I am such a lesbian.  I've been watching Xena all day.

And thinking about my wifand.

Not that the two are related.

And trying desperately not to think about the job.  Or rather, the lack thereof.

Interview's over... I think it went pretty well.  The boss lady said she doesn't think there's any question that I can do the job and that her only concern is that I might get bored.  I tried to convince her that no, I wouldn't, without looking, like, super-desperate.  She wants to decide by Tuesday or Wednesday, she said, and nobody knows how many other people she's interviewed or is going to, so... Everyone else in the office thinks I have a good chance.

Job interview tomorrow--well, today now.  No clue how that's going to go.  But I'll be wearing pantyhose.

Really weird taste in the back of my mouth, kind of like blood, but it's not blood.  I don't seem to be bleeding.  Sometimes I think I might be about to throw up, but... no vomit yet.

Things are not going well for my wifand right now.  I need to figure out how to afford to get to East Ass-scratch, Mississippi.  But I've got to drop all my money and some of my mom's on my stupid anti-seizure meds tomorrow because the goddamned doctor's out of town and no one will authorize the generics.  And if I get the job, it's not like I can take off right away.  But my wifand needs me, dammit.

I'm a terrible spouse.

I'm pretty much a terrible everything, though, so I guess this comes as no surprise.

I'm wearing nothing but a thong right now.  It's not nearly so fun as it was five years ago.  Why the hell did she ever want to sleep with me anyway?  Seriously.

I want to move out, but I can't.  If I got the job, maybe I could.  But then my mom would still need help, and I wouldn't be able to help her.  I need to just die or something.  Maybe in my next life, I'll be useful to someone.

Wish me luck on my interview.  And send some happy energy my wifand's way.

I had a weird dream last night, like I was in Degrassi and I was making out with someone who's not even really on the show and Paige was making out with an old lady.  I don't even watch the damned show.  So far as I know, there are only two people who were ever on the show that I find really attractive, and neither of them is Lauren Collins.

Oh, well.

I have a job interview on Friday morning at eleven.  Huzzah!  I'm too fat now to fit into all my dress clothes.  Not-huzzah!  Pondering what to do about that.

I can't manage to begin my story.

I need to clean my room.

I need to eat lunch.

Cuddy won't admit she's in love.

I've never been on a job interview before.

Casey's going to get dumped soon, I think.  But I don't know how soon.

You know something?  I miss being in love.  I miss feeling something besides anger and frustration and depression and loneliness.  Even when I was in love with someone who didn't love me back, I still... I mean, I love my family, but... my life is pretty much empty now.  I have my friends, but I can't see them, I can't feel them, I can't reliably get in touch... it's not like having someone you know you can get to if you need help or advice or simply companionship.  And it's nobody's fault (except maybe mine for not being worth being around), so I can't even get mad about it, but even if I could... it's been a very long time since I felt a genuinely positive emotion.  My fault again, I'm sure.  Most of the problems in my life are.

I just miss being in love.

Goddamned brain tumor.

As it turns out, all the caseworker wanted to see was my ID and Social Security card.  So hooray, she didn't forget/neglect to check things on the back!

But let's start from the beginning.  I rolled out of bed at around a quarter to eight, dressed, brushed my teeth, and printed a copy of my bank statement and tucked it in the folder with my letter and various bills.  My mom had tucked a few dollars in my pocket for bus fare, but it was so pretty outside and I had plenty of time, so I decided to walk.  It was a nice stroll, except... there's not really a continuous sidewalk up Page, so I spent some time trying not to get run over.  I wandered around the DSS lot for a while trying to find the right door (they have several), and then I just picked one and went in the ask for help.  Well, I picked the right one!  Go, me...  Anywho, at about a quarter to nine, my caseworker called me back to her cubicle.  She was nice, and she certainly didn't seem as unintelligent as her letter indicated.  I showed her my IDs, she asked a few questions, and then she said that I get my food stamps!  My EBT card should arrive in the mail in a week or two, and then... hoorah.  I can buy food again.

So this is what it feels like to be on the dole.  Now I just need to figure out how to become one of those welfare queens they used to bitch about.  I sure could use a Cadillac.  Heh.

And it looks like Al Franken will finally be a senator!  Yay!  This day just keeps getting better.

