The Death Of The Anti War Protestor

"Things aren't like they used to be" is a comon saying these days. But in a lot of cases the changes aren't for the better or more healthy for society at large. Randy Rhodes points out that war coverage is not what it was forty years ago with Walter Cronkite as "The most trusted man in America" doing the news. Back then they showed troups slogging through the mud. They showed shells exploding and men dying, and they showed the caskets being loaded up. Apparently now if a photographer so much as photographs caskets being loaded up he is immediately fired. They used to say "War is Hell", but today they say "War is a yawner". Perhaps it's no coincidence that it's the democrats who are the ones pushing to reinstate the draft, even if there reasoning is a little backwards. Today's war protestors aren't emotional or fanatic or insistant. This is because the average American has no stake in the outcome in the war. If the eighties was the Me generation, then this "I Me Mine" philosophy has transferred on into adulthood. People say "It's not my kid on the front" and they go on and vote for Bush and sleep well at night. Of course the news isn't even covering war protestors and if they do it's often with a more symical slant. But there are protests going on all the time. I'll say it again. If the Roman Empire had our press the Christians would never have come to power because nobody would ever know about the martyred deaths of thousands. But people stage small protests of offices of politicians and stuff all the time and they think they are acting for posterity when in all probably the only one who sees them is God, because God sees everything.

Now there is news about the war itself. The Iraqi citizens want the US to leave their country. But the Iraqis also believe other things. They hate the nut case leader of Iran, and they don't trust the Talliban and have little or no regard for Osama Bin Laden. The choice here seems obvious. We should get out like Bush told the American people. He said, "When the Iraqis stand up we will stand down". Instead all we are hearing now is that the army is stretched thin and we just might have to make a choice between extending the Iraq war five more years and reinstituting the draft. Were I the president I would have given this Draft ultamatum before this. Experts have told us that the Armed Forces just can't keep on the way they are going, delaying leaves and extending tours of duty. If the Iraqis say they are willing and able to pick up the fighting themselves why don't we just let them? I suspect the answer to that question is that the US is not in Iraq to win, but to run up war profits for Haliburten and other Bush controled corporations. Larry Elder used to always talk about how we are "At War". But if this were the equivelant of World War II we would be about up to Christmas of 1946 by now, when the War was long over and people were moving on to other activities like getting married. Let the Iraqis do what we trained them to do. It takes twelve weeks to train a raw recruit into an efficient, square head, fast talking killing machine. Certainly there is time to have trained an entire young generation by now in Iraq to pick up arms and defend their own country. Bush will find that the Iraq War is no longer a winning political issue for him.

Certain laws as you know can get out of hand. You know how I dislike these broad smoking bans that seem to apply everywhere. In terms of environmental laws I think we have to distinguish between laws that are for the welfare of humans and those that are pot forth by nut jobs, or nearly so. They say you cant ride motorcycles in the desert because you might disturb an Indian petrogliff that's been there thousands of years. You can't go ahead with a real estate development because it might harm the kangeroo rat. Now they are taking their laws into the kitchen. In New York they want to ban all trans-fatty acids. A few years ago they wanted to ban butter and use only margerine. Now they want to ban margerin because it's a trans-fatty acid and as such is unhealthy. They now say trans-fats are worse than saturated fats. Of course I don't know if they'd be saying that if all the chefs hadn't switched from saturated fat to trans-fat to begin with. Such a trans-fat ban would cause chaos in the cooking industry. I think there are child welfare laws that probably go too far. Have they outlawed spanking yet? If we go too far with this children's rights business we will destroy the American family, and I guess that's kind of the point, isn't it. To turn your kids into empowered monsters that tattle on their parents for the vaguest of infractions, such as smoking in their presence. Sometimes it's not our own government that holds the whip but an alien religion, like the Moslems. This Van Gogh guy in Holland that was murdered by "islamo-fasciests" (there, I used the word) was an Artist who used his art to protest Islamic and women's issues. Nowdays you can't even draw an Arab with a turbin with a bomb in it without getting yourself in trouble with these Islamo-fasciests. Now there is apparently some Mozart opera they want to ban because it puts Islam and other religions in a bad light. My message to the Moslems is "Exercise your freedom of religion, but don't give restrictions on my civil liberties or freedom of action". I guess libertarians like Larry Elder have long been concernet about all the EEOC laws or whatever that agency is that insures "safe" working conditions. I'm for safe working conditions of course, but sometimes government beaurocrats can be obtrusive to employers, and I appreciate that. In terms of the environment I guess my philosophy is "If it's going to end up affecting me personally, then I want something done about it". Wetlands in Louisiana can affect the climate and buffer storms, so they are a good thing. Clear cutting forrests erodes the soil and basically detracts from my view as well as wipes out the source of what you're "harvesting". Clear cutting: BAD. I am against chemical pollution because they cause deseases and cancer and such. But I guess if you were enacting laws to preserve the monarch butterfly or the spotted moth or whatever, I guess I'd be a little less concerned. Environmental impact studies cut two ways. There is the natural environment but there is also the business environment and people to people concerns. If you're going to ban my Saturday night barbecue, you better have a pretty darn good reason.

