Christopher Moore’s Blog

The Pirate Tweets – Or How I Burned My Monday Morning

I was watching the news, having my coffee, and suddenly, these started to happen:

# After Somali Pirates vow revenge Ninjas announce super revenge, “But you will never know where it comes from,” said a Ninja spokesman. 3 hours ago from Twidget

# Pirates vow that Ninja revenge will be totally lame. “Running around in black PJs is not badass. Pirate ships are,” says pirate spokesman. 3 hours ago from Twidget

# “We will kill them and fuck their parrots,” says Ninja spokesman of Pirate threat. 3 hours ago from Twidget

# “Shut up,” states pirate spokesman. “Our parrot can kick your wussy ninja ass.” 3 hours ago from Twidget

# “Oh hai. We are in your cupboard, eating your cake mix, pirate scum,” says Ninja press secretary. 3 hours ago from Twidget

# Pirate secretary of plunder draws line in the sand: “There! Our line in the sand! Oh crap, a wave. Okay, here! This is our line!” 3 hours ago from web

# Ninja minister of stealth responds to Pirate line in the sand: “We scoff at you. But it is a silent, invisible scoff.” 3 hours ago from web

# Pirates vow to make people look up Somalia on Google earth: “Shut up, it’s a real place,” says Pirate secretary of Arrrrr. 3 hours ago from web

# “You picked the wrong side, Pirates,” says Ninja press. “We now have a man on the inside. (Nice dog suit, agent Bo.) We will recruit Sasha.” 2 hours ago from web

# Pirates laugh at Ninja threat: “You will never get the Obama girls. They are going to be like 7 feet tall. Who ever heard of a tall ninja?” 2 hours ago from web

# Kenyans announce that they will make captured pirate fight a lion. “It will be so cool,” says Kenyan press secretary. 2 hours ago from web

# “That shit is harsh,” says Pirate spokesman of Kenyan government’s intent to make pirate fight a lion. 2 hours ago from web

# Ninjas Make Offer for Lion Poop with Pirate Chunks in It: “We’ll give you like, a hundred bucks,” says Ninja captain. 2 hours ago from web

# Pirates Apply at Wendy’s: After a bad weekend Pirates decide to get real job. “Long John Silvers wasn’t hiring,” says Pirate loser. 2 hours ago from web

# Polar Bears At Berlin Zoo Release Statement: “Could you put some hot sauce on the next chick you throw in?” 2 hours ago from web

# Pirates Blame Recent Setbacks on Keira Knightly Having the Body of a 12 Year Old Boy. Spokesman: Proper piratin’ requires junk in the trunk. 2 hours ago from web

# Ninjas repond to Knightly slight: “We’ll take Keira good long time. Pirates have 12 year old boys for that. Oh snap!” 2 hours ago from web

# Knightly responds to Ninja Proposal: “I’m aligned neither with pirates nor ninjas, I am a thespian.” Lesbians hopes soar. 2 hours ago from web

# Polar Bears at Berlin Zoo Respond to Knightly Statement: “Put some hot sauce on her skinny ass, we’ll take her.” 2 hours ago from web

# Ninjas Respond to Polar Bear Offer to Keira Knightly: “As if. You guys are so white it’s not even funny.” 2 hours ago from web

# Keira Knightly Reverses Position: “After consideration, I’ve decided to go with pirates. They have the best hats, and I loves me some hats.” 2 hours ago from web

# Polar Bears Respond to Knightly’s Pirate Postion: “You can have hats with us. Do you have a hat with bacon bits on it?” 1 hour ago from web

# Knightly Responds to Polar Bears: “I have never, and shall never, wear a hat made of pork products,” said the 9 year old British man child. 1 hour ago from web

# Ninjas Revising Press Strategy: “Turns out that being invisible hurts our PR. We are drawing a plan with help of a polar bear consultant. 1 hour ago from web

