Americans are Assholes

I received this letter in an E-mail. Apparently it was an editorial out of a Tampa Newspaper. Read on:

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AMERICANS, MUST ADAPT. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Americans. However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the "politically correct" crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to America. Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

"In God We Trust" is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

If Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don't like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. This is OUR COUNTRY, our land, and our lifestyle. Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about our flag, our pledge, our national motto, or our way of life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great American freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

If you agree -- pass this along; if you don't agree -- delete it!

AMEN

My god, you can almost hear the Star Spangled banner playing in the background. Particularly liked how the letter ends with "amen," like he's praying to God and insulting foreigners at the same time.

Before you all start calling me names and telling me to "love it or leave it," let it be known that I like to think of myself as a Patriotic citizen. I say "like to think of myself" and not "I am" because if being patriotic means I have to sound like this piece of shit then count me out. Seems to me though that a lot of people tend to have this same arrogant attitude when it comes to patriotism, the idea that our culture and language is somehow inseparable from our national identity. Well that's just not how it is.

First off, you don't have to speak a specific language, live a specific way, or believe in a specific religion to be a citizen of any country, let alone ours. You could speak Swahili, dress in traditional Hungarian wedding attire, and believe in sun worship and still be an American citizen. The fact that English is the "official" language is irrelevant. Doesn't mean that if you don't speak it you aren't entitled to the same rights as any other citizen. Just means that you need an interpreter when you go to the drive-thru.

I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that other people from other cultures bringing the best of what their native lands have to offer is what makes this country great. Is it just not like that anymore? What happened to "bring us your poor" and all the other bullshit it says on the Statue of liberty?

Last time I checked Christianity was not the "official" religion either. In fact, regardless of the bullshit out Reactionary president tried to pull over the last three years, I seem to remember something about a separation of church and state here in America.

"In God We Trust" is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture."

Bullshit. Anyone who's studied past seventh grade history knows that the founding fathers didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves. They didn't fucking care about women, or Indians, or slaves, or children working in factories. They didn't give a fuck about spreading small pox through the indigenous native population or killing any of them who got in the way of Manifest Destiny. What they did care about was money, i.e. no taxation without representation. They cared about taxes, and the Stamp act, and keeping standing armies in time of peace (all things the present federal government does without a second thought, or a hint of criticism I might add.) I also think that it's pretty ironic that our "National Motto," as this person puts it, just happens to be written on the $1 bill, a unit of money. If that doesn't say something about this country then I don't know what does. Am I some kind of rabid anti-patriotic Uncle Sam hater? No, I'm just trying to put this shit into perspective for you all. When was the last time that ANYONE in the history of the United States who has been in a position of power gave a fuck about people more than money? Can you name one person? Thomas Jefferson maybe? Seems to me a lot of the crap the founding fathers did tended to be very contrary to basic Christian principles, like counting black people as 3/4ths of a human being or killing entire nations of Indians. And frankly, the Founding fathers are DEAD now. It is not their country anymore, it's ours. Who gives a fuck what they believed in. What matters now is what WE believe in, what WE do, and how WE act towards each other. What the Founding Father's intent was counts for jack shit.

Also, since we live in a multicultural society, then it is our job, as the citizens, not theirs, as the immigrants, to adapt. Yes, they should learn to speak, read, and write in English, simply because it's the language everyone uses. That's a no-brainer. They should also learn the laws and basic cultural norms, like it's not okay to eat dogs and cats here. The thing is they do already.

Have any of you ever taken a look at the test they give you when you sign up to be a citizen? I'll bet ten to one 90% of you couldn't pass it on your first try. That test is fucking hard. Half the shit they don't even mention in our pathetic schools anymore. See, what all these anti-immigration assholes forget is that people who relocate their lives to this country usually go through a lot more shit than you ever will to come here. Yeah, it might be easy if you're from Canada or the UK. But if you're from anywhere else, say a country we are not particularly friendly towards in regards to immigrants (like Mexico, China, or any country in Africa or the Middle East,) it is practically impossible. You will probably work your ass off for years just to get the dough for the trip over. You'll go through tons and tons of red-tape baloney just to get your foot in the door. You'll have to leave your family and friends and probably not see any of them again for years at a time. And this is only if you're trying to do it the right way, which short of being a millionaire or having friends is high places is fucking impossible. For the rest that means sneaking over the border, crawling over barbed wire fence, dodging redneck patrols and attack dogs, or if you're from the Orient sealing yourself in a cargo container for weeks at a time, perhaps turning yourself into an indentured slave and living in fear of both the authorities AND the triads. People go through all this shit and more, because they want to come here. They come here because they can make more money picking strawberries and washing dishes than with a college education in their own countries. They come here because despite all the faults, our country is still one of the few places left where you can make something of yourself. They go through a living hell to come here and make life better for themselves and their families, and then this asshole has the audacity to tell them to "adapt."

People like this piece of garbage just do not realise how good we actually have it here in this country. You don't have to go that far away to see the difference between here and the rest of the world. Just take a trip down to Tijuana for a weekend, take note of the conditions of the roads, notice how you get the punjaba runs if you drink the water, try to find a public toilet that isn't spawned from the ninth circle of bacteria hell. No fucking wonder so many people risk their lives to come here.

