Iran's President Recommends Fairness For Imprisoned American Journalist

Roxanna Saberi, an independent journalist with duel American-Iranian citizenship, was recently convicted in an Iranian court of espionage and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Recently, none other than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajahd has encouraged the convicted reporter be given a full and fair defense in the course of her appeal.

Ahmadinajahd's concerns and stated recommendations probably have to do not so much with the expressed concerns of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton as they do with the up-coming election which pits him against a former President who favors improved relations with Washington.


There has been a crackdown on dissent in Iran as the country prepares for a presidential election June 12 that pits Ahmadinejad against former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who favors better ties with the U.S. At least five editors and writers are imprisoned in Iran, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

In noting that Saberi, also a former Miss North Dakota and Miss America finalist, is not the only reporter being held in Iran on charges of spying and espionage, the report nevertheless fails to note others likewise imprisoned. One of these is an American graduate student who was in Iran writing a thesis on the Iranian Women's Movement, in addition to a former FBI agent allegedly abducted from an island near the coast of Iran who was involved in an investigation into cigarette smuggling.

Nevertheless, despite the other alleged detainees, and the widespread reported abuse of women and minorities in Iran, to say nothing of the conflicting reports as to Miss Saberi's health and general well-being in the course of this ordeal, this might be a possible glimmer of hope for some change leading to a potential thawing in the three-decades long difficulties in American-Iranian relations.

Still, even if this particular case presents the best possible outcome, it is obviously going to be, as they say, a long, hard slog toward complete normalization of relations, assuming that ever does come about.

Those Radical Right-Wing Tea-Baggers

It's hard to imagine how anyone could legitimately believe the Tea Party movement is a genuine threat to domestic security, and I don't believe for one minute that the Department of Homeland Security commissioned its report detailing the allegedly dangerous growth of right-wing extremist groups with that movement in mind.

However, it is very easy for me to believe that the Democratic Party and its elected officials and operatives might well view the Tea Party movement as a political threat to their agenda. As such, I refuse to believe anything else other than the Department of Homeland Security purposely leaked the report to the media prior to April 15th in order to coincide with the tax filing deadline day's scheduled Tea Party movement protests, probably with the intention that the average American should look at them as potentially dangerous right-wing extremists. I think they did this not only purposely, but with the full knowledge and approval of current Director Janet Napolitano.

Unfortunately for them, I think they opened the wrong can of whoop-ass, and I seriously doubt they can put it back in. Now its up to the movement to prove they can grow in not only numbers, but relevance. They seem to have got off to a rollicking good start with tens of thousands in attendance at various events across the country. Only time will tell how successful they are from this point on.

One piece of advice I would give them, just for now-all references to tea-bags are best avoided.

The Long And Winding Road

I think it was the fault of an overzealous prosecution that Phil Spector's first trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson ended in a hung jury, but the second trial ended the way it should have. In fact, the only way it could have by any reasonable criterion. Spector was convicted of second degree murder.

He could have been convicted of manslaughter. Although he might legitimately be accused of murder in the first degree, the evidence was just not there.

Not too cold, not too hot. Not too hard, not too soft. Just right.

Now, the man who once held Dee Dee Ramone at gun point in a recording studio, the man who once fired a bullet into the ceiling during the course of a John Lennon recording session, the man who has pulled guns on countless female companions, and the man who kept his wife and sons, whom he allegedly subjected to sexual abuse, prisoners in their own homes, might well spend the rest of his life in prison.

In the meantime, I have to wonder if all of this is really the tip of a very large iceberg. Spector strikes me as one of these kinds of guys who might well get his jollies off the sport of luring unsuspecting young boys and girls, as well as desperate adults, would-be singers and actresses down on their luck and looking for their first break, or a way out of the prostitution hell-hole into which they slid from an ill-advised foray into hard-core pornography, drug addicted and desperate.

I can picture him subjecting them to humiliating torture and the vilest forms of degradation until he finally took their lives. How many victims breathed their last behind Phil Spector's soundproofed walls?

Nor do I suspect that Phil Spector is the only man of means capable of such inhuman cruelty. He just seems to stand out as the most likely of perpetrators, for obvious reasons. There are multiple people who like the sense of power over the weak and helpless, and the thrill it brings them to hold the power of life-and-death over their hands. For one brief second, Phil Spector, in the case of Lana Clarkson, held such godlike power. It might well indeed by the first time he actually took it to this extent, but I am reasonably sure the thought crossed his deranged mind on numerous occasions. Whether he actually acted on them before the night he killed Clarkson, we'll probably never know.

It is nice to know that he will never do it again.

Yahoo And Their Stupid Advertising Policy

Would somebody please explain to me what the fuck is up with Yahoo, especially Yahoo Mail? I know I'm not the only one this is happening to, but I have to think its the worse kept secret on the internet, seeing as how nobody seems to be talking about what I assume is a new advertisement policy. If you try to backspace (I am guessing that's the right name for it) from Yahoo back to for example your Firefox homepage, it might take you five or six times or more before you get there. Luckily, there is a work-around of sorts. Click on the tiny little arrow pointing downward to the right of your left-right larger arrows, and you will get a drop-down menu that will enable you to go directly to whichever page you came from that you wish to return to.

