Its a great day, isn't it?

Yep I've been sweltering in the heat like y'all. After my post about the breakin I have yet to reinstall my window fan. As a result, I've been sleeping on the floor of the living room because that is where the AC is. My freakin' back hurts so I'll likely be wedging in my fan one way or another this afternoon.

Anyhow, more madness from the Middle East. Those of you hoping and/or wanting and/or demanding a cease-fire... flush the idea down the toilet. It isn't going to happen for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that Hezbollah's mandate is the eradication of all Jews in the area. For those of you who don't know, that little tidbit is actually in their founding charter. Hezbollah's master, the state of Iran, wants the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah provoked Israel into bombing Lebanon, not the other way around. Israel will not cease firing until A) it gets its soldiers back, and B) the rockets stop flying into northern Israel. Oh, and by the way, forget about Israel negotiating with Hezbollah over the release of prisoners. Negotiating with a terrorist group that has aims to kill every single last Jew is the most idiotic and suicidal foreign policy that Israel could possibly implement. Like I've said before - the only way that this problem is going to end is if one side wins and one side loses. Peaceful co-existence isn't an option when one side is drunk with bloodlust for the other.

The Iranian President, as reported through Iranian state media, claims that the permanent solution to the Middle East crisis is the destruction of Israel (!!!). If you are surprised by this then you haven't been paying much attention. As long as Iran is meddling in the affairs of its neighbors and arming Hezbollah there is going to be no lasting peace. Its a proven historical fact that cease fires in the ME only serve to give the terrorists a break to build back up, only to shoot again. To attempt such a strategy again is absolutely laughable.

That isn't the most enraging part of the story though. King Abdullah, our buddy over in relatively moderate Jordan, claims in the article that Israel must give up occupied terrotory and "set up a Palestinean state," as well as stop "agression" in order to get the Arabs to calm down. I call BULLSHIT. A) Israel already has given up Gaza and West Bank... they've already done that and they got rockets from both sides of the border in return. You can throw that theory out the window. B) "Agression?" Who does this guy think he's kidding? Firstly, Hezbollah instigated this current fight, and since Mr. Abdullah and the rest of the Arab speaking world refuses to acknowledge Hezbollah's part in this how is it possible to take anything these people say in a serious manner? Yeah, Jewish citizens are dying too, but you don't see much focus on that in the MSM or the Arab world, do you? Secondly, if Hezbollah and the Palestineans stopped monkeying around and left Israel alone the conflict would be OVER. Israel just wants to be left alone. To somehow suggest that Israel is an aggressor in the region is completely insane and is an opinion born from a lack of historical knowledge and perspective.

I will congratulate Hezbollah on their tactics, however brutal they are. Its nothing short of a miracle that these people operate out of civilian areas, effectively using innocent people as human shields in the case that Israel tries to go after them... and the civilians then blame Israel when they strike! That is nothing short of brilliant. Hezbollah is directly responsible for where Israel is targeting due to their predilection for putting civilians at risk, and the civlians completely whitewash the fact that its Hezbollah that is enabling Israel to target places were civilians live and work. Why do they whitewash Hezbollah's part? Because despite Hezbollah putting innocent people at risk these people have been brainwashed since a young age to believe that the Jews and the Americans all need to either convert to Islam or die. They could care less about what Hezbollah does as long as Jews die and they keep operating hospitals.

I'm going to say something relatively startling, but you've learned to expect that from me. Any American who doesn't believe that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization needs to have their citizenship revoked. This includes a certain Democratic Representative from Michigan, Mr. John Dingell. When asked recently to discuss the recent crisis in Lebanon, Rep. Dingell refused to take sides between Hezbollah and Israel, and when asked if he believed that Hezbollah was a terrorist organization he said "no."

This is the same organization that packed enough explosives in a truck to level the strongest and most secure building in Lebanon and resulted in the deaths of 240+ U.S. Marines. The very definition of terror, and this guy, as a member of U.S. Congress, is refusing to condemn Hezbollah? This guy is going to be crucified publicly, as he should. His career is over, but just wait for liberals to condemn Republicans for character assassination on this guy... which nobody with a brain would actually believe since this guy did it to himself.

This morning at 6:45am I woke up hearing some rustling around my window. I open my eyes and look at my window fan, and I see a guy in an orange t-shirt trying to remove the fan from my window, obviously trying to break in.

