Jihad Me at Hello

Did you hear?!?! OH THE OUTRAGE!!!! Muslims terrorists want to build a shrine of the 9/11 attacks on the White House!!! And since Obama is a Muslim he doesn’t mind!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AMERICA?!?!??!?!?!

Ok ok, so that’s not quite true. But Muslims Extremists, who hate the US are trying to build a mosque on GROUND ZERO!!!! NOT IN MY LIFE TIME ASSHOLES!!! These colors do NOT run! However the do take brisk walks.

Ok, so actually some Muslims, want to build the equivalent of a Muslim YMCA a couple blocks from Ground Zero.

But still… TERRORISM!!!!!!! Look out!


Are we still at this point where pathetic jingoism is a mainstay in the vernacular of the average American? New polls from some college you've never heard of probably say yes.

For those of you who don’t watch Fox News, there is a proposed Muslim Cultural Center being built 5 minutes from the Ground Zero site. However it keeps getting reported that it is a Mosque, and it’s actually ON GROUND ZERO. Now first of all if this was true, I wouldn’t care. But it’s not true. It’s not a Mosque. There is a Mosque in it, among many other things. Not that any of that should matter. I'm just saying, if a Target shows up in your neighborhood, you can't really say that there is a new record store in town. its just happens to ALSO sell records. Just trying to be fair and balanced here. Speaking of fair and balanced, Fox News reported that 64% of all Americans think the Cultural Center shoudn't be built on Ground Zero. And they have won! because as i mentioned before, it was NEVER planned to be built ON GROUND ZERO. ever. it’s a couple blocks from Ground Zero. Not on it. I know some people who live about the same distance from Ground Zero as this proposed building, and they don’t tell people that the live on Ground Zero. Just because I work near Fenway Park, doesn’t mean I’m Youkilis.

People from all over the accepted political spectrum have weighed in. Everyone from Republicans to Democrats to… well really only those two, have been able to voice their opinions on the news. Sarah Palin said some stuff, and so did other guy! And also whats-his-face! Even President Obama has voiced his opinion. Of course many people think it’s not his place to comment on the matter. Yet they think it IS their place to comment on it. interesting.

So of course the issue with this whole thing is that Muslims, in the name of their religion took down the towers, and therefore the idea of other, different Muslims setting up a place to hang out anywhere near the site, is just too much for some people to handle. after all, can you imagine being attacked by someone and then having them set up shop in your country? it would almost be like how the US military has army bases in ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY WE'VE EVER ATTACKED. thankfully there haven't been any problems with them yet.

But this whole debate is really making me think. And you know what? The slaughter of large amounts of people in the name of a specific God, and then putting up houses of worship and community in the areas that those slaughters occurred, IS pretty offensive. The idea that so many people died in the name of one religion just seems so terrible and inhumane. This shoudn't be allowed ANYWHERE! So let’s start taking down EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON U.S. SOIL.

I’m serious. I will be behind the banning of this Center in NYC, if every other House of Worship on or near a site of slaughter and genocide is taken down first. Which honestly is probably everyone of them. We like to pretend that Europeans showed up on this land, and then slowly the Natives just disappeared or assimilated. nope. we killed them. most of them actually. nations of them. Just because a very small minority of Native Americans are making a killing with casinos, doesn't mean the score is even. The forced "Americanization" of Native Americans is well documented and was widely celebrated until last the 60 years or so. Many Native religions' practices weren't even considered legal until 1978's t00-little-too-late American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

The talk about the Muslim Center being insensitive to the victims' families rings hollow when one looks at how Native Americans are STILL treated today. Leonard Peltier's prison sentence isn't very sensitive. Reservations having the highest per capita poverty rates in the country isn't very sensitive. Not to mention Manifest Destiny. Not to mention,when families of 9/11 victims called for no invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, called for the US military to leave both countries, nobody listens. Isn't it AS insensitive to ignore the 9/11 families who choose "to trust in our principles rather than cave to our basest fears".

Or is it that sensitivity isn’t really the issue? Is it more that many Americans are fear-based, un-educated bullies, who want to have their cake and eat it too. It couldn’t possibly be that the idea of any other religion than Christianity getting a leg up in this world is too much for our fragile egos to take. “But Islam is so violent.” sure. It’s a religion. But looking at the history of this nation, can we really feel so high and mighty? After all, I believe there was Bible verse that said (and of course i could be paraphrasing here) "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. otherwise, shut the fuck up."

Something like that.

Captain Planet gets his ass kicked

so in case you aren't aware, the world is falling apart. let me rephrase: humans are are tearing the world apart. let me rephrase again, humans from western culture are tearing the world apart. there really is nobody else to blame. are wolves tearing the world apart? no. they're just getting shot to shit by Sarah Palin from her helicopter. and by the way, if that doesn't SCREAM cheap shot, nothing does.