Rush Limbaugh has pointed out that certain forms of pollution nature offends a lot worse than any human could. If you watched Nova the other night you know that there was a spike in the level of sulphur dioxide that was twenty times worse than the worst smoggy day in the most smoggy city in the world. Yes, there are things called "super valcanoes" and these things are more "super" than you can imagine. They are a thousand times more deadly than valcanoes we see today. I guess Mt. Pinotubo was one of these. Three sets of researchers each came to the independant conclusion that a gigantic valcano exploded in Southeast Asia 75 thousand years ago, and drove down the temperature of sea water world wide ten degrees and increased the incidence of Oxygen 18, an isotope of normal oxygen that occurs in colder waters. Now they say that Yellowstone National Park is a powder keg ready to blow at any moment, like say the next forty thousand years. (In palentological time that isn't much) It could be that the eruption of the whole valley of Yellowstone National park could inilate the inhabitants of this Country and have world wide consequences. They say there are fine silicate particles in the valcanic ash that have the effect of finely ground glass on your lungs, should you breathe it. I only tell you this because Rush does have a point. Nature has the potential of being more violent than man with all of his devices yet invented can be. I would tell you to have a little fear of God but whether you are afraid or not that isn't going to affect whether or not it will happen. Sometimes we humans can't see the forrest for the trees. It could be that at times we seek to micro-manage the environment, and in the process screw up a lot of people's lives and routines, when in the end something like the eruption of Yellowstone National Park, blanking the world with ash and creating a new ice age that will last far beyond when the last ash has settled- - will get us. You know the ice age will last a long time because once there's all that snow on the ground and in the air it reflects sunlight and heat back out into space, keeping the Planet super chilled for a long time. Thirty years ago people were saying it was a new ice age that would get us.

Now It's Official

All this time I thought that the net effect of our troops being in Iraq was positive. I thought if we left right now we will have done net good and could be proud of ourselves. I utterly cringed at the notion put forth by John Kerry and other Democrats that things were worse in Iraq now. How could things be worse with a genocidal maniac out of the way? Well it turns out there's an official report that the government tried to keep secret that states clearly that in fact our efforts have actually made things worse in Iraq than they were before and that our presence has stimulated terrorist recruitment. Perhaps some of you Elderados can tell me how Larry Elder handled this upsetting news? After a while it has not to even matter with these people. Now the facts have ceased to mean anything and all that matters now is Not Losing the Argument. (Selah)

WHO'S GOT THE BALLS - BILL CLINTON OR CHRIS MATTHEWS?

