no, in fact, fuck YOU

I was just on Facebook, which is only one step below MySpace in that it's basically useless and I kind of hate it. But at least no one assaults me with a song that plays automatically as I try to view a page. (Why I bother looking at pages is beyond me.)

Anyway, I saw a Facebook group (which are, again, useless -- they're sort of like bumper stickers for your Facebook profile) called something like "Get an Education or End Up Stuck in Iraq? Fuck You, John Kerry."

Seriously? I don't know how this got twisted around in the first place, but the man was insulting Bush, not American soldiers. And how are people still talking about this? That was months ago. Shouldn't you all have maybe thought about it for a second (or read the actual statement) and come to the conclusion that a veteran isn't going to insult soldiers? Like, ever? Furthermore, where is all of your outrage at being led into the clusterfuck that is the Iraq War by President Wyatt Earp? You've got your panties in your colon over a couple of sentences when there have been over 3,500 American soldiers killed in Iraq and over 26,000 wounded? These soldiers are killing or being killed so the American rich can get richer. A minimum of 66,800 (and probably many, many more) Iraqi civilians have been killed. And don't forget the unimaginable horrors that have happened at Abu Ghraib as a result of this war. (By the way, the really, really horrifying stuff wasn't even reported until very recently, in an article in The New Yorker. But who cares about that, right? Just Iraqis -- just more brown people. If it's good enough to be Bush administration official policy, then it's good enough for the rest of us, right?)

What makes my head spin is that people read some ridiculous misinterpretation of Kerry's statement and blindly latched onto it just because it sounded like it could be right -- which is exactly the same way the warmongers drummed up support for the unjustified invasion of Iraq in the first place. There are people who still think that Iraq was in some way responsible for September 11th. That's so brain-searingly idiotic that I can't even address it. Why not believe in the Tooth Fairy while you're at it?

So maybe Kerry wasn't insulting your intelligence, but I will.

Learn to think for yourselves or you'll wind up being led everywhere, and that includes to your own death. Maybe not in Iraq, but hey -- there's always Iran!

One final point -- I do not disrespect American soldiers. I have absolutely no respect for Bush's administration (or anyone who supports it) because they clearly place absolutely no value on the lives of anyone -- Americans, Iraqis, soldiers, civilians, it doesn't matter. If they did, they'd allow media coverage of soldiers' bodies returning home. Instead of worrying that the public would become outraged, they'd maybe start worrying about their own actions that led to those soldiers coming home in body bags. And that maybe they should be just as upset.

it's like a pyramid scheme, except instead of losing your life's savings, you get a bunch of books

So I got invited by a friend of mine here in the 'burgh to a book club of sorts. It involves you sending a letter to six people and a book to one person via the real, actual, physical mail. I have to choose six people to get to participate. If anyone is interested in participating, email me with your address. If you don't have my email address or if you are just extraordinarily lazy, just leave a comment. I won't publish it, obviously, if it contains your address.

Unless you'd like stalkers. If you want stalkers, I can totally publish your address. And measurements.

television writers: causing english majors to have aneurysms since 1928

Why the hell do stupid people insist on using the word "ironically" to describe everything? I'm sitting here watching a show on Discovery Health and the narrator has used the word "ironic" three times in the past five minutes to describe things that were coicidental, unfortunate, counterintuitive, and other various adjectives that have nothing to fucking do with irony.

Also, who was the asshole who decided to start using "an" as an article before "historic"? And why have other people latched on to this? You only use "an" before a vowel or vowel sound. Do either one of those qualities apply to the word "historic"? Here's a hint: no. No, they do not. And if you just thought to yourself "But I pronounce it 'istoric because I think that makes me sound smart!" then you should probably go have yourself sterilized immediately. It's not "'istory," so it's not "'istoric." Also, you can look it up in the dictionary, where you will find that dropping the H is not an acceptable pronunciation.

