Saturday, June 25, 2005
The Flag
Once more Flag Day has come and gone without anyone knowing or caring, and once more the House of Representatives has proposed a Constitutional Amendment to make burning the damn thing illegal. That's nothing new, but the frightening thing is that this time it's expected to pass the Senate too. What is this country coming to?
Why everyone loves the flag so much is a total mystery anyway. It's a goddam piece of cloth, folks. You blithering morons salute the flag, sing songs about the flag, wave the flag, display the flag, make your children pledge allegiance to the flag, and above all, do your best to make sure everyone else feels exactly the same way, but in all the commotion you've forgotten one key point: this is a fucking rectangle with some stripes on it we're talking about.
Doesn't all this flag-waving seem ominous to anyone else? The flag is just a convenient symbol that we're forced to worship to distract us from what's really going on. The Germans waved Nazi flags while people were being exterminated like insects and the Japansese waved rising-sun flags while they sent kamikaze pilots to their deaths and tortured civilians in secret laboratories. No one paid too much attention to the atrocities because their attantion was focused on waving their flags. I'm not saying that atrocities like these are happening in the United States, but it's definitely true that encouraging people to wave flags is an effective way to prevent them from thinking, as regime after regime has discovered to their advantage.
Flag-worship is a religion like any other, and forcing children to say the pledge of allegiance in school seems an awful lot like organized prayer to me. I don't know about you morons, but I'm not pledging allegiance to a piece of fabric. I don't see what's so special about the flag that people are willing to follow it right off the cliff like lemmings, but they do anyway, without stopping to think about it. That's the whole point of the flag: to make sure no one stops and thinks.
Making it illegal to burn the flag is just the government's way of ensuring that the flag continues to serve their purposes. The more we worship the flag, the dumber we get. And sadly, most of you flag-waving idiots are already far to dumb to realize that.
If you assholes want to practice your sad religion in peace, that's fine with me. You can wave the flag, pledge allegiance to the flag, and blindly follow the flag to your death like everyone else if that's what you want to do. Go ahead and follow it unquestionably, and whatever you do don't think. Thinking is dangerous.
But there is some shit i will not eat. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America gives me the right to freedom of expression, and if that means I need to burn your beloved striped rectangle to express myself, so be it. But go ahead and make it illegal. After all, I'll burn the damn thing anyway and the rest of you bastards won't realize how important your rights are until they're gone. Whatever you do, you won't force me into submission. i will not kiss your fucking flag.
Why everyone loves the flag so much is a total mystery anyway. It's a goddam piece of cloth, folks. You blithering morons salute the flag, sing songs about the flag, wave the flag, display the flag, make your children pledge allegiance to the flag, and above all, do your best to make sure everyone else feels exactly the same way, but in all the commotion you've forgotten one key point: this is a fucking rectangle with some stripes on it we're talking about.
Doesn't all this flag-waving seem ominous to anyone else? The flag is just a convenient symbol that we're forced to worship to distract us from what's really going on. The Germans waved Nazi flags while people were being exterminated like insects and the Japansese waved rising-sun flags while they sent kamikaze pilots to their deaths and tortured civilians in secret laboratories. No one paid too much attention to the atrocities because their attantion was focused on waving their flags. I'm not saying that atrocities like these are happening in the United States, but it's definitely true that encouraging people to wave flags is an effective way to prevent them from thinking, as regime after regime has discovered to their advantage.
Flag-worship is a religion like any other, and forcing children to say the pledge of allegiance in school seems an awful lot like organized prayer to me. I don't know about you morons, but I'm not pledging allegiance to a piece of fabric. I don't see what's so special about the flag that people are willing to follow it right off the cliff like lemmings, but they do anyway, without stopping to think about it. That's the whole point of the flag: to make sure no one stops and thinks.
Making it illegal to burn the flag is just the government's way of ensuring that the flag continues to serve their purposes. The more we worship the flag, the dumber we get. And sadly, most of you flag-waving idiots are already far to dumb to realize that.
