Thursday, December 30, 2004

The Miscreant’s Dictionary:  “Authoritarian”

authoritarian

a person who holds the misguided belief that, because a specific individual or elite is inherently good, the rights of everyone else must be subjugated to the wishes of the specific individual or elite. (see also “libertarian")

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

The Daily Mantra:  Crying Babies

Never assume you know what a baby is crying about until the baby actually stops crying (and not even then).

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

The Micro-Pundit:  The Constitution Matters

Ahhh, the irony.  A Bush federal bench appointee recently smacked the Administration for claiming that a US citizen held at the US’s behest in a foreign jail had no Constitutional rights.  The judge said that the government couldn’t just erase the Constitutional rights of citizens just because they were presently held, at U.S. government direction, on foreign soil.  This means that a citizen held in Saudi Arabia can now bring suit against the Bush Administration for illegal detention, torture, etc.  Or rather, he’ll be able to once the case is decided in the Supreme Court, since the Administration is certain to appeal.  Given the recent smack-down the Supreme Court has given all the President’s me on Guantanamo and other related issues, I suspect Bush’s doctrine of “the Constitution don’t matter when I say it don’t matter” is going to be dealt another body blow.

Good.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

The Miscreant’s Dictionary:  “Zyzzx”

Zyzzx

the first exit after the B’nai B’rith oasis heading south on I-15 from Las Vegas toward southern California

Saturday, December 25, 2004

The Daily Mantra:  Coffee Mugs

The one time you screw around with your nearly-irreplacable coffee mug will be the one time you drop it on the hard tile floor.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

The Micro-Pundit:  Christmas History

I find Christians complaining about how secular and “PC” Christmas has become to be quite amusing.  After all, Christmas was initially a pagan holiday that early Christian’s co-opted in an attempt to gain converts.  What this essentially means is that Christmas was declared to be Christ’s birthday for worldly, political reasons by Pope Julius I in 350 AD.

So, in the interest of celebrating the original holiday, I’d like to with everyone a Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Mesopotamian New Year, Happy Sacae, Merry Yuletide, Jo Saturnalia, and let’s not forget to honor Oden.  We should all be sure to celebrate in the traditional manner by getting wildly drunk and, if you’re poor, demanding food and drink from the rich folk and, if you’re rich, providing food and drink to the poor lest they ransack your house!

Or maybe, just maybe, the Christians who bitch and moan about how commercial, secular, and politically correct the holiday season is should just back off for once.

Happy holidays!

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Happy Solstice!

This neo-Pagan minister would like to wish everyone a Happy Winter Solstice.  May whatever god, gods, goddess, goddesses and/or forces you believe in grant you an excellent season of renewal this winter.

Rev. Brian Angliss
(Universal Life Church)

Monday, December 20, 2004

The Miscreant’s Dictionary: “Yes Men”

yes men

sycophants who slavishly agree with their superiors.  synonym:  brown-noser {example:  Bush’s second term Cabinet}

Sunday, December 19, 2004

The Daily Mantra:  CYA

Never forget to CYA (Cover Your Ass) in corporate America.

The Micro-Pundit: National Guard Enlistment Bonuses

The National Guard announced Friday (12/17/04) that they were tripling the reenlistment bonus for soldiers from $5,000 to $15,000, and the enlistment bonus was increasing 80% from $6,000 to $10,000.  The Guard admitted that they were doing this because they were 30% below their enlistment targets for 2004.  Is this really a surprise to anyone?  After all, 40% of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are the “weekend warriors” of the National Guard and the Reserves, rather than regular military.  So the National Guard is resorting to outright bribery to attract soldiers, and in the process, the Guard is recruiting disproportionately from the lower economic brackets.  We may be witnessing the early stages of a transition from an “all volunteer, professional” military to a mercenary military composed of the economically coerced poor.

During Vietnam, the draft was rightfully criticized for pulling most of the conscripts from the poor and undereducated.  Since the wealthy and educated could more easily acquire draft deferrals, they avoided the draft while the poor and undereducated fought and died.  Now, the Guard’s recruiting practices are doing much the same thing as the Vietnam-era draft, but through the use of large enlistment bonuses.  After all, the wealthy and educated generally don’t need the money since they’re either rich (duh) or they’re able to get relatively high paying jobs in the commercial sector.  This is especially true of the technical and professional fields.

The reliance on the poor and undereducated to defend the wealthy and educated is as immoral today as it was during Vietnam, and it’s nearly as prevalent in Iraq and Afghanistan as it was in Vietnam.  Fixing this immoral inequity will require the wealthy and educated to voluntarily give up the safety of their privileges.  And we all know how likely that is with today’s Congress and Administration….