Do This to a Telemarketer
Mood:  suave
The next time some lifeless female drone calls my house looking for one of the many, many Mexicans who formerly had my phone number, I'm going to thank her for calling back from the 900-number service and then ask if she'll wait for me to get my lotion and paper towels before we begin.

Down with the Saudis
I hear the Saudi government is now convinced that terrorism is a great threat to its own authority. Now that they've had a few bombs go off in their backyard. Of course, for all we know, they ordered that shit done to themselves to appear as though they are not complicit in the doings of al-Qaeda. They're just a bunch of bankrollers for all of those Wahabbist sacks of shit. I'm not fooled, even when they send in that prissy little ambassador with the good English. Try again, towelheads!

Right
Let's get absolutely clear about something that really matters. What should be the ideal state for man? One in which freedom and autonomy are valued above all else? I think so. That is a better state than subjection to the Government or subjection to an oppressive culture. There's lots of alternatives, of course: you could live in communist China or Cuba or Viet Nam. Or even North Korea. Individuality in such societies is suspect to the authorities. That is, the very thing you are ---an individual--- is subsumed into the greater whole around you. But that's not a patriotic feeling I would wish to have. Coming to Kim Jong-Il on your knees? Nah. Fuck that. Nobody who prizes the dignity and the integrity of the individual can approve of what he is and what he does. He has brutalized his people in ways we Westerners can only imagine. So can we agree that there are leaders in this world who do harm to their own people and their own cultures because they themselves are fucked up? Sure we can.

Now, a cynic (and a very hypocritical one at that) might, at this point, make the terribly witty observation that our own President is a leader who is harming his own people and culture because he is waging a war with which they cannot agree. The anti-war Left sees George W. Bush as an enemy to be destroyed. Why? Because they hate him for defeating their candidate in 2000. They think he did it fraudulently, even though you can show them all sorts of evidence to the contrary. They are wrapped in an obsessive caccoon of hatred for the President because they think he is a dumbass and a thief and a warmonger. But what is he doing that is so intolerable to THEM? Getting our soldiers killed? Well, that's unfair. The leaders of great countries have ALWAYS sent young men to fight and die abroad to effect some great change in the way of the world. That is what is happening now. Bush is trying to reconfigure the Middle East and it is a huge undertaking. It is a bold and brave undertaking ---and he gets no credit for the breadth of his design, which escapes most people who are caught up in their own little intellectually-stunted world of masturbatory illogic and incompetent vision.

Our President and his people are trying to do what we have a genius for doing: we spread our own belief in democratic humanity and the blessings of liberty all over the world. We impose it at the point of a gun or at the tip of a rocket or in the sublimity of a mushroom cloud, but we will always impose it. Why? 'Cause that's our job. We force people the world over to recognize their own dignity and their own potential to live freely and to trade freely and to succeed by dint of their own labors. We liberate the world. That's what we do. And whether they admit it or not, they know they ought to love us for it. We burned the imperial impulse clear out of the Japanese soul. We humbled and reconstituted the German nation in recompense for the stupidity of their racist idealism. Yep, we mongrel motherfuckers have had it out with everybody ---including ourselves. And what for? So that any human being anywhere can believe that, no matter what, there is still a culture left in this world that will come and fuck you into a hole until you admit that a man's right to breathe and think freely is greater than any lousy religion or despotic state. And you know who it is, baby: it's the right and will of the American citizen. We got friends? You bet. And they'll get theirs as long as they know who their best friend is. He's the destroyer of tyrants and despots and towel-headed sacks of fascist shit. Every American soldier who dies in the service of this great cause of our time is a father or a mother to the next world. They are the righteous ancestors of a great peace and true justice. Fuck the cynic in his ass to his sternum. Fuck the hypocritical liberal turd who has no sense of justice anywhere in his heart and who lacks the moral vision and clarity to support our triumph over these medieval enemies of the modern world. Whose side are they really on? They can say all they want about how they are performing their patriotic duty by undermining the President when he is working hard to make Iraq a success, but they are seditious know-nothings. Don't they know how many thousands of Saddamites and Muslim garbagemen have yet to be slaughtered before our goal is met? Make just one more mistake, Abdul: Billy Yank and Johnny Reb are going to come flatten your fucking house.

