Ah, parents

I have some sort of a virus. I found out today that I have a 100F fever. (The blood plasma clinic has several useful function). Anyway, my mother called today to see if I could get any inside deals on Nu football skag (no ma ,I can't). I told her about my illness. High fever, fatigue, low appitite. She was concerned, of course, especially by the exhaustion and low appitite (though these are almost certainly caused by the fever, and not independent symptoms of their own.) She seemed worried that I had West Nile .
What a shame. One of the most common fallicies we make is to assume that the bad ends we hear about the most are the ones most likely to get us. So we have another ciggarette and shot of whiskey to get over our fear of terrorists and child molestors. I know my mother means well, but she should know better than this.
In truth, I might very well have West Nile, but this means nothing by itself. West Nile is basically the same thing as the flu; a mild-to moderate disease that, for an unlucky few, can be life-threatening. Of course, there is no reason to assume that I am not one of the unlucky few. But, without trying to sound like a badass, so what? We all have to deal with the contradiction of functioning with society as if we're going to live forever, while dealing with the reality that we will not. (Got nothin to lose it's just me against the world)
But I suppose I should stop complaining. My mother has promised to pay for a doctor's examination, and there's no denying that this is a good idea. If they still prescribed opium for routine illness I would have scraped up the lose change myself by now. But I must spend my starvatio wages on chicken soup and Nyquil. I love ya ma.

Expect Chambers To Go Out With A Bang

The worst thing about term limits is how they produce amatuer partisan hacks. In Nebraska'a case, this would mean Republican hacks, and of course its completely different in California.

What this means in a practical sense is that the next 2 Unicam sessions will have a bunch of newbies trying to silence, or, even worse, out-reason Ernie Chambers. It's going to be a massacre. Ernihilation, Ernownage, Ernpocylypse. Those who voted for term limits just to get rid of Chambers are going to pay for it first. And don't think the people of North Omaha are going to vote for a conservative rancher with 38 grandchildren when they are forced to replace Ernie.

Disenfranchisement has its price. In the next two years, Nebraska will have its own bullshit thrown back at us like never before.

To The Guy leaving The Wedding At the Gov.s House

The one who said there was "some kind of gay and lesbian thing" at the Ne capital. The one who said "I don't think I'll be going to that" and then laughing the smug laugh of one who gets hard with pride in one's normality. You seem to misunderstand what homosexuality is andv what it is not. This is perfectly alright, we can't all be experts in anything. Might I suggest, however, that nothing cures ignorance like experience.

Friday Night Trivia: (Use It For Your drinking Games)

If one does a Google Instant Search for the word "hardcore", the first non-pornagraphic image is in the middle of page 3. Discuss the social implications of this among yourselves.

P.S. I have just returned from a party where some guy with a soul patch and a do-rag played "American Pie" on his acoustic guitar. I was worried that I might go through the whole summer without running into some asshole trying to get laid with "American Pie".

To The Hon. Benjamin J. Nelson

Dear Sir:

Stop being a pussy. When I say stop being a pussy, you should realize the significance of this. You see, I hav nothing against moderates. We could use more nice, quiet, friendly folk like you. It should be a required trait for waitresses, drive-through workers, and prostitutes. I was not offended when you voted for tax cuts that the government can't afford. I have a bit of a libertarian streak, and the thought of the federal government choking to death on its own bullshit is quite pleasing to me. I was not horribly offended when you voted for the war. It was a different climate then. One did not point out that the WMD claims were obvious bullshit in polite discourse, and you're as polite as they come, arn't you? And ultimatelly, of course, I would sooner vote for you than Pete Rickets. (a.k.a. Republican cliche-bot 3000)

But now you're really starting to test my patience. You vote for the anti-gay marraige amendment and the anti- flag burning amendment, making you one of the few Democrats to acheive the non-existent problem solver double crown. You are also unique among Dems in your desire to uproot illegal immigrant families in order to save us from the Spanish language.

But now you've done something really stupid. You voted against using embryos for stem-cell research? Why? It can't be because of your beliefs, everybody knows you don't believe in anything. Was it for political gain? There was nothing to gain. You already have the Nebraska-right-to-life endorsement. This is an issue that divides even the pro-choice movement. Orin Hatch; the conservative Mormon who moonlights as a Christian lounge singer, can vote for the research and still be safe in Utah. Certainly you can do the same and not hurt yourself in Nebraska.

This research can cure diseases and save human lives. Not protozoans who happen to have human DNA, but actual human lives. The only people who are against this research are the hard-core right wingers. Those who hate their own and everybody else's filthy humanity. Those who hide their nihilism behind a facsist brand of Christianity. They know as well as the rest of us do that to not decide is to decide. "Human life", weather blastocysts or alzheimers victims, will end one way or another. But they want to leave it in "God's hands." Far better to die than to have one's life saved by filthy human reason. You will never win over these people. They will vote against you simply to maintain a Republican Senate. It is obvious even now that they could tip the election to Rickets; despite the fact that he is a human strawman version of a Republican. You are wasting your time, and you are contributing to human suffering in doing so.

In closing, you have five months before election day to do something, anything, that resembles courage. Otherwise I just might pull a Nader on your punkass and write in Ernie Chambers.

Sincerely,
Mr. Heartland

Why didn't he pose with a bunch of test tubes?

Some hardcore zygote worshippers in Iowa did the same thing. They tried to get Bill Frist (who fancies himself a presidential contender, though no one else does.) to flip-flop back to their side on the stem-cell issue. So they put out a commercial full of smiling newborns to show us just what we would be destroying if we sefishly try to cure the diseases of the multi-cellular.

Why didn't they show pictures of blastocysts instead? After all, if these are the same as babies, than surely the sight of a microscopic ball of undifferentiated cells would have the same emotional impact.

This Year At The Ne State Fair

Aug. 28th, Three Dog Night Bitch.
It was a small band, so presumebly there's at least two original members left. And it will certainly be better than the Styx show last year where they didn't even play Mr. Roboto and I had to stand through the whole thing to hear their only good song. (Renegade, Of course.)

I predict Green Day will play the Nebraska State Fair before the decade is out, and Billy Jo will still be wearing his "indie" tie at 45.

Isreal vs. Rest of Middle East in a Nutshell

So what should we as Americans do? Some would suggest that we should avoid taking sides and join the rest of the world and telling the kids to knock it off and work out a deal. They must be crazy! Of course we should take Isreal's side! They dress like we do, and when they speak English it sounds vaguely like an American accent.

At any rate, they do our dirty work for us. It is not our official policy (actual practice is a different matter) to kill ten innocent civilians for the sake of taking out one terrorist. Our friends on the Mediterrainean have no such qualms. Sure, the current situation may complicate our own troubles in Iraq, but those our the breaks. When you get right down to it, Judaism is almost Christianity. Muslims, on the other hand, are accidental pagans.
Support Isreal, It's Almost America! :)

Real Men Have Broken Air Conditioners in July

Brett Meir; profoundly unfunny cartoonist for the Daily Nebraskan, used today's space to try to make us all feel guilty over worrying about the heat instead of feeling the pain of the Middle Easterners. First of all, let me just say that I am keeping up abrest with the war in Isreal/Lebanon. Second of all, fuck you Brett.
You see, my air conditioner broke around the third week of June. I have one of those plastic electric fans from the seventies trying to control the heat. A week ago, when Nebraska was unseasonably cool (in the 80's) the fan was enough. Now that the heat is breaking 100 and will continue to do so for the next week, not so much. My landlord would fix it, but I sort of owe him two hundred dollars.
So I'm functionally homeless from noon to nine p.m. This is the time of day when it's to hot to sit in my apartment naked. During this time I seek refuge in a nice cool library; which complicates my job search and prevents me from being able to pay my landlord. Wih luck, I'll be able to find a job before my student loan check comes at the end of summer, until than, I'm spending my days reading Joseph Conrad and eating ramon noodles. When one s among the less fortunate, it is o.k. to worry more about oneself than other unfortunates.
Fuck you Brett

We Have Assumed Control

We have assumed control, we have assumed control, we have assumed control, we have assumed control

Public Schools are Just As Good As Private Schools/Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain

The Education released a Study yesterday that revealed that students in public schools perform almost as well as students in private schools. In fact, public school eighth graders do better in math than their peers at "very conservative Christian Schools" (This is just funny) What did you expect? All the class time reserved for loving Jesus can't help but distract from the three Rs.

There is a reason that the report was released on a Friday. Only nerds such as myself read the Saturday papers. The Bush administration was loathe to release any information that doesn't justify school vouchers. (Welfare to private enterprise for the purpose of indoctrination.)

Joseph McTighe, a lobbyist for a private school "umbrella group" gave the following reply."In the real world, private school kids outperform public school kids. That's the real world, that's the way things actually are."

Yes, that's right, public stereotypes are a better reflection of reality than official statistics. How's that for populism? Of course, Mc'Tighe might have some numbers of his own to back his figures up. After all, private school kids are more likely to come from rich families. Therefore they are more likely to have personal connections with prospective employers. But the world is a big place, and different classes of society experience different real worlds, don't they?