Chris Matthews is getting so conservative they're going to have to start putting Rush Limbaugh on their pannel. Their explanation for all the protests and violence in the Mideast now is saying "They really don't hate America. They love America and envy us and want to come here. The people they're really mad at are their own repressive governments but they know they'll be killed if they protest them so they do the next best thing and protest Us". If any of this is true then how come they don't praist their own government in Iraq and praise the United States for getting rid of Saddam Hussein and letting democracy flurish? Congaliza Rice says she believes in the best in human nature and that the world yearns to be free. This piece on Sixty Minutes was another of those stock puff pieces. But Chris Matthews went on to attack Bill Clinton. He attacked him because the people of the world loved him and praised his actions. They went on to say on that show, "Bill Clinton has it easy. He doesn't know what it's like. He's not the President and doesn't have to bear all that responsability. He can take the easy road". These people seem to forget that Bill Clinton actually was president for eight years. Bill Clinton the next morning took on FOX news. He wasn't going to let that interviewer stand his ground. As Randy Rhodes put it- - he knew he was in for a personal attack and stood armed and ready to defend himself. "You people have two sets of questions. One for me and one for the rest of your conservative friends". Clinton soundly and surely laid to rest all this speculation about how his adminestration was soft on terrorism. I would want Bill Clinton defending me if I were ever accused unjustly, as Christians like to do by inference a lot of the time with me.

The Elderados and the rest of the right have undergone a complete credibility melt-down. If you look at the straight facts the democrats stack up better every time. When Clinton was going after Bin Laden in 1998 everyone called it "Monica's War" and "Wag the Dog". When the Cole was bombed in late 2000 Bill Clinton had in place plans to go after Bin Laden. Bush scrapped those plans and didn't want to hear about terrirism. He referred to going after these people as "Swatting flies". As you Woodward fans know, all George Bush cared about from day one is going to war in Iraq. Iraq was a constant obcession of this president. After "Black Hawk Down" it was actually Republicans in the house of representatives that pounded the plodium and demanded that we withdraw our troops from Samalia. Rush referred to the opperation as "Meals on Wheels" and said the only real purpose of the military was to kill people and smash things. Larry Elder has attacked our presence both in Kosevo and Bosnia, and also in Sudan, should we decide to go there to prevent genocide. According to Larry Elder the perpous of war isn't to promote humanitarian goals. (I guess it's to burn villages and rape and kill women and children like we did in Viet Nam) Two prominent people were either fired or demoted who were anti terror experts in the Clinton Adminestration. One of them was formerly knows as the terrorism tzar. The Democrats are reminding us now that if we had stayed in Afghanistan we would have captured Bin Laden within the year. Some have charged that the republicans "space" the release of key news events to when they need a sudden boost in the polls. These people keep saying Bush is up in the polls. With Chris Matthews, Sixty Minutes, and ABC with their movie singing the Republicans praises, stranger things have happened. If they want to pull a massive recessitation job on the Bush adminestration they'll have to live with it.

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed that in the latest StarTrek movie a bunch of our side went to war against a neighboring planet. But the enemy had some frightful new device that just melted people and ships like wax. But they wanted to keep their weapon secret lest we find out about it and perhaps steal it and investigate it and find out how it works. So what they did was convince the world that Star Fleet's excellent Captains had suddenly screwed up making a lot of stupid and blunderous military decisions thus tarnishing their reputations now that they were dead. In this way the truth was hidden from us. But for some reason I came out of the theater thinking "Maybe that wasn't the REAL Star Trek movie that we came to see but some kind of givernment knock-off, showing us what they wanted us to see".

I don't "Have it in for the Bush Adminestration". I'd like to see them do something smart for once. But at the same time I am "evolving" on other issues. According to a program today- - the middle class has only rarely been a major factor in world civilization history. Those times that the middle class has been a major factor, society had advanced culturally. The goal of conservatives beginning with Reagan is to return the middle class we have had in this country back more to a status of continuing poverty. Allan Greenspan has admitted that his goal is to see the unemployment rate as high as possible. These conservatives "historically" according to Al Frankin, have been against Social Mobility. These people are "undeserving" in the eyes of the rich. Classic conservatives believe in semi rigid classes of rich and poor. Various Democratic Presidents have tried to level the playing field so that the little guy gets a chance but now it's a rigged crap game. The goal of federal money managers is always to keep the worker insecure in his job and drive down the wage base and to maximize corporate profits. On the subject of the City of New Orleans there are people like the mayer who want to keep New Orleans a "chocolate city". It's amazing how whites are intimidated by that phrase. But what do rich whites want to do? They say the storm did everyone a favor and now they can clear out the ghettos and put up fancy developments for the rich to boost the tax base. Meanwhile places like Houston may not be as tollerant of Blacks as was their native crascent city. Changing subjects again, there is some government study that says cars should get forty miles to the gallon on the highway and how this would go a long way to solving our energy problems. As to the vanishing Polar Bear due to a diminished winter hunting season, I imagine Rush Limbaugh might just way "Well, the Polar Bear like the rest of us is just going to have to evolve like the rest of nature- - and adjust its habbits to today's Realities". That's what the American worker needs to do. He has to "adjust" himself to the reality of not affording things that his parents had afforded when they were his age. We'll just see if things can't work out better than that.

The Tripple Witching Hour

. This is Friday September 22, 2006 and fall officially begins at 9:03 our time or 12:03 or something east coast time. As you know it’s kind of a triple witching hour. Today is the start of the holy month Romadon in the Moslem calendar, and tonight at sunset is the start of Rosh Hashana. I imagine it’s also a new moon. Of course Romadon and Rosh Hashana would start together about one twelfth of 33 year cycle. In the news we learn that that Chavez guy from Venezuela was preaching at a church in Harlem yesterday, to many left wing applause. It seems the man actually believes in liberation theology, despite the fact that he is a communist. The President of Iran has continued to make anti U S statements and has met with American news reporters. This is the sort of thing that’s going to happen when a country like the US is dependant on foreign oil. We kind of have to learn to “take it”. Also in the news is the Jewishness of George Allan. His mother before she told him apparently said, “I hope you don’t end up hating me”. We already knew his mother was Tunesian. Allan has been rather defensive since he found out that he was part Jewish. Al Frankin was talking about this on his show today. The weather has been cooling off particularly today. They are starting to show maps of where the fall foliage is around the Great Lakes.

You know those three republican senators, John Mc Cain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, are three wooses. They’re the three little girls. “Three Little Maids” like the Gilbert and Sullivan play. Randy Rhodes spoke of Bush’s “Herem”. You know it has to be his personal Herem because there are no men there. Rusty Warren has more balls than this congress. You wonder what the hell the world is going to be like a year from now. A year ago I was still listening to Conservative talk radio and was inclined to defend George Bush about the hurricanes. When I see how far down hill things have slidden, it makes me wonder. When news of Abo Grave broke Bush indignently said he would get to the bottom of it all and how abuse has no place in POW camps. Now a year later thanks to the empty scrotum of the US congress, we are about to pass a law that gives the President the power to interperate the Geneva accords anyway he wants. But the bill still isn’t law yet. Randy Rhodes rightly protests that it’s just forty or so days before the congressional elections and why not let the American People decide what sort of tortore and interrogation rules we want to have, or not have. Apparently this session of congress is virtually out of time but the bill still isn’t law yet. The bill will have to go into conference and the Republican bill is worse. Apparently they gave the President everything he wanted. We need the Democrats to win both houses of congress so we can pass some decent legislation. And among the first bill I’d pass is a bill of centure against the President after a due amount of media spotlighted investigations.

The U S has gone from first to seventh in education among the world’s countries. But while the younger generation is the one getting smarter among most of the worlds emerging nations, it’s the old people, my generation, that has the brains and the college education in this country. They say 51% of the Canadian citizens have a college degree in that country. In this country the figure is 39%. And yet you can bet that figure was a whole lot lower in the thirties when “It’s A Wonderful Life” showed everybody with college degrees in a small town, as though it were the norm. Perhaps they thought it would be but now, seventy years later, only 39% of the people have college degrees. It is said that whereas in former times the govt. would pay for almost all a person’s education now that figure has dropped to below half. And it’s suggested that perhaps the Military stands to gain the most of this lack of education because poor people will have more of an incentive to join the military. Let Paul Simon write that on the wall. Well, a lot of things are going to change, and soon, with a new democratic congress.

