We get who we deserve.

We get who we deserve.
Originally uploaded by Senor Velasco.

I can't help but think this is the conversation taking place around the country right now.

Be Very Afraid.

Well, we've suffered a blow to winning the War on Terrorism. In 2007, Nancy Pelosi and her clown posse will seize control of the House and turn national attention away from the most critical issue of our era. Republicans blew it, thanks to moderates and sellouts who abandoned their ideals and betrayed the people who put them into office. My only hope is that in the next two years, the party will slough off the chaff and come back stronger than before, ready to redeem itself. Meanwhile, President Bush needs all the help he can get to keep his prosecution of the war on track.

Next stop, Mitt Romney in '08!

Orson Scott Card: Sci-Fi and Politics

I stumbled across a very long, quite thorough and exceedingly well written essay from Orson Scott Card – one of my favorite sci-fi authors. His political leanings seem to be well to the left of mine, but he's voting Republican. All based on our chances of winning the War on Terrorism.

For Mr. Card, that's the only issue that matters in this election. Because if we lose this war, we risk losing our rights to just about everything else we hold dear. He contends that the Republicans are the only party who have shown any tenacity in pursuing and demolishing the roots of Islamofascism. And I would agree.

Read the entire article here.

Apple Zealots Are Borderline Psychotic

Florence.
Originally uploaded by *nathan.

A word of advice: never post a comment critical of any Apple product on a forum full of Mac zealots. If you're not careful, they chop you up into little bits and make a delicious you-flavored casserole.

It's obvious I'm no Apple fan. Never have been. And I speak from years and years of personal experience with Macs. In fact, my industry uses them almost exclusively.

But that's beside my point, which is that Mac zealots are lunatics. Who else devotes entire websites to "unboxing" photos of new Mac merchandise? Who else puts little computer logo stickers on their car? Who else HAS to upgrade to the latest little brushed aluminum piece of poop that Apple says you need to maintain your mojo?

Don't believe me? Just check out this single flickr group devoted to sharing pictures of Apple products. Reading the comments, you'd think you were reading about the cure for cancer or an Adriana Lima bikini photoshoot. And there are countless forums like this.

So when I post a less-than-complimentary comment about the iPod on a flickr page, the responses were immediate and personal. I kept my rhetoric in check, so I didn't get totally flamed out, but these Mac zealots take their iPod very personally. An attack on the iPod is an attack on them, plain and simple.

Anyway, I'm rambling. FYI, I'm typing this on a Mac. Woe is me.

Help, John Kerry!

This is the funniest picture I've seen in a long time. Hooroar!
(Taken from Drudge.)

Untouched For A Million Years

I just wanted to share a cool science story I ran across today. Essentially, Missourians have recently discovered a "time capsule" of sorts. It's a very, very old cave that was sealed at least 55,000 years ago. The cave was used by numerous prehistoric animals, whose remains – and poop – are remarkably well preserved. Very cool indeed.

The coolest part is evidence of a ginormous bear that stood six feet high at the shoulder, and had a bite of more than 2,000 lbs per square inch!

God had must have had a total blast throughout the various periods of creation. How fun would it be to make dinosaurs and giant bears! Though I suppose he also had to create the amoebas, which would be pretty boring.

Al Gore On Earth's "Full-scale Planetary Emergency"

All style, no substance. If rhetoric was cats, Al Gore would put crazy old cat women to shame. Seriously.

I don't have time left today to give this Space.com article a scathing enough review, but there's enough hot air in Gore's speech to the Wirefly X Prize Cup Executive Summit 2006 to induce global warming on a scale beyond his wildest happy fantasies (which are wild enough already).

He treats us to some wonderful gems. On the possibility of mankind emigrating from Planet Earth:

"We didn't do a really good job of evacuating the city of New Orleans [due to the onslaught of hurricane]."

On our planet's "rising fever,"

"If the crib catches fire you don't say: ‘Hmmm, how fast is that crib going to burn? Has it ever burned before? Is my baby flame retardant?"

On Earth studies,

"It's still shocking to me that we have more detailed information in some fields about Mars and Venus than we have about Earth."

His speech appears to be littered with so much hyperbole, without the backing of reputable scientific theory, that it's more an exercise in gratuitous blather than a reasonable call to caution.

Read it for yourself. You'll see. Thank goodness he didn't win in 2000.