN!!

The Duel. 'Nuff said.

And surprisingly enough, the trailer has the "reveal" of when Darth Vader is shown in armor for the very first time.

Okay, I gotta run: I still haven't cleaned off the spooge from my keyboard after seeing this. Trust me guys, this thing will make your head explode like that guy in Scanners, it's so mind-blowingly cool!!!!!

Read More