# Polar Bears Release Enigmatic Statement: “Mmmmm, Ninjas. Nom nom nom. Do you have any hot sauce?” 1 hour ago from web

# Somali Pirates Vow to Learn How to Swim: “It might help. You never know,” said a representative. 1 hour ago from web

# Berlin Polar Bears Offer Swimming Lessons to Somali Pirates, “No, really. Come on over. We’ll teach you. We’re great swimmers.” 1 hour ago from web

# Polar Bears Make Plea to World: “Who do we have to blow to get some friggin’ hot sauce over here?” Said a furry spokesman. 1 hour ago from web

# Keira Knightly Pwns Pirates: In a surprise move, Knightly beat the shit out of six Somali Pirates for touching her hat. 1 hour ago from web

# “Well that’s embarassing,” says Somali pirate, after being beaten by Keira Knightly, who also plays an insurance selling gecko. 1 hour ago from web

# Knightly Joins Ninjas: “I’m so tired of wearing the bloody gecko suit. They promised me a cute dog suit like the the White House ninja has.” 1 hour ago from web

# Pirates Mourn Loss of Knightly: Somali Pirates lament the loss of reptilian insurance pimp to Ninja camp. Pirates: “Its been a rough week.” 1 hour ago from web

# “Ninjas Rule,” taunted Ninjas after recruiting waifish pitch-lizard, Keira Knightly. Pirates, in Berlin, could not be reached for comment. 1 hour ago from web

# Jane Austin Book Club Stages Intervention after theater urchin Keira Knightly is caught sneaking into White House in a dog suit. 33 minutes ago from web

# Knightly In Rehab: “They have me on Thorazine and bread and water,” said the stunning transvestite. “Bread is really tasty. Who knew?” 24 minutes ago from web

# PIRATES MOUNT DARING RAID to free Keira Knightly from rehab. All thirty were killed, six by Amy Winehouse, who snorted the leader. 21 minutes ago from web

# Secret Service Foils Plot: Agents caught German Polar bears outside White House spray painting companion black and teaching him how to bark. 14 minutes ago from web

# TheAuthorGuyBest-selling author returns to work after wasting morning. Polar bears, Pirates, Keira Knightly, and Ninjas mourn. “He will be missed.” 10 minutes ago from we

To the McCain Voters

I know how you feel. Honestly. Been there. Got the T-shirt. But look at the spirit of those kids who have lined the streets of our cities tonight, the tears and the smiles, and you should know. We wish you no ill. I understand if you’re angry, disappointed, or incredulous, but that will pass, really. I understand. You don’t get to drive for a while, but you can scream, grab the wheel, and freak us out the whole way. Really, that’s more fun than driving.

Come on. It’ll be fun.

It’s great when it’s them, not you, isn’t it?

I mean, when you see a news teaser on TV that says, “Certain snacks cause incontinence and dementia, find out at eleven if you’re at risk.” Then you tune in at eleven and sit through the inane city council meetings, the woman who was jailed for keeping three tigers and an ostrich in her studio apartment, the weather, the sports, and the water-skiing squirrel, and finally, when you’re convinced that it’s you — that you knew you shouldn’t have eaten nothing but Pop tarts in your freshman year at college — the prompter puppet comes on and says, “Hair gel.”  Then she explains that a five year study at the university of Helsinki concluded that people who have a diet high in hair gel tend to be incontinent and demented.

And man does it feel good. It’s not you. It’s SO not you. Sure, you ate a little paste when you were six, and you might have built that model of the Battleship Missouri in the closet with the door shut and went kind of blind for a week or so from the glue fumes, but you have definitely never eaten hair gel, that you can remember. You rule!

Take a minute to enjoy your internal gloat.

Well this blog is like that.  I am totally not writing about you. Not one of you. I’m writing about them. So don’t roll up in the comments all, “That’s not me.  I’m not that way at all.”   I know.  Isn’t it great?  Let’s take a minute and feel just a little better about ourselves, shall we?

Come with me.

