STAR TREK

The Redemption


So... I reckon a whole lot of different trekkies set the bar of expectations in a bunch of different places. For me - I set a hopeful goal for this new Star Trek movie. The goal imposed by my hopes upon the makers of this film was for it to redeem the once great Star Trek legacy from the tragic wreckage of the television series Enterprise. Now just to make sure we’re all on the same page here - raise your hand if you believe that one of the biggest mistakes in television history was the failure to kill off Captain Archer in the middle of season one. I’m sure many would respond that Archer should have been killed off in the middle of the first episode or first scene even.

Anyhow, I don’t need to spiral into an epic rant about Archerprise. The point is that so much about the legacy of Star Trek is a uniquely beautiful thing, that it would have been a truly heartbreaking tragedy if no one were to lift it from the ashes which I need not describe further. Well… Thank the slain Klingon gods, the Bejoran profits and every deity in-between, this great redemption has been achieved.

With such a steady hand this film was soberly crafted with what seemed to be the deliberate objective of conquering its vast and formidable challenges without appearing to face challenges. Leonard Nimoy’s presence was written and presented as tastefully and powerfully as his influence was felt. The portrayal of the original bridge crew characters was contemporary and fresh - without pretending that the originals did not exist. And the measure of similarities and direct references which were included was perfect: Enough to satisfy our appetite for homage but tapping the breaks before plowing into fromage. And how awesome is the parallel reality/alternate timeline? It always bothered me when things were written into Star Trek episodes that conflicted with Star Trek history. But now this is no longer a problem… Clean slate. Cheating? Sure. But as this film reminds us, cheating is Captain Kirk’s style.

And for those of us in the “Captain Archer ruined Star Trek” camp… Nicely done on the Archer’s prize beagle transporter accident. A subtle, perfectly measured and executed jab – which for me was one of many fine jewels in this spectacular crown. To the same depth of conviction that I wish for those responsible for Archerprise to have their genitalia eaten by rabid Cardassian voles, I do sincerely wish for the makers of this film to live long and prosper.

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Clip Wings or Cut Noses

No one owns the anger. All tax payers and politicians of all political persuasions are furious about the AIG bonus pay outs. Unfortunately, too many years of too little regulation have tied our hands to a train that’s headed for a collapsed bridge. Sure, we all agree that it would feel good to say fuck AIG, and let it burn… But is running the business of our nation based on our feelings the best idea? Wasn’t it our blind fury about 9/11 that kept far too many of us out of touch with the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? We could keep making the mistake of navigating by anger. We could cut off the country’s nose to spite AIG’s face. Or we could do what is distasteful but necessary now, while we endure the “feeling” that we’re rewarding the culprits, and later we can responsibly punish the culprits by clipping their wings.

If these corporations want to spit in the face of the tax payer by taking bailout money and passing it out in bonuses, let’s just remember that. We’ll keep our cool. Do what needs to be done to get through this mess… And then we’ll remember that spit in our face - and clip their wings so deeply that they will wish for nothing more so than the ability to go back in time to un-do the mistake of rubbing salt in our wounds. We can punish them plenty, by regulating the living crap out of them later. But let’s have the sense to get the tumor out of our body before we toss a grenade at it.

Touchdown!

Yeah, I know that sports analogies are done to death but I think I’m onto something here… The other day I was thinking about this inexplicable magnetism which persistently draws me toward the solution of any given situation. I was thinking about how this magnetism seems to be equal in strength to most peoples resistance to change. And as I shuffled through my general observations of strives toward solutions, something occurred to me in a powerful way.

I suddenly had a mental image of a guy running down a football field, carrying the football. And I imagined this guy weighing just one piece of evidence to determine whether or not he was actually running toward the goal. It was the singular fact that most of the people in his vicinity were trying to tackle him. And so the thought hit me – that one’s effort to arrive at the solution is very much like running for a touchdown. You know you’re headed for the solution because everyone’s trying to tackle you.

Either that or you're charging toward a cliff and your friends are trying to save you...
But hey, I guess you gotta take a chance!
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California

So, getting back to politics for a minute. I've been thinking about the Sacramento problem.