When does a Crusade become an obcession? George Bush used to call this “War on Terror” (alias on Islam) a “Crusade” but then dropped the term under pressure. It could be said the Moslems are on a “Crusade” to hate Christianity, and the Pope. This didn’t used to be the case but we declaired War first. Apparently in an attempt to enlist Pakistan in our “Crusade” George Bush threatened “to bomb Pakistan back into the stone age is their leaders didn’t cooperate with our war plans”. I’ve heard roomers that for President Lincoln, winning the Civil War was kind of an obcession with him. Of course sometimes we obcess over things that aren’t rightly ours to obcess over, like with Philip Kiriacus on Days of our Lives. It’s a trite saying but true that those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat the mistakes. I think having a national crusade against an entire religion for this country is a mistake. Those people have already shown that they are more willing to die for their cause than we are for ours. World opinion means something. Even the Christian religion was “tried in the press”. If there were no press, nobody would even know or care about all the martyrs there were. This country could bomb the whole Islamic realm back to the stone age if we wanted to. What we are seeing now among Christians is the “Larry Elderization” of Christianity. Christianity is becoming more cruel and heartless, and yes, more “pragmatic”. It does things now that are “expedient”. Lots of people have commented on the fact that World Oppinion is no longer with the United States. How long can we continue to be one nation taking on the world? Maybe George Bush thinks he is doing what he is doing for the history books, like Abraham Lincoln did. Republicans including Larry Elder are now fond of pitching the Civil War in this country as a crusade to liberate the Black man, which it most certainly was not, as evidenced of what Lincoln himself said. He said “If I could win the war by freeing all of the slaves, I’d do that; If I could win the war by freeing none of the slaves, I ‘d do that. It could be that throughout history, War has been something imposed by the leaders, be they Knights Templar or the Christian Coalition, against the common people. Nobody believes Christianity stands for Peace any more. It never did. It was a Lie and now that Lie is so Exposed, it isn’t even funny. When and if we impeach George Bush we will be in fact impeaching Christianity. It’s the Christian Coalition, or whatever it’s called now, that’s on trial. Chaves says Bush is the devil. I say that God Himself is The Devil. Some say that when you fight your enemy you become like him. I say that when you and your enemy always to be implementing the same measures to accomplish their respective goals, those two enemies are becoming Alike. As a spiritual decendant of Martin Luther, this crusader is still at war with the Devil. But it’s the Devil of the Military Industrial Complex and all those obscene War Profits.
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SOMETHING FOR EXTRA CREDIT

To take a psychic moment “time out” before we continue, I’d like to express my complaints to the Orion Federation that I haven’t been receiving any “News from the Front” lately. I think they want me to make my own karmic discoveries. Perhaps the same thing could be said of the software Sketch-up. My complaint against that is if you try to draw a five pointed star and you aren’t in the right “Dimension” the line goes all over the place even if you should draw it perfectly in your own limited perception realm. In Sketch you have the two dimensions you see and the one you don’t. And that one you don’t travels in an imaginary straight line from your eyes to the page and anything you draw could fall Anywhere along that continuoum and you don’t know where. I say this because this is kind of how it is with the psychic dimension. There are the three dimensions we see, and those two or three that elude our consciousness. Fish eye lenses portray straight lines as curved. But if you projected these images inside a dome and looked all around the dome, those lines would again look straight. In sketch they don’t “do” the curved line bit. Sketch looks at a “projection” of the world based on standing back and looking at a giant picture of Roger Waters. NO! Looking at a giant Wall. Since film is exposed on a flat surface logic dictates that photographs must be flat. When I do the optics, “Flat” is the only way that that it adds up. Sketch must agree. Their pictures assume a flat projection plane. What this means is that you are standing at an assumed distance from the “Wall” or whatever. Here if you see parallel horizontal straight lines, they are straight all the time. They travel out to infinity or when Hell freezes over. Whichever occurs first. But just as flat maps of the world are distorted at the poles- - they’re stretched in all directions. (Selah) When you are 45 degrees off plane either up or down or side to side, the image is stretched in that direction. If you are 45 degrees off plane you’re being stretched by the square root of two or 1.44 (144%) approximately. If you look sixty degrees off plane, you’re being stretched double. This “stretching” that occurs on World Maps and in Google sketches is a “necessary distortion” that occurs on paper to express a bigger truth. The awareness of this distortion, from lack of the psychic dimension- - is the Key to much Enlightenment. What you do in the Psychic dimension counts – whether you want it to or not. (Selah)

