Glenn Beck On Egypt

I don't normally take time to deal with the inanity of Glenn Beck. If his own rants aren't enough to send his little cult of personality running for the hills and screaming, then there's nothing I can do or say that will snap them out of their trance. Yes, I'll admit that I've been tuning in to his television show just to see what he might have to say about the Egypt crisis, and one thing was immediately apparent to me: Beck is no longer a news commentator. He's a preacher. And so long as he remains a preacher, he will remain insulated inside his little cult.

But I do have a brilliant juxtaposition to make regarding what he's been saying recently, and so I will make it here. Apparently, Beck is deathly afraid that the revolution in Egypt will result in the Muslim Brotherhood's takeover of that country. From there, he says, a new Caliphate will arise, which will spearhead the effort to make the entire world Muslim. He is therefore warning people about it ahead of time, tacitly, if not implicitly, making the case that Egypt might be better off with a dictator who keeps the Islamic agenda at bay rather than a democracy which Jihadists might be able to take over.

Okay, I can't say it's wrong to be concerned. There is a very real possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood might take over, this is true. It is also very true that Islam does have an agenda of spreading Islamic law everywhere. (Christianity has a similar agenda, known as the Great Commission, which may be less militant but which still wants the whole world under one religion.) So Glenn does have legitimate grounds for worry. We'd be naive to think the removal of a dictator doesn't carry the risk that a worse regime might arise.

That's simply no excuse for opposing a dictator's removal!

Dangerous as the removal of a dictator might be, and as fickle as a democracy may get when a majority of its population belongs to an intrusive religion, the march towards human freedom demands that we must seize the chance at obtaining freedom over fascism wherever we can get it. Yes, there's danger, but that pales in comparison to the danger of doing nothing.

And here's my main point: Beck would clearly rather a dictatorship be in place in Egypt to prevent religious extremism from taking over. Fine. But isn't this exactly the same argument which was used by liberals about why we shouldn't have invaded Iraq? Didn't they argue, back in 2003 and 2004, that it was better to have a secular dictator like Hussein in power rather than risk Wahabi extremists gaining a foothold? Indeed they did!

This is why political polarization is so terrifying in its power to consign what would otherwise be a brilliant mind to stupidity. Glenn Beck's position is essentially the same as the Liberal position of only a decade ago. And this indicates that he's no longer thinking in terms of political sides. He's not seeing things as either Left or Right. He's seeing them as "us" vs. "them." It's no longer about political positions so much as it is about wanting "his team" to win!

That, my friends, is one serious level of crazy.

Beck says that if we think he's crazy for his neo-Caliphate fears, that we can go to hell. Yeah, well, if I, for one, end up going there, it won't be by the order of that guy!

The belief that the Arab world is too religiously extreme and immature to handle democracy is prevalent in our culture. But this is a form of fascism, pure and simple. The difference between it and traditional fascism is that it believes the fascism is better for other people, and not us. But we've seen a transformation in Arab attitudes. Arabs look at a tiny nation like Albania ascending to democracy and feel utterly ashamed that such a tiny nation gets the right to vote, while their nations languish under the jack-boots of dictators. (This, from a recent Slate article by Christopher Hitchens.) Arabs have been festering with this shame for some time, letting the hunger for democracy grow ever more steadily with each passing generation. When tiny Tunisia fell to democracy, the Arabs inhabiting the land of one of the oldest and proudest civilizations in history finally decided that they'd had quite enough. They want freedom! I say, give it to them!

Yes, they might not be ready for it. But neither were we! Yes, some religious nuts want to seize control of their democracy to advance their world-conquest agenda. But that's true here, too! Hell, Glenn Beck is one of them!

But then, it's not about Team Islam winning. He's more scared of Team Mormon losing, because he knows Islam is intolerant enough to give Mormonism a run for its money.

Of course BOTH sides fear the non-religious, a sect which is growing twice as fast as both those creeds combined! But that's the subject of a later blog post.

