It starts tomorrow. I have a theory on it's impact on the U.S.'s position in the world's economy and as the one remaining superpower.

While almost all of the rest of the world shuts down for one whole month and will totally ignore anything not directly related to it, we in the U.S., for the most, do not even consider it a sport, so we'll continue working and advancing our position. It, of course, is the World Soccer Championship. Every 4 years, the rest of the world's productive workforce grinds to a screeching halt and will refuse to move a finger except as required to switch the channel to the next game, or to get another beer. The Soccer-mania and its effects last far longer than the calendar month in which the matches are held. People will discuss, watch again and argue over half of the matches. Fortunes will be made and lost in an instant on bets. People will be killed over match results. And those countries who did not make the grade this time around, are already overhauling their teams in order to make it next time.

My theory is that the U.S.'s economy is always in its worst position as regards the rest of the world's economy right before the World Soccer Championship. While the rest of the world halts for 30 long days, we overtake and surpass, allowing us to outshine everyone else for another 4 years at which point the cycle repeats itself. It wouldn't surprise me one bit to learn that THEY had invented soccer themselves... LOL

This is a test of the Emergency Blogging System...

This is the sort of news which is published in a limited fashion, is ridiculed by the establishment, and is then conveniently swept under the carpet. The fact is, many archeological discoveries run contrary to established theories and are quickly rejected without due consideration by the authorities, who have reputations to guard and are just too damn tired to even consider the need to rewrite in whole or part the dogmas of their fields.

Were we not so blind, there would doubtless have been many fascinating (and probably useful) discoveries which would know grace our museums and given us a better view of our heritage. But probably THEY don't want these notions entertained, hence the deliberate censorship of these issues.

A man whose products we all use, daily, died last week. I am willing to bet no one would recognize his name, or even know what products he invented. And his death, which took place on the 23rd of May, was only reported yesterday in an Austrian newspaper, Die Presse.

I guess Friedrich Schaechter will never be remembered by history. In order for him to have been famous, he'd have needed to either kill a huge bunch of people, or get a good PR outfit to represent him. It is mindboggling, yet only to be expected, that I just did a search on the BIC website using his name and came up blank.

Rest in peace, old friend...

I'm back. Looks like I got the job I went to interview for (hence last week's plane to catch), so I might be moving soon. Again. Good thing I never really fell in love with my current area. I like it, but not so much I'd be heartbroken to leave it. Nor have I invested money, or hard work, or magickal power in it.

Curiously enough, it never really felt like home, even if I did enjoy being here and really have nothing bad to say about the place. It always felt more like a way station, a breather on my way somewhere else. I still don't know where that somewhere else might be, but I'm sure I'll recognize it when I get there. Oh, I know where I'll probably be going for my new job, I just don't know that that place will feel like home, either.

Anyway, all the traveling has kept me away from current events. I hear there was yet another incident in Israel, but I haven't read about it, so no deep analysis of world affairs today. I know that Uribe won the elections in Colombia. I even heard about the incident in the Indy 500 and the Formula 1 results. But I haven't read a single article yet. Check here tomorrow. I'm sure I'll catch up by then...

Hypocrisy is rampant in the U.S. today. It's the Puritan Syndrome alive and well more than two centuries after it arrived on our shore. I doubt it'll be dying anytime soon. More on this subject later, I have a plane to catch. Don't expect new posts till Tuesday. Happy Memorial Day weekend...

Unfortunately for Gary Condit, September 11 was not enough to totally obliterate the memory of Chandra Levy from the public's mind. There's a chance that a skeletonized Levy has been found. It should also be noted that Levy was last seen on April 30th of last year, a particularly propitious day for something arcane to have happened to her, that being Walpurgisnacht (see my entries for the end of April, of this year, if the term be unfamiliar).

Some of the people on the forums on the internet even jokingly (yes, people are allowed to joke about September 11. Might be in bad taste, but it's not illegal) suggested September 11 was orchestrated by Gary Condit as a smokescreen. Right before September 11, the news was 85% Levy based, then the topic totally disappeared with the attack. I have to agree. How convenient...

Well, anyway, it didn't work... Sorry, Gary...

Well. Here we are, yet again, meddling in some other country's affairs. Mr. Bush, if we as a people take one lesson from the past year, let it be not to meddle in other countries's internal affairs. Why must we give a flying shit if Fidel runs Cuba or not? Are you going to seriously tell me that if the Cubans didn't want Fidel they wouldn't have found a way to get rid of him years ago? And if they don't want him and he's still there, they deserve to have him for being a bunch of weak-kneed idiots. Either way, not our problem, man... And saying that we won't lift the embargo until he holds free elections is a bit of an arbitrary statement, don't you think? We negotiate with a lot of countries that don't hold free elections. And we've toppled some presidents that have been elected in just that way. Think Salvador Allende. We can't force everyone to have our form of government, can we? If we did, who'd be the tyrant, then?