Speaking of Minnesota, as you may or may not know, Michelle Bachmann has been encouraging her constituents not to fill out the census, mostly because she's a paranoiac.  I was watching Olbermann earlier, and he quoted someone (whose name I didn't catch, sadly) who pointed out that if her constituents don't fill out the census, even just a few thousand people, Minnesota's population may be underreported.  If it looks like Minnesota's lost residents, Minnesota may lose congressional seats as well, and according to the guy whose name I didn't catch, Bachmann's district is the one most likely to be eliminated.  So with Keith Olbermann, I say, please don't fill out the census, Bachmann constituents!  Please!

In other news, I made banana bread today after my mom left for her second job.  I put in some of the blueberries and cherries we got at the Overland Farmers' Market (small, but totally worth going) this past Saturday, and I used maple syrup instead of sugar, but I haven't tried it yet.  I'm waiting for my mom, who won't be home until 10:30-11:00-ish.  I sure hope she likes it.  (Side rant: I love Aldi, but I may never buy produce there again.  The tomatoes were fine, the bagged lettuce was halfway dead, but the potatoes started sprouting eyes the day after we got them home, the pineapple I got fermented before I could slice and grill it, and the bananas turned brown within a couple days.  The produce nearly all spoiled before we could eat it!  Grr...)  Then, while it was baking, I balled a French Kiss melon, and let me tell you, that stuff is like crack.  It looks like a brighter cantaloupe, but it beats the pants off any cantaloupe I've ever eaten.  Yum.  Then the bread was finished, and I made myself a veggie and hummus pizza on a flatbread (from Aldi, I'll admit, and delicious).  I should've put more spinach on it.  Next time.  Actually, when I started making it, I was planning a wrap, so I didn't pile it as high as I would usually for a pizza, because I was hoping to be able to roll it up.  But then the banana bread was done, and the oven was still on, so I stuck the flatbread in for a couple minutes, but I didn't put on the peppers and zucchini and whatnot that I usually put on my pizzas.

And let's see... Friday, my dad's giving my sister another driving lesson, and if it's not too hot, afterward we're going to play a little basketball.  I suck at it, but we have a good time, and it's exercise, and it's time I get to spend with my pop, so... there's no downside.  Besides, if I keep up with my dad, I might actually stop sucking at some point.

Saturday, he and I might take the twins out to the big fireworks tent in St. Charles that he and my mom used to take me and Shannon to; if we go, we'll get all the noisy sorts of things that you don't have to light, and probably some sparklers, and if we can't find anywhere else to do it, we'll be bouncing around in my mom's driveway.  Fortunately, my mom and dad get along pretty well, and the twins like my mom, and they love the pets (though Kylie can't touch them), so there will be fun to be had.

Sunday, my mom and I may go see the new garden/sculpture park that opens tomorrow downtown; it's on the mall facing the Old Courthouse and the Arch, and it looks beautiful.

I think that's all.

My breasts are swelling, and they feel like they weigh about a hundred pounds each.  I've been craving Krispy Kremes and other non-vegan foods (I admit, I succumbed a few days ago, but self-flagellation will take care of that).  The period is nigh.

I get to jaunt up Page tomorrow to be interviewed and convince some public servant that I can't afford food so please give me food stamps please.  I hope the woman is more intelligent than her letter suggested:

"WE NEED TO HAVE A FACE TO FACE INTERVIEW REGARDING YOUR FOODSTAMP APPLICATION IF YOU ARE EMPLOYED PLEASE BRING IN YOUR LAST FOUR (4) CHECK STUBS AND A ID AND SOCICAL SECURITY CARD I CAN NOT COMPLETE YOUR CASE WITHOUT THIS INFORMATION."

At the bottom, the letter says, "Please read the back of this letter and bring or have available the information checked for your interview."  So, like a good girl, I turn the letter over, and... Nothing's checked.  Not any of the "Proof of All Money, Savings, or Cash You Have" options.  Nor the "Proof of All Income" options.  Or "Proof of Expenses" options.  Or any of the other things.  Sigh.  So I've gathered up the most recent statements for all my bills (at least, the ones I can find), and I've got copies of my medical bills and my last prescription receipt (about $158, as I recall), and tomorrow morning I'll print me off some bank statements that show that, hey, I've got no moneys!  The last hundred bucks I put in was a pity gift from my grandparents, who want to try and cover my meds until I find a job and can pay for them myself.  My dad tries to give me some money every month.  And my mom buys all my food and toiletries and whatnot, along with the food and litter and hay for Lester.  If I don't qualify for food stamps... who the fuck does?  So hopefully, this'll go well.

