In other news that should come as no surprise to anyone...

I think we all saw this coming. Nothing about the 'confession' made any sense. This guy was just a nutjob. Can we talk about something else now?

Duh, part II

Just as I suspected. They didn't even wait for the resolution to be presented. To their credit, Russian officials at least admit that sanctions don't usually work. But their solution of not even trying is quite a curious one.

At this point, I can't really blame Iran for pursuing nuclear weapons. Because all indications are that they're more or less going to get away with it. Same thing with North Korea. They can even fire missiles with no consequences.

I'm not trying to be alarmist, but I'm afraid the Western world is falling victim to its own apathy.

Where have all the hurricanes gone?

Remember last year how everyone was clammoring about how the unusually active hurricane season was caused by global warming and that it was only going to be worse this year? Anyone? Anyone? Bue||er? Bue||er?

Well, this time last year we were tracking Hurricane Ka+rina, i.e. the 12th named storm of the season. This year...we're on tropical storm Debby. We haven't even had a hurricane yet, let alone a major hurricane.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, I just think it's interesting that there were so many apocolyptic predictions of this season that haven't yet come to pass. Of course, I might've just put a jinx on the whole thing. But did global warming suddenly disappear? Or could it be that the whole thing was just a little overblown? The term "alarmist" comes to mind.

Just a thought.

Say it with me now...

DUHHHHHH. How many times are we going to go over this? I'm guessing just enough times for Jerusalem and or Tel Aviv to disappear under a mushroom cloud.

Simply for the sake of tradition, here are my (reiterated) predictions for the foreseeable future:

We ask Iran nicely to stop enriching uranium.
They say no.
We try to get sanctions passed through the U.N. Seucri+y Counci|.
Russia and or China block them outright or get them watered down enough to where they don't matter.
All the while, Iran is enriching away, moving toward a nuclear arsenal that they will use.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I'm reminded of the saying "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."* And we're just sitting there.


Notes:

*This quote is frequently credited to British political philosopher Edmund Burke. All indications are, however, that he never said it. Regardless, it still sounds good.

Sensory overload

Ok, so I have quite a bit to say at the moment, but -- as is usually the case with speaking rather than writing -- I'm having a significant amount of trouble coherently expressing it all. So, while I work on that, here's a short and sweet update on the various goings on in vie de Charles. (Did I just use a French phrase?)

- Had two job interviews in the last two weeks, and probably going to set up another one tomorrow. Stressful. I can't wait for this process to be over.

- Flag football season is starting up. I'm excited. I've never played organized football before, and it's looking like I might actually have to train a bit if I want to be of any use to my team. We had a practice on Sunday, and after like two plays I was laying in the grass trying not to heave. It wasn't pretty.

- For the last couple of weeks, I've been obsessing over Ben Fo|ds' rendition of "Go|den S|umbers." I highly recommend you check it out. Right now.

- I've been keeping a journal of my dreams for about a month now. The results have been interesting. More on this later.

- I never even watched an episode of "F|avor of Love," but I still want to punch every person on that show in the face. Right in the face. Just line them up and run out like I'm at the Superbowl, but instead of high-fiving, punching them in the face. That show exemplifies everything wrong with America. Well, almost everything.

- I have a new look. Unusually short hair and no facial hair. The former was an accident, the latter a recommendation. I'm still adjusting, but I think I like it. I've been told I look like a hitman when I'm wearing a suit. I kinda like that.

- I am absolutely furious with the situation in the Middle East. Peace does not mean the absence of war. It means the presence of victory. This is not peace. The situation is actually worse in the long term because of it. Yet another U.N. fuckup.

- Emo is the worst thing to happen to music in 35 years. At least. Just something I've been thinking about lately.

- I've been craving an Arby's milkshake lately. I don't know why. The closest Arby's is in Georgetown. I'm not sure I'm craving one that bad.

- Old habits die hard. Seriously. Someone beat me with a rolled up newspaper. Please.

Tell me all your thoughts on God (again)

I don’t attend organized religious services nearly as often as I probably should, and not nearly as often as I would like. First of all, it’s difficult for me to find an organization in which I feel comfortable. Second of all, it’s difficult for me to go to such places alone. At any rate, as a means of somehow of atoning for what I perceive to be religious laziness, I try to dedicate as much as possible of my Friday nights/Saturdays to some sort of religious/spiritual thought. It at least makes sense in my head.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about two religious concepts. Or, more accurately, two extremes of the same concept. Namely, praise and blasphemy.

I’ve always found both concepts a little curious. I’ll start with the idea of praise. I’m sure we’ve all been at a party or some other social gathering where substantial quantities of alcohol have been consumed and then there’s always “that guy” that comes up to you like “Hey man. Hey. Hey. Man. Dude, you...you are the man. Seriously. You’re the man. I mean that. You. Are. The man.”