I know, I know... I probably used too many polysyllabic words. Tell one of your advisors to interpret this post for you...

This message is for John Paul.

Pontifex John Paul II,

I have just remembered that your 82nd birthday is tomorrow. Had this been brought to my attention earlier, I would have made arrangements to travel to the Vatican and deliver my gift and homage in person. As my normal activities prohibit my joining you on time, I have sent my gift to you via FedEx, and hope you will excuse this breach in protocol. Happy Birthday!!!

YIC,

Nicholas

P.S. I hope you enjoy the 2 twelve-year old boys I sent. Feel free to dispose of them as you will once they are too old to be attractive to you.

Today's thought is UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Check back tomorrow...
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Okay. I again am forced to point out one of the major fallacies of Democracy. I have to agree with Churchill, I think it was, who said something like, 'Democracy is the worst possible form of government. Except for all the other forms that have been tried'. Which is my way of saying I don't have a better replacement for Democracy, but that doesn't mean I consider Democracy as error free.

The fallacy I wish to point out is that Democracy is based on the notion that 100 idiots are 100 times more 'valuable' than 1 wise man. Case in point, the whole stink about the government having received advance warning of some sort of terrorist plan involving hijacked planes. Suddenly all the idiots and their relatives are up in arms on why the government didn't do anything about it. Do they think that was the only warning the government received? Do they have any glimmer of a clue on how many warnings, both valid and from crackpots, are received daily? Do they think the government has infinite resources and power? Did anyone even entertain the notion before Sep11 that some piece of shit Arab with a martyr complex was not only willing to fly a plane into a massive building but actually had the dedication and skillset required to learn to fly a plane?

And the worst thing is, just supposing the government had heeded the warnings and done something about it, I can just see the very same idiots raising a similar stink over the violation of some camel humpers's rights because they were denied access to flight school, or deported, or whatever the government decided to do as a preventive measure.

When it comes to idiots, you just can't win. There is no way of keeping an idiot satisfied, at least, not for long. Which reminds me, I need to stop writing this and prepare for a meeting with my boss. Later...

The way our institutions are set up, here in the U.S., with democracy and all, will sometimes force our government to adopt an idiotic position out of a need to safeguard a block of votes. Then inertia sets in. A case in point is the whole Cuban Embargo thing. If we peer back into the time just after Fidel won his revolution and he and his buddies were building up the new Cuban government, we'll find that he was by no means an admirer of the Soviet Union. Fidel just wanted to stamp out the injustice, poverty and other ills that the Cuban people (most of them) suffered from. When he nationalized a slew of companies, hurting U.S. interests along the way, the U.S. decided they'd ostracize him. This forced him to go to the U.S.S.R. for help, there being no one else available. In those days, you were either in the U.S.'s camp, or in the Soviet's. The Embargo, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the money and power the Cuban Exile community in the U.S. gathered... These all contributed to our initial position against Cuba. And maybe the position was valid back then. Maybe. I don't think so, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. But to continue an embargo which has been useless if its intention was to weaken Fidel, and which has hurt the Cuban people no end, for the sole reason (nowadays) of getting the Cuban Exile vote is just plain criminally stupid.

I applaud Jimmy Carter's intelligence and bravery in recognizing this and stating it against popular opinion. It is a shame he didn't do it while he was president, but it's a start.

After a long hiatus, since I left Colombia, actually, I have once again adopted a cubicle hunter. No name, as yet, but he's pretty frisky. Any suggestions as to a name will be considered. In the near future, I'll look into binding a protective spirit into this one, but not just yet. I'm hoarding my power for something else at this moment. While I do not have a picture of the little hunter, owing to the lack of a good camera, here's a link to a similar looking one.

For those among you that also inhabit a cubicle by day, I recommend you get one of these. I have always found it relaxing to gaze upon its graceful movements, as well as its occasional flaring. They're low maintenance, requiring only a daily feeding (and will not suffer if unfed for up to a month, so weekends aren't a hardship) and they'll subsist without water changes for way, way more than the 3 or so days most websites recommend for the quart size containers.

I am still outraged at the unfortunate incident during yesterday's Formula 1 race in Austria. Still, it's only a reflection on today's world, so I should've expected it. I do agree with several others who have said that there's no longer any point in watching or attending these races if the results are going to be orchestrated in the way this one was.