Eric

Michelle Obama Wears Commie Red Dress

It's official: Michelle Obama has betrayed the Obama family's Communist leanings by wearing a red dress at the state dinner held for the Chinese president. This, according to Matt Drudge, who called the First Lady's dress "China Red," which was a theme picked up on and echoed by numerous right-wing pundits and bloggers. By the time the dust settled, Michelle's dress was a veritable confession as to her Commie leanings.

Well, what can I say? They got us fair and square on this one. The First Lady wearing a red dress is absolutely an indication of her husband's political leanings, and tantamount to wearing litmus paper for her political party. Want to know what the Pres. is thinking? Don't look at him, look at his wife's wardrobe. There's a dead giveaway, there! You know, we were doing a pretty good job of masking our President being a Communist, but those clever Republicans have sniffed us out by looking, not at the President, but at his wife. For that matter, look at the President's tie, or the trim on his sportcoat. If his tie happens to be red, you've got him! No true-blue American President would ever wear a red tie! Yet Mr. Obama has been seen in a red tie on several occasions, recently. It's as clear as crystal just how Communist this means our President is.

Those Republicans are so very clever!

Eric

What A Wonderful World

It's 11:00, and all's mostly well. At least, it is from my vantage-point.

Egypt is falling to democracy. Bill O'Reilly got exposed as a disrespectful hack, by our president, on national TV. I'm acing calculus. The Green Bay Packers are Superbowl Champions again. And Keith Olbermann is coming back to TV.

Yes, Current TV (channel 226 on Time Warner Cable), the network co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, is bringing Keith Olbermann back for a new news and commentary program, to be revealed later this year. You knew he'd get scooped up by a small network, which suddenly becomes a major network as a result. I hope MSNBC feels the fool for it.

But boy, Current TV needs Olbermann! Have you seen the lineup? Oh, sure, Current TV does have some cool stuff, like the documentary series, Vanguard. They also have The 50 Greatest Viral Videos, and Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews. But other than that? It's pretty much NPR television. And no Garrison Keillor! Some plot-driven thing called Bar Karma is supposed to magic-TV people into watching. There's a show called (I'm not making this up) Kill It, Cook It, Eat It, where the ones who eat the bacon actually butcher it themselves first. (Where's PETA when you need 'em?) They actually broadcast a television version of This American Life. This American Life! The radio program that has driven away more donors during pledge week than poverty, and it has its own television program!

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot!

That does it. We demand a new Star Trek franchise! We demand the return of Firefly! We want all the programs that made Discovery and the Science Channel great back on the air! More Desmond Morris! More James Burke! Bring back Paleoworld!

I'm so sick of ghost-hunting, chopper-building, architectural, dirty-job, cash-taxicabbed, Stargated, cooking-show, deadly-catch, baby-bringing, truck-driving, Bear Grylls-pretending-he's-an-outdoorsman, pitch-men BULLSHIT on my television!

This American Life! Honestly! Craptacular on a cuestick!

If it wasn't for Mythbusters, I'd say raze the whole thing and start over!

Oh, wait, there's Brewmasters. I forgot. And some new show coming called Curiosity, which sounds good. There's hope yet!

Okay, I'm done ranting. Sorry about that.

So what else is going on? Well, in the midst of the pro-democracy Egyptian protests, while Muslims in Cairo prayed, they enjoyed the protection of a Christian-Coptic-Jewish bodyguard. And while Christians held mass, and Jews held synagogue, the Muslims, in turn, protected them. Prayer in the square! Egypt is so ready for democracy!

Now, if religion could only be like that all of the time. It would be a much happier world, wouldn't it?

Bill O'Reilly? Jeezus, he gave more respect to Jon Stewart than he gave to our president. Why is the non-serious guy taken seriously, while the serious guy is not taken seriously in O'Reilly's world? It could only be because he's the partisan-blinded fool we always knew him to be. And now, he's stepped in it.

During the WONDERFUL Superbowl victory, I got into it a little bit with some fool at the bar. Remember the KIA commercial? No, me neither. But it sparked this particular asshole giving a rant about foreign cars.

"Hang on," I said, "there's somebody in Kentucky who has a job building those cars,"

"Yeah," he yelled back, "But they sell us cars, and they refuse to buy any of our goods!"