Such an exchange, to me, seems similar to that of mere human brings attempting to praise a perfect, all-powerful being. In a way, it just seems unnecessary to me. I would imagine that an all-powerful, omnipotent being certainly wouldn’t need a bunch of lowly sinners singing his/her/its praises.

So that raises the question, in my mind, as to why we do it. It seems to me that God doesn’t need reminding of his own perfection and greatness, so what’s the point? Is it for our own benefit? I’m open to suggestions.

In the same vein, I find the concept of blasphemy somewhat curious. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not big on insulting God. But if it happens, as it does from time to time, I don’t take it as personally as many people seem to. And I certainly don’t feel the need to riot and set buildings on fire. Much in the same way that I don’t believe mere mortals can effectively praise an all-perfect being, nor do I believe we can hurt the feelings of an all perfect being. To go back to my drunk guy analogy, if a drunk guy were to come up to me and call me a douchebag, I wouldn’t be particularly upset.

I’ve said before that my belief in the Old Testament makes me more partial to the more hell-fire-and-brimstone version of God. So I certainly believe that God is capable of being angry. I just don’t think it’s necessary for people like me to defend him. I take the approach that if someone wants to piss off God, that’s between them and God. Much in the same way that if someone wants to slap a hornets nest, they can do so at their own peril.

Anyway. Those are my thoughts for the evening. If it sounds a little convoluted, give me a break. It’s 2:30 in the morning. If you have any thoughts on the matter, feel free to share them. As I said, I’m open to suggestions.

My humble abode

Some of you have already seen my apartment, so you can ignore the rest of this post. Some of you also don't consider me important enough to visit, so you can ignore the rest of this post as well. But several of you have asked for pictures of my place, which I can only assume comes from some morbid curiosity with the behind-the-scenes aspect of my life. And since I'm not motivated enough to send them to each person individually, I figured I'd just post it here and let you get it yourselves.

First off, here's the view from the front door. The kitchen is on your immediate left.



The aforementioned kitchen.



A better view of the living room, with my assorted decorations and propaganda.



My sparsely decorated bedroom.



Where all the magic happens. Or something. I think I'm obligated to say that. It's Swedish foam, so it doesn't transfer motion. (And no, that's not a euphemism for something.)



Random view from the bed. And yes, I still have my Ka+ie Frye poster.



My matching Spongebob shower curtain and bathmat. I like to stay in touch with my inner child.



And that's pretty much it. If it seems kinda small, it is. But hey, it's "the District." Space is at a premium.

Weekend at Fide|'s

Apparently Fide| Cas+ro has released a picture of himself holding a newspaper in an attempt to prove he's alive.



Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but my first thought when I saw the picture was "That looks photoshopped."

And I know a thing or two about photoshopping newspapers into people's hands. I did a similar thing last year for the GuardDawg as a joke advertisement, as evidenced here:



So I'm not sure I buy it. Just to prove my point, here's what I think the picture should look like:



That was way too easy.

Hava nagila venis'mecha, bitches

As many of you (or at least the ones from/in Georgia) know, Cyn+hia McKinney was defeated in her primary. I am, as they say, pleased as punch.

It should come as no surprise that I absolutely loath that woman. And not because she's a Democrat. More because she's an anti-Semitic, race-baiting, ignorant, conspiracy-theorizing, partisan hack. In my humble opinion, she's an embarrassment to her race, her state and her party. All of which should be glad to see go.

Perhaps what irked me most about her was her utter arrogance and self-importance. She seemed to think spouting conspiracy theories and tactless attacks constituted "speaking truth to power," as she put it. As if it made her a hero. Please. Everybody and dey momma hates Bush and says mean things about him. Saying it on TV doesn't make you brave or special. It makes you petty. Get over yourself.

Not that I needed any more motivation, but the incident between her and the Capitol police officer only further cemented my disdain. She was just so flabbergasted that the officer didn't recognize her that she found it appropriate to physically assault him. Apparently not taking into account that she was not wearing her security clearance pin, had drastically changed her hairstyle and is, according to congress.org, the 408th most powerful person in the House. Not exactly prominent. For a little perspective, roughly 96 percent of people in the House are more important than she is. She's 120 slots LOWER than D.C.'s delegate who doesn't even get to vote. That's some pretty mind-boggling ineffectiveness.

In typical McKinney fashion, the failure of her campaign is being blamed on everyone and everything except for the candidate. Republicans. Voting machines. The Jews?

Yes, the Jews. She also blamed the Jews for her loss in 2002, so this is nothing new. Apparently, in addition to being responsible for all the wars in the world, some Jews still took time out of their busy day of controlling the media and hoarding all the world's money to vote Cyn+hia McKinney out of office.

