Don't Call it a Comeback

You gotta love the random articles that pop up under the main headline on MSN.com...

Ninja, vanish?

And yes, that is a reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies...

Such a Nerd

As I know will come as no surprise, I can sometimes be an anal retentive nerd. Last night I spent far more time than most reasonable people would organizing my iTunes library and making sure that all the tracks were properly labeled by artist and song title. I have over 9 GB of music, so while a majority of it was properly formatted it was still a large quantity of songs that had to be edited.

But it's all good now, and that makes me happy.

Am I the Only One?

Am I the only one out there who can see what's going on in Washington D.C.? Am I the only one who realizes that none of these congressmen really have an opinion on the way our military is handling operations in Iraq, they're just grandstanding for CNN? Am I the only one who gets pissed off about this kind of stuff when the war in Iraq is brought up?

This is what I'm talking about.

The idea of micromanaging our troops and their commanders is just mind-boggling to me. As much as I hate all the ill-informed, narrow-minded, naive views of the public and the media, it's even worse when those in political office start believing the hype and playing right into it. They know that this isn't really going to impact anything, and they are beginning to drop the pretenses and admit that this is nothing more than naked political posturing.

If someone, anyone, can present a coherent and well-reasoned argument as to why the immediate (and by immediate I mean the soonest it is logistically feasible, so let's just say by the end of 2007) withdrawal of all our forces from Iraq will benefit our domestic and foreign interests, you'd have my full attention. As an addendum, please list all the problems that such a course of action will solve. Apparently the very instant the last set of boots leaves the ground in Iraq all of our problems will be over, so I just want to see it in print.

Meanwhile, I for one will continue to support General David Patraeus and his conduct of operations in Iraq. Of all the opinions on how to conduct our forces, his is the only one that actually means a damn thing. Far too many times in history have military leaders been bound and crippled by the shortsightedness of political leaders, and so I hope General Patraeus overcomes Congress' myopic threats to effectively neuter his command and keeps fighting the good fight.

It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage

I may be a little more excited about this than is probably normal, but filming finally started on Indiana Jones 4 this week. There aren't really any details on the story other than it will be set in the 1950's, which hopefully can only mean one thing:

Indiana Jones vs. Commies.

For decades George Lucas talked about going back and doing the Star Wars prequels and nobody believed him. Sure enough, 15 years after Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace hit the big screen. Lucas then said he would go back and make another Indy movie after he finished the Star Wars prequels, and now he's stuck to his word.

And on May 22, 2008, the wait will have been worth it.

Check out the original article here.

I wish the Democrats Would Read This

I don't really have much to say as either lead-in or response, but I read this article and just really appreciated the author's position.

Stay the course.

Just Plain Wrong

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
~ Henry VI (Part 2) Act IV, Scene II

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our extremist politically correct culture? If you ask me, everything that society has done in the last 15 years in its attempts to "fix" kids' problems has just made things exponentially worse.

Case in point.

I wish I knew who to blame. I've got 3 books (early stages of research for my thesis) on their way to me from Half.com on various subjects within the Men's Movement of the 1990's, one of which is all about how the feminizing of schools from the 1990's to the present has left an entire generation of boys clueless as to how to actually become men. As a result of everybody telling them they everything they ever do is wrong, it's no wonder that boys are lashing out in desperate attempts to satisfy the genetics that society has worked so hard to condition out of them.

I don't know if "good ole' days" ever actually existed, but I'd still much prefer any system that relies on the judgment of a sound-minded individual over the litigious readings of some shyster.

The Big Apple

I've been in central New York for the last 3 weeks now, and this weekend I finally got to visit New York City for the first time. My staff and co-workers were all giving me suggestions and places to visit, but the schedule of my trip didn't really allow me to take advantage of them. They also gave me tips on how to not be an annoying tourist, which I think I avoided on my own without their advice.

