Carnival of Negativity?

Shopkeepers everywhere still celebrate the day before Xmas, "The right to refuse service to anyone for any reason day." There was plenty of room at the inn; they just wanted to set a strong precedent.

This issue took extra effort to put out. First, we wasted nearly a month due to our study of Buddhism and our collective realization that in advanced Buddhism there is no "I." At first we were thrown by this, but soon enough, I for one, realized I was primarily an egoist at heart and walked away from it all. Now I am enlightened.
Then we spent the next month in our efforts to "spoil the vote." I, for one, am giddy about the outcome. As a moderate anarchist (thus a sane, nonpartisan voice for reason), I demand that the choice of the American voter be respected. Since a majority of the people (in the following order) didn't vote or voted third party (or voted for who, in the end, the republicrats will refer to as "the loser"), we should have for the next four years no president at all. Perhaps we'll all find we like it.

Finding the truth hard to swallow? Reduce it to smaller chunks.

As a philosopher I must ask the eternal and cosmic questions, such as:
Does the Pope Pontificate in the Woods?
More importantly, if the pope pontificates in the woods and there is no one there to receive it as papal doctrine, does it still become official Dogma?

Merry Xmas. Have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount?
Roughly 100 years ago people who read that part of the bible literally usually became socialists. It has many ideas in it that some would label anti-American: like telling you it's your duty to take care of the poor and the weak; that you should do what is right even if it goes against the popular dominant culture and gets you persecuted; that there is no excuse for killing, advocation of pacifism; that you should love even those who are not your brothers; that you should give without thought to personal gain; *that you should not pray as a public spectacle (as in school prayer)*; that you should not amass great amounts of money and possessions; *that you should not judge others*; that you should not toil needlessly for survival.
Most Christians have great difficulty with these points. If you should run into one, ask them why.

Christians have destroyed christianity,
Marxists have destroyed marxism,
Feminists have destroyed feminism,
True believers are, everywhere, the enemy of freedom and progress.

Today's outdoor tip: How to survive a meeting in the woods with a bear. When meeting a bear in the woods for the first time, it is often best to simply surrender your picnic basket immediately and without a fight. Your outdoor skills will be *no match* for the bear's natural cunning and woodland know-how. It is also considered best by most nature authorities not to challenge the bear to any games of strategy or eye/hand coordination. Mother-bating (i.e.: your mother is so dumb she can't tell honey from shit) is also considered both rude and inappropriate by today's wilderness standards. BY NO MEANS SHOULD YOU ANGER THE BEAR. If you find that the contents of you picnic basket do not satiate the bear, and you are challenged to further confrontation, it is then often best to pull out a badge and cap and declare yourself a deputy park ranger. Most bears harbor an innate respect for representatives of the federal forest agency. In this way, we hope you will be properly prepared to survive your first encounter with a wild bear.

There are no geeks anymore. Ah, remember those heady days of youth? But todayÕs geeks are not the geeks of old. Oh, for a man who would bite the head off a chicken because it was what he really wanted to do with his life!

"All these people... saying 'God save the queen' or 'In God we trust' or 'God grant me the serenity...' Do they realize just how much of my time they waste with this inanity? And they wonder why I tend to stay in the background... I never have the time anymore to get anything done." - God, to little Jimmy Worth, this morning.

pant pant pant
And I said to the college financial aid office "where's my money;" and they said, "fill out these extra forms, the yellow ones." And I was purified in the water of the bureaucracy. Amen.
-bureaucracy 15:29

In America, even poor people hate the poor- which is a victory for social engineers and public relations men everywhere.

George Bush jr. killed another innocent man the other day. Not so much because he was black, but because he was poor... and black (his blackness was overshadowed by his higher crime of being poor). His defense never called the witnesses inside the store, all of whom said he didn't do it. The prosecution was fine with that. The state of Texas was of the opinion that these witnesses were unreliable. Seems they were distraught and nervous that night. What with that OTHER MAN having shot at them.
This is what we get after the supreme court ruled that, when appealing a death penalty case, "an appeal of innocence is not a valid appeal." That is, if you have evidence that you didn't do the crime in question, the court isn't interested. They're only interested in their own world of bureaucratic rules and regulations, and new ways to interpret the phrasing of the bill of rights. And the Clinton appointees are just as bad. They have to be, otherwise they couldn't use the Supreme Court as a scare tactic every four years. The Clinton litmus test- moderately conservative & sickly.
Al Gore released a statement after the execution. Always fearful of seeming anti-death penalty he quipped, "As Vllad the Impaler once said, If you don't impale 'em how will they learn?"

