All the world's a stage...

I'm not a racist. I'm not a homophobe. Well, not too bad, but I digress. The point here is, I really and truly at my core have no hatred or distaste for anyone, regardless of color or background, or even belief. That being said, the explosion of radical Islam onto the world stage has me quite seriously reconsidering that mentality. This is the biggest threat the free and civilized world has ever faced. Ever. At least the Nazis fought in an organized military, making it easier to stop them.

Islam is by its very nature a violent faith. Anyone who can prove me to be wrong on this, please, go right ahead. Mohammed was a pedophile, rapist and murderer. Just the type of guy I'd think of as a prophet of the 'one true God.'

Islam spreads its tendrils through violence leaving nothing but carnage in its wake. Look at countries that live under Shari'a law. Now look at western countries. Do you see a difference there? Islamic states are typically little better than stone-age medieval tribal enclaves with the occasional modern city thrown in for good measure. Makes for good PR. As evidenced by their disregard for human life, the only thing that Muslims respect or even understand is brute force. Time and time again it has been proven that you simply cannot negotiate with them. They will stare you in the eye and smile at you, plotting to stab you in your back the second you look away. Don't believe me? Read the news.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that they believe in freedom of speech when it comes to telling the world how wonderful Islam is and how horrible everyone else is, but yet someone publishes a cartoon mocking their prophet and they go apeshit ballistic and start rioting.

I want to make this explicitly clear. They are fucking CARTOONS. Drawings. Nothing more. Sorry if you don't like it. The thing is, it's not really these cartoons that are behind this newest wave of violence. Islamists use any and every reason they can find that could even remotely 'justify' their hate, and go full bore. It's like when there's a riot here in the US after a particular football team wins the Super Bowl. Are fans really so incensed that their team won? No, it's an excuse to go outside, break stuff, burn shit, and generally act like a degenerate immoral asshole.

The difference here is that Islamists pretty much are degenerate immoral assholes. Not just rank and file ones, either. Their leadership seems to have acquired an almost frighteningly distinct and elevated form of immoral assholishness. In fact, Amr Mussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League is urging Arab leaders to pressure the UN to address the 'cartoon issue' in a strict manner. Not that it would really matter even if the UN did so, because nobody gives a shit what they say anyway. The UN only rarely has the balls to back up their resolutions, which makes them pretty much irrelevant. They aren't the issue however. It's the fact that these people seem to think the cartoons are such a massive international crisis that we need to approach an international body about it, while simultaneously remaining oblivious to their own actions.

I think it all comes down to the fact that they can dish it out, but they simply can't take it. They're all gung-ho about butchering civilians, blowing up Americans whether by plane, carbomb, vest, IED, or whatever else they can come up with. These are the people who brought you 9/11, the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers, and about 100 other terrorist attacks, and they can't seem to understand why we're projecting a military presence in the middle east, nor do they understand why we don't particularly give a shit about their demands or their prophet. They don't seem to be particularly bright in this respect.

The sad thing is, the EU is already caving in to them. It's already a crime in several European nations to insult religious beliefs, and now the EU is tabling resolutions making 'blaspheming prophets' a crime. Europe needs to get a spine and stand up to them, and do it now before it's too late. As David Jonsson of the Canada Free Press points out, Islamists are hellbent on spreading Islam to every corner of the world, and the violence may be just a diversion - a symptom of a larger disease. The now infamous UAE ports deal may be one piece of this tangled web.

I'm scared. Not of Islam; I'm sure one day we'll stem the tide of the Islamist onslaught. Whether or not it leads to World War 3 is part of my fear. The other is that we may be forced to play the role of fascist conqueror in order to win it. Defeating them may require it. That's what scares me. Not them, but what they're forcing us to become.

Good Ole' Boys

Whether due to my lingering childhood fascination or out of sheer boredom, I watched the Dukes of Hazzard movie today, thanks to the wonder of Adelphia's 'On-Demand' service. First, I'd like to congratulate Adelphia as the movie only froze once for ten seconds, and the picture only 'checkerboarded out' a few times. This was an unforeseen treat as several of my earlier cinematic escapades haven't met with the same level of success. Good job, guys.

I had pretty low hopes given the reviews I'd heard, but for some reason, I really thought it was pretty good. Going into it, I had some serious misgivings about the cast, but I learned to cope pretty quickly. Besides, any man who can say they don't enjoy seeing Jessica Simpson in skimpy clothes is either gay or lying.