When I arrived at Port Authority and stepped out onto 8th Avenue, I didn't feel any more apprehension or astonishment than I feel spending time in downtown Chicago. Clearly the city was huge and impressive, but not in a sense that I felt overwhelmed. In fact, I had a woman stop and ask me for directions somewhere because she thought I looked like someone who was from the city. At no point did I feel like the slow, annoying Midwesterner everyone assumed I would be - in fact I got impatient at slow people or people just randomly stopping on the sidewalk ahead of me.

I knew that because all day Saturday would be spent at my brother's company party I wouldn't have time for all the sightseeing and touristy stuff, but I nonetheless had a few specific goals for my first trip to the Big Apple.
- Get a hot pretzel from a street vendor
- Go to the huge Toys "R" Us in Times Square
- Get a slice of authentic New York City pizza
- Hail a cab
- Eat breakfast at a diner
- Not get mugged

I was successful in all these goals. I still need to go at least one more time while I'm here for the summer, and hopefully on that trip I can do a few more touristy things like go to the Empire State Building, go to Chinatown, and maybe even go to a Yankees game.

I'm a Slacker

So every time I drop off the blogosphere I get crap about it from either The Captain or The Last Angry Man. The crap is well deserved, but for every boost it gives me to temporarily rededicate myself to blogging, I eventually fall into laziness again. I won't try to justify or explain it, I'll only say that if you call me on it I will respond and I hope you keep reading and not give up on me.

I first started this blog back in August of 2004 - literally the day after I moved back into my parents' house after I left Ann Arbor without having found a job. It was also right before the 2004 election, so those two facts combined gave me a lot to rant about. I started this blog to write about things I hated, things that frustrated me, things that annoyed me, as a way to vent.

When I moved to North Carolina, I had a six month block of zero blog entries. I hated my job and everything around me, but I didn't have the will to rant against it. that would have involved getting off the couch, which for a while was more effort than I could muster.

Leaving North Carolina and moving back to Michigan ended my depressive cycle, and going through the hell of my failed teaching career gave me the perspective that having made it through that year meant I didn't really have anything to complain about in comparison. This past year was filled with successes and other positive experiences, so I didn't need the forum of this blog to rant about things because I didn't have much to rant about.

But even though I don't have as much venom to spew, I had forgotten the point of the internet - to share my opinions about everything with people who never asked me my opinion about anything.

And so, I will endeavor to broadcast my personal commentary through this medium whether you're interested or not, and while I am sure there will be days and even weeks that I am silent, I will eventually return.

Keep watching.

Deport the Commies

Am I the only one who remembers the 1980's? Am I the only one who still equates communism and socialism as dangerously radical ideologies and failed systems of governance rather that some sort of kitsch trend?

Maybe so. Every time my brother writes a new note on Facebook he sounds more and more socialist, so in response I have to become more and more conservative.

But I'm not looking to deport my brother. I want to deport Michael (Mikhail) Moore.

Most of you probably know how much I hate Mikhail Moore. For those that don't, let me explain.

I hate Michael Moore.

Michael Moore is everything that is wrong with the Left in this country, and yet instead of excising him from their ranks in order to appeal to a broader center, more and more liberals are becoming crazier and crazier just like him.

What brings Mikhial Moore up in conversation today is the fact that there may now be legal grounds to prosecute (and hopefully persecute) him for his antics. For all his talk about how the current administration has abused power and broken the law for its own agendas while the other side remains blameless, there is now irrefutable proof that Mikhail Moore is just full of shit and guilty of doing the same thing himself.

Dirty Commie Hyperlink

You know what I say to people like Mikhail and his ilk? If you don't like it, get out. You can go to Canada, where socialized health care means you wait 4 hours in the emergency room. Or you can go to one of the socialist Scandinavian countries like Norway and pay 80% of your income to national taxes and fees. Or you can just go to Cuba and hope not to be shot in the back of the head as a political enemy.

Socialism is bad, people. It doesn't make everyone equal and happy and solve all the world's problems. It makes everyone poor and entirely dependent upon the government for everything in their lives.

And so I've been thinking, and I think I've determined how to solve all of this country's problems in 2008. The answer is simple - The Ghost of Ronald Reagan as a write-in candidate. Either that, or we've got a little over a year to find a way to bring him back from the dead.

Get cracking people.