Ever wonder when you hear the evangelicals speaking from their pulpits they almost always quote the Old Testament? Here's why:

Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Can't really spread a message of hate with Christians running around thinking "If this person were Jesus, how would I treat him" now can you? So here's what you should do if these assholes are out protesting at a gay person's funeral or some other dispicable act holding up their signs which say "God hates fags," copy and pasted the following into your word processor and then print it out. After you print it out, go down to the protest site and just read it, or memorize it, or make your own variation.

Hi guys, I'd like to chat with you for a second. I want to read a passage from the Bible if that's ok with you. From the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
------------------------

Now guys, I ask you one simple question, is this how you would treat Jesus? Would you be out picketing him with signs that read "God hates you?" Would you be at the foot of the cross with signs that say "He's burning in hell?" Are these things you would do to Christ? If not, well, too late, you just did.

I'd do this myself but I live in a pretty liberal town so it's difficult to find that kind of stupidity here. I also don't ask you to do this for me, but for the families of the people these assholes hurt by staging their protests. Remember, they have a right to spew whatever bullshit they want, but you also have the right to talk back, make use of it and shut them up with their own beliefs. Oh and take a Bible with you just in case they think you're lying.

What have I been saying for the past 9 months? I've been saying the left needs to get over it's anti-Christ attitude and start pointing out the hypocrisy in the right's policy which they claim to be "Christian" if we want to win over the majority of people in this country. I've been saying that we will continue to lose as long as we're seen as the anti-Christs.

I was right.

Poll: Fewer See Dems As Religion-Friendly

By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

August 30,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Democrats' efforts to improve their image with religious voters after the 2004 presidential election appear to be getting off to a bumpy start.

Fewer people see Democrats as friendly to religion now than felt that way a year ago, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

That number has dropped from 40 percent in August 2004 who thought the Democrats were friendly to religion to 29 percent now.

"The change is seen across all groups," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, which conducted the poll for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

After Democrats fared poorly with religious voters in the 2004 election, the Democratic National Committee initiated numerous efforts to strengthen its standing with religious voters.

The DNC hired someone to coordinate religious outreach, encouraged state parties to work more closely with the religious community, and had Chairman Howard Dean meet with clergy and others in the religious community during his travels around the country.

"We're at the beginning," said Democratic spokeswoman Karen Finney, who said religious voters share many of the values of the Democratic Party. "But we know we need to do a better job of talking about our values in a way that people see we share their values."

More than half of those polled, 55 percent, said the Republican Party is friendly to religion.

A majority of political independents, 54 percent, said religious conservatives have too much influence over the GOP. Fewer than half of independents said those who are not religious have too much impact on the Democratic Party.

The poll of 2,000 adults was conducted July 7-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

So now that we have 71% of the country, which is dangerously close to the number of Christians in this country (78%), that believe we're hostile to their religious beliefs do you feel empowered? Are you fucking people trying to lose? What exactly do you hope to accomplish by attacking people's religious beliefs? Ask yourselves these questions and get back to those of us who want to show how hypocritical it is for someone to be a Christian and a Republican when you're ready to really take the fight to the fundamentalists.

I read this article on Salon.com awhile ago entitled "Getting Religion" and had kicked it around in my head for a couple of days but soon forgot about it. Since I woke up early this morning I decided to snoop around Salon and remembered the article so I decided to see if there were any letters in response. Sure enough there were, and, thankfully, most of them were against the opinion of the author, save one. Since it's a little late to send a letter to the editor in response to this article I'll just comment on it here, I need an entry for today anyway. So consider this also...

A Letter to the Editor of Salon.com in Response to Francess Kissling's "Getting Religion"

Unlike many of my fellow secularists I am not spiritually bankrupt. While the closest thing to my spiritual beliefs is Buddhism I make no claim on a particular religion, some say I'm an atheist, others an agnostic, and the ignorant claim I'm a right wing Christian covert operative. The latter are the people who are most damaging for the left, as are many other secularists who can't speak of Christianity without becoming egomaniacally elitist that they're some how better than Christians because they don't believe in an invisible man. How would I know? I was one of them.

