I'm not going to go too far into this. It'd take too much out of me. But am I alone in thinking that it's profoundly sad that no U.S. elected official, and certainly not a president, could ever admit to being agnostic? It's always said that such a declaration would be political suicide—you'd lose the Bible belt and, well, just about every other motivated voter. What's sad about this is, everyone should be agnostic, at least to some extent. Nobody knows what the answers are. Nobody knows what really happened two some-odd-thousand years ago, when there was most certainly an awakening of sorts, as prophets came out of the woodwork like carpenter ants and people started jotting things down frantically. Most major religions stem from this general period of time. This is interesting enough on its own.

Some Christians will claim that they know, and assert that it's their way or the Hellway. Some muslims will claim that they know, and assert that it's their way or the Hellway. The lunatics that happily strap bombs to their children and tell them to go walk into that corner Jewish grocery will assert that their children are forever martyred and anyone who sacrifices themselves in this way will be granted 72 virgins in the afterlife. Not 70, or 71, but 72. That's the level of intellect we're dealing with there. Mormons believe that some guy found a book in rural New York and that book provides The Way. Scientologists believe...what do they believe again...?

Anyway, there's a lot of strange claims out there. A lot of artificial reasons for people to draw lines between themselves and be perpetually suspicious of each other. So what the hell could possibly be wrong with a presidential candidate with balls enough to say, simply, "I don't know"...?

The world needs a Renaissance.

This seems like a good idea. Especially now that satellites are mapping the globes for Google Earth, Windows Live, Amazon's A-9, and the also-rans. All those buildings look like hell from the top. Maybe not for long.

How Machiavellian are you? Let this give you an idea. Post your score as a comment.

Play it again, Sam...

Maybe there will come a day, off in yonder future, where news items of significance to the human story will rise above the din of "news" items of no significance. Maybe one day ideas like this will be the top stories on ABC Evening News. And maybe one day people will be more interested in talking about things like this, or better yet, this...instead of whether or not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will work things out. Maybe the world will converge at their TV sets to see these amazing pictures of an alien landscape, like they did when Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon, instead of sitting passively on the Lay-Z-Boy with a bag of Cheetos, to watch the latest hacks and contrivances under the title "American Idol".

Someday...

...maybe...

With all the talk about illegal immigration in the newswires lately, it's hard to avoid having an opinion. The one thing that does stick with me is this: I think it's safe to say that a large section of (and hopefully the majority of) current illegal immigrants are hard-working people who are here for their little piece of the dream. Meanwhile, there are millions of American citizens who are lazy pieces of shit who live their lives expecting the next handout. Any policy that seeks to punish those who are here for the right reasons isn't going to go down well, in history or in the stomach of the economy. And yet, illegal is illegal. The problem, once again, is our own fault. Our Immigration and Naturalization Service is either underfunded and understaffed, or it simply runs like a typical government agency. Maybe both. We need to process these folks. Give those who have been working here and obeying the laws first dibs. You often hear, "immigrants built this country!" True, and great. But they were legal immigrants and they came here EAGER TO LEARN ENGLISH and be processed into citizens. And this was a time when there were no social programs. Today there are more social programs than there are schools. And many thumb their noses at the idea of learning English. I don't like that. And to say that illegal immigrants aren't draining those services is a bit naive. So what should they do? I don't know. But there oughta be some qualified people involved who can sift through the bullshit of racist claims and general "I'm a victim" mania. If not, this looks like a job for Superman.

Labels: ponderage