After her concession speech, one of her campaign staffers had the following exchange with a news producer:

"You wanna know why she lost? Israel. Zionists. People like you. Put your yarmulke on and celebrate."

I think I might. Good riddance.

I'll take potpourri for 600, Alex

There's entirely too much going on in the world right now to write an individual post on each one, so I'm just going to give a brief summary of my feelings on various current events. If you'd like me to elaborate on any of them, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

- War in the Middle East: Israel shouldn't agree to a ceasefire until Hezbullah's ass has been sufficiently kicked. There's been far too many 'ceasefires' in the Middle East that have turned out to be little more than breathers for militant groups to reorganize and more effectively attack later on. It's time to change the status quo. And for what it's worth, no, I don't think it's the end of the world.

- Heat wave: It's hot. That sucks. But honestly, it doesn't seem that bad to me. Growing up in Georgia, it certainly wasn't unusual to have triple digit days in August. Hell, that was when we had band camp. But it does highlight the shortcomings of our energy situation. We really need to work on that.

- Me| Gibson's "fucking Jew" rant: I'm not as upset about this as most people seem to be. Any time I hear anything anti-Semitic, or any other kind of racism for that matter, I just chalk it up to stupidity and move on. I don't feel the urge to boycott his movies or anything like that. I never saw P@ssion of the Chris+, but not because I don't like Me| Gibson. Just not my kind of movie. In a way, I feel like I can't be too mad at him. If I had a Holocaust-denying father, I'd probably say some questionable things about the Jews when I was drunk, too. That said, he sounded like an absolutely bigoted moron and deserves to be as embarrassed as he is. He also deserves whatever happens to his career, at least on the individual level. I'm not much up for organized boycotts, but if people make the individual choice not to see his movies or whatever, he deserves it.

- Fide| Cas+ro: Apparently the Cuban dictator needed to have some surgery and deemed it necessary to relinquish, at least temporarily, power to his younger brother. First of all, I hope the scalpel was rusty and that the doctor didn't know what he was doing. That said, some people think he's already dead. I can kinda see their argument. There's so much celebration going on that if he was in as good of shape as he claims to be, he would be on television crapping all over everyone's good time. So I dunno. It's hard to say. If he is dead and his brother takes over, I don't think it will be very long before communism falls in Cuba. I know his brother is supposedly more radical and all that, but I just think the anti-communist elements in Cuba would be so emboldened by Cas+ro's death that they would overwhelm the regime before it could get its grip back. But that's just my opinion.

- The mid-term elections: The Democrats have a huge opportunity to make big gains in congress, but in typical Democrat fashion, they're blowing it. Case in point, the primary race in Connecticut. If Joe Lieberm@n loses his primary race to anti-war extremist Ned Lemon+, the Democrats can pretty much give up on the idea of winning back congress. However, it looks like Cynthi@ McKinney might lose her primary as well (please oh please) so maybe they're getting a clue. Though somehow I doubt it.

- The new Geic0 commercials: Burt B@charach's is the only one that's tolerable. Litt|e Richard and Ch@ro make me want to throw things at the TV. Bring back the lizard. He was funny.

Memories

Yeah, I'm not sleeping again. My sleep schedule is so bizarre lately. As are my dreams. But that's not the point of this post. Actually, this post has no point. I'm just rambling in hopes of making myself sleepy. I've been thinking a lot lately about my memory. Some of you know that my memory has a tendency to be bizarrely photographic. As in, it borders on creepy. I vividly remember things that happened from when I was maybe two or three. I remember miniscule details. I remember things I hear, in many cases word for word as if replaying a recording.

This has its advantages and disadvantages. Remembering detail comes in handy when dealing with females. Put simply, chicks dig a guy that remembers things. It also helps my writing to be able to recall and better describe events.

Of course, with so much of my brain dedicated to memories, I have a tendency to daydream or zone out and not pay attention when I probably should be.

It also gives me a tendency to hold grudges. With remembering so vividly things that are said to me, when something upsets me in one way or another, it tends to affect me much more than it probably should. For example, I still get a little twinge when I remember things that were said to me in elementary school. I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure such a thing is neither normal, healthy or productive. That whole adage "forgive and forget" becomes surprisingly difficult when "forget' is taken out of the equation. I should probably work on that.

In much the same way I still remember things that are said to me and remember the feelings associated with them, I do the same thing with things I say or do that I regret. Again, I still get embarrassed/feel guilty for things I said or did literally decades ago. I'm pretty sure that's not healthy, either. There's got to be a difference between having a conscience or being self conscious and beating yourself up over something no one else likely even remembers years after it happens.

I could use one of those flashy things from Men in Bl@ck. And maybe some prescription sleep aid.