The car chases and stunt driving were pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I don't want this to sound like some lame IMDB review, so I'll just end it by saying Jessica Simpson, the General Lee, and Willie Nelson telling raunchy jokes makes for a good time.

You know, I now think I have a pretty good idea where my driving technique came from. I wonder how pissed Kelly would be if I painted a Korean flag on the roof of the Kia along with the words 'General Li.' That would f*cking own.

Damaged by Delta Wave Deficiency

I've spent entirely too much time conscious the past few days. Aeryn's sleeping habits have somehow gone from flawless to non-existant. She used to go down around 8 pm and sleep through the night. Now, whether due to teething, her ear infection, or alien abduction, she's decided that it's time to unleash her weapon of mental destruction upon us. That being the dreaded superweapon callled sleep deprivation.

I should consider myself lucky, really. Jack and Aeryn have almost since birth been perfect sleepers. Only when there is a real problem do we typically have to deal with late night wake-ups. But not now. Making matters worse is the fact that Kelly does not handle loss of sleep well. To be fair, neither do I, but Kelly tends to turn into Mrs. Hyde. Yesterday morning she literally jerked me awake by grabbing my arm and pulling me onto my back, demanding to know where I put the car keys. Fun times, but at least I got an apology out of it.

Last night, Aeryn finally went to bed around 4 am. The night before, she crashed out around 3:40, and the night before that, she felt sleep was un-necessary both for her or us. I haven't attempted to function on this little sleep since before we got married, and I'm finding that at 28, it's not as easy to shrug off as it once was. Tonight, just to make it home I needed to stop by Sheetz and grab an energy drink. I really don't want to make a habit of pouring that high-octane crap into my gullet, but these days it's almost impossible not to. Back in my younger, gaming days, it was nothing to pound that stuff; six packs of Jolt Cola were nothing to me. Now, an entire 16 oz. 'energy drink with the coolest looking can and strongest warning' is just barely enough to keep me going.

In fact, I'm at E-drink plus two hours and starting to fade pretty quickly. Kelly is comforting Aeryn right now, and I have no idea if it'll be successful. We'll see. I think if I could just manage to crash out for about a week straight I might be ok.

On a side note, I watched the '96 version of Romeo & Juliet today. Why? Because it was on and I was too tired to get the remote. Luckily, it actually wasn't as bad as I expected. I appreciated the transposition of the story into a modern context; I always enjoy new and refreshing takes on material, Shakespeare or otherwise.

Enough typing. More caffiene. Just call me Cornholio.

The Enamel Has Arrived

Today will go down in family history. After weeks of runny noses, coughs, and three straight days without sleeping through the night, Aeryn's gums have finally seen fit to unleash tooth number one upon the world! At dinner this evening, we noticed a small white lump that had broken through her gums. Her front lower left tooth is officially visible!

I'm so proud. It's only a matter of a few days until the rest of them start to pop through; during one of her crying fits today, I noticed her two upper front teeth were clearly visible just below the gums. I had a suspicion this was going to happen. She was just diagnosed yesterday with an ear and sinus infection, but it was obvious something else was going on. She's really taken a strong liking to the teething ring too. At this age, Jack already had 12 teeth. My little girl is growing up - finally!

U.S. Prepares to Pull Down Pants, Take One for Bush

Just when I thought the Dubai port takeover story couldn't get any worse, I stumbled across this article from March of 2004 that adds a whole new layer of mystery to this whole affair.

According to the article, CIA Director George Tenet revealed in a congressional hearing that the CIA had passed on an opportunity to bomb and kill Osama Bin Laden because a significant portion of the Royal Family of the UAE was visiting him in Afghanistan at his request.

Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but this how much more concrete a proof do you really need that this is not a smart thing to do? Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stated “No matter what steps the administration claims it has secretly taken, it is an unacceptable risk to turn control of our ports over to a foreign government, particularly one with a troubling history. We cannot depend on promises a foreign government has given the administration in secret to secure our ports.”

I couldn't agree more. Bush's aggressive promotion and endorsement of the Dubai port takeover is at the very least an extreme case of criminal negligence. Something is seriously amiss here. It makes so little since given the current political climate and the war on terror that it overwhelmingly reeks of graft or corruption.

Somewhere, somehow, some administration insiders have got to be making a killing on this deal going through. It simply doesn't compute under any other context. I find it inherently suspicious, as I mentioned previously, not just that the President is for this takeover, but that he is so adamant about it.

In defense of this fiasco, the President commented "Lawmakers who have called for the deal to be blocked need to "step up and explain why a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard."

For more exhaustive insight on this story, Michelle Malkin has it covered.

This can't be good. No, I really mean it.

I know that I made the right choice in voting for Bush instead of Kerry last year.  John Kerry is a creepy man who reminds me entirely too much of Lurch. Hell, even his teeth scare me.  I think the main issue, other than his affiliation with the Democratic Party, was his 'plan for everything.'  Whenever questioned about something, he always 'had a plan.'  It's a pretty simple way of dodging questions requiring a commital, and to a certain degree, actual thought or planning.  Bush, on the other hand, though taking an inordinate amount of bashing and criticism, actually takes action and stands by his word.  This made him the better choice to me.  Admittedly, this is a far simplified explanation, but it brings me to the subject of this post.

With the war in Iraq, I've slowly come to the belief that although I support our troops fully, and even agree with the mission, I think there has been serious mismanagement and lack of planning.  This responsibility falls directly on the President.  Strike one against him in my book.  This should have been planned in much greater detail, and truly executed as all out war with total victory as the only outcome.  This is the way all wars should be fought.

Today brings the news that the President fully endorses the transfer of operations of six major US shipping ports to Dubai based Dubai Ports World.  Somehow, amidst all the talk of anti-terror initiatives and national security, Bush feels that putting an Arab company in charge of our major ports is not a substantial security risk.  He even had the audacity to imply that those not in favor of this idea were basing their decision on racism, commenting that people didn't have these reservations when the ports were run by a British firm.  Obviously, there must be anti-arab sentiment there.

Genius, Mr. President.  The last time I checked, the Brits haven't launched an attack on the United States in quite a long time. The Arabs seem to have a much more recent hostile streak towards us. Of course there's an anti-arab sentiment; more specifically an anti-terrorist sentiment.  Imagine if you will the US turning over control of our major ports to a country sympathetic with Nazi Germany in the 1940s.

Of course, we're all supposed to have the warm and fuzzy happy feeling about this because the CIA and our intelligence apparatus have assured our leaders that there are no significant threats from this deal.  This of course is the same apparatus who told us Saddam had WMDs.  Reassuring eh? 

According to the AP, "Lawmakers from both parties have noted that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers used the United Arab Emirates as an operational and financial base. In addition, critics contend the UAE was an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya by a Pakistani scientist.

They say a port operator complicit in smuggling or terrorism could manipulate manifests and other records to frustrate Homeland Security's already limited scrutiny of shipping containers and slip contraband past U.S. Customs inspectors."

I'm not implying that Bush wants to see another terrorist attack, or that he's deliberately making their job easier.  The simple fact remains however, that this is an unacceptable risk, and any American concerned with their security would be well served to think so as well.  Strike two, Mr. President.  Please, dear God, please swing true from here on out.

Bipedal Baby Blues

It's official.  Aeryn is now a walker.  It really kicked into high gear about two days ago; I guess she'd gotten about as fast on all fours as possible and finally came to the realization that there really was something to this whole upright motion thing.  She progressively began to toddle along more and more starting Wednesday, and as of today, she only crawls if she's simply too excited to retain the concentration required to walk.  She toddles somewhat uneasily but she's getting a lot faster. 


Wednesday, she could make it about five feet before tumbling to the ground.  Tonight, she made it from one end of my parents living room to the other and back - several times.  All of this served as our 'after-pizza' entertainment.


It's such an amazing thing to watch my children grow.  My little tiny girl is now walking, it's so hard to believe. It's so hard to see them grow and change from the tiny little things they once were, but at the same time, it's the most wonderful thing to witness.  I've gone from being someone stared and smiled and cooed at to Jack calling me 'Datty.'  Aeryn's still working on the whole speaking thing, but she's got 'Da-da' down, at least until I point a camera at her.

Insert Witty Title Here

8 inches of snow and a couple days later, I've decided to grace the internet with my presence once more. Jack gave me a good scare the other day; we were in the bedroom and I had repeatedly stopped him from jumping on the bed. He decided to do it again anyway, and before I could react he landed face first on the hardwood desk which backs up to the bed. (It's an unconventional arrangement, but it works.)