While I'm still a secularist who believes in the seperation of church and state, over time I've learned that religion has it's place in politics to appeal to people's better nature, as well as their most vile, but the good usually wins out, when it can be heard. The problem is the left refuses to allow the good to be heard. Case in point in response to a female senator's proclamation "What I want to do is get on the floor of the Senate and ask, 'What would Jesus do about the budget? What would Jesus do about poor children? What would Jesus do about healthcare?'" Francess said "What I wanted to respond was that the floor of the U.S. Senate is not the place to invoke Jesus Christ." Her excuse for this is because she doesn't want to offend the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, the atheists, etc. Francess, let me give you some advice, stop worrying about who will be offended, infact, most people don't like political correctness and hate being talked down to and treated as if they're weak. That's what's most condescending for most people.

However Francess you do have a point, but at the sametime you don't. There's a mighty big difference between "What Would Jesus Do" and "Jesus Says To Do", one does not demand that Jesus be listened to and the other does. There's a big difference there. The Senator in question could just as easily add Buddha, Muhammed, Yahweh, etc in place of Jesus or right alongside him, but you ignore this point because "the hair on your neck stood up." Shall I tell you why? Because people like you don't have a problem with every religion, only Christianity. You won't find many "atheists" who will denounce the faiths of Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Jews, etc, but they're on Christians like white on rice. "Atheist" or "secularist" is not a proper name for those of you with this problem, "Anti-Christian" is far more fitting, and you make the rest of us look bad.

Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr was alive today and said what he said back in the 50s and 60s, y'all would shit a brick and try to silence him. "No we wouldn't!" The fuck you wouldn't, because there are many of us who say similar things to MLK that you fuckers sneer down at. I've seen Christian Progressives degraded and insulted simply because they're Christian and don't agree with the methods of the Anti-Christians. I've seen secularists who say that we should be understanding of the Christians and use their own beliefs to further our cause get personally attacked by the Anti-Christians. And for what reason? Prejudice and bigotry, reactionary forces created in response to reactionary forces, and the rest of us get caught in the middle.

Are there radical evangelicals who pay lip-service to the Christian belief and are total assholes? Yes there are, but they're a minority, so why is the secular left taking the position of lumping all Christians into the same boat? We're supposed to be the side of understanding but in the case of Christianity we attack it, ignorantly, and wonder why we do so bad at the polls. When is the left going to realize that we are in Christ's image, that every core belief we hold is spawned from our progressive fore fathers who held similar beliefs to Christ? Beliefs like every man's relationship with God is his own and only he can decide what that relationship is, beliefs like "let Ceasar's be Ceasar's and God's be God's" (thus the first seperation of church and state spoken by Christ), beliefs like helping the poor, the sick, the homeless, the weak, where do you think all that shit came from? It came from religion, and not just Christianity, but most religions.

I've been called an enemy of the left because I have no qualms with pointing out the hypocrisy of my fellow leftists, particulary the anti-Christians. They say I must be a right wing operative because I "attack" my allies, apparently they don't see the hypocrisy in the fact that they continually attack and degrade Christian Progressives and the most influential progressive of his day, Jesus Christ. If my sin is defending progressives from bigots in progressive clothing, if this makes me a traitor to the left, I gladly await my stay in hell.

I'd rather be a traitor to this facade than an enabler.

Ya know, a couple years ago you could have heard me saying "The prison system is too soft, we're paying shitloads of tax money to allow these people to eat regularly, sleep, and watch TV all day." However, now that I have an uncle in the prison system and I got a taste of what it's like in there having visited him this past weekend, I have to say, I was wrong... partly.

To be sure, I still say we have far too many people in the prison system, we have the highest percentage of people in prison in the entire world, including China which is supposed to be a more fascist state than the US. Most people in prison are there due to drug related charges, of course that wouldn't be so if drugs were legalized and the government stopped telling us what we can and can't do with our own bodies. When the prisons get full do they release some people with these bullshit charges? Nah, they just build more prisons! There's alot of money to be made off the prison system so it profits alot of people for there to be alot of people in jail, but I digress, that's not the injustice I want to focus on today.