Irene Terrazas
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "I Got You" by the Split Enz
In the course of my professional duties last night, I had occasion to speak to a woman named Irene Terrazas (which may mean "peace on Earth" somehow). She is apparently a nice Mexican-American lady who is in a transitional state with me and everyone else this side of the Rio Grande/cultural divide. That is to say, when I asked her to pronounce her surname (repeatedly, because I did not understand it the first couple of times), she launches into the well-known "news anchor accent" mode by trilling out them R's like a jackpotting slot-machine. Terrrrah-sas, Terrrrah-sas...

Well, guess what. I think that's a silly thing to do. You, of course, will think me a close-minded, culturally-insensitive bigot, but hear me out: Irene says her given name (what they used to call a Christian name before the ACLU and the Communist menace, generally, showed up) just like anyone in, say, Iowa would: Eye-reen. Just as American as mom and apple pie. But with Terrazas? No. She's still gotta own every tongue-flicking millisecond of them R's so that Gringo McCrackerputty can't get next to her at the party. Get it? It's a matter of cultural resistance, unconscious or not, but that's what it is. And I say that sucks. Wanna know why? 'Cause you KNOW my great-grandpa Henry (whom they called Heinrich until, well, YOU know...) was saying Petzold a HELL of a lot differently than me. He probably put a big old T-sound on the end of my kraut-given surname and did a few other things with it, too, that wouldn't occur to ME. Why? 'cause by the time Petzold got to me, we had buffed the edges off a little so that the other folks around town could have a fair chance at being able to pronounce it well enough to communicate who we were. And, to this day, a Z in your surname will send half the American population into a tailspin of enunciative discomfort and incompetence. People have such godawful trouble with my bisyllabic, relatively-easy-to-pronounce German surname that it has caused one of my siblings to permanently pronounce it with the use of a joy-buzzer. It's ridiculous.

So, Irene Terrazas, I'm glad you're here. But let that trilling shit go. Your surname isn't so rare that an educated man can't figure it out if it just weren't so damned elaborate y liquefrou-frou.

A Meaty and/or Logical Theory of Our Weather
Mood:  on fire
Have I mentioned lately what worthless sacks of shit TV weathermen are? I don't suppose it makes (much) sense blaming them for the absolute indian summer-like weather we are still experiencing EVEN IN FUCKING NOVEMBER, but there's an obvious inverse correlation between the amount of high-tech crap they're so proud of and their actual forecast accuracy. And when I say it doesn't make much sense to blame them for this preposterously un-autumnal weather, that is to say that Shawn Rutherford of KXAN is the single greatest reason why Austin experiences nine months of summer every year. He is obviously the Spawn of Satan because there is no day hot or bright or humid enough to slake his overheated, dessicated, and bleached-bone sense of climactic discomfort. This is the only possible explanation, for who could imagine a weatherman less inclined to the joys of a nice, juicy thunderstorm? A real soaker, see. Or, how about a nice cold snap? One that might kill off some bugs? Oh, no! Not His Repellency! Not the Everlasting Dome of High Pressure Itself. I mean, FUCK this guy! Who is he being a shill for? The Board for Unpleasant Afternoons? The International Council for Nights of Ninety-eight Percent Humidity? I am SICK of this cracker mofo! I want cold days and even colder nights NOW. Not several years ago before Rutherford of the Nether-regions emerged on the scene to scare away the weather a normal man would like to see. Think he's taking on too much of the blame? Nonsense. His physical existence in the Austin metropolitan region actually causes entire systems of ripe low pressure to split up and go around this town only to remerge again to our south. Tune into him sometime: who knows why he says what he says? Is he just trying to placate the phoniest anchor team in Austin TV by praising all hot weather and sunniness and damning with faint expectations anything that might appear cool or cold or overcast? Maybe THAT'S it. Maybe it's their fault. Wendy Woolfolk and that mumble-mouthed [quipster] Chris Willis: blame THEM.

Down with Smoking!
Mood:  loud
Smoking sucks. No more smoking! There's no such thing as a social cigarette smoker. They're always there. Stop! Stop! You're killing yourselves. You're paying money to the Government so that they can subsidize tobacco growers back East and kill YOU off faster so that you won't be around as long to take your Social Security payments and use up their Medicaid funds. It's a giant plot, folks. They WANT you to die faster. Don't pay the G! STOP SMOKING!!!

Breaking My Radio Silence
Mood:  down
Have been in a black hole lately and can't make myself care enough to show up here like I should. I am sad about our losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can't we go back out there and start hammering down on some of that dog shit until it learns its lessons? There's no way a self-respecting superpower is going to sit there and take it off of these Saddamites and Saudi and Syrian "ex-pats." If they want war, I say take it to them.