But, before you click on wherever it is you are wanting to go, notice how many options you have to get back to the same exact page you are on. Sometimes there might be more than ten, and you might have to go back to the furthest one and hit the drop-down arrow again before you can proceed further on back to your homepage. This has actually happened to me twice.

I can only assume that some of Yahoo's advertisers are paying for this, because all that really happens if you click the regular back-arrow is-you go "back" to a different ad somewhere on the same basic Yahoo page you are on. You might have never seen the particular ad in question that you are going "back" to, but you are still being sent "back" to it, while still stuck on the same page, which from the looks of your drop-down menu might well look like you have clicked on repeatedly, even though you have only done so once, to get there.

Is it any wonder why American businesses are shot to hell? In today's fucked up economy, I understand the trend towards desperation, but here's a fucking clue. If you want to increase sells, you might want to think about not pissing off potential customers and clients, and there's not much that's going to piss them off as badly or worse than interfering with their browsing to the extent you hold them up or slow them down.

It might also be worth noting, that out of all the advertisements I have backspaced to, I don't remember a single one of them for sure. It would not be a good thing from the advertisers perspective if I did. It might actually encourage me to patronize their competitors.

As for YaHell, well, the times coming when I will have less reason to depend on them for my e-mails. They serve a fairly convenient function for saving folders and files, but unfortunately they are a third-rate, undependable service for e-mails. In fact, I rarely get an e-mail from any of my comments to this blog. I get comments from Renegade Eye, for some reason, but very few from anybody else. Many times, I don't even receive my own replies to comments.

Soon, I am going to rely exclusively on GMail for everything. There's not that many frills, but then again, who the hell needs that anyway?

Three Judge Panel Rules In Favor Of Franken

A three-judge panel has ruled in favor of Al Franken and declared him the victor in the Minnesota Senate race that has resulted in a protracted legal struggle. The Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, who brought the suit based on what he claims is evidence of electoral malfeasance, has already declared his intentions to appeal the ruling, meaning it might yet be some time before the Senate seat is filled. Could this thing end up before the Supreme Court? Frankly, I kind of doubt it, though it is possible, providing Coleman's side can produce a substantial question as to whether the vote recount was indeed conducted fairly. Coleman insists a number of ballots should have been counted which were thrown out, resulting in his loss of enough votes to afford Franken a razor-thin victory of something like 320 votes.

If Franken is seated, it would leave the Democrats with a 59 seat majority, just one seat shy of a filibuster proof caucus. It is not difficult to get cross-over Republicans to end a filibuster in a great many cases, as witness the last economic stimulus package, for which the Democrats managed to pull three Republican votes-both of the two Republican Senators from Maine, along with Pennsylvania Republican Arlen "Magic Bullet" Spector.

The real irony in this case is, if Coleman were seated, he might well be one of the most dependable of those cross-over votes, so I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about. The Republicans might be better off were they to concentrate their efforts on seating a new Senator with a bit less zeal for reaching across the aisle to "get things done" TO the American people.

They are out there, somewhere-maybe even in Minnesota.

Easter Basket

The townsfolk of L'Aquilla Italy observed Easter mass today, with many of them expressing the view that they too were in need of a resurrection, and expressed the hope that they would recover from the recent tragedy that has as of now taken he lives of close to three hundred people and destroyed or seriously damaged numerous homes, resulting in thousands of people left homeless. A great many churches were also damaged in the earthquake that hit the nearly thousand year old town, resulting in the destruction of a great many ancient artifacts going back to the eleventh century.

The local Archbishop observed that the anger expressed at God by so many people who had suffered such devastating loss was, actually, a good sign. While I suppose it would be hard to be angry at someone you didn't think really existed, you can be mad at a concept, and you can certainly express that anger towards those who encourage and promote such beliefs. As such, I don't know that I would be so willing to look for any silver linings if I were in such a precarious position, especially coming from a faith whose leaders, including the Pope, preach that suffering is a good thing.

While the Pope did call for peace and an end to poverty, I would be somewhat surprised if he put suffering very high on his list of ringing endorsements this time around. Then again, the Pope is a strange creature.

Many people of L'Aquilla have lost everything, in some cases everything they have spent a lifetime building. It is sad and tragic, but at the same time, it is uplifting the way they seem to be trying to pull together, the best they can, to try to help each other through this tragic situation. It is in situations like this, in fact, where the Church can actually be at its most positive as a benevolent influence, and I hope that continues to be the case here.

The best news to come out of this Easter was the rescue by Navy Seals of the American sea captain abducted by Somali pirates, in an operation that resulted in three of the pirates killed and the fourth, a boy of sixteen, taken captive. Though obviously somewhat the worse for wear, the captain is unharmed, seemingly healthy, and in understandably good spirits. His crew members, and of course his family, is elated. Couldn't ask for a much better Easter present than that.

Finally, I want to tip my hat to Brian Williams and the staff of NBC Nightly News, for their dogged determination to get to the truth of a story which they researched and pursued with such tenacity and professional dedication I would be amazed, and literally dumbfounded, were they not in the running for this years Peabody Awards. Though led down countless blind alleys and given the runaround for seemingly endless weeks by a capricious White House staff, their long hours of hard work finally paid off. Though Mr. Williams took the Easter weekend off, Lester Holt reported tonight in triumph that the Obama daughters have finally received a dog as a present from Senator Edward M. Kennedy-a Portuguese water dog.

That is to say, the dog is a Portuguese water dog, not Kennedy, who of course as we all know is an Irish-American water dog.