If you assholes want to practice your sad religion in peace, that's fine with me. You can wave the flag, pledge allegiance to the flag, and blindly follow the flag to your death like everyone else if that's what you want to do. Go ahead and follow it unquestionably, and whatever you do don't think. Thinking is dangerous.
But there is some shit i will not eat. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America gives me the right to freedom of expression, and if that means I need to burn your beloved striped rectangle to express myself, so be it. But go ahead and make it illegal. After all, I'll burn the damn thing anyway and the rest of you bastards won't realize how important your rights are until they're gone. Whatever you do, you won't force me into submission. i will not kiss your fucking flag.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Arizona
5,130,632 people can't be wrong. Can they?
Yes they can, especially if they happen to be the 5,130,632 people who, for reasons incomprehensible to anyone else, live in the state of Arizona.
The fact that anyone would want to live in a state that's 99.7 percent desert, inconveniently large and full of obstacles like the Grand Canyon, blisteringly hot, and full of unpleasant people boggles the mind, but they do, and more of them arrive every year.
Arizona is a bad place to be in general, but by far the worst part of it is the vast monstrosity that is the state capital, and where over half the state's population can be found. No one can really dispute that Phoenix is probably one of the most unpleasant cities in the United States. Phoenix is just one enormous sprawling suburb, altogether overfull with fountains, swimming pools, shopping malls, and hicks. The fountains and pools are responsible for wasting the vast majority of the Southwest's water supply while other cities suffer continuous drought (not to mention generating the humidity that makes Phoenix so foul in the summertime), the shopping malls are responsible for the awful traffic and ungodly sprawl, and the hicks are responsible for the rest of the city's bad points, which are too numerous to list here.
If any city (apart from Las Vegas) deserves to be nuked out of existence or simply swallowed up by the desert, it's Phoenix, the shining pinnacle of irresponsibility and poor urban planning. It's hard to believe anyone could possibly have thought that putting a city (I use the term loosely, since Phoenix is really more of a gigantic creeping blight) in the middle of the desert was a good idea, but the fact that the city still exists, that people would actually choose to live in such a place, is beyond comprehension.
Phoenix is obscene in every way possible, but the sad fact is that it's just a microcosm of the state of Arizona, which is every bit as obscene. Where else, after all, can you find major European landmarks in the middle of the fucking desert? What other state is so hick as to not observe daylight savings time? There's only one Arizona. Thank God for that.
The worst thing about Arizona, though, is the people. After all, someone had to decide not to follow DST and the London Bridge didn't install itself in Lake Havasu City. Arizona is like the secret burial ground where old and angry Republicans go to die, except it's not a secret and is actually full of Japanese tourists who travel thousands of miles to look at a big hole in the ground. The majority of the people in Arizona are total scum, except of course for the Canadians who live there in the winter (I can't blame them for wanting to be someplace warm, after all). But anyone who would voluntarily reside there year-round has to be a mental case.
If you've never been to Arizona, don't. There's nothing to see except your own shoes stuck in melting asphalt and a big ditch which is probably the world's most overrated tourist attraction (except for maybe Biosphere, the London Bridge, and the world's highest fountain, of course!) There's nothing worth doing, no one worth meeting. In short, the place is a pit. I don't know if hell exists or not, but if it does I can't imagine it looking too different from our beloved 48th state.
Yes they can, especially if they happen to be the 5,130,632 people who, for reasons incomprehensible to anyone else, live in the state of Arizona.
The fact that anyone would want to live in a state that's 99.7 percent desert, inconveniently large and full of obstacles like the Grand Canyon, blisteringly hot, and full of unpleasant people boggles the mind, but they do, and more of them arrive every year.
