…is trying to ride his bike across the US in 9 days, almost non-stop. His blog is being updated actively during the race and is pretty interesting. He’s in Colorado right now and is riding to New Jersey.

Bush to Declare Islands A National Monument

C’mon, George, you see? It’s not that hard. Go for another! See if you can do TWO good things in your 8 years. If the second one works out, go for THREE. You don’t owe those right-wing bastards anything, man. You are untouchable! You don’t have to do shit the rest of your life. For god sake, man, do some good in the world in these last months.

I’m not a pacifist. It still strikes me as ironic as hell that a man who is proudly Christian, prays a lot and says he talks to God can be gleeful that people under his command directly disobeyed one of the 10 commandments — thou shalt not kill. I am of course talking about George W. Bush.

I think the 10 commandments are largely nonsense. Either they are self-evident or they are stupid. They are certainly not some majestic pillar of truth. Yet if you believe in the 10 commandments and publicly call yourself a Christian, it is hard for me to understand how you can waive that commandment whenever you wish. Did God command it or not? Is there a footnote or some legalese I missed on the 10 commandments?

I suspect that Zarqawi got what he deserved. I’m not shedding any tears over that one. I still think a political philosophy of killing your enemies is inane, if not insane. You cannot successfully kill every Arab or Muslim that hates the U.S. In fact, the more you kill the more there are.

The “success” we have in terms of killing this a-hole is illusory and is not indicative of tangible progress in Iraq. Killing people is easy compared to nation building. This administration apparently has these two things confused. Get the fucking power on, the water clean, the schools open, the markets open, provide security, expand the number of stakeholders and get rid of the overwhelming American military presence which is aggravating the situation.

Zarqawi is dead and there are 20,000 guys ready to step in and take his place.

OK, my fascination with my little war with The Reclusive Leftist is turning into sort of a dull annoyance. We are clearly oil and water. I bumped heads with her on one other issue and it turned similarly ugly. Not blaming her, not blaming me, some people are just not good at communicating together. Back from my Usenet days I have developed certain skills. One is a pretty thick skin. I do slap back when I get slapped, but I never take it personally. Call me an idiot in one message and get back to debate in the next and I will forget all about that idiot crap. Another is a dogged persistence to the topic. I am argumentative but it is a love of debate that makes me so, not a desire to beat others down. Some people enjoy the type and style of debate that I do and others do not. It appears this style is too heavy handed for The Reclusive Leftist. Fair enough.

Someone please point me to some asshole Republican blogger I can use as a punching bag for a while…

From the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Republicans are pushing ahead with votes this week to repeal the estate tax and to ban gay marriage. Neither measure is likely to pass.

These are both dumb ideas. The estate tax is a good thing and the implications for the family farm or the family business that the Republicans always hammer on can be and in fact has been addressed. I don’t know what the rate is right now but it is millions of dollars that you can pass on tax free to your heirs. The proposal I heard was 15 million or something. The question is not whether or not there should be an estate tax, the question is what amount should be exempt.

Gay marriage is not only harmless, it is a good thing. As good of a thing as traditional marriage. People loving and being committed to each other is a good thing! Duh. Yes, I can understand that Grandpa’s sensibilities are a little ruffled by this, but don’t expect to convince me with some Bible-based rationale that love is a bad thing.

No, the Republicans just want to have the Democrats chalk up some votes that they can campaign against. The government taking the family farm and faggots are issues that get the Republican base fired up. It’s going to be funny considering the spend-and-spend Republicans can’t really blame the growing deficit on the Democrats. The tax-and-spend label is not going to stick too well compared to the spend-and-spend Republicans. So they will go with the ol’ standbys: taxes, gays, religion, war. I’m hoping this time we don’t buy it.