A Complete Credibility Meltdown

Well today is September 19th. In three days or so we will be entering the fall season. Thankfully the weather still feels like summer. But is it a season where we move out of the Summer of liberalisum into the Winter of conservatisum? Ask Michal Dukakis. He knows all about how polls can shift with the tides and times. They've been having these candidate debates on Meet the Press and after reviewing the Pennsylvania contest with Santaurum, and the Virginia contest with Allan, the contrast between democrat and republican is a little blurred in my mind. It's not all that obvious whom I should vote for. Allan had the "Macacca" statement, but his democratic has a problem with equal rights for women in the military and has made many statements over the years hostile to women. Bush himself did a major melt-down last Friday at the news conference. I don't even know why he has them any more. All he does is get up there in ramble like Captain Queeg or somebody, burrying himself in his own cliches. He long since has stopped responding to the reporters questions. Just call him Mister Tar Heel because his position on everything is intransigent. Torture is good - - and America is under attack. Today in his UN Speech it wasn't twenty seconds into his speech before he brings up the specter of 9 - 11. But rather than contrast those "dark days" with some new spirit of world unity and human enlightenment brought about by American flexibility- - - Bush trots out the same laundry list of issues and salutes all the countries where America has influence over their dictatorships. They say Bush is up over ten points in the polls. That's what the media tells us so I guess it has to be true. I haven't commented on that propaganda piece that ABC had on last week. Some would say it was fiction punctuated by a Presidential speech in the twilight zone. I myself thought it was a pretty good movie. I'm inclined to allow for a little artistic license to make a point, and I believe the point was made. Arabs are nuts and we people in America were woefully unprepared for what befell us. I think we're all much more atune and alert now and have our eyes open to little hints and cues that a person's conduct at the airport just isn't right. We need to learn from our mistakes, and I believe we have.

There's one thing I do hate and that is the rewriting of history. When I was a kid in the early sixties apparently some grammar school kids were being sent home with a copy of the Mayflower Compact, and the opening words are supposidly, "In the name of God". Some of the liberals on the school board thought it was a John Birch conspiracy to indoctrinate our kids or something with religion. The historic fact is that those people were much more God conscious than we are today. Jefferson was a diest, but then again, so is anyone who believes in Predestination. I'm a diest by that standard, and we've talked about that before. Religion is part of the very faboric of our society. To rid history books of its existance is lying to our kids. Of course there is supposidly a statue erected showing Franklin Roosevelt in a wheel chair. The thing "historically inacurate" about this is that throughout his life, Roosevelt scrupulously avoided being photographed in a wheel chair. But he was proud of his cigarette holder. Today they air brush the cigarette holder and draw in a wheel chair that wasn't there. Of course what do you think of this expungeing of all smoking scenes in Hanna Barbera cartoons? From Fred Flintstone to Tom and Jerry to Yogy and Booboo, smoking scenes are being air brushed so as to not offend the kiddies. I suppose there are people who want to put pants on the statue of David. I am also against these "politically correct phrases" such as homophobia. I wonder if the term homophobia is used in children's social study books? If so it's a sad day. There are things we Should be afraid of. I'd be afraid of rat poison if I thought it was in my food. Some history books are saying Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to the Indians, rather than to God. I couldn't believe that when I heard it. God is being expunged from our history books.

