so this country is going

so this country is going to hell in a handbasket, and i don't know what to do about it. i hate the direction we are going in, but i'm at a loss for what i should do to change it. it seemed much simpler when i was a kid, and everything was in ultra black and white. i feel like someone needs to take a stand, and cause a true revolutions in america, but how does one start. i know i would participate if a revolution started, but i also feel like no one is going to start one. the bad things are happening, but they are happening so slowly that it's going unnoticed by most of america. of course maybe the rest of america wants the kind of america we are becoming, and i'm the fucked up one. anyhow, i'm starting a log of my craps balance, as per a suggestion from my friend todd, starting today. i am up $19.

wow, so many things to

wow, so many things to talk about.

first off, working sure cuts into my web time, as you have probably noticed since i haven't updated this in over a month.

second, what about the us soccer team, and how come they are still ranked so poorly? they are behind mexico, and we have beat them so often recently. i guess we just won't have respect until we start calling it football like the rest of the world.

third, all the court cases.

the pledge of allegiance. come on folks, the words "under god" were added to the pledge when mcartheyism was starting, and congress was in the midst of the anti-communism cold war hysteria. they never should have been added to begin with, why the uproar now that someone with some intelligence wants to take them out? i don't buy that "god" is a generic term, and therefore unoffensive. it offends me that we have it in our pledge, on our money, and in any government ceremony. i realise that the constitution only says that congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, but it is clear from correspondence between the founding fathers that they truly did mean a separation of church and state. since the supreme court has ruled that atheism shall be considered a religion, that means that the government can't use the word god. i think they should take it off our money, keep prayers out of our official ceremonies, and shoot dubya for stating that our country was founded on god. it may have been, but they were smart enough to prohibit the government from dictating religion, since so many of them had fled persecution to come here.

school vouchers: come on, why take money away from the public school system when it so deperately needs it. let's address the problem instead of passing the buck. some religious schools are good when it comes to education, but so many are shitholes. my cousins went to a school where in biology class the first thing said on the first day of class was, "we are going to learn what science says, and then we are going to learn what's right." the same teacher also stated that the moon takes 1 day to orbit the earth. now it's been a while since i studied it, but even i know it takes either 27 1/3 days to complete an orbit, and 29 1/2 days to return to the same position in the sky(the second is longer because the earth continues to move as the moon orbits it). vouchers do not provide a choice when the vast majority of them are one religion. if there were viable non religious schools, that would be fine, but there aren't. religious schools were not established to provide better education, they were established to provide education slanted towards their religious beliefs. i have no problem with someone sending their child to a religious school, but i don't want to pay for it. we should spend the money to fix the public school systems where needed, not take the money away and send it to private religious schools. taking the money away will result in worse public schools.

oh, and now we can
force prisoners to confess to things in therapy(which is required or they get their standard prison rights taken away) that they have no immunity for. so if you are in prison, and going to therapy(which should help you to reenter society as a functioning person) you no longer have your fifth amendment right to not incriminate yourself. thanks again for destroying the constitution.

wow, i'm out of breath. summer ultimate season is upon us, and my team once again is sucking. we aren't really that bad, but we just haven't been able to gel recently, so we are winless. it's not really that bad, as the first 2 games were very close, but since then it's like we've lost our confidence. hopefully we will stage a comeback in the second half of the season.

i'm still waiting for my income tax refund to come from minnesota. it's been almost 90 days now, and only in the last week have they even had my return in their computers. i am holding out hope that it will come soon. i have it spent in my mind already, and it would be nice to actually have the stuff i intend to buy.

if you haven't looked recently, look at the weather here in vegas, it has changed from a bragging point to a bitching point. man is it fucking hot here, but the only time it gets really bad is when i have to get into my car, and i can't touch anything. it really is like winter in fargo, i need a remote start to cool down my car before i get into it. :)

i went to see joe strummer a few weeks ago, and i have to say that he was incredible. lots of clash songs, and the new stuff was good too. i will be going to see tmbg on the 28th of july, and i am excited to see them. when i saw them at first ave, they were very good, so i am anticipating a great show. i'm also planning a trip back to mn at the end of august to go camping in the bwca. i'm going to try to get a whole week off, so that i can visit people too, but we'll see what happens. anyhow, i think that i've written enough for now, i will try to be better at writing in the future. it seems like i have a couple of lapses in writing every year, but i keep writing anyhow. i think it's a subconcious thing to keep my readership down. :)

just one final note, those of you who use netscape should be more able to read my page now, as i've added a browser check, and created 2 stylesheets.