De-Sensitivity Training

our favourite terrorist support group, CAIR, is applauding a move by the TSA to require sensitivity training for its workers concerning muslim travelers making their haj to mecca. apparently the TSA has decided to pacify the potential terrorists and those who love them by spending money that will come out of our pockets in order to teach the airport screeners how to be more sensitive and aware that these religious pilgrims may be praying (an airport activity formerly reserved for terrorists-to-be), and carrying "certain objects". can't imagine what these objects may be, but clearly they require an extra measure of sensitivity on the part of the already maxed out and hands-tied airport workers.

how about this: if it's banned, they can't have it. seems pretty straightforward. if a 95 year old irish catholic nun can't bring a bottle of water on a flight to take her heart medication because these muslim psychopaths have tried to blow up their babies on planes, they probably shouldn't get water either. do they have special ceremonial box cutters that will be allowed? religious AK-47s which will be permitted during the haj?

how about we just have all-muslim flights flown by all-muslim crews and escorted by armed bombers and they can take whatever the heck they want into paradise and the friendly skies...

anyway, here's the real point. all of this "sensitivity training" only serves to DEsensitize everyone who should be one their toes around potential terrorists. from the test case of the flying imams to this new curriculum, the folks at CAIR and in hezbollah and hamas and al-quaeda want everyone to get so accustomed to muslims acting like freaky nutty potential terrorists that when they want to launch the real thing, we will all be immune to it. long flowing robed concealing heaven knows what will just be another style of dress- don't bother searching them. open conversations about how americans deserve to die will be just another conversation choice in airport bars. apparently muslims can sit in non-assigned seats, collect seat belt extenders, carry on banned items, and do pretty much whatever the heck they want, and we should embrace this all in the name of religious diversity and tolerance. the more we "learn' about them, the more we become anesthetized to their non-acceptable ways, and the less anyone will be alarmed by them when the time comes.

i am alarmed by the lack of alarm. whats it gonna take for people to wake up and smell the buring jet fuel?

'Twas The Morning Of Monday...

...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring- except blogbrit.

i was laying in my bed with the baby and the girl cat (poe). we were petting the cat, and she was purring, and it was a currier and ives moment- and then we heard the plunk plunk plunk of cold blogbrit feet thunking across the floor. he got out of his nice warm bed, crawled out from under his soft snuggly quilt, walked across the room, picked up the formerly comfortable cat, and tossed her into the hallway.

i waited for the punchline, but when none was forthcoming after a reasonable wait, i asked him, "why did you do that?"

his response: "she sounds like a barge."

he then made some unintelligible noise that i have never heard eminate from man nor beast, i assume in a somewhat misguided attempt to illustrate such a noise, crawled back into bed, and went to sleep.

so now i'm curious- in 50 words or less, can you describe what a barge actually sounds like? and if a barge purrs in an empty forest, will it still wake up the blogbrit?

Welcome Soulmate Junior!!!!!

just wanted to let you all know that the world got a little better today with the birth of anysara and soulmate's first yummy baby!!!

soulmate jr. was 9lbs 8oz- way to go anysara!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hard to tell who he looks like yet, but everyone is fine, and this blogblond could not be a prouder aunt!!!!!!!!

Jimma Carter Drinks The Koolaid, Smokes The Crack, and Loses What's Left Of HIs Small Small Mind

so, notorious peace, love, and habitat for humanity saint jimma carter has once again thrust his pathetic self into the spotlight. i can only hope that he has some type of serious degenerative dementia, or possibly a gigantic brain tumor, and that is the reason for his complete and total lack of any rational thought.

i heard him read an excerpt from his book mein kampf- oops, no, it is actually called something like "why the jews are satan's spawn and the arabs are completely righteous in every way". i think the prologue is about why it is taking so darn long to push those stinkin' jews into the sea already, and it pretty much goes downhill from there.

he defends his choice of calling isreal palestine- clearly his brain has not yet embraced the sad fact thet it is not 1947- because really the israelis/jews/zionists are on the palestinian land in that part of the world. that's why they are blowing each other and everyone else up all over the globe every chance they get- because the jews are trespassing on arab land in the middle east.