Oh, and I've yet to hear from Unemployment.

Hmm... my mom's boss was back in the office today, and my mom let her know I'm looking at the job.  She said she hadn't received any applications from HR yet, but my mom gave her a copy of my CV.  Fingers crossed, folks.  But...

For whatever reason, the optimism I've had about this job kind of died today.  Right now, all I feel like is... I'm not going to get the damned job.  They'll hire someone else with more experience and fewer degrees and... I'll still be a loser.  Hoorah.

And then... I got incredibly lonely this afternoon.  I have friends, but I have no regular physical contact with any of them.  Most of them aren't in St. Louis, and the ones that are are too busy (and understandably so) to see me.  I see my parents and sisters regularly, and... that's it.  It'll probably be another five years before I have any intimate contact again.  It's not like I need it, but... you just get lonely sometimes, you know?

I got my black "UNINSURED" bracelet today.  Go, me.

There's some crazy people running around as military chaplains these days, man.

See Jim Ammerman, head of the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Church, who presides over seven or eight percent of military chaplains.  He thought last year that Senators Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama ought to be "arrested, quickly tried, and hanged" for voting against a bill that would have designated English the official language of the United States.  Back in 1997, he claimed that Jewish bankers control the American economy (maybe he's friends with Jesse Duplantis?) and called for Bill Clinton's execution.  He's also a fan of the New World Order type conspiracies (all as part of Christian apocalypticism, of course-- don't you remember where the Antichrist was a socialist Democrat?), and he promotes these conspiracy theories with his pal, James Linzey.

And that Linzey, boy, he's a real fun guy.  He thinks Jews control the U.S. economy, too, through the Federal Reserve-- something the Holocaust Museum shooter also believed-- and he also believes in the Illuminati and Freemason conspiracy theories.  This poor sap even believes the Protocols of the Elders of Sion is true.  That tells you right there his elevator doesn't go all the way to the top.  According to Linzey, the Jews are going to send foreign soldiers to invade us and steal all our stuff and rape us and whatnot.  Eventually, the white people will be destroyed, and I guess the angels will weep or something.  I dunno.  I don't want to see any ethnicities or races wiped out, but I sure don't think white people are, like, special.  Linzey's advice is as follows:

...[T]his whole illegal immigration thing is a ploy. It's done deliberately. It's not done by accident. This is not a matter of `Oh, they're coming over the border because they can't get a job in Mexico.' - NO. The world bankers did the same thing to Mexico that they are now doing to America. That's why they're coming up here. Now they want to make us the same ethnic group through intermarriage, and rape, and killing the caucasians.

And it's not just the Jews, pals-- the United Nations takeover of the U.S. is imminent.  They've got foreign troops hidden in our military bases and even in the national forests (I guess they like camping?), presumably the same troops that will be raping and impregnating me with swarthy non-white babies.  Of course, this theory's a little old, and resembles what most right-wing kooks were ranting about back when Clinton was in office.  I don't know what the new plan is, now that Clinton's gone, but back when he was president, this was the scheme, according to Ammerman and Linzey:

President Clinton had signed a secret edict, claimed Ammerman, which in the event of a national emergency would pass control of the government over to the Secretary General of the United Nations. Bill Clinton had also established himself as a dictator, established "nature worship" as the national religion, outlawed Christian churches, established secret FEMA detention centers and, in league with the United Nations, hidden up to 1.3 million Chinese, Russian, German, and UN troops in National Forests and on domestic military bases.

It's a good thing Clinton wasn't president when 9/11 happened, man.  We'd all be mulatto tree-worshippers at Gitmo right now.

And the Jews were behind it all, of course.  The Illuminati and Jewish bankers were going to take us all over, establish a one-world government in furtherance of Lucifer's plots against God, and then the Antichrist would emerge as leader of the New World Order.  Which, of course, would precipitate the return of Jesus, so you'd think these fellows would be rooting for the Jews.

The best part of it all?  They still got to promote the idea (common among right-wing kooks at the time) that Hillary Clinton was leading Bill around by the balls and secretly calling all the shots.  Why?  Hillary outranked Bill in the Illuminati.  Go, feminism.

