A house to spite a home

And we're back from Houston. My resolution to stop drinking beer has been broken. Damn my lack of resolve. I couldn't resist free beer at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Bar-B-Que cookoff. If you didn't know, this cookoff is the world championship Bar-B-Que cookoff. I've never eaten so much animal flesh in one day... Never. However, it was so stinkin' tasty... Hillbillie ambrosia...

Speaking of hillbillies, my mother and father are country quaint. They don't mind showing their true colors every once in a while. So you can see how I wasn't shocked that my father was in a long-sleeved camouflage shirt when I got home. However, I was kind of taken aback to find that there was a field-dressed feral pig quietly resting on the tailgate of my father's truck. It was his first time to bag a wild swine.

I can understand how some people would think that hunting wild pigs is disgustingly redneck, but then again, I'm sure that these are the same people that haven't tasted venison, buy everything in hygenically preserved plastic wrap and get the heebie-jeebies when someone mentions "roughing it."

You people just don't know. You have to live a little.

So, we're back in Dallas. I'm back on my all-organic diet. I'm back to my 6-days-a-week yoga fix. I'm back, and I'm ready to go back.

All this pretension makes me want to hurl.

Who sucked the fun out?

All of their pictures look like they made some great discovery in life... Did I miss it? Where did my midweek booze binge go? Why did I spend college working hard to get a degree instead of partying hard and living life to the fullest before responsibility smacked me up like Tuesdays trick in the back seat of a Caddy with spokes.

I missed out to gain a running start at my dream job. I missed out on the Wednesday night drink specials and the Sunday morning hangovers with people who live for debauchery, for passion, for friend and most of all, for fun. I feel like that was a very important part of college that I didn't get.

Most of all, I'm sad to say, that it was my own naivete that got in the way. I fell in love for someone who thought I was a couple of steps up from an accessory. Fuck that. I am not, and never will be, an alligator purse. I missed out on an internship in Washington, D.C. for him. I missed out on symphonies and so much of my potential. He took it away, and here I am. But, I've learned so much, but I'm still so bitter yet so open to beauty.

I'll never look back on it as waste. I'll just see it as the flattened corpse of the sewer rat in my path. I saw it just as I stepped off of the curb, and I'll never forget it, but I walked right over it and never looked back.

Sloth???

There's a hearty debate going on over at rant-a-matt as to what animals should be tossed and which ones we should keep, of course, in hopes of making them into incredibly abhorrent human-animal hybrids.

But, call me shocked, there was a call to eradicate the sloth! Sloth? NOOOO!

I then realized they were talking about this little fella:

I don't know, guys, but I think you should pick on something that can actually outrun you. It just isn't fair!!!

A pound of flesh...

Recently I stumbled across my new favorite "Overheard in New York" eavesdropping (Isn't that just oh-so-apropos?). Drumroll, please....

Girl: I've never had venison before.
Guy: Order it. You can taste Bambi. You can taste the innocence. And the fear.
--"A" Restaurant, Columbus Avenue

Blatant lies under overtures of loyalty

Melissa Filbin has officially lost my respect. I put in a call to The Battalion yesterday and spoke with Ms. Filbin directly. After asking her what The Batt's motives were in failing to publish a piece on the Deutschbag, Ms. Filbin stated that the story "hadn't developed," and that they were waiting for an "exclusive interview."

After reading the front page of The Battalion this morning, I was livid. How on Earth can an Aggie lie directly to a fellow Aggie? What is going on here? Has The Battalion lost its last shred of credibility as a student-run daily?

In the realm of journalism, if you lie to your public you're lying to the world. If you do that, your no better than chronic plagiarist Jayson Blair, former NYT reporter that habitually fabricated sources and stole material from some genuinely fabulous writers.

So, needless to say I'll be putting in a few calls to The Battalion's office.

What's really sad is that Brian Cain, a former classmate of mine and one-time city desk editor of The Batt, interviewed Deutsch on WTAW. His responses are canned, weak and offer no real justification for his actions. But that doesn't even touch the fact that although Deutsch put in an interview to WTAW The Battalion still didn't pick up the story. Why? I have no idea.

This is all so very sad.

[UPDATE]

Turns out that The Battalion did publish the AP breakdown of the non-Aggie incidident. No local angle, which sucks. I think that there's way too much politics going on at Aggieland's university daily.

Just to get it off of my chest, I think it's ethically wrong to let your own political bias get in the way of the press. If this is Filbin's deal, she needs to seriously learn the tenants of journalism, and quick.

Ms. Filbin may be a political science major, but that has absolutely no indication that she should be making judgement calls about what is news to Aggies and what isn't. Much like Mr. Deutsch shouldn't have been making judgement calls about what scientists, with accredited degrees of course, should disclose about the dangers of global warming or the evidence supporting evolution.