A Brief history of Tag: Chapter 3, The Alpha and Omega

It came to pass that what we know as "Western Civilization" was, in fact, tag. We built Greece,we built Rome, we invented the question mark. Homer? Virgil? Plato? If you are wise enough to be reading this , then surely you know better then to believe in things that you have not seen for yourself. Haven't you ever thought it funny that these supposed persons wrote quite a bit about fearless supermen, who one either had the wisdom to follow or the temerity to resist? (Only to be horribly punished by "gods") Surely you also know better then to believe that there ever was a time more magical and mystical than our own. So why are there no semi-gods and supermen reigning over us now? Therefore ask yourself, what is the purpose of all these fairy tales?
Needless to say, there never was a Plato, or a Virgil. None of the pedophiles who supposidly invented western civilization ever was. There was only our ministry of propaganda, which was already operating at a far more sophisticated level than the "Third Reich" could ever dream of. These tales of supermen did much to control the rabble. Why should they not obey "their" king when he was descended from Hercules? The myth of the natural-born superhuman leader has been indispensible to us. Our Alexander could never have conqured Persia, nor could our Claudius have conqured Britain, without it. With some modifications, the myth continues to serve us to this day.
Of course, there were exceptions. Athens really was a democracy, within reasonable limits. Why would we allow such a thing, you ask? Don't be a fool, we were Athens. Athens was created in order to provide ourselves with a place where our perversions would be acceptible. This is the same reason why we created the Southeast Asian sex trade. There really was a Socrates, and we really did eliminate him. Of course, his death was not nearly as merciful as what is written in our history books. His execution actually lasted for seven months. We will not discuss the details.

Then there was the fellow who called himself Christ. He was nothing. A peasant. An unimportant man from an unimportant corner of our empire. but he was clever. He somehow managed to see through our illusions and realize the true reality. He could of joined us. We are always on the lookout for bright young talent. But alas; he was an idealist. He believed in "freedom". He thought he could stop us. He once actually said that gaining the world was not worth losing one's soul over. We cannot allow this sort of psychosis to spread to the rabble.
The record of his death is more or less accurate. We decided to torture him to death over a single 24 hour period. We had too much respect for the man to subject him to our normal procedures.

Fuck you! I fucked your Dad up the ass in prison.

With the aid of deaf Italian lip readers, it seems that Materazzi goaded Zidane into his headbutt by calling him a "son of a terrorist whore." That's what the Euro press says anyway, and it really doesn't matter now whether that was what was actually said or not. When people want answers, they don't really care if they get accurate answers or not. It should be said that Materazzi''s defense was quite damning. He claimed not to know what the word terrorist meant. Yeah.

And what, exactly, is a terrorist whore? Sounds like something one would find in a nihilistic French action movie. She'll suck your dick and blow up a hospital at the same time. You and her will go on a massive absinthe-fueled killing spree until her old abusive boyfriend convinces her to come back, or so he thinks. She ends up killing both of you by shotgun blasts to the brain in front of thousands on Bastile Day. She keeps all the money for herself. A brief epilogue describes how she dies of an "accidental" skag overdose in Lhasa five years later.

RIP Syd Barrett

I had a high school obssesion with Pink Floyd, so this is sad news. Of course, it is highly unlikely that he noticed his own death. Don't eat acid for breakfast kids.

There's a little bit of Barett in Blur, Smashing Pumpkins, Travis, Badly Drawn Boy.... etc. All of these bands were arguibly more influenced by Barett's style than post-Syd Pink Floyd. The group's 1968-73 evolution from "psychedelic"band to composers of grand rock operas is very interesting. Check out 'Saucerful of Secrets" and "Meddle"

As for their work with Syd, "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" will restore your faith in hippies.

Dave Hergert is a Martyr for the better half

I am pleasently surprised. this is the first intelligent decision made by any branch of the Nebraska state government in, shit, 15, 20, 50 years? the only ones who are still defending Hergert are his relatives, employees, and neighbors. This is somewhat understandible. Living in a small community does encourage an us vs. them view of the world, where all problems are caused by outsiders.
And they do make respectible points. Why should Hergert get the hammer brought down on him? He was just another politician, no more crooked than the rest, and at least he was one of ours.
It is true that everyone on the NU Board of Regents except Chuck Hassebrook is an aristocratic crook living with delusions of being Governor or Senator crook. They barely conceal their belief that the people's university should be reserved for the sons of the elite. (Expect no mercy when they discuss tuition again) Any moral advantage the rest of the board has over Hergert is nominal.
which is not to say that there is no difference. The big problem with Hergert was his utter lack of shame. He seemed to follow Tom DeLay logic. " I'm Christian, I'm important, I'm not gay, and I have proven my superiority on the sacred battlefield of the free market. Therefore I can do whatever the hell I want. I am incapible of corruption. Only whiney losers would suggest otherwise."
The fact that Hergert got his just deserts does not solve the larger problem. Rural America is full of people who are simple, humble, and unfailingly obedient to authority and tradition. They are baffled and frightened by the perfectly natural cultural fragmentation that comes with democratic empire. These are the people that "conservatives" have seduced in their rise to power. And how is the loyalty of rural America being rewarded? With naked political patronage, union busting slave labor, and corporate feudalism. those of us who want to change this face the frustration of a counseler; begging an abused wife to leave the bastard

World Cup Wrapup

First off, I'm disapointed that Germany didn't win. I was planning on doing an Al Micheals/Big Lebowski mashup (Do you believe in nuzing? YES!) And what the fuck was up with Zidane? The man has always been considered a class act. Why should he be less able to keep his head at 34 than 22? He's supposed to be a leader for God's sake. If you're going to do something stupid, it least cheat shamelessly like Maradona.
That said, it's hard to say that Zidane's ejection cost France the game. You need to stop at least one shot to win on P.Ks. And Barthez never looked remotely capable of doing so. In 98, he always was just good enough. This year, he was nothing but a coach for a backline that was protecting him. Once the game was in his hands...
I do think that the better team won. Italy knocked out the hosts, after all, and they were long overdue to win both a shootout and a major tournament. Most of all, the disallowed goal in the 65th minute was an absolute bullshit call. Everyone in Italy gets laid tonight, but only because it's Sunday.

Tales from North Platte

Living in a small town requires a nihilistic, beast-like mindset. There is no change, no culture, and nothing we would recognize as decency. Nobody and nothing ever changes. Everyone you know will be the same at 35 as they were at 18. The only notable difference being 2--6 semi-legitimate children.
This becomes clear to me every time I return to North Platte. It became especially clear at my cousin's "bachlor party". It was at the worst dive in town. I was reduced to drinking Bud Light rather quickly, though only to avoid being awkward and only after I learned the the best beer on tap was Michillob. Mu relations regaled each other with the same drug stories that they had been telling since they started telling drug stories. My attempts to relate to them were utter failures. They didn't know who Sleater-Kinney were. They didn't know who Ween (c'mon, fucking WeeN) were. I lost miserably at pool since I was embracing the void too much to make any real effort. Pour more urine down my throat and tell me how you want a Jesse James custom bike again.
We ended up at a in-law/drug dealer's house. I had been there many times before and smoked out of some custom made bong or another there many times before. This time was the same. Dealer's kid is ten now, and more obviously insane than ever. The child was still awake at midnight with no sign of exhaustion. He's going to have a hard time adjusting to juvie hall hours.
the wedding was held in the courthouse. It was incidental. My mother cried as is her wont. I thought about telling her that whether the couple would be happy or not 20 years from now was a matter of pure chance, and the wedding was unlikely to matter as far as this goes. But it would have been rude to bring this up just then. People who have nothing else need tradition.

Tales From North Platte

Henry Hill

Not Henry Hill





Surely you've heard of this man. He's Henry, from Goodfellas. You know, the smooth one, the cool one. You surely also know that "Goodfellas" is based on Hills autobiography. He really was a gangster, and he really was a rat. He really was faced with the choice of either turning states evidence or facing the punishment he deserved for being an unreliable coke monkey. Well , the story doesn't end there. In fact, it probably ends in my hometown.

First of all, it must be said that Martin Scorsese could make a tapeworm look like the baddest mofo who has ever lived. Indeed, this is exactly what he has done.

Hill had been living in the open for a few years when he came to North Platte in 2004. All of his victims were either dead from old age or had killed each other long ago. In the past, their successors would have carried on the vendetta against rats. But the mob ain't what it used to be. So Henry Hill came to town as Henry Hill, very willing to let us know that he was Henry Hill. There was a new hotel opening up by the interstate. It was going to be a fairly upscale place, and they were thinking of opening an Italian restauraunt. Hill, of course, is an accomplished cook.
If you have visions of Hill breaking out in a cold sweat in his kitchen, thinking about how he has to unload the guns on his Philiadelphia connections, bringing his brother home from the hospital and what to do about the helicoptor tailing him while George Harrison blares in the background please stop. This is what Hill wants you to do. You have no idea what kind of whore this man is. We were starstruck, of course, and the man did make good food. The bar at this hotel was pretty decent too. It seemed that Hill had found a nice place to live out his days.