Note to anyone who has never left the United States: The rest of the world thinks all of America has it's head up it's ass. They don't hate us because "We're the land of the free," they don't want to kill us because of "Our freedoms," they just see it like it is, that Americans for the most part are lazy, arrogant, free-loading Assholes who don't know how good they've got it and who can't shut the fuck up for five minutes, and who keep sticking their noses where they don't belong, namely other country's natural resources. People like the dipshit who wrote this letter just prove them right.

And no, Mr. Patriotic, I am not going to leave. Because most of the people in this country (the ones who don't act like you) are generally hard working, intelligent, and care about more than themselves. I find that if I just avoid the dickheads with the cowboy hats and bibles then usually I have a good day. It is my sincere hope that as more and more people come here from around the world people like the author of this letter will find themselves an endangered species. Maybe one day the Mexicans will just breed them out. I know it's not going to happen in my lifetime, but a man can hope. So until that day I suppose I will just have to "delete it."

I Used To Give A Shit

You know, I used to care about a lot of things. But now I realize how the universe really works. See, it really doesn't matter what you do, say, how you act, what kind of clothes you wear or how you spend your time. Because really you're not effecting anything else out there to any significant degree.
Most people out there like to think that they are important, at least to some degree. Even the most pathetic waste of human resources in the world, a man with no life, goals, or ambition, who works at a shitty job, picks his nose habitually, and masturbates to naked pictures of total strangers on the Internet (me for example,) even a sorry sack of rodent urine like that has somewhere, locked in the back of the loser subconscious, the idea that in some way he is an important person and that his life has some meaning, some reason, that somehow he might be part of some grander scheme in the mechanical workings of the universe, like maybe he's got some important task to accomplish before he dies, and that he wouldn't be here if that wasn't so. Well I'm sorry to break it to you people (actually, I'm not sorry) but that's total bullshit.

Here, let me put your existence into perspective:

What you are looking at is a picture of a Galaxy, one very similar to our own. We do not have pictures of our own galaxy because it is very big, and it would take a long time to get a camera out far enough to get everyone into the picture. Anyway, most people look at this picture and say "It's a galaxy. Big deal." You have no idea what you are looking at. This thing in this picture is so immensely huge, so incredibly large, so unbelievably mind boggelingly gigantic, that you could never, ever, ever even comprehend how big it is. And to get it into a picture means that it is so incredibly super-duper far away that you could never walk there in a bazillion years. You couldn't fly there, you couldn't take a taxi there, you couldn't even make a phone call there. This galaxy is beyond you in every way possible. There are so many stars in it that you could never count them all in your lifetime. This here is a picture of infinity, and you, as a human being, cannot identify with it, cope with it, or understand it, let alone that half of the blurry dots in the background are also galaxies, each as astronomically immense and a billion times further away than this one. Don't even try.

So maybe you noticed the "You are here" sign in the corner. I made it point at that particular spot because in our own galaxy that's where our solar system is supposed to be. But I suppose it really doesn't matter since the whole thing is beyond my comprehension. I truly cannot comprehend that I am a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot in a universe so vast that that to even look at a photograph of one galaxy out of trillions is beyond my feeble mental capacity. So, like everyone else in the world, I just bullshit myself. Take this little quiz to see if you bullshit yourself to keep from feeling insignificant too:

The "I bullshit myself to feel important" test.

Directions: Print this test, then answer yes or no to any of the following questions. Then, smack yourself in the head because it's a bullshit test and you just wasted printer ink. Why the fuck do printer cartridges cost so damn much? Fuck Hewlett Packard.

1) I am an important person because I have a job that's important and affects the lives of other people. I have responsibilities.	YES NO
2) I am important because I have a family to take care of or friends that love me.	YES NO
3) I am important because I am going to do something that is going to alter history.	YES NO
4) I am important because I am an individual and by definition have a unique life and perspective on everything that nobody else has.	YES NO
5) I am important because I have a cause and a message that will make the world a better place.	YES NO
6) I am important because God has a plan for me and I wouldn't have been born otherwise.	YES NO

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions you have just failed the test. Don't feel bad, it was a bullshit test in the first place. It really doesn't matter. Let me explain why you all just failed and are guilty, along with 99% of the rest of the human race, of bullshitting yourselves.

Here is the answer key:

1) I am an important person because I have a job that's important and affects the lives of other people. I have responsibilities. -Bullshit. Your job does not make you important. Unless you truly possess some kind of super secret knowledge that nobody else in the world has (like say how to turn lead into gold or make the "12:00" on a VCR stop blinking) then chances are somebody else with the same kind of training and education could do your job with no problem. There are maybe three people in the world that fall under this category and I know who they are:

1) Some nameless nobody somewhere in the Microsoft corporate hierarchy who actually does all the work.

2) Some asshole in a smoky back room somewhere who controls the world economy.

3) Whatever dickhead locked away in a secret room in the middle of the earth who lives off of doughnuts and fried pork rinds who actually controls world politics from an outdated Macintosh personal computer circa 1985.

I Know the above people exist because without them nothing in the world makes sense. Anyone who is not them (like say, the other 5,999,999,997 people on the Earth, including the seven or so on the international space station) have jobs that are transitory, at best. Some day they will quit or retire and somebody else will take over. This includes heart surgeons, air traffic controllers, and the President of the United States. Your job means two things: Jack and Shit. Get over it already.

2) I am important because I have a family to take care of or friends that love me. -Bullshit. Everybody has a fucking family. Everybody has fucking friends. Even all you people out there who say "I ain't got no friends," yes you too. If you don't have any friends try turning off Diablo II and going outside once in a while. Thus if everybody has them then they cannot make you important. Don't try to argue, you're just lying to yourself.