I am also absolutely demoralized at my job, the particulars of which I cannot share. Suffice it to say, the situation there has been through what I would call an unprecedented degree of dissolution. You would agree if I elaborated. Nevertheless, there are some irons in the fire and, if one of them gets selected for some further work, that'll be fine. Because I know I would love to run some people through.

Anyway, I'll try to make it back around. I DO appreciate the kind words of my friends who visit here. They were wondering what had become of me, but I wasn't able to come up with anything good. Still, I enjoy this and will try to keep it up. Again.

Get Serious
Mood:  cool
I saw something in George W. Bush's demeanor at his photo-op with Jerry Bremer the other day that reminded me of why I didn't vote for him. It was this clumsy, but studied, kind of superciliousness that couldn't conceal a very real impatience with the press. It's just the kind of attitude that can piss off a friend at a hundred feet (and infuriate an enemy at a thousand).

The reason why this matters is that it's emblematic of a much larger failure for this Administration. They have absolutely lost the PR war in a dozen different ways. Yes, the imbedded reporter was a stroke of genius, but that was to keep our minds on the danger and our hearts strong for victory. Now we need ("now" being the past several months) a clear and coherent message to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis and, just as importantly, to make it clear to those against the war here how it's paying dividends. But the Administration has dropped that ball repeatedly. They've wasted a lot of time and energy on trying to redefine the terms of post-victory insurgency when what really mattered all along is that they kept their word and acknowledged the truth of the situation.

Rumsfeld's memo was honest, at least.

Just getting steamed up.

Need to fucking level Tikrit, though.

Carpet Bomb Tikrit. NOW!
It's pretty clear that the guerilla war or insurgency or whatever you want to call it that's going on in Iraq needs to be addressed with a renewed American offensive. Will it piss off the moderates there who aren't trying to kill us and the UN and the Red Cross? Probably. But enough's enough. We need to find Saddam and butcher him in the middle of a soccer field in Bahgdad. We need to carpet bomb Tikrit and drop any other hammer we've got on the rest of these dead-enders. After that, let's help Sharon level Damascus.

You've gotta be the biggest piece of shit in the world to load up an ambulance with explosives and bomb a Red Cross hospital.

Let's never again talk about the sanctity of the "holy month" of Ramadan. These Muslim garbagemen don't respect it; let's not, either.

Jeb Bush Is a Tool of the Religious Right
Mood:  don't ask
Let's be clear about something very important: people with terminal illnesses and irreversible brain/organ damage are facing an unspeakable crisis of being, whether they know it or not. Necessity gazes into their eyes and does not blink or look away. Necessity says: You must fight now, either to stay alive for the sake of others and yourself, or you must fight to achieve a good death (which is what euthanasia means in Greek). Let no one dare question your choice. The outcome isn't changed, but the way there is yours. That is the whole of human dignity.

Some people choose to fight so long as they have some hope and something to fight for. They pursue any and all medical options and, if need be, go into tremendous debt. That is their choice. But others may choose to let go and not endure any more pain or incur any more debt. That, too, is a dignified choice ---and one that ought not be questioned or precluded by the meddling of others.

Thus, I am utterly offended by the actions of the Florida state legislature and their governor, Jeb Bush. For political purposes, they have singled out a woman who has been in a vegetative-comatose state for over 12 years whose husband last week won the right to pull her feeding tubes to let her finally die. They passed a bill specifically to allow the governor to order that her feeding tubes be restored. And that's what he did. Ridiculous.

It is outrageous enough that a law be passed and signed to allow the intervention of the state in the affairs of a particular individual, but it is worse that the issue at hand is this woman's life and dignity. What do those pro-life religious fundamentalists know about her? It's sickening that she could be used this way. Wouldn't her husband know better than anyone that she would never have allowed herself to have lingered in a coma and be a useless vegetable had she known in advance what fate had in store? She's condemned by the Florida state legislature to remain in her own physical hell because the religious right believes that euthanasia is against God's will?

Fuck that shit. Don't presume to dictate terms for political gain, you sorry bastards. You got into her family's heads and made them think they were doing right by this woman. But it's her husband who knows the truth. Who would choose to be a vegetable? Human dignity is greater than any notion those stupid miraculists could possibly conceive.

Just Di
Mood:  don't ask
Oh, and another thing: I don't give a good damn about Diana Spencer, either. She wasn't a saint or a martyr or in any way interesting. I don't know how many points this takes off my personal Anglophile Index, but the Queen of Hearts is easily the most overrated dead celebrity of the past decade. She used the press when it suited her fancy and then made a great show of avoiding them when she was in a pique. And what's the story now? She foretold her own death? You think British intelligence had some hand in it? And there I was thinking it was because she and her boyfriend thought it would sporting good fun to instruct their drugged out and drunken chauffeur to go blazing through the streets of Paris and into a tunnel at 100 mph to avoid ---what? The TEN BILLIONTH SNAPSHOT OF THE GREAT DIVORCEE BEING FAMOUS AND TROUBLED?!?! Bah! Fuck that nonsense! Diana died because of vanity and recklessness. Quit pumping her up and let it go. Fifty years from now, if it takes even that long, her memory will have faded so utterly from the Western cultural pantheon (to which she was elected solely on the basis of emotion and shock, anyway) that the only historical interest to be had in her is how so inconsequential a figure could have exercised such great control over the British monarchy and the media which covers it.

To the Author of the "Deep Blade Journal"
I appreciate your responses to my blog, but you've made it impossible for me to reciprocate. For some reason your URL having an underscore in it keeps me from being able to pull it up and read. I just get an error message. Is there another way into your site? Drop me a line and let me know.

There's a Lot of Stupid Shit Going on
Mood:  on fire
There's a lot of stupid shit going on in the world lately, but I absolutely MUST register my disgust with one particularly egregious case.

Monday, a grand jury here in Travis County, Texas chose to indict a police officer for criminally negligent homicide in a June 2003 incident where the cop was trying to apprehend a car thief and had to shoot the culprit to get him to stop the car, which the sorry bastard was basically trying to use as a weapon to drag the cop to death.

Basically, the cop (a young guy named Scott Glasgow) is a moron behind the wheel who is always wrecking his unit. Okay. He sounds like a dumbass who can't follow procedure as well as he should. But, in this case, I don't care how many procedural points he failed: the bottom line is that the piece of shit he shot five times had stolen that car! And, instead of giving up and taking his lumps, the piece of shit decides to fight back and use the car to drag Glasgow, who then shot the piece of shit to keep fom getting killed.

Jessie Lee Owens (the piece of shit in question, who now resides in a box six feet under where he ain't gonna be stealin' nobody's shit no more, you know what I'm sayin'?) was, at the time of his cry for help against the white power structure, coked up and had significant amounts of painkillers and marihuana in his bloodstream. Sounds like the guy was fucking up and fucked up when he did us his final favor. Too bad. The guy was 20 and already had a rap sheet full of car thefts and assaults and other crap. Oh, and he's got a child, too, who will almost certainly grow up to be just like the old man. All of this is very surprising.

I want all of you lousy pieces of crap who are defending Owens to understand me perfectly: Officer Glasgow is a hero who did this community a favor by killing that piece of shit. This town's going to wind up wasting a lot of money on this nonsense and that's pissing me off already. You aren't going to be making any money off of this without a fight, you sorry losers.

I only wish this were a hundred years ago. Steal a man's horse, will you? You're gonna see this town from about 15 feet up and swingingly, you wretched animal. Good riddance and God bless that dumbass Glasgow.

Uhhh...Winnie the Pooh's Arm? ("It's Not Acting Right!")
Mood:  surprised
So, I'm washing my hands in an upstairs restroom in this building a few hours ago when I stand back from the basin and begin drying my hands with a length of rough paper towel I've cranked out. Then, I notice beneath the counter that there's this tan-colored object lying there on the tiles. It's a mammalian moment, see. The hominid just HAS to know what that thing is. But, it's a fairly fastidious hominid that may not want to touch it or to know.

A weird fruit of some kind? A crushed velour burrito? A hand-axe from a dig in Tanzania? Let's kick it and find out!

KLAANGGGG!!!

What the fuck?! It's cast iron!

Tee hee!

I take off and I'm not going back. What the hell was that thing and why is it sitting there like that?

Friday Night
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Humming pieces of "Ode to Joy"
Still not much to tell. Losing my interest in the usual things. A sure sign of depression, but it could also just be a transitional period I'm going through where everything is getting reprioritized. Who knows?

I read a good chunk of the lawsuit the Dumbocrats filed in Tyler the other day and it's flimsy. I've only read a few briefs (is that what they're called?) like that in my time and I am always surprised at how very similar in tone and quality they are to a high school forensics exchange. Nothing more dignified than a whine, a whimper, and an old cite to put some patina on it.