First, the teaser. Here’s a comment on my blog the other day about Experience and Imagination:
– (I couldn’t reach this guy to see if I could use
his name, but if he contacts me, I’ll put it in)

I personally am an independent voter with a political philosophy similar to Andrew Sullivan (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com which is to say i am fiscally conservative but socially libertarian). I am also a person of dark skin who grew up in an area that is 99% white. I have many white friends who are from blue collar/union and traditional democratic leaning families. It is with unfortunate realization that they have often mentioned to me that they simply can’t vote for Obama simply because of his skin color. I am often flabbergasted by their honesty and they will only do it because I grew up with them and at this point they don’t think of me by my skin color. How ironic. And unfortunately for the country I often wonder how many people are there like this in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan (the swing states that can determine this election) that won’t admit to this fact.”

And there’s the rub. I’ve read it in a dozen places, people who say, “there are just some people who, no matter what they think about the issues, will not vote for a black man.”

Are you feeling a little superior? Are you feeling a little smug. Of course — you are voting the issues, or experience, or ideology — goes without saying. I stipulate that you are voting for your candidate and not voting for the other one for good reasons. I even understand if you’re Libertarian/Green/Telletubbie Party and you just won’t feel irrelevant enough unless you choose your own personal moonbat.  You have got to feel good about not voting race. You have got to be pleased that you are evolved and enlightened enough to not make decisions based on skin color.  In short, you rock.

But let’s talk about them.

Let’s talk about them, on their deathbed, shall we?  Not tomorrow, not in two years, but oh, forty, fifty years down the line.  Children and grandchildren gathered around the bed. And there they are, with their life stretched out behind them.  I’ve written a fair amount about death, as those of you who’ve read A Dirty Job know. I’ve thought about it, researched it, and I’ve sat deathwatch on a couple of people as well, caring for them in their last days. I’d like to tell you that it’s all a bright light and morphine haze.  I’d like to tell you that people, in their last days, are wise and forgiving and possessed of an inner peace.  But in my experience, that’s just not the case.

Regrets come back. They circle in the mind of the dying like carrion birds. Even people of faith, who believe that they are forgiven, can be nagged by regret.

We all have regrets, things that we will never admit that we did, that we’re ashamed of, and that we can make excuses for, but things that raise up in the back of our minds whenever we make a sweeping statement: “Well at least I never–”

Maybe you murdered a songbird with a slingshot when you were a kid, showed your hoo-hah to the boys behind the garage, maybe you told your brother you just didn’t have the money, when, in fact, you just didn’t want to give it to him. Maybe it was the time your wife sent you out for Huggies and you shagged the counter girl with the brace on her leg in the back room at the Jiffy Mart, maybe you saw that guy get hit on Highway 280 and you didn’t stop to see if he was okay, maybe you could have done something, sometime –something to make life better for someone, but you didn’t. You might have been able to save someone but you didn’t, but only you know.

So, now it’s forty years from now. You’ve taught your children how to be good people. Maybe you’ve taught them about the compassionate Buddha or the forgiving Christ, you’ve taught them that it’s never wrong to do the right thing.  But as the light dies, and you want, so badly, to go gently into that good night, you start, you jerk, like a dream where you miss a step. You’re wrenched back into  ache and unsettling, because you know, and only you know, that despite how you felt about the health and prosperity of your country, you just could not pull that lever because you just couldn’t vote for a black guy.

That’s how you sum up a life of accomplishment, with a deep, wrenching feeling that you did the wrong thing. And you lay uneasy forever .

I’m so glad that none of you are that person.  Let’s rejoice, shall we.  For no matter our choice, we did not make it for hateful, small-minded reasons. Doing the right thing never needs to be justified.

And come Wednesday morning, after election day, you will wake up to the first day of the future of our country — a future that you made.  Imagine how great you’re going to feel, how satisfied with having done the right thing.

And in the end,  you can rest easy. Forever.

VOTE

(Warning, this is kind of a political rant. I didn’t know it was going to be when I started. You might want to go look for new LOLCATZ if you’re not interested in politics and my completely biased opinion.)

