"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"

It was brought to my attention this morning that people on some websites are saying that I'm dead.

One place is even saying that I committed suicide. Didn't know I was the kind of guy whose extended absence elicited that kind of concern.

I'm still here. Had to leave for awhile and look into some things that warranted an extended departure from any online activity. Didn't intend on spending forty days in the wilderness... but there you have it.

I was away. And discovered some things. Lots of things. Including one that has had immense ramifications on my personal life and some of the responsibilities that, though they aren't demanded by this circumstance it does leave me morally compelled to figure out how to use this selflessly. There's no need to say anything more about that for now: sometimes the better part of chivalry is knowing when NOT to raise the sword.

And I've come back maybe a little more wiser.

There are only three types of people in this world: those who want to control, and those who want to be controlled.

So it's left to those of us who are out of control to figure out just what exactly we are supposed to do with them.

I'm not going to write here anymore about George W. Bush. Or at least focus any of my time on him unless he does something REALLY outrageously criminal. He's not the problem. He's merely a symptom of the problem, and there would be another symptom to replace him were he to be removed. Besides, who am I to condemn the moral lapses of one branch of the family? We made our choice, just as his made theirs. Let God judge which among us was the truer - and more noble - servant.

Y'all should look into your own family history sometime. There's no telling what you might find.

More later...

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Apocalypse Soon? Theorizing method to the madness of pre-trib politics

This is only a notion that entered my mind. But it's one that all too greatly suggested itself.

Just reading where the United States is recalling its ambassador to Syria. This comes in the wake of the bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri yesterday.

And more people than you might want to know are right now cackling and grinning and rubbing their hands with anticipation over this news.

I've already written on a few occassions about the end-times beliefs that drive most of the supporters of the current administration in the White House. It can be safely said that those who consider themselves "Christians" and fall into line behind Bush can be divided into two categories: those that want to take over the world before Christ comes, and those who want Christ to destroy the world so that "if we can't have, nobody can!" The pre-tribulation Rapture folks are this latter group. They're the ones that buy the Left Behind novels in droves and keep that franchise's masters milking it for everything they can get out 'cuz they know the pre-tribbers will just come on back for more. Rabid Pre-Tribbers are the Judeo-Christian version of the Trekkies, when you think about it. But they're also the ones that, I tend to believe anyway, will vote for any candidate, nod approval for any policy, and refuse to stand against anything that actually violates the teachings of scripture, if they believe that these thing will hasten the onset of Armageddon. I heard one Christian tell me recently that George W. Bush was God's chosen instrument to trigger the events that will lead up to the Second Coming.

She was serious.

And there are millions more like her in America. That don't give a flip about the apostle Paul's teachings to the Thesselonians about occupying themselves with the work of Christ, and let Him worry about how and when He'll come. If redemption draweth nigh, doesn't it make sense as a Christian to try to love one another even more so that others will find that redemption too?

But that's not the mindset at work here with too many professing Christians. They want the supreme pleasure of knowing that their name will forevermore be stamped upon the peak of human history, because there will be no more human history at all: the ultimate mode of narcissism.

As a Christian I know that someday the Lord does come back. But as one without divine knowledge and understanding, I have no idea how exactly that will take place. I can see some evidence for their being a pre-trib Rapture... but I can see just as many indictations that it will be a post-trib Rapture too, where everyone has to endure the terror of the Antichrist. Might be a good thing too, 'specially for Christians in industrialized nations: we've gotten too soft and comfortable in our belief that we die, He comes, end of worry and that's it... so we don't do anything in the here and now. It's about time we start knowing the pain and persecution that most believers have had to endure for these two thousand years. You don't see any "Christian Epicureans" described in scripture, y'know.

So here's where I'm getting with all this: one of the chief tenets of Pre-Tribulation Rapture is that the city of Damascus is to be utterly destroyed. The timing of this is important: most Pre-Trib adherents teach that this comes before the Rapture, based on several other prophecies and mentions of countries that are found in Isaiah and Daniel and a few other books of the Old Testament (and Revelation in the New one 'course). Isaiah 17:1 is the chief source of the Damascus prophecy:

The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

Damascus is the oldest city in the world. It has never been laid waste or otherwise made inhabitable. So this means its a prophecy that has not been fulfilled yet.