Obama's European Trip-An Unqualified Success

After my initial disappointment at the election of Obama, and after brooding for about four days about it, I decided that I was going to make a serious effort to treat him as fairly as I could. I was not going to jump on every internet meme going that sought to belittle or denigrate him in any and every possible way. Not only that, I decided early on I would give him due credit where I thought it was due.

The American news media-at least the television network news media-has made it too easy to ignore all of that. Obama's recent trip to Europe is a case in point. I have to ask, in all seriousness, what was so great about it, other than the fact that he was met by adoring crowds who fell all over themselves in their attempts to outdo each other in heaping adulation on this newest American president?

What is it about Michelle Obama that she was considered more graceful and elegant than, say, Laura Bush? I have to seriously wonder about the mind-set of the news media when you hear them heaping such fulsome praise on her to begin with, but after a while, I honestly began to question not only their mind-set, but their collective sanity, when one of them mused as to whether Obama might quip, seemingly in all seriousness, that "he was the one who accompanied Michelle Obama to Europe"?

The American news media is actually suggesting, and apparently encouraging, the current President of the United States plagiarize the words of a former and late President. I hate to say this, but-WHAT THE FUCK?!

I understand, by the way, this was more of a get-acquainted kind of European tour, and to that extent the trip can legitimately be considered a successful one. Still, enough is enough. Not only was nothing of any real substance accomplished, there was actually a set-back. Obama failed to get any kind of firm commitment for the engagement of more European NATO troops to Afghanistan, the French being apparently the sole exception. In fact, NATO might well withdraw their troops from the country at a time when they might well be more vitally important than ever.

Our European allies, those same countries that previously criticized George W. Bush for being a cowboy, for acting unilaterally and determining to go it alone if necessary in Iraq, are seemingly going to let us go it alone now in Afghanistan. They seem determined to refuse Obama's request in this regard. Oh, but they did it ever so politely, just as they so graciously intimated they had no intention of any further investments of great amounts of funds to bailing out their own economies as we seem repeatedly determined to do with ours. Perhaps we, the US, should do more, they seemed to say with a friendly smile, even as Obama tried to discourage the growing protectionist trend that seems to permeate the economy of the European continent, and still does.

Nothing of actual importance was accomplished or settled, though there was a stated agreement that the world should aim toward full nuclear disarmament-which will of course probably never happen in any of our lifetimes. Aside from such petty and irrelevant displays of feel-good utopian ideology, and in otherwise viewing in total the sum and substance of Obama's trip overall, the Europeans, for the most part, came across as the more practical of the two, in retrospect.

Nevertheless, despite the relative insignificance of the trip in terms of actual firm agreements or accomplishments, this cotton candy show trip was hailed by the American television network news media as a major triumph.

Yet, if George W. Bush had ever intimated that there was an anti-Americanism in Europe that was insidious, as Obama did, they would probably have reported it as though it were to all intents and purposes the next best thing to a declaration of war. To be fair, they would not have been too far off the mark, as I rather suspect there would have been judges in Spain quickly preparing an indictment on grounds of engaging in hate speech had Bush ever had the temerity to publicly utter the words spoken by Obama in Europe-where he nevertheless seems to be a conquering hero, or at the very least, an American idol and icon.

When he went to Turkey, he was covered by a news anchor who, for the occasion, donned blackface greasepaint.

We are told that we should not take such actions as an intended insult, and probably, we should not take it as such. I am very much afraid that, in reality, Barak Obama is not taken seriously enough in Europe to warrant an insult.

That might be the scariest thing of all. While a great many European citizens genuinely seem to like President Obama and his wife, and have a great admiration for them, and what they think Obama stands for, I'm very much afraid that all too many European leaders and elites see him for what he very likely is in reality-an empty suit, a meaningless promise, and a worthless symbol.

Ehhh-Look, Guys, About This "Surrender Monkey" Thing

There have been two concurrent incidents involving Somali pirates, one of which has received an appreciable amount of media coverage, the other of which has gotten very little attention. Yet the Voice Of America, in this VOA article, states that the issue of Somali piracy may be overblown, while granting that there is a danger the trend may extend out into the Indian Ocean, which would be far more difficult to patrol.

Its easy to see their point. Most major shipping would be too heavily guarded to warrant undue concern, but there is certainly cause for some degree of alarm, mainly because the pirates are operating out of a country which has no functional government to speak of. Somali piracy is a lawless act, originating from a lawless land. As such, it might be a problem for some time to come. Yet, it should be a relatively minor problem. For now, it doubtless doesn't seem so minor to the American captain who, offering himself for ransom in order to secure the safety of his fellow crew members, is still yet being held captive by Somali pirates. The US is at a standstill with the pirates, and at a seeming loss as to how to bring this episode to a successful resolution.

In the meantime, a successful resolution was reached earlier in the matter of the private French vessel commandeered by Somali pirates. The crew members of this ship had set sail in an attempt to get away from what one described as our consumer society, and had stubbornly ignored previous warnings as to the danger of venturing into the waters where they were in fact abducted by the pirates.

The French attacked the pirates, killing two of them, and though one of the hostages was also killed, the others were safely retrieved.

To summarize-

Americans are being held to a stalemate with a handful of Somali pirates in a small craft, while the captain of an American vessel waits helplessly, his life in growing danger. He, and his American compatriots, are helpless.