Couple of days ago, because I’m interested in books,  I posted a blog on MySpace about the inquiry by Sarah Palin about banning books in the library in her home town in Alaska. Well, that happens, and it’s only the First Amendment, which I don’t think Ms. Palin is fond of because that’s also the one about congress not sponsoring a State religion, and she’s on record as saying that the war in Iraq is a mission from God, as well as how building a gas pipe in Alaska is doing God’s will.  Anyway, that’s not what I’m writing about.

In the comments yesterday, I got this:

“I think she is hot. I mean the hair up in a bun and those glasses…… Oh wait, we don’t make our political decisions based on superficial circumstances. I mean would you really vote for someone because they are a great speaker but have very little experience?”

Here’s my response.

I’ll vote for the person I think is the smartest.

George Bush is a nit-wit, whose blunders have cost the lives of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands,
as well as the reputation of our country around the world.  He’s added four trillion dollars to the debt and virtually all measures of economic and social progress have slowed or regressed during his presidency — and McCain said that he completely supports the policies of George Bush. (Although that was a couple of weeks ago, before he became the change candidate.) John McCain voted with George Bush 90% of the time.

McCain votes the nitwit ticket. If that’s the sort of experience you think is required, then McCain is your man. By all means. I wouldn’t dream of trying to change your mind. If John McCain represents the kind of change you’re looking for, which he is evidently getting around to mentioning now that he’s been in Washington for 26 years, then by all means, have at it. The reason these guys are pounding experience so hard when they’re talking about Barack, and ignoring it when they’re talking about Palin, is that the only thing they get right the first time is being disingenuous. (Lipstick? Really?)

Examples of Bush Administration Executive Experience: No meetings about Osama Bin Ladin, no mention of him, and ignoring completely the White House Memo entitled, Obsama Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Within the U.S.. August 1, 2001. Richard Clark told them again and again that this guy was dangerous, but because they wanted to go after Iraq, they ignored Clark (and Bin Ladin). Well, after we were attacked, they decided that Islamic Extremist Terrorism was a priority. Well, that is learning from experience, but maybe if they’d been smart, they would have been able to stop the attack. “Nobody could have seen it coming?” Condiliza Rice said. “No one could have seen terrorists using aircraft as weapons.” Well, yeah, except for the two movies where that happened, and the episode of the Lone Gunmen. (Great title, sort of like The Two Mavericks — the irony is built in.) “A failure of imagination” the bipartisan 911 commission called it.  (Make a mental note, a FAILURE OF IMAGINATION)

They invaded Iraq because after the first Gulf war, Saddam Hussein was still in power and the Neocons from the first Bush Administration (Rumsfeld/Cheney) wanted him gone. It’s on record, they were looking for ways to invade Iraq and made them up. Then they invaded, declared mission accomplished, and fucked up for six years until they finally did what Colin Powell and other generals, who were dismissed, by the way, told them what they needed to do in the first place, which was send in the overwhelming force to secure one area at a time — a page right out of the military manual on fighting insurgency. So yes, the surge worked, but they got it wrong for six years before the surge, and they got it wrong when they attacked Iraq in the first place, NONE of the justifications for war were true. But they did learn from the experience. (1 Trillion Dollars, hundreds of thousands dead.)

They let Cheney formulate energy policy in secret, with oil company executives, and seven years later they decide that maybe they ought to get an energy policy. They deregulate S&Ls, and S&Ls crash, and they say, “You know, maybe we ought to regulate them a little.” (That was in the 80s, when McCain was one of the Keating five, and Bush’s brother was implicated in the failure of Lincoln Federal. McCain was not indicted, but the judge in the case admonished him saying, and I quote, “the senator showed incredibly poor judgment” in regard to the scandal.)  Then they deregulate the mortgage industry, and shazamm! “Well, maybe we do need some Federal oversight.”  And taxpayers are footing the bill for hundreds of billions in bad mortgages.

They refuse to regulate because “government has no business in business, the free-market will fix everything”, then they bail out the failures when they realize that the economy can’t absorb a five trillion dollar hit (that’s the value of outstanding debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).  At every step, these guys have to screw up at least once, before they get it even remotely right.