But there were incidents. There was a D.U.I. where his b.a.c. was something over .3. There were "domestic incidents" with his new wife. And, of course, there was the coke. Yes, that's right kids, he still has the same habit that landed everybody but himself in jail. He was caught at the town airport with both coke and meth. He got along well with the locals. I wish this was the end, but...

Hill has become a semi-regular on the Howard Stern show. Stern is apparantly enthralled by the story of an inept criminal taking a small town by storm. Who wouldn't be? One day Hill claimed that two men had drugged him at a North Platte bar, took him to the woods and raped him. There are reasons to doubt this story. For one, give us some fucking credit, this isn't Arkansas. For another thing, there is a video that Hill is trying to make money off of.

The restaurant is in some trouble now, with its chef routingly going to jail. The bar actually became a hot spot in the time since I moved to Lincoln. My friend Rick was running the place, and this band of people I used to know played there last October. But alas, the manager of the hotel started to micromanage Rick's affairs. She changed the beer orders so that there would be an equal number of Heiniken and Bud Light, and demanded that the place get less "rowdy." Rick quit, and the bar closed down 2 months ago due to no profits.

As for Henry, he got out of jail last month. Other then that, who the hell cares? If you want some decent marinara sauce, wisit "Sundaygravy.net"

All Joking Aside

for you and me children, for you and me.

Happy Independence Day

This is the day where we reflect on the true essence of America: hating and conquering our enemies. Be sure to celebrate the holiday in a manner that will terrify the Barboroi. Do not apply any cutting agents to your hard liquor. If you can not afford explosives, then the only acceptible replacement would be to flagilate yourself as a show of loyalty to Ceaser. Do not eat any-non carnivorous foods. No vegetables shall touch our lips until we can garnish them in the blood of our enemies.

FYI

NASA is planning on sending Discovery into orbit tommarow, despite a crack in the insulation on the ship's motherfucking fuel tank! Fucking brilliant motherfuckers! Is this some sort of secret communist plan to ruin Independence Day forever? Expect a hell of a fireworks show in central Florida tomarrow.

(And The bodies red glare....)

Ninety pound cancer Girl pwnes every last one of us

=














Some see Lance Armstrong as the paragon of survival and determination. Fuck Lance Armstrong. Why should he get more respect than any other "man" who shaves his entire body and wears bright yellow in public? The true measures of strength are drinking and spontaneous public lesbianism.
These are the qualities that Allison Uberfrau has in spades. She is a two time cancer survivor, thanks to a new form of chemotherapy in which she drank her tumors to death. There really is no way to describe this level of badasisity unless one has seen it for oneself. Nonetheless, I will try to give you a basic rundown.

• There were several occasions in which she had a beer in one hand and a bottle of my vodka in the other
• There was one variation of this where she had a motherfucking 40 oz in one hand and the vodka in the other
• After six hours, she finally started showing vague hints of weakness, and I told her she could have one more drink before I put the vodka on ice. She drained a full third of the bottle.
  

Oh yes, and the dyke-out,She and homeboysexwhatshername.

This was no sports bar wet t-shirt contest smootch and giggle. I honestly thought they were going to orgasm with all of their clothes still on. Panting, light moans, stratigic groping of the upper thigh and crotch, good show. Unfortunately, Allison finally sucumbed to her own body weight in liquor, and was unable to consummate the encounter. If they had finished their game, I would never be able to look upon another human face and see anything but a pathetic weakling. I would be unable to write without the image reminding me of the inadequacy of my so-called creation. All existence would be pointless, like Toby Keith walking onstage after Hendrix burned his guitar at Monterey. But I can find solice in the fact that I can at least conceive of being that bad-ass. You on the other hand, never mind.

I have nothing to write

I've spent the last two days writing about the Nebraska drought, I'm wrote out. I guess I should congratulate the Supreme Court for striking down Gitmo tribunals, but I'm just not very inspired. It's fucking hot, you know how heat makes one not want to do anything but sleep, drink and fuck.

In truth, I am more inspired by bad news and the stupidity of those who disagree with me than I am by good news. I know it's not right, but yes, yes it is. Maybe I should go visit FreeRepublic. The sight of countless self-appointed defenders of American manhood trying to get themselves hard with outrage should give me some material. Or maybe I'll just play some pong instead.

Does Anyone Know Where to Find This Movie? (For Cheap?)

On second thought, fuck it, I'll just get the poster.

Ronaldo Goal Gives Teamate Gigantic Boner

A word on Connor Oberst

I was thinking about going to the free Bright Eyes concert in Omaha, but I was invited to a party, and I am at best a lukewarm fan, so I went to where the licquor was. In truth, there are only a handful of Bright Eyes songs that I actually like, while there are several that are quite wretched. I'm refering to the west Omaha sprawl concept album in particular. It is over-simplistic to describe Oberst as "emo". His self-description as a folk singer is actually closer to the truth. But this album sounded like a South Park parody of emo. The insanity of West Omaha can only be properly described through skillful satire. But Oberst is only capible of one flavor, earnestness. There is nothing wrong with earnestness, in fact I could use some myself. In the right context, (Lua) Oberst can be deeply moving with his earnestness. But a one trick pony is bound to be inconsistent.
Anyway, I'm mentioning the boychild mainly because of a story I heard a few weeks back. I spoke to someone who had been at one of Bright Eyes's Sokal Hall shows. He claims that Oberst walked of stage for a few minutes, than stumbled back on with a heroin tourniquet still attached to his arm. My friend disaproved.
I on the other hand, see this as a good thing. Oberst is older than I am. (He's 26) It's about damn time that he stopped slouching in public and stop combing his hair in that damn waterfall. Than again, if he likes the junk, than his slouching is more understandible. At any rate, I was glad to hear the story. Oberst should write an entire double album about his love for hard drugs. It would show his critics that he understands Rock'n'Roll is a man's game, and he just might teach a valuable lession to the mopey kids in the crowd.

The Existence of Budweiser Must be Hidden From the Outside World

The World-Herald felt the need today to defend American culture from some Germans who are distressed over the World Cup making sponsership deals with Mc'Donalds and Budweiser. The W-H apperently blames anti-American snobishness for these perfectly understandible concerns. "Imagine the reaction had America somehow won soccer's biggest prize" they say.

First of all if the U.S. won the World Cup, no one would notice. They would be too busy morning the sudden deaths of the other 30 teams in plane crashes. Second of all, there is nothing intrinsically anti-American in saying that Mc'Donalds is shit food and Budweiser is shit beer. I'm an American, and I can tell you as much, because it is not my snobbish opinion, but objective fact. Atoms are mostly empty space, the formula for water is H2O, Mc'Donalds is shit food. There are some who believe that our corporate bahemaths "represent" American culture instead of suck the life out of it. These people are called "suckers".
It is not as if we don't have a grand national culture and interesting regional variations, we do. The problem is that multi-billion dollar giants cannot "represent" this culture. There is a real American crusine that is equal or better than anything in Europe. Mc'Donalds ain't it. There are hundreds of small local breweries making beer that rivals Germany's best. Budweiser is absofuckinglutely not it.
I am not anti-capitalist, and I don't hate Mc'Donalds. I put Mc'Donalds food on the same level as Raman Noodles; except it's ten times more expensive and ten times less nutritious. Have you ever eaten Bratwurst or Sauerkraut? To say that a 10 course German meal is superior to Mc'Donalds is like saying that Strychnine is unhealthy.
Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to feel anything but burning rage for Budweiser. An ice-cold Bud that's been left in the fridge for six hours might taste like something vaguely resembling flat beer. As for Bud Light? Let's be clear, if you drink Bud Light, you are morally inferior to a rapist. You will rue the day when I'm in charge; there is only one final solution for Bud Light drinkers. If you can't afford something decent (Lincoln's own Empryan brew cost only a dollar more per six pack) than go for Steel Reserve. None of this middle-of-the-road, fauxhawk, karaoke night at Brother's shit. Trying to defend the Anheuser-Busch corperation is like shitting on the flag. Budweiser is the worst thing this country has ever done. Small-Pox blankets are a distant second.

Friday Fun Facts.

You know Gene, the guy on The Sopranos who hung himself at the beginning of this season? Remember how he stayed alive for nearly five minutes afte jumping off the crate, futilily tugging at the noose? Well, old Gene is a good reminder of what happens when we don't know how to kill ourselves properly. It also shows why knowing' one's history matters.
Hanging as a quick and painless form of execution is actually a fairly modern invention. The trap door "drop" in a gallows wasn't invented until the 18th century. This innovation causes instant death via a severed spinal cord. In the old days, however, this was far from the case. hanging victims didn't usually choke to death per se. Their breathing was restricted enough to add to the general discomfort, but not totally cut off. What usually killed them was the constriction of the jugular veins while the carotid artery continued to pump blood into the brain. This caused the brain to become engorged with unoxygenated blood until the victim eventually died from hundreds of micro strokes and aneuryisms. Sometimes, both the jugular and carotid were constricted, causing the brain to slowly starve. Notice the words I emphasized. If the hangman was really sloppy, an old-fashioned lynching could take more than an hour.
Simply put, a medieval hanging is hardly any better than crucifixion. And yet, this is what thousands of people who choose to suicide by hanging do to themselves. Eugene's five- minute "hangman's hornpipe" dance was actually much quicker and prettier than what really happens. Unless you want to go through the trouble of building a professional gallows, I would strongly advise against going out this way. If it seems like your life is out of control, nobody understands, and you just want all your troubles to go away; please, think overdose.