The Reclusive Leftist took a swing at me on her blog. Fair’s fair. I find this situation fascinating, for some reason. If I were to paraphrase our little argument, it would go like this:

A. I have an insight: blah.
B. That insight is tainted by your personal bias and is largely rubbish.
A. Sarcasm, implication that B is stupid.
B. Sarcasm, implication that A actually agrees with B, making A even more wrong.
A. Further implications that B is stupid, real stupid. General tone of annoyance.
B. Angrily states that calling people stupid does not win debates and further implications that A’s original point was tainted rubbish.
A. Explicit statements as to how stupid and now angry B is.
B. Yeah, fuck you, too.

That’s a nutshell. You’ll notice a fact backed up by the record — at no time did A attack B’s arguments. Nor, until the very, very end did A try to restate her argument for clarity. The only point A had was that B was stupid. Even so, she can’t admit how freaking dumb of a tactic that is in the course of a debate.

Now if you read the post linked above, A further goes on to claim how reasonable, impartial and mature they were even as B got “enraged”. This is a gross mischaracterization, especially since A got emotional, sarcastic and started all this “you’re stupid” stuff long before B got angry. B got frustrated with A for not debating and instead baiting with personal attacks.

If A was as correct as she would like to believe, all she had to say was: “Michael, you are wrong. What I meant was X and I stand behind that.” Had she said that B would have likely said, “I think you are not very aware of the influence of your own personal biases but we can agree to disagree.”

I think what happened was that The Reclusive Leftist got miffed that she was condescended to and everything said after that point was an emotional reaction, devoid of logic or reason. I don’t doubt that it can be frustrating to have your every word scrutinized by males who are a bit taken-aback by the endless stream of sexist bullshit personal bias that comes out of your mouth. She needn’t take up every dumb thing someone says in the comments. But to feign surprise when someone gets angry as you repeatedly demean and insult them personally instead of attacking their ideas is disingenuous to say the least. Yes, Virginia, if you call someone stupid long enough they will eventually get angry.

To briefly address the point of the post linked above, I do not think I am smarter than The Reclusive Leftist, per se. Condescension requires a general notion of superiority and I do not think I am superior to Dr. Socks. Yet if one truly despises condescension, it is a gross double-standard to repeatedly say “I’m smarter than you” in response. We can all decide for ourselves who is smart and who is dumb and the more I read The Reclusive Leftist the more she goes into the latter column. The really smart people I know are the last people on earth to call you stupid. They are also quick to point out their own failures. If you read the post I linked above, what is clear is that The Reclusive Leftist is infallible and of superior intellect than you or I. The word I have for people that publicly place themselves in that category is stupid. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single word from Dr. Socks that I would call humble. She’s right, you’re wrong, period.

Let’s not get carried away — this is all in fun for me. Debate is fun, arguments are fun, conflict is fun. I would buy the Reclusive Leftist a beer and laugh about it without the slightest effort. That it can get emotional from time to time is part of the fun. Hell, just listen to the podcast of the Hippy Killers ripping me a new asshole and you’ll understand that I have a sense of humor about all of this.

But, as a friend of mine once said, fuck with the duck and you get the bill. I stand behind every word I said in this little episode. I’m actually used to fucking up and making retractions but I feel no need in this case. So bring it on, Dr., I can take it. I’m right, you’re wrong, period. 😉

I was reading The Reclusive Leftist for a while but she just informed me that I am too stupid to comment on her blog. You know, folks, I do make mistakes. I do misunderstand things from time to time and sometimes I just don’t get it. Other times I cling white-knuckled to the 1% shred of truth I am trying to convey until people acknowledge it. I like to debate and argue and while I can get emotional from time to time, its not personal to me. It’s a debate of ideas, not personalities. Yes, I’m wrong sometimes and I will admit it when I am. I am also right a large percent of the time as well and consider my insights to be as valid as anyone else’s.