Its fulfillment will be taken to mean that the Second Coming is soon.

Don't you think it would be within human nature of some people to try to destroy it - or at least hasten its destruction - so that their unique perspective of a religion will be the one that wins out over all the others that have ever existed in human existence? Doesn't having that capability suggest the temptation to use it, at least?

Don't think for a moment that at least one of the more prominent "Christian leaders" hasn't whispered this into the ears of President Bush: that God wants him to be the one to turn Damascus into a ruinous heap. Doesn't even matter if that's Bush himself or not they're whispering to: this is something that's been practically openly desired for the past quarter-century. Why shouldn't we believe that they wouldn't want to act on this kind of opportunity?

Just posing the possibility out there.

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Watch the ball and behold the future

Two bits of news that caught my eye. The title of one immediately brought all kinds of cultural references to mind and the other was just plain weird enough to pique my curiosity.

From the London Daily Mail via RedNova.com:

Posted on: Friday, 11 February 2005, 00:00 CST
Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.

'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

'We're very early on in the process of trying to figure out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark.' Dr Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising.

And machines like the Edinburgh black box have thrown up a tantalising possibility: that scientists may have unwittingly discovered a way of predicting the future... (Click here for rest of article).

I went to the website for the Global Consciousness Project and skimmed over their procedures and data. Interestingly enough it does look like some pretty serious and thorough research going on here: the procedure for each step - from numerical generation to graphing - is documented at length. The data is made freely available for anyone to study on their own. And links and abstracts regarding similar research (wait a sec: our tax dollars are funding more of this?!) can be found. Some of them DO sound pretty oddball: like The RetroPsychoKinesis Project, which among other things sponsored an attempt by martial artists to alter past events with their minds. Ummmmm wasn't that the central storyline of at least five or six episodes of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues?

By the way, if you ever hear about how some sociologist named James D.L. Staunton did a study in 1958 on train and airplane disasters dating back to the 1920s and after sifting the data found that fully-loaded planes and trains rarely crash and that passengers who intended to travel on them skipped-off 'cuz they "felt sick" or something, thus implying that there's some kinda mass psychic ability going on here: don't believe it. That one got mentioned a few times in college and have seen it come up on the 'net over the years, but I did a Google search and couldn't find anyone in real life named "James D.L. Staunton" or even a "James Staunton" who was a sociologist studying train wrecks. You will find James D.L. Staunton on page 536 in the paperback edition of Stephen King's The Stand, however: looks like Staunton was just a plot device by King. But if I'm "getting" the technobabble right, the Global Consciousness Project does at least sound an awful lot like how the precogs in the Department of Pre-Crime worked together to detect an "incoming" future murder in Steven Spielberg's movie version of Minority Report...

Y'know, there's an idea right there: let's recruit all the Xbox modding hotshots to work on a honkin' humongously BIG network of Xboxes (hey they're way cheap as PCs) that'll crunch even more numbers and churn out results in HDTV. With that kind of power we'll be able to see EVERYTHING in the next thousand years: from the Second Coming of Christ to the First Coming of "Duke Nukem Forever"! Seriously though, coincidence or not, that is a pretty neat correlation that this project is finding.

Anyhoo, the next lil' item comes courtesy of the London Daily Telegraph:

Robotic ball that chases burglars
By David Millward
(Filed: 14/02/2005)

A large black ball, originally designed by Swedish scientists for use on Mars, could be the latest weapon in the war against burglars.

The device, developed at the University of Uppsala, acts as a high-tech security guard capable of detecting an intruder thanks to either radar or infra-red sensors. Once alerted, it can summon help, sound an alarm or pursue the intruders, taking pictures.

It is capable of travelling at 20mph, somewhat faster than a human being. Even worse for intruders, the robot ball can still give chase over mud, snow and water.

The ball relies on an internal pendulum to control its motion which, when shifted, changes the centre of gravity and starts it rolling.

Other devices, including microphones, cameras, heat sensors and smoke detectors are mounted on its central axis.

Nils Hulth, co-founder of Rotundus, the company which is marketing the ball, said it was especially well-suited to patrolling perimeter fences.

The prototype, just under 2ft in diameter, weighs about 10lb. "It is extremely light, which is why it moves so fast," Mr Hulth said.

