"Tase him again, bro."

Yeah, I know I don’t usually post images with my musings. But darn it, this one is just too good. My beloved school has gained national notoriety this week, except this time it doesn’t involve large black men wearing orange and blue.

Nope, we’re notorious for using tasers on people who resist arrest – violently – at political speeches. For those of you who haven’t seen the video I’ve seen, here it is .

Oh crap. You know what this means now, right?

That’s right: I have to live with a bunch of ill-informed, blind hippie children fighting back against the system for a few weeks. The mere fact that the university police used this nondeadly force on a student, never mind the fact that he was using profanity during the speech and refused to be forcibly removed by running and elbowing officers, has the stupid half of this campus up in arms. I’m not saying it’s like a modern day Kent State or anything, but I just know that I’ll have to be refusing new flyers and rally information outside of Turlington Hall for a good while now. And that irks me.

Listen, I’m all for disliking the police (link and link). But I respect them. And if they tell me to do something, I do it. And so should everyone else. End of story.

I kind of want to get a taser in case I ever meet this stupid sack of crap. And tell all of your long-haired, Alligator-reading, Krishna-eating, uniformly biased friends to look out, too.

Edit September 20 8:00PM: Does this count as my being published? Probably not, but I’m going to pretend it does. I would like to thank the Academy…

Baby, you're a rich man

Wonderful news! Today, I officially qualified myself as a citizen when I received my first ever income tax return. I had to tax the little bit of cash I made this summer, but as a reward for taking a giant hunk of my money, Uncle Sam gave one third of it back!

That’s right, my friends, in my possession is a handy check signed by my regional disbursing officer in the amount of $50.34.

I’m now a man of means; now all I need is a girl on whom to spend it.

Healthy Criticism

Lately, I was conversing with my brother Ian, one of the few people in my life who bothers to challenge me with important and intellectual thought, and we noticed a phenomenon that sneaked up on the mindless sheep of American society seemingly overnight. You’d have to be blind to not see it, but at the same time, you’d have to be painstakingly cynical to let it bother you. Ladies and gentlemen, a cynic has entered the building.

Of course, it’s the sudden fad to put those silly little magnetic ribbons on the back of your car. I don’t intend to challenge the messages conveyed by such magnets, though I would like to point out that when you slap one of those babies on the back of your automobile, you look like a mindless dolt of a follower of pop culture. Furthermore, if you have more than one on your trunk, you look even sillier. But perhaps the most self-degrading aspect of these Liberty and Freedom Magnets is the fact that a good percentage of persons who dare to muck up their otherwise perfectly good cars by putting these absurd things on sideways. Honestly, how educated do you come off if you cannot simply align your ribbon correctly?

Sigh. Way to go, general public. Glad to know they gave you licenses.

And In the End

Congratulations to George W. Bush on his first successful presidential election.

Crass Commercialism

I’m sick and tired of it all. Note that this is not some melodramatic wane of teenage angst that is so common in blogging these days. What I’m upset about is being pummeled constantly for about a month every two years with political ads – on television, on the radio, and in print. It’s almost too much to bear. Tomorrow is the Republican Primary, where GOP candidates will be weeded out to make for probable Republican victory in November.

I don’t consider myself to be a Republican, but if I were, this guy would be my choice for Senate.

All the other commercials say pretty much the same thing:
“I am a conservative. President Bush likes me. I hate the terrorists. Don’t you? You don’t? Then you must be a terrorist. Here, you can absolve yourself by putting one of these nifty ‘God Bless America’ bumper stickers on your fender.”

But this fellow, he knows how to appeal to me aesthetically: Lawyers dropping into an endless watery abyss, his two major opponents in M&M form bouncing onto the screen, and a well made-up face to boot. (Listen closely when his opponents come onscreen and you can hear a squishy, bouncy noise. Brilliant!)

In closing, this Web site would like to officially support Doug Gallagher for one of Florida’s Senate seats in the Republican Primary election tomorrow. Now won’t that be print worthy on future ads?

He's always around

I work now so I can generously give a mandated portion to him.

I can’t take right hand turns into the left lane because he says so.

I can’t become a hairdresser without a license because he doesn’t want to trust me enough to snip his curly locks.

Crossing at places other than intersections? Not on his watch.