Happy Summer Solstice

I celebrated the 9:30 P.M. sunset by drinking Lenie's Berrywise on the roof of my apartment house. Then i went outside and danced in the rain when the storm came at around 10:30. There is nothing like a hard rain at the end of a hot summer day.
The beauty of the moment reminded me of the first day of spring. I happened to be outside when the sun broke out for the first time since the spring break blizzard. It was about 4:30 P.M. on the Vernal Equinox. That day began at about 20F and the temperture had climbed to near 40 by sunset. The next day it was over 50 and the foot of snow was melting nicely. This was a truly spiritual 24 hour period.
Summer, on the other hand, is all about pagan debauchery.

Pete Ricketts Quote (No Comment necessary)

Omaha World Herald- 6/20/2006

"Ricketts, who has said he is worth between $45 million and $50 million, is the son of the founder of the onlne stockbroker Ameritrade. He contendedthat Nelson had raised $10 million since 1995 in political campaings for the Senate. 'That doesn't come for free. That means he's got special intrest who got his ear,' Ricketts said.
But he acknowledged he is raising money from political action commitees- often linked to businesses, advocacy groups or assotiations that lobby Congress-and asserted that's different from Nelson's fundraising activities.
'The PACs give me money because they believe in me because they know that, with my own means, I'm not going tobe someone who is beholden to somebody because they wrote me a check.'"

Unchanging values

With heresy, homosexuality, and general filthiness dominating our once great society, there is comfort in the knowledge that here in the Heartland, we still realize that marriage vows are a sacred oath to God. Peg Harriot, executive director of the Omaha YWCA, wrote a guest column for the World-Herald on Saturday. She wrote about wives who stood by their men despite what may have been overzealous discipline by their heaven-ordained masters. The women she cites (humble enough to accept psudonyms) are a powerful example to misguided libertarians who wonder why these dodly wives don't "just leave"

"Rachel still believes in her boyfriend's ability to change. She knows that he really doesn't want to hurt her. She sees that he really doesn't like himself when he explodes. She loves him and wants to give him another chance."
"Diane sees how good her husband is with her two sons. They love him, and they need a father. She is relieved that he is not lashing out at them, only her."
"Jane commited to marriage until 'death do us part.' Her church community encourages her to keep trying-divorce will result in rejection from her church."
"Tamora grew up with a father who beat her mother and the kids to keep everyone in line. She knows no other way, isn't that what happens in all families?"
"Emma is so beaten and tired she can barely think straight. She had difficulty sleeping, and she is easily overpowered. beerhas helped numb the pain. If she lays low, doesn't question anything, and lets him 'have his way with her,' she gets beaten less.
"Connie realizes she must leave; she is very sad, lonely, and terrified at what the future will bring. When she and her two children walk away, they will be leaving their home, their personal treasures, the toys, a father, financial stability, health insurance, grandparents for the kids, schools and Connie's part-time job. She doesn't know if her family will support her or not. They have been clear that they expect her to make the marriage work."

Some may find her examples disturbing. I, however, am filled with gratitude that I live in a state that recognizes the unguestionable truth of traditional values. Women are meant to reproduce and serve. Thank God we don't have any of those hairy-pit femi-nazis from California out here teaching our women that they have "rights'.
http:// www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=609&u_sid=2190352

World Cup Update

Kudos to the U.S. team for hanging tough yesterday despite getting shafted by the ref. Whatever happans Thursday, this has to go down as one of our all-time great efforts.
You know how tough the Italians can be...

Mr Heartland Auditons for the Onion: Take 2

Supreme Court Rules That 4th Amendment Violates Founders Original Intent

Oklahoma Rep Declares Unity More Important Than Being Right or Wrong About War
(This really happened)

Chambers Has U.N.O. Shut Down Over Slap Incident
Omaha branch of University closed for three months, first noticed yesterday.

Nebraskans confused by Hahn's Stand on "Issues"
"What does he think about queers and spics?" they ask.

The N.U. board of regents is raising tuition again/ merry christmas

Some may question the wisdom of creating a nation full of high-school educated, ununionized serfs beholden to their corporate masters. These people have no appreciation for discipline. Just look at the kids in your hometown who went to college, they act so uppity, don't they? They never would have gotten those weird, pagan ideas in their heads if it wasn't for college. It would be far better if they stayed home and settled down. We must all settle down. We will make higher education unattainable for you. We will cut taxes for the rich so that they can give you a shit job they know you can't refuse. Any extra money we do have will be indulged on the police and military. Our media will echo stories of the same handful of child molestors over and over again until you think everyone outside of your church is a child molestor. This way you will accept how we spend the public money. You claim to vote for us because you respect tradition; that you fear terroists, criminals, and homosexuals. This may be true, but deep down, you vote for us because you recognize the need for discipline. You obey the president. You obey the sheriff. You obey your boss. In return, you receive obedience from your wife and children. If we are allowe free free thought, who knows what might happen? Your children may start talking back/castrating you. Hell, who knows what the mrs. would have said to your proposal if she had a real choice. Meanwhile, you would still have to work 12 hours a day in the pig shit factory, with no compensation to look forward to at home. We must all settle down.

Post for the sake of a post

I am doing a story on the current Nebraska drought for my Jour204 class. so far i have found out that the climate is only going to get hotter and windier. Winters will be shorter,(preventing the ground from freezing and perserving soil moisture) the Ogalala aquafer is going dey, and no one in any postion of authority knows what to do about it beyond hoping that nature suddenly bestows mercy on its playthings.

By the way, have you ever heard of Buffalo Commons? You may have heard that it was a secret communist/United Nations/ACLU/satanis plot to steal land from farmers and ranchers on the western plains. Actually, the idea entails establishing a huge nature reserve after said farmers and ranchers leave of their own volition. it was presumed that the old Great American desert prophecy would come true; that the western plains had to few resources to support large-scale agriculture and would eventually be incapible of supporting anything approaching modern civilization. This idea grows less radical by the year. Omaha, Lincoln, and other mid-sized cities on the edge of the prairie should be o.k., though they will take on the same weird vibe as a generic desert suburb popping up in the Nevada badlands. We're already half-way there.

Paul Krugman's bullshit detector is nearly as strong as mine

I can't link to a TimesSelect article without sicking the suede denim secret police on myself. But if you have a Select subscription, I highly recommend that you read what the last liberal economist has to say about "some democrats". I have nothing clever to say about it, I spent five hours on an assignment that was given today and is due tomarrow. Just an Old Style or Two and some tenticle porn and than it's off to bed.

World Cup Summary

The Czech Republic has proven itself to be the greatest nation on Earth. We have no choice but to surrender to superior beer and horrifying absurdist literature.

World Cup Post (Why the Hell not?)

Team U.S.A. plays the Czech Republic; one of my ancestral motherlands, tomarrow. I predict a tie. You can do that in soccer. Isn't that cool? The purpose of this post, such as it is, is to discuss changing cultural attitudes about the game.
Soccer's place in mainstram American society has improves from hostility to indifference. However, there are still right-wing radio and internet trolls who still think that soccer is a game played by dirty foreigners. They reason that since soccer is not genericly American, it must be anti-American. I have even seen some internet posters say that soccer is a sport for sissies, even "gay". complete with hilarious pictures of crotch-holding and de-pants footballers. On the other hand, we Americans (or the portion of Americans who are real Americans) watch real games played by real men.
There are some smart-ass hippie types who claim that simply admiring another man's manhood is gay. Certainly not. I pay a hundred dollars to watch strong young black man pound each other in pursuit of domination and bond with their equally manly teamates on the field. What could be less gay than that? All those queers and long-haired foreign wakos out there just need to watch a lonn, hard-fought, sweaty American football game to understand what real fucking manhood is about.

Notes From the Celebrate Lincoln Festival

1. I regret to inform you that I sold out to the man. I bought two cups of three dollar, "International" beer. The selection offered by the "International" booth was made up mostly of Guiness, Warsteiner, Red Stripe, and other brands that our widely available in any college-town bar. But what could i do? The organisers had siged a usery contract with beer and soft drink companies, so outside drinks wern't allowed. It was beastly hot, and not having some form of alcohol was unthinkable because
2. Electric soul method is the best band in town. Thsy happan to be an all-white funk band, not there's anything wrong with that. At any rate, the vocalist/sax player looks like Mickey Rourke; which gives them a faint air of dirtiness.
3. This is supposed to be a "multicutural" festival (try baklava with chopsticks.) However, the workers who manned the African, South Asian, and Hawaiian booths were clearly Anglo-Saxon.
4. Native/Indians refered to themselves as "Natives" and to their food as "Indian Tacos". Native Americans did not invent the taco. Nor did they invent sour cream and shredded cheese.
5. Why were there fucking ponies? This isn't the state fair. There is no excuse for having a pile of horse shit right in the middle of downtown. Just imagine the disgrace if Dysentery breaks out in an American city.
6. All in all, no where near as lame as North Platte's Nebraskaland Days

Walker Tire Ad: Page 13, Lincoln Journal Star

Arab Stereotype # 1. (Riding camel with sunglasses-ho ho) We've got the whole world mad at us about our oil prices Arab Stereotype # 2: Except Walker Tire customers-They get free Oil Changes for the Life of their tires!