While the current version can only raise the alarm, it could be adapted to corner an intruder if the customer wanted, Mr Hulth added...

Bold words were my emphasis, 'cuz after reading this I was laughing so hard that the Coke I was drinking literally came out of my nose! Now there's all kinds of dangerous balls that we know of (no Rollerball doesn't count 'cuz people chase the ball not vice-versa). There's that classic toy from yesteryear Happy Fun Ball:

And who could forget that boulder that tried to squish Indiana Jones? I almost didn't want to mention it because it did miss its target and to date Deadly Amazon Idol Temple Boulder of Death(tm) can only boast a 1-1 record... but since it did wind up killing "Weird Al" Yankovic we'll make note of it:

For some reason, the very first things that popped in my head when I read this article's title were those delightful shiny flying Christmas tree ball ornaments that Angus Scrimm always sends after Reggie the Ice-Cream Man and crew during the big showdown in whatever abandoned funeral parlor they wind up in during those wonderful Phantasm movies:

But that still wasn't it. The thing that darned nearly destroyed my nasal tissue with Coke - no not that coke - was because Rotundus' ball sounds WAY too much like this (Rotundus should pitch this in commercials with the tagline "Who is Number One?"):

I wonder if Rotundus is giving Patrick McGoohan any royalties from this gimmick. They oughtta 'cuz it's Rover, that ball-thingy that relentlessly chased after you - on land or water - if you tried to escape The Village in McGoohan's old 1967 TV show The Prisoner! Of all the crazy ideas that television ever gave us, a homicidal weather balloon was the absolute last thing I expected to become an even remote actuality. Other than it being that the Rotundus ball doesn't suffocate an escapee like the Rover did (thankfully), this sounds exactly like Rover.

Ooh-boy... this could be a lot of fun. Can you imagine having one of these and then needing to call Rotundus Tech Support?

CUSTOMER: Okay, it seems to be working now. Thanks for walking me through this!

ROTUNDUS TECH: You're perfectly welcome sir, and we do appreciate that you chose to purchase our product. If you have any more problems or questions please call this same technical support line. Do you have something to write with?

CUSTOMER: Yes, have a pen right here.

ROTUNDUS TECH: Okay sir, you are ticket number...

CUSTOMER: I AM NOT A NUMBER!!!

"You are, Number Six."

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About "that website story"...

For the record, 'cuz plenty of mail has been coming in about this, given my earlier relationship with the subject matter:

- Yes, I've heard about what's gone down the past 48 hours or so.

- Yes, I've read the open letter.

- No, I haven't read the message thread.

- No, I haven't read any comments about it anywhere.

- Yes, I'm aware some things I've written here have been posted to another website.

- No, I do not post to that other website.

- No, I do not even regularly visit that other website.

- No, I do not presently post messages to ANY websites (other than TheForce.net forums as "Chris Knight", and not as much as before).

- Yes, I'm aware that a few things about the years I spent there have been discussed very recently.

- Yes, I'm aware that at least one thing that I wrote a year ago has been brought up.

- No, I don't regret saying THAT a year ago, because if the person it was directed at didn't desire to understand it then that's not my problem.

- No, I'm not going to "check it out" because "I don't care".

- No, I'm no longer angry about what happened, because if this letter is accurate then I'm more than happy to no longer have any association at all with the subject.

- Yes, I could say an awful lot about the situation.

- Yes, some of it might be very damaging.

- No, I won't.

- Yes, I promise that I won't.

- No, I don't even care to mention them by name, because if this is indeed "the shot heard around the net" then there's no need for me to bring any more attention than this thing deserves (a Google search had it coming up at least 400 times anyway).

- No, I don't regret my time there. Regarding anything. I stayed as true to myself as I could be and that's all I knew how to do.

- Yes, it's regrettable that what happened there, has.

- No, I'm not gloating. There's no gloating at what has become a very sad state of being for too many people.

- No, I won't even gloat at what's happened to him.

- So no, I don't want to be involved with this. At all. Ever. Leave me out of it. Please don't even ask me to get involved in any way.

Yes, that's all I intend to say on the subject.

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Screamin' Dean has no meanin': Why Democrat and Republican loyalists are fools

Did a quick look through all the major news sites and #1 story today is Howard Dean getting elected to be chairman of the Democratic Party.