Arizona is a bad place to be in general, but by far the worst part of it is the vast monstrosity that is the state capital, and where over half the state's population can be found. No one can really dispute that Phoenix is probably one of the most unpleasant cities in the United States. Phoenix is just one enormous sprawling suburb, altogether overfull with fountains, swimming pools, shopping malls, and hicks. The fountains and pools are responsible for wasting the vast majority of the Southwest's water supply while other cities suffer continuous drought (not to mention generating the humidity that makes Phoenix so foul in the summertime), the shopping malls are responsible for the awful traffic and ungodly sprawl, and the hicks are responsible for the rest of the city's bad points, which are too numerous to list here.
If any city (apart from Las Vegas) deserves to be nuked out of existence or simply swallowed up by the desert, it's Phoenix, the shining pinnacle of irresponsibility and poor urban planning. It's hard to believe anyone could possibly have thought that putting a city (I use the term loosely, since Phoenix is really more of a gigantic creeping blight) in the middle of the desert was a good idea, but the fact that the city still exists, that people would actually choose to live in such a place, is beyond comprehension.
Phoenix is obscene in every way possible, but the sad fact is that it's just a microcosm of the state of Arizona, which is every bit as obscene. Where else, after all, can you find major European landmarks in the middle of the fucking desert? What other state is so hick as to not observe daylight savings time? There's only one Arizona. Thank God for that.
The worst thing about Arizona, though, is the people. After all, someone had to decide not to follow DST and the London Bridge didn't install itself in Lake Havasu City. Arizona is like the secret burial ground where old and angry Republicans go to die, except it's not a secret and is actually full of Japanese tourists who travel thousands of miles to look at a big hole in the ground. The majority of the people in Arizona are total scum, except of course for the Canadians who live there in the winter (I can't blame them for wanting to be someplace warm, after all). But anyone who would voluntarily reside there year-round has to be a mental case.
If you've never been to Arizona, don't. There's nothing to see except your own shoes stuck in melting asphalt and a big ditch which is probably the world's most overrated tourist attraction (except for maybe Biosphere, the London Bridge, and the world's highest fountain, of course!) There's nothing worth doing, no one worth meeting. In short, the place is a pit. I don't know if hell exists or not, but if it does I can't imagine it looking too different from our beloved 48th state.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Honda Ridgeline
Sorry to write another car rant so soon after the Saturn one, but when the June issue of Consumer Reports arrived yesterday with a profile view of the new Honda Ridgeline pickup on the cover, I couldn't help myself. The new Ridgeline is by far the ugliest truck I've ever seen in my life. For that matter, it's probably the ugliest motor vehicle of any kind, ever. There's no angle you can look at it from that makes it look even remotely non-vomit-inducing. Everyone knows Honda makes the best cars, but do they really have to make anyone who looks at them physically ill?It wasn't always this bad. In fact, pretty much all Hondas were good-looking until the hybrid Insight came out in 1999. That was ugly, but clearly Honda saw that it wasn't living up to its full ugliness potential because it proceeded to come out with the Element in 2003, which was unquestionably the ugliest wheeled vehicle ever to come out of Japan. Until now.
Pickup trucks are pretty much a tried-and-true design. Today's pickup trucks are not much different from those built in the 1940s or even the 1920s, and most of them looked like normal, everyday pickup trucks. Ugly trucks are a very recent development and until now were limited to General Motors products— the SSR, Avalanche, EXT, and H2 SUT. Clearly someone at Honda thought now was a good time to jump on the ugly truck bandwagon themselves, and they did so with a vengeance.Words cannot do the Honda Ridgeline justice. This truck is an embarrassment to the human race. Not only is it rectangular, plastic, covered in superfluous body molding, and eerily symmetrical back to front, but the grotesquely oversized bed couldn't possibly be made any more horrific. The Ridgeline looks like Honda told a team of talented designers to design the ugliest vehicle the world has ever known, and gave them a photo of the Chevy Avalanche to start from. I can't even look at it without starting to feel queasy.