Now, this whole Clinton-takes-over-the-world fantasy is more than a little outdated, clearly, but it's also clearly had some influence.  The Prophecy Club, an organization promoting these delusions with the assistance of Ammerman and men like him, is still around, and the man who killed George Tiller, Scott Roeder, used to work for them.  I have a feeling the club's members haven't spoken their last word yet.
 

 

What's happening in the world today?

 

Hmm... our family reunion has been cancelled, so no Sedalia this weekend.  Too hot, apparently.  I spoke to someone at Labor about my attempts to get unemployment, and she was pretty nice; she said she could clear things up for me, which makes me think I might be getting some money soon.  I've got my interview to get my whatever-they-call-food-stamps-these-days on Tuesday.  My application for the IBC-II position open in my mom's office (my former office) is still pending, but her boss gets back into the office on Monday, and my mom said she'd talk to her.  Odds are, I won't get the job, but... I'm trying to be all hopeful and positive.  So everyone, ask FSM to bless me with this job.  I'd have money to pay my bills, and I'd have reasonable job security, and *gasp* I'd have health insurance!  I could afford to pay for my meds and get my random brain tests!

 

In other news, the Ark of the Covenant has been located.  Abuna Pauolos, patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, says his church has had it all along.  There were even reports that he was going to allow it to be displayed, but later reports say that hell, no, they're not going to reveal it.  God will smite you if you touch it, anyway, so that's probably for the best.

 

The report comes to us from WorldNetDaily, so we know it's accurate, and according to "biblical investigator" Bob Cornuke, "They either have the Ark of the Covenant or they have a replica that they have believed to be the Ark of the Covenant for 2,000 years."  Well, gee.  That's helpful.  Though no one outside the church has ever seen it, except for those Nazis that one time, so there, um, may not be one at all.  Cornuke states that "[t]he Ark could have been taken out of the temple during the time of the atrocities of Manasseh," the son of Hezekiah who turned to idolatry and sacrilege following his father's death.  Another Jesus-thinker, Grant Jeffrey, though, says that he doesn't believe that the Ethiopians have the Ark.  You see, Menelik, son of Sheba and Solomon, when he became emperor, made a copy of the Ark, since Solomon was getting all senile and apostate, and took the real one to Ethiopia to protect it; following the Ethiopian civil war, in 1991, Israeli commandos came back to get the Ark, and it is now being held in secret in Israel while they wait for God to tell them to rebuild the Temple.

 

Wow.  Okay.  So the Ethiopians have it.  Or they had it, and now it's in Israel.  Except that another Jesus teacher, Chuck Missler, says that the Ethiopians might have the real one, but they didn't get it from Menelik; the Menelik story, he tells us, was made up by Ethiopians to give their kings Solomonic descent.  So the Ethiopians could have it, but Menelik didn't gift it.

 

Except that yet another Jesus teacher, Richard Rives, says it's all crap and that Ethiopia has never had the real Ark.  You see, on top of the Ark is the mercy seat, where God rests His holy ass.  Menelik could never have made a fake Ark to hoodwink senile old Solomon, because God's holy ass would not rest upon a fake Ark.  Says Rives, "I just don't believe they could have persuaded him to sit on a fake Ark of the Covenant."  I like to imagine those negotiations, though.  Good times.

 

Let's see... what else?  Oh, Stephen Colbert has a lot to say about Obama and teh gays.  He's pretty much dead on, but he's much funnier than I am when I say the same things.  So go watch him say it, instead of reading me write it.

 

I've been paying a lot of attention to the health care debacle lately, just hoping against hope that Obama and the Democrats will get it the fuck together and, oh, maybe listen to the 75% of the country that wants a public option.  No dice, of course, because we've been sucking the cocks of the insurance industries and big pharma too long for that-- how could we possibly ask them to reduce their ungodly large profits?  Amid all this hoping and cocksucking, I stumbled upon a rather pointed question posed by I-wish-he-was-my-friend VJack over at Atheist Revolution: Why do Christians want health insurance?

 

He offers his own insurance plan, as well:

 

Under my plan, atheists would receive health care at government expense just like what everyone receives in the counties with the highest quality health care systems. Christians and believers of other absurdities would automatically be placed on the Prayer Care Plan. This plan would not cost the government (or anyone else) anything at all. When believers got sick, they would pray for recovery. It's really that simple.