Now here's the thing. Our Governor gets it... Get to the fucking solution. Period. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only one there who gets it. We're at point A. The solution is at point B. And there are no partisan ideologies that lead to point B.

So here's what we've got to do. At our next opportunity, vote every incumbent out of the state congress. Seriously. I guarantee that if we just fired everyone in Sacramento, except for the Governor, we would see a radical improvement in the way our state is ran.

December

photo by wickline copyright 2008

Christmas Lights 08

This is Halloween

Well...
Now that I ran out of shit to gripe about - Here's some pictures of my house.

De-evolution of society

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What the world needs now is a good old fashion socialism paranoia witch hunt!

...and a lot less fags.

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Well dag’um

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That was perdy cute, Sarah. The way you was droppin yer g’s ‘n’ gettin all folksy ‘n’ all. It just warmed the cockles of my cockles.

Now I get it. Logically it is sound strategy to do what has worked in the past. And dumbing down the White House has clearly resulted in a couple of Republican victories. But a couple of thoughts you may consider are that first of all, we’re at a time and in a situation where most Americans are going “Oh shit. Right now we need the smartest individuals among us to get together and fix this mess.” And secondly, just that — well, when it comes to the task of dumbing down the White House, you and John have a pretty tough act to follow.
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A beer with The President…

You remember that?
Remember… during the 2000 Presidential campaign? There were galloping herds of imbeciles coming out of the woodwork – testifying that their decision to vote for Bush was based on this idea of having a beer with him.

Now I’m not even going to get into what an ignorant hillbilly method of choosing a president that is. In fact let’s assume that it’s okay. Alright now, let’s follow up with those folks and ask them how they enjoyed that beer with the President. Oh, what happened? You voted for a guy who ran two corporations into the ground during his tenure in the private sector and then he ran our county into the ground – and what, he never showed up at your neighborhood bar to have that beer with you? Wow man, that’s a bummer. I wonder what happened.

Well its eight years later and many of those same discriminating voters are likely to be setting an equally dumbed down bar of scrutiny to this election. So if any of you can hear me I’m going to try to help you out. Now pay close attention…

Even if you were allowed to vote as many times as you wanted to, and you cast a thousand votes for the Republican ticket, you still would not get to fuck Sarah Palin.

Really. I'm sorry, but this is the truth. You really don't get to fuck her.

Wow

So when the partisan finger pointing broke out about whose fault it was that the bailout bill failed a Republican Congressman took the floor and actually stated that 12 Republican votes which were poised to be cast in favor of bill flipped against it in a direct reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s little speech that scolded the Republican policies which contributed to this mess.

Wow. Every breathing American politician has been climbing over each other to be heard declaring what a uniquely critical situation this is. But when it came down to the moment of doing something about it, the Republicans pulled out because Nancy hurt their feelings?

What happened to the tough cowboys with the battle cry: “Country First!” And again, it was not a Democrat telling us this. It was a Republican Congressman delivering the news — that at the zero hour, they scrap the only solution on the table because Nancy was mean to them.
Wow.

$700 billion bailout

The quintessential flagship example of how truly reckless "Fiscal Conservatives" are.

Logic has a sort of polar magnetism. Eventually, whether you choose to run from it, charge at it, or plot a thoughtful course toward it, what is logical must be faced. You can act responsibly, taking control of carefully paced steps toward it – or you can ignore the sickness until it has done irreparable damage to vital organs. As this is the case with many things in all areas of our lives it is also the case with the fiscal policies of large governments.

There have always been realistic members of our government whom have been in favor of the clearly logical objective of properly tempering our free markets with adequate oversight and regulation. This is really a no-brainer. As with most things, much of what makes capitalism great is also what makes it dangerous. Specifically – the fact that the singular fundamental driving element of the free market is profit. Obviously, what is profitable is good for business. Unfortunately, it seems to be much less obvious to far too many people that what is profitable for the few can be harmful and at times disastrous for the many.

So here we are blindly leaping off the cliff of inevitability with an EMERGENCY government bailout of financial institutions – which probably would not have been needed if it were not for years of Republican resistance to the logical course of carefully planned, deliberate acts of regulation, which has for so long been called for by so many Democrats.

