Furibundum

The way we generally think of making resolutions for a new year, it's most often just so much compulsory lip service as a setup for failure. Setting deadlines doesn't work for me anyway, however far off the end of the next year. A moot point in any event since I invariably chuck up the sponge long before then. I quit making New Years' resolutions years ago for that very reason, but this year I think I might after all make some, with a dissimilar twist. Rather than looking to change one thing or another to either go wrong or succeed at before next year's close, my resolution this time around will be more long-term and ongoing. Not unlike Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues , pointing out certain of my own attributes that might could use some improvement, I resolve to be more aware of how I represent in the day to day. Not necessarily to make a concerted effort to change outright, but hoping that by being more conscious of my doingses I will over the course of time m

Here we are, the same thing only different. Dub dub dub or naked furibundum, no more blogspotting here, nothing but net; furibundum dot net. If you will recall, when I came back to pick up where I left off, this is what I had to say: "I suppose I might too be able to fetch back my old furibundum.com domain, I very much doubt that it has been nabbed since I had to abandoned it. I mean, really, who in their right mind would even consider that? That leaves mostly just me." I was correct after all in questioning the rightness of some others' minds. As it turns out, once my ownership of the dot com expired the vultures of all domains now dead swooped in to hold hostage for ransom my old stomping grounds. For about seven bucks they filched it, to sell back for the lower limit of 99 Euros, USD around 150. Seriously, dude? Good luck with that one. Not to worry, I'll get it back one day when you put down the crack pipe. Until then I'll stay happy right here at home on th

I don't know, I waffle on this one for some reason. It's a toughie. The birth mother of a 7-year-old girl was ordered to give up custody to her former lesbian partner. The ladies were linked up together in a civil union in 2000, got pregnant in 2002 and then eventually broke up in 2003. The judge back then awarded baby mama custody on condition of liberal visitation with the other mom. After that, birth mom moved away, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian, and pretty much has disappeared ever since. The judge says now the only way to ensure equal access to the child is to switch custody, the plaintiff mom agreeing to grant liberal visitation to her ex-gay, ex-heathen ex-partner. He said the benefits to the child of having access to both parents would be worth the difficulties of the switch. Like I said, I can't settle on this one.

In a 2007 interview, the Pentagon's ex-chief of high-value targeting at the start of the Iraq invasion, Marc Garlasco, said that " the magic number was 30 " when it came to a thumbs up estimating how many dead could be expected in a planned attack without a hassle. Anything much over would require the bother of getting explicit approval from Rumsfeld or Bush himself. As long as within bounds, the strike could be given the a-ok by commanders on the ground. So as an upper limit, thirty seemed an acceptable count, given some wiggle room. Too few to matter politically or to garner much attention from the media beyond a brief blurb or two, without the higher-ups having to deal with any public relations backwash. We and our international buds must have gotten really, really good since then at not having to bother for the big bosses' blessing, keeping the dead to around batches of thirty at a time, always precisely getting largely just the bad someones. Sometimes sli

From my sidebar Blog Breaks , one sentence from a recent post per each, why I read. So without any further ado ... blog roll please! 365 Ways to Go Green "Much like the Peanut Butter Plan, I’m not sure how this is a “green” act, but I’m hoping that it brought some joy to someone’s day and that makes our environment a better place." A Stellar Life "REPORT FACTS and if you don't have any---SHUT UP." Army of Dude "Any junior enlisted soldier knows the issued equipment is inferior to anything you can go out and buy for yourself." Ecovillage Musings "I sit here at my desk, in my home built of reclaimed lumber and strawbales, at my computer powered by solar panels and a wind turbine and wonder if I am really making a difference." Great Minds Think Like Me "These folks are faux Christians, real Christians pray for good things not the demise of their fellow human beings." Groping the Elephant "If you don't have the intestinal forti

Click the ad to read all about some 1989 awesomeness! Lightning-fast 20MHz processor and 2MB RAM even, the "most powerful computer ever" for just $8,499 ... leaving out monitor and mouse. You'd have to cough up about $14,828 in nowadays' money for such a technetronic goody as this, but cool is always priceless.

The United States does do one thing really well, to be sure. As a nation, we have honed to the sharpest our propagandist skills, our leadership maybe the most effective anywhere in pounding into our nation's collective head how superordinate is America. Of course, it's the way of the world that all countries' powers-that-be undertake to control their people's opinion. Others for the most part just do it less competently than we. To really know propaganda, a study of American technique would serve those leaders well. American propaganda is more clever, playing more so on emotional draw. It doesn’t depend on a reason that one might be inclined to readily disprove, it appeals rather to things no one would possibly off the bat object to. Well-spun slogans and catchphrases work well keeping one from thinking so far as to rationalize. Roosevelt's Social Security Act and Four Freedoms address, Wilson's Safe For Democracy appeal, Bush's War On Terror declaration

We are a messed up bunch of folks here in the United States. Tagged top dog superpower doesn't say so much for super. No better than most and even worse than some, we still look down our noses to everyone else. Looking down only because we've managed higher up the pile of shit spread everyplace. Better at wiping it off for appearance's sake than others maybe, but it still stinks. Sorry, just a rant. I'm entitled now and then to having a bothered day. Until tomorrow, God bless America.

It's not because I'm a smoker that this chaps my hide, I'm not being biased here. I just personally think this goes beyond stupid. It's not new news but I don't get the cable here, pretty sure that's why I missed this when it was breaking. In particular what gets at me, how smoking around your Mac computer may be hazardous to your warranty. According to this article from the Consumerist , in at least two different cases Apple has voided the manufacturer's warranty and refused to provide repair service on the computers, because of them having been exposed to cigarette smoke. Plainly coming into contact with the residue accumulated inside the computer of a smoker is a health risk and a bio-hazard, and on that note in both instances the Apple customers were duly dismissed, denied service despite having time left on a valid warranty. In one case citing that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that voided the warranty and the

This is my boy, Roy. I took this day before yesterday, Friday afternoon. He just looks so peaceable in this picture, it was worth hunkering down to his level to get this one after all. I love my dog more than I could truthfully admit about most people. He gets on my nerves sometimes, occasionally my last good one, but that's generally on account of me plainly being a bad dad. Like when he's too perky and just stands there looking up at me with his tail wagging and ears picked up, that shine in his eyes simply begging for me to do something , anything at all, for entertaining. He should know me better than that after so long now. I usually tell him to just go away and leave me alone. Which he does, of course, and then I sort of feel bad. But I'm far too lazy to play. Sit and stay is pretty much all I do. Most of the time, though, we both just slug around doing nothing together, and that seems to be enough for the two of us. He's getting old now, ten years and counting, a

Typical draggy Joe Lieberman, droning on for ten minutes rationalizing his opposition to a public option in the health care reform bill. "Wawa wa waWa Medicare wa Wawa publicly supported wa wa ..." Democrats are chafed by his roguery anyhow, of course, so what an opportunity it was at the ten minute mark for Al Franken to break up Lieberman's speech pointing out that time was up. Pretty bold but it worked in shutting him up, Franken objecting to allowing the "additional moment" Lieberman asked for. It did majorly piss off John McCain, that was enjoyable, too. McCain got it wrong, however, when I thought he said that such doings "[harm] the comedy" of the Senate. Au contraire, John, au contraire, because that was just plain funny stuff. Unless he meant comity , in which event he could have a point there, of course. Nevertheless I applaud Al Franken for having the balls to do what probably most Democrats there wished to do, comity be damned.

Usually I have an opinion one way or the other when I hear about stuff like the new abortion law in Oklahoma, but I have to say that I'm not so sure now with this one despite my initial thinking. I heard about it on the radio this evening, this law in Oklahoma calling for any woman seeking an abortion to first off answer dozens of personal questions about why she would be having it done. That information would then be posted on the state's web site. Questions like is she having the abortion because she can't afford child care? Would having a baby dramatically change her life (duh) or interfere with her job or education? Is she unemployed, or maybe going through a rough patch with the baby daddy? Is she unmarried and doesn't want to be a single mother? Incest perhaps? I was kind of floored. First I couldn't imagine how many "dozens" of questions they might come up with, that seems like an awful lot. But mostly, judging from the on-air examples, they

It amounted to a slap upside the head to Muslims everywhere when last month Switzerland voted on and with majority rule banned putting up any more minarets at the Muslim mosques there. Seems the Swiss Christian voters felt a bit disquieted about Islam being spread too much. The right-wing group that had drawn up the “Yes for a Ban on Minarets” referendum was gratified. “It’s fine to build minarets in a Muslim country, not in Switzerland. I’m strictly against that,” said one unemployed electrical fitter. Muslim groups not so happy. One of Egypt’s top Muslim clerics called the decision “an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside of Switzerland.” In October, Muslims chucked stones at Christian workers in Egypt who were on the job to raise a steeple and add a bell to their Christian church. More recently in a Cairo suburb rioting began after Christians renovated a factory and held mass there. Rioters carried a banner that read “No to the church” and chante