What a Deutsch bag

And if it wasn't enough that the Bush administration appointed a 24-year-old lackey without a degree (and who lied about getting one from my alma mater), but he's a damn NASA legacy!

George C. Deutsch worked in the Materials and Structures division as Director and later became the Research and Technology Division Director from 1970 to 1978. Deutsch the first was awarded the Outstanding Leadership award from NASA.

I guess Deutsch No. 3 had too much to live up to.

I agree with Nick Anthis in that this has become patently offensive cronyism from the Bush Administration. First Brown, then Miers and now Deutsch? I can't wait to find out from Scanlon, Libby and Abramoff how tight the Bush administration's strangle-hold really is, and how deep the ties that bind are immersed.

Humongous Hat Tip to Nick Anthis

The Scientific Activist: Reporting from the Crossroads of Science and Politics: BREAKING NEWS: George Deutsch Did Not Graduate From Texas A & M University

Wow... Aggies, listen up! Le Bush has le screwed Aggies by appointing an idiot that didn't even get a degree. Did Deutsch not get the memo on the Aggie Code of Honor? WTF?

Backing the Danes

I sincerely doubt that I could be more angry at Islamofascism in general than I am right this moment. I guess I could say that I'm more angry at the sheikh, Imams and black-turban-wearing bigots of the religion that have brainwashed otherwise rational people, than I am at Muslims.

Above I have posted one of the more provocative cartoons that the Danish newspaper, the Jyllands Posten, published to critique the airs of Islam in regards to their propensity to blow other humans to smithereens. If you still aren't clear, MURDERING PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF RELIGION IS HERESY OF WHATEVER FAITH, IT IS WRONG AND IT IS A PERVERSION OF RELIGION ITSELF.

Every time we look back in history and see people being killed in wars waged in the name of religion, we see how incredibly wrong they were, we lament on their idiocy. We know that no god blesses those who kill, maim, murder and torture. It's just that simple. Salem witch trials? Wrong. Crusades? Wrong. Spanish Inquisition? Wrong. Modern-day Islamic terrorism? Very wrong.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the world-view of Islamists. If they honestly think that their religion trumps anyone else's or deserves more reverence than the spectrum of worship and the objects thereof, then they are not only sadly mistaken, but they are also delusional.

No person, no entity, no god and no government is exempt from criticism. Just like everyone has the right to say whatever they want, they also have the right to direct their criticism toward anyone they please. This is a Lockean principle; this is a fundamental human right.

And, this brings me to the object of my greatest ire: You cannot suppress print with violence. If you don't like what's printed in a newspaper, if it offends you and you see it as an affront to your beliefs, write a letter, call the editor, assemble a group of people who feel the same way and protest peacefully. Threats, bombs, murder and violence are just going to make others despise such a doctrine even more than they already do.

Go ahead, boycott. That's your right. March and protest. You have those rights, too. You DO NOT have the right to murder in the name of your god, your prophet or some silly jihad that some lunatic called. I published that cartoon because I am not afraid to stand up for my beliefs. No one should have to be. Period.

[UPDATE]

French President Jacques Chirac, whose country has a large Muslim minority, appealed for all sides to avoid "anything that could offend others' convictions," a spokesman said.

Further proof that Chirac is not only a sore loser (remember Paris' olympic bid?) but a coward as well. Way to cave, Jacques. The man can't even keep peace within his own borders...

Our pres. is a cyclist, so why is he backpedaling?

Upset doesn't even begin to explain how I feel, but I know that my suspicions of President Bush's State of the Union address were justified.

The one part of his agenda-setting speech that really made me blush with what I think was pride was his statement that America was going to replace "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025." It also made me beam when Bush promised to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." And I'm sure everyone knows about my passion for hybrids and alternative fuels, so you all can figure how this line made me feel:

"We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years."

Poetry.

But, then I find out that it was all a feel-good charade. His economic secretaries said, according to KnightRidder's Washington Bureau, that the president doesn't really mean it. Well, literally, at least.

WHAT?

So, he didn't mean part of his most important agenda-setting adresses to the American people? So, he lied? Or are you saying that so you don't have to live up to promises that your boss made? Why? WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE JUST FOLLOW THROUGH ON SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW IS GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE!?

TAKE YOUR DAMN MEDICINE.

Enough with the backpedaling, Mr. President. We're actually counting on you to live up to your promises this time. I know you're a lame duck, but can you give us something more than the seeds of democracy being strewn across the Middle East? Can you give us more than our crushing deficit? We need something to put our faith back in you, and the fear of human-animal hybrids isn't doing it for me.