Also, a few friends have sent around an e-mail in support of [and maybe opposition to?] Michael Kinsley's latest screed against the President and how much of a ditz he is. It's all very undignified. Why can't people just address the issues and stay off the ad hominem shit sometimes? Al Franken and that kind of shit make me madder than a hatter. It's worthless in terms of understanding what's really going on. Yeah, yeah, I'm guilty of calling Gonzalo Barrientos a rummy and Ben Sargent a jack-officer, but aren't we supposed to expect more from those whom Public Opinion depends on for its information?

Diarytic
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: "Don't Sleep in the Subway" by Petulia Clark
Sorry I haven't posted here in a while. Even the events of an unproductive life can intervene and make blogging even less relevant than usual. But, that doesn't mean that good things don't come of staying informed and passionate about this thing or that.

Okay, so UT lost big to OU. That's no reason to call for Mack Brown's head. He's a good coach and a hell of a recruiter. We'll get ours. Vincent Young is just a freshman and we're gonna see better days. Count on it.

And how 'bout them Cowboys? They are doing surprisingly well and I am proud of them. How long has it been since I could say that?

Oh, and the evil Republicans in the Texas State Legislature finally got their way and destroyed all hopes everywhere for minority voting rights in this state. There are so many reasons to hate the fucking Texas Democratic Party that it drives me nuts. How can they be such grandstanding hypocrites and still look people in the eye?

So long, Doggett. So long, Frost. Better go learn some Spanish and some break-dancer moves if you want back in.

And the Albuquerque Assholes? They seem like such mental pygmies to me; people who could be crushed with a few minutes worth of explanation.

The biggest chumps around, of course, are those Dumbocrats who think they've got a winner in Wesley Clark. For all you idiots know, he's a GOP plant. You think that because he's a general and a Purple Heart recipient that he's going to make the country forget what losers your party is when it comes to defense? He's running a GAME on you schmucks and you don't have the wits to see it. Good luck. You could run an agitator in a washing machine with the back-and-forth of his position on the war in Iraq. He's a poser. Over and out.

See Ya, Lloyd
Mood:  surprised
If what I'm hearing is true, I must say I am shocked that Jake Pickle's old district in the Congress could be cut in half in this new redistricting scheme. I never thought it'd happen with all the high-profile socialist-pinkos living in this town, but there you are. Hmmm. Now, old Lloyd Doggett's going to have to answer to a slightly different demographic. Or, is the seat just gone? Can't wait to see what they've cooked up. All I know is that, for the first time in all the years I've lived in that district, there will at least be a chance at a competitive race. Who would've guessed?

Beat Your Bishop with Ol' Ben Sargent
Mood:  sharp
Now Playing: "The Stroke" by Billy Squier
The local paper's cartoonist Ben Sargent had one of his little drawings in there yesterday featuring a kid learning about who wins elections in America. He asks the enormous-assed schoolmaster (an anthropomorphized GOP elephant) if it's the one with the most votes who wins. The Republican mascot dismisses the child's naivete as he writes "Recount, Redistrict, Recall" on the blackboard.

So, what part of this dog-flogging hippy sack of shit's cartoon ISN'T a lie?

Recount: Other than the wall-eyed and paranoiac Leftist press, no one believes that Al Gore could possibly have won any recount of the 2000 Presidential vote in Florida. The only exception to this is if everyone had suddenly adopted a completely unprecedented and monstrously unfair and illegal standard by which to conduct a recount of the undervote in a handful of Democratically-controlled counties. Do you stupid fucks even know what that means? Remember it as I do: Al Gore placed this country's political stability in jeopardy because, apparently, he believed that any ballot which had no indication of a choice for President must somehow have been a ballot cast for him! It's really as simple as that. He and his idiot enablers actually believed that they could somehow divine the intention of a voter from a blank ballot. And let us also be clear that all of that talk about minority-intimidation and ballot-box chicanery was a bunch of lies. Al Gore lost the vote in Florida because of the utter incompetence of both the typical Floridian Democratic voter and the idiots of that very same party who ran the show in those counties where the most fuck-ups were committed. You can't blame ANYBODY for that but DEMOCRATS THEMSELVES. Now, WAKE THE FUCK UP AND STOP LYING ABOUT HOW THE BUSH FAMILY RIGGED THE VOTE IN FLORIDA, YOU STUPID KNOW-NOTHING FUCKWADS!

