Cultural War.

As much as many will claim up and down that I am just engaging in hyperbole, there is in fact a cultural war being waged in America. It is manifested in the fact that homosexuals are having to fight tooth and nail for basic rights, women are being denied basic choices about their own bodies, and everywhere we look the religious are screaming persecution without understanding the first thing about persecution.

This cultural war is usually manifested most directly in the so called "war on religion." This is where us mean old atheist are busy attempting to get christianity outlawed because we are fearful of it and can't be nice and allow others to have their beliefs. This is just, wrong. There is no easier way of saying it. First off, atheism is not a religion. "But wait, if you say you don't believe in something then that must mean you do, because otherwise why would you have to say you don't believe in it?", they cry. Fantastic, convoluted logic is convoluted. Those that use this arguement you do realize that it is the exact same as if you had a roommate that made up an imaginary friend and all these rules that went along with it and expected you to follow those rules. You'd say "Fuck off, I don't believe in Sweven the homosexual unicorn." He would say, "Well you must, because you said you don't believe in him, so that means you must because otherwise you wouldn't have to say you don't believe in him" At this points you would call the men with the butterfly nets out. You understand that just because it is christianity it makes it no different than any other thing that is intangible and imaginary yes?

Now for my other little favorite argument, "Why can't you mean old Atheist just keep your beliefs to yourself and not comment on our various religious posting etc." The answer to that is simple, as soon as you get your various gods and supernatural trinkets out of public life and stop posting your comments about how this country is falling apart because of the lack of jesus all over the place. To sit there posting about how people who don't believe in god are ruining this country and then cry foul when we comment defending our viewpoints is just unfair. I'm sorry your arguments are shown to be hollow when held against the keen light of logic and reason. This is no reason to attempt to get that light put out.

Healthcare reform.

It does not mean that the elderly are going to have to fret about going before some "Death Council". It does not mean that sex changes are going to be handed out like candy. It does not mean that women are going to be forced to get an abortion. It means that people in a country that has 11 Essex class carrier groups can now finally be able to get health care. Why do I mention the aircraft carriers? Those represent huge sums of money, labor, and combat power. Our navy is bigger than any other countries, to the point of being ridiculous. Republicans have no problem pouring yet more money into this, but when you start talking about spending a bit of money on health care, like other fucking countries already do!, you get nothing but incoherent spittle flying rage and the above lies.

The neo-cons have really warmed up their fear-mongering machine on this one. The want the average person to think that this health care bill will make them stand before a council that will tell them they can't get the treatment they need but will force them to not only get a sex change but and abortion as well. While we are on that topic neo-cons, can we please stop focusing on abortions? They are a small part of a very comprehensive medical bill, yet you are doing your best to kill the bill by throwing the word abortion around. We wouldn't want women to be able to make informed choices about their own body huh? I mean, they are just meant to get pregnant and then surrender their bodies to the fetus aren't they? Honestly, the views on womens health held by many in the right are misinformed at best.

Dear Republicans.

Do you ever stop and listen to yourselves? Do you ever actually hear the inane shit coming out of your mouths? The mere fact of you saying something does not automatically make it true. Really really really really believing in something does not mean it is right and doesn't trample all over the rights of others.

Obama is not a Muslim, nor he is not an American. He does not have to prove to you that he isn't either of those. You can not have negative proof. Let me explain it to you. You want Obama to prove the he isn't a Muslim and that his birth certificate isn't faked. This is the same as me walking up to you and asking you to prove that you didn't eat my ham sandwich when I wasn't looking. Do you see how inane that is? Do you see how impossible it is to prove a negative?

Oh, you say that you weren't the ones that officially started all those rumors? Well neither did you do anything to stop them coming out of those that claimed to be part of your party. You never said, "Despite what some think, the official view of the Republican party is that Obama is neither an illegal alien nor Muslim." But you didn't, because that's how you guys work. If you can just find the right combination of scare words that get your way, so be it. Doesn't matter if it is true or not, as long as it gets what you want done, there isn't a thing wrong with it.

For example, abortions. There is so much fucking disinformation out there about them that it is ridiculous. You don't like abortions, fine no one is saying that you have to. But you do not have the right to attempt to keep others from exercising their choice, especially when that choice is legally protected. I don't care if your magical sky daddy says it's wrong, that doesn't mean that you should block the door to abortion clinics and scream at the women going in there. I found this blog, http://everysaturdaymorning.wordpress.com/ , and the things he has experienced in there are just sad. Is it really necessary to attempt to demoralize the women in there with things like a crucified baby? I think it is safe to assume that these women for the most part are not experiencing a high point in their life and they really don't need your shit on top of it.

One final note, Stephen Colbert. He might say things that you like, and you might think he is a good Republican, but guess what? He's fucking making fun of you. The way he acts is how you come off in the general media and life in general. He is parodying you, and the sad part of it is that your viewpoint requires such stringent adherence to dogmatic and often oppressive principles that it is hard to tell when someone is parodying you and when someone is being true.

In conclusion, I find your total ignorance of facts, your attack on things that are even slightly different than your viewpoints, and you overstated insistence that America do the "Christian" thing because for some nebulous reason all chaos would break out if we didn't all believe in an imaginary zombie friend that talks to us in our heads, repulsive. Your viewpoints are often ones of intolerance, hatred, and discrimination. Your treatment of the LBGT community, women in general, minorities, and really anyone who is not a rich white male makes me angry. One can only hope that in your heart you know that you are being mean and petty and that you don't really think you are right in all the inane, hateful things you say.

Words.

I love them. Be they arranged in a sentence, paragraph, paper, magazine, book, or just a witty little phrase. Words can convey everything, nothing, and both at the same time. That last part is my favorite usage of words. I like the surreal, the strange, and the just plain out there. There in lies the beauty of words. With just a little practice and thought you can make them do what you want them to do. Whole worlds can spring forth from your pen, pencil, keyboard! So, go out there and make something. String together random words, invent new ones, or simply incorrectly use existing ones to make English majors cringe!

Harry Potter and the long overdue update.

First thing before I start out with this overdue update. Micheal Jackson. He is dead, as in, the biological processes of his body have halted leading to him no longer experiencing what we call sentience. I don't know what happens to his "soul" anymore than I do with anyone else's. His life of full of controversy, tragedy, and some music that you secretly listen to when you think no one else is around. Now, let us all move on. Yes, you too Fox news, you fucking republican shitheads.

Did everyone have a great Fourth? Nothing shows that you love your country more than by blowing up small pieces of it. I like to think that the rest of the world tolerates our boisterous Fourth of July celebrations because we are a young country. As such, each of our birthdays is exciting, unlike Britain who has toilets older than us. Still at least this year there are things to celebrate about. LGBT's rights are coming about, slowly, but still. Universal health care may be a reality before to long. Oh, and our President can both safely eat pretzels and not look like an huge inbreed hillbilly ass if front of the world. So, that's good.

And now for that which lent its name to this update's title. Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. Yes, I am going to go see it, quite possibly on the midnight showing. No I do not care who knows it or how much shit I receive for that. Now I usually don't like things that have this much hype surrounding them, but with Harry Potter I make an exception. You can say that's merely because I enjoy the books, and that's your right. However, I fully admit that Harry Potter does have a lot of hype that surrounds it. I think that this hype is different for one very important reason. Harry Potter got kids to read and use their imagination. It gave them something to pretend at, something to believe in, and more importantly taught them a bit of morals along the way. I would now rant and rave about the stupid fundie christians and how they think Harry Potter is some great evil designed to destroy them, but I don't have all day and I ran out of aspirin.

Doctor Who, What, When?

So I downloaded the Easter special of Doctor Who and watched it last night. Now the actual downloading poses an interesting question. I used utorrent to get it from the internet. This is pirating and raises the question, "Would the Doctor approve?" I think not, but more important to me, "Would The Master approve?" Yes, I am a fan of The Master. I also like Daleks. If The Master were ever to march at the head of a Dalek army I would nerdgasm all over place.

I liked the episode. It was some classic Doctor Who problem solving. I was a bit disappointed that the plot was very complicated, but still it was a good little injection of the Doctor in what is proving to be a very barren year for him. Yeah, I know that they are just doing the specials this year, that doesn't stop me from wanting more though. I will say this about the episode, the Doctor without a companion is a bit depressing. Okay, sort of a lot depressing. He gets all frowny and doesn't have his usual energy.

Speaking of which, what will the new doctor be like? I've seen the video of the new doctor. Don't know what I think yet. I'll give him a fair chance, cause this is how we all felt when Tenant took over. Honestly though, I still hold out hope for Eccelston to return.

We can still stop it people!

Twittering that is. Leave it to Americans to take something like that internet that gives you the freedom to express yourself for others to share in and make it as mind numbingly simple as they can. What was the thought process behind this? No one can be sure what vile form of douchbaggery spawned it, but it might have gone something like this.

Blogging? You mean I have to actually write things in paragraph form, what is this school? Myspace, Facebook, I'm more familiar with this as it's just a giant popularity contest, but downloading ass loads of stupid applications just takes so much time. If only there was a way to share inane text messages about the stupid shit I'm doing every minute of the day with tons of people. At this point a light bulb went on over the theoritical persons head, only to cause a massive anourism. Unfortunatly, there must have been another idiot around that picked up on the idea, and since they didn't have to form it themselves, survived.

Now, I mean, I'm all for expressing yourself. Freedom of speech is one of the greatest things ever. I also understand that not everyone is good at writing. You know what though? You don't have to be! It does not take a literary giant to post in a blog, or a journal. Even if all you are doing is writing down what happened to you that day it's better than twitter. If you can't sit down at the end of the day and take the highlights of what you did and put them into a vaguely coherent form, please get off the internet. There is no for the sheer laziness of wanting to be able to post 140 characters of what you are doing in a stupid attempt to "express" yourself.

St. Louis area and the amazing binary weather system.

Here in the St. Louis area we have a binary weather system. That is, it's either hot or cold. Seasons? We've heard of them, but many of us believe they are only myths created with the sole purpose of taunting us. No our weather consists of us getting up in the morning and seeing whether it is going to be hot or cold. That is our weather systems. Either it's hot or it's cold. Period.

Now of course, I'm oversimplifying things a bit. It's a bit more complicated than that as you can guess. You see, there is rain. This consists of it's either raining or it's not. You can predict all you want. Use advanced weather radar coupled with prediction software or one of the fortune telling machines at the carnival. It all boils down to this; either it will rain or it won't most of the time. Rarely though, we'll get thrown a bit of curve ball. The weather will start raining, only to decide it doesn't feel like it after all and stop. Then sometimes it will do the opposite and ruin a perfectly good day by randomly pissing down rain. One can usually trigger the latter by washing their car.

I also feel it necessary to admit that we do have seasons here. The consist of that time of year when it's always fucking cold. That time of year when it's cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon, and then cold once again at night. And then that time of year where it's always fucking hot.

Of course we could get into the humidity but I think I've subjected you all to enough weather for one post.

Oh and since I just watched the movie again tonight, remember don't forget your towel and above all else DONT PANIC.

Starship names.

So I've been reading Alistar Reynold's series of books. They contain a group of humans called Ultras who pilot light hugging interstellar ships. Said ships have some interesting names which got me to thinking about what I would name my very own lighthugger. Below are some names in no particular order. Check back with this post from time to time since I'll be posting names here as I come up with them.
-Ubiquitous Epiphany
-Dark Matter Queen
-Elegant Tragedy
-Somber Madness
-Obtuse Delight
-Indistinct Clarity
-Quantum Irrelevancy
-Hyper Space Siren
-Quantifiable Infinity
-

American Royality

Why are corporate big wigs for some reason treated as royalty? Am I the only one who remembers that the reason that our economy is in the current shitty state is because of them? Seems like everywhere I look I see the GOP falling all over itself to defend these asshats. We can't take back the bonus checks. They EARNED those. Never mind the fact that many of them are at the helm of companies that they helped pilot straight into the ground. Telling them that since they came to the government with hat in hand, asked for, and received money that they now have to start playing by some different rules, well that's just fucking un-American!

People also need to learn what socialism is and stop acting like it means anything that isn't designed to give companies even more profits. Take my work for instance. We have 30 guys laid off right now. This forced me back to what we call the extra board. That is the call me when they need me, basically it's an on call kinda of thing. Now one of the things that goes along with this is what is called a short rest. That's where say I work from 7 to 4, I can be called back out to come and work at 12pm that night after only 8 hours sleep. They have been doing this A LOT for about the last month. However, they REFUSE to bring any of those 30 guys back. They say that this short resting has nothing to do with the lay offs and the business really isn't up enough to justify bringing any of them back. Fucking could have fooled me though. Seems the business is up, and you do need some guys back, otherwise I wouldn't have to be coming out on shortrests and worrying about short resting all the time.

Basically big companies in this country piss me off if you haven't gathered. Personally, I think if they want to cry socialism all the time then lets give it to them. I say effect immeaditly all companies above a certian size in this country are hereby heavily regulated by the government. Workers pay, healthcare benefits, what their profit margins are allowed to be. All of that should be controled by the government for a period of lets say 2 years. Lets show them real socialism, and that GASP it works in certain situations. Though I suppose Europe shouldn't count.