Why should we care?

This'll be a big deal to a lot of people. The Dems will praise their new leader and the Pubs will hate him more. That's all.

This "news" has no intrinsic value whatsoever. But it has the intended effect: trick a lot of people into thinking that this "really matters" so they can be even more faithful Democrats or spiteful Republicans and not have to bother to think for themselves about the things that ARE important. So they can be used by Those With Power(tm).

All of you Democrats who believe this news is critically important: you're wrong. And you do precisely what's expected of you when you become such tools to your party's masters. Same to you Republicans: you'll focus anger on Dean just like you did when he was running for President, and you won't even bother to stop and consider why it is that you are angry with him. Just as you were led to hate Kerry for no reason. Which is just as many Democrats hate Bush for no reason other than because he's a Republican: whatever legitimate issues you might raise against the man, you corrupted your message into self-destruction.

But that's okay, because you - regardless of whether you are Democrat or Republican - will have behaved just as they knew you would. But you can't become one of "them": you know, the Bushes, the Kerrys, the Gores, the Kennedys, the Doles, the ones that dangle the carrot and tease you with power, make you believe that you really are important to them. You want the kind of power that they have... but they will never allow you to have it. They'll trick you into believing that you have it, but you hold no sway whatsoever over those that cut the deals and anoint their chosen candidates. And yet you still cling to the notion that because you belong to The Party, your place within it is priceless beyond negotiation.

You're just cannon fodder to The Party, whichever one you belong to. And after you are gone there will be more that are willing to take your place. Whatever "good" you believed you did for The Party, you will not be missed. Or even remembered. And you are still too afraid to stop clinging to them.

In short: you are all fools. Because you choose to be fools.

Perhaps none of you deserve that power at all. You are getting precisely what you deserve, then. And when your children and grandchildren become slaves, you can blame no one but the person staring at you from the mirror.

The two major parties in this country are a control mechanism on the American people designed to stifle independent thought and observation, and then action. So too are any third parties a kind of control: that they arise primarily as a reaction against one or both of the Democrats and Republicans means that they are an extension of that dominant control, and nothing more. It's true that no one from the Libertarians, the Constitutionalists, the Greens, or the Reform parties will ever win the office of Presidency: they won't be allowed a serious opportunity. Although the parties themselves are not only allowed, they are required by the Democrats and Republicans to perpetuate the belief that to accomplish good, that one must first possess power. And that power can only be effectively wielded if it is more powerful than opposing powers.

That's why the Libertarian Party - though it has some good ideas - hardly ever wins even the most minor of electoral races. They are more determined to keep enough power just to stay on the next ballot than they are with actually doing something substantial. But they're never going to have enough power to do that, at all. That's not their role. They and the others are there to keep the "malcontents" happy in the conviction that they are doing "something that matters", and that is all that they can do.

To wit: the news that your TV sets bring you every night, the politicians you are expected to vote for, the passions that arise from sound bites and petty insults and empty rhetoric, the anger and hatred that you somehow justify having toward your fellow man... are all a means of control.

You are under control.

Which means that those of us that are out of control are going to have to figure out what exactly it is that we are supposed to do with you. And if it were up to me, that would mean bringing you out of control, too.

But it's not really up to me. It's up to you.

Life is so much more liberating and fulfilling when you choose to "take the red pill".

Think about it.

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Theological wunderkind Kyle Williams is at it again

This time he's talking about what happens "When Christians worship man". Go read it. Now.

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The cradle will rock when the stars are right...

So a little while ago my wife and I are talking about how things will be if/when we start having children, and how I've always dreamed of being the kind of Daddy who reads bedtime stories to the kids before they go to sleep for the night.

"But I don't wanna read 'em stuff like 'The Little Red Hen' a zillion times over and over," I told her. "That got old fast. By the time they're five or six I'm thinking something like tucking them into bed and then reading The Call of Cthulhu to them."

I'm not kidding.

She's never read Lovecraft so she's got NO idea what I'm talking about. And she would probably have a restraining order to keep me away from Baby if she did know. But she didn't say "no" so guess that's a de facto "yes" right?

Telling y'all here and now: our kids are gonna grow up in a house that's something else...

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More qualified than Gannon: I'm a blogger, a REAL journalist... and now a PORN STAR!