I started to say that I wasn't too sure about that, but he interrupted me. "No! When Mr. Asshole went over there to do his treaty with South Korea, he gave away the store! They keep all the profits for themselves!"

I backed off, saying I hadn't researched it. "First I do the research, then I argue," I told him.

But what grated me was the "Mr. Asshole." part.

Look, when George W. was president, I hated his ass. Still do. But I respected him, and the Presidential office. Why? Because he was FUCKING PRESIDENT, that's why! Now it's the conservative's turn to give the respect absolutely due the office, and our president isn't being given the respect due a first-year state congressman.

Know what? FUCK that! I'm willing to call it the black-man-hating racist bullshit it is. It's time to call a spade-hater a spade-hater.

Take that, O'Reilly.

By the way, the guy was dead wrong. South Korea is one of our top buyers of grain and beef. Only China and the E.U. buy more. So they sell us the cars they pay American workers to build, while we sell them food. I like this deal.

Okay, speaking of cars, notice that a government commission found that nothing was wrong with Toyota after all? So what was the deal with all those Toyota cars going haywire with their accelerators?

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I find it an odd coincidence that this Toyota crisis just happened to take place just in time to save GM's ass, and that GM's ass got saved just in time to save the government's investment. Maybe I'm crazy, but there might be a connection, here. Again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it might be worth looking into.

That's it for now. I'm done!

Eric

The criminal truth

Gun Control and Revolution

In other news, America's favorite groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil (yes, I spelled it right, look it up!) has been frozen in his hole in Pennsylvania. His extraction, encased within a block of ice, means that his usual winter prediction will not happen until zookeepers manage to thaw him out in front of a space-heater...

Okay, seriously, that's a slight exaggeration. But it's nice to not have to deal with the usual Groundhog Day nonsense, at least for another 24 hours.

Anyway, it seems that Mubarek has taken to some dirty tricks to put down the growing revolution in his country, sicking plain-clothes thugs on his own people, while at the same time, the debate about gun control continues to go on as Gabrielle Giffords recovers. As usual, I see things a little bit differently on both issues, and find that the two are actually interlinked.

First, the whole point of having a 2nd amendment in our Constitution was to make sure that occasional revolutions would take place. The blood of revolutionaries was to be the natural manure of freedom's growth, according to Jefferson. And if the government got too big, it was time for the people to revolt. Hence, every household should have a gun.

Reality check: In today's world, we have harrier and tomcat jets, black hawk and apache helicopters, napalm, night vision, satellite surveillance, cruise missile frigates, aircraft carriers, wire-tapping and, of course, nuclear warheads. If our government were faced with a revolt, it could easily put it down within minutes.

Unless the military were either cooperative or ambivalent to the revolt. In which case, we'd have a situation similar to that in Egypt. And in Egypt, were there to be any shots fired by the people, it would only be political fodder internationally for world leaders to oppose the movement.

In short, the age for revolts with guns are O-VER! Jefferson himself would agree. Deal with it.

So do we therefore enact gun laws because we're all screwed anyway? Well, no. I refuse to side with the liberals on the agenda of outlawing ammo clips, as if six shots fired at a Congressperson were somehow better than sixteen shots. The very idea itself is ludicrous. No, I am very much in favor of every citizen owning defensive weaponry. That means that a state which allows handguns and disallows tasers is a hypocritical, upside-down, Micky-Mouse-level insane administration which needs to reverse such nonsense immediately.

No, instead of outlawing guns, I say -- LICENSE their asses!

Think that's too harsh? The NRA would certainly think so. But think about it: Requiring a license is not an "impingement" upon keeping or bearing arms. It is an extra hoop to jump through, yes, but one can do it. And our crackpot, Loughner, would not have even been able to buy his glock, much less a clip for it, were he to have been required to have a license first. Had he applied for a license, his obvious insanity would have barred him. And if someone goes crazy afterward, and allows the license to expire (because those who don't take regular medications seldom do other things that require regular maintenance), then there is an information network which allows authorities to take the guns out of the hands of the insane! Any person without a license to purchase and carry a gun would not be able to do so. Drug lords would have a significantly more difficult time arming themselves (which helps enhance the silly drug war against cannabis, but that's another subject). Sure, the odd sociopath would still get a gun, but that's always been the case. At least obvious nutballs, like Loughner, wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of arming themselves with HVP's.