The next time you hear a Republican trying manipulate and mislead you with scary words like Socialism and Communism – remember that this is the text book Republican scare tactic that sold too many of us on all of the reckless deregulation that got us into this mess.

So here’s the reality:
Regulating the free market is not “anti-capitalism” or whatever other anti-American label you want to slap on it. It is simply an obvious measure of common sense that the right-wing McCarthyistic scare machine has steered this country so far away from – that the result has become yet another giant George W Bush leap toward making our government even more like the government of communist China. By successfully accusing the LOGICAL REALISTS of being Socialistic or otherwise "un-American", the Republicans have actually convinced us to run so far and fast in blind fear of the Pacific Ocean that we have drowned in the Atlantic.

The Conventions

Political Conventions give us quite enough blah blah blah, so I’ll nut shell this comment.

Basically it brings me back to that Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people."

After the Democrats spent the majority of their convention on a positive message, discussing ideas about what can be done for this country, the Republicans spent the majority of their convention on a bitterly negative message discussing people (or to phase it more accurately, distorting people).

So if anything was made clear to me by the conventions it was where each party stands in Eleanor’s observation of Great minds, Average minds and Small minds.

Contrabortion?

Recently in an email, to illustrate his disappointment in us lefties being unable to give credit where it is due, my friend Lloyd listed a pretty extensive pile of positive statistics which he attributed to George Bush. Included in this list was a stat pertaining to a decline in abortions. As with many of the other stats that he listed (and perhaps this validates his point that I’m too reluctant to give credit…) I wonder if this decline in abortions statistic was a result of something that Bush actually did, or was it something which simply happened to occur on his watch.

At any rate, I just heard about something that Mr. Bush is actually doing right now that is almost certain to increase the rate of abortions in this country. Apparently, in the standard conservative tradition of being a part of the problem rather than being a part of the solution, he is quietly trying to redefine abortion to include birth control. Now this has nothing to do with any sort of state funding or other “bigger government” issues that the righties are so paranoid about. In end of the day dollars and sense this is simply a big fat gift from George to the insurance industry. Because under this new rule no insurance company could be expected to cover any form of birth control.

Great idea, you fucking dope. Let’s see… Any time that there is a sweeping reduction of medical insurance coverage a certain percent of citizens simply stop receiving the affected medical service. So in this case it means that less women will use birth control – leading us to the probable result of far more unwanted pregnancies, a certain amount of which will result in the previous definition of ABORTION, you jack ass. Nice going George. You gunna set The White House on fire on your way out the door while you’re at it?

http://pol.moveon.org/contraception/?r_by=-9989962-yJhokQx&rc=mailto

Leadership

Didn’t we invent the light bulb?

…and the telephone?

How ‘bout the computer? Wasn't that us too?

Were we not the first to put a man on the moon?

Remember when the United States of America was the great forward thinking innovative force of the world? It was a time when we truly were, on so many levels, the leaders of the civilized world, with all other countries looking to us for what great things were next to come.

Now a days, under REPUBLICAN “leadership” we have followed the lead of COMMUNIST China – and withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, using China’s non-participation as our excuse.

Under REPUBLICAN “leadership” the abolition of our basic American fundamental of habeas corpus has us following the lead of dictators and terrorist régimes – into our current policies of capture and detention.

Under REPUBLICAN “leadership” American automakers have remained dedicated to shackling us to our oil addiction, while Japan has developed (and is now importing to us) a zero emissions hydro fuel cell vehicle.

I could continue to catalogue our spirals into the heart of darkness, but my point is this...

Do we look beyond the smoke and mirrors which keep calling into question the Democratic nominee’s readiness to lead?

Or shall we continue to follow our Republican “leadership” back to the Stone Age?

Monica Binladinsky

So here’s the thing about that old argument about that blow job distracting Bill from his real job.

After two terms of George Dubaya Dipshit at the helm, we’re all pretty well aware of the fact that American Presidents do make their share of errors in judgment. With the world’s greatest intelligence gathering agencies at their command they somehow perhaps suffer from intelligence overload – and make unintelligent choices.