"The prison system is too soft" is not an uncommon argument to hear from hardliners on the right, and some on the left, but ya know, it's bullshit. My uncle is currently in minimum security, remember that because you have to keep in perspective that everything I'm about to say goes on in the supposedly less restrictive level of the prison system. When I arrive at the prison (which only deals with medium security and below) I immediately notice the ten foot or so fence with rows of razor wire on the entire fence, on the bottom it's more like a triangle with three rows on the bottom level, two rows on the next level up, and then evens out at one row per level all the way to the top. It's pretty clear you are not getting anywhere near that fence, and that's if you get over the inner fence which has razor wire on the top third or so of the fence. I later learned that in the eight foot gap between the two fences there's a truck which routinely makes it rounds and sensors buried in the ground. So no digging out and no climbing the fence, you're in there.

I finish my smoke and walk into the prison once the family infront of me walks out and the guard waves me in. I have to empty my pockets and walk through a metal detector. I tell the guy my uncle's name and give my name because you have to be approved to see him before you even go to the prison which took over 3 months to get done. Everything clears so the guy starts inspecting my stuff and tells me I can't take my Zippo in and I'll have to leave it there. I asked him if the unopen pack of smokes is alright and he says yeah and everything else is cool too. Then he takes me into a room, shuts the door, and frisks me, but he could've strip searched me if he wanted to (it's on the form you fill out for visitation rights that they hold the option to). I'm clean so he leads me back out to the lobby where they take my picture for future reference. Then, and this shocked the hell out of me, they have a hand-scanner for taking your hand print. I had to stick my hand in the scanner three times for a proper reading and then I was given a little card with my visitor pin number (more on this later). OK all of the preliminary stuff done so this young black girl, had to be my age, escorts me through a number of secured doors which we have to be buzzed through one at a time. Then she leads me through this picnic area outside and into the prison wing which is a long straight tube with all of the prison dorms attached to either side but the visiting room is right in the front so we didn't see any of the dorms.

Once in the visiting room they have all these shitty folding tables and uncomfortable chairs set up. The girl I'm with hands a guard in there a piece of paper with my pic and my uncle's pic and the guard tells me to sit at this small table against the wall looking out the window (not much of a view, but better than staring at the wall). This whole process has taken about 15 minutes. I wait for about 30 minutes until my uncle comes in, apparently he was taking a nap so it took him a little while to get up there. It's been over four months since I last saw him and almost two years since we had any physical contact or something not between us with someone listening in so I hug him and we sit down. First I ask for and get the truth about the night he was arrested, which I don't want to get into at this point in time, then I ask him what's it like in the clink. Now understand in all of his letters he's told us how professional everything is and stuff that just sounded a little too easy, well that all went out the window. He said to read his letters and ad "not" infront of all the shit like that.

He says that you catch alot of humiliation and degradation the first few months or so you're in there because the guards don't know you and don't know if you're going to cause any trouble so any chance they get to put a boot in your ass they take it. If you're anything less than polite they'll give you shit. To illustrate what I mean, when we went out for a smoke break once my uncle took a drink outside with him when he wasn't allowed to, the cop called his name and nodded his head back towards the door, my uncle said "Yes sir, sorry sir" and took the drink back inside. Later he told me "Now imagine if I had said no to that guard. First he would insist that I take it back inside and if I still said no he would've beaten me over the head with his baton, then they'd throw me in the box (commonly known as the "hole") for awhile, and give me a year or more of close management." Close management is solitary confinement. All that over a fucking drink. Oh yeah and get this, you'll get six months in the box for horse playing, you only get three months for fighting. So I asked him more, "well other than that what's it like in the dorm?"