Wow, the layers of ignorance are incredible. First of all, Lincoln has the biggest middle eastern immigrant community in the state, and they have cars to. Smooth move Walker Tire. Second of all-it's not the fucking oil changes that have me eating raman. Third, their are a variety of reasons for the uptick in oil prices; supply and demand being the biggest one. OPEC has a monopoly because we Americans have accepted years of auto industry propaganda that taught us that spending billions on roads and securing oil supplies was . American and Capitalist, while riding bikes or solor cars was for hippies and homos. Finally, racist imagery can do so much better...

Alleluia he is risen

Happy 6/6/6

Summer School rulez

My Journalism 204 class is being taught by (shudder) a T.V. anchor, but he's tolerable enough. And I like the idea of doing a news story in lue of a final exam. I'm thinking of doing something about the history of my neighborhood (T-Town) or general poverty in Lincoln; I could interview myself. Than again, if anyone out there has a grandad who fucked Hitler, let me know.

I go on long walks for exercise

Today I walked on 14th from campus to Van Dorn and back. I highly recommend this activity. One can get a very good look at the different faces of Lincoln this way. Downtown, the ghetto (The rather mild Nebraska version, at least.), from G to South, and than the old "rich neighborhood" from South to Highway 2. This strech is mostly older, upper-middle class people now. I do believe I saw a street prostitute at around Washington Street, but don't quote me here. In other news, I am still hung over 18 hours after my last drink.

Facing damnation like a man

Some seek connection to mainstream society through religion. This is simply not an option for me, so I choose baseball. This is probably why I can sense the smell of doom permiating Lincoln better than most.

You see, this year's U.N.L. baseball team was supposed to be the chosen one. They started off even better then last year's best-ever team. They swept an Alabama team that won the S.E.C. ; American college baseball's equivalent to La Liga. But woe, at the end of the season, they started to sputter.

Now they have lost the first game ot their own regional tournament. True, the tournament is technically double-elimination. So all we have to do is win four consecutive games in three days and we'll be just fine. Of course, we only have three good unused pitchers left. So that even if everything does go to plan we will probably have to start Joba Chamberlin on two days rest in the last game. Sure, this has been done before; back in the Monty Python handlebar mustache days when 100-pound 30-year-old men would strike out on 70 m.p.h. fastballs.

Now is the time that tries mens souls. I am a Democrat, and no stranger to defeat. I shall accept whatever random fate the universe spits out. But it is sad that, on the one occasion when I ally myself with the jock class, that they choose to fail me. Than again, if we do manage to win four games in three days, please disregard the previous statement.

Xenophobes have a Strange View Of Reality

Letter To The Lincoln Journal-Star: May 30, 2006

I read with interest Justin Firestone's letter' "The color of Immigrants" (LJS, May 25) I have no objection to "dark-skinned Spanish-speaking choizo bearers" legally entering the United States.
I do object to "dark-skinned Spanish-speaking members of the MS-13 gang bearing crystal meth,heroin, terrorism, and possibly the avian flu" entering this country illegally.

Well, let's do this point by point. First of all, the MS-13 gang is a street gang, period. Good? No. Worse than your friendly local chapter of the Crips? No. They actually formed in L.A, as a confederation of Salvadorian immigrants (both legal and illegal, it doesn't matter on the street) who organized for the purpose of defending themselves on L.A.'s famously balkanized streets. It was only a matter of time before they started pimping and dealing crank; California is a bastion of free enterprise. The only reason why there are MS-13 members doing the Logan's Run accross the Arizona desert is because some uninvited immigrant members of the Salvadorian gang have been caught and sent back to El Salvador; where they then recruted members who proceeded to head north. May the circle be unbroken. There have been some rumors that the gang is affiliated with Al-Quida. (Which explains the terrorism charge in the letter) There is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. There are those who believe that every man, woman, and child who does not live between the Rockies and the Mississipi is a terrorist. Some of these people buy their crystal-meth from MS-13. May the circle be unbroken.

It is true that there is a large amount of crystal passing through Yuma as we speak. Why is this the case? Is there a secret conspiracy to polute our white women so badly that they are left incapable of producing future Huskers? Well, no. If you are old enough to read this, you will remember the that the methamphetamine "epidemic" started about ten years ago.

The truth of the matter is that there was no sudden explosion in meth-addicts in the mid nineties. There have always been tweakers digging through your trash. Meth is as Nebraskan as a cheeseburger and Old Style on a summer night. But Sheriff Departments and Highway Patrols needed something to justify their funding; and marijauna just wasn't scary enough any more. And so we saw the stories of teenagers being corrupted and horrifying pictures of girls-next doors smoking themselves into mummies. Sure enough, the police got their money, and their swat/sort/go teams proceeded to scour the hills for meth-labs.

To their credit, the police did shut down a large percentage of the meth-labs in the midwest. But of course the market was still there, and foreign entrepreneurs were happy to fill the niche.
I share the letter-writer's concern on this matter. It's the biggest national disgrace since the rise of the Japanese auto industry. But the solution is not to wall off the border. For God's sake man; are you some sort of anti-trade communist? We can revive local meth production by reducing regulations and cutting funding to government bureaucracy. The State Patrol in this case.

As for the bird-flu concern, I'm not even going to joke. This is naked racism. Unless you live under the reverse-P.C. logic that there is no such thing as racism, than what other explanation could there be? The writer is openly stating that foreigners are "dirtier" than real Americans. True, those in the third world do not have the luxury of a daily shower. But let's not kid ourselves. On the biological level, this doesn't mean much. Humans who live in the heart of civilization are just as filthy as every other living thing. We are nothing but jungles for parasites.. with blogs. As a matter of fact, we are more likely to spread the bird-flu to Latin America than vice- versa. Either because of a bird migrating from Siberia to Alaska, or a sick soldier coming home from the Mid-East, or a jet-setting continental catching the bug in Paris and bringing it to New York.

In closing, let me suggest that if you have a problem with our immigration policy, you will have to do better than to sight some obscure right-wing mindfear trick. Otherwise losers like me will spend the early hours of the morning picking your letter apart.

Too Short For Buttsex/Manufactured outrage, nihilism, and servitude

I'm sure you have all heard by now about the Sidney child molestor who was granted mercy by a local judge. First of all, I should state my belief that his sentence was too leniant and that Attorney General Bruning's appeal of the sentence is justified. Now let's get to what is really important.

Is it possible to suggest that there is fanaticism involved with the current anti-child molester pusch without being accused of being pro-child molestor? Let's be honest. There is a high degree of possibility that you accuse me of being such simply because I made the suggestion.

Consider the fact that the petite pervert's crimes our being highlighted on Fox News and its website. The earthquake in Indonesia that killed thousands was not. Consider the fact that a North Carolina woman felt the need to write a letter to today's Journal Star in order to lecture us over our lack of opposition to prepubesant penetration. I can only hope that she has no personal obligations; that she has devoted at least as much concern to her own state and local governments as to the misguided altruism of one of our judges. Consider the numorous letters to the editor about the increases rates of child molestation, when in fact the levels of reported child rape are decreasing. We are only more likely to hear about the incidents that do happen.
Have we reached a point where we are not allowed to suggest that the "natural" death of an adult is worse than the rape of a child? have we built a society that is so shallow and nihilistic, so concerned with being hard, that it can only express its love for good indirectly through its hatred of evil? There are hundreds of wrongful convictions and wrongful aquitals. At least they (presumably) got the verdict right in this case.
Do not live under the delusion that human criminals are the only disruption to an otherwise just universe. The world is absurd. "Justice" is a human abstraction that nature refuses to recognize. Whether one is a good or bad person has little or nothing to do with whether or not one will live a pleasent life. Cancer, AIDS, living to be 110 after you have seen everyone you've ever known leave before you. All of these ends are worse than anything Ted Bundy could do to you. Our fixation with human-caused suffering is childish and naive. I believe in good and evil people. But I despise the notion that the conflict between good and evil is fundamentally important to the universe.
But I am just a poor student that nobody listens to. So we will continue to pass residency restrictions that do nothing for either child safety or public safety in general. We will justify them by proudly stating our indiffrence to a molestor's comfort; whether or not anybody actually brought this up. We will pry into our neighbors personal histories and freely offer our own histories to them. We will gladly increase state power, and embrace authority for our protection. All this to advance the comforting lie that the world's suffering is contained solely in persons of flesh and bone who can be controlled.

Hail To The Gods

I am the priest of the Nebraska state penis. It is I who have summoned the rain. With my secret incantations I have commanded Flatwater's granite manhood to thrust itself into the air and pleasure mother Sky to orgasm. The great thunder god Ernie Chambers stared down from his throne at the peak of the Woodman Tower and declared that it was good.