Do I give a shit if The Reclusive Leftist thinks I’m stupid? Not in the slightest. I don’t need random Internet bloggers to prop up my self-esteem. It is a minor disappointment that what I thought was a forum to discuss ideas turned out to be a temple to one person’s psychosis where dissent is squashed with ample helpings of adolescent name-calling. I’m just not used to pissing off people that I agree with, and I suspect that issue-by-issue The Reclusive Leftist and I agree on just about everything. Yet, as I discussed in my post on feminism, as a male who considers himself a feminist in every meaningful way, there is part of the man bashing I can’t sit back and listen to silently. At The Reclusive Leftist there is a constant theme of the evil and stupid heart of men. The latest is a complaint that men are not upset by violence and rape in Arthurian fiction. WTF. I say stupid things from time to time, too, but at least I admit them. Like, for example, in the previous post I basically imply that I know more about Mount Everest than Sir Edmund Hilary, the first man to summit Mount Everest. It’s a pretty dumb implication. Yet I think Hilary is wrong, dammit, and I’m gonna say so.

It brings up something I’ve been thinking about. I’ve noticed more and more people who put things on their blog to the effect that they will delete comments they don’t like. I would never delete a comment (other than spam), regardless of the content because I like debate and discussion and I have no problem providing a forum for people to speak their mind, even if they disagree with me rigorously. I have no problem if people misunderstand me or mischaracterize me, either, because I am free to add comments myself correcting the record. So go ahead, swear at me, call me an idiot or tear apart my arguments, I don’t care.

It does worry me a hair that free-speech journalists would be motivated by anything to squelch discussion on their blogs. I think even the dumbest trolls should be allowed to have their say. Some bloggers are so concerned that no one pees on their parade and they delete that which offends them. Lame, lame, lame.

The Reclusive Leftist hasn’t deleted posts, that I’m aware of, but her tone is pretty clear: this is my sandbox and if I don’t like you, you should leave. Her intent is not to inspire discussion or she wouldn’t squelch it. Her intent, apparently, is to reinforce what supports her views and denigrate that which doesn’t. It is a one-sided affair. Herein lies the danger of blogs-as-discussion-forums: the playing field is not level. They are not really forums of free speech, they are little fiefdoms where people pick and choose which speech will get an audience and which will not. It just strikes me as hilariously lame that people censure or squelch discussion which makes them uncomfortable. They are as bad as the NSA.

Unfortunately, we are still a pack of cowards and pussies.

Australian charged after baby placed in dryer.

This fucking idiot put a 1-year old baby in the fucking dryer with the heat on for a couple of minutes. They shouldn’t give him a fine or put him in jail, they should lop off his damn balls to insure that he never propagates his imbecile genes. And then shoot him. WTF.

Every May I enjoy watching the Mount Everest climbing season unfold. This year seems to be a pretty harsh year. There is a lot of buzz on this story, about a climber essentially left to die by passers-by. Sir Edmund Hillary himself has chastised the climbers who did not try to save David Sharp.

I think most people who are interested in Mount Everest understand the situation is much more complex than that. Mr. Sharp was trying to summit the mountain alone and he knew the risks associated with that. He knew that rescue at that elevation was virtually impossible. Many people die going down that mountain in normal circumstances. To assist someone who is disabled by altitude sickness and frostbite who is that high on the mountain would take the concerted efforts of dozens of people, if it was possible at all.

Rather than asking why people walked by this poor man it is better to save a step and ask why he had put himself in this situation in the first place. This is a question we can answer: he was doing what he loved. He was pushing the limits and he knew the risks. I suspect that Mr Sharp held no ill-will towards the people going up the mountain that day. It’s a sad thing but, in my opinion, understandable. You don’t go up that mountain and expect someone else to bring you back down. That seems to be the rule of Everest these days.

When you are able to empower people, even in minor, everyday ways, it is a very satisfying feeling. There is nothing better than helping someone transition from dependence to independence, even in ways that don’t seem important. A switch is flipped when someone learns the why and where and no longer needs to remember how. It becomes self-evident. It is also a win-win, when you can teach someone to be independent. No one loses. You get people more capable making bigger contributions. Even more, when it is you being taught and becoming independent in some new area, it is a very satisfying feeling.

This is the heart of the liberal agenda.