They govern by ideology, instead of intelligence and logic. They believe that greed is good and government cannot be effective, then they go on to prove it every time they get in power. They have to value experience above anything, because they are constantly making the wrong decisions out of an ideological outlook instead of a logical one. Experience instead of intelligence. Experience instead of imagination.

Every single analyst on Wall Street, every think tank, and every energy analyst I’ve heard says that drilling for oil on the coasts and in protected areas will not bring significant amounts of oil to market for seven to ten years, and will make no significant difference in the price of oil. Yet a whole arena of Republicans chant drill, baby, drill for five minutes and seem to want that as part of their political agenda. Slowly now, the important point is, “will make no significant difference” in the price of oil. How can the be the smart way to go?  Well, experience may prove, and I’m just guessing here, that drilling off shore and in protected wildlife areas will not significantly impact the price of oil. But by golly we’ll have experience.

Working-class voters continue to vote republican for various reasons, and continually fail to get what they voted for. They do worse, economically, under Republican administrations, and the “wedge” religious issues are dropped from the Republican agenda as soon as they are in office.  What good is experience if you don’t learn from it?  Most conservatives I know are scratching their head right now going, “Wait a minute, we had both houses of congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and spending did what? Government grew how much? My wages declined by how much? Gas costs how much? The employment rate is what? The deficit is what?”

But you certainly can’t question the experience of the administration. Cheney had many, many years in government, in appointed cabinet positions, and his way into congress was garnering the votes of nearly 100,000 people from a state of 530,000. Why, that’s almost a fifth of the number of people who bought my books — last year.  And he did have all that executive experience running an oil exploration company. (Hey, wait a minute…) And George Bush had two terms as governor of Texas, and he too had business experience as an oil man. Of course he failed as an oil man. In Texas. But he used that experience to later on fail miserably as a president.

John McCain’s executive experience is commanding a fighter squadron in Viet Nam. That is certainly valuable experience, and I’m sure that if elected president, he will not be shot down again, because he has learned from his experience. I’m completely confident in that. I’m not that confident that he won’t lead us into a completely misguided war like Iraq again, because he thinks the surge working, is the same as the war being the right thing to do in the first place. Just to be clear, we were not attacked by Iraq and we were not defending ourselves. We picked a small (albeit obnoxious) kid on the playground and beat him up. It’s below the dignity and honor of the United States. Honorable servicemen were given a dishonorable mission, and they carried it out. It’s their job and they are compelled to do it — by love of country, duty, loyalty to comrades in arms — but the people who set them to their mission should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who supported the war, and the compromise of America’s honor by playing bully, should be ashamed of themselves, including, John McCain. I hope he learns from the experience.

I wouldn’t dream of trying to change anyone’s mind regarding experience. Absolutely go for the guy with the most experience. What do I know about experience?

I do, however, know something about inspiration and imagination. I’m sort of in the inspiration and imagination business. I’ve been in it for twenty years (and did it as a volunteer for twenty years before that). From my perspective, inspiration is very valuable thing.From Henry the Fifth’s St. Crispin’s Day speech (we Band of Brothers), to Elizabeth I’s speech at the attack of the Spanish Armada, to Roosevelt’s “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” to Churchill’s “We will never surrender” to John Kennedy’s “Ask not, what your country can do for you,’  to Dr. King’s “I have a dream” — inspiration and motivation have been the very catalysts of history. I’ve been in a room where Barack Obama was speaking, I’ve talked to people who were inspired to get involved by him. I had dinner with a guy tonight, who is Canadian, he said, “I can’t even vote,” and for the first time in my life I sent money to a politician, to Barack Obama,  because he inspires me to make things better.  Inspiration IS  LEADERSHIP. Rallying people to help their fellow citizens so they might improve their lives and the lives of the less fortunate,  IS LEADERSHIP.  Having the intelligence and imagination to foresee trouble and avoid, or defuse it, those are qualities above those of experience that doesn’t inform good judgment.