So I snuck up to the window (he couldn't see me through the fan) and shouted at loud and as startling as I could at him, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He ran down the fire escape. I kind of wish that I would have waited to take the fan out of the window so I could have crushed his face.

I got out of bed, through on some quick clothes and took a little lap around the hood to look for the guy - nowhere to be found. However, the door to the carriage house is open and I'm afraid that someone's bike may have gotten stolen.

In any case, just a heads up for the locals. Keep your shit locked and watch out!

The list of states I've travelled to in the continental United States is getting longer - today we added #30 - Alabama. But before we arrived in Birmingham...

... I got my first ever traffic violation. 10 FUCKING MILES from BWI airport! I was so close. 79 in a supposed 55 zone (no signage). The police officer was nice but he still handed me a $145 citation. Oh well... time to send in the money and forget it never happened. If I were in MD I'd defnitely contest it on several grounds but since I'll be home I am resigned to just spend the money and leave a note mentioning that there was NO signage at the point that I got gunned at... 15,000 feet away from the officer. Thanks officer for showing me the gun! I toasted to myself on the plane with a gentleman from California - scotch and soda, baby!

In general its not too much different than Georgia, except for the many hilly areas that you get to meander through as you wander up and down the highways. As always, the people in the south are extremely nice and are eager to make people comfortable. Today I told the people at the front desk of the hotel that if I ever get married it will be to a southern girl. Their response was, "You've got it - you'll never get any better lovin' or cookin' than from a girl from the south!" Not to toot their own horn, but they might be right so what is there to criticize? Ha.

Great news, since I loaned my copy of On The Road to a friend of mine 5 years ago and will probably never get it back. Viking Press has gotten permission to reprint an uncensored version of "On The Road" by the end of next year, in time for the 50th anniversary of the original publication.

Here is a link to an article about it -

While working on an English minor I took a Beat Lit class - amazing. Except for Naked Lunch. Anyway, I'm thrilled about this... but I'm not sure if I can wait a year and a half for a copy of On The Road. Maybe I can find a used copy until then.

So, my man (e:derschlickmeis)ter was in Connecticut supporting Joe Lieberman. Most aren't obsessed over politics like I am so I will provide supporting information for those who aren't aware of what is going on in CT.

Ned Lamont, rich white guy, is running against Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary and is making hay over Senator Lieberman's staunch support of the Iraq war. This is primarily driven by national left wing activist organizations such as moveon.org, who are essentially hell bent on removing Lieberman from office and are willing to spend millions in donations and grass roots organizing in order to help achieve this. In essence, the national radicals on the left have hijacked the elections for the senate seat in Connecticut in order to attempt to prop up a guy more inclined to see things their way.

Where this gets intriguing is the polling numbers. My feelings on the accuracy of polling numbers is well known, but even these cannot be ignored. Polling suggests that Democrats are split directly down the middle betwen the candidates. However, since Senator Lieberman has said that he will run as an independant if he loses the Democratic primary, polling suggests that if Lamont wins the primary Lieberman will win the Senate seat by a 51% to 27%. Forget landslide - that is a bloodbath. Either way, Lieberman wins, which is truly a relief. How is this possible? If Lieberman runs as an Independant, CT state Republicans are going to bail on whatever New England RINO Republican is running and support Lieberman.

I applaud Bill Clinton for shunning the insanity that is marginalizing his party nationally and supporting one of the only politicians left in Washington that is honest and has integrity. The far left states that Lieberman "isn't really a Democrat" - that logic is hilarious to me and only proves that liberals' collective historical perspective starts at the day of their birth. Ever heard of JFK? There is no Demcrat left that is as close to JFK politically as Lieberman is... Lieberman is more of a Kennedy than Teddy ever was.

Another lefty, Al Gore, refuses to support Lieberman and also refused to support him during his bid for the presidency. The irony is that without Lieberman as his running mate in '00 he would have never garnered the moderate Democrat support that made it possible to be competitive against GWB at the time.

Cheers to the only sane politician in New England.

When I first heard of this article I thought, "How is it possible that somebody could suggest that peace movements don't actually create peace but MORE war?"

Read on - this article is absolutely brilliant.

July 21, 2006
Pacifists versus Peace
By Thomas Sowell

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

Remember the Falkland Islands war, when Argentina sent troops into the Falklands to capture this little British colony in the South Atlantic?

Argentina had been claiming to be the rightful owner of those islands for more than a century. Why didn't it attack these little islands before? At no time did the British have enough troops there to defend them.