So over the weekend I finally got around to tackling my email inbox. I know I have an assload of storage but really ... five thousand two hundred and forty five? I'm kind of ashamed admitting that that is what was still needing to be banged away at after I had already half-heartedly given it a go here and there over the previous few days. Mostly not spam, either. Gmail is really pretty good about catching that stuff and what few do slip through I usually delete straight away. I'm just an e-hoarder and things clearly had gotten out of hand. Did I really need to be hanging on to TUT's Adventurers Club (where philosophy meets adventure) Subject - Welcome Supercoolhappylovething! ? Why the hell did I ever go there anyhow to sign up getting periodic "notes from the Universe"? Apparently I must have been in a different place back then in 2006. And I swear to God I do not recall ever signing up to receive special offers and new release bulletins from Naughty Flixxx bu

What the hell is an enneagram, you might ask? I was completely clueless myself up until earlier this afternoon when, as luck would have it, I happened upon the Enneagram Central web site. I don't know how, I may well have had my fingers on the wrong keys Googling one thing or another. In any event, there I was invited to "explore inner terrain," likely a variation on what I might have intended to Google in the first place. Yes, please. Clicked through to learn that: The fundamental premise of the Enneagram is that each of us has one dominant (not exclusive) energy that drives us in everything we do. This dominant energy is our greatest gift so we use it too much and it becomes our chief fault - or sin . This energy, like a prevailing wind that bends a tree permanently, sculpts our inner terrain and shapes our entire life. Figuring which one of the nine possible types your inner terrain might be should help get a fix on your biggest problem in life and your greatest gift,

I am sick. A sickness that is not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious, a sickness of the mind. You see, I am a homosexual. A person who demands an intimate relationship with members of my own sex. Boys beware!

It is of major concern. Every year about this time, the Christ increasingly more so neglected from what should be His own special season. The "Merry Christmas"es fewer and farther between in lieu of the more generic "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" et al. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with such well-wishing, of course, it is just too nonspecific, what with Jesus being the reason for this particular season after all. Morons, the lot of them who carry on like that raising such ruckus about whatever nefarious collusion being pulled off against Christmas. I'm kind of embarrassed for them really. But still the Christian cartel battles on each year against this pretended war on Christmas, all their blathering mostly paid no mind excepting the fanatic fringe. Like this one Marsha Boggs character, who it seems thought that so much hot air was just not enough. Effecting her entrepreneurial know-how, enter the CHRIST-mas tree (dutifu

By now everyone is no doubt aware of that stupid Russell Wiseman (oxymoronic that, eh?) of Tennessee, Mister Mayor to all proud Arlingtonians, and his Facebook berating of Obama for the scheduling of that bothersome speech in reference to the Afghan troop surge. Certainly intended to come between him and his family's taking in A Charlie Brown Christmas that same night, he's sure of it. "...try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose," he challenges. Presumably an Islamic contrivance, what with Obama being "our muslim president," in all likelihood bent on throwing a monkey wrench into all the nation's Christian households gathering 'round to mark Linus channeling Luke, advising the true reason for the season. "Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation [sic] about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...." As an aside, I'm assuming the guy doe

It's disturbing thinking about the people I used to know who are dead now. Not the old ones really, but those who for one reason or the other pass on earlier than you'd have thunk it. A friend of mine recently committed suicide, the most recent of several no longer around whom I personally knew, got me musing again. Old people no matter the reason for their demise, it's easy to move on from somehow, even if something unforeseen or tragic might have left them gone sooner than later. It just seems more appropriate that they should move along having already spent a goodly amount of time earthbound. But not so much the others. It's kind of like you've been standing in line for all this time waiting for some grand showing that everyone has been raving about forever , when suddenly and unexpectedly these folks alongside you just have cut in line ahead and already in. No fair! You'd have supposed them to have waited it out with you but poof, just like that, they've

Maybe you've heard this one, about the insurgent guy who held that he was called by God to organize a plan of attack against the US government for such immorality, corrupt policy and protocol? This bearded fundamentalist radical was not unique, nope. Obviously such a fearless, outrageous game plan as he had in mind, well, not so much a one-man show. But he had no worries around recruiting and calling to arms a strike force of likeminded fed up young men helping carry out his plan. Twenty-some twenty-somethings, each willing to die for his conviction in the name of God and all things holy, martyrdom for rightness. Their plan laid out, the blitz was set going ... for highest effect ground zero a symbolic target of all things wrong with America. At what quickly turned into a suicide mission, many that day bought the farm. The US, certainly not to be left looking unprepared fools (despite having dismissed a warning of the plot as too outlandish just the previous August) and being an al