What I find baffling, is that the very same people who decry inspiration and oratory and not being of value, who scoff at someone who was a “community organizer”, are people of the Christian faith. Faith IS an act of imagination! If you can’t imagine a world where God cares and sent his son to die for your sins, you really can’t, as a Christian, be faithful, can you? There is, I think, I hope, in every single person of faith, the potential for imagination beyond that of fear. An ability to imagine that which is better. If you can’t imagine it, you’ll never get there, and if you’re not inspired, you can’t imagine it.

I know the value of imagination, judgement, and intelligence.
I’m voting for the smartest guy running.

Wow, I just got an invitation to come to Camp Obama here in California?
(Link Disabled)

(Link Disabled)

Well, I got some pages done today, but I didn’t really expect to get much done before the end of the month, what with the Democratic Convention in Denver and the threat of world-ending nuclear war in Poland, so why not go to camp.

Imagine us, all of us Obamamaniacs, out by Lake Barrack…

Itinerary: Camp Obama

8:00-9:00  Non denominational prayer breakfast — secret Muslims not allowed.  (You CAN be Muslim, but you have to be “out”. )

9:00_10:00 Group Hope by the dock (followed by the “HOPE TEST” — no one will be allowed to leave until they have sunk a three-point shot in front of a crowd. Hook shots from the top of the key will also qualify, but only if there are no perspiration stains on the shooter’s underarms.)

10:00-11:00 Bowling instruction by Billy Ray Jones Johnson. (Can you look cool in rented shoes?   Oh yeah, I think you can. Billy Ray teaches you how.)

11:00-Noon Intramural three-legged race: Empowering the Team Player in You.
Cougars vs. PUMAs (Your partner not pulling her weight? Don’t forget to tell her she’s pretty.)

Noon-1:00 Lunch with Keynote:  “How to not scream, “But he’s so fucking old! Human life means nothing to him! He loves war! He’ll get us all killed!”   We don’t roll that way at Camp Obama and you won’t roll out of here like that either.  You will learn how to participate in a measured and civilized debate of just how fucking old and War-crazed he is.

1:00-2:00 HOPE FLOAT AT THE LAKE
The seminar will be given in a flotilla of canoes lashed together.  Participants will learn:
1)Where they live.
2)How many houses they have. (We have to know this stuff, evidently. People will ask.)
3)Why the only reason that volunteers are not being paid $5 million dollars a year is so they don’t have to worry about that camel through the eye of a needle parable.  (Secret Muslims and Jews, ask your Christian Brothers. Catholics, ask your priest – psssst, New Testament.)
4)Why, out of respect for Native American cultures, there is no Camp Obama team called the Hopi.  (But why it would totally rule if we could get them on board.)
5)And finally, use of Hope in the application of basic lifesaving skills, and how much more effective the former is when combined with the latter.

2:00-3:00 – Crafts! Basket-weaving, lanyard-making, pottery throwing, and guided meditation: The Hope Against Audacity: Participants will learn how to keep from loosing their mind when confronted with the following audacious precepts:
A)Human life is sacred in the womb, but not in a house in Iraq or New Orleans.
B)Everything should be left to the wisdom of the Market, except for no-bid military contracts and Medicare drug programs.
C)The definition of victory is never ending the game.
D)Knowing what arugula is makes you an intellectual snob.
E)Spending time in a prison camp thirty eight years ago gives you special super powers.
F)Spending money you don’t have is somehow different and better than just paying your bills as you go. (Because that’s worked so well on everyone’s credit cards and mortgages.)

Participants will also learn how to weave “Obama-Mama” into their lanyard or basket gifts for their mothers.

3:00-4:00 — CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. YOU GUYS PICK THE CAMP OBAMA ACTIVITY FOR 3:00-4:00 o’clock and put it in the comments.  (Stay in the spirit of things. No Hannity/Limbaugh talking points. I am, after all, firmly, in the Obama-Rama. Although, any activity that involves keeping Joe Biden from saying patently stupid shit will be appreciated.)