3) I am important because I am going to do something that is going to alter history. -Bullshit. When was the last time this actually happened? I can't name one person alive today that has done something to alter history. Maybe whoever first put porn up on the internet, but I'm sure whoever that is has died by now. Nothing you do short of inventing a teleportation device, warp drive, or discovering a new source of free, clean, renewable energy is going to change the world. And you're not suddenly going to come up with the secret of life while eating at McDonalds one day. "Yeah, I want a six piece chicken McNuggets, a large fries, and OH SHIT I'VE DISCOVERED THE SECRET OF LIFE!" Just accept that you're worthless, like everybody else. You'll feel much better that way.

4) I am important because I am an individual and by definition have a unique life and perspective on everything that nobody else has. -Bullshit. Nobody gives a shit about your stupid perspective on life. What are you fucking Socrates? Shut the hell up before you say something intelligent. Let me remind you how many people there are in the world: Six billion. That's 6,000,000,000 different unique individuals with unique perspectives on life, compared to your "1." So clamp your fucking shit trap Mr. Touchy-feely-feel-good-to-act-like-a-pussy man. Asshole.

5) I am important because I have a cause and a message that will make the world a better place. -Bullshit. Your cause doesn't matter. In the grand scheme of things nothing that happens on this tiny flea-speck of a planet is going to effect the universe in any significant way. You wanna save the whales? You wanna recycle those cans? You wanna save the rainforest? The rest of the universe could give a shit if the whales live or die, of if the tin cans pile up into an artificial island, or if all the rainforest on Earth were chopped down to make room for Starbucks stores and strip malls. The rest of the universe wouldn't even notice it if suddenly our entire galaxy just exploded for no reason. It wouldn't even register a tic on the cosmic Richter scale.

Maybe you think that your message is somehow special, and that by getting it out you're somehow going to change the world for the betterment of mankind for thousands of years. Yeah, I remember the last person to say that: Adolph Hitler.

6) I am important because God has a plan for me and I wouldn't have been born otherwise. -Bullshit. If you somehow are essential to the cosmic scheme of things then what about the rest of the six billion people in the world? What's their job? How do they figure into this plan that is some overwhelmingly complex yet rests solely on your participation in it? Does that mean that if I were to suddenly throw a live chainsaw through your window and chop you in half while you were taking a shit that suddenly, I, a lowly mortal, have just fucked up God's divine plan? What if you accidentally choke on a chicken bone? Would God be so short sighted to expend the resources of billions of years to to create the universe, spurn the creation of life, and the eventual evolution of man just so YOU could be born, just to have all that immense time and energy go to waste when you die horribly gasping for air as a wishbone from your Tyson TV dinner slowly cuts off your esophagus? What if you're a loser and don't amount to much, and you spend your time watching soap operas and masturbating in Andy Gumps at monster truck rallies? Is that part of the plan too? Bullshit, there is no plan, and if there is it's so overwhelmingly complex that you can't understand it, kind of like that picture of the galaxy back there. Thus the plan is meaningless and should have absolutely no bearing on your decision making process. If it does, then there's a word for people like you: Stupid.
So what the fuck does this all mean? It means I don't give a shit about you anymore. I'm not important, you're not important. Nothing you or I do really matters. The only difference is that when I spank my chicken I call it masturbation, when you do it you call it life.

In case any of you forgot:

Fuck the MPAA - You will never destroy P2P

I am an avid user of Peer to Peer networks, namely Emule. I am a P2P whore. I used to have a ridiculous number of downloads going at once, so much that I had to shut it off while surfing because it sucked too much bandwidth and made my browser too slow. I had access to tons of rare and weird music and movies that I'd never seen in a store before. Life was grand for a while.

So when I heard of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) took on this crusade to kill P2P networking I really wasn't too worried. I thought that there might be some legal bickering here and there but in the end everything would turn out fine, with maybe a few new rules to stick to. I couldn't have been more wrong. A little bit of history about the controversy surrounding P2P networking is in order now:

The RIAA killed Napster. They didn't just cripple it, or fine it, or do the smart thing and sign a contract to make money off it, no, they had to utterly destroy it. At the beginning Napster was the embodiment of what the internet was made for, swapping a shitload of files and getting free music that would otherwise be unavailable to you in the privacy of your own home. At the end Napster was a shadow of it's former self, a multimillion dollar company crushed beneath the heel of greedy record producers.

You'll notice that no specific record company sued Napster, instead they all conspired together to get the RIAA to do the dirty work for them. The RIAA is the union that protects all the artists that sign with the major labels. They are there in the first place because the record companies are run by a bunch of crooks that repeatedly ripped off the artists on a regular basis, and so to avoid any poking around by the Government this union was formed to make sure that a little bit of your $20 that you drop on a CD goes to the band once in a while. Just look at Aaron Neville to see how well the Record companies treat the people that make them millions. In the 70's Aaron Neville was at the top of the charts and playing sold out shows with his awesome band The Funky Meters, but at the same time he was working part time as a dock worker to support his family because the fucking record companies swindled his ass out of nearly every penny. Anyone who's ever been in a band that's gotten anywhere near to breaking big knows how much they fuck you over when you sign on the dotted line. The RIAA was created to make sure that if they're gonna anal rank you, there at least has to be some rules to it. But it seems now they've been reduced to a bunch of pansy-assed tools working for the people they were created to police. It just blows my mind.