I burned my trash today, that's what we do out here in the country left without any city services. I like to set things on fire, so that's a pretty nifty perk. Don't need to concoct a why and wherefore to burn stuff, so I do it more often than necessary really. Awesome. Amongst the fire fodder this afternoon was this ginormous book, the full works of Norman Rockwell. My brother had dutifully returned it to me over the weekend, from being on loan. I let him borrow it sometime in the late '80s, but that's not the point. Anyway, it was in pitiful condition I don't know why, it's only usefulness left as kindling as I saw it. With a final flip-through, though, one print that I did pick up on was Rockwell's Freedom to Worship . Up front a Muslim holding a Quran, a Catholic woman fiddling her rosary, others in their own way going about being reverential or, for one guy it seems to me, maybe not so much. Shoulder to shoulder standing, though, they do seem quite

I might be coming back soon after mostly a year gone missing. Thrilling, the thought, isn't it? I suppose I might too be able to fetch back my old furibundum.com domain, I very much doubt that it has been nabbed since I had to abandoned it. I mean, really, who in their right mind would even consider that? That leaves mostly just me. Until then I'll squat here @ the blogspot, see how it goes. And tweet when I can, although those Twitter bastards keep me in check at some absurd 140. Self-restraint just ain't my thing, but I do enjoy the challenge. Possibly might do me some good, really.

I - Come on, seat Roland Burris already, it is after all going to happen anyway and probably rightly so but I'm sick of listening to him politically masturbating his own ego proclaiming himself the Illinois junior senator, his wet dream job apparently. Fine, point made, he should shut up now and the media should shut up about it too, undoubtedly he's only a placeholder anyway for another year or so. Jeez, make everybody happy and get this over with finally, move along. Blagojevich, criminal brilliance there with that appointment I must give him credit for, despite his whole weird hair thing which does still raise some concern about his overall mental wellness. II - Really? After ten years of your kid gone missing you decide maybe the time is right now that you might call that in to the authorities, since that eleven-year-old boy disappeared missing person is now of age at twenty-one the time is right to worry finally? Well, he did used to have a tendency to run away as a kid,

Things that pissed me off today, belated from yesterday. I'm slow to anger sometimes, but it eventually kicks in sooner or later. So Monday, I attempted applying for a job online with GE, one of those six-step application processes. Just after step two, after clicking Next, I was popped up with some message about not meeting the minimum qualifications for the job. For the record, by step two I'd only covered providing my name and address. I guess maybe I don't live in a qualifying neighborhood apparently, getting pretty strict about applicants' whereabouts eligibility. Kind of jumping to conclusions there, in my opinion. Anyway, they had the requisite Contact Us link, so yeah, I clicked on that about it, because I'd rather be poor there in some available crap job than altogether homeless here. Also it just peeved me, so I was thankful for that email customer service option to vent, just asking what was up. This was the response sent back to me. Thank you for your in

There will be no peace while Hamas controls Gaza. Holy shit, that I learned from some editorial headline I read today. Yeah, stupid me for not remembering how peaceful that neck of the woods before Hamas was handed over the reigns. Democracy in action which, again proving my lunkhead self, I thought was a good thing we were trying to spread around. All righty then, so yeah ... now once again more stupid rigmarole headed up by the arrogant daffy chieftains killing off and maiming other folks just for the sake of bragging rights really, our BFF Israel versus whatever Palestine. Same old story. Way of the world I suppose, particularly over there in that part of it. Give me a break, enough already. Not even going so much back into the forever history of why all the strife, just looking at the now with after a week of blasting and at the moment Israeli troops prepped and ready straight away to head in with boots on the ground, our buds into Gaza, it's all the same old bullshit. Of cours

Homeland Lesbo Christian Gal Melissa Etheridge and Over-there Straight Muslim Dude Salman Ahmad - Ring The Bells Whose God is God? Whose light is light? Whose law is wrong? Whose might is right? Here we are on the edge, the edge of change. I believe in peace, my only wish. I believe that we can co-exist. Let's go further now than we've ever gone before. Ring the bells, ring the bells of change. Ring the bells, every boy and every girl. Ring the bells, ring the bells of peace all over the world. We've all been called to wake from sleep, To feel our power to create the dream, To step out from the dark past our fathers' fear. Here we stand in unity making one choice to be free. Every truth blends into one as we believe it shall be done. Here we stand as soldiers now, turning our swords into plows. There is not a nobler climb, achieving peace in our own time. I know peace begins with me, with all I feel and with all I see, And I know it's no easy task removing our own f