There are many dorms going off the long tube which I mentioned before, his is a smaller dorm that holds about 60 people and they all sleep on bunks that have lockers for their stuff. There's no air conditioning. Imagine that, being in a cement box in the south during the middle of summer with no air conditioning. Now also imagine 60 other hot and smelly sweaty guys in there with you, the funk is unimaginable. So what about TV? It's useless, they have the sound jacked all the way up to the point that you can't hear anything even when you're right underneath it. Not to mention the bass is so loud that you feel it through out your entire body and you never get used to it so the TV becomes a tool of psychological torture rather than a break from the situation you're in. You are constantly reminded where you are at all times and you're broken down until there's no hope left in you whatsoever and it's exactly the same every fucking day, what we call "Groundhog's Day." Also remember that this is minimum security prison.

I've never seen a man so happy to have an ultra light menthol cigarette and air conditioning in my life, you know it's bad when you see a man's eyes light up as if he were entering heaven over things we take for granted.

We talked for over four hours when they yelled that it was time to wrap it up. They seperated us into two lines, visitors and prisoners, but before my uncle got in line I asked him "So was it better than Groundhog's Day?" Again his eyes lit up and he gave a simple "yeah" that was heart breaking. I gave him one final wave while they escorted us out back to the door we came in from. Each visitor had to enter their visitor pin number and then place their hand in the scanner for ID verification before they were buzzed through. Once through I picked up my license and went outside to wait for my ride.

Anyone who wants to say that the death penalty is necessary to punish someone is full of shit. I'd like to see them last a month in prison and come back out saying the death penalty is still necessary. However, I also see now why alot of ex-cons are not reformed like they're supposed to be. Prison is a place to learn how to be a hardass with discipline, it's boot camp for criminals and is even refered to as "camp" by many. How can we expect them to come back into society and be decent citizens when we're giving them the training to be better criminals and teaching them that with certain amounts of power you can get away with anything?

Dedicated to both my uncles, the one who's confined to this world and the one who's not.

I expect alot of my readers aren't heavily into the politics side of gaming like I am but if you've been reading my blog lately you at least know about the Hot Coffee "controversy." Well for the past couple of weeks there's been another, smaller, controversy over another Rockstar game entitled "Bully." Naturally the name alone has anti-bully groups all in an uproar saying it promotes bullying and all of that reactionary bullshit, but here's the thing, the game's not even out yet! In fact all of the information anyone has on it so far are press releases from Rockstar which paint an image vastly different than what these anti-bully groups are espousing. In "Bully" you are not the bully, in fact, you're the opposite, you're the kid being picked on and your job is to get even. That sounds like every picked on kid's wet dream to me.

The most vocal group so far has been the charity Bullying Online which is like a support line for kids who need someone to talk to about being bullied which is fine and all but this group shouldn't exist. Their whole platform is based on the extermination of bullying, good luck guys, you might get it out of schools but those kids are going to be in for a real surprise when they get into the real world and find a boss who simply doesn't like them or an apartment manager or a neighbor or a whole slew of people who just want to make their lives difficult. Now I'm not saying this makes bullying alright, I'm saying it's simply a fact of life and it's never going to change. The percieved strong pick on the percieved weak to keep the weak under control, that's just how it is. The only way you can break the mold is by standing up to those harassing you, bullies do not mix it up with the strong, that's why they're bullies.

Out of all the reasons I've contemplated suicide, being picked on has never been one of them. One reason being that I'll put up with alot and blow alot of shit off, the second reason is that once you cross that line which gets me interested I'll make it known real quick that you don't want to fuck with me. To give an example, the first year I was part of the Academic Decathlon my team mates would give me abunch of shit about my smoking, at first it wasn't any different than any other bullshit I caught from other non-smokers but then they also started jabbing at my race (I was the only white kid in the class). For awhile it was just little jabs here, little jabs there, typical friends poking fun at each other type shit but then it became an every day thing and it just became old and offensive. The final straw was coming in late one day to find a big black ink spot on the floor near the trash can where the teacher had dropped the printer cartridge, that had nothing to do with me and wasn't offensive. Although not a minute after walking through the door and noticing the spot I also noticed that everyone, including the teacher, had these big shit eating grins on their faces when they looked at me, naturally I was like "What the fuck are you smiling about." Apparently one of my teammates had made the comment "Oh look, Toshiro sneezed there", that was it, and the girl sitting across from me who was laughing with the rest of the class, noticing my disgust for the comment, said "Oh cmon it's just a joke." My response? "Yeah, it's also the type of shit which causes things like Columbine to happen." Boom, the room went immediately silent with the exception of the girl across from me going pale white saying "That's not funny man."