I remember seeing Metallica on MTV talking to congress about how Napster was solely responsible for them losing $50 million in record sales. Boo-fucking-hoo. They forgot to mention that the particular album in question went multiplatinum (here's a site with a record of Metallica's sales: http://www.allmetallica.com/info/recordsales.php ) Doesn't seem to me that Metallica is suffering for money. So not everybody went out and bought your stupid album. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that your record sucked ass and your fans didn't like it when you cut off your hair, ditched the biker look, and tried to dress like Justin Timberlake instead. Maybe that particular album didn't sell well because to the average Metallica fan it looked like their favorite band sold out and turned into a bunch of pussies. I hope they all get their asses beat by people wearing their own T-shirts. I hope the next concert they play gets burned down by an angry mob of former Napster employees. Fuck Metallica.

So Napster bit the big one and the assholes with the money won yet again. Nothing new there I suppose. But in the wake of Napster sprang new P2P networks who got around the RIAA by making it so that any file could be traded, not just MP3's. Now you can get music, movies, software, free porn, hacker tools, pics of Agent Scully in a threesome with Mulder and Skinner, everything at once in the privacy of your own bedroom. So it's kind of like Napster was sacrificed like Jesus, so that the rest of the P2P networks could be forgiven. And there wasn't a damn thing the RIAA could do about it. Good. Fuck them.

But maybe not. A few years passed as the RIAA watched helplessly as fans did what they always do, that is enjoy the fruits of the artists they enjoy. During this time (1999-2003) music, software, and movie sales did not significantly go down. Movie ticket sales totaled about $9.317 billion in 2002 and fell about 5% in 2003. Why is that? Maybe because some real shitty movies came out in 2003? Honestly though 5% of $9.317 billion is not a big deal. It means that more people decided to rent the previous summer blockbuster and stay home instead of go out to the movies. These things go in cycles that are closely tied in to economic cycles on the whole. Next year it'll probably jump back up again.

What about Record sales? Despite all the bullshit they record companies keep saying about P2P file sharing destroying their sales, after half an hour on the internet I couldn't find one major record company that reported a loss in 2003. In fact most companies reported increases. Maybe this is just bullshit so they don't scare their stockholders. Maybe it's not; maybe their projected sales are down, as in they thought they would make X billion but only made Y billion. Maybe not, who gives a shit? All I know is that these assholes are still making billions upon billions of dollars and are pissed off because people like me don't want to give them money anymore. From the RIAA's very own website I saw that sales are down from $14,584,500,000 in 1999 to $12,614,210,000 in 2003. Oh no, they only made twelve TRILLION dollars last year. I don't see Geffen, Island, or Sony music going out of business any time soon.

Just a thought, it could be that sales are down because all the new music out there SUCKS ASS now?
So last year to add insult to injury the RIAA decided to really booster their public image and began suing P2P users at random. I'm sure everyone reading this heard the stories of 12 year old girls getting sued for downloading music. Of course it didn't help that the chickenshit ISPs (including AOL and Verizon) buckled under like a limp erection and sold out their customers personal information in the first place. So much for your "privacy policy." This didn't stop until one smart guy got the idea to ask his ISP not to give out his info. Nice you have to ask for something they're supposed to do in the first place. So anyway the RIAA lost again (ha ha!) and were sent swimming in their own poop back to the corner to complain to the media about how file sharing "piracy" is destroying their business. I thought it was finally over. I went back to downloading without a second thought.

But not anymore. Now it looks like the MPAA is getting into the act, and have just gotten the German Government to shut down Sharereactor.com, one of the servers on the EDonkey network. So since they can't get rid of P2P networks because they're decentralized, and they can't scare people with threats to sue anymore, now it looks like the powers that be are trying to shut down the servers themselves.

Why should you care about this? Because this is an attack on the internet itself! If we let these people go around and shut down servers they don't like anytime they feel like it, it will set precedent that any private entity (in this case a trade union, but this could also include a corporation, local/federal government, religious organization, etc) could conceivably force a server with content they don't like to disappear. Before you know it evangelical church groups or the local chapter of Concerned Women of America will be suing to shut down porn sites, abortion sites, etc, not by suing the site themselves but by going after whatever company that hosts the site.

This is fundamentally against what the internet stands for. The internet was created for one thing and one thing only: FREEDOM. Freedom to look at what you want, read what you want, say what you want, and download what you want. These motherfuckers want to take away that freedom and turn the internet into a gigantic beer commercial. Imagine having to pay every time you turn on your browser, then hitting an online "toll booth" in which access is restricted until you pay some more, then having to pay to download something before you even get to preview it, then paying again to access your e-mail, all of this on top of what you usually pay for your monthly rate. This is what these people are trying to do to the internet, because if they can't figure out how to make money on their content on the web, then they'll take it from ALL of the web. They will destroy the internet.
So you know what I say? Download all you want. That's the only way we can stop these assholes. We need to show them that we're not afraid to use the internet for what it was intended for. I'm not going to cower like a chickenshit scared to fucking death that some asshole in a suit is going to serve me up a summons for downloading a Dr. Demento song. I say we boycott movies and CDs all together and force them to adapt. The internet is the new technological paradigm the distribution of the media of the future is going to use whether the RIAA and MPAA like it or not. If they can't get their shit together fast enough to cash in on file sharing then too bad for them. You notice Apple with Itunes isn't complaining about file sharing. They sold over a million songs the first day they went on-line. The companies that adapt to the new technology are the ones that are going to make all the money. That's how capitalism works, you assholes. File sharing has been around nearly ten years already, get with the fucking program. Dickheads.

