This stems from my inability to Kerry on a conversation

Originally written on Nov 3rd, 2006


Not sure how much blogging I will get done here, though there is certainly enough to talk about these days, whether it be on the local front or the national. Certainly I could spend some time talking about myself, and I plan on doing just that.

I have been doing more reading, just polished off James Patterson's "Mary Mary". I saw it during one of my late night impulse binges at the 24 hr drugstore. Those places are a weakness for me, and where I live I have 2 within about 3 blocks of my apartment. I stopped after work the other night, hoping to find some microwave goodness for dinner and knowing that I was once again out of reading material I checked out the paperback section, and that was the best offering they had. I bought it on Monday and had it read by Wednesday night, I am just devouring the fiction reads these days. I picked up a couple more books today, another Robert Parker and a Christopher Buckley, who I have always heard good things about and wanted to read, and after seeing "Thank You for Smoking" which is based on one of his books, it was only a matter of time until I scooped one up.

I also get to whore my next public appearance. I will be on the Doug Hoerth Show on Thanksgiving Day from 3pm to 6pm on AM Newstalk 1360 (www.1360wptt.com). Yes, I will save you the pun and say you get to eat a turkey and then hear one, though for the life of me, I can't imagine the family gathering around the radio on Thanksgiving, this isn't the 1920s after all.

Not sure how many people have been following the upcoming elections. It is part of my job, so I have been, though I have been more focused on the local stuff than the national races. That being said, some stories have filtered through, as evidenced by the post earlier in the blog over the whole Rush Limbaugh/Michael J Fox controversy from the Washington Post. MInd you, I am a pro stem cell research kind of guy, and I am even further along down the line than most in that I don't view embryos as life, so hate me if you will, but one of the concessions that the pro stem cell side seems to give up is whether embryos are in fact life, I refuse to even yield that point to the other side of the debate. I haven't seen conclusive evidence that would maintain that proposition, and furthermore, if that was truly the case, then why is it the government doesn't recognize embryos as life? They are not issued social security numbers, as all Americans are, nor are they counted in the census, which is the number of people in the country. If you are going to count the number of people and fail to count embryos, then you are acknowledging that, in the government's eye, they are not people. And, friends, they aren't. Mind you, they have the potential to be, just as if you have two sticks and rub them together, you can make fire, but that doesn't make the sticks themselves fire. They, like embryos, are but material. And just because you have two sticks doesn't limit your options to making fire, maybe you will use them to build a bird's nest, or a sling shot, because some materials have multiple uses. Likewise, once embryos are viewed as material, rather than people, one can begin to see that multiple uses may come from them as well and one of those uses may be curing actual living people of horrible diseases. The other argument is the religious one on defending life, but again the bible does not mention embryos, heck it doesn't even mention abortion for that matter, but I will limit my argument to embryos for now. There is no mandate in the bible of what to do or not to do with embryos, and while I concede the point that embryos can become life, if one buys the bible's argument, then we have to assume that anything has the potential to be life, after all, God created Adam from the dust on the ground. Therefore we couldn't create anything, for fear that it was one miracle away from being a human being. Mind you, it would also mean the end of our existence as a species, because while we are protecting all potential life, we would wither and die from lack of food and shelter. I don't say this to mock those of faith, rather to bring up a point, that we make compromises of sorts, one of those it was is and isn't life and I have yet to see the conclusive scientific argument presented that maintains that embryos are life, regardless of what is prostelytized from the party or pulpit.

Goodness, there goes some readers of the blog, heading for the exits as only I can make them do. Actually, for those of you that have paid particularly close attention, I have shown some people the door of my own accord. I am not one for collecting friends in here, but those people that stop by and ask to be added, I tend to let them join, but if in the course of my viewings I find that they aren't blogging, they are just out collecting friends and leaving their page blank, then I am of the attitude to cut them loose these days. While I like the fact some of you stop by to read my musings, I want visitors to be able to click on a friend and know that they are getting some original content from them as well. I don't ask that it be creative, hell I don't even think I am all that creative, just that you are making a small effort and that you are doing this for more than a vanity project.

We also learned this week why John Kerry is an idiot. First, the man can't tell a joke. If you aren't funny, don't try to be. It pretty much never works. Second, he has no political savvy-ness whatsoever. Given that you have botched a joke, and made it sound like you believe only the uneducated are serving in Iraq (with two of my family members having served there, even I was taken aback by that a little) the smart think to do is to apologize and get it out of the way as soon as possible. If you are really savvy, you can even make the apology an opportunity to tick off the litany of reasons why the President himself should apologize. But Kerry isn't savvy, and if you needed more proof than the Swift Boat campaign against him in 2004, where he waited thinking it would go away, rather than defending his record, this was you next example. Instead of getting the apology out of the way, he left it sit in the news cycle for two whole days before he apologizes. While his party is building up for a chance to take the House and Senate in a week's time, Kerry left the news story be about him for two full days. In the education known as politic's, John Kerry does indeed ride the little short bus.

That being said, the President saying that Kerry should apologize is just beyond the pale. I have tried to be pretty much a down the middle guy with this blog, but for George Bush to say that Kerry should apologize, then he damn well better apologize for the blood of nearly 3000 servicemen that is on his hands, with very little to show for that sacrifice of national treasure. He might want to apologize to all of the thousands of Katrina victims that his administration failed as well, or maybe he might just want to do us all a favor and shut the hell up.

Okay, enough of my musings for one evening, I am sure we all have better things to do, so maybe we should go do them, what say you all?