Here's the cycle we must break: Some insane idiot goes and gets a gun. He shoots someone. There's outrage, and laws try to get passed. The NRA and its cronies block it. The law fails. Then, another insane idiot goes and gets a gun. He shoots someone... etc. etc.

Does anyone else think this is a bit fucked up?

Okay, we want citizens to be armed in order to defend themselves, and us, against assailants who violate the law with guns. I'm down with that! But let's have those law-abiding citizens carry a license to, well, carry. Is a criminal holding up a convenience store really going to be less surprised by a citizen who is licensed to buy, and then carry, a concealed weapon vs. one who isn't?

If you really think this is extremist or far-fetched on my part, let me offer the following list of comparisons. You see, we need licenses for damned near everything else! Yet for buying or using a gun, we require no licenses whatsoever. Bullshit! It's perfectly reasonable to expect a license to buy or carry a gun, given all the other shit we need licenses for. Here's my list, and pay attention, there will be a quiz later:

You need a license to drive. So to propel 2,000 pounds of metal at 60 MPH, you need a license, but to propel .60 ounces of metal at 2,000 MPH, you don't.

You need a license to hunt or fish. So to shoot an animal, you need a license. To buy the gun you shoot the animal with, you don't. Or to shoot a human being, you don't.

You need a license to build a building. So to build the store that sells a gun, or the range you can shoot the gun, you need a license. But not to get and fire the gun itself.

You need a license to get married. So you need a license to lead someone to the altar, but not to fire lead into the altar.

You need a license to sell liquor. You need a license to own a bar. You need a license to be a bartender. In some states, you need a license to drink. So you need licenses to sell or buy Jack Daniels, and you might need a license to do a shot of Jack Daniels, but you don't need a license to shoot a man named Jack Daniels.

You need a license to sell cigarettes. You also need a driver's license to buy them. So you need a license to smoke, essentially. But you don't need a license to smoke someone.

Get this: You need a medical license to practice being a doctor or a nurse. So you need a license to take a bullet out of someone's body. You don't need a license to put one into someone's body in the first place!

You need a license to practice dentistry. In other words, you need licensing to put a cap in someone's tooth. You don't need a license to put a cap in someone's ass!

And finally, my favorite: You need a driver's license, or some other form of I.D. to vote (or you will in Wisconsin, when the Republicans eventually get their way). So you'd need a licence to vote for a Congresswoman. You don't need a license to shoot her!

We need licenses for gun ownership. Enough is enough! And I'm NOT an extremist for saying so!

They can take my gun license when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!

Go, Egypt!

Eric

P.S., Shame we can't also require licenses for people before they get pregnant so that insane or stupid people can't breed. But that's a subject for a later blog.

A Global-Warming Blizzard?

It's the middle of a winter snowstorm right now, and the flakes are really coming down.

No, I don't mean snowflakes. I mean the flakes who deny global warming. They're saying that as we, in Wisconsin are getting dumped upon by more than a foot of snow, that it's the same as getting dumped on by a mountain of evidence that global warming is a hoax.

Could someone PLEASE tell me why global warming is only a hoax during a winter snowstorm!? How quickly we forget the record high summer temperatures we were all sweltering under this past year. How quickly we forget how early Spring arrived after "Snowpocalypse." How quickly we even forget how relatively warm our early November was.

Shit, we have a short memory.

In a nutshell, warm air temperatures in the upper Atlantic sea basin are forcing the Arctic air masses right down on top of us. Those cold, Arctic air pockets can't cross Eastward over the North Atlantic the way they used to, so they have nowhere to go but back, where they make higher pressures over Nova Scotia, and drive low-pressure centers down the only direction they have left -- SOUTH. Relatively high temperatures are being felt RIGHT NOW in Iceland (tomorrow's forecast, 30F, -2C), Edinburough, Scotland (40F, 8C), London (38F, 6C), Paris (41F, 9C), Berlin (37F, 5C), and Oslo, Norway (32F, 0C).