Fuck the MPAA. Fuck the RIAA too. Fuck all of them.

Update 8/5/05:
It's official: downloading is now illegal. The assholes in congress were too chickenshit to stand up to the suits in Hollywood and the record companies and folded like a card table. You can now go to jail for downloading a 50 cent song. Remember that next time you vote.

But more people are downloading files than ever before. The law has been passed but everyone is doing what they should be doing: ignoring it. Good, because it's a bullshit law. Of course now and then we're going to have to suffer the occasional crackdown, but for the most part you're safe to go back to downloading. It's safe becasue too many people are doing it. If there's 50 million P2P users out there, how many can they possibly bust? Not enough of them to make a difference. Filesharing has now become the equivalent of digital marijuana; it's against the law but everybody does it.
Fuck you MPAA. We won.

Ten Things I Fucking Hate Part III

1) Assholes who throw out some useless piece of trivia and think they're smart: You're sitting talking to your friend about something lame like cartoons or whatever and some fool next to you gives you the entire history of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You are not smart for knowing something like that. You are pathetic.

2) Teenagers: I hate kids. They should all be locked up underground and fed dead rats and fish heads. Fuck them.

3) The "Political Guy": Every klick has one, the guy who goes on the internet and reads some reactionary blog or whatever and always thinks that what's happening right now on CNN in the precursor to America collapsing into a communist police state. Some of you might think this is a little hypocritical coming from a guy who has a page entitled "The Bad Bush list." Well, you're just going to have to figure that out.

4) STONERS: I fucking hate stoners. It's just sad to see someone who's hardly reached the age of adulthood and has already committed himself to a life of mediocrity. You're only 21, not even to of school yet, and already you've totally destroyed your mind by overindulging in what should be a normally harmless pastime. Weed is recreation, a party drug, something people do to have a good time. It is not supposed to be a way of life. When you wake up in the morning and take a deep bong rip even before you take a piss then it's time to lay off the ganja for a bit. You may notice strange things happening to your mind, like maybe you'll be able to remember shit once in a while. If you keep this shit up you're going to be dilevering pizzas at Papa Johns forever. And everybody knows how pathetic old stoners are.

5) Loser Goth fools: The fact is that most "Goth" bozos are in it for the looks. The guys get into it because they want to be "The Crow" and the chicks do it because they have some delusion that all the make-up and Morticia outfits will cover up their otherwise ugly appearance. Here's a hint folks: You're still ugly no matter how much make-up you wear, Your poetry still sucks no matter how many vampires are in it, and you're still lame no matter how much you spend on your wardrobe. Some of you might think this hypocritical coming from a guy who wears the same black clothes everyday. Well, once again, figure it out.

6) Abercrombie and Fich: Did I fall asleep for a few decades and miss something? Since when did this clothing company take over the world? I took a day and counted how many people I saw wearing clothes by A&F, my total: 213 in the space of 8 hours. The clothes aren't anything that special, they look just like every other piece of sweatshop garbage made by indentured slaves out of some third world country. It is time for this company to be destroyed.

7) Sprite comics: Stupid. You might as well cut pictures out of a newspaper. And they're all about the same thing: Megaman kills Super Mario and then bangs the princess or something else only a 14 year old boy cold imagine. Give it up.

8) Getting a zit right between your shoulder blades where you can't reach it: I hate that shit.

9) Hypochondriacs: I have no fucking patience for these people anymore. If you give into their shit and give them sympathy then you're just playing into their game and encouraging them. You are not sick. You are not going to die of the West Nile Virus, or cancer, or fucking SARS. It's all in your head. Shut the hell up already.

10) The Ditech.com Loan Officer: Where the fuck do they find these idiots? I can picture the board meeting: "Let's get a gross ugly bucket of Lard-ass donkey jizz to be our new spokesman." I hate those stupid commercials. "Darn, I lost another loan to Ditech!" Hey, I lost my left foot up your ass you big fat boring loser. Please, get rid of this guy.

No Sympathy For Fat People

I'm getting sick and tired of fucking fat people. Seems like nowadays everybody is fat. And they are, at least in this country. Something like 80% of Americans are overweight. We are a nation of wobbly fat-asses who suck down French Fries and Chicken Mcnuggets like they're oxygen. It's getting obscene.

There is a cure to being fat: It's called regular exercise. It doesn't take very much either.

First let me give you a little background on myself: I am fat. I am a big tub of lard. I have been my entire life. Last year I weighed so much I could sit on a dollar bill and squeeze out change. I was a humongous, jelly bellied, disgusting fat body.

So, two months ago I weighed 213 pounds. I got sick of being fucking fat. I went up to the workout room at my apartment complex and ran on the stupid treadmill for 10 minutes. I thought I was going to die. But I finished the ten minutes, and afterwards began running a minimum of twice a week. Now two months later I've lost 14 pounds. As of this morning (3-20-04) I weigh 199 lbs. I haven't changed any of my eating habits, stopped smoking, gone vegetarian, or any of that other bullshit. If I knew how easy it was I would have been doing this years ago.

