Christopher Hitchens Died and Went to Heaven

Christopher Hitchens a die hard atheist, died last week. Much to his surprise (and of others, detail follow) he found himself, of all places, in Heaven! In fact, he was welcomed with a red carpet and a heavenly ticker tape parade.

Also surprised were all of the die hard right wing religious types who had been predicting for years, maybe even decades, that as soon as Mr. Hitchens dies he is going to find himself burning in the eternal fires of Hell. What was especially disconcerting to this group of people was that some of their own holiest of holy were not admitted; having forgotten the "Thou shalt not Judge" and "Love thy Neighbor", etc. commandments and being in denial about it.

The explanation provided to Mr. Hitchens for his admission on the other hand was his impressive use of the higher intelligence so graciously granted to him by the Almighty. Even though he had been wrong for many years, the fact that he had made such good use of critical thinking and reason, faculties only granted to humans, had been very fulfilling for the Almighty.

In other news, the die hard left wing atheist types are in shock that the pillar of their own philosophy was proved wrong, by none other than God.

DISCLAIMER: This is all 'jest' my personal opinion, I make no claims about hearing this from God or anything like that. I'm just opinionated, not crazy!

I Want To Read That...

So what do you do when your kid's friend recommends a book, but you are not sure that it is age appropriate?

"Her parents let her read it", she says. But what if their standards are more liberal than yours?

Movies have ratings, video games have ratings, even music has content warnings, then why not books?

Maybe I can crowd source this info. Let's see what twitter, facebook, and goodreads can get me some info.

The book is Fallen by Lauren Kate

Give it to back the people...

Every time I walk past the Stars and Stripes blowing in the wind, I feel a sense of pride for my adopted home country. Adopted is a word I use reflexively, because not only have I adopted the country, the country has adopted me too. But I digress.

Walking, driving, commuting anywhere in America, you can see the flag being flown all over the place; in homes, malls, movie theaters, community halls, places of worship, and of course government buildings. It is a constant reminder that we are in America, and we are proud to be here. And maybe some are not proud of everything about their home country, but it is still a constant reminder that we are all part of this nation.

The flag in India unfortunately, does not belong to the people. You can only see it on government buildings other than on a select few days. Then for the few days after those days you see temporary paper flags strewn all over the streets being trampled by cars, bikes, people, and animals with no regard for it.

Why not give what belongs to the people, back to the people. Allow them to fly the flag anywhere they want as long as its dignity is preserved with a strict set of rules that are enforced, not just by the law, but also by citizens. Let the "तिरंगा" or the tricolor fly proud all over my other great country. Let it be a constant reminder to people that they are part of something bigger. Something they should be proud of, something that they are responsible for, something they have a stake in keeping great.

What are we afraid of?

Jason Chaffetz the Shameless Opportunist

Here we are, facing an incredible tragedy (Tuscon Arizona Shooting) with 6 people, including a 9 year old dead, and 13 injured in a gun violence incident and the congressman from the third district of Utah uses the opportunity to push the gun rights buttons of the extreme right wing by stating that he will now be using his Second Amendment rights and carry his weapon with him more often.

What a Shameless Opportunist...

This isn't the Middle East I am talking about...

Isn't it sad when misguided youth are provoked to violence by poisonous and loaded rhetoric from power hungry people in leadership positions.

Tuscon Arizona Shooting

Morality... Bah! Humbug!

Morality is a term overused by the right wingers, for me it's just humbug!

Here's what Morality means to me:
Morality defines how people behave when they know someone is watching!

Conscience, another much loved and overused pseudo-virtue.
Conscience is how people behave when they think someone is watching.

To me all that matters is Character.
Character defines how people behave when they know NO ONE is watching.

What a Shameless Hypocrite!

Normally, you expect a politician to be a hypocrite. But I am appalled at the blatant and shameless hypocrisy of our Hypocrite-in-Chief, oops, Liar-in-Chief , oops again, Commander-in-Chief, Mr. George W. Bush.

For the six years that he has already been President of the USA fiscal discipline has never been an agenda item of his administration. He has run up the national debt and the budget deficit by large amounts and has significantly increased the size of the Federal Government while constantly talking about smaller government.

The nation finally woke up in 2006 and recognized the constant supply of lies from the White House and their nauseating repetitions from the echo-box of conservative talk-radio and put the Democrats back in control of both houses of Congress.

But the lying still has not stopped!

Just today he claimed in a Rose Garden speech that through spending cuts and tax reform his administration has cut the budget deficit in half. Half of what? And by not accounting for expenses of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq! Nice, take out the most expensive line item in the expense report and call the books in black. In the corporate world this is called "cooking the books" or fraud and is punishable with jail terms!

And now suddenly, earmarks and pork barrel projects have become a bad thing that must be fixed.

What a shameless hypocrite, makes me sick.