Jesus saved my grandmother. I don't know if this involved mouth-to- mouth or what. All I really do know is that there was a clear 'Do Not Resuscitate order. We're gonna sue.
I'll own this galaxy.

Sadly, it has come to my attention that we may have made a mistake when we started out in the publishing business.
The handwriting is on the wall- a recent issue of Playboy has indicated that at least 23% of Americans are functionally illiterate. Why, that's damn near half! And then there are always those who just don't get it...
Due to this, it seems to me that I, as editor, should ease up on the writing staff's guidelines. Henseforth, it shall no longer be required that writers turn in their work in Latin-on-paprus. It will simply be encouraged.

Edger Bergen and Charley McCarthy were eclipsed by the genius of Mortimer Snerd. Mostly forgotten today, Mortimer was the premier comic of his day. Now, if thought of at all, he's considered another Howdy Doody rip-off. This is unjust. You see, Charley McCarthy was a bastard. When brought before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the early 50's he used the spotlight to further his own career. There, in front of the other McCarthy, Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, He named names. He turned in Mortimer Snerd as a suspected Communist, and Mortimer was thereafter Blacklisted and never worked again.

"Don't confuse me with the facts."
- Congressman Earl Landgrebe of Indiana

The Republicans say they are for less government, yet they increase the military. They denounce Waco and the Weaver killings, yet they support the police state and the troops local and federal who are more and more being used to invade privacy and destroy any freedom. There's a lot of talk in America about freedom, but damn little on the menu. It's like going to a McDonald's and being offered a hamburger or a cheeseburger. If you order chicken, they will look at you funny. If you ask for a salad, they may kill you.

We've only had toilet paper since 1857- but it flopped until 1879. We can't adopt just any old crazy idea.

Why, why do I get accused of negativity?

America locks up a larger percentage of its population than any other nation on earth. You know what this means-
WE'RE #1. Of course, they don't lock up any of the real criminals- the cops and politicians still walk the streets, supported by a plethora of swarthy bureaucrats.

A lot of fundamentalists insist that capitalism is the prescribed economic system of Christianity. They get this from a little known verse from the Bible: "And on the seventh day- God Validated Parking."

Q. Will He ever forgive me?
A. No. He's got a memory like an elephant. He's probably sitting somewhere right now thinking, "peanuts."

Ever since I first learned of non-sequiturs, I have considered them important. The key is to insert non-sequiturs that are really not. This pisses off a contingent of the "literary elite." Then, I would tell them that I think that there is nothing wrong with the second sentence in this paragraph. Nothing at all.

All of my work seems to be about tolerance and understanding- yet always someone becomes angry in response. From now on when I mock your god and your people, please consider it in the light that it was presented.

American Government is all about compromise; they admit to this readily in any political science class. To put it another way, if Hitler had been the president of the US, he would have only been allowed to kill 3 million Jews. (Am I in trouble yet?)
I understand Hitler was always nice to his mother. And a laugh riot, If you are to believe the private diaries of Eva Braun- always to Goebbels it was come here and pull my finger.
This will likely make some of you angry by my saying this, and it is not meant as an excuse, but Hitler was under extreme pressure; he had many things on his mind- a lot of pressing public relations problems. After all, just try explaining eugenics to your grandma.
I took a class on Nazi culture once. The instructor apologized 57 times and then took roll.

College is an odd place. A microcosm of the world at large. There you can best study society- and not necessarily by going to class and reading the book.
The people in student government are the same people in college as in high school- The kind of people that sit around and say, "wouldn't it be neat if we could make a sign? It'll inspire pep."
PEP- there's a word you'll never run up against in a regular conversation (outside an issue of Archie comics, of course). But that's how out of touch people in student government really are.
It's even better at small colleges with no sports teams. They have to get excited about their school's impecable lawn care.
As an amusing comparison you can go meet some of your state or national representatives. They have the same mindset but with the following added bonus: years of corruption. Ahh, the steady drag of compromise and mediocrity. If you're lucky you can hear them praddle on about the state flower or the desecration of marriage or some other inane nonsense.

If your dog is feeling down, he may be suffering from clinical depression. Your vet can administer a simple test to determine your pets mental condition.
Depending on your animals response to stimuli- usually in the form of 'treats' - Your vet can prescribe the new doggie anti-depressants made available this week. Be aware, however- these drugs are only available by your veterinarian's prescription. This is important to discourage abuse by stray and wayward dogs.

This is a perfectly good opening paragraph for a story:
1987 was a very uneventful year. It was a year in which nothing untoward happened, The only unusual thing about the year was that it was atypical. Police smiled at passerbys on the street and there were low-interest home loans available on a handshake.
See? Now don't you feel good? Hell, I should have invented Dianetics.