I have some freedoms, but I’m not going to receive them if I don’t have the necessary paperwork.

What’s worse, my voice means nothing to him; I can’t even vote for him.

He is The Man.

And from this point forward, it has been stuck to the aforementioned man.

State of the Union

Found this on the ibscrewed forum.

Confident and strong, indeed.

Nook-u-lur… Nook-le-ar… Nook-u-lur… Nook-le-ar…

Italian Il Giornale: Al Qaeda Threatens to Nuke New York on February 2… but don’t change any of your plans.

This message brought to you by an incessantly blathering group of fools that you apparently voted for.

You know it's a slow news day when…

Mad Cow Disease?! Oh no!

Wait, it’s okay.

Phew – That was close. Thanks for the useful story, Fox “News.”

Orange Juice is for the Terrorists

Oh no! The U.S. Department of Homeland Security raised the terror level from a light, soothing shade of burnt sienna to a dark, ominous atomic tangerine. I’m so scared, I think I’ll play it safe and completely alter my plans, staying in my house, sewing American flags and watching Fox News all day, being sure to collect my canned and nonperishable goods to eat once I have to go down into the bomb shelter so that I can survive the decades of nuclear winter that is sure to come from an “orange” warning. Oh wait, scratch that – My good old pal Tom Ridge wants me “to continue with [my] holiday plans.”

In that case, I guess I’ll go back to not caring.

In other news, I went to the Simon and Garfunkel concert last night, the last show of their tour. My thought process is that if they fight again, which they have been known to do in the past, they will hold back on touring for a while. And if this happens, it is entirely possible that one of them (hopefully Art Garfunkel) will die before they have the chance to make up again. Therefore, it is a possibility that I attended the last Simon and Garfunkel show that will ever be played. There’s a story for the grandkids. The Everly Brothers also made an appearance and sang four songs, bringing the tally to 4 (four) musical legends that I graced the companies of yesterday. While I could write a long review, I’m too lazy. Over at the land of obsessively weird people, someone already did.

Anywho, the reason I mentioned that is because of what happened to me on the way back to the car. As my brother and I exited the venue, there was a man (a hairy, strange man) standing offering pamphlets to the crowd as they passed. I walked close to him and he said, “Here, it’s free.” So I figured what the heck – I’ll take it. I took it and began to read it in the car:

On the front: “The Twelve Tribes Free Paper – From Every Nation, New Social Order”

At this point I assumed it was some sort of “Let’s join together and pursue world peace” or “Feed the starving children in Africa” jazz that you see on infomercials on cheap Cable at 2 in the morning. Oh great, just what I want to read.

I opened up the pamphlet and began to read:

About thirty years ago, our culture began from a few people with childlike hearts who left the popular culture of the world, walking away from their old lives. At that time it was mainly young single people, but soon there were families with children, and even grandparents. They started giving up their houses, farms, and businesses to become part of the new life that they had found. Something special and exciting was happening – an enlightenment, a revelation was permeating us. There was an assurance of being cared for, a conviction of something worth living for. This caused us to cast off fear and self-interest so we could live for each other.

I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but if you want to join this exciting new following, here’s all you have to do to join!

First, give up everything you own.
Second, give up any and all opinions or beliefs you may have.
Third, don’t forget to give all of your money to the master Yahshua. (See step one)
Fourth, don’t let your children go to public schools and experience the evils that lie within.
Fifth, adopt the cottage system as your only source of industry.
Sixth, suck on the teat of a goat and have somebody beat you for being so stupid.
Did I mention that thing about giving them all of your money? We wouldn’t want to forget that and let you corrupt yourself in this commune, would we?

They’re Amish. But not. They’re a religion. But not. They’re a cult. But not.

For a group of people not wanting to be corrupted by the evils of everyday society and the peer pressure of the modern (convenient) world, they sure do contradict everything they stand for by having a Web site.

People will do anything to stray away from their problems these days, including joining a religious following. I’m not saying that these people don’t love God any more or any less than I do, I am merely saying that maybe this “following” is a scheme for the founder of said “gathering” to gain some cash. In this dog-eat-dog world, I can’t blame him. As long as there are problems that weak people face, there will be people willing to thrive off of them. It sounds like a crock to me, but this “seven tribes” thing could be the start of a new religious upheaval that ultimately does the world some good.

Yeah, right.