Duck sauce Soy sauce?
So, today they found out that the U.S. Military shipped four helicopter batteries to Taiwan, except when the Tawainese opened them, months later — shazam!–the boxes were filled with missile warheads. Oops!
But the people in charge were quick to say that there wasn’t any nuclear material. Only the fuse that detonates the nuclear material. Hmmmm. I don’t know if anyone has heard about the problem with making a nuclear bomb, but evidently it isn’t getting the fissionable material — there’s a bunch of that missing. Turns out, it’s (and this is so cute) getting the device that will detonate it.
Now, I order stuff from Chinese people like three times a week. I’ve hardly ever opened the bag and gone, “Shit, I ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan, this is a nuclear trigger. Who had the nuclear trigger? You want chili sauce with that?” The worst that’s ever really happened is that they only gave us one stale-ass fortune cookie instead of two. (And did you know that the fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco, not China? Yeah, funny thing, turns out we shipped the recipe to them accidentally in a box full of Plutonium 235.)
I’m just saying, this does not inspire confidence.
Were these the same guys that sent bombers flying over the U.S. with nuclear bombs on board and few months ago?
I don’t have any military experience, so I don’t want to assume that I know better than our commanders on the ground, as they say, but how about this…
How about we put the smart, efficient people in charge of, oh, I don’t know, watching nuclear weapons. I know it’s an all volunteer force, and the bar has been lowered to about the same standards as what it would take in a girl you’d take home when you’re twelve drinks into the night and it’s five minutes before closing time (a pulse*), but can we just put the smart people in charge of the nukes?
*no offense meant to girls with a pulse, i find that totally attractive in a woman.
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=189460#189460