The funniest thing about this Jeff Gannon story, for me at least, is that someone with two days of journalism training during a weekend seminar becomes a credentialed reporter from a website - that was maybe a week-old at the time - and then given regular access to the White House press briefing room. Despite having an obvious agenda to promote a political party, his meteoric rise was duly noted as he not only received the coveted assignment of asking questions at a Presidential press conference, but got called on by first name from President Bush. So the official statement from the White House about this is that they effectively don't care. Whether he was who he said he was, or was a serious reporter, or apparently whether he was distributing gay pornography and prostituting himself over the Internet: none of that matters. He was still considered trusty enough to be acquainted chums with their boss.

Whereas some reporters who've spent countless hours studying and training in journalism during college and a few real-life situations, have beaten serious pavement and driven into the middle of God-knows-where to cover an event, who DO care about turning in an objective, honest and well-written story to their editor, would not only NOT get within a half-mile of this same press room, but get called an "asshole" by that very President, who then orders the same staff that let Gannon in to tell this reporter to "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"... some consistency, huh?

Or maybe it's just that I didn't have all the bases covered. I mean, I've never posted a photo anywhere of myself wearing anything less than shorts and a t-shirt. And I've only had one girlfriend in my entire life: the girl who's now my wife. Obviously I haven't been "playing the field" enough to hack it as a REAL reporter per the standards of President George W. Bush and his staff.

Well, time to fix that. Ladies, remember that I'm already a happily taken man: I'm only doing this because of career demands. Wish it hadn't come to this, but I've got a wife and some Sea Monkeys(tm) to keep fed. Seeing as how I've got much more training and experience (as a journalist, mind ya) than Jeff Gannon/James Guckert ever had...

Be sure to catch my new special, "Hot Days and Hotter Knight", premiering this May on HBO.

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"Most of all, you've got to hide it from the kids"

Dustin Hoffman admits that he thinks about sex every seven seconds.

Hey Dustin, "We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files", but that's waaay too much info, buddy! :-P

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For all those fans of the Tar Heels after last night's game...

...one of the most renowned among you is "feeling blue" too. But he's got some sage words of wisdom that'll surely pick you right up!!

(P.S.: And Chad, as much as I've always rooted for Duke or N.C. State or whoever over UNC, I must say this with all sincerest conviction: despite this one loss it is a most wonderful thing to behold than I ever thought possible to see the Tar Heels back on top of their - and I mean THEIR - game again :-)

(P.P.S.: Yeah I've come to respect Dean Smith more as the years go by too... but I still struggle over forgiving him for coming up with the "four corners play" :-P)

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Was Jeff Gannon a "PsyOps" by the Bush Admin?

It's not "major league" news in most of the press right now: in fact it wouldn't be surprising if you haven't heard about this at all. But it's gotten pretty big among a lot of bloggers so Lord only knows where this thing is gonna end up.

The Boston Globe broke the story last week that Jeff Gannon, a reporter with a website called TalonNews.com, was enjoying regular access to the White House press briefings and even getting to ask questions to President Bush despite the fact that he was NOT a credentialed journalist... and possibly had no experience or training in journalism prior to coming aboard TalonNews.com.

While a member of the press pool, Gannon became well-known for asking "soft" questions that could only be described as subjective and pro-Republican. Some of these wouldn't even pass muster with a high school journalism teacher: "You've said you're going to reach out to (Senate Democrats). How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" Gannon asked President Bush during a press conference last week. Some have observed that much of the text in Gannon's stories have been lifted verbatim from White House and Republican party documents while passing it off as his own work (oops... possible plagurism there).

Although it proclaims itself to be "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers", TalonNews.com has something in common with pro-conservative website GOPUSA.com: both are owned and operated by a Texas Republican activist named Bobby Eberle.

It also now looks like Jeff Gannon is possibly a provider of gay porn and an "escort service". But that's not what this post is about.

This is about how it looks like Jeff Gannon has been a reporter with an agenda all this time.

I gotta wonder how much this was already known, and by whom?

Someone (you don't have to know who this person is, but they have a lot of knowledge on some "things", 'kay) told me years ago how it is that the government - elected or no - can influence the opinions and activities of the general public. This person said that the CIA has long practiced this method, going back at least to the Vietnam War. The resources became plenty available then: they're even moreso now. And most of them probably don't even know that they're being used in this manner.