and just when you think it couldn't get any more trainwrecky -or ignorant- he compares the jewish state to south africa during apartheid. the small minority abusing the majority, etc. i guess if he consideres the whole middle east arab territory, then the jews would indeed be a minority. never mind all historical fact about israel winning territory in defensive wars which the arabs started- and which has been given away for nothing except meaningless world opinion (which has not gotten any more favorable for the jews since they gave up a good measure of their security to pacify the ignorant masses...). never mind that the jews treat the arabs in israel better than the surrounding arab countires treat their own citizens. forget that, in every measure of a civilized society- from environmentalism to women's rights to democracy- israel is by far the best developed place in the region. put aside that the arabs who still choose to live in refugee camps do so of their own volition and because of the using of them by their holy arab brethren. forget all fact, all history, and all common sense, and then you may actually agree with a single sentence in jimma's book.

can't wait until he receives the nobel peace prize for his work in bringing people together.

zig heil.

The Fine Line Between Empathy And Contempt

as teenagers, many kids laugh at the misfortune of others. whether it's the homeless guy on the street, or that geeky kid with the pocket protecter who brings his lunch in a bill nye lunch box, their reaction to the discomfort of the situation is to laugh. it's very self-protective to snicker at the outsider, lest you may yourself become one. it's much easier to join in the laughter over someone being teased than to stand up to the mob and possibly become the next target.

usually as people get older, they develop a tougher shell. it's not so much that they develop empathy; rather, they become okay enough in their own skin to let their emapthy come out. they become less involved with what the perception of themselves will be, and more concerned with how to lessen the inherent discomfort of any given situation for all concerned.

but it seems like today, people are just failing to grow up. the kids are getting nastier and meaner, and the adults are staying those same self-centered, self-involved, self-protective brats. watch any court TV show, listen to any call-in radio, observe much of the behaviour that people are, shockingly, not embarassed to display on the street. listen to the rude mouthy person on their cell phone in a public place, not caring about what is overheard, actually thinking they sound cool when they curse and talk about inappropriate things in front of my kids. watch the jerk in traffic who not only cuts people off, but then gestures angrily and yells at other drivers who dare to be on the road. check out any small claims court docket and witness the shear number of folks who want to profit from what we would have called in the old days, a simple mistake from an innocent person. what the heck is up with people?

everyone thinks they deserve everything. everyone feels entitled to everything. usually, the amount of consideration any given person feels they deserve is inversley proportional to the amount of respect they are earning. that's the key to why this irritates me so much- it seems like the loudest, rudest, most obnoxious people are the ones who assume they should be served up the world on a golden plate. who taught these hellions that it's all about #1?

in an age when all the schools want to teach is environmenall terrorism instead of real terrorism, and global warming gloom and doom, and that every child should skip lunch and forego birthday presents to send money to aids victims in africa, it seems odd that society as a whole is getting meaner and more cut-throat. the more we try to sensitize and feminize society and tie the hands of our soldiers and emasculate anything strong and masculine, the more people seem to be coming up nasty and hostile and "all about me".

we are trying to breed empathy and compassion, but more and more people, from the scummiest ghettoes to the ritziest hollywood parties , are becoming non-emapthetic and anything but compassionate. scoiety is turning into a sick place where the meanest and cruelest and most expolitive win, and the rest of us just stand idly by, too cowed into fear to say or do anything.

when did growing up into empathy become wallowing in contempt?

Let's Talk About Katherine Moennig

the burning question of the moment has to do with the "wow!' factor.

some women are pretty, like kate winslet or christie brinkley.

some women are beautiful, like halle berry. they are just so lovely that you want to stare and stare.

but some people just have that certain something that is above and beyond. they are so compelling, so spellbinding that you just can't look away. you are blown away by this mystical quality they exude- seemingly without trying. it is rarely the most objectively beautiful women who have this magic. the question is, what exactly is it?

i googled katherine moennig yesterday, like a teenage stalker fan hoping for a signed poster for her locker. considering that i wasn't actually like this when i was a teenager (okay, there was the billy idol thing...), it was kind of bizarre. but i just wanted to know about her. i just wanted to find out what makes her so above and beyond. and in spite of the fact that many of the pictures of her for sale on ebay are like soft core lesbian porn, the photos of her just standing around took my breath away.

so, i am wondering from all of you- what is it that some women just have? can you ever nail down something specific, or is it too ethereal?