Redistrict: Again, Sargent, who should spend more time studying the Constitution than hanging out in splatter-booths at local adult bookstores, should know that redistricting is a function reserved to the state legislature. The current House district map was one drawn up by a Federal judge. The one before that was drawn up by a bunch of gerrymandering-minded Democrats who came up with boundary lines that created an artificially-high number of Democrat-controlled districts. There was nothing the Republicans could do about that then, and there isn't much the Dums can do about it now. Except to whine and be pussies and run away to other states. Tough. I only wish that that Plloyd Doggett would lose his seat, but there's too many high-profiled Dums in this town to allow that.

Recall: Sargent rounds out his lies with a reference to this evening's gubernatorial recall and replacement in California. Is our local wanker unaware that California law provides for the recall of its governor? That's what the citizens of California did. Constitutionally, passionately, and righteously. That's tough shit for you, Ben. Why don't you go draw a picture of the President with a [Charlie Chaplin] moustache?

A lot of Democratic analysts and operatives today know that their base is too stupid and uneducated to realize when they are being lied to, and, so, they feel free to persist with these perversions of the truth. They wish to prey on the average dumbass' poor memory and weak grasp of History by insinuating wherever and whenever they can that the President and conservatives in general are subverting democracy and are trying to establish a Nazi regime in Washington. The methods of losers like Carville, Begala, Franken, and Streisand are beneath contempt. Real Americans ought to corn-dog them with red-hot fasces.

Hey! If you're going to be guilty of the crime, you may as well commit it!

Laundry List
Mood:  don't ask
1) Islamic Jihad prepared and equipped a Palestinian woman to strap a bomb to her own body and to dentonate it in a resturant in Haifa during the Jewish high holy days.

2) This woman, a lawyer in her 20s, killed herself and 19 others, including Arabs and Jewish infants.

3) Syria knowingly and with impunity allows Islamic Jihad to operate training camps and other infrastructure within its own borders.

4) Israel retaliates by bombing the hell out of a training camp inside Syria. They probably didn't even kill any of those monsters. A measured response.

5) Syria wants the UN to condemn Israel? Get the fuck out of here, you sorry bastards. The only mystery anymore is why Israel doesn't flatten Damascus. I hope we help them bomb the hell out of Damascus and anywhere else we can find Assad's son and the rest of those Ba'athist bastards.

What is happening in the minds of Islam today? Why are so many of its practitioners poisoned and psychotic? Must be something wrong with that religion.

The Pope Is Down on Queers Again
Mood:  cheeky
The Pope has told the Archbishop of Canterbury that permitting openly gay clergy in the Anglican Communion will harm Christian unity. This is a slap at the Episcopalian Church's new Archbishop of New Hampshire, who is openly gay. (The Church of England and the Episcopalian Church are linked through the Anglican Communion, which, I guess, is something like the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution.)

Naturally, Il Papa is right, but that's only because he is Mr. Catholicism. Of course he wants to see Christian unity, but that's not where the Christian religion is at its best. It is far more successful when no one can get along and they all do their own thang.

Why's that? Well, because a lot of Christians want women to belong in the Church ---and at every level. The women who don't want women in the Church are just saying that because the Pope says so. Those are "good Catholics." Now, go ask a Protestant woman what she thinks. She's going to tell you that women do belong in the leadership positions of the Christian faith ---and what's the matter with you? What, half of the world's population is disqualified from leading a congregation or ministering to the wretched or witnessing to the unconverted because they're female and Paul said no to that? Foolishness. Protestants accept that women have more than one role to play in their faith.

Okay, so what's another reason to want to keep Christianity splintered and disunited (besides annoying the old pollock)? Because lots of Christians see nothing sinful or wrong with homosexuals. What are these leaders of Christianity thinking when they deny their gay brothers and sisters the right to worship alongside them and to participate like anyone else? It's retarded. You want to see the true ecumenical spirit? Stop denying women and gays their rights as Christians. Accept them as they are and get healthy. Christianity would have split into its various denominations a long time ago, anyway, but the Vatican should never have turned against marriage for its priests and it should never have turned a blind eye to its many gay clergy and it should never have waited so long to acknowledge the pedophilic problems in its own house.

Remember: ecclesiastical unity may be a political strength, but it is an enemy to human liberty. Theocracies have served good purposes in human history (e.g., Ancient Israel, Puritan Massachusetts, etc.), but they have also become fascist terror-states (e.g., the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Ayatollah's Iran).

Say no to the Pope and say yes to wives for priests and to women and queers in the pulpit.