The French attacked and killed the pirates who abducted a yacht which held a number of their citizens.

The world has really, really, really, gone to hell in a hand basket.

Hey Kids, Let's Overthrow A Government

That is what seems to be going on now, with the revolution being fought on the web-pages of Facebook and Twitter, which is astounding in its implications. After all, these social networking sites, and others, were originally conceived as a portal for communicating with friends, for finding out the whereabouts of old ones and making new ones, for making professional contacts and plugging blogs or businesses, even finding work-and/or sex and love. They are used as advertising tools, for good or ill, and for the general dissemination of all varieties of news-and sometimes pornography, and various types of spam.

But this, this "pman", is something that is at a whole new level. The government of Moldava, probably the last stronghold of European communism, is teetering on the brink of dissolution. The citizens of Moldava, which was formerly the Romanian province of Bessarabia before being forcibly excised by the Soviet Union for the richness of its oil reserves, have taken to the streets in protest of yet another allegedly sham election held by the communist government. The movement has grown and become violent, with injuries reported on both sides.

And, while the government there keeps on teetering, the protesters keep on twittering, under the code name "pman". How will it all play out?

No wonder repressive governments (and for that matter, supposedly not-so-repressive ones) tend to hold freedom of speech in one or another degree of fear and loathing.

Death by a thousand tweets.

The Explanation-It's "Simple" All Right

Well, the mystery is solved as to why Doctor Lawrence Kutner committed suicide in the April 6th episode of House. "Simple Explanation". The character merely followed in the footsteps of actor Kal Penn, who has committed career suicide by quitting the show in order to join the Obama Administration. Penn, who also starred in the "Harold And Kumar" films, has been politically active and was a strong supporter of Obama during the campaign. He will now be a liason to the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, and also to the arts communities.

Who knows, maybe its a good fit for the actor, but I have to wonder at this decision. Maybe he heard the term Slumdog Millionaire one time too many. Maybe he was sickened by the limitations of Hollywood and the ethnic stereotypes. Or, maybe he was honestly inspired by the fact that his grandparents marched with Gandhi, despite the fact that they would probably have been just two in a sea of faces that did so at the time.

I'm afraid that he might learn the hard way that Washington "inside the beltway" politics is a demeaning environment of its own, with its own style of stereotyping limitations which he should have caught on to when the position offered to him was as liason to Asian Americans.

There are two kinds of politicians, those that hate Guantanamo Bay and consider it at least a milder version of a gulag, and those who excuse it's necessity for the times, and hopefully for the time being. Then again, Washington is itself a kind of Guantanamo, but a more insidious form of a gulag, one which Kal Penn may soon discover has nothing in it to mine in the way of humor save of the darkest variety.

By the time he discovers that reality, one of two things will happen. He will adjust to it, and thrive, or he will feel stifled by it, and either burn out and leave at some point, or feel trapped and obligated. If so, he might well follow completely in his grandparents footsteps and be just another face in a sea of political apparatchiks. At the most, in time he might discover that his position as liaison to the arts community has more of a rather minuscule aura of Joseph Goebbels than of Nehru.

If in the meantime he ends up following in the footsteps of his on-screen House character, albeit in some symbolic fashion, there will be no real mystery involved. He did it to himself.

Simple Explanation

When it was first revealed on tonight's episode of House that Doctor Lawrence Kutner died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the first thing I wondered was, why did the character not appear on the show? It seemed pretty likely to me that Kal Penn, the actor who played the character now over the course of two seasons, may well have refused to participate. I mean, why not actually show the character committing suicide, to what extend this could be done on network television as tastefully as possible?

After a while, though, I realized, such a scenario would have defeated the purpose of the episode. Kutner's suicide was never explained, though there were possibilities explored, such as his witnessing, as a young child, the murder of his parents at the hands of a robber. Still, the act seemed senseless, and left House for once dumbfounded. He came to the conclusion that Kutner had to have been murdered. Suicide made absolutely no sense, and so he set out to prove his hypothesis, his mind focused on this greatest of all puzzles to the exclusion of everything else-including his patients.

In the end, nothing was resolved. While most of the other characters attended the Hindu funeral at which Kutner's remains were cremated, the smoke ascending up into the sky from what looked to be some kind of crematorium temple complex, House returned a second time to Kutner's apartment, determined to find answers that were simply nowhere to be found. Nothing but pictures of a seemingly happy young professional, along with one that hinted at an unknown despair.

For once, House was stumped. There was no logical, rational explanation as to why someone, anyone, would purposely choose to end his own life for any reason, but all the more so in the case of someone who seemed to betray no outward sign of any reason or inclination to do so.

At the end of the show, a public service announcement gave a telephone number one can call if entertaining thoughts of suicide, but then the network sort of destroyed its credibility and may have defeated the purpose of the episode by advertising on its website a Lawrence Kutner Memorial page where you can go and pay your respects to the character and give your thoughts on his life and death. All of which, while meant to be poignant, comes across I'm afraid as unfortunately bizarre, silly, tasteless, and maybe even exploitive. I can only imagine what the Network could have been thinking about.

I think the comments section to this page has been shut down due to trolling, but here it is.

North Korean Test Pattern

What with all the outsourcing American businesses have done over the last couple of decades, it seems obvious to me what the solution is to the recent North Korean crisis. Why not outsource all our defense contracts to them? We could save at least a couple of hundred billion dollars and help them build their country back up at the same time, resulting in turning a potentially deadly adversary into a stable, secure, and prosperous ally.

Okay, maybe not. That missile they launched turned out to be a dud, so maybe we should turn to some other more traditional manufacturing source and just kind of ignore the North Koreans. After all, these people are only dangerous because they're desperate, and they're only desperate because they're poor and their people are starving. How hard could it be to come to some kind of resolution here? This new missile test is just the same old thing that happens every time there's a change of leadership in Washington. After a couple of months it won't even rate as one of the top one hundred news events of the year. If we ignored them they'd probably implode. If we snickered at them they might even die of shame. Let's do something constructive to resolve this thing, or, failing that, let's move on. But let's not pretend this really means anything important-just a helpless, irrelevant regime living in denial while flailing and floundering away in impotence, just pretending to be hard and hoping somehow we won't be able to tell the difference.

The End To All Life On Mars

You couldn't beg for a better ending to a television series than that of the US version of Life On Mars, which was much different, and in fact better, than the ending to the original British series on which it was based. Unlike the ending to ER which came the next night and which was, while suitable for that type of series, entirely predictable, you would have had to have been Nostradamus on acid to be able to have predicted the ending to the ABC version of "Mars", which despite a devoted following struggled in the ratings.

The shows creators and writers not only ended the series, they gave what amounted to the perfect answer to the mystery of why Detective Sam Tyler (played by Jason O'Mara), upon being struck by an automobile in the year 2008, woke up inexplicably in the year 1973, where he ended up working in the same New York City police precinct. Was he insane, in a coma, the victim of an alien conspiracy experiment, placed inside a parallel universe of sorts? What was going on here? The details of his experience in the year 1973, where he met not only his mother and his criminal father (who seemingly died in the final episode trying to kill him), but his own self as a young child, seemed so completely detailed as to warrant dismissing the possibility of simple insanity.

Still, there were other things which were seemingly unexplainable. For one, why did he have the identification necessary to function in 1973, where he discovered he had been transferred from a place called Hyde. Why did he continually have bizarre hallucinations where he saw tiny robots crawling in and out of his nose and eyes? Why did he see people he knew in 2008 on television, sometimes talking directly to him, while it seemed he was still in that present year, in a coma inside a hospital? What was the reason for the bizarre threatening phone calls from a mysterious entity who only gave maddening hints as to the true reality of his situation. Why did certain people he met in 1973 during certain times seem to talk knowingly of his condition, then act as though the exchange never occured?

The final episode of the series finally revealed the answer that, in retrospect, would seem to be the only possible answer. When Detective Sam Tyler finally awoke from his hallucination, he found himself rising from a pod that had kept him in suspended animation for the past two years, and had formed a realistic neural stimulation program of his choosing that was designed to keep his brain active and functioning throughout this long sleep, during which he and his fellow astronauts-who happened to be all his co-workers at the 1973 police precinct-were in this suspended state in preparation for their mission, which was, indeed, to find evidence of "Life On Mars" in the form of a "Gene Hunt". This by the way happened to be the name of the hard-boiled detective who was his boss at the precinct, but who in real life turns out to be his father, also a member of the mission, along with "Detectives" Skelton, Carling, and Cartwright.

So what had gone wrong? Apparently, the ship had encountered a meteor storm, during which the ships computers suffered a glitch that seems to have only affected Tyler's pod. He had chosen to live the life of a New York City police detective in 2008, but inadvertently got knocked back to 1973, yet with his 2008 "memories" intact.

We are lead to assume that he will begin in reality the fantasy romance he imagined with Cartwright (Gretchen Mol), the Mars projects commander, who announced at the end of the show that she was ending her current relationship. Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli) seems to be as big a dick in the present as he was in 1973, discussing how in his fantasy life he was alone on a tropical island with countless woman. No, he was not the only man there, he went on to explain, just the only man there with a penis. Skelton seemed the same young, idealistic, and naive, yet quietly likable sort that he had been throughout the series, while the former "Gene Hunt" (played to perfection throughout the series by Harvey Keitel) provided the one slight hint that this ending too might not be everything that it seems to be on the surface. As he was the first to step onto the scorched, red, barren surface of Mars, he did so in the loafers he wore throughout the series. So was Sam dreaming this as well, or was this just a residual image in his mind of his very realistic journey to a past to which he never intended to journey? We will never know, and perhaps its just as well. Some things need to remain unanswered, and when a series ends this well, this satisfactorily-well, as the old saying goes, why mess with perfection?

Perhaps the strongest hint that the real answer may or may not have been given at the end is the fact that we saw the lives of the various characters of Life On Mars play out both with and without the presence of Sam Tyler, and in fact even during those occasions when he was miles and miles away from them.

Explainable, of course. Still, just enough of a question to make this that much more of a landmark series finale, which apparently ended for real, and for good, not in 1973 or 2008, but in the year 2035, during the Presidency of one of the daughters of Barak Obama, and with what was perhaps singly the most important answer of all. Wendy, the hippy neighbor who seemed to mysteriously know so much, yet would reveal so little (an evident necessity to assure the proper neuron stimulation functioning of the program) was in fact the computer that powered the ship on its long flight to Mars. Her constant use of the nickname "To Be" during the series was actually a gentle reminder to Sam that he was actually asleep in the neural stimulation suspended animation pod "2B".