Of course, I'm probably still 15-20 pounds overweight for my height, but I'm not trying to be Mr. fucking Universe here. I just want to look moderately good, fit into a pair of pants, and be able to walk up a flight of stairs without dying. I don't need to be able to run a marathon. It's amazing just how little you have to do in order to lose weight. I've started using the weight machine very sparingly, like three sets of ten of a couple of exercises. Two months later and my biceps are noticeably bigger, there's like He-man veins popping out of my arms and shit, and I don't have tits anymore, I have PECTORALS, motherfucka! It's fucking incredible, I'm barely working out for 30 minutes twice a week and I'm getting all crazy strong. So as a fat person myself I will now share the secret of losing weight with all the other fat people in the world. It's the least I can do.

STEP ONE: SHUT UP ABOUT BEING FAT AND JUST ACCEPT IT

Don't try to fool people by wearing vertical stripes or saying baloney like "I'm not fat, I'm just big boned." Bullshit. You're only lying to yourself.

STEP TWO: CUT BACK ON THE TWINKIES

If you stuff your face with Big Macs and Ding Dongs all day you're never gonna lose any weight. Stop that "I just have a sweet tooth" crap. Pull the fucking sweet tooth. This also means not going back to the buffet table for sixths on the potato logs. Doesn't mean you're never allowed to eat a candy bar again, just try to balance the shit out with an apple or something once in a while.

STEP THREE: STOP THE FUCKING ATKINS DIET

You people are all going to die. A diet that high in protein is going to give you all cancer. All fad diets are bullshit- each person has a unique metabolism that processes food in a different way. Just because some fat fuck who was so blubberous that he couldn't walk lost 500 pounds on the Slim Fast diet doesn't mean you will too. All you're doing is wasting money. Spend that cash at the gym instead.

STEP FOUR: TAKE THIS SHIT SERIOUSLY

If you really want to lose weight you will. Half the fat people out there are depressed because they're fat and have given up hope of ever fitting into those jeans again. These are the people who go home and eat 27 gallons of ice cream and then cry themselves to sleep. CUT THAT SHIT OUT! If you're really sick and tired of being a lard ass then get the fuck up off the couch, turn off Star Trek, and go outside and do something about it. Stop fucking whining and crying and get a hold of yourselves.

STEP FIVE: DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Go jogging. Lift some weights. Do some jumping jacks. Go for a walk. Do some yoga, whatever, it doesn't matter. Find an exercise regimen that works and that you can stick with. Don't try to become an Olympic gymnast overnight. Start small, because after you do start losing some poundage you'll see that it actually works and you can take that encouragement to work out harder and longer. I can't tell you how much better I feel, and I've only been doing this for a few months. I have Stamina now. I can walk up a flight of steps. Chicks are starting to look at me when I walk in the room. Because when you know you look good and you feel good people of the opposite sex take notice. And that's what it's all about, right people? That's the biggest downside to being fat: Lardasses don't get laid as much as skinny people. So put the grilled stuffed burrito down, turn off Unreal tournament 2004, go put some tennis shoes on and slog that fat bootie around the block a few times. You'll thank yourself in the morning.

Ten Things I Fucking Hate Part 2

1) People who renew their wedding vows: This is just plain stupid. Maybe if your wedding vows meant something in the first place you wouldn't have to do lame bullshit like this to keep from splitting up.

2) Your friend who is trying to recruit you into something: You all know the story; You have a friend who just joined a gym/church/multi-level marketing plan/ etc and he just won't leave you alone. And the thing is if you value the friendship at all you can't just tell him to get lost else they take it all personally. Not me. Anyone who uses the guise of "friendship" to advance their own position within their precious pecking order obviously isn't my fucking friend. Go score your brownie points on someone else, asshole. Come back after you drop out so we can hang out again.

3) People who drive like maniacs in the rain: I live in glorious sunny southern California, perhaps the most temperate place on Earth. 364 days out of the year it's a totally beautiful day outside. But there's at least one day (sometimes up to a week) where a hurricane just comes out of nowhere and buckets will pour down. Thing is no one in L.A. seems to notice the deluge outside and continue to drive the Los Angeles speed limit, which is as fast as fucking possible. Everyone in L.A. seems to have a place to be at any particular moment and they don't care who they have to kill to get there. Heads up people: You are all assholes. Rain will make your car go out of control and kill you. I personally give two and a half shits if you spinout and fly off the freeway overpass to your death but you might hit me in the process. I want to live, I think death by speeding nincompoop in the rain would be a very pathetic way to end my life. Slow the fuck down.

4) Militant Vegans: Oh please, just shut the hell up for fuck's sake. Yes, the cow had to die so I could eat a taco. That's the idea. Nobody cares. And Note to Vegan chicks: Shave your fucking armpits. I'm sure you could find some shaving cream that doesn't have any animal products in it. That is just dang nasty.

5) People who have the Christian "Calvin praying" sticker on their cars: You know, Bill Watterson doesn't make any money from those stickers. They are all bootlegged. I thought stealing was not a very Christian thing to do. And besides if you need a sticker to prove your faith then obviously your faith is pretty fucked up to begin with.

6) People who save shit into their hair: I thought this ridiculous fad died out years ago, but lately it seems to be making a comeback. Of all the fucking things to come back in style it's not something cool like afros or pet rocks or whatever, it's shaving a word onto your head. You look like a walking dildo with the price tag still on it. It was stupid in 1993 and it's stupid today.