What Memorial Day means

Remember kids, Memorial Day is not chance too say "thank you to our men and women in uniform" unless they're dead. One can not"memorializa" those who are not dead. So if you or someone you know has a loved one in the military, and he/she is still alive, don't worry about it. It's not their holiday. Also bear in mind that the troops are not fighting and dying for
The Indianapolis 500
Our "way of life"
Baseball
Jesus
etc.

Holiday in the hometown

I've been in North Platte since Thursday, and plan to head back on Monday. I met an old friend who offered to take me camping yesterday, but I didn't come all the way here just to be away from the family all weekend, plus I rode hera in my sister's car.
Lasr night was truely bizarre, I started by litearlly wondering around town aimlessly. I went to the bar that my friend used to run and learned that it had closed down within weeks of losing his mastery in alcohol services. After this, I went to a place called the den at the town's major intersection. There I saw an old classmate tending bar on his first night there. three I also discovered that my long-lost ex-girlfriend also worked there. Five or six more old friends and schoolmates showed up within three hours. It was surreal. Since I left the sticks, I have fallen out of the habit of expecting to meet someone I know whenever I go out in public. One cannot know how much of a circle jerk a small town really is unless one has experienced it. Another interesting thing is the timelessness of North Platte. The place never changes, the people never change. This is both comforting and quite sad.

A Brief History of Tag, Chapter 2: The Will to Power

And it came to pass that the father figures gained empires, and tribes grew into nations. The greatest of these was Egypt, where the "father" was called Pharoh, who openly claimed to be a God. But this "God" lived in fear of a society of even more powerful men.
Thousands of years before the first Pharoh dared to crown himself, the land now called Egypt was nothing but an extension of the surrounding wasteland. There was no river Nile, and nothing alive larger than a dust mite. But all primitive folk who than lived recorded in their own way the huge flash of light and cosmic boom that shook the whole world. It was a great spaceship, piloted by a group of nihilistic space dadiasts from Andromada. Their intent was to enslave the primative inhabitants of Earth and force them to carve a great river in the middle of the desert. They believed that this ultimate absurdity would shock Andromada out of its false consciousness.
But lo, the kings and priests of the world were trapped in their own propaganda. They rebelled against the aliens commands, and doomed their subjects to one surrealistic massacre after another. Great Ur was showered with flaming sides of beef named Rufus. The children of Babylon were forced to dress as priest while they dug their own graves with phallic red lobsters. In this manner the whole of the human race was endangered.
Had the space invaders never come upon those of the tag,(It would, of course, be many centuries before they named themselves thus) than our sorry history would be a story of pathetic death instead of pathetic survival. But the gallatic aliens were impressed with our indifference to the foolish power structures of society. A conference was held between the aliens and the proto-awesome and the taggers were impressed by the artistic merit of the proposed Nile River.
I tell you truly, my comarades, that we dug the great Nile with our bare hands, and accepted the beatings of our alien masters with pleasure. Through a hundred years and five generations did we labor, and when we were done, so were we rewarded.
People were brought to live on the newly fertile ground, and they were given an overlord to make them feel comfortable. This overlord came to be called "Pharoh" and some grew to be quite arrogant. But only a doomed handful dared to challange the power of the Egyption priests. These priests, as you may have already guessed, were in fact the elders and leaders of the Tag, which was starting to take its modern shape. You may have also guessed that the "gods" these prists prayed to were nothing but the alien art-school dropouts who mandated the creation of Egypt. Any Pharoh who dared to challenge this alliance faced a death thatwas both horrible and absurd.
There are those who belieed that the Egyptian pristhood died out with the rise of Christianity. This is a half-truth.....

Suggestions

I am stuck in the process of trying to think up the next chapter of a History of Tag. I'm still thinking Egypt. So far I've researched aliens building the pyramids Sex among Egyption Gods, the Freemasons, and the Hyskos. Any suggestions for how to put it all toghether?

Logical Argument Uber Alles

Terrence Reis wrote a column to the Journal-Star today disputing Police Chief Tom Cassady's opposition to concealed weapons. Lets just do a quick summary of statements that would get Mr. Reiss a failing grade in any High School Philosophy or Rheteroric class.

" Let's face it: Mayor Seng can help our chief get things for his department and officers, or not. Concerning the survey performed by one of Casady's officers, I believe these results are flawed. It has been found that surveys to law enforcement personel are biased. Why? Possible retribution.

Here we have a combination of strawman and circular reasoning. Reis begins by demurring with what he believes to be Casady's secret motivation instead of what he actually wrote. As for circular reasoning, this is more or less what Reis is saying
'Police don't want you to have concealed guns, therefore they slant their polls so that you don't know they really want you to have concealed guns."

"He also mentions that handguns get turned on their owners and that accidents and mistakes do happen. In the chief's line of thinking, than, we should no longer allow people to get driver's licenses. Driving should be banned, cars kill people."

I can see whether or not you are currently driving a car. I can also see whether or not a given driver appears enranged, insane, drunk, or some combination of all three. This is also the first of several times in the article where Reis argues as if carrying a concealed gun is the only possible means of carrying a gun.

"Who will be applying for concealed carry permits? According to records of other states that allow concealed carry, your typical red-blooded American, both men and women. From doctors and lawyers to teachers and business owners to ..."

In logic, that which is "normal" is irrelevant. I am not personally a "red-blooded American" and neither is anyone else in my neighborhood. I have less trust for red-blooded Americans than I do for any other class of people.

" You cannot depend on the police to protect you. Unless they live in your house, share your bed or socialize with you 100 percent of the time. It is impossible for them to do so"

True enough, one would do well to have some means to defend oneself. However, what we have here is what is known as 'begging the question'. Reiss argues as if there is no question that a concealed gun is the only, or at least the best, means of self-defense. I would like to offer the following list of alternatives, all of which are, in my opinion, superior means of self-protection.
1.An unconcealed gun
2. An unconcealed knife
3. A chainsaw (Don't even bother trying to hide it.)
4. Bottle Rockets
5. A brick
6. A shoe
7. Empty 40 oz.
8. Everclear to the face.
9. Mason jar full of semen.
10. Shitzou to the face
11. Electric bass guitar
12. Your bare fists you fucking pussy

"Another example of their inability to protect you is the countless numbers of women with court-issued restraining orders killed every year throughout the country by stalkers , ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends. Simply put, you are on your own. We all are."
Once again, this is true enough. It is also true that these attacks often occur in the victim's home, where the question of allowing concealed weapons in public doesn't apply. Otherwise, see the list above. By the way, conjuring images of damsels in distress to make your point is the classiest thing I've read all week. The last three paragraphs are nothing but an endless blur of fallacy.
I think the greatest disappointment to me in the chief's remarks is that generally a paints a picture of the average citizen of Lincoln an an idiot, incapible and reckless. It is easy for the chief and law officers to say no to concealed carry, Since most carry off duty. they have the means to protect themselves and those they love, which they want to deny you and your family. They are safe because they have their weapons. They don't want you to have the same safe feeling you enjoy."
Let's deal with the most obvious bullshit first. "It is easy for the chief and law officers to say no to concealed carry, since most carry off duty." Notice that when Reis states that "most carry off duty" he doesn't mention anything about concealed carry. Yes, that's right, it's possible to carry a gun without hiding it. Reis wrote as much himself without somehow realizing it. There is also a more subtle fallacy, "They are safe because they have their weapons" Even if a gun made one invulnerable to crime (which is not remotely true) there is still the fact that human criminals are only one possible cause of death out of thousands, and there is no reason to fear a madman more than a virus. There are those who think that being murdered by a human is worse than dying "naturally" because of some perceived insult or dishonor. I do not hold this view. Murdured at 20, cancer at 50, it's the same thing.

Yes, I am disapointed in the chief, because he seems to think his family has more value than yours or mine is worth protecting. Your family and mine are not as valuble, and you and I should not be able to protect them.

Well, wouldn't you know it? It's the strawman/ad hominem combo! Let's just make another quick list of whats wrong with this paragraph so I can get out of here before the liquor store closes.
1. Onceafuckinggain Reis argues as if a concealed gun is the only possible means of self-defense. This time he brings the family along to make us feel emasculated. I thought we were all on our own.
2. Chief Cassady is presented as secretly knowing that he is wrong and knowing that a concealed gun is the only possible means of self-defense. Therefore he must think his family is superior to yours.
asshole(Noun)- One who believes that he/she is so obviously right that no one could possibly disagree with him/her without having a secret evil motivation for doing so.

"In closing, I am more disapointed and inclined not to like Mayor Seng who thinks that she is more intelligent and knows more then all the legeslators combined who passed this law."

In honor of this statement, I will offer my rebutal in a single run-sentence.
Well I don't know, she did notice a loophole in the law which the Unicameral apparantly did not, allowing her to exercise her perogative as mayor, and what's with this sudden appeal to authority after spending a hundred words slandering the police, the basic argument, of course, is total bullshit; "my favorite color is black" "Well mine is blue" "Why do you think you're better than me?"