I scooped him up in my arms in no more than a half-second after the impact; it was another few seconds before the look of sheer terror on his face gave way to screams. I carried him out of the room and brought him out to the living room with Kelly where we noticed that he'd split his gums over his right front tooth and he was bleeding a bit from them. I spent the next day completely mortified that the tooth was loose and he'd lose his beautiful little smile; thankfully, that doesn't appear to be the case. He was his old happy self in minutes, and aside from occasionally 'favoring it' when he eats (a behavior I think has more to do with his split gums) there've been no other indications that anything's wrong. I've beaten myself up pretty hard about it. I was only a foot away from him; I just don't know why I couldn't have reacted just a tiny bit faster. I should have caught him.

Kelly's been trying to drill into my head that he's ok, and it was an accident, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that I'm his dad and I should have been able to stop it. It's these little moments when things like this sneak into my life that make me remember the flip side to being a parent. The fact that from time to time my children will get into accidents and get their share of cuts and scrapes, and I can't be there to stop them all.

Aeryn, my still toothless one year old daughter took some more steps toward walking today. She managed to walk across the entire living room, then promptly collapsed to the floor giggling.

Jack continues to amaze me. The other day he peered out the car window and said 'bank'. I asked him what he'd said, and he repeated it. It was only then that I noticed there actually was a bank there. That's getting to be a fairly common ocurrance; he'll blurt out things from time to time that make me think he's actually beginning to read...he's smarter than a lot of other kids I've seen his age, and his speech is getting clearer every day. In fact, just this morning he was singing along with the alphabet song; I only noticed he was singing with it from the letter 's', but he finished out the whole alphabet flawlessly. My kids are the greatest things ever.

Thermal Variance and Retrogaming

Aeryn is still under the weather; ironic given the fact that we're expecting some sort of monster snowstorm tomorrow. Needless to say, her birthday party has been postponed by two weeks now. I hated to see it come to that, but I didn't see any other way around it. I did manage to snag a few seconds of video of her actually saying Daddy, which made up for some of the day's more depressing moments.

On a lighter note, I found the damndest thing today, an installer program that converts an old dos game I had lying around into an OSX compatible one. I found the old disc, loaded it up and was enjoying a gaming classic within minutes. I am now a happy boy. Duke Nukem 3D lives again. :)

One Year Older

A lot's gone on since I've last posted; and really I haven't had the clarity to distill my thoughts down to the level where I've thought they were worthy to post. Aeryn turned one yesterday, and we had a nice quiet little party over at my parents' house. Mom got her a really nice and quite tasty birthday cake, as well as a toy telephone, her very own kid-dishes, and some adorable clothes. We're planning on having her 'official' party this Saturday, but she's been sick this week, and looks like she might have an infection in her left eye. It's been bloodshot all day and she just has been the clingiest, most loving child. If that clears up, and the weather holds out (they're calling for snow) her party will go on as planned.

We had a scare with Jack this week; we found a lump in his neck which we were all terrified about; which turned out to be nothing more than a slightly swollen lymph node. Talk about dodging a bullet. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life than the 12 or so hours between when we found it and when we could get him in to the doctor. All is well though, so life goes on...

We are slated to move to our new place on the 17th of next month, which is a massive relief to us; we can finally be a real family again. I'll detail all the trials and tribulations we've gone through at a later time; when I have more energy and more clarity of mind.

I've also made some pretty radical changes to my future plans as far as education and a career. I've discussed it with Kelly and she's all for it. I just need to plot out a course so to speak and get it done. Luckily, it looks like I'll be able to do all the coursework, or at least a vast majority of it, online.

I'm really struggling with the direction I'm going to take this blog. To my own amazement, I've actually maintained it, sparingly, for almost an entire year. I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that. I have so much to say that condensing it down to little daily bites is almost too difficult. Like trying to force a basketball through a mousehole. I've dabbled with a wordpress blog, which I like the setup of a lot more...there's more flexibility to arrange my posts the way I want them, and to categorize them which might end up saving me some time and effort when and if I decide to sit down and reminisce. I'll keep this up a bit longer and see if I decide to make that leap. Maybe when we move I will start anew. Who knows? It might be cathartic to let this blog, as this past year, slip into history.

Well, that's about all I really have to say at the moment; I'm already rambling and God knows where I'd end up if I don't shut up now.