7) Persian Gangsters: Oh God, please oh mighty lord, please strike these morons down with your holy asskicking, please pour forth the cup of the wrath of the lord on these fuck-ups, because they are a walking contradiction of the human condition, and are possibly worse than the white guys who act like gangsta's. They are ashamed of the perfectly good cultural background they possess, and instead of acknowledging that their society gave rise to the renaissance, law, and the modern world, have chosen to emulate what they see on MTV. Thus I beg of you almighty God to please consider giving them all a plague of ticks, or perhaps a boil on the end of the penis, or maybe just slap them all in the head with your mighty hand and knock some sense into the silly bastards. Amen.

8) Old people: This one is hardly a surprise. Everyone hates old people.

9) Retards who think they're master hackers because they work at a computer store: Look, I'm just asking you how much this motherboard costs. I don't need a full system rundown on what every fucking chip does, nor why I should buy the one that costs $100 more. I don't care, just price check the fucking thing for me. Ten to one you probably don't know what the hell you're talking about. Obviously if you were that super-computer-smart you wouldn't be working at Best Buy.

10) The "Ugly" friend: Every good looking chick has an ugly friend who she drags around to run interference while she counts heads of who's checking her out. You guys out there know what I'm talking about. The ugly friend is usually fat, or maybe has smaller boobs, or a face full of zits, or a big nose, or something that makes her vastly less attractive than her partner, and that's why the fine chick keeps her around, first of all to make herself feel better, and second to use as a decoy when some loser (like me) tries to make a move. You know the story, you try to introduce yourself and end up talking to Ulga for half an hour while Hotpants watches you squirm. Well fuck you Hotpants. You're a fucking evil bitch and one day you're not going to be so hot anymore. And fuck you too Ulga, if you had any self-esteem you wouldn't let some stupid broad use you like that. At least my hand doesn't play any head games.

We Have To Stop The Christians Before They Kill Us All

When I drive home from work at night I can't stand listening to commercial music on the radio. It rots my mind. Instead, I listen to talk radio. But usually all talk radio is pretty much the same load of shit. My favorite station is 90.7, KPFK, Pacifica public radio. KPFK is listener supported and has a really good muckraking news department. But late at night they play mostly music, and while it's usually better than the commercial stations sometimes it just gets boring. And so while flipping through the channels I come across this religious station (98.3, KDAR out of Ventura County.) So it's interesting, lots of sermons telling people to give money, etc. It's interesting to see the totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the news as well, like during the 2000 riots in Seattle the religious station had on a cop who's message was essentially, "These people are traitors who need to be thrown in jail," while KPFK had a news crew on the scene and were interviewing people getting shot with rubber bullets, nailed with pepper spray, even one guy who wasn't involved that was arrested because he was walking down the street talking into a cell phone (the idea being that since he had a phone he must be one of the organizers.) I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

So KDAR became the second choice on my dial for a little while. Then one day I tuned into a show called "Focus on the Family," which is run by a guy named Dr. James Dobson. It was essentially a tabloid show disguised as the news, with various hidden Christian commentary about how everyone who doesn't believe exactly what Dobson preaches will go to hell, with the usual plea for money at the end, nothing different here. Lots of anti-evolution, gay rights, anti-environment, pro-Bush/Republican bullshit, all the usual crap one expects from a right wing religious talk show. But what caught my attention was another show brought to you by Focus on the Family called "Life on the edge, LIVE!" A call in show where teenagers ask questions and Dobson and a guest do their best to fuck up their minds. Among the subjects I heard discussed that first night:

1) A girl called in to ask if it was okay for her to kiss her boyfriend.

2) A young man made comments to the effect that girls that wear skimpy clothing are tempting him and "Drawing him away from the Lord." (I suppose all teenage girls should wear potato sacks then.)

3) A girl called in right after to comment how skimpy clothing goes against God.

4) Someone asked about the dangers of internet chat rooms.

5) A call about the Satanic influences of Wicca

6) A girl called in about (I shit you not) the scriptural basis for wearing makeup

I couldn't believe it. I had to turn it up. I thought these people were phonies, fakes, hired by the radio station as some sort of alien invasion scheme. I am a normal guy in my late 20s. I was a teenager less than a decade ago. I don't really remember anyone, even the freaky religious people I knew, devoting so much energy to these types of "problems" that they felt compelled to call a radio show for an answer. Has our society become so pathetic that kids are afraid to KISS each other? When the hell did this happen?

Up until recently there was a girl at my work who was into this stuff (I'll call her "Houdini" as that was her nickname at work, because she always disappeared when there was work to do. ) So I decided to ask her some questions. Yes, it is wrong to wear too much makeup. Yes, Wicca, Astrology, and all forms of New Age religion come from the Devil. Yes, internet chat rooms are evil. Yes, it is bad to even KISS a boy if you're not married. But through these conversations I learned some other disturbing things:

1) Houdini doesn't believe in Global Warming. She doesn't think it's happening. I showed her a newspaper clipping I saved about the disintegration of the Larson B Antarctic ice shelf (complete with pictures.) Her response: "I'll believe it when I see it."

2) Houdini doesn't believe in Evolution. When I asked her how Adam's sons suddenly got wives, she said "Adam and Eve had a lot of children, so their wives were their sisters." So according to her, the entire 6 billion + population of the human race is a result of massive inbreeding. Okay...

3) Houdini supports the president in all his endeavors because he is an admitted Christian. When I asked her about the bullshit 2000 election, she replied "God puts people into authority. He wouldn't be president if God didn't want him to be." She found a justification for every bad thing the Bush white house has done in the last three years, everything from rolling back arsenic in drinking water to the War in Iraq. All of her comments ended with "He's a Christian and I trust him."