 

It seems to me that any believer who truly believed would agree with such a plan; I won't include, say, Buddhists in this, since Buddhism doesn't have a directly intervening deity, but at the very least, anyone who claims to be a devout Christian or a Muslim should be placed on the Prayer Care Plan.  The trouble comes in when children and other incompetents are involved-- I think there'd have to be some filter in place, as we desperately need for Christian Scientists and the like who let their children die of treatable illnesses.  Competent adults, though... you pray to your deity, and you see how far it gets you.  It'd be a good way to rack up lots of "Jesus healed me!" miracles, and they'd be a lot more powerful than images of the Virgin Mary's ass on my morning toast.  (And as crazy as I think the Christian Science-types are for refusing modern medicine, you have to give them credit-- they do refuse it.  That certainly strikes me as more devout a belief than that of someone who says, "God answers all prayers!" but still carries health insurance and goes to the doctor regularly.  If God wants you to be healthy, you'll be healthy whether you get your Pap smear or not; and if God wants you to die, no number of colonoscopies is going to prevent it.  Right?)

 

In the exciting-news-for-the-queers department, Ireland has granted civil partnership rights.  It's not marriage, but it's a fuck of a lot further along than here in the good ol' USofA, land of the free and home of the brave.  Seriously.  If Ireland, bastion of Catholicism and kiddie rape, can grant queers some semblance of equal rights, why the fuck can't we do it, too?

So I suppose that's all I have to say for now.  Who knows what I'll come up with later....

I was wrong about Mark Sanford in my previous post; according to Paul Begala, "Mark Sanford voted to impeach Bill Clinton. He was the first prominent Republican to call for the resignation of the adulterous GOP Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston. He opposes gay rights, gay adoption, gay marriage, even gay civil unions."

Further, the Holy Ghost has appeared to Jesus' General and given him a revelation regarding the now-disgraced governor, and the always dutiful JG has produced the Acts of the Governor (ignore the errors-- it's worth it):

Let's see if we can do this all in one post (while I watch Rick Bayless and Cindy Pawlcyn hopefully kick ass on Top Chef Masters).

 

First on the agenda-- the Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 that the Clean Water Act doesn't mean we need to actually keep our water, like, clean.  Overruling a lower court, the wise men in robes have decided that the Army Corps of Engineers can issue permits allowing four and a half million tons of mining waste to be dumped Alaska's Lower Slate Lake, even though the waste is toxic enough to kill everything in the lake.  This is, like, Newspeak-- the "Clean" Water Act.  As in, corporate thugs have gotten away clean again.  Who's shocked, though?  As we saw yesterday, and according to Jeffrey Toobin:

 

[I]n every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.

 

Great.  Moving on, two prominent Republican contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination have been brought low by extramarital affairs-- Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.  Sanford disappeared for five days, not telling his wife or his staff or his security detail or his second in command where he was.  There was speculation that he was hiking in the Appalachians, but it turns out that he was in Argentina with a woman with whom he's been cheating on his wife for, like, a year.  A married separated woman he was trying to convince to return to her husband.  Hmm... that's not the technique I'd use.  But at least Sanford, so far as I know, was not one of the assholes calling for Clinton to resign in the wake of his revealed affairs, like John Ensign did.  You'll note that Ensign has not yet resigned his Senate seat.  Is this where we sing the hypocrisy song?

 

Something that hits a little more closely to home is Obama's blatant religiosity, even moreso than his predecessor.  Prayers seem to be included even more than under Bush, and although his rimjob-ers try to justify it by telling us how wonderfully inclusive his prayers and invocations are, what the fuck does that matter to me?  I'm an atheist, and as Austin Cline points out, "deliberate inclusion of prayers, then, is the deliberate exclusion of nonbelievers."  Beyond that... what the hell good does a prayer do?  If there is a God, and he's paying attention, he'll carry out his plans for the United States whether our officials pay interfaith lip service to him or not (and if he's the vengeful motherfucker of the Bible, this whole economic catastrophe might be punishment for all those interfaith other gods we're acknowledging).  All those people who find it necessary to pray in public are probably praying in private, and if they're not, that shows how much they really give a damn beyond stroking their cocks and screaming, "Mine!  All mine!"  But Obama, man... he can't stop talking about goddamned Jesus!  And progressives who railed against Bush for less odious behavior are willing to excuse Obama because... he's not Bush?  He's black?  He's a charming guy?