What happened to you, Honda? You used to make awesome cars like the S2000, NSX, and the 2001 Accord. If you continue down the path you're on, Honda will just become another forgotten and unlamented name like AMC, Geo, or Plymouth. The thing is, no one in their right mind is going to buy a truck as ugly as the Ridgeline, no matter how superior it is to other trucks in all other respects. And I doubt there are enough people who are not in their right mind to keep you from going under for very long.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Immigration
Thank God for the border patrol. Otherwise, who'd stop those armies of dirty Mexicans from pouring across the border to take your job, your house, and your wife, wrecking the country, and just generally fucking up the system?
If you agreed with the above statement in any way, you don't deserve to have a job or a house or a wife. The thing is, those "illegal aliens" are people too, just like you. Actually, since you're not a person at all but a racist bigot, what I meant to say is that unlike you, illegal immigrants are people, and deserve a chance at a better life.
You take pride in calling America the "land of opportunity," but if anyone actually comes looking for opportunity here you're the first one to stick a shotgun in their face. "Land of opportunity" should mean opportunity for everyone, not just the people who already live here. If someone wants to improve their life by coming to America, who the hell are you to deny them that opportunity? What makes you more deserving of a decent life than someone born in Mexico? It may be that many immigrants won't be any better off here than they were where they came from, but they still deserve a chance.
If we're going to call America the "land of opportunity" without being hypocrites of the worst kind, we need to rewrite our immigration laws. The only thing that makes illegal immigrants illegal is the unfair laws that were put in place in a more unenlightened time. The laws are pointless anyway, since anyone who is really determined to get into the country will, whether it's legal or not.
You're worried about your job. But what you fail to understand is that if your job is in danger at all, which is unlikely, the threat is not poor immigrants slipping across the border but corporate outsourcing. If you lose your job, it won't be a poor Mexican immigrant who is responsible. It will be your own employer, or more likely your own gross incompetence.
Why shouldn't anyone who wants to live in America be allowed to? The immigrants who came here from all over the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made the country a vibrant, cosmopolitan place, and one unique in world history. Without a fresh stream of immigrants, we're left just stagnating in the homogenous cesspool we've created for ourselves.
Maybe an open-door immigration policy can't work. Maybe I'm being overly idealistic. But the truth is, this fucked-up country desperately needs something, and that might just be it.
If you agreed with the above statement in any way, you don't deserve to have a job or a house or a wife. The thing is, those "illegal aliens" are people too, just like you. Actually, since you're not a person at all but a racist bigot, what I meant to say is that unlike you, illegal immigrants are people, and deserve a chance at a better life.
You take pride in calling America the "land of opportunity," but if anyone actually comes looking for opportunity here you're the first one to stick a shotgun in their face. "Land of opportunity" should mean opportunity for everyone, not just the people who already live here. If someone wants to improve their life by coming to America, who the hell are you to deny them that opportunity? What makes you more deserving of a decent life than someone born in Mexico? It may be that many immigrants won't be any better off here than they were where they came from, but they still deserve a chance.
If we're going to call America the "land of opportunity" without being hypocrites of the worst kind, we need to rewrite our immigration laws. The only thing that makes illegal immigrants illegal is the unfair laws that were put in place in a more unenlightened time. The laws are pointless anyway, since anyone who is really determined to get into the country will, whether it's legal or not.
You're worried about your job. But what you fail to understand is that if your job is in danger at all, which is unlikely, the threat is not poor immigrants slipping across the border but corporate outsourcing. If you lose your job, it won't be a poor Mexican immigrant who is responsible. It will be your own employer, or more likely your own gross incompetence.
Why shouldn't anyone who wants to live in America be allowed to? The immigrants who came here from all over the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made the country a vibrant, cosmopolitan place, and one unique in world history. Without a fresh stream of immigrants, we're left just stagnating in the homogenous cesspool we've created for ourselves.
Maybe an open-door immigration policy can't work. Maybe I'm being overly idealistic. But the truth is, this fucked-up country desperately needs something, and that might just be it.