So, today I was checking my e-mail, and I clicked on a flashing AOL article about Barack Obama’s minister being a bit of a loony. The article didn’t say loony, but that was my interpretation. There was no new information, just that Rev. Wright said some stuff that seemed, oh, a little loony, in front of a church full of people. I’m sure that’s never happened before, and I’m sure it will never happen again, but it turned out, this one time, that a preacher said some loony stuff.
But in the comments below the article — and there were about 50 pages of them, all of which I read — there were no fewer than six people who were convinced that Barack Obama was the Antichrist. Zoinks! Obviously, Barack has hit it out of the park with those folks.
Now I, myownself, have been accused of being the Antichrist. Back in the day, when I was a DJ on the Central Coast of California, a minister sent a letter to the FCC complaining that I was the Antichrist. I immediately responded by asking for a raise, because I was only making six bucks an hour, and I’m sure that the Antichrist gets more, or should. Still, there is a chance that that minister may have been a bit of a loony as well.
But now I really feel that Barack and I have something in common. We have both been accused of being the beast. Actually, I have been accused of being the beast twice, but that second time was a girl who was watching me eat ribs, and really, I wasn’t that beastlike, there was just a lot of sauce on those ribs, so shut up.
I only hope that tonight, Michelle does a detailed examination of Barrack, looking for the mark of the beast. Just for safety’s sake. I know I had my girlfriend at the time do just such an examination, and she thought for a minute that she had found the mark of the beast, but it turned out that it was just the spot on my calf where Bret Mairs stabbed me with a pencil in 10th grade and the lead was still in there. So, not really the mark of the beast — more the mark of that prick, Bret Mairs, for which there is no prophesy.
Anyway, even if she doesn’t find the mark of the beast, because, let’s face it, it could be in Roman numerals (because the prophesy did come from a guy in a Roman prison) I thought I’d consult the Book of Revelation for some other telltale signs that Barack is the beast.
First, there has to be a book with Seven Seals, and this book can only be opened by the Lion of Judah. (Rastafarians believe that Hallie Salassie, the long-dead king of Ethiopia is the Lion of Judah, but it’s a fairly good bet that they are high, so that is totally not one of the signs of the beast). So then the Lion of Judah turns into a lamb with seven eyes and seven horns and opens the seals.
Quickly, let’s go through the seals — what happens when you open them:
1)out comes a white horse, guy with a bow and a crown
2) out comes a red horse, guy who can take peace from the Earth
3) out comes a black horse, guy with a balance, measuring wheat and barley for a penny
4) out comes a pale horse (no color specified, but I like to think pale blue) guy who is Death, with a guy who is Hell on the back.
5) out comes those that were slain for the word of god. (Not clear, really, who they mean, but I’m guessing, Romans, so, if you’re planning a trip to Rome, get that bitch out of the way before the Apocalypse.)
6) Out comes a earthquake, the sun goes black as a sack of hair (that’s what it says, “as black as a sack of hair”, so I’m assuming, you know, no blonds in the sack) the moon becomes as blood, and stars fall from the sky like figs shaken out of a tree and every mountain and island moved out of their places. (Well duh, stars are friggin huge. I’d say, you’d only need one small to medium star to fall like a fig before everything was pretty much moved, except my car, which if I have a parking space in San Francisco, and it’s not street-sweeping night, there is no fucking way I’m moving, even for the Apocalypse.)
7)Nothing comes out on seal seven, but stuff happens: “Rich men, mighty men, and bondmen, and free men all hide in the mountains, trying to avoid the wrath of the Lamb.” (Okay, this is clearly an anticlimactic seal. After stars falling out of the sky, death on horseback, and all those slain for God’s word, and here you want to think inquisitions and crusades, that’s a crashing buttload of souls, this is really the WTF? seal. I hope that if Barack is the Antichrist he improves the Seventh Seal, because it clearly sucks the ass of all the other seals. )
Quite the book! I’m quite convinced now, that I am not the Antichrist, even though I wear the indelible mark of Bret Mairs. Because none of my books can do any of those things, even if I could get a seven eyed lamb to open them. (But if we can hire one, my signings would rock, wouldn’t they!?!?)
So then seven angels come down, and the stuff they bring is even worser than the seals.
Anyway, I was going to try to go through Revelation and see if I might be the antichrist, or where a bunch of people might have been certain that Obama is the antichrist, and I gotta tell you, when it comes to imagination, I am no lightweight, but there is no way you can get that a skinny guy from Chicago is the beast from Revelation, no matter how you interpret it. I have to wonder if any of these people have ever read Revelation. For one thing, it’s completely incoherent. At least in the Gospel’s and the Epistles of the New Testament, there is some semblance of order (although in many of the Epistles, it appears that the author is just making up Christianity as he goes along, which in the case of Paul, is what he is doing.)
Anyway, I know this has been going on for a while, but I do have a point. Barack Obama is probably not the antichrist, but if he was, wouldn’t you have to be a person of faith to believe that? And if you were a person of faith, wouldn’t you be pretty stoked that all the prophesies were coming to pass so you could be raptured up to chill with God and Jesus and the angels and stuff? That’s right. And if he was, wouldn’t that sort of be inevitable, because it’s foretold in the book of Revelation, and you don’t really think that was written by a lunatic, which it clearly was to those of us not “of faith” or not fucking stupid (and no, I’m not saying the people of faith are stupid, I’m saying that people who believe the book of Revelation is coming about are stupid.). (Don’t make me write a whole blog about the destruction of the city of Babylon, which Revelation goes on about at length as a big part of the Apocalypse but which hasn’t really been a viable city for, oh, 1800 years or so.)
Here’s the thing that I’m really saying. Nearly all of the negative posts, the ones that were worried about the Antichrist or other stuff all used phrases like, “it scares the hell out of me” or “what scares me is” or “the frightening thing is” and folks, even if Barack Obama is the antichrist (and if he is I am totally not moving my car, because I voted for him), or Hillary is the whore or Babylon (which I think would look cool on a campaign button ) or John McCain is really the grandfather on The Waltons, you shouldn’t be using fear as the main mechanism for making your political decisions. First, what are you afraid of? The new president will get us into a war, the economy will tank, we’ll become disrespected around the world and our currency’s value will plummet, we’ll be attacked by terrorists, the price of oil will triple and the national debt will skyrocket in the face of unprecedented government spending and borrowing? As our clueless leader once said, “Mission Accomplished.” See, you have nothing to fear.
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