Some people can indeed make this stuff up, and very admirably at that.

For Better Or Worse

Frankly, I'm sick of gays, specifically I'm sick of gay activists. But, if states pass gay marriage laws, they should do so through their legislatures, as was done in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and as recently done in Vermont, where it passed by such a wide margin it might well win the four extra votes needed to override a promised gubernatorial veto. There it would seem to be the will of the people at work-at least arguably. You can't make that case over recent events in Iowa, where the Iowa State Supreme Court declared that the law describing marriage as a union of one man and one woman was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Iowa constitution-which also is, by the way, a bullshit law.

Government has no business involved in marriage, at least not at the federal level, and neither should religion. Marriage should be a private contract between two individuals that can be either civil or religious in nature according to the desires of the participants. In both cases state and local governments have the right to step in as arbitrators and mediators of disputes, and in custody and property settlements, but they don't have the right to further regulate marriage as an institution, nor do churches. With the exception of laws against underage marriages or multiple marriages, they should both stay out of it. It is and should remain a private matter between two consenting adults.

Whether those two adults are same-sex or opposite sex, I could care less. I mean that too. Technically I don't have a problem with two men or two women marrying each other. I honestly do not give a shit. Be that as it may, forgive me if I am not inclined to jump up and down in celebration over the supposed "victory" of a group of people that seem to be against most of the things that I'm for and in favor of most of the things that I'm against. I think I'll pass on the celebrations, just like I'll sit it out when there's the inevitable National Gay Holiday somewhere down the line. I mean, don't misunderstand me, I get it-all gay people are good, kind-hearted people who are all loving and positive. Don't believe me? Hell, watch any television show with a gay character and you can see it for yourself. I guarantee you that you will never see an evil gay character. One can only assume that, since Hollywood puts such great emphasis on social realism-evil gay people do not exist. Oh, they might be uppity, persnickety, testy at times, and some of them can certainly be drama queens. Oh yes, all those old stereotypes are there. No "bad guys" though, unless you count prison rapists such as Prison Breaks Theodore Bagwell-and even he seems to want to change these days.

In real life you have the numerous examples of Catholic Priest pedophiles, most of whom are seemingly attracted to young boys, in some cases young boys who are prepubescent. Oh, but don't get the wrong idea-these priests are not gay (wink, wink), at least not according to gay activists-who nevertheless seem quite at the loss to explain just what the fuck else they could be.

Mainly, I'm not just sick of gays, I'm sick of everything and everybody these days. Everybody's got a bitch and an axe to grind, and if you know how to game the political system, and you are patient enough and loud enough, you can buy enough politicians and judges to do your bidding. Gays are no worse than anybody else when it comes down to it, though in a sense they might be better than most. We seem to be trending towards a time when the United States Supreme Court will in all probability decide that restrictions in state laws against homosexual marriage are unconstitutional according to the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution.

When it happens, so be it. While I will not by any stretch be deliriously happy about it, neither will I really be that badly upset by it.

I'll even take it a step further. On that day when gay marriage becomes a recognized constitutional right, I will wish participants in gay marriages no more or no less than all the happiness and success of your typical heterosexual marriage. They deserve it.

Where There's Smoke

The tobacco industry is facing the prospects of a bill which, if passed by the Senate and signed by Obama (as expected) would place it under the regulatory auspices of the FDA. Once this happens, the FDA could then limit new products, regulate advertising, compel tobacco companies to list the ingredients in their products, and even limit the amount of nicotine in tobacco products. Although the House version as sponsored by Henry Waxman passed easily, it is expected to face a tougher fight in the Senate, where Senators from tobacco-growing states are pushing an alternative bill which would put the industry under the control of Health And Human Services instead. In the meantime, Phillip Morris, the dominant tobacco company in America, actually supports the Waxman bill, presumably in order to retain its competitive edge in the market.

What I would like to know is, where were all these anti-tobacco crusaders in Congress when Big Tobacco was doing everything in its power to create products to purposely addict the American consumer?

Oh, that's right, they were sitting back and taking "contributions" from the industry in exchange for allowing them to get us all addicted and cancer-ridden. Now of course they've all had a collective change of heart and want to tax us. "For our own good", of course.

John McCain Wants You To Know He Really Loves Black People

And because Senator McCain is no bigot he is urging President Obama to pardon late heavy-weight boxing champion Jack Johnson, who in 1913 was convicted of violating the Mann Act when he crossed state lines to marry a white woman, a conviction McCain notes was racially motivated.

Interestingly, legislation has failed passage twice since 1996. I haven't made up my mind yet which side I hate most, the one that doesn't agree Johnson should be pardoned, or the side that wants to waste time advocating justice for a dead man when there are probably thousands of cases involving potentially wrongly-convicted Americans alive and languishing in jails and prisons, but which they can't seem to find the time for. Here's a bit of drivel from McCain on the matter-

Well, here was a bit of drivel but since Blogger's italic function is messed up, I'll just relate that McCain seems to think this would make a great impression on Americans if Obama were to pardon Johnson. It would show, as he put it, "how far we've come, and yet how far we have to go."

In other words, pure drivel from a doddering, senile old fool, who seems to view the American people at best as children who need to be taught life lessons in humanity, or at worse as fools whom he can cynically manipulate.

