Cowart and Shlesselman are Cowards

On Nov. 5, 2008, it is very likely that President Obama will be America's first black president. And there has already been an assassination plot on the man.

Two white supremacists, unsurprisingly from rural Tennessee and unsurprisingly high school drop-outs (I hate stereotypes, but they originate from somewhere), planned to kill 102 black Americans and Obama or die trying (88 shot, 14 beheaded, 88 and 14 are important numbers to the white supremacists.) Fortunately, their spree was stopped before it began and these two turdbuckets are off to jail for a long, long time.

More on these assholes here

And yet, I find this sad. This is the United States of America where people are suppose to have different opinions. People are suppose to be able to speak their minds and live in relative equality with each other. These two idiots are such cowards that they fear that their white supremacy ideas might just be evil and wrong and that a black man IS capable of governing this country.

They can disagree with Obama all they want, but attempting to kill the candidate you don't like is unpatriotic and cowardly. This is not how our nation is suppose to be run and it makes me sad that there are inbred swine here who would do this.

This isn't the only election-year issue either. There have been vandals on both sides who are scratching cars and vandalizing homes because the owner put up a sign supporting Obama/McCain. What is up with this bullshit? Are Americans no longer being raised to tolerated different opinions? I thought this nation was founded on difference of opinion? I guess some Americans are too primitive realize this.

In other news, Barack Hussein Obama is not a Muslim.

Since Obama even started running, long before the DNC, people claimed that the Illinois senator was a Muslim. I've known that the man was a Christian for several months now but still today you hear people cry out that we don't want no mooslim for president. You just can't eliminate ignorance.

And even if Obama was a Muslim, would this be a bad thing? No. I'd still vote for him over McCain. Americans need to learn that not all Muslims are terrorists. Any time I've slammed Islam in past blogs, I've been targeting fundamentalist Islam. The normal, moderate, day-to-day, Muslim is just an ordinary guy who follows the Qu'ran as much as a normal, moderate, day-to-day Christian follows the bible. Having a Muslim president would not mean anything. It would not make us weak on terrorism. He would not implement an islamo-fascist theocracy for our government. There are Muslims and there are fundamentalist Muslims. It is time for the US to realize the difference.

Heineken Lager Beer, brewed in Holland

J Kuhl Signing Off

Hypocrites

So a chainmail is going around claiming that Obama shows a lack of patriotism. He had the North American Airlines logo (which is a US flag) replaced by his own 'O' symbol. Since he removed the American flag on the aircraft, people are crying out that he hates America.

Well, take a look at this:



I give you John McCain's airplane.

No American flag on the tail of McCain's plane.

Bunch of hypocrites.

There's more to the story here: Fight the Smears

J Kuhl Signing Off

Terminal Security Administration

The TSA may as well be one of these guys. Security my ass, the TSA is more Gestapo than security. They don't make us safer, they just get in the way of law-abiding citizens.

Dammit, I'd rather be hijacked than deal with TSA anymore.

Just recently, the great TSA searched a disabled, wheel-chair bound woman. Seriously, is an 85 year old woman going to be any sort of a threat? What is going on with this country? Why is everyone so afraid of terrorism that they'll give up their freedoms for security? Its disgusting.

And why is the TSA a bunch of incompetent fools that don't do anything except get in the way? I don't feel safer. I'm in as much danger now as I was on 9-11-01. Even with all the security measures up, the terrorists will still find a way in. They ban guns? The terrorist brings a knife. They ban knives? The terrorist brings a CD and breaks it in half and uses the shard. They ban CD's? The terrorist whittles a toothbrush into a knife and smuggles it on board. They ban toothbrushes? The terrorist uses a ballpoint pen. They ban pens? The terrorist uses a pencil. They ban pencils? The terrorist finds something else to use as a weapon. Until we are naked and handcuffed to the seats, we won't be perfectly secure.

So what do we do? We get rid of the full body searches. We lessen the bans. No weapons or sharp objects obviously, but get rid of the asinine bans on harmless things like water and other liquids. No, they won't succeed in making a bomb in the bathroom. We keep the metal detectors but increase the efficiency so we don't wait three goddamn hours to get through. We add armed air marshalls to every flight. We make cockpit doors bulletproof and locked from the inside and give the pilots and flightmembers guns and self defense training.

Since we can't stop the terrorist from boarding the plane, we should rather plan to stop the terrorist once he's on the plane.

J Kuhl Signing Off

Uruguay and Cows

I came across this article today:

Lightning strikes only once but kills 52 cows

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) -- Lightning struck only once - but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais reports that the cows had pressed against a wire fence during a storm when the lightning bolt struck in the northern state of San Jose.