 

Finally (in this post, at least), if you'd like to read PZ Myers' entertaining but brief smackdown of Ken Ham (the guy who runs the museum showing people playing with dinosaurs and who attempts to demonstrate the truth of creationism), head on over to his blog.  You should seriously be reading his blog every day.  He's fucking hilarious, seriously.  A sample:

For instance, he quotes me as regarding the idea of "Noah's ark being built to carry off members of every species on earth", and then he primly informs his readers that that isn't true: it only carried every kind of "land-dwelling, air-breathing animal". Oh, well, that fixes the logistical problems of the ark right up, doesn't it? Here we have a great big flood that turns the globe into Waterworld, and he doesn't have to worry about the effects of salinity changes on aquatic organisms, doesn't have to think about the plants, and the birds can just stay airborne for a year until the flood recedes. I don't care what fraction of life on earth the poop-shovelin', travelin' family of Noah squeezed onto their big imaginary boat — the whole story is ludicrous and unsupported by the evidence or by sense.

Go in peace, my darlings, and remember... no matter what happens, my sister will always be a douche.

Hey, y'all-- word of warning.  Don't ever get convicted, even wrongly, of any crime ever (unless you're a corporation, in which case, rape and pillage all you want), because the Supreme Court, headed by that pigfucker John Roberts, has said that you have no right to prove your innocence:

In 1993, William Osburne was convicted of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent the next 14 years of his life behind bars. Osburne insists that he is innocent, the State of Alaska has in its possession DNA evidence which will once and for all prove his guilt or innocence, and Osburne has offered to pay for DNA testing out of his own pocket. Allowing Osburne to prove—or disprove–his claim of innocence will cost Alaska literally nothing.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court held today in a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice Roberts that Osburne is out of luck. Although Roberts conceded that “[i]t is now often possible to determine whether a biological tissue matches a suspect with near certainty,” he determined that Osburne has no right to pay for a test that could exonerate him for a crime he did not commit. Allowing Osburne to prove his potential innocence, Roberts said, risks “unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice.”

 

Yes, folks, that's right-- actual justice will lead to the destruction of our system of justice.  My head spins.  The decision was 5-4, at least, which means that four justices are still reasonable, but unfortunately, those justices are getting older and sicker by the minute.

Free kiss to anyone who can tell me which five justices voted to disallow prisoners from demonstrating their innocence!

I don't want to, like, have his babies or anything, but...

Bill Maher is totally right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtUAHPYYzeM&feature=player_embedded

Further, I don't like Meghan McCain, and I don't know what qualifies her to speak nationally.  Certainly, I deserve a larger platform than she does, and yet... all I have is my LJ and my wifand rolling her eyes at my ranting over the phone.  So I took a great deal of pleasure in watching Paul Begala school Ms. McCain (in the same episode of Real Time).

Fuck you, Meghan McCain.

http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/qt/8747/

Betty Bowers explains Biblical marriage to us all.  Kitchen condiments, here I come! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw&feature=player_embedded ;

Been paying attention to how His Holiness the President has been crapping on, oh, let's see, all the major constituencies that won him election and a Congressional majority?  I feel his dumps on the queer community most potently, but...

Let me just say, I'm officially done with Obama.  He's a better liar than most, and I voted for his dishonest hypocritical ass, but he's just another politician, playing to the middle in the hopes of protecting said dishonest hypocritical ass.

Mr. President, you can go fuck yourself.  Oh, but wait, that wouldn't play well with the center.

Oh, Jesus...

My mom and the sister and I were watching something on the DVR, and when it ended, I deleted it, and the TV was on a Jesus-y channel, and some typical televangelist-y type was talking about Satan trying to tempt Jesus (3 strikes and Satan's out, apparently).  He had greasy silver hair and a pimp suit and a nice Southern-y-meets-ghetto accent, and like all televangelists, he was loud and repeated himself and just plain made shit up.  I noticed a fat asstoad of a man sitting in the back that looked like John Hagee, and then a little sign popped up on the screen identifying the preacher as Jesse Duplantis.  And listening, I could tell he's one of those conservative Republican Jesus-was-a-capitalist types.  (Seriously.  We know Jesus was rich and dressed like a pimp because the Romans cast lots for his garments.  Would they cast lots for rags?  I don't think so.  Therefore, all that shit the Bible says about money is bad and give away all you have and be humble and simple and poor doesn't count.  Because Jesse Duplantis says that Jesus wore the Jewish version of pimp suits.)