My teacher whipped me from the room and started laying into me about how he could have me expelled for a comment like that. I shrugged and said "Hey, I put up with racism and cracks about my smoking every fucking day and never say a word, and now you're here telling me I could be expelled for stating a simple fact?" My teacher wasn't stupid though, he knew what I was doing with that "simple fact," I was making a threat without actually making a threat, but it worked, they cooled down on the racist jokes and the comments about my smoking. The point being, if you don't make it clear that there are consequences to the bully's actions, they'll continue to bully you. Running away, ignoring it, or snitching to the teacher only make it worse, the latter could find your ass severly beaten somewhere where the school has no jurisdiction. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world but I'm sure it's not that different from the schools here.

Hell, our politicians are the same way. Do you really think Dubya and the other scumfucks could get away with even a quarter of the shit that they do if gun sales suddenly went up and the general populace rattled their sabres from time to time? Fuck no. There are a little over a million people serving in the military around the world, there are over 270 million Americans, if just one percent, 2.7 million, of Americans rattled their sabres, politicians would be scared shitless. The last thing they want is a mob of nearly three million people well armed and looking for blood. Watch how quickly we get things like national health care and a minimum living wage. All of that "We have to worry about the shareholders" bullshit will fly out the fucking window. Cozing up to lunatic fringe groups like the Religious Right, out the fucking window. Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the lying snakes who plague "political" TV, out the fucking window, infact they'll jump out. These people are cowards and the moment you illustrate that their harassment has gone too far their tune will change mighty quick.

People, you can not run from bullies, you can only face them and deal with them. The question is, when is enough enough?

Don't know how many of you remember March 24, 1998 or it's relevance but it was the day of one of the worst school shootings in the late 90s with a kill count of five and eleven injured. Columbine wouldn't come for another full year. As reported by GamePolitics, Mitchell Johnson, the oldest of the two shooters (at the ripe old age of 13 at the time) is being released on Thursday now that he's reached the age of 21, alot of people are bothered by this, and surprisingly so am I. It's not really the fact that they shot up their school that bothers me, I mean if it were the Columbine two I wouldn't be so concerned, but this kid, he's a killer.

I remember when this shooting took place, I too was 13 at the time, and the reason I remember it is due to how smart these two's plan was. They didn't just go to school and start randomly shooting at people like the Columbine two, no these two actually used what could be called a "smart tactic." Now before you get all ruffled up I'm not saying what they did was smart, I'm saying how they did it was. Here's what they did, they set their position up right infront of one of the school doors, right where they knew people would come out during a fire alarm, they or a third party pulled the fire alarm to the school and when the people came walking out they open fired. It was like a conveyor belt just feeding them victims while they shot 27 rounds into the door way until the people in the back got wise and started running back into the building. Before it was all over they killed one teacher, four of their female peers, and wounded eleven others.

Wow. Seriously, wow. They used a tactic which would allow maximum damage with the guns that they had and their ability to fire them, I don't care what anyone says, that's fucking smart, and dangerous. This fucking smart kid is now going to be released within four days, is he truly cured? Has spending seven years in a juvenile prison really done what it's supposed to? The state of Arkansas could be releasing a smart, efficient, and now more mature killer, I hope I'm wrong.

Through out the past month or so there's been a huge uproar over the mini-sex game which can be unlocked in GTA San Andreas by a simple mod which edits the censor code. People were throwing a fit as if God were ready to come down and smite us bringing with him the end of days. The mainstream news media naturally blew up the situation and made it worse than it was. The original sex minigame put in by Rockstar wasn't completed, as can be witnessed by the fact that both CJ and his girlfriends were fully clothed during these moments. It was like watching an episode of the OC but less annoying and more clothes. This isn't the clip the media showed though, the clip they showed was of CJ fully clothed whilst his girlfriend Denise was butt-ass naked, which was not a feature of Rockstar's original game. In fact if you read the version release notes of the Hot Coffee the second or third version release added nudity to the scene. So what's Rockstar guilty of? Scenes of two fully clothed people simulating sex, I've seen hotter shit on FOX.