My car is a little funny

There seems to be some sort of electrical glitch in my vintage Oldsmobile. The radio is always automatically tuned to either the country music station or A.M. 1400, the local Nazi station. I can not tolerate either for more than 30 seconds. Yet I can't help but here some--interesting arguments from the likes of Limbaugh and Savage in the time it takes me to put on my sunglasses and change the station to KZUM. Just an hour ago I heard some peckerhead railing against his own imaginary strawman of liberal hypocrisy. It seems that the same ones who were "having nighmares,warning against, complaining, screaming about Passion of the Christ" are the same ones who have no problem with the Da'Vinci Code.
Jesus fuck, where do I even begin? Let's just do a list for the sake of keeping it light and humourous.

1. If "The Da'Vinci Code" was nothing but a naked man being beaten to death for three hours, I'm sure there would be complaints.
2. "Da'Vinci" is nothing but a (very) dumbed down regurgitation of old Gnostic teachings. The book and movie combined have about 1/10th the intelligence of Nietzsche's grade school poetry. If he couldn't bring down Christianity, it's hard to imagine that Tom Hanks can.
3. You sir, are such an obvious Pharasee that Jesus himself wouldn't even bother telling you so. "Passion" has heavily marketed and distributed by the Hollywood machine. It was a huge hit that made a trillion dollars. Some people complained, deal with it. People complain about the Zubruder film too. You're mad because there are non-Christians who refuse to accept their inferiority. If one does not accept the "message" of "Passion", than how could they possibly enjoy it? I can watch zombie porn for my sick amusement.
4. The whole moral panic over 'The Da'Vinci Code" is rooted in the same fallacy. Self- appointed defenders of Christianity(I know you're not all crazy, and Jesus was a cool guy) act under the assumption that non-Christians secretly know they're wrong. Therefore this pre-packaged, psuedo- revisionist fluff must be part of the grand anti-Christian conspiracy.
5. The ideas presented in the film have long ago been succesfully refuted by the Catholic Church in healthy genocidal debate.
6. Haven't you ever heard the story about the boy who cried "secular agenda"? The "mainstream" that you claim to represent is starting to catch on to your bullshit.
7. You have missed a golden opportunity to form an alliance with snobs like me against shitty movies. But no, you had to go and piss us off with the same old trash.

P.S. Speaking of revisionist history, I,m thinking up ideas for the next chapter of "Brief history of Tag" I'm thinking biblical, like the Joseph saga or Exodus. I'v been doing "research" on the internet that has led me to watching old "Beavis and Butthead" shows. This is what I do when my ideas are overly vague.

For the ladies

A woman who wears bright red reminds men (and/or lesbians) of clean, aroused vagina. A woman who wears black reminds men (ditto) of something more mysterious and sinister. (read: buttsex) Which message do you want to send to potential mates while you sip your Bud Light?

Anti-Poverty demonstration

I am going to steal a roll of toilet paper from the next public restroom that doesn't have one of those big plastic lock-up thingies. I am no scofflaw, mind you, this is simply a protest against a society that naively blames the poor for their own suffering. I will leave my mark in the brilliant disguise of a truckstop gigilo leaving his phone number. Fuck you if you don't appreciate my art.

The Fine Line Between Patriotism and Narcisism

The U.S. Senate has passed a meaningless bill that defines English as "the national language" and another that defines it as "the common language". Neither bill went so far as to make English the "official" language and subject us all to Quebec-style absurdity; but this was clearly an attempt to appease the nativists who will settle for nothing less.
I don't object to having a single language of public business. But I am getting very tired of those who fret over the "Balkanization of America." This is such a shitty metaphor that I don't even know where to begin. The Balkan nations are mostly tribes with flags, as are most countries throughout history. We are an empire; we absorb different nations. The U.S. is not multicultural because of some p.c. socialist conspiracy, but because hundreds of millions of different people tend to be--different.

Let me address the small-town conservatives who are my old friends and neighbors. You have been taught your whole lives that your small-town lifestyle is America incarnate. No need to burst your bubbles on that just yet. You learned your first words in English, first said "momma" in English, celebrated the fourth of July in exactly the same way with everybody in town every year, and traded the same dirty-blond girlfriends around until you married the one you happened to be with at age 20. What does it all mean? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Deep down, you have always known this. Has your uniform culture really brought any peace to your life? The tweakers next door have a Dale Earnheardt flag too; but they're still stealing your hubcaps every Friday night. Your cousin likes country music too; but he still killed that Indian who looked at his girlfriend in the bar.
Conservatives should be the ones who realize that society is held together by self-interest; not by sentimental attachments brought about by common language and ritual. Society was much more uniform in 1861. Northerners and southerners both spoke English and prayed to the same Christian God. This did not stop them from blowing the shit out of each other when they thought it would be in their self-interest to do so.
Common belief does nothing to ensure the peace. Common culture does nothing to ensure the peace. Common language does nothing to ensure the peace. Even if any of this were the case, it is not a proper state concern to enforce something as liquid and abstract as culture. The recent influx of Latin immigrants just may be the final dagger in the heart to those who have spent 250 years trying to turn the U.S. into Great Britain the sequel. If this proves to be the case, than praise zombie Jesus and viva la Raza.

Madame Drunkunhonky

I will give ten dollars to anyone who can prove that she is either still alive or that she died in an entertaining manner

Stop comparing Bush to Hitler

He's more of a Bonapartist-populist dictatorship. He seeks to protect the common people from elitist complication of life's predetermined purpose. The people should be made to rally behind a strong leader who brings them glory through military victory. Those who question the purpose of his actions are unacceptable. Whether or not they are patriots who are acting in what they believe to be the nation's best interest is irrelevant. Authoritarian government is necessary, and some form of "victory" is nessessary to give the common people release and allow them to accept their place. Critical thought is allowed only if it is used to justify the leader's actions. Those who expect Republican rule to lead to a big crash are mistaken. You should be looking for the sort of slow decay that could be found in Franco's Spain or Peron's Argentina. These signs are so abundant that one hardly needs to look for them, you can start by examining the inner "city" decay right here in Lincoln.

A friendly reminder from a learned elder

There is a sizeable socialist minority in this country that believes in a strange concept they call a "right to privacy" that applies to proper state concerns like phone calls and sex. Many young users of Myspace and Facebook claim to believe in this treacherous idea. It is very strange than, that they choose to expose every aspect of their being, and even incriminate themselves, for the sake of looking cool on the internet. I would like to advise these misguided children that the internet is a public space. One who desires to post information online should do so under the assumption that everything that one ever has or ever will put on the internet will always be on the internet, especially if one is an attractive young woman who wishes to show her natural assets.
This is especially true when it comes to Facebook. What form of madness is it that inspires minors to show themselves drinking on school property? I assure you that your love of Old Style is by no means distinctive. This is not High School. The College crowd has developed inumerable, contidictary, and rigid standards of coolness that can not be changed by anything you put in a public forum. Your friends will think that you are the greatest person to ever live, everyone else will always think that you are an ignorant jock and/or elitest pussy.
As a 25 year old, 2000 high school graduate, I managed to escape the culture of full disclosure just as it started to catch on. Now that I have re-entered youth culture through my return to college, I am truly disgusted by the sight of a generation of sitting ducks; woefully unprepared for a century that is only going to get even more wicked and oppresive as it progresses.

A Brief History of Tag Chapter 1: A Pre-history of Tag

Sigmund Frued believed that religion got it's start in a violent oedipal incident long before the dawn of true civilization. Humans were organized into tribal packs in this age, each commanded by a "father" who gained his position thru his prowess in hunting and fighting enemies. he did not neccesarrily need to be the actual father of the subserviant males. But since he naturally had his pick of the females of the tribe, he often was. Hatred and envy towards his power and access to the sexual favors of "mother" was universal, but oppressed by nearly every tribe.
But it was inevitible that one tribe would make the decision to surrender to its collective id. Frued theorizes that one tribe rebelled against the "father", killing and than ritualistically eating him. Over time, they came to feel profound guilt for what they had done. So they built the first totom pole to symbolize their victim, who was now a "heavenly father." The pole served as a warning to never give in to "evil nature" again. Evolution took over, and over time their came to be officials who presided over the totom rituals, what we would call priests. New father figures, giving themselves gradually more elaborate titles like chief and king, had to make at least a show of fealty to the "heavenly father."
Fraud's theory has created a storm of controversy. It has been called arrogant, perverse, blasphamous. But I can tell you for a fact that it is true; or rather, half true. The learned doctor only came up with half of the puzzle. There was, you see, another incident with another primitive tribe. This group of underlings was strangly unconcerned with the dominance of the "father". They were entirely too preoccupied with each other for that. They spent their days indifferent to their supposedly undeniable instincts, choosing instead to chase each other about the prehistoric grasslands. The game they played was not quite the tag that we know of today. But this is not important. Simply know that the aincents produced a society that was quite unconcerned with the priests and chieftens pseudo-evolutionary, homoerotic obssession with dominance and "victory". The ability of this society to see the real truth would eventually lead their descendents to power beyond the human imagination.....