It's really very simple: an agent of the government contacts a minor media outlet somewhere. Say, a small-town newspaper or low-watt television station... or a low-traffic website. He tells the editor or producer that he's got a "hot tip" for a story. Usually this means that the potential story is intended to sow distrust and suspicion against a particular person or group (my source said that this was regular practice against anti-war activists and others during Vietnam) or in favor of a certain side in a policy debate... such as whatever's going on with Social Security. The small media outlet publishes or broadcasts a story. If it's been "cultivated" well enough then it can be decided that it needs more attention. A larger media outlet receives a phone call or e-mail telling them to "hey check out this issue of the Springfield Shopper there's this story you should check out". So the bigger newspaper or TV station takes a look, figures it's a legitimate story and THEY run with it, referring back to the initial source that first aired or published the news item. Ya see, that "establishes credibility that this is a real story", my source told me.

If played correctly, what started out as practically a filler story in the bi-weekly newspaper down in Lizard Lick, Georgia will go up the food chain, right into ears - and out the mouths - of Fox News and CNN. And it will have the effect of swaying public opinion either for something (or someone) or against.

This is how the government has long had tremendous control over the American people's perceptions of issues and ideology, the source told me: "It's psychological operations against the public."

Here's how one military information website defines "psychological operations", or "PsyOps":

'Psychological Operations: Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator's objectives. Also called PSYOP. See also consolidation psychological operations; overt peacetime psychological operations programs; perception management. ' US Department of Defense

So I gotta wonder: is a PsyOps operation being run on us by members of this administration in the White House? Was Jeff Gannon a "reporter" specially selected and placed so that a "credible news agency" would ask questions - intended to convey certain biases and beliefs that would favor the Bush administration - which would then be picked up and disseminated to a much vaster audience by the big dogs of the nation's press?

Someone had to know that he was there, in the White House press briefings. And that he and Talon News were routinely being sourced as "legitimate" news agencies. Didn't any of this raise some questions about validity or intent? Doesn't this at least bring a security issue to mind?

I'm starting to be inclined toward the belief that Jeff Gannon was a deliberate means by members of this current Presidential administration to influence the emotions and convictions of countless (millions?) American citizens. Hey if they can pay op-ed columnists to shill for them without informing the public about that lil' fact, why shouldn't we believe them to be incapable of inserting a fictitious reporter from a dubious "news website" into their own press briefings, so as to ask questions that will reflect favorably on them?

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"But did he leave a tip for that drink?"

Officials fear baby acquired herpes during a Jewish circumcision, apparently after the attending rabbi drew its blood with his mouth.

Ummmmm...

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I missed the Super Bowl

Were there any good commercials?

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Dr. Kelly Hollowell: Unwitting pawn in a meaningless war?

After finding her remarkable credentials - which include Juris Doctorate and a Ph.D that she earned from her thesis on the genetics of cloning - I have to wonder: How can a woman so intelligent, and so gifted, and so sincere a Christian, and (if I dare say this being a married man) so beautiful, publish something that is sooooo tired and boring?

I refer to Dr. Kelly Hollowell, founder and head of Science Ministries and regular columnist for WorldNetDaily. She has a new piece today titled "The liberal elite's stranglehold on America" and... well, hate to say it but just the title was a setup for disappointment. She's written brilliant stuff before, but not today. And it needs to be said that on each of the three issues she brings up in this article, she and I do stand in agreement for the most part.

I believe that abortion is the gravest sin that our country has allowed to happen. I believe that God created the universe. I believe that the "gay rights" movement is totally wrong, because by definition it establishes the flesh as a person's identity as opposed to it deriving from the intangible soul: Hey, lots of guys including myself like having sex too, but you don't see us marching in the streets with it as an excuse for demanding money and stuff, do ya?

She could have taken any one of those and made a good argument for it. Instead Dr. Hollowell lumped them together as one en masse attack on "liberals". And you know what? She accomplishes nothing with it. Nothing will change in the slightest because of this article. There will be as many if not more "liberals" tomorrow as there were yesterday. The ranks of "conservatives" may grow but there will be no overwhelming groundswell. There will be "liberals" and "conservatives" and this conflict between them - that we are expected to believe really matters somehow - will just go on and on, war without end, hallelujah amen.