Groups like the Peaceholics, an illogical and ignorant but well meaning non-profit group in Washington D.C., say Rockstar is guilty of inciting kids into a life of crime and they use the fact that car jackings and insurance premiums have risen in their city. I guess they never considered the fact that people are getting poorer under this administration and have to resort to crime to eat. Either way they say Rockstar, the gaming industry in general, is turning their children into professional criminals. This is nothing new, every time some new media comes out the ignorant get their panties all in a wad and blame the entertainment industry. They've bitched about music since the early 20th century, then it was movies, then it was more music,then comics, then it was TV, music again, and now video games. They all say the samething, such and such is making my kids deviants. Here's a thought, maybe your kid was a deviant to begin with.

One of the big talking points amongst pro-game industry enthusiasts is "Why are these people in the minority then? Why are the vast majority of gamers not going out and committing these crimes?" I can tell you why. There's a difference between having the means to do something and having the will to do it. The means is easy, for example if I wanted to make a bomb and start terrorizing my city I could use household chemicals to do the job, but why don't I? Because I don't have the will to. Likewise, after I've played GTA or Half-Life or Manhunt for a little while I do not have the will to go out and do what I saw in those games. So here's the scary thing, why do these minority of kids have the will to do these things? This is the question no one's asking. Why do these kids go out and jack cars and beat up people when the majority of their fellow gamers don't have the same will to do so? This tells me there's something wrong with the kid before they played the game, not after.

This is a dangerous line of questioning in the political world and, and I REALLY hate to say this but, George W Bush has been the only person to have the balls to say what the real issue is, lack of parenting. Now "lack of parenting" is a very broad term, it not only covers things like abuse and blatant neglect but it also covers inadvertant neglect, like the parent(s) who simply don't have the time to be parents because they're having to work long hours just to keep their heads above water. This is how it's dangerous politically unless you're very careful with how you word it. There are bad parents out there, but there are also parents who mean well but can't catch a break and it's not fair to them to be lumped in with the genuinely bad parents. Sadly this is what happens and when something bad like the shootings in Alabama (see GamePolitics or my Friends section) happens the fingers are naturally pointed at the parents asking them why they didn't have more control over their kids. Instead of responding with "Well what the fuck do you expect, we're working our asses off just to get food on the table and keep a roof over our heads" they respond with shifting the blame to some easily demonized source, in this case it's GTA and other video games (Note, this is not the case with the current trial in Alabama, the father of the teen was abusive).

So how do we solve this problem? Well for one you're never going to get rid of bad parents, they're out there and there's nothing anyone can do about it so to worry about them beyond arresting them for child abuse is pointless. Bad parents are being dealt with the only they can be. However, in the case of well meaning parents it's all about politics. Demand of your representatives that every person in the country have healthcare. Demand that they put a stop to our high paying jobs being sent overseas. Demand that they increase funding into alternative fuel sources and get us off expensive gas (which will not only lower traveling expenses but also the cost of foods and other goods). Demand that they overturn the Bush taxcuts which put the tax burden on the backs of the middle class. Demand that they overturn the recent bit of legislation which doesn't allow people to declare bankruptcy on their credit card debts. Demand that they instate a minimum living wage. Demand that they make the wealthiest people in the country pay their fair share instead of making the poor and middle class pay it for them.

Demand that they give the working and middle classes room to breathe and the ability to prosper, demand the American Dream back!

Anyone who frequents GameSpot for gaming news knows that they have a (mostly) weekly editorial called "Rumor Control." Like the name says it deals with rumors in regards to the game industry. Today's was interesting, to say the least, when I read Rumor 2, supplied below.

"RUMOR #2: The FBI is investigating death threats e-mailed to Florida attorney and feisty game industry critic Jack Thompson.