Hopefully, Ferrari will receive some form of punishment, but I have to admit they did nothing against the rules as such, which will hardly justify a penalty. The breach was against the whole spirit of the competition, as well as against the honor of both drivers involved. Sad. Really sad.

It's time we thought about changing the rules...

Bolstering my feeling that white skins are worth more than brown ones to the industrialized nations, Europe has redefined terrorism. For Europe, apparently, a terrorist act may only be considered as such when the victims are white people. How stupid can they get???? In Europe's eyes, an organization that a week ago bombed a church where more than a hundred frightened peasants were hiding out, killing 117 or so of them, is not a terrorist organization. How many Europeans have to be killed in order to achieve that status, I wonder...?

The Palestinians have resurrected an old idea. Back when the U.S. was expanding westwards, the frontier was a generally lawless place, Col. Colt produced the 'Equalizer'. As the saying went, 'God may have made men, but Samuel Colt made them equal'. No longer could someone abuse a position of power, because the Colt allowed any man to stand up for his rights. Bombing and other terrorist actions are fast becoming our equivalent of the Colt Equalizer. I don't approve of it, let me make that clear, but explosives and their use in terrorist actions make any disgruntled group the 'equal' to any perceived oppressor.

And more unfortunately, in today's world, injustice and oppression are rampant. The protection and rights granted by the Law apparently apply only to industrialized nations, the U.S. and Europe, for the most. Let a U.S. citizen be harmed in another country and we have an international incident, with promises of physical and economic retaliation. A case in point is the activists killed in Colombia, 3 of them, to be exact. Their deaths have been brandished against the FARC (revolutionary group that kidnapped and killed them) and Colombia by the U.S., and those directly responsible for their deaths are being requested in extradition. On the other hand, the FARC kill dozens of Colombians daily, more than a hundred in a single incident this weekend. Yet there is no outcry for the 100+ killed recently. Thus are American lives worth infinitely more than non-American lives.

Another telling point is the U.S.'s decision to not take part in the International Criminal Court. God forbid a foreigner were to judge one of our fine Americans for War Crimes at some point. Why must we alienate the rest of the planet and give more ammo to those approving of actions against U.S. interests? When someone commits War Crimes against non-Americans, we hand them over to the International Court. When it's against us, we take them to Guantanamo. Thus we prove to the world that we Americans are to be measured by one standard, and the rest of the world by another, more demanding one.

Then we ask why most of the planet fears or despises us.

God damn it! I knew this would happen if we didn't dedicate the necessary resources to get the job done first!

I quote from a CNN article: [Sharon said Israel would defend itself and that "he who rises up to kill us, we will pre-empt and kill him first."]

Do you all see what this means???? Israel has perfected Time Travel!!!! This will allow them to do all sorts of weird, pro-Jew things... They could, for example, go back into Moses's time and prevent Pharoah's massacre by using a time reversal to part the Red Sea!

ARRRRGHHHHH!!!!! They did it!!! I just checked the Bible and that's what it now says happened!!! Where will it all end???

Well... Here we have someone with a message... A message which apparently must be delivered by "removing some people from this reality"...

The perp is applying a variation on the Christian technique, no doubt, where the best way to convert others is by torture, pillage, rape and murder... Oh, well... At least he hasn't raped any children yet...

I sometimes have a deep down suspicion that what we call reality is in fact some sort of game. A game to which we've all accepted an intricate and convoluted set of rules, one of which was to forget the aforementioned rules, and another to forget the fact that this is a game. Then we started playing, for whatever prize it was that the winner(s) is(are) supposed to get. That's about the only theory of mine which is capable of explaining the world we live in, the subconscious urges I get to do this or that (and which I often follow), and the intense amusement I get by reading the news...

Oh, well... Gotta go now... My turn to throw the dice...

Long weekend... No internet on Friday due to an office move, Apologies for the absence, and all that... :) Haven't had a chance to catch up on the news and the madness yet, but I will. And as soon as I do that I will no doubt see something that forces a comment out of me. Till then...

Now I've seen everything... The stupid mutt I ranted about in an earlier post has at last been rescued. And now apparently Jay Leno wants her on his show... Jay, you stupid shit. It's a dog!!!!!!!

It's stuff like this that fuels the rest of the world's nagging feeling that all us Americans are mentally defective...

Well, today is Labor Day on most of the planet. It is NOT Labor Day most notably here in the U.S., we celebrate it in September. A little history lesson, proving that history, like almost everything else, depends on who's telling it. It is amusing enough that what the rest of the planet commemorates on May 1st actually happened here in the U.S., but since not one in a hundred receives what I would consider a good education here, most will have no idea what I'm talking about.

Click here and educate yourself. Those who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it...