'Ol Mike doesn't make any terrific leaps of philosophy. Nothing outside of the usual left-ish ideology. But he really does do a good job of concentrating the 'facts' that history has neglected to mention into a concrete argument; even if he does have a tendency to occasionally digress into a somewhat 'in-your-face' rant (even this is a mean feat for a book). So, overall, a pretty good book; but it's left me in something of a dilemma.

For the past couple of months now, I've been having this nagging feeling. It's been like my subconscious mind has been pondering something, and I haven't been able to figure out what so I could help it along. I sort-of got the feeling I was beginning to understand something innate about people.

I've been 'observing' the manner of the people I work with, especially the 'sales team'; who's only job (let's face it) is to lie to people in order to extort money out of them. And as my brain cycled over the problem I felt I was coming across a realisation (of which I'm still not sure what the answer is). Something to do with good and evil I thought.

Reading Mike's book; what seemed to be serial lying and commited deviousness on behalf of america's current government and it's bedfellows, the rich and powerful of america's capitalist economy, correlated quite well with what I (and everyone) see(s) in the workplace everyday. You just don't get the same effect until all the shitty little dealings are concentrated down for you.

I'd like to think I have something along the lines of 'faith in humanity'. Not in a 'pat-your-own-back aren't we all great' fashion, or a 'god has faith in us' way; just that through the ability to empathise we have the ability to distinguish when we are hurting someone (emotionally, or physically); or when we are royally fucking them in a business deal, we're not doing 'the right thing'.

Which brings up the whole concept of right and wrong; good and evil. This is where I thought I was going, but it still doesn't feel right. I still don't have the answer. I will maintain for the moment in conclusion, that there seems to be two types of people; those who empathise and those who don't (or at least don't care about it); and here comes the really confusing part.

Supposedly (check the social science journals), empathic sense develops in the first few years of life; when it is important for a child to recognise the emotions of it's parents/family. It is neither absurd then, nor a leap of intelligence to say that bad parenting (esp.in the first few years of life) might be the cause of these 'nasty people'. I'm still not so sure, I might just be going off on a random tangent again.

It turns out that homosexuality is one step beyond intense ultra-violence on TV.

"“Television is the biggest avenue for mainstreaming and normalizing homosexuality... Television is the thing that is driving a young generation to embrace and accept homosexuality as ‘normal.’" -everything christian.org

update: 13 million Christians sign gay-hating petition. Grow the hell up.

I've just got dressed for the first time in 62 hours. Clothes feel strangely restrictive.

My friend came over last night and I drove her home in the comfort of my dressing gown. I felt like Arthur Dent (not as in the late Arthur Dent). I was having breaking down/house on fire/earth being destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass worries the whole way. And I forgot my towel.

The captured "Saddam" is on TV, on the World Wide Net, and in my paper. It's almost as if he is being paraded, for public curiousity. 83% of Americans can't even locate Geneva on a map anyway.

"Saddam" has been captured. Apparently without a fight, which is rather convenient for the USA who, after failing to capture Osama, had a lot riding on capturing Saddam alive. Some reports suggest "Saddam" was asleep when they found him, which is odd.

Could the Americans have used some chemical weaponry to send "Hussein" to never-never land whilst they burst in and dyed his beard and applied a prosthetic mole to the side of his head? Would these be classified as WMD? (either the "sleeping" gas or the facial hair dye).

Also, why haven't those of the Land of the "Free" captured any Saddam lookalikes yet? It's rather odd as he reportedly had a number of clones bandying about Iraq before the war. You'd expect the "most intense manhunt in history" would have made a few false positives by now, no?

Anyway, the terrorism is officially over now. Saddam, a 70 year old sleeping ex-tyrant hiding in an underground cupboard, had clearly been running the entire show. Now that he is captured, we are all safe. And so is the Bush administration.

You know the meeting is coming to an end when one of the other participants says, and I quote, "are we done? because my tits are bursting".

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the aggressive pursuit of militant leaders in Afghanistan, saying the Pentagon is equally happy to capture or kill them." -bbc.co.uk

Capture, or kill. We may capture them, but we may also kill them. One or the other.

I really don't know what to say. I mean, we all know the USA do what they hell they want and kill whoever the hell they want to kill but don't their spokespeople have public relations teams? A baseline of lies is the minimum expected.

You'd expect the PR people would have changed that to "...the Pentagon wholeheartedly respects human rights and international law, but you know, accidents do happen, you know, in the fog of war."

I wonder if these fundamentalist relgious leaders (the US government) have actually read their bibles and realised that they are going straight to hell when the party ends.

The USA have stopped the illegal steel import tax they were using to piss France off (or something). This is entirely due to the UK. This is because on Bush's visit to the UK, El. Presidente de facto Tony Blair told him how it was going to be. Bush is *our* poodle now. We are incontrol. No longer the UKA (United Kingdom of America)! We're independant. We're calling the shots. In your face Israel. We should burn the whitehouse again.

Next we should demand the USA dismantle their Newclear weapons of mass peace enforcement to build smoke detectors.

I'm just a drooling rambling fool aren't I. Yes. I am.

I found out today that Nestle make watercoolers.

The paranoid part of me wonders if they'll get us all addicted to their pleasantly chilled water then cut off our free source and force us to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it instead.

Of course, that's me just being paranoid and ridiculous - after all, Nestle would never do something like that. They make Smarties so they could never do anything that evil.

I got a webcam working but who actually fucking cares? Not I. Consider it unplugged. It's boring. I'm ugly.

I got a new coat. I've been wearing it a lot. I wore it at lunch time in the "common room". People think I'm cold but I just like being warmer than I would be without the coat.

Googlism has told me a few things about myself: