I watched an episode of Scrubs that touched on Iraq.  Two things were brought to my attention.  One thing is the idea that the soldiers are dying for nothing because the reason for going to war was a lie.

  Let's ignore the whole "lie" aspect and the fact that everyone made their decisions based on the same information from intelligence agencies around the world.  Actually, instead of forgetting it, let's say it was all a lie.  Let's even go so far as to pretend it was a completely different and even worse lie.

  Given everything that is true about the Muslim extremists and their goals, why would the "fact" of the lie itself be a reason to label the effort as "for nothing"?

  The second thing that was brought to my attention was that, off all the things said by people speaking against the war, I've never heard anything that addresses the fact that the extremists want to kill every person who does not follow their religion.  I've heard people tell the anti-war people about that fact, but the anti-war people never have any response to it.  They just change the subject.

  Actually, there was one guy who did make a response.  He cited the speech that the President of Iran made in which he said he wanted peace with the U.S.... which is completely contrary to what he says to his own people and the religious beliefs of himself and the people he supports.

  So, I guess I should say that I've never heard and even remotely intelligent response, but it leaves room for people to think there might have been more than just the one response.

  A stoning for attending a party where alcohol was served and women danced with men.  Gotta love that Sharia law.  I wonder how many non-Muslim supporters of Sharia law are misinterpreting the word "stoning".  I'm pretty sure it's not mandatory pot usage.

  Here's the article I mentioned in the last post: Study finds Hollywood contributes to Los Angeles' poor air quality

  I did some MySpace browsing last night, and I found a cute, single, Asian, Sagittarian, female who doesn't want kids, and, here's the kicker, is calling herself Pepsi.  If not for the details left out, I'd be having a mental orgasm.

  There sure are a lot of site that talk about vegan farts.  Apparently vegan farts are the worst farts.  I forget the exact numbers, but did you know a recent study shown that cow farts contribute more greenhouse gases than if all the SUV's in America ran continuously for, what was it, 50 years?  Feels like it was more but it doesn't need to be to make the point.

  Like I said, I forgot the numbers, but the point is that cow farts are more of a threat than driving cars.  So, how about all these vegans?  Let me tell you, I eat a lot of vegetables.  In some meals, I eat about three times as many vegetables than I do meat.  It's primarily corn, carrots, green beans, broccoli, kidney beans, spinach, and tomatoes, and that's all in the same meal.

  When I do eat that meal, well, let's just say that I can change the odor of a room and it lasts a while.  Farts are called gas, but how many people actually think of it from a chemical standpoint?  Those farts, in their initial rise, are a distinked reminder to me of the chemical nature of what we often think of only as a smelly wind.

  Cows are theoretically vegans.  Human vegans eat a lot of fibrous foods, which are notorious fart producers.  So, for all those vegans who believe that "global warming" is human caused, you should be ashamed of yourself for making such a direct contribution to the death of the planet.

  They need to make amends by killing all those cows and eating them along with their vegetables.

  This is not my source, but it is an interesting related article:  Al Gore's cattle call

  Actually, I had an idea a couple of years ago.  It started out as an organization called Butt Plugs for Animals, but it evolved, with the help of someone else, to a business that collects farts for fuel via a hose in the animals' butts.  One aspect involved stacks of caged hamsters.  It could be a non-profit organization or a business with low overhead if it "employed" prison labor.  One of the benefits of using prison labor is that they already know their way around an asshole.

  I was watching the last hour of a documentary called, Sex In The Bible, on the History Channel.  Very good documentary.  I learned a lot, but there was one thing that stood out to me in what one of the interviewed experts mentioned.  They were talking about homosexuality and how it was mentioned numerous times in the Old Testament, but Jesus never mentioned it.

  The essence of it was that Jesus seemed to take no position on it, and that detail seemed to be of some particular interest.  Personally, I had never noticed the fact, but even after learning it, I'm still not very impressed.  If one applies logic to certain other teachings of Jesus, then one can conclude a point of view which follows with the lack of mention.

  The logical conclusion is that it was not mentioned simply because it went without saying.  I'll use my own words for the sake of convenience, but Jesus said that the only acceptable sex was between one man married to one woman.  Why would he need state a position about homosexuality?  To do so would be redundant.

  Such logical oversights are something I find troubling in documentaries about a variety of things.

  I got to thinking about something else during that documentary.  I frequently ponder the role of emotions in human existence.  One general conclusion is that being controlled by the is not good, but I was thinking about forgiveness, and I noticed how many of the qualities a person have are the result of not succumbing to emotions, or at the very least, have results mirrored by a lack of emotions.

  Look at forgiveness.  It's essentially disposing of the negativity you feel about someone for something they did.  In the absence of emotions, the negativity isn't created to begin with, so therefore, no forgiveness is ever required.

  But since humans are not truly absent of emotions, it's a matter of not being controlled by them.  For such a person, forgiveness is almost equally irrelevant, because forgiveness is instant.  Such a person judges (for lack of a much better word) another person primarily by their current character as opposed to their past actions.

  I feel a little arrogant in saying what I'm about to, but I do so to illustrate a point.  Saddam was a genuine sadist who conducted and ordered countless horrible deeds, including the gassing of thousands of his own people.  I would have no problem with the idea of seeking out and destroying (literally or figuratively) a person of that mindset, not because of hatred, but to prevent him from further future such actions.

  However, if I were somehow the one set to carry out that task, and I knew that he had genuinely had a change of heart and became a truly good person, then I would have no problem calling it off and being his friend, instantly.

  You know how pig flesh is analogous to human flesh, how you can put a pig heart valve in a human heart, and how pigs are very similar to humans in other ways?  Do you suppose that is in any way connected to pigs supposing to be unclean animals and not to be eaten and cannibalism?

  I don't mean an obvious connection that is mentioned in the Bible, because their isn't one mentioned, but given the metaphorical nature of much of the Bible, and how so many "rules" end up being just good common sense or turn out being scientifically supported, do you suppose that somewhere their is an undiscovered connection?

  I need some Liberals to do me a favor.  Let me know whether or not the following two sentences look exactly alike to you.

  It's a fact that illegal immigrants do not have civil rights.

  It's a fact that           immigrants do not have civil rights.

  I'm trying to see if the word "illegal" actually registers in the Liberal brain.

  These are some choice Thomas Jefferson quotes:

  "Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government... This, like all other natural rights, may be abridged or modified in its exercise by their own consent, or by the law of those who depute them, if they meet in the right of others." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on Residence Bill, 1790. ME 3:60

  "What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

   "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

  "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276

  "The freedom and happiness of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:369

  "The legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802.

  "It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between God and himself." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1803. ME 10:381

  "It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795. FE 7:4

  "In endeavors to improve our situation, we should never despair." --Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 1817. ME 15:148

 "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816. ME 15:24

  "[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776. (*) Papers 1:338

  "It is, indeed, of little consequence who governs us, if they sincerely and zealously cherish the principles of union and republicanism." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Dearborn, 1821. ME 15:330

  "A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME 2:97

  "Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:258 Papers 12:15

  "I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:85

  "It is not the name, but the thing which is essential." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on the Tonnage Payable, 1791. ME 3:292

  "Lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:261

  "In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance." --Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME 16:30

  "There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1826. ME 16:179

  "Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck." --Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822. ME 15:409

  "It was more in our spirit to let things come to rights by the plain dictates of common sense than by the practice of any artifices." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1800. ME 19:120

  "I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1786. ME 6:20