The Senator and his colleagues need to look into the possibility that there might well be people on death row awaiting execution, people who might well have been wrongly convicted, yet entirely innocent. Don't wait until they have joined Jack Johnson in death before you take up their cause just so you can score an even greater political point.

The Constitutional Right To Matchmaking Services

If you ever wondered why people worry so much about activist judges, this would be a sterling example of why. EHarmoney, the on-line dating site, has now agreed to start a matchmaking service for gays, as part of a court settlement, to be called Compatible Partners. Evidently, EHarmony's policy of arranging matches with compatible couples did not include homosexuals, and this was deemed discrimination and thus unconstitutional according to a suit filed in New Jersey.

But EHarmony's new relationship with the gay community is more like a shotgun wedding: The company agreed in November to start the dating service as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general in the wake of a discrimination suit.

Dating site consultant Mark Brooks says Compatible Partners will be watched closely.

"This will be one of the most scrutinized products in Internet dating," said Brooks, who hasn't worked for EHarmony. "They will have to introduce an A1 product."

It's not a comfortable fit for EHarmony's founder, Neil Clark Warren, who based the original service -- which requires applicants to fill out lengthy questionnaires -- on his own practice as a psychologist.

"It's what I did for 40 years," said Warren, 74, who is retired but remains on the board. "I never had a gay couple."

Warren is the former dean of the psychology graduate school at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Much of the early promotion of EHarmony was done by well-known figures in the evangelical community, some of whom preach against gay rights.


Well, it sounds ridiculous to me. No one has a constitutional right to be fixed up, any more than I would have a constitutional right to be accepted as a member of the Goth community if I weren't a Goth. Yeah, if I go into a Goth hangout I can sue them if they refuse to serve me, but do I really have a right to bitch if the customers don't like me? What am I doing there? Why should gays expect to fit in with a heterosexual dating service? If there are homosexual dating services, do heteros now have the right to sue them as well?

Just another case of judicial overreach. No one is preventing gays from having their own dating service, and by the same token no one should prevent a business from catering to a specific clientele when it doesn't pertain to a vital service. Matchmaking is not a vital service. EHarmony's policies is a private business decision. This is not Matthew Shepherd strung out across a fence in Montana.

So what's next, restaurants are going to be expected to cater to gays to the point they must advertise themselves openly as gay friendly?

This is one of the biggest reasons many are against gay marriage, and why I in fact am very wary of it even though I am okay with the concept. It's just that I can see the floodgates suddenly opened to a flurry of frivolous lawsuits, including gay couples wanting to adopt and demanding the right. Sure, you can make the case some gays would make worthwhile adoptive parents and might then have the right to file a legitimate suit.

The problem becomes, how many adoption agencies cave in to the demands of unworthy or unqualified gay couples just to avoid a lawsuit? This is just the kind of test case activist groups salivate over. It's not about rights, its about power and control with the aid of government officials and a judiciary subverting the constitution in order to impose unreasonable standards of fairness and equality, with freedom being the true casualty.

Beware The Worm

Imagine that you were with a sex partner who happened to have a new, previously unknown strain of a sexually transmitted disease. Say this strain was so advanced that it had tiny little hands with which it could surreptitiously remove your condom right in mid-thrust. It could then go about doing its dirty work. What is worse, even though specialists are aware of the existence of this new strain, they aren't really sure what its long-range effect will be. Maybe it will make you permanently sterile, or possibly turn you into a sex addict, after which, after you have infected dozens of others, it might make you totally and permanently impotent. Maybe it would, much like AIDS, shut down your bodies defenses against all other known and unknown diseases, viruses, and bacteria.

Then, it might steal your passwords and your banking information.

Okay, that's not going to happen, but then again, I guess you know I'm not really talking about a venereal disease, right? Actually, I'm talking about Conflicker, the computer worm virus that experts say might well affect at least twelve million computers tomorrow, April Fool's Day. No one knows who made it, no one knows what it might do, and no one knows what to do about it. It knows how to prevent computers from downloading software meant to combat it.

If you happen across this post tonight, or tomorrow, you should really read this article from the New York Daily News.

Me, I'm not going to be on the Internet tomorrow, and maybe not even on my computer at all. Who knows, if this thing is programmed to attack on April 1st, maybe the simple avoidance of the internet on that day might render it completely useless.

In other words, for once, abstinence might well be the only proper form of protection.

Rumblings And Eruptions

Even though I was and still am a strong supporter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, I decided almost immediately after the election that I was not going to allow this blog to degenerate into a support site for Sarah Palin or any other politician.

In fact, I don't, unlike Lemuel Calhoun from Hillbilly White Trash even advocate that Palin run for President until 2016 unless things get so rotten over the course of the next two or three years almost any Republican could win in 2012, which at this stage would seem by no means improbable.

Still, I have to weight in every now and then, and recent events seem to scream out that this should be one of those times. Many Democratic activists and other such types would probably be inclined to snatch Sarah Palin up, along with her entire family, and toss them unceremoniously into the open, smoldering caldera of Mount Redoubt, while many Republicans might well be of a mind to view the recent eruptions of the volcano as some kind of heavenly sign that Sarah is indeed the annointed one. I have an attraction to that sort of symbolism, especially since Redoubt began its eruptions just two days following Oestra and coincided with the retrograde movements of Venus as it finally entered its conjunction phase with the Sun. As tempting as it is to view that as some kind of potential omen, I will try to keep things a bit more down to earth here.