The problem is her obvious motivation in writing this: to attack "liberals". And that's all. To that end Dr. Hollowell in this piece sometimes has all the eloquence of a third-grade schoolyard bully. She's far from the only one though: it seems that when others try to destroy "the conservatives" or "the liberals", any semblance of politeness is an acceptable casualty of war.

I see no love and all too much hate coming from both sides. And neither one has any idea why it is that they should hate the other... but they've been fighting each other for so long that all they really DO know about the opposition is that they have to be destroyed. That's all they know about themselves, and to take that fight away from them is to destroy whatever identity they have established for themselves in the eyes of others. More inconceivable to them: it destroys their primary vehicle of power over others. Without a predominant struggle between "conservatism" and "liberalism" in this country, they have nothing to make them seem important. Strip that away, and Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson both stand naked as a bluejay.

You see, I don't think that trying to "counter liberalism" is what Dr. Hollowell intended to do with her article, not really. She may not even realize what it is she sought to accomplish with it. Because I believe that the major players on both sides - and legions of the minor ones for that matter - don't want their war to stop at all. They can't afford to NOT keep it going because it ensures that their names are always "out there" for other people to see... the people that are "too weak and stupid" to know how to exist without them, though that's never admitted aloud. The fire must be continually stoked, and all that Dr. Hollowell did was throw more wood into the stove.

Here's the part in her piece where Dr. Hollowell hits the self-destruct button:

They are the ilk of Hitler, Lenin and Jim Jones. They gain power over the nation by arousing it to emotions that overcome thought – all the while proclaiming themselves the gatekeepers of logic.

That could very much be a description of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson also. Haven't they played on people's emotions to gain a sense of power and superiority over them?

Dr. Hollowell is a scientist. Wouldn't the sound and proper thing to do as an observer be to remove herself from the system so as to study it without her presence being a bias factor that creates variance in the data? To put it in terms of a moral exercise: shouldn't she be observing herself and the things that she says and claims to believe in, with the same objective eye that she is bound to cast as a researcher on external phenomena?

I don't mean any of this as personal insult to Dr. Hollowell: have said before here that I admire her greatly (and I'd still be honored to have a great discussion over dinner with her some evening, along with our spouses). But she really should know better than to think she's meant to be a great warrior in this battle, when it has no real purpose except to distract the American people from the things that do matter while they are robbed of their freedoms and opportunities by the extremes of both sides. It's a shame that there is a dearth of those who would make them give it back

That's the only thing that impresses me, Dr. Hollowell. The only political philosophy that merits my respect: the value of the individual. Probably the most despised minority of all. People who insist on factionalism are shallow and tepid, and I'm no longer interested in anything they might present before me.

You can do better than this, Dr. Hollowell. You're letting your life and your work be used for something that has no eternal value at all. Let go of it. Let go of them. Step back and be the disattached observer. Cast that dissecting eye on yourself. God obviously intended for you to go on to better things than this. A new generation is coming of age in America, and it won't be shackled down by the tired rhetoric of this deceitful conflict.

You would be considered a guiding light of that generation, Dr. Hollowell, if you would really want it.

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Prime cuts of meat get priced and tagged without "sell by" date

University of California is considering tagging human cadavers with supermarket-type barcodes to keep track of them. It's said to be a measure to combat the illegal sale of body parts.

Anyone else noticing how much the real world is starting to resemble what William Gibson depicted in his novel Neuromancer?

That's... scary.

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"Will you kindly explain to me why the Sartres are always born on the other side?"

That line, spoken by Col. Mathieu (played by Jean Martin) is the one bit of blatant humor that I can remember a half-hour after finally getting to watch The Battle of Algiers.

I haven't been this stunned by a movie since The Passion of the Christ came out last year.

No, I didn't watch the State of the Union address by President Bush: he's just going to waste more of our money that we don't really have to begin with. And when was the last time that "the state of the union" was REALLY addressed by one of these speeches? It's become a guaranteed spot of television time where whoever's the current occupant of the Oval Office can suggest something, say anything and spend everything, and he'll still hear nothing but applause from members of Congress. The President isn't even required to make a State of the Union speech at all anyway: the Constitution only mandates that the President "shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." That could mean a speech or a simple letter to Congress. And how long was this year's shopping spree anyway? I've no idea but I'm sure it had far less brevity than George Washington's first State of the Union address. No, tonight's event has become just like everything else about American politics: a farce. Why the Hell should I waste a moment watching this crap? I'm not even gonna touch how worthless the Democrat response was going to be.