Before there were "peace" movements and the U.N., sending troops into those islands could easily have meant finding British troops or bombs in Buenos Aires. Now "world opinion" condemned the British just for sending armed forces into the South Atlantic to take back their islands.

Shamefully, our own government was one of those that opposed the British use of force. But fortunately British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ignored "world opinion" and took back the Falklands.

The most catastrophic result of "peace" movements was World War II. While Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth, "peace" movements in Britain were advocating that their own country disarm "as an example to others."

British Labor Party Members of Parliament voted consistently against military spending and British college students publicly pledged never to fight for their country. If "peace" movements brought peace, there would never have been World War II.

Not only did that war lead to tens of millions of deaths, it came dangerously close to a crushing victory for the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese empire in Asia. And we now know that the United States was on Hitler's timetable after that.

For the first two years of that war, the Western democracies lost virtually every battle, all over the world, because pre-war "peace" movements had left them with inadequate military equipment and much of it obsolete. The Nazis and the Japanese knew that. That is why they launched the war.

"Peace" movements don't bring peace but war.

I am way behind on reading and writing journals - I forgot my damn wireless card at home before I left for my trip, so I've waited 3 days to by happenstance be at a hotel that actually has a traditional RJ-45 love connection. So here I am.

First of all, I heard a vicious rumor that a certain Manhattan resident by day/NJ resident by night is shooting me those evil chick eyes (you know what I mean!) because I have visited NYC and haven't been in contact. Allow me to assure you, mystery person, that when I get the chance I will redeem myself.

On that note, I did stay in the NJ side of metro NYC the past two days, but when I wasn't at work I was in the hotel room sleeping. Our travel rules have been becoming more demanding and more draconian so as a result I usually begin my work week extremely sleep deprived. I didn't get out AT ALL. We even ordered food in. On the bright side, I found a $120 per night hotel in Jersey that was across the street from a 20 min. bus ride to Times Square. The only thing that would have been better is a $120 per night hotel near a PATH train. Considering that I've paid more for shittier hotels in NYC, I think its a fair tradeoff.

I picked up our car at LaGuardia (pre-blackout) and the notorious traffic kept me waiting nearly an hour to cross the Whitestone Bridge. On the way bacy through I waited nearly an hour to cross the GW bridge... at 2 o' fucking clock. My friend that lives in Long Island City commutes to CT every day - after this week I don't know how he does it without sucking on an exhaust pipe. No, actually I do - its the FAT paycheck!

Ok - fast forward. I'm through with NJ and eventually drove to BWI to catch a flight. Flying out of BWI instead of Newark might seem extreme, but consider this - the flights were twice as expensive, Newark is a shithole airport, and my work day was 3 hours long. Taking a 3 hour afternoon drive on a sunny day to catch a cheaper flight out of an airport I like? Hello, do you hear that? Thats the sound of people stuck in office hell not feeling terribly sorry for me.

Have you ever heard of Yaffa Blocks... the stackable storage bins? Today I met Yaffa - she is a sweet lady and is a genius, but MY GOD was she neurotic. Goooooo Yaffa! This was the first time that I have visited a manufacturer whose product I remembered from old MTV commercials. Yaffa told me that it was cheaper to advertise on MTV than it was to advertise on "regular" channels. Anyway, her products were fairly cool and I definitely want some - if I had the storage space I would have bought some today. I also learned that Wal-Mart sells her products at more than double the manufacturing cost. I'm definitely paying retail to Aunt Yaffa - fuck Uncle Wally.

Tonight we are in Louisville, KY. Despite the lack of major pro sports, this is a very pretty city with a lot of economic prosperity. The state of Kentucky is simply gorgeous - at this point I've travelled to 35 states of the 48 continental and Kentucky, from a purely aesthetic perspective, is only behind California, Washington and Texas. We ate dinner at a Texas Roadhouse, and I saw a group of 9 (two tables, one for adults and one for kids) leave a TWO DOLLAR tip on an $81 check. What the fuck is that crap? General ignorance about courtesy and life is to blame. Lord knows that they have money left for cigarettes and beer! One of them looked like he'd been neck deep in liquor - I wanted to headbutt him Zidane style, except with a spiked helmet.