Feminists insist that the penis be reclassified as a weapon; much as a gun or a knife. This would seem to suggest that the organ is equally adept in robbery as rape.
Preliminary studies show that the exclamation, "Back off, I have a penis!" is equally effective on both men and women.

I grew up a nudist. It was terrible going to public school. They laughed, pointed, and called me that naked kid. They were always asking if I wanted to play shirts or skins. When I said I was cold they would reply, "why don't you wear a sweater, naked boy?" When I had finally had enough, I killed them. The judge ordered me clothed at the trial, as an affront to decency. The ACLU got involved.

Why I hate mimes:
1. You can never hear them coming.
2. White Face. Stop the hate.
3. I once saw a man die on the street, slowly suffocating, trapped in a little glass box. All the while people laughed and applauded. I'd have saved him, but for the wind, that damned wind...

Man is not the only animal that is known to practice cannibalism. He is, however, the only animal that is capable of arranging it on a plate so it is pleasing to the eye.

Big Brains = Procrastination. We developed intellect for the express purpose of procrastination. The bigger the brain the less you get done. Now, with a small brain, not only can you have evil thoughts, you can act on them.

Have you ever noticed that in popular western mythology the devil is most often seen giving you something while God is demanding a sacrafice?

I don't know if you've ever considered this, but working for the devil requires almost no heavy lifting.
Most churches fail to mention this.
For what little manual labor is involved he even provides an OSHA approved lifting pamphlet. "Lift the goat with your legs- never with your back."

Jesus writes:
And I said, "Go forth and be fishers of men," and they took me literally, coming back with big nets filled with villagers, and men hooked on lines, hanging in groups of three. The latter were the worst. I tell you, I had a hell of a time getting those hooks out. Thomas had actually filleted one, and I had no choice but to perform a miracle then and there.
From now on I think twice before using a metaphor around this lot.

When I was a kid, it always amazed me when watching old episodes of "Perry Mason" that the prosecution always persisted in going after his clients. After all, they were always innocent. This was when I was young and unworldly, before I realized that if you wanted to see a real criminal you looked at a judge, cop, prosecutor, or politician. These are the ones who never follow the rules of ethics or law that purport to stand for.
But as a kid, Perry Mason just confounds your sense of logic. After a few years you'd think they'd say: "Fuck it, it's Mason, let his client go." But these people didn't learn. Somehow, back in the fifties, the writers of Perry Mason were trying to tell us something important and ahead of their time. But many people still don't get it.
The police on the show were represented by Detective Trag, the prosecution by Hamilton Burger. These were interesting guys- they seemed more interested in getting Perry Mason in trouble than finding the truth. They were very modern in this regard, showing the true respect the police & the state hold for truth, justice, and public welfare. You know that if Perry Mason had been Jesus Christ, they would have been just as hard nosed. "That wine was material evidence in a murder case, and not only did you change it back into water, you brought the victim back to life. One day... one day I'll get you!"

Shopkeepers everywhere still celebrate the day before Xmas, "The Right to Refuse Service to Anyone for Any Reason" Day.
There was plenty of room at the inn, they just wanted to set a strong precedent.

Is God a cannibal?
If he eats that which he creates in his own image, then could the afterlife be nothing more that a big BBQue? In all the paintings of sheep I see in churches in the western word, and all the references to tending the flock, they never seem to mention that these animals were raised for sacrifice & slaughter. You guard over the herd well, because they are tomorrow's dinner.
GOD KNOWS, I WOULD EAT ANYONE FOOLISH ENOUGH TO FOLLOW ME.
Since the dawn of time man has been burdened with the need to know why. When the unexplained and the tragic occurred on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, man sought understanding. The first step to the concept of understanding is the assigning of blame (Nietzsche would call this the Will to a Blame). This is why the need for a scapegoat is a fundamental human need. Man created his concept of God so that he would have someone to blame. What have you done with this, the most precious of gifts?

This is why the Christians believe in Christian forgiveness. Christian forgiveness works like this: If you are a closet cannibal who kills your victims and stores them in tupperware, because of tupperware's "burp for freshness" feature, but you accept Jesus, then you will be saved.
This is a departure from the older Judaic tradition, in which your progeny will pay for your transgressions. (The smart-ass Judaic closet cannibal just never reproduced.)
LOOPHOLES ARE EVERYTHING.

There was an accident on the interstate. The semi was jackknifed, plywood splayed out in every direction. The State patrol called the lumber company to tell them that the driver was dead. "DON'T YOU TOUCH MY LUMBER," screamed the foreman.