Oh America, what shit will your media spew next?

I saw a commercial for this steaming pile the other day. That's right it's a "game show" where you have to track down a "terrorist". You're put into mock dangerous situations and the audience squeals with excitement. Why don't we just get it over with people, lets have a game show where some one dies. This, I believe is where American TV is taking us. America seems to have this obsession with reality shows, which really, just show people at their worse. Then you get ones likes Fear Factory which show people doing things they fear. Now this crap. Why don't we just re-instate the damned gladiator challenges and have done with it people?

Along with this post I'm going to include a little something extra. Kinda like when you collect action figures and they contain pieces that you save up to build something else. This is what I've decided to do, I'm going to add little snippets in some posts that when put together can give you an outlook on my views. Now, my friend Tera would want me to post something of our arguments about American media, but I'm not going to because I'm ornery like that.

Instead, something else we often argue about, women's Lib. Now Tera and I both agree on the broad outlines of this subject, but we often...... discuss the finer points. Now, I am here to say there are two things that she has indeed changed my mind about. One is the fact that a woman's title is dictated by her martial status. This is, as she pointed out, quite shitty. Being called missus, I now realize, does in fact convey that the woman in question should be defined by her husband. As such, I think that women should be called by the title of Madam, because it's friggin cool and would have nothing to do with martail status. Along with this is the issue of last names. I must admit that I was against women having hypenated names. This, however, was mainly because of what tradition had taught me. Women took men lasts names, I was led to believe, so the hypenated thing seemed strange. This was just me rejecting something that I wasn't comfortable with, which I am against in others. As it would be hypocritical to not hold myself to these same standards I have changed my view on this. Now, I think instead of the wife or husband taking the others last name you should have to come up with a completely new last name that both parties would change thier names too. Of course, I say wife and husband, but I want to make it know that I'm for all types of marriage and just used the above as an easy example because well, I've been drinking. One last thing though, stiff penalties for parents who give their kids first names that are corny when viewed with the last name like "Ima Pig" will still be enforced. Such as wiffle ball bat beatings.

Now for the second part. The use of gender spefic terms for certain things. Things like policeman, mailman, etc. Now at first I thought that the feminist were making much ado about nothing, but have since come to see this in a different light. I was reading an article, I can't remember which one, that pointed out that those kinds of words can have a determinal effect on women wanting to take certain jobs and really would it be all the fing hard to say police officer instead of policeman? The short answer is no, and really this is the only answer we need to worry about. However, I think it important to note that this is something we are going to have to pursue with the children. I think too many of use older folks(men) have words like policeman and mailman hard wired into us by the language our society uses. This doesn't excuse me from trying to make a change, but I can see myself years down the road being corrected by my daughter, if I have one, for using policeman instead of police officer.

Gun Control.

This is such a hot topic. People on both sides of the issue tend to take it way too far. As for me, I am for guns, but only in a smart way. Banning guns is not going to make crime go away, nor is it even going to make crime go down. Unless you can find a way to make all the of the guns in the entire world, the blueprints for these guns, and the knowledge already held by people to instantly disappear and never come back, criminals are still going to find a way to get guns and use them. The very definition of a criminal is someone that doesn't follow laws, as such they are not going to listen to gun ban laws and not arm themselves.

So, by completely banning guns all you are going to do is take them away from law abiding citizens. Let's not tip toe around it either. I am talking about the ability for someone to respond to being robbed, mugged, raped, etc via the use of a handgun. There are tons of studies out there that show crime rates go down when you legalize concealed carry laws. I would link to some but when I do I always get then "That's just biased, those numbers don't mean anything." Of course, numbers can always be biased. Remember, 80% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

However, lets look at this in another way. Say that you and two of your friends are walking down a city street. In the shadows is a criminal with a gun. Now, he knows that since these city has completely banned guns most likely the three people approaching him have no weapons. This means that his gun gives him the ability to do whatever he wants to those people. However, if it is in a city that allows carry concealed he has to stop and think, "What if those three are both better armed and better shots than me?".

Guns are a tool. Yes they are a tool for the taking of another life, yet you could also say that they are a tool that allows someone to protect themselves by having the means of taking the life of someone that is threatening to take theirs. I think a lot of the more militant complete gun ban comes from peoples fear of guns. They are scary, made to seem scary, as such I think a lot of people just have a knee jerk reaction that guns=bad.

All that being said though, allow to say that I am not for complete and total unrestricted gun ownership. There is a large percentage of idiots out there. They don't need to be legally carrying a gun around with them everywhere they go. That's where the permit part comes in. If you can't pass a simple class, or a simple background check you don't need a permit. Along with that, if you do have a permit you don't need a full machine gun. Even the military has gotten away from weapons that are fully automatic. A machine gun is a strategic weapon used as support, not a tactical weapon used in hunting or home protection.

Yes, I do believe that there are certain restrictions that should be placed on weapon ownership. As for the assault weapon ban, can we just forget that now? It was mostly a cosmetic ban, and designed to scare people. Let's have a little lesson here. Fully automatic-You pull the trigger the gun keeps firing until you run out of bullets in the clip. Semi-automatic- You pull the trigger one round is fired, the recoil action chambers the next round. If you want to shoot again, you have to pull the trigger. Now do you see the difference? Yes I agree that your average person does not need a fully automatic weapon, but there is nothing wrong with semi-automatic.

Basically, I say legalize concealed carry nationwide. Have a permit system for it. As for gun control, ban fully automatic gun but nothing else. I mean, yes there are some rifle out there that look really scary and militant. But guess what? If they are semi-automatic then they are pretty much the exact same as the not so scary looking guns. As for the banning the high capacity clips? That's an exercise in futility. There is not difference between one clip that can hold 30 rounds and 3 clips that can hold 10 rounds in the hands of someone that is even passingly good at changing clips.

Hello and welcome or Why this isn't on myspace/facebook.

This is my blog. Like I said over there in the profile section I don't know how I feel about blogs. Yes I know they let you get your ideas and such down, but I fear they are just something people do because they feel they are being trendy. Personally I finally started one because I wanted a place to write down all this stuff I think about and say to myself, "I should write this down." Why don't I do this in a journal if I feel these are just for being trendy? Because, I being human, am vain. I want others to read what I write here and comment on it. I want to share my ideas, to be engaged in conversation, to have my hypocrisy pointed out to me.

Why the name Internet Roadstop? You know when you are on a roadtrip and you get off at the gas station? You find all sorts of things at those little stops. Maybe it's the world biggest piece of bubble gum, or maybe just a combination Quicktrip/Qdoba/Tobbaco Shop/Knife Store. Despite what it might actually be it's something unique, and most certainly a collection of ecletic things. This is going to be what you find here. You'll find things that are random, maybe insightful, meaningful, tired internet meme's and sometimes an actual well thought out debate inviting comment and counter debate. Sometimes you are going to find things you don't agree with. These are my opinions, and while I think they are correct of course, this does not make them correct. Feel free to tell me that you think they are wrong, but be prepared to debate if that is the case.

And now for one of those times. Why isn't this myspace and facebook? Because I despise those two things. Now, I've been told that is because I like to think of myself as belonging to some internet elite. This maybe the case but I have another idea I'd like to put out there. In high school, if you are a geek/nerd/bookworm, you are ostracized and made fun of. In normal everyday society, at least in the US, if you don't know who the next idol winner is going to be, or who the contestants are, you're looked at funny. However, if have a passing understanding of how pyshics works and can explain why Han Solo's claim that he can make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs is funny.....you are looked at funny. Thus was born the internet. It was where people who didn't fit in these situations could go. Here you were regarded for how much knowledge you had.. Here was the place for the high schoolers that didn't like football but loved star trek. In short, it was a safe place where one could find a place to fit in and belong.

Now along comes myspace and facebook. On the surface these seem like good ideas. A way to keep track of your friends and share pictures. Sounds great doesn't it? Except that's not what it is. Really, it's just a giant trendy popularity contest. Everyone is busy sending inane bulletins and cluttering up each others pages with applications. Oh sure you can ignore that shit but then people look at you wierd when you tell them you hate those stupid applications. You're back to the situation where you can fucking explain how nuclear fusion can work but somehow you're the one left out because you don't have that app that tells you who the idol winner is.

That's what I see those two sites as. An attempt to bring to the internet what high school and society has. A way of trying to impose an hierarchy where those who are different are placed at the bottom. Maybe I'm wrong, but I look at those site and all I see is a popularity contest. Before when you got the wierd looks and whispering because you knew all about the Soviet Union but not who that one actor in that one movie was, you could go to the internet where those people would leave you alone because the internet was a strange place in and of itself. Now the internet is becoming one more popularity contest where people can be ostracized becase A)they don't have a myspace/facebook or B) they don't have tons of friends on those sites.

Message end.