And I'm listening, and my mom and I are kind of chuckling at some of the things he's saying, and my sister left, I believe pretending to be offended by our lack of ecstasy at the name of the Lord, and then Mr. Duplantis said something that made me and my mom just stop and stare and gasp, and we both looked at each other like we couldn't believe he said it.

He was talking about making money, and he was explaining that money isn't bad, Jesus wants us to have money, but it's the love of money that's bad, and he said (and this is an exact quote):

"Do you know it's okay to make money?  You serve a Jewish god!"

And then he made a sort of constipated face and, like, a "duh!" kind of gesture, and I almost shit myself.

Anti-semitism in the name of Jesus is a beautiful thing, yes?

And if those folks who claim Jesus was really black are right, then it's okay to smoke crack and have illegitimate babies indiscriminately and eat fried chicken and watermelon for every meal.  Right?  Right.

Sigh.

And people think this Duplantis is a holy man.  I don't believe in God, but I like to think that if there's an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent sky fairy out there, he'd choose a better representative than a greedy bigoted political hack.  I know the FSM would never support such a jackass.

But that's just me.

I'm watching Law & Order, the episode "In God We Trust," in which they catch a guy who committed a murder nine years before.  He's willing to plead guilty and not contest any sentence the judge hands down, when a lawyer retained for him by a Christian group cuts off the allocution.  The lawyer reveals that she's filing a Clayton motion to dismiss the case in the interest of justice, because the killer became born-again after he killed the guy.  McCoy thinks it's ridiculous, Borgia thinks it's genuine, and Branch has been noncommittal.

And I'm nauseated.

Seriously.  Why is being born-again a legitimate reason to ignore a crime committed out of racism (the guy killed a black guy so his sister couldn't marry him)?  Even nine years later, after the guy has turned his life around and is a completely different person, should he not have to face the same penalty as anyone else who murders out of bigotry?

And suppose I kill someone, and then I grow disgusted with myself and turn my life around-- but I'm still an atheist.  I'm a completely different person who's made just as drastic a change and conversion as the born-again guy above, but I don't have a big scary guy in the sky to back it up.  I'd never get to first base with a Clayton motion.  You have to be a Christian to make it with this argument, this "oh, I've changed, don't punish me" crap.  And if I'd become a devout Muslim, instead of a devout Christian, I'd probably terrify the judge and jury and get sent to Gitmo.  If I'd become a devout Buddhist or Jain, I'd get made fun of for my "crazy" new beliefs and dietary and lifestyle choices.  If I'd become a devout Hindu, people would ask me if I really believe in all them goofy crazy elephant-headed gods and goddesses.  Seriously.  What kind of god has twelve arms?

As McCoy says, "[I]f you don't believe in Christ, then you just have to do your time?"  Indeed.

Christianity should not be a super-protected class (super-protected because religion is already a protected class) in this country.  Saying that I've found Jesus should not excuse me from anything I've done.  Thousands, millions of killers find Jesus in prison, but we don't release them.  It may help them at parole hearings, but we don't just burn their records and send them on their ways, just because they now are religious.  For that matter, millions of killers claim to be devout believers before they go to prison, but it doesn't excuse their behavior.  How do you determine who's devout, who's made a genuine change?  I can pretend to be as devout a Christian as anyone else, and I guarantee you that, as an atheist, I adhere more closely to the precepts of generic Protestant Christianity than does my sister, who purports to be truly righteous and has a cross tattooed between her boobs and is one of the most hateful, spiteful, self-centered people that I've ever met.

So what's better?  Believing in Jesus, or believing in humanity?  I choose the latter, and yet, if I found humanity, rather than Jesus, after having murdered a black guy simply because he's black, my ass would be rotting in a prison cell somewhere.