Source: E-mails threatening great bodily harm forwarded to this and other publications by the attorney himself, as well as a Thompson-penned plea to Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman (sent to their offices and media outlets, including GameSpot) wherein Thompson asks for "help your respective offices could give me in persuading the FBI to act in response to these threats."

The official story: "People are threatening to kill me." And: "The FBI is all over these." --Jack Thompson. "No comment." --FBI spokesperson, North Miami Beach Division.

What we heard: Among the dozens (and dozens) of unsolicited e-mails this Web site has received from attorney Jack Thompson over the past weeks, a handful were singular in nature: they included e-mails purportedly sent to Thompson which contained threats on his life. By anyone's standard, the e-mails sounded dastardly, indeed. One read: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.] Another forwarded to GameSpot from Thompson read: "this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds." And a third: "Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered." We gasped along with Thompson. When we alerted Thompson that we intended to seek out additional details and verification of his claims from the FBI itself--as to the status of such an investigation and progress being made (the FBI employs trained media specialists for such purposes), Thompson replied with some urgency: "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me."

Bogus or not bogus?: With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth, and an FBI agent who doesn’t overtly deny that an investigation is underway, likely not bogus."

Before I get into their determining of how bogus this story is, lets go over some things. First for those of you who don't know who Jack Thompson is, he's a republican dipshit lawyer down here in Florida (Miami) leading the crusade against video games. He's popular at the moment due to his criticisms, and lies, of the GTA franchise. The guy's a fucking sociopathic liar, it's been reported by numerous gamers who have contacted Jack that his response was short and crude, one being "All gamers should be exterminated." No joke. Now mind you I'm talking about people who have sent Jack very professional emails with no swearing and no personal attacks which certainly deserves more than "You should be exterminated." Just my opinion of course but imagine if you sent your congressman a well written polite letter and you got back "Fuck off you fucking idiot, we'll do what we want," you'd be pretty pissed off. Well actually, they do that anyway they've just mastered the art of auto-response and tickling you while they rape you in the ass but I digress, most people in the professional world act, you know, professional. The fact that Hillary Clinton and other politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are getting involved with this clown is not too astonishing what with wanting to appeal to the "moral heartland" and all (I guess appealing to the spirits of the fore fathers never crosses their minds) is still disgusting none the less.

With that out of the way let's talk about GameSpot's rumor call. "With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth," I don't know where these guys have been but trusting a lawyer's word is like trusting Satan that he'll get you into Heaven. I mean, lawyers lie for a fucking living, their job is to either put someone in prison or keep their ass out of prison by any means necessary within the court room. Fudge some truth here, have some evidence dismissed there, it's all about getting the jury to see their version of events. That's their job, so, unlike GameSpot, I'm not taking this guy's word based on the fact that he's a lawyer. Oh yeah and there are very few, and I mean very few, lawyers who work for justice. Those lawyers you'll find in non-profit practices who work pro bono or have worked in the State Defense Attorney for years, but guys like Jack with their own practice, it's all about the money. I mean he's a proclaimed lifelong Republican sticking his nose in the ass of the most evil liberal of all (according to the Right) Hillary Clinton. This guy is far from what I would consider a reliable source as far as truth is concerned.

Now look at these emails he was supposedly sent: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.]

Not only does it sound like a Jack Thompson speech, it's also laughably stereotypical. I mean, come on, seriously, this guy's trying to make a career out of making gamers look like unstable addicts and he just happens to get an email supporting his beliefs? Yeah, right, and Adolf really wasn't a bad guy. Next!

"this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds."

I find this one to be pretty laughable too but I noticed something here, Jack's a shitty lawyer. Now the first "letter" is clearly a direct death threat but this one, show me where the person said "I will kill you" or any variation. It's not there! The person says "until you die painfully from gun shot wounds," that's not a threat! According to the law that is not a threat due to the ambiguity of the language. No wonder you're trying for a political career Jack, you suck in the court room. Next!

"Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered."

This one could be real, infact, it probably is, but again you'll notice there's no death threat. The person says the world would be a better place if Jack were brutally murdered but he never says he is the one that will murder him. Come on Jack, you supposedly know the law, this is Semantics 101!