I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news surrounding the BP oil, or trying to jam scissors in your ears every time you hear about it out of despair, like i have; but as it turns out things are not going so great. more to the point, we're screwed. i've always liked george carlin's bit about how we always talk about saving the earth, but honestly the earth will survive, humans are fucked. i think climate change, war, and dumb shit like this huge oil spill make that pretty obvious. however the question remains: how many other species are we gonna take with us?whats your bet? 200? interesting you should say that, because here is a fun fact: 200 species of plants or animals go extinct EVERY DAY. wanna blame that on anybody besides humans and our so called "progress"? who? is it the fault of sea lions? maybe oak trees. how about eggplants. eggplants and their growth and expansion are causing the extinction of 200 plants and animals every day. hmmm…. nope still bullshit. its humans. always will be. at least until we "go dinosaur" and disappear and nature decides to evolve another species into dominant territory. by the way, my bet is on squirrels. i can see it in their eyes. oh the want you to think they are just collecting nuts, but deep down: genocide.

wait, no. thats still just humans.

anyways, back to the environmental catastrophe of a lifetime. who's lifetime? certainly not the shit-tons of animals already dead from getting covered with oil. their lifetimes are over. its cool though. its not like sea turtles are supposed to live a long time. and frankly pelicans were getting a little to high and mighty for my tastes and its nice to see them taken down a few pegs. and by taken down a few pegs i mean smothered in oil, dying with their skin melting off. but who cares right? its not like they are human. its not like the earth is a complicated system that is interconnected. its not like the death of an ecosystem will effect people. its not like we all completely in denial. completely. in denial. 100%. its not like thats whats going on. at all.

speaking of denial, thats the first thing BP did when the Deepwater Horizon exploded; deny deny deny. everything is fine. nobody died. nothing happened. i wish i could have been there for that exec meeting at BP where they are trying their hardest to find a way to spin this. "ok… can we somehow blame illegal immigrants? is this in anyway the fault of taxes?" and then one guy is like "to get the liberals on our side, lets blame Halliburton!" "Good work Jones!" this of course would have to be scrapped, since there is no way to specifically connect illegal immigrants to the spill and tax cuts for oil companies are approved by sellout liberals AND conservatives. the Deepwater Horizon actually HAD contracted Halliburton…but c'mon who cares about that Cheney shit anymore, right? its not the last administrations fault its this one's. unless we are talking about 9/11. that was ALL clinton. and carter. not reagan though.

from denial we move to blame. and as always, blame never lands on "us". it never "our" fault. its always the ~fill in the blank~ 's fault. for instance, the Conservatives blame Obama, while trying to shake the embarrassing mantra of the 2008 RNC “Drill, Baby Drill!”. Yes, they actually chanted that. i remember it because i remember watching the RNC at an apartment in DC saying "who the hell is Sarah Palin? and then 40 minutes later, saying "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! holy shit! THATS MCCAIN'S RUNNING MATE?!?!?!" little did i know the joke was on me.and the rest of the world

but still… really? her?

Glenn Beck is actually planning on doing a one hour piece on the the irony of the whole "drill baby drill" situation. i'm joking. he just gonna continue to be awful.

The Liberals blame Bush, or Cheney, or Blackwater, or if possible James Dobson, conveniently forgetting that Obama has been ok with environmentally harmful crap from day one: offshore drilling, “clean” coal, nuclear power, its all good according to Captain Hopenchange. i have a vivid, then blurry memory of Obama talking about the awesomeness of offshore drilling at a state of the union. vivid, because it enraged me, blurry because i took a shot every time he said something vaguely inspiring, but not pertaining to the point. or reality. or facts. but yeah,CHANGE and stuff. and we did something about healthcare..right? wait, did we? did they already vote on that? was that the thing with that plumber guy? wait no… hope…something about hope? didn't we…. don't ask, don't tell… no they're still working on that. hmm… i'll think of it.

but it never takes long to move from catastrophe to utter stupidity. for instance, Obama has called for a sensible energy policy. and by sensible i mean apocalyptic. while realizing that we need to wean ourselves from the addiction to oil we have (a epiphany that even George W. had, so its not saying much), he has decided that weaning ourselves off oil really means killing ourselves, by "... tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants."

i love how he calls our abomination of nature's key to existence a "fleet". i wonder what sort of quote he'll give when, NOT IF, but when we have a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster with a nuke plant in the US. "we need to halt slow down our dependence on world-destroying nuclear power. the key is now lots and lots of hamsters in wheels." lets just hope hamsters haven't been one of the 200 a day by then.

but don't worry all you Whole Foods liberals out there. i'm done trashing on Obama for the moment. so no you can feel comfortable again. no need to think about the idea that the Democrats and politics in general are a placebo to make you feel like you are doing something while the world falls apart. give some money to that non-profit. buy that t-shirt made from organic hemp. buy something fair trade. but no matter what, spend money. lots and lots of money. because thats progressive, right?