4) Houdini thinks all Muslims are evil, even the ones who are law abiding citizens, and that anyone who is not a Christian will burn in hell forever.

5) Jesus was white.

Something is wrong here. Something is seriously wrong. There's one thing to be said about young people being ignorant of what's going on in the world because the corporate media is full of shit and as kids they are more interested in partying than the news. It's something else when their entire world outlook is totally warped by fucking right wing preachers. I don't think I'm the only one who can see that the total brainwashing bullshit I'm-afraid-of-my-sexuality morality coupled with the force-fed distortion of news and world events by religious nuts is a bad combination. It adds up to a person who's outlook on the world is so dependent on what they think "God" is saying that they'll believe anything you tell them.

And that's precisely why the world is so fucked up today. It's fucked up because people like this VOTE. People like this obey orders, and to them those orders come from GOD, telling them to vote down gay rights, kick the crazy people out of mental institutions into the street, or drill in Alaska for oil. The deception is total, they absolutely refuse to believe that their exalted leaders in the political and social arenas could have any other motive besides what's best for the world. They would never dream that they are being used to further political agendas, restrict people's rights, or make corporations money. They would never dream that they are somewhat responsible for the suffering of other people here and aboard. They would never dream that as a result of their actions the people in power are fucking up the world for the rest of us. To them, they are doing the right thing.
I did a little bit of research on Focus on the Family. I found that the radio show is just a front, and what these people really are is a right wing political group who purposely use their congregation's donations to engage in lobbying, fundraising for politicians, and guerrilla style lawsuits designed to bend the law. They are active in over 80 countries, make over $100 million a year in "suggested contributions," and are run not as a church but as a "corporation," with Presidents, Vice presidents, a marketing department, etc. (all while still maintaining tax free status because they are a religious organization, bastards.) Focus on the Family was very active in advocating the passage of Colorado's Amendment Two, which denies equality to lesbian, gay and bisexual people while providing for special rights for heterosexuals and in advancing similar ballot initiatives in Maine. Focus has also extensively used the AIDS plague to advance their abstinence-based views regarding sex education. Focus on the Family has maintained a long-term, mutually-beneficial relationship with the Family Research Council (a political lobbying organization or P.A.C, founded by one of FOF's original board members,) and has also shown a great deal of support for the Promise Keepers organization (some fucked up pseudo-Christian cult that makes teenagers take vows of fucking chastity until one day in the far off future when they get married, thereby making it even harder for me to get laid.) FOF seems to especially hate gay people, and are working 24-7 to get rid of gay marriage in Massachusetts (and collected over $90 million in that state alone last year. Sounds like they're using gay marriage as an excuse to make money to me.) Dobson himself is trying to get a constitutional amendment passed to outlaw gay marriage in all 50 states. A quote from Dr. James Dobson: "We must amend the Constitution if we are to stop a tyrannical judiciary from redefining marriage to the point of extinction."Focus on the Family hates rock music and tells parents to send their kids to those "reprogramming centers" if they get caught with a Black Sabbath CD. They are the reason that libraries and schools have web filters on their computers. The list goes on and on.

These are the people that are giving spiritual advice to kids? These are the people that are shaping young minds, the people that are going to run the country in the future? I used to  post on the Life on the Edge BB under the name "Hawanja," mostly as a way of lashing out at stupid kids, but also to give a differing viewpoint to those brainwashed fools. I encourage everyone reading this to do the same. Maybe if we all get together and flood their stupid BB with posts they'll have to shut the fucking thing down. Seriously, check it out, if only to see how pathetic these poor children are.
The thing was with TV preachers like Pat Robertson or Jerry Farwell is that all you had to do was to see them speak to tell how full of shit they were. I recently saw Farwell on FOX news with his nose inbetween the president's asscheeks (I think he said something to the effect of, "If God wants me to praise him I'll praise him, if he wants me to condemn him I'll condemn him." Hey Farwell, I think I hear God telling me to tell you quit being a rich asshole and give away all your money to homeless people. ) While watching the man speak I couldn't help but notice how many times he blinked his eyes, something like 20 or 30 times a minute. I'm no expert, but I believe fidgeting, losing eye contact, or blinking excessively are definite signs of a liar. They're called tells, the thing the poker player looks for to see if you're bluffing. Farwell couldn't bluff his way out of a paper sack. The difference between Farwell and Dobson is that Dobson pulls his shit behind the scenes, you don't see this guy on the nightly news. He keeps himself away from the mainstream media and out of the public limelight, and like some criminal mastermind works his schemes in the shadows, until suddenly you wake up to find you live in a theocratic nazi Germany.

I know who Kaiser Socae is, his name is James Dobson.

Dobson isn't the only Christian demagogue out there, but he's certainly one of the most powerful. Most Christians in the world are honest, tolerant, trustworthy, hardworking people. They just have the same problem we all do, their leaders aren't interested in them, and they are only being used to make the rich guys at the top more money no matter who gets hurt. It's all our problem. These people have to be stopped before they take over the country. They have to be stopped before they make it a crime to listen to cool music or watch a movie with sex and violence in it. They have to be stopped before they start throwing people in jail for being gay, or being Muslim, or being any other type of Christian than they are. They have to be stopped before they take away all our civil rights, turn America into a Christian police state, and start World War III in the Middle East. They have to be stopped, and we have to stop them.