Thanks, But No Thanks

here in the blogblond household, we do not celebrate thanksgiving.

even before i became a religious fanatic, i thought it was sort of odd to celebrate how we took advantage of the indians. they helped the pilgrims to survive in the "new world", which was lucky becasue it gave the europeans the time and strength to regroup to begin to kill off the indians. the indians unfairly defended some of their homeland, while the pilgrims quite honorably called them savages and pushed them into ever-more undesirable land. they gave us corn and we gave them smallpox. all's fair in love and war, i guess...

fast forward to now, when we just don't bother with thanksgiving as a holiday, because it's not really part of our lives. for the bounty we have, we are thankful every day. we appreciate what we have, and it has nothing to do with turkey. we try to teach our children to be aware of the many gifts they are blessed with.

i have no problem with people who do celebrate thanksgiving. even though only a small fraction of americans can actually say that it was their ancestors who survived until that first harvest, i am happy that at least a few times a year otherwise disconnected families will sit down to share a meal together. if the excuse for seeing long-distance relatives is thanksgiving, so be it.

what i don't get it people who act like you are committing a serious act of blasphemy by not celebrating thanksgiving. is it really that important to them that my family eats turkey? are they part of a vast cranberry sauce conspiracy? do they get extra points if i eat pumpkin pie? i am not preachy about thanksgiving. i don't volunteer that we don't celebrate it. my family actually eats together every single night, and several times a year we do get together with relatives for other reasons. so what's the deal?

what is offensive about saying thanks, but no thanks to thanksgiving?

The Official Blogblond Political Dictionary

as you contemplate voting tomorrow, you may want to have the following translations in mind. i am, after all, a political science major...

pro-choice=i am trying to kiss up to the loony leftists
pro-life= i am trying to kiss up to the religious fanatics

i will lower your taxes= i will do whatever i want as soon as i get into office. if i lower your taxes at all, you can bet i'll do it by cutting exactly the services you personally need.
i will lower expenditures= i will do whatever i want as soon as i get into office. if i lower expenditures at all, you can bet i'll do it by cutting exactly the services you personally need. i may claim to want to eliminate inefficiency in government, but if you think i have any intention of alienating my cronies once i get into office, you need to get a few advance doses of methadone before i cut it off.

i support the troops= i don't want to tick off the rednecks
i support an immediate withdrawl of troops= i want to go out of my way to tick off the rednecks. after all, they don't make big campaign contributions. i prefer to cater to pansy-ass cut and run liberals with big checkbooks

tough on immigration= i'll do lots of showy but ineffective stuff to pretend i'm handling it
tough on crime= i'll do lots of showy but ineffective stuff to pretend i'm handling it

american technological supremecy= i plan to dump lots of money into the space program. i can't articulate any good reason why, but it impresses the intellectuals at NASA and the pseudo-intellectuals in the general population

against outsourcing of jobs= force american companies to hire underqualified lazy slackers to work for you for way more money than they deserve, because it makes the rich liberals feel like they're helping the poor

strengthen the economy= cook the books until nobody can understand what the heck is going on

help our seasoned citizens= cook the books until every old person is so confused by the multitude of programs for them- none of which actually help them in any way- that they will hopefully die of stress related complications and we will not have to continue paying out their social security and can use that money for more bombs- which we will never use

equality and fairness= i will use the most discriminatory policies possible to try to create a utopian society where every person gets way more than what they have actually earned (also, see affirmative action)

affirmative action= see above and add the following: through my policies, i will create a climate of racial hatred, the likes of which have never been seen in history. the backlash will mean a weaker workforce, weaker employee morale, less confidence in any professional who may (or may not) have been a recipient of affirmative actions, and an overall failed social experiment. but i will have a clear conscience

i care about the children= i think you are a sucker. any time i invoke children, i know my opponent has nowhere to go, thus ending all debate on any relevant issue. who doesn't love kids?

get out and vote/ rock the vote/ don't forget to vote/ vote or die= there are many manifestations of this phrase, but they all mean the same thing: really, i could care less what you do. i honestly believe that you are too stupid to vote anyway. if i trusted idiots like you to make decisions in government, i would be in favor of referendums on everything, and not endless political filibustering on every issue. actually, i wish you would be sent to iraq so you could get sniped on cnn, and then i could just do whatever i wanted. unless, of course, you are planning to vote for me...

anyway, i hope this has been helpful. i know politics are really complex, but i believe in you!

but unless you are voting exactly as i am, please stay home.