You deserve a final goodnight kiss so I will leave you with an anecdote about the most wicked redneck siting in history. It wasn't an orange charger with the "stars and bars" on it, but it was damn close. Think of an original 60's era red Mustang - absolutely beautiful. Then throw in a 120 pound white guy with a handlebar moustache and plenty of mulletude flapping as the 80 MPH wind whips through the hair. I was awestruck, like I was staring at a celebrity. The car at this point was like the bow, and the guy with the mullet was like the violin. One without the other and you cannot create beautiful music. It was magic. A guy like that must be pretty fucking cool, although he probably has shitty weed. Whatever - shitty weed is better than no weed!

Adieu.

Does anybody have a copy of Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" that they would be willing to let me borrow?

Or alternately, does anybody know where the best selection of used books are around here?

I'm on a quest, and (e:jason) and I have decided that the vehicle through which we will pursue this quest will be the big, bad world of media.

We have mentioned this in the past, but we are going to begin (slowly) some work on an internet radio show of some kind, and perhaps periodic short videos where we will do short skits, interviews on Elmwood and different cuts where we'll have dialogues with people about political and social issues.

The radio show will be called Larson Vs. Larson, and initially we plan on doing a (very) periodic offering involving interviews with people who we disagree on issues with, arguments/discussions between (e:jason) and I, as well as intermittant homemade "commercials." You are going to love the commercials. In fact, some of you just might be recruited for voices here and there!

The purpose behind this is simple - apathy is a major problem in our society these days, especially amongst my (our) generation. While things are definitely getting better, we have no better example than Buffalo to prove what apathy can mean to an area. Our generation is going to be running shit in 25 years and for people that are largely apathetic that is a scary thought. In some ways have we become so accustomed to our lifestyles that we're just too comfortable or distracted from the important things going on around us? Why is it okay and socially acceptable to simply not care?

This isn't going to be for the faint of heart - the disccusions are going to be deep, intense and involved. The forum is going to be completely open - left, right, center - we don't care. We want to illustrate and promote examples of Generation X on all sides who are NOT apathetic in the hopes that more people will engage in social and political issues. You will hear things that you agree with and you are going to hear things that will bring you to the boiling point. The goal is to allow listeners to be exposed to a variety of opinions because mainstream media has largely abandoned the full range. Pick any media outlet of your choice - you are not being given options, you are being preached to. Its time for this to end.

Will we abandon our own political beliefs in the interest of singing around a campfire and feeling good? Absolutely not. I fully intend on challenging people if what they say is conspiratorial non-sense. There will be parts of the show that feature Jason and I discussing a topic; what you will find is that we have a broad range of beliefs. The hounds will be released as needed on the people who articulate an opinion but cannot explain why they believe it - we don't care how you feel, we care about what you think. Otherwise what we want is for contributors to lay out what they think, how they think and why. "Bush is dumb" and "liberals suck" will never fly - people that don't bring everything to the table will be scrutinized, but rarely in a manner where anybody is hostile to one another.

The video idea is something that I thought about and would be somewhat of an extension of the radio show. We will hit the street with a camera and a mic and ask people about what they think about the issues of the day. Lets find out who cares, who doesn't and why. Lets compare strong opinions with depth of understanding. Lets go ask the lady at the deli if she thinks the minimum wage is too low. Lets go ask some people at Spot if they think about a nuclear North Korea. Lets go ask people who the Secretary of War is - yes, trick questions are allowed. Lets also dress in an Uncle Sam suit and ask people what the suit represents to them (no, I'm not kidding). Lets have some fun too, and create some short skits in between the more serious things to put a spotlight on the fact that it is indeed okay to laugh about how ridiculous some things and some people can be. Lets get ALL of this on camera and use it as a tool to illustrate who cares, who doesn't and why... and in the meanwhile we'll shake it up by throwing in some dark humor.

We're in the preliminary stages of constructing the first radio episode - likely we will be finishing the commercials first. (e:jason) has an idea for something he calls "the chop shop" - don't even ask. I have a chewing gum idea that makes people babble like Ted Kennedy when they chew it. We'll mock religious zealots and intolerance perpetrated by people who fear others race and sexuality. You know full fucking well that I'm going to mock Cindy Sheehan.

You'll be surprised. You are going to agree with us on occasion. You are going to be hissing at me when I go get coffee once in a while. In any case, we'll be getting your attention one way or another, even if we have to coax, embarrass or ooze it out of you. You will hopefully learn a little bit more about what you believe if you aren't sure about some topics. You're resolve will strengthen as well. We want you to be engaged. We want you to vote. We want you to care about your community and be willing to engage all sides of an issue. We want people to learn to respect each other and quit with the shouting matches.

We'll be testing the early stuff on close and trusted friends, then we'll see where we go.