Mr. Heartland's keys to success

1. Question the heterosexuality of every Republican male; and to a lesser extent, every man other than yourself.
2. Drink unhealthy amounts of top-shelf liquor that you can't afford.
3. Spend hours thinking up and writing elaborate group in-jokes without any possible commercial value.
4. Retrofit a university major on top of a random portfolio of community college courses.
5. Attach the broken remnants of your youthful idealism to hopeless causes such as the Chicago Cubs and the Democratic party.
6. Break up with girlfriend because she talks too much and don't get laid for six months. (Yes it was worth it, she honestly believed she had a right to inform me of every conscious thought she had. The cell-phone bills were going to land me on the street.)
7. Make pathetic attempt to make incoherent rant look organized by putting it in list form while trying to organize structure of next elaborate in-joke.

I am an hopeless, underemployed, nerd.

I went to the Hergert impeachment trial today. It reminded me of the first half of "My Cousin Vinny". The defense apparently planned to put the whole damn system on trial and paint the impeachment as a dark conspiracy against rich Republicans from out west. The Chief Justice handed the lead defense lawyer his rhetorical ass by sustaining objection after objection to his blotter logic. The defense's request for a recess until Monday in order to present three witnesses in precise, Perry Mason order further confirmed their raving lunacy. I was shocked that the court granted their motion. Guess that means I'll have to look for work tomarrow.

P.S.
Ernie Chambers never said a word while I was there and was still mesmorizing.

Mr Heartland Auditions for The Onion

Heineman shows Power of Incumbancy, Race-Bating
Osbourne refers to life in past tense, other guy crawls into hole somewhere and masturbates to Ayn Rand

Ricketts Wins Nomination
Presumeably functional adults actually influenced by television ads.


Lincoln Parks Bond Rejected
Operation "West Omaha the sequel" enters third phase

Hergert Fails to Remember any Conscious Action of Past 3 Years

Report: CIA Officials "Demoralized" Over Diminished Role in Crypto-Fascist Empire

Sorry I've been out/ I have a cold

I'm a bit of a fallacy nazi, so I'm not going to poison the well by telling you that James Dobson advocates fathers showering with their toddler sons so as to compare penii. Dobson sees this as a way to impress a masculine identity upon the child and prevent gayness. I am not kidding, look it up yourself.
In all seriousness, I have received a Focus on the Family newsletter meantfor the previous tenant of my apartment. In this letter Dobson seeks to defend himself from a "radical leftist" organization known as Defcon. (Defend the Constitution), that ran ads in major national papers and on television that refered to the connection between Dobson, Ralph Reed, and Tony Perkins with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The ad was based on reporting done by Sidney Blumenthal of the Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/blumenthal) that makes these great defenders of Anglo-Saxon Jesus out to be either stooges of casino interests and/or willing corrupt partners. Apparently, Abramoff convinced Reed to enlist other figures of the Christian Right in a family values campaign against proposed casinos in Louisiana, which just would have happened to be direct competeters of Abramoff's reserVegas clients in Mississippi.
In fairness, it should be pointed out that Abramoff and Reed are, for the moment, the only two figures in this who look really, really, guilty. It may be that Dobson is just an idiot who didn't know what was going on. When one considers how shrewdly he has made himself a grandfatherly, protective figure, however, diving headfirst into political division while portraying himself as above politics (he just wants to protect the kids from teh gay) it's hard to imagine that he would let himself be pimped out so savagely.
Which brings us to the newsletter sitting beside me. Not once in it's 9 pages does Dobson even pretend to appeal to reason, he simply portrays himself as grandad, using phrases like "how is that for viciousness from the far end of the universe". He's protecting your family, you see, therefore anyone who has a problem with his organization is against family and for sacrificing your virgin children to long, black, phallic maypoles. He does not need to prove anything. He represents a universal standard of decency that can only be accepted or rejected. Any attempt to call him out on his B.S. is really a secret pagan assault on this universal decency.
You can visit Defcon's website yourself. You will find no calls for peasent land seizure or reeducation of the capitalists. You will find several quotes from christian-right figures tha make them look like batshit-loco fascists. Bill O'reilly apparently came to Dobson's defense, berating the "liberal media" and the ultra powerful secularists that secretly control the country. The news letter gives Bill a shout-out right after it points out that the attack ads were printed in the "liberal" New York Times, L.A. Times, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
It's not until page 4 that the newsletter gets really good. Dobson mentions that Defcon gets much of its money from groups in-wait for it-San Francisco, and additional funding from-duh duh-duh-duh- George Soros. That's right, Satan. Geroge Soros may have done far more than either Reagan or the latest addition to Dead-Pope-Storage to liberate the Soviet Bloc. But he's an athiest!! He wants to legalize the refer!! Any money that comes from him is so very, very filthy. The letter than provides the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of DefCon officials. Read that again, the man who pops up on many small town-tv stations to give friendly, down-home advice on child rearing spends four pages painting these people as political enemies and than prints their contact information so that concerned Christians may harass and intimidate them without having having to leave North Platte.
After this, the letter just drifts into bizarro land. It's like a Shakesperian tragedy where the climax is in the middle and everything that comes after is just the downward spiral. Dobson points out the real reason why the pagan-socialists are out to get him. We want to remove a fearless defender of the family in order to force gay, multiple, and dog/cat marriges upon the country. Dobson than gives the old "activist judges legeslating from the bench" that you can hear on Sean Hannity right now. The "activist judges" argument, of course, is pseudo-populist bullshit meant to disguise the fact that judges are only reacting to complaints from citizens who claim that their peaceful actions are being unfairly restricted. But never mind. Everyone knows that rights are reserved for real Americans. The ones who go to church, get married straight out of college, have six kids, cry at Extreme Home Makeover, and tremble in fear of dark-skinned criminals while eating their triple cheese whoppers. Those who divert from this path claim to be making a "choice" but everybody knows we're really insulting you by not being just like you. Real Americans are entitled to restrict the movements of deviants. This is what "activist judge" is code for.
Sorry if it seems I went off subject, but I didn't. Dobson goes on and on about gay marraige for the entire second half of the letter. The "p.s." of the letter is another comedy classic. Dobson refers to a Cal-Berkley study that found that "whiney toddlers" grew up to be conservative while well-behaved toddlers grew up to be liberals. This should come as no surprise to anyone who observes the voting patterns of whiney adults. (Maybe they had to shower with their dads)Keeping to form, Dobson makes no attempt to tell us why this just has to be wrong. After all, it makes conservatives look bad, and it comes from professors at Berkeley. In the name of karma, let me close by taking Dobson's last line out of context.
"Don't believe everything they try to feed us. It just might be baloney."

Semester over

My official celebration will be at the Killigan's show tomarrow night. (Cinco De Mayo is a great Irish holiday) I do believe I'll do some drinking tonight, even though the "thirsty Thursday" crowd does tend to be mostly insufferable douchebags.

Everything I can do I ought to do

My lunchtime fortune cookie has inspired me.

I ought to live to be 38,000
I ought to freeze the movement of the earth at exactly 15:45:36 G.M.T. on the autumnal equinox.
I ought to conquer Mongolia with nothing but the counsul of the re-animated corpse of Joseph Kennedy Sr.
I ought to bodily possess everyone involved in the battle of Stalingrad at the same time, and engage the different parts of my phyche in mortal combat, experiencing death and victory thousands of times at the same time.
I ought to time warp with my mind, brutally rape Shakespere throughout his childhood, and see how it affects his writing.
While travelling in said time warp, I ought to wipe out all of the origenal oxygen breathing bacteria so that earth is forever a mars-like wasteland.
I ought to completly re-arrange lesbian porn cliches into something coherent.
I ought to get back to work so I can catch some Jazz at the Zoo tonight.

Preview

I'm still recieving mail meant for the previous tenent in my apartment. He was a church going type, apparently, and he (I) recently received a Focus on the Family pamphlet in which Mr. james Dobson denies a connection to Jack Abramoff. His logically brilliant defense involves calling his accusers "liberal" and giving an irrelevant rant against gay marraige. I am much to busy with finals to compose what will be a long, scholarly post. Stay tuned for a comedy masterpiece sometime this week.

Everything is going exactly to plan

Mr. paul Clark is making a student documentry on tag, and I am being asked to present my essay on camera. Just think, it took Hitler years to find a mass market for Mein Kemph. You will accept our order on our terms, You will be assimilated.

Fuck Tom Osbourne

Brett Jenson for governor!

Ig'nant freshman critiques my tag essay

In the middle of another Saturday night watching some different girl drink herself asinine, a fellow named Dillion asked me, in total seriousness, what I was trying to say with my tag essay. I told him to think Marx meets Illuminati. He told me that he had never heard of the Illuminati, and boldly declared that communism would never work. He than said my essay was "mostly ostentatious bullshit" and told me "but I like things that make me think, you don't see that very often, good job man."

Do not condenscend to me when you're the one who can't recognize a joke you little shit. It was supposed to be ostantatious bullshit. Some subtle satire against Wall Street Journal readers, sure; but mostly it was meant to emphisize streettag's underground, anarchist cool by taking it to it's batshit extreme. This is how I have fun, kid. Take more philosophy and writing classes so maybe you can learn that not everything written in a serious voice is actually serious.
"Who's Jude Law? He's one of our finest actors."