So what's Jack's response after GameSpot says they want to confirm his allegations? "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me." Stop bothering him? Hey dipshit, you emailed them first buddy. This line also stinks of "I'm lying and I don't want you to confirm it." It's pretty clear to me this bullshit is nothing more than a stunt for Jack to further demonize gamers and the game industry.

To GameSpot's credit they did call this one correctly, the rumor was "The FBI is investigating death threats" which is more than likely true, sadly.

So bogus or not bogus?: FBI investigating death threats, not bogus. Jack Thompson's life being in danger, bogus, but knowing Jack's paranoia that all gamers are killers he probably believes it to be not bogus. Gamers sending hollow death threats, probably not bogus knowing the mentality of certain gamers. This being a PR stunt for Jack Thompson, not bogus.

I added another blog to my friends list, this one being by Dennis McCauley who runs GamePolitics. If you have any interest in video/computer games and the political culture surrounding them, Dennis' blog is what you need to read. Top-of-the-shelf reporting by an actual reporter! Hey, who knew that good reporters still existed? Dennis has been a long time video game columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Check it out.

In other news, LiveJournal needs to add a "hungover" emoticon.

It's not uncommon for me to hear from others "You need to be more respectful," and usually I can't see where I've been disrespectful and it's dawned on me why that is. People don't know what the fuck "respect" is. So what exactly is respect? Well the best way to explain it is with the ugly baby analogy, that being if a friend of your's has an ugly baby you don't go "Damn, that's one fuckin' ugly baby," instead you bite your tongue, nod, and smile when your friend's speaking baby talk repeating how "kewwwwwt" the kid is with the occassional "yeah" thrown in for good measure. That's respect because it's something they can't control and saying their kid's ugly serves no other purpose but to hurt their feelings. This isn't how most people think of or use respect though. In reality most people use respect as a form of control, especially when you say something about their behavior which they take offense to. If someone's being a hypocrite and you say as much that's not disrespect, that's called criticism. If someone's lying and you say as much, that's not disrespect, again it's criticism.

Too often people use respect as a means to shield themselves from criticism. Look at Bush and his cronies, whenever there's some negative report against them they come out swinging claiming how disrespectful and tasteless the report is. This same behavior can be found in the left too, Democratic Underground has become infamous for banning anyone who doesn't agree with them completely and justifying it as banning "disrespectful members" or "trolls." Same too for a number of other liberal forums as well as conservative forums (I've been banned from Sean Hannity's forums for simply disagreeing). So why do people do this? It's to continually justify beliefs and behavior which those who disagree with them would conflict with continually. It's about power and living in a fantasy world where you're always right and you have your little squad who comes in and backs you up whenever some n00b with a difference of opinion puts you in your place. If you can't beat the n00b down, well you can just ban him.

The funny thing is that when you get these people in a corner who start demanding respect (rather your loyalty not to criticize them) they are the first to start throwing around childish name calling, or, my favorite, they start claiming that you're immature. Again they say these things because they know most people will clam up because god forbid they look immature and disrespectful, that would be a travesty, especially if they're an egotistical morally elitist liberal. People like me on the other hand don't give a fuck. Yeah ok according to you I'm disrespectul and immature, great, that still doesn't mean you're not a hypocrite, a liar, and an idiot to boot. But hey guess what, instead of getting pissed off at someone's criticism of you why don't you, you know, stop being a hypocrite, a liar, and an idiot? Instead of living in your fantasy world why don't you join the rest of us in reality and pull your head from your ass?

They won't though, not unless they're violently shaken out of it. They're like crack addicts, they're addicted to the fantasy world that they live in, that fantasy for most people is that they are morally superior to others. Show them their white pale lips or the tracks in their arms though and they go into a fit of denial, just like an addict. You need to wake up people, the fantasy land you live in of being in control and superior is destroying your lives, either through your inability to effectively fight those in the higher echelons of society who abuse this addiction or through your farcical idea that you are one of the higher echelons when you're not. You are no better than me, I am no better than you, and at the end of the fucking day we all end up in the same fucking place, six feet under. Deal with it and get over your bullshit notions of "respect."