You know- - Senator Danforth or someone said there aren't enough moderates. I would like to step forth as a proud moderates. Rush says he's never seen a book of Famous Moderates in History. My guess if youre a tight rope walker, political ballance is a good thing. In Yoga ballance is seen as a good thing, along with the yin and yang in Taoisum. Moderates see things as they are and act on them, rather than as a slogan shouted accross a political aisle. Ken Galliger was talking about all the Hollywood Celebreties that speak out on political issues. I think people should speak out on political issues. My lament as a Christian was that the denomination I was in wouldn't take a stand on anything using the excause that "Christians are above that sort of thing". People, including actors and preachers have every right to speak out on an issue. What would you say? Do celebreties comprize perhaps 35% of all the voices in the media you hear on politics? What percentage of the population in the world is comprised by Hollywood Celebreties? Perhaps .00004% Perhaps less? Anyhow, Ken Galliger was upset at some statement Rosey O Donald made about the Christian right? I don't agree with anything Rosey says anyhow. If she were still on I'd never watch her. Everything she says annoys me. Of course now they have some movie that I didn't know was a documentary of an actual Cult led by Becky - so & so about some youth movement. I thought the movie was just another hollywood liberal parody they like to do. Believe me as an ex Christian I know the real thing from a fake hollywood production - and this was definitely a fake hollywood production. Of course now the Pope is expressing some of the truth about what Moslems are actually like. The pope quoted some leader from the Middle Ages. The proof of the truth of what the Pope said was demonstrated in the violence the Moslems subsequently showed against Christian churches. If I were the Pope I wouldn't have apologised. I'd have given them the finger. I'd have shaken my fist at them and said Christianity stands for Truth and Goodness, and we are to oppose Evil in all of its forms, and there is a lot of hate in the Islamic World. I don't think it's any stretch to say that Islam is the most hate and violence filled of all the world's religions. We in this country out of fear elected Bush. If you don't like Bush- - - he represents the Hate that you people Created. Just as you people in Iran nominated a right wing nut out of fear. So instead of peace in the world we have two war mongers. I will agree with Randy Rhodes on one thing and that is we can all agree Pope John Paul II was a better pope than Benedict.

Before you conservatives think I've come over to your camp, I'm not done yet. I'd like to talk about this notion of leagelising certain Vices, such as drugs, gambling, and prostitution. The time is coming and may be upon us, when the "norms of society" conservatives are always talking about- - will themselves demand things that may be repugnent to some of us. I saw that internet gambling thing on Sixty Minutes. I think since we already have State Run Lotteries, which I was, and continue to be against, then the elephant is already in the tent. I think the sanest thing we can do now is tax and regulate the gambling, even if it only ends up making American corporations a lot richer. Once the dam bursts on this issue, and I think it's about to, you're going to see a stream of demend for legalization just like they have in Britain and Jamaica and everywhere else. We'll be able to tax the winnings and regulate the way this gambling is transacted. There are already guards against youths gambling. These should be strengthened so that no minor slips through the safty-net. Some famous person said they aren't really laws if nobody respects them, and I think it's time we have laws we can respect. On the matter of drugs and "The king of pot", well I think marijuana is something who's legalization is long past due. The laws against the herb are a real joke, and have been for four decades. If you're a parent with teenagers, this is one thing. Establish whatever rules and procedures you want. But for society in general- - we've "already gone to seed" to make a pun of that seed seller from Canada. Larry Elder says he's a libertarian but he's against U S citizens having the ability to buy prescription drugs in Canada. "It would upset their economy" or something is Larry's rather non-libertarian cop-out. You know what Timothy Leary says, "Better living through chemistry". Drugs of all sorts are becomming more and not less comon. This just another of those "sociatal norms" conservatives will have to get used to. On the matter of stem cell research, Al Frankin raised an interesting point today. He says all these "Snow flake babies" Bush likes to surround himself with, wouldn't have existed were not invetro furtelization practiced to begin with. What does the Pope think of that? Should we kill all those babies just to show we are in earnest against invetro? I speak absurdity, of course. I don't see why it has to be either - Or. Why can't it be both - And. Let's continue research on these embryos or "blasticis" as they are called, on cells that would otherwise only be thrown away, and let deserving couples who want to adopt draw from these same test tube cells that "would otherwise only be thrown away". Society is demanding a cure for these deseases we have, and knowing that a cure is possible out there, only makes us demand louder.