As this was likely the case with Captain Decider on a number of occasions, the same probability affected Bill Clinton. He had intel about terrorist activities and from what average Joe Citizen like you and me can tell – his policy and military command choices failed to recognize the sophistication of the major terrorist organizations and the rapid degree to which their activities were ramping up. None of us really knows what decision Bill could have made at which moment that might have ultimately prevented 9/11. Nor do we really know if there was anything that he could have done to prevent it.

Those are the realities of the matter. The silliness of it is this intellectually primitive line of thought, suggesting that Bill got a BJ rather than make more affective decisions about the threats of terrorism. As if he’s standing in the produce department, choosing between a Gala and a Red Delicious. Hmmm, do I stick it to Binladin or do I stick it in this chubby little intern? So many people seem to truly believe that those particular choices were actually in such close proximity to each other.

Well… umm… actually no. We all know that all Presidents have many complex meetings with their top military and intel advisors who present the President with many difficult choices to make. And when the President makes a military or foreign policy decision, he’s choosing one course of military/foreign policy action over some other course of military/foreign policy action. Not only was Monica not one of the apples to choose from, she was not even and orange. She was not even in the produce department for that matter. She was an impulse item in the check-out line – tossed on the counter – long after all of the real decisions were made about what’s going in the basket.
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the conversation

I have an ongoing political conversation via email with a good friend of mine who leans to the right. These emails are sometimes driven by what’s on the news or other “information” sources. They are sometimes sparked by comments in this blog. And occasionally entries in this blog are partially derived from those conversations.

Today, editing out personal identifications, I will paste in a bit of recent conversation with – oh, let’s call him Lloyd. No special reason for doing this. I just like the point that made, which was a point that I’ve been meaning to make to a lot of people. So now I will have at least made that point to both of the people who read this blog.

So here it is:

Lloyd said:
LOL fair enough. but i will put this tiny bit of more apples and oranges out there. I'm not saying the investigations are wrong, but 150-300, seems a little much. "i want my phone call...i do...i want it-ta" But one could argue that Bill philandering caused him to take the eye off the ball which was being a president and focusing on national security. Had he paid attention to that, he might have had the good sense to take osama when he openly admits he had the chance in 96 and 98 instead of hoping that foreign governments would do the right thing and capture him for us. You can’t put a price tag on a blow job but not focusing on his job you can put a price tag on, for example, like i do and partially blame him for all of this. "i'm not crazy....i'm not-ta"
"hehehe...hohoho...hahahaha...ooooohhhh......"


Montag said:
In addition to setting the all time presidential record for veto's and a number of other not necessarily good things, Bush has also set the record for presidential vacation time. All presidents have their distractions. Bush's was record breaking vacation time. Clinton’s was infidelity. One is obviously less palatable to the public than the other, but it doesn't mean that the guy getting head was doing his job less than the guy hanging out at a ranch for a good chunk of his presidency (In fact, from what I remember about receiving blow jobs, it's probably the most time efficient method of relieving stress). Hell, the travel time alone to Bush's vacations amounts to more time than Clinton could have spent wagging his thing at interns.

And come on man ("hoping that foreign governments would do the right thing and capture him for us"?), after 9/11 we had by all means the strongest reasons ever and no excuse not to hold onto the reigns and bring back Binladin's head on a pike - but it was Bush and company who handed those reigns to the Afghan army or whoever it was they passed the ball to so that they could hurry up and get us into Iraq while the whole country was still seeing red and didn't care who we struck as long as we were striking someone.

Having his head turned in the wrong direction at the wrong time is probably another presidential record that Bush set, but as I said, all presidents have their distractions. They have the hardest job in the world - they gotta do something to dial down the pressure from time to time. It's just popular to blame bad things on Bill's distraction because his distraction happened to be an act of infidelity, which of course is a socially unacceptable thing that had the whole nation shaking their finger at him - creating a malleable environment to get folks on board when you start pinning blame.

Dude, you're killing me with the joker talk. I can't remember the last time I was so chomping at the bit to see a fucking movie.
I just watched a blip on YouTube of movie goers being interviewed coming out of batman at citywalk. I was disappointed that none of them were you.

