Mighty Forces

So I just started using Twitter, a little bit. Still not convinced about why or how to use it. But right now I'm just posting random thoughts, like this one from last week:

How can Barack Obama be a radical Christian, a Muslim, and a Marxist all at the same time?

Amazingly, some writer from Wired picked this up, and mentioned me in an article about Obama:

Report: Hoax Anti-Obama E-Mails Still Fool Dumb White Guys

Crazy.

Q: How did life begin on Earth?

SCIENTISTS: We don't know. But we're looking into it.

CREATIONISTS: God did it.

Pick a side, people. It's not difficult.

Fun fact: The Scopes Trial was more than 80 years ago.

"Barack is benefiting from slavery. If it weren't for slavery, the black population of the U.S. would be about as big as the Eskimo population, and he'd have lost to Hillary a long time ago."

-Freeper mouthbreather racist scum, commenting on Barack Obama's race speech today

I don't hate America. But why are there so many loathsome people living here?

UPDATE: Here's another classic, from the same thread:

"I am not happy with McCain but I will hold my nose and vote for him. At least with McCain, you get a man that endured 5.5 years of confinement and torture as a POW for a country he fought for. With Hillary you get an socialist ex-hippie that has spent her life trying to destroy others and Obama a do nothing race baiter that sympathizes with terrorists, will coddle our enemies, will not wear a U.S. flag on his lapel, will not put his hand over his heart and pledge allegiance to our flag during the national anthem and attends a church for 20 years where his friend, mentor and spiritual adviser to his campaign states - God Da*n America. I will take McCain."

We are so fucking dumb in this country, I'm surprised we can dress ourselves. This nation needs a LifeAlert pendant. We've fallen, and we like it down here.

The problem with Iraq "warriors" like McCain is that they want to convince the American people that we have simultaneously won in Iraq (America Fuck Yeah!) and lost (Terrorists can take over at any moment and follow you home to kill your dog!) for all eternity. No wonder he was trumpeting the "100 years" line - because it fits right into this idea. "We are kicking ass in Iraq and we will be kicking ass for the next century or more! Fuck Yeah!"

The thing is, I think this cognitive dissonance isn't sustainable. It's lasted for years, because like the bully who finally gets his nose bloodied, we've been shell-shocked. But it seems we might be waking up. "War is peace" and "freedom is slavery" are tough concepts for the human brain in the long term. Fool me twice, indeed.

Had a fascinating conversation over IM this snowy morning with John Callender of lies.com about aliens and Carl Sagan and the Drake equation. It was quite deep, at least deep for IM, and left me feeling a little like an unfrozen caveman trying to read "Godel, Escher, Bach." As far as I can tell, John believes that SETI is indistinguishable from religious faith. I think there is a difference, but I'm not smart enough to explain exactly why. I guess it is similar because I definitely believe there is life on other planets, but there isn't really any evidence of that. Still, we do know there are other stars, and other planets....I don't know. My brain hurts.

Of course, even though I'm fascinated by it, I don't really understand religious faith either, at least to the level I would like. I understand it intellectually, and sociologically, but not emotionally. Not on a deep level. And I wish I did.

This is, as Gizmodo says, both the best and the worst thing ever. I felt I had to share.

Humans are absolutely inexplicable. And any effort expended to try to understand them is a fool's errand.

Probably because lots of high-falutin' missions have gone by the wayside, I've decided that my mission in life shall be to eliminate from our culture the one-armed man-hug, which Wikipedia informs me is also called the "pound hug."

Seeing Tom Cruise do this grating stiff-handshake-with-awkward-one-armed-hug move on one of the Scientology videos, for some reason cemented my hatred of the American Man-Hug.

Should any straight men be reading this, let me assure you: a regular, one-second, two-armed hug with a man will not cause you to "catch gay." It's simply a gesture of warmth and love between two people. Everyone knows you and your squash partner aren't really "partners," and trust me, onlookers, should there be any, are not wondering whether the two of you are going to make out.

As the saying goes, you wouldn't worry about what other people thought of you if you realized how infrequently they thought of you at all. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake, and unlike Tom Cruise, no one cares whether you are gay or not. Get over yourself. Got it?

Thanks for your time. Now for the sake of humanity, go out and hug another man. For those who still need a little help with this concept, VideoJug has a great instructional video on the subject.

Will this be a good year or a bad one? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments.

For some reason I've been thinking lately about 2004. The year started with an online pseudo-relationship imploding in spectacular fashion, and being publicly humiliated by someone I thought was a good friend. The year ended with George W. Bush's re-election. The day after the election my mother called me. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't have your head in the oven," she said. "I have an electric oven," I replied. To say that 2004 sucked is to reach the limits of human understatement.

This year is going to be better, right? Right?

It's going to be 84 degrees on Saturday. In October. In Wisconsin.

As I've been saying for years, if the sun came out bright and clear at midnight, people would be freaking out. But 84 degrees in October? Hey, break out the shorts and sunscreen, baby!

Great piece by David Neiwert about Bill O'Reilly's latest jihad against Daily Kos, and how O'Reilly is actually one of the media's most prominent rightwing hate peddlers, or as I call them, crapweasels.

But let's face it. People eat this stuff up, and they have for generations. It's understandable to want to look for someone to blame for your troubles, and Muslims, Mexicans and gay people are just this generation's targets. In other eras it was Catholics. Or Irish. Or Jews. But the impulse, and the rhetoric, is the same.

Humanity has built amazing things, and discovered amazing things. But we're still not that great about learning from our mistakes. The "Star Trek" society of peace and equality just isn't going to happen with our species, I'm afraid.

And the train rolls on.