speaking of delusion, lets talk about the Conservatives again. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisana has recently called for a repeal on the ban of offshore drilling. that right. the state so far most affected by the oil spill, wants to open up the possibility for more oil spills. why? because the original oil spill has impacted the Louisiana economy so much, that they need the extra money from the new oil. let me repeat that. the solution to the problem, is more of the problem. now thats some sound thinking. thats up there with "the reason the hate us is because we have so many troops in their country. so to make them not hate us, lets send more troops to their country. weird that didn't work. WHY DO THEY HATE US!?!??!?!"

its gets better. both Texas governor Rick Perry, and Oklahoma House Rep,Tom Cole have said that the oil spill was an act of God. which god they meant, is still in question. my bets are on Odin. that bearded fuck has been pissed since Zuul dissed him at the inter-faith mixer at the Applebee's in Malden.

but here is the moment we've all been waiting for. the Queen of Lowered Expectations would not stay silent during the tragic time for out country. as always, Sarah Palin had something inspiring, patriotic and uninformed to say about the matter at hand. She knew who was really to blame for the BP oil spill: environmentalists. i really don't know how to joke about this one, so i'll just lay it out. her reasoning for blaming environmentalists for the oil spill, is that the only reason we were offshore drilling in the first place, is that those tree hugging hippies blocked us from drilling for oil in the Alaskan Nature Preserve, so we had to do offshore drilling. and therefore, it is the environmentalists fault. what a terribly unintelligent human being.

by the way, Sarah Palin also accused Obama of being in the pocket of big oil. this is true, he along with every other president of the past 50 years has been a flunky of the oil companies. here is the funny part about Palin saying that. Her husband, Todd, used to work for BP. he actually worked for the company responsible for this mess! its not like he worked for Texaco or some shit, and she can be all "Texaco is great, is that British Petroleum, thats the problem" Her husband actually was employed by the problem and she wants to convince us that OBAMA has ties to the oil companies. maybe i've been wrong about her and she just gets this whole "PR" thing better than anyone else. just say something with no factual backing, wave a flag, something negative about the mainstream media (not mentioning of course that you actually work for the most popular news channel in the states), say something offensive about immigrants, something about "our" forefathers, wink and you're golden.

ok so enough with politicians. lets talk about the company that started this all. BP. hey did you know that BP stands for British Petroleum? well it does. so now you know. and knowing is half the battle. However a few years ago when "going green" got cool, or at least profitable, BP spent a very large amount on revamping their image. the end result was an ad campaign that used the initials "BP" to stand for "Beyond Petroleum". the meaning was the since we all know that oil is gonna run out sometime soon, BP is committed to finding new solutions other than oil for energy. but here is the best part. to this day, BP has spent more money on the "Beyond Petroleum" campaign itself (meaning ads, PR, rebranding etc.) than actually working on moving beyond petroleum. these are the people now in charge of cleaning up the gulf. i do not feel secure.

wanna know another reason i don't feel secure? it was recently released that in the response plan that BP had on file for such distasters specific to the Gulf of Mexicoas like Deepwater Horizon, one of the experts to contact for dealing with the effect on wildlife was Professor Peter Lutz. guess what? HE"S DEAD. no not from shock over the oil spill. i really don't know how he died. however i do know that he died in 2005. 5 FUCKING YEARS AGO! nice contingency plan.

luckily the plan also lists how to deal with the effect of oil on such animals as sea otters, seals, walruses and sea lions. i love sea otters. they are amazingly adorable animals. so while i'm glad that BP has a plan to deal with the effect of an oil spill, specific to the Gulf of Mexico, on sea otters, and their friends seals, sea lions and walruses, i'm a little worried about the fact that BP doesn't know that NONE OF THESE ANIMALS LIVE IN THE GULF OF MEXICO! who the hell does the research at BP? do they not have wikipedia? isn't this a billion dollar corporation? who let the dogs out?

Environmental catastrophe is terrible wherever it happens, but the US population rarely if ever notices. the only reason we give a shit now, is because it’s in our backyard. We have exported our problems for so long that we don’t know how to react when it happens to us. It was the same with 9/11. The very idea that someone would attack the US is out of the question. That’s why many people are still seething with anger over the 9/11 attacks, but can’t understand why the majority of Iraq hates us even though well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dea because of us.

Exporting suffering while importing benefits is what keeps our U.S. society going. We don’t have to deal with labor disputes like we did in the 1920’s because we’ve shipped all the cheap labor somewhere else. We don’t see the 14 year old child sewing our jeans, we just see how great our ass looks in those jeans. We don’t see the massive deforestation in South America, we just see that coffee table that really pulls the room together. And until recently, we didn’t see the negative side of drilling for oil, just that sweet ass car, or shiny new computer, or amazing piece of crap, or whatever else. But now we can’t turn away. actually we can. and we do. you are about to. but don't worry. everything will be fine. worst case scenario is what? the local ecosystem is permanently damaged? the oil gets pulled into gulf streams and spread throughout the ocean? the oceans become toxic? the basis for life as we know it is changed for the worse? we all die? the earth heals itself?squirrels become the dominant species?

maybe. sleep tight.

seriously though, can Louisiana catch a break?