Again… Some reality please

Ever since the Democrats took control of congress (narrowly and not so long ago) I keep hearing righties talking about how everything’s the Democrats’ fault…
The Democrats can’t get anything done – this
The Democrats are taking our country in the wrong direction – that
If it weren’t for the Democrats – the other thing
So getting back to that pesky matter of REALITY…

Let’s see:

• In 2001 the Republican President Elect who claimed to be “a uniter not a divider” became an “I’m the decider” partisan dictator of a President. At that time I believe we had a mixed partisan balance in congress.



• Then the Republicans took total control of congress — armed with Mr. “Decider” in The White House. So we truly got to see what the Republicans were interested in and capable of doing for this county.



• Now there is a Democratic majority in congress, dealing with a radically partisan Republican President, who happens to hold the all time presidential Veto record for the history of the Oval Office (In case you're not clear on that point... The Veto tantrums are the main reason that congress can't get much done).

And somehow the Democrats are to blame for the national debt and the price of gas?

…hmm

Seriously!

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Doesn’t reality matter?

Anyone who observes the facts of matter knows that any newly licensed coastal shelf drilling projects won’t come on line for about a decade. And yet McCain and Bush are selling it as if it is the silver bullet fix for the gas price problem. And as far as I can tell, this no results for ten years off-shore drilling proposal appears to be the crown jewel of McCain’s economic plan. This guy has about a fifty percent chance of becoming the next leader of our nation – and that’s the best that he can come up with?

And they are actually phrasing it as “The relief at the pumps that Americans need now”. Well, yes. We do need relief at the pump now. But what about that 8 to 10 year wait for these new drilling contracts to start producing? Not to mention the fact that a few more drops in the bucket wont stop the oil companies from boning us. They know what they can get away with, so they're going to keep on doing it. The all mighty rule of supply and demand is actually much less mighty than the oil industry's proven ability to do whatever the fuck they want. Wake up folks!

This is just another total rejection of reality, that the right wing has saddled onto and won’t stop riding.
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Flag Day

What’s the first thing the wolf will do when you catch him dressed in sheep’s clothing?
…Call you a sheep hater.

I have a five year old son who will be starting Kindergarten soon. With that comes the daily morning tradition of reciting the pledge of allegiance. And that’s cool I suppose. In terms of him participating in it goes, I can take it or leave it. I recited the pledge in school and I really don’t think that the act of doing so harmed me in any way, nor do I believe for a second that reciting the pledge made me a better American than someone who may have opted out of that activity.

What does concern me though, in a general sense, is a young child’s limited ability to fully grasp the weight of the words. To put your hand over your heart and “pledge” your “allegiance” to something…
That’s pretty fuckin heavy. And to have a young child do something like that without at least trying to give them a deeper understanding of what that means and what they are pledging their allegiance to — seems to be a rather un-American conditioning of blind faith which is being thrust upon our children.

Again, I am not against the idea of my children participating in the pledge of allegiance. But I am by all means going to do my best to not only give them a clear understanding of what it means to “pledge” your “allegiance” to something; but also make sure they know what they are pledging their allegiance to. And that it is their choice to make. That even as children, there exist certain things which are exclusively and wholly owned by them. Things like:

Your personal opinion

Your taste

Your feelings toward others

And by God your “allegiance” to something…

These are all things that are yours and only yours to determine for yourself, regardless of your age. To suggest otherwise would be un-American.

And that brings forward another point which I intend to make very clear to my children. Far too many gross misinterpretations of “Americanism” seem to get wrapped in the flag. There is no qualification required to get a flag. It can be attached to anything by anyone. So it’s pretty important for our children and all of us for that matter to remain aware of the fact that a person or thing does not necessarily represent true American values simply because they are dressed in the flag. This is a very important point to me personally, because as an American, I am genuinely offended and embarrassed by the right wing’s relative success at making patriotism synonymous with war mongering. Reasonable forward thinking realists whom have clear sight of the true and very positive meaning of patriotism need to take the flag back from extreme right wing fundamentalist before the stains of what those extremists represent blot out what it represents.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”

— Sinclair Lewis, The first American writer, to win the Nobel Prize for Literature

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