And -- I'm looking at you, Discovery Channel -- stop referring to rape as "taking advantage of" a person. Taking advantage is when someone is maybe a little bit drunk or vulnerable and makes a bad decision. Knocking out a little girl, raping her, and then dismembering her is nowhere near the sphere of "taking advantage." And while we're on the subject, "brutal" does not need to be used to describe murder and "violent" does not need to describe rape. They're sufficiently vivid words as they are.

Also: "dead body" should be removed from the English vernacular. We call live bodies "people." So if there's a body found decomposing in the woods, I think we would all assume we're talking about a dead person. Perhaps someone who just said "take and" to me.

yet another story that i can't believe doesn't end in "and then she punched him in the face"

So today, my mother ran into some people we used to vaguely know a long time ago. They're the sons of one of our former neighbors, and they're quite revolting. Apparently they're even more disgusting than either of us remembered or ever could have imagined.

Her telling me about the brief encounter reminded us both of this little gem of a vignette.

One of these guys is named Tom. Quite a long time ago, maybe about 10 years, my mother was walking Madison, our dog, down the street like she did almost every day. Tom was in someone else's yard having a conversation with someone else when he abruptly called out, "Ellie! I can't believe it! Madison is on a leash!"

Madison would occasionally (and still does) wander around the neighbors' yards because they insist on putting out bread for the birds, knowing that Madison will of course be the one to eat it. Almost all the dogs in the neighborhood wandered around, especially the dogs belonging to the family around whom this story revolves.

So that pissed off my mother in a very specific way. She said back, "You're probably as surprised as I'd be if I looked out one day and said, 'Tom! You're on a date!'"

Of course, he had nothing to say. Who would?

it is entirely possible that ann coulter is actually retarded

First of all, Ann, maybe if you ate a sandwich now and then, you could stop being such a nasty cunt all the time. You look like Skeletor in a blond wig. You make Paris Hilton look not only rational and balanced, but portly.

Second, do you find it that difficult to respond to the actual words that someone is saying to you? I mean, I've worked with people who were severely mentally retarded and they could respond to questions with answers that related to said questions. What the fuck excuse do you have?

Third, if you're going to try to be a ballsy bitch, then don't shrivel away as soon as someone calls you on your cuntdom. Don't deny shit. I had more balls than that when I was in the 7th grade. You're a fucking amateur when it comes to outside ovaries and you're giving women everywhere a bad name. If you can't step up, then step off.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ws_bXU6Rjk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j9UXMrTHNA

today: things that sucked, things that did not suck

I'm going to break this day down into some lists.

Things That Did Not Suck

- Fried chicken
- Macaroni salad
- Walker, Texas Ranger
- Being told that my hair looked pretty.

Things That Sucked

- Screaming headache.
- Bizarre continuing bouts of nausea in the morning. (No, I'm not pregnant.)
- A royal fuckup at work that kept me there till almost 1:00 (which was basically my own fault, so I can't even be angry about it).
- Walking across the entire parking lot barefoot in a monsoon because I didn't want to ruin my nice new sandals.
- PennDOT.

Things I Cannot Categorize

- Not being struck by lightning on my barefoot walk to my car. I can't categorize this because on one hand, I don't want to die in a parking lot, but on the other hand, if I died, I probably wouldn't be pissy. I'd just be dead. And still in the parking lot till someone ran over my fried, soggy corpse around 7:00 AM. Yeah, I still can't make up my mind on that one. I'm just going to sit here and watch Chuck Norris deliver roundhouse kicks to various faces as I slowly pass out.

they say variety is the spice of life

And it's certainly the spice of mine. Well, that and cumin.

There was just a guest on The Colbert Report talking about correlations between certain physical traits and homosexuality. One that he mentioned was the length of index fingers as compared to ring fingers. This isn't new news, but it's not something I think about every day.

So I looked at my left hand, and the index finger is shorter than the ring finger. This apparently suggests that I am a lesbian. But then I looked at my right hand, and the index and ring finger are exactly the same length, which is the most often the case among straight women.

If anyone finds this surprising, please check the room you are in to be sure you have proper ventilation.

The only real conclusion I can draw from this is to say that I probably have two hands for a reason.