What if we catch Osama bin Laden next year, and he's no longer a crazy fundamentalist Muslim-- he's a crazy fundamentalist Christian instead?  If he's made just as dramatic a change as the guy on L&O and he's just as devout a believer, and he's devoted his life to Jesus and to public service, will we excuse him, his conduct?  Will we say, "Oh, forget about 9/11-- you're a Christian now!" and just move on?  Or will we ship him to Gitmo to be waterboarded and anally raped, before we guillotine him in Union Square?

I have the most wonderful wifand in the world.  She wants to help me with my financial difficulties, if she can.  Now, I don't think I should let her, because... well, there's no telling when I'd be able to repay her.  And it's not like she's flush.  So...  But still, it's supremely wonderful that she wants to help.

Wifand, I love you.

Still unemployed.  And let me tell you, being a bum sucks.  Applied for unemployment.  Applied for food stamps.  Applied for a million jobs that don't involve food service.  We'll see.

External hard drive died, taking 300 GB of videos with it.  Fortunately, the Law and Order episodes were mostly on my laptop and my iPod.  But my porn collection is no more.  But who needs masturbation anyway?  I've survived without sex, I can survive without watching other people fake it.

My mom's about ready for a nervous breakdown.  We owe the county two years worth of property taxes on the house as well, apparently.  And she can't pay her monthly bills, much less a few grand in property taxes.  If I had a job, I could help, but... apparently I am not worth hiring.  Or anything, really.

I'm eating pretzels.

I couldn't sleep last night.  The storm woke me up around three, and I checked the drains to make sure the basement was going to flood, and then... I couldn't get back to sleep.  I'm going to try again after this.  Maybe I should masturbate.  I always fall asleep after that.

How do you kill yourself without it looking like a suicide?  I mean, if I could make it look like I had a seizure and oops!, that would be best, but I can't think of a way to die while having a seizure except maybe falling down or off or under something.  So what do I do, fake some twitches and throw myself under a bus?

My mom was talking about dying yesterday.  She says it'd solve all our problems.  And I guess, financially, it would.  But I don't want my mom dead.  I'm not sure my sister would care either way.  If my mom dies in an accident, we get, like, $300,000 or something thereabouts.  I don't know what the taxes would be, but I'd have enough to pay my bills off and take the LSAT.  Find a cheap, crappo apartment and have a seizure and fall down some stairs.  Leave what was left to my dad or my wifand, not my sister.  But I don't want my mom dead.  And my wifand doesn't want me dead.  Sometimes I'm not sure how sane she is.  I mean, who doesn't want me dead?

I wrote a story earlier.  But nobody would read it.  I saved it to my laptop.  I'll find it in six months and go, "Wow, I was in a morbid mood," and then go laughing off to my happy job with my happy friends and enjoy my happy life.  Right?

Right.

Happiness is totally in my future.

Law and Order episode 19.14 doesn't want to finish downloading.  And neither does Season 18 or Season 17.  But I want them downloaded so that I can have Connie any time I feel like it.

I need to sleep.

Maybe I'll stop posting to LJ.  Maybe that would be best.  Delete everything and be done with it.

Okay, so I have $30 to my name, I owe at least $200 this week, and my mother has demonstrated without saying that I am nothing but a burden.  So why the hell haven't I thrown myself off a bridge yet?

Still haven't found a job.  Because I'm just too awesome for work, I guess.

Still can't pay my own bills.  Because I'm just too awesome for the day-to-day, I guess.

Still can't get in touch with the one friend I really want to talk to.  Because I'm just too awesome for conversation, I guess.

My mother stomps around, ranting and raving and banging shit around like she wants to break it (but if she did, she'd just bitch about that), and when she's done, maybe she feels better, but she sure doesn't give a good fucking goddamn whether she's made everyone else around feel worse.  So good for fucking you, Mom.  I'm glad you let off some steam.

But God forbid I wish I had just had a fucking brain tumor.

The sister asks me yesterday, "Why'd you have to have epilepsy, Erin?"  Like I fucking wanted to, like I picked it, like I enjoy spasming and pissing myself and hitting my head so fucking much.  Like I love not being able to afford the medicine that everyone around me insists I fucking take because, oh no, I might have a seizure and maybe I'd fall down the fucking stairs, crack my head, and be done with it.

Like that would be so fucking terrible.

Like anyone would notice until I started to stink.

Seriously.  The Mississippi looks good today.