So after spending an hour watching American Idol with the lovely Spousal Overunit, I went looking for something with more meat to it than a fake speech about fake realities by a fake president. It caught my eye while fast-scanning through the channel guide and I had to make sure it was really on: Lo and behold, the first moments of The Battle of Algiers were just starting on the Sundance Channel. This has been something I've been wanting to see for some months now, ever since hearing nothing but good about it following a theatrical release and coming out on DVD. No place around here had it for rental, so after getting permission from my dear wife (it's her TV too ya know) I kicked back to take it in. And I didn't dare move from the sofa for the next two hours.

Damn. Just... damn, man.

This is one of the most brutal movies I can recall ever being made. It's one of the most human films about war ever attempted. It also boasts some of the most convincing special effects - like explosions, and there's lots of 'em - done for a single movie, considering how many there are. It proudly notes that it contains "not a single frame of documentary or news footage".

And The Battle of Algiers (originally titled La Battaglia di Algeri) was first released in 1965.

But if there's any other movie that fits today's situations, I'm hard-pressed to think of what it might be. The Battle of Algiers is practically a two-hour crash course on both staging a violent revolution and then putting it down: U.S. military planners would rapidly wipe out resistance in Iraq if they studied the strategies of the French in this movie more closely (indeed, top brass watched it at the Pentagon in 2003). Likewise, the Iraqi insurgents would handily defeat the American forces if they emulated the tactics of the Algerian underground.

But I don't think that's really possible, because more important than emulating tactics is what kind of motivation is there to begin with. The Battle of Algiers made me realize that it's not a free Iraq that these guys are wanting at all: "Acts of violence don't win wars," the resistance leader tells Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag), "Neither wars nor revolutions. Terrorism is useful as a start. But then, the people themselves must act." In fact, the freedom fighters come across as acting on desperation, on the level of barbarians even, for using it so wantonly. Even if President Bush pulled all our troops out of Iraq tomorrow, terrorism would still go on in that country (and it might be even worse in our absence... darn this movie made me feel conflicted about some things!) because independence isn't the goal. What that goal is, I don't know, but I wonder if the Iraqi insurgents even understand what it is that they want exactly.

But if The Battle of Algiers condemns terrorism, it's equally unkind to military occupation. The torture of Algerian prisoners (many obviously innocent) by French paratroopers brings to mind far too much of the accounts and photographs of abuse done to Iraqi prisoners by members of our own military. It was enough to make me VERY uncomfortable: my jaw literally dropped throughout this one extended show of pain. But even here, there is some rationale offered that comes the closest I've ever heard about how such torture is not only allowable, but warranted by circumstance. Col. Mathieu tells the press that "The word 'torture' doesn't appear in our orders. We've always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies." But he promptly follows that up with this observation: that as a soldier, he cannot set policy, but can only follow the orders given him. Those orders must come from authorities outside of the military, and it is they who are ultimately responsible: "Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' then you must accept all the necessary consequences."

In other words, if a nation's armed forces are being used for the wrong reasons in another land, it falls to the people of the country that sent them to put a stop to it. Our soldiers and officers are only so free to act as what we've authorized them to do. And if they commit wrongdoing while under orders, we are the ones who must answer for it somehow.

It's almost impossible to find a movie about armed conflict that not only doesn't take sides, but goes out of its way to give a fair and honest portrayal of the ideals that are driving each faction. The Battle of Algiers doesn't make you root and cheer for either side in this revolution, not really. But it does make you weep for a lot of people, no matter where it is that they figure in this fight. No "good guys" or "bad guys" here: nothing but a muddle of gray that leaves you the viewer to think things through on your own.

Yeah, I'll call it a "must see" movie. It's got my recommendation bigtime.

(Oh yeah, watch the trailer for The Battle of Algiers in Quicktime format here.)

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"It's dead, Jim."

Yeah, so I mentioned Star Trek: Enterprise getting canned in the last post.

But how often does a guy get to use that famous line and it actually mean something? :-)

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