Meanwhile, relatively high temperatures over Seattle, Vancouver, and the entire Pacific Northwest are contributing massive amounts of moisture up into Canada, where it can collide with those south-headed cold air masses coming down toward us, and dump us with more snow that we can handle for a second straight year. Current temperatures RIGHT NOW in Seattle are 35 degrees.

Here's what really frosts me (pun intended). RIGHT NOW in Anchorage, Alaska, where Sarah Palin should be able to see better, the temperature at this very moment (1:20 a.m., Central Standard Time, February 3, 2011), is a very comfortable 32 degrees, and partly cloudy.

So, to all you global warming deniers, on behalf of the residents of the Pacific Northwest, Iceland, the UK and EU, please...

Go fuck yourselves!

Eric

Is Egypt Ready For Democracy?

The ongoing unrest in Egypt is hell bent on blossoming into full-fledged revolution. Egyptians are hungry, out of work, and pissed off. Hosni Mubarek must go, and nothing else will make them happy. Mubarek firing his entire cabinet and hiring a new government is nothing short of a joke to them. You can put new flesh on an old skeleton, but the disease is in the marrow.

This all creates a very disturbing situation. If a new Egyptian government comes about, will it honor its prior treaties with the United States, Great Britain, and Israel? Will the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in that nation, and declare war upon Israel, possibly touching off what could only be described as world war three?

You can hear the Bible prophecy people now, saying that this harbors the end times. Funny how none of them saw it coming from Egypt. They all thought the former Soviet Union, Iraq, or Iran would be the flashpoint.

Ah, hell. The psychics didn't see 9/11 coming, either.

One thing's for sure: The Egyptians want democracy. Bully for them! But suppose they get it? What if Egypt, the world's largest Arab nation, succumbs to democracy. What then? Would the people elect politicians who are nothing but Islamic extremists? Would they put Hamas or Al Quaida in power?

Is the Arab world even ready for democracy?

I think it helps to remember that we here in America weren't ready for democracy either. No sooner did we have a government run by the people, free from any religious dictatorship, than several states tried violating secularism by enacting an official State religion. (They all failed, of course. Separation of church and state is just plain fair. But it's important to remember that religious bastards did try their level-best to wreck everything from the get-go.) The Danbury Baptists, oppressed by the Episcopalians in Virginia, pleaded to Thomas Jefferson for help, who reminded them, and indeed all of us, that the first amendment creates a "wall of separation between church and state," which is where the phrase comes from. Hell, Massachusetts had only just recently gotten over hanging people for witchcraft at that time, and John Nelson Darby had planted the seeds of what would become today's evangelical fundamentalist whack-jobs. Our constitution lacked provision to grant freedom for slaves, guaranteeing suffering for an entire segment of the population, and planting the seeds of a future civil war. It lacked the recognition of rights to aboriginal Americans, and the newly minted United States wasted no time in systematically annexing all Indian land it could, by rook or by crook, and killing off any redskins who got in their way.

Yet in spite of ourselves, we overcame, and built a (mostly) free society, king of the world's economies, and bastion of freedom to the world. We weren't ready, but we did it. How dare we say that Egypt, a civilization far older than ours, isn't ready?

Yes, there is a very real threat that the Muslim Brotherhood, or some other Islamic-based nonsense, will attempt to take over. But I don't think that will happen. I think there's one overriding factor in that region: tourism! Egypt's tourism is its lifeblood. Everyone there knows it. And they won't dare enact any Sharia reforms that offend the infidels who want to come to their country and spend lots of money seeing the pyramids of Giza, the temples of Luxor, or the city of Karnak. The economy of Egypt depends upon cooler heads prevailing, and so they shall. They will hold their Islamic extremism at bay, at least just enough so that lots of blasphemous men and (to their eyes) naked women will come there and spend money to keep their nation thriving. And with it, will thrive their democracy. As their tolerance grows, so will their secularism. As the most populous Arab nation becomes more Westernized than ever, it will spread the taste of freedom throughout the Muslim world.

And freedom, my friends, is the most addicting drug there is.

Eric