Full article

And later on, this article:

Uruguay hosts biggest BBQ, grills 12 tons of beef

MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - More than a thousand barbecue fanatics in Uruguay grilled up 12 metric tonnes (26,400 lbs) of beef on Sunday, setting a new Guinness world record while promoting the country's succulent top export.

Full article

I just wonder if the two incidents are linked. 52 dead cows are a lot of beef and it would be a shame to let them go to waste like that. Why not have a big BBQ out of the incident?



J Kuhl Signing Off

Half Life

The Best Video Game: The Half-Life Series.

Half-Life is more than your typical first person shooter. It has a captivating story line, an amazing atmosphere and requires more thought than simply running in, guns-blazing (although it has a number of sequences like this.) With the Freeman's crowbar (and later, Gravity Gun) the player must navigate obstacles and defeat enemies not with firepower but with objects in his environment. This makes the game far different than other FPS games, requiring strategy as well as quick reflexes.

One example of this is in Episode Two, when Gordon Freeman must defeat a helicopter, but he has no rockets or grenade launchers and his weapons are ineffective. His only hope is to shoot the mines that the helicopter drops back at the helicopter with the gravity gun before they explode in Freeman's face.

Another example is in Half-Life 2 where Freeman is trying to escape City 17. He's in a room with a large grate and a ladder that goes down into a partially flooded chamber. There is a pipe that the player needs to go through, but he cannot jump high enough to enter the pipe. Rather, he must go back up the ladder, place a barrel at the edge of a ledge, jump on to the barrel, then onto the ledge and move into another room with a number of pipes and a wheel. The player then jumps to the wheel, turns it, and the water level rises dramatically and now he can swim through the pipe into another room. There is a ledge with an exit, but the ledge is too high for Gordon to jump to from the water, but below the water, are several objects that float. If Gordon can break those objects free, he can jump from those floating objects and onto the ledge.

The game play is well done. The fight scenes aren't overly long and are interspaced with realistic puzzles as I mentioned above and the major fights require not firepower, but strategy. I remember the Strider fight at the end of Episode Two, it was very difficult and challenging, but it was fun because it was unorthodox and required you to think and strategize and prepare.

The story is also captivating. It has all the elements in it, intrigue, horror, twists, and a little bit of humor. Essentially in Half-Life, a portal is opened in which alien forces named the Combine invade earth. After Freeman fights them, he's put into stasis for years until Half-Life 2 occurs. In Half-Life 2, the Combine has defeated earth in a 7 hour war and have claimed dominion. Gordon Freeman becomes a part of the Resistance.


Intrigue: Throughout the series, you encounter the mysterious G-Man. In Half-Life, he shows up as the game begins to reach its conclusion and in Half-Life 2, he awakens Gordon Freeman at the very beginning. There are several times when you can spot him while you're traveling through the world, but only for a few brief seconds and only from a distance. He appears to have employed Gordon Freeman for . . . something, but it isn't explained what his motives are or who he's working for. It is uncertain whether the G-Man works for the Combine, the Resistance or for himself. He speaks peculiarly, with odd pauses and stresses on words that don't require stresses. Hopefully, when Episode 3 comes out, the G-Man will be explained. The G-Man stands out so well because the rest of the story is clear cut.

Horror: Throughout the game, Gordon encounters zombies. Zombies are the result of headcrabs. Headcrabs are little creatures that attack in large numbers and infest their host by attaching to the head. They take control of all the functions of the victim and the victim becomes a zombie. Half-Life made the element of surprise in this game, as zombies often come at you where you aren't looking. They'll hide in dark corners where you won't see them. They wail when they attack. From the sound it seems as if the victim still retains some of his humanity as you can hear him wailing in distress, even though it is muffled by the headcrab. It can be very creepy. The city of Ravenholm is completely infested by these zombies and can be come very creepy and suspenseful.

Humor: The game is serious but there are snippits of humor. One example is the stereotypical Dr. Kliener, who is the typical nerd scientist. He's balding and fascinated with physics and has a tame headcrab as a pet that likes to cause problems. There is also Father Gregori who lives in Ravenholm, who's half crazy and trying to "save" his congregation from torment by killing them (the zombies.) It is just enough to keep the game serious but apply comedic relief.

It is a very captivating game with an interesting story line. If one doesn't keep track of time, one might find himself playing the game all day long.

"Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman" - the G-Man

J Kuhl Signing Off

Agnosticism

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