Then again, this is a pagan owned and operated blog, so don't hold me to that too strongly, especially since the rumblings from Palin's opponents seem almost integrally tied to the hot, smoldering ash that has spewed fifty thousand miles into the sky, threatening the immediate environs and even the relatively nearby city of Anchorage.

Nor would I be the first to draw significance from this event. Note the following comment on the Huffington Post from Mojoman-

Governor Palin has issued an emergency order: All residents of Wasilla are required to mark the doorposts of their homes with Turkey blood. The Lord will then pass over their houses, Wasilla will be saved and Palin will be on teevee nonstop between now and the Rapture.

Of course, some of Palin's moves are questionable and worthy of criticism, and as such I would be the first to admit that I don't agree with her on every issue, such as her probable stance on embryonic stem cells, something I am going to go out on a limb and assume she is opposed to, or at least is opposed to federal funding of such research projects.

There is also something to be said for the concerns of the Inuit population of Alaska over her recent Attorney General appointment, who questions the constitutionality of federal laws giving priority to "native American" fishing and hunting rights. It doesn't really help his cause-or Palin's-that he recently referred to gays as "degenerates".

Somewhat more trivial is the recent ethics complaint against her, revolving around her appearance at a recent event during which she wore a shirt that featured the logo of husband Todd's snowmobile team, which according to blogger Celtic Diva amounts to a conflict of interest. Palin responded to this and a slew of similarly ludicrous ethics complaints.

The Alaska governor said last week she's accumulated more than half a million dollars for her defense against various complaints and may be forced to create a legal defense fund

"Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside, and by the way, today, I am wearing clothes bearing the names of Alaska artists, and a Glennallen Panthers basketball hoodie," Palin said in Tuesday's release. "I am a walking billboard for the team's fundraiser! Should I expect to see an ethics charge for wearing these, or the Carhartts I wear to many public events?"

Evidently, according to Celtic Diva, she should, regardless of whether there was or was not a quid pro quo involved in Palin's actions, because the Palin family benefits financially from the company.

Yet, it is not only Democrats who are giving Palin grief, but in fact the Republican Party, both the national party and those within her own state's legislatures, the latter of which are up in arms over Palin's stated intent to refuse as much as one-third of the promised federal stimulus package. From the Miami Herald article-

The scrap comes as the governor and legislative leaders are increasingly at odds over the federal stimulus funds. Palin announced last week that she was not accepting nearly a third of the money. But leading legislators seem to want nearly all of it, with Anchorage Republican Rep. Mike Hawker saying they are finding very few strings attached to the money.

Yeah, I'm sure they do. Evidently, the problem here is one of missed communications, at least on the surface. The real problem is, they just want the money, she would prefer to pass on some parts of it. Whatever the reasons, for good or bad, it is threatening a split in the state party between the legislative Republicans and the Governor, but then again that's nothing new. I've always told anybody who would listen that Palin is not an in-the-tank Republican apparatchik. It was mainly her own party she had to fight in reforming the Alaska state government. She certainly raised more than a few eyebrows when she took on the oil companies that had for years been so used to having the Alaska state legislature in its deep pockets. Kind of makes a logo on a shirt and a loudmouthed AG seem kind of trivial to me, however undeniably problematic they might be on a political level.

Yet, Palin would be well-advised to not fall into the trap of listening to the national Republican Party, when they accuse her of surrounding herself with a "Junior Varsity" team. In fact, if McCain had listened to Palin's team instead of other way around, the eelction might have turned out considerably different. The Christian Science Monitor probably put it best-

Right. Why would she surround herself with people who helped her topple an incumbent governor during the Republican primary two and a half years ago, then best a popular former two-time governor in the general election to become the youngest governor in the history of the state, not to mention the first female to have the job.

The best thing Sarah Palin could do, in my opinion, is resist whatever pressure she might face to fall in line with Republican strategists and national party leaders, who almost seem determined to insure a permanent minority status for their party. Well, why wouldn't they? There are perks that go with minority status, along with very limited responsibility.

Sarah Palin doesn't need to fall in line behind the expectations and manipulations of the National Republican Party. The National Republican Party needs to fall in line behind her. I'm afraid that its just too unrealistic to expect that is possible in a mere four years. By the time eight years comes and goes, however, it might well be the only chance the conservative movement has of resurrecting itself from the ashes as a relevant political entity.

Please Heal Our Earth

Earth Hour? Oh yeah, it was a big success, and because there was reportedly such a large degree of participation throughout all parts of the world by so many people (a good many of whom were politicians and businesses looking to make a good impression) suddenly we have a "mandate".

Hasn't there already been an "Earth Day" for a while? I guess "Earth Month" is next, and of course don't forget "Earth Week".

Hey, I know, what about Earth Minute? Everybody just take one deep breath and hold it for a full minute, all at the same time. That's a whole minute with no carbon dioxide emissions from human lungs. Think of our earth and its survival, people.

I might have an even better idea though, one that would accomplish more towards healing the earth than all the carbon reduction attempts you ever could or would make.

I call it "Earth Second". That's where all you harebrained fanatics buy a gun while you can still do so legally, store one bullet in the chamber, and then, at the same precise second, blow your fucking brains out and leave the rest of us alone. There goes your carbon footprints, assholes.