The American Civil War, summarized

My recent adventures took me through the city of Springfield, Illinois, and while making the rounds of the museums I picked up several books on the Civil War. I know about the Civil War, of course, but I haven’t really thought about it at all since college or so, so it’s interesting to look at it again with the eyes of an adult.

Really, I think you can summarize the Civil War (or the War Between The States, or the War of the Rebellion, or the War Of Northern Aggression) like this:

THE NORTH: Look, South, dude, we’re not too fond of the black people up here ourselves, but this whole slavery thing has got to, like, stop. We’re supposed to be all about freedom and liberty and all that cool stuff and you’re making us look bad. Plus, the Industrial Revolution has arrived, and slavery is so, like, backwards. Wager labor is totally the way to go, trust us on this.

THE SOUTH: Yankee rapscallion! Dare you to insult Southern honor? The slaves are our property, and essential to our noble and agrarian way of life.

THE NORTH (rolling its eyes): Like, fine, what-evah. Not having this fight again. Just don’t have slavery spread into the new territories, OK? Then it can eventually die a natural death, and maybe we’ll luck out and all the black people will magically go back to Africa or something.

THE SOUTH: What!? Yankee dog! This will upset the delicate balance of power in the Congress, and the free states will soon wield the iron rod of tyranny over the slave states. This dishonor cannot stand!

THE NORTH: Wait, what? You think we’re all abolitionists up here? Like, do I look like John Brown? That guy hasn’t taken a bath since, like, 1845! Besides, we’ve been doing what the slave states want since the Missouri Compromise!

THE SOUTH: What we see here is a conspiracy to threaten the Southern way of life and free our slaves, who are perfectly content and happy in their bondage!

THE NORTH: Dude, you cannot possibly expect us to believe that. Just how stupid do you think we are?

THE SOTUH: Ah…sacred honor prevents me from answering that question honestly. Yankee numbskull.

THE NORTH: That’s just great.

THE SOUTH: But try to block the expansion of slavery into the conquered territories, and we shall secede from the Union! It will be civil war!

THE NORTH: What? Are you serious? You’re actually going to fight us? We’ve got three times your population, a vastly superior internal transportation network, and a whole lot of factories that can crank out a whole lot of guns. A whole lot of really big guns. All you hicks got going for you is a bunch of freaking cotton and a lot of slaves. How are you going to fight us? What, are you going to have your slaves throw cotton bundles at us? That’ll totally work.

THE SOUTH strikes a dramatic pose.

THE SOUTH: The honor of a Southern gentleman is more than a match for the wage hirelings of negro-loving Yankee tradesmen! Have at you.

THE NORTH proceeds to pound THE SOUTH into fine paste, and then sets THE SOUTH’s house on fire.

###

Though, to be fair, the Civil War lasted as long as it did because of the supreme badassery of the Confederacy’s military leadership, a quality which the Union’s leadership didn’t exactly, er, share. At least not at first.

-JM

Subway is controlled by imperialistic space aliens

I visited my parents over the weekend. They live in a town of about twenty thousand people, and as we drove about, I realized that this little town of 20,000 had three, count ‘em, three different Subway locations. And there are four more within a twenty mile radius.

I live several hundred miles away, in a town of about fifty-five thousand people, and we’ve got six freaking Subway locations. And there are another two within a ten mile radius. Like, seriously, if I wanted to, I could eat at a different Subway every day of the week.

There’s only one possible explanation. The Subway corporation is secretly owned by aliens, who are using footlong subs to disseminate mind-controlling drugs among the population. That way when the aliens invade, they won’t face any resistance.

Tastes good, though.

-JM

I lost a wager with an email correspondent…

…so now I am required to embarrass myself in public.

Specifically, under the terms of our wager, I am now required to write one (1) piece of fanfiction in a universe of my correspondent’s choosing, and then post if here on the blog.

What can I say? I thought I was going to win.

Anyway, a few days ago the email from my correspondent (who wishes to remain anonymous) arrived, and specifically requested the following type of fanfiction:

“Romantic ‘Dragon Age Origins’ fanfiction from the first-person perspective of a female character.”

Oh, dear God. Seriously? I mean, seriously? ”Dragon Age” was a great game and all, but…seriously?

Just…dear God.

But, I am a man of my word. So, after the jump, I present “romantic ‘Dragon Age Origins’ fanfiction from the first-person perspective of a female character”.

Learn from my grim example, people. Gambling is indeed the tool of Satan:

(Needless to say, I disown this piece now and forever.)

Why did I listen to Morrigan?

Wynne told me, more than once, that my great weakness is that I cannot respond rationally when someone I love is threatened. She said that I am the cleverest woman, human or elf, man or woman, that she has ever met, but that when someone I love is in danger, I respond…irrationally.

Violently.

She’s right.

Why did I listen to Morrigan?

Let me tell you of those I have loved and lost.

#

The first I lost was my mother.

I was born in Denerim’s elven Alienage. I was poor, and cold, and often hungry, but I was lucky. My mother was still alive. She worked cleaning houses in the Market District, and when I was old enough to walk I would come with her, and help her as best as I could. It was a hard life, but I remember my mother smiling, remember playing with the other children.

Then the slavers came.

Plagues and starvation are not the only threats in the Alienage. Elven slaves fetch a high price in Tevinter and the slavers came. Three of them tried to take my mother. She fought a little too hard, and they killed her.

I snapped.

I drew on my magic for the first time, and summoned fire, a storm of fire, and killed all three of them.

I was only seven.

Sometimes in my dreams I can still hear them screaming, still smell the greasy smoke filling my nostrils.

#

I never told that story to Wynne.

If I had, she might have seen that while I am irrational when those I love are threatened, at least I come by it honestly.

But Morrigan found out about it. Even then she must have known exactly what to say to me.

#

The slavers fled after that – Tevinter slavers, for obvious reasons, have a healthy fear of mages. No one dared approached me, and I spent two days shivering and weeping over my mother’s body.

The templars arrived after that, took one look at the burned corpses, and declared that henceforth I was a ward of the Circle of Magi, and would be taken to the Circle Tower on Lake Calenhad at once.

No one objected.

#

The second I lost was Jowan.

I fit in well at the Circle of Magi. I was only seven, and half-deranged with grief and terror…but a warm bed and regular meals will go a long way toward winning a child’s trust. And First Enchanter Irving was, and is, a kindly man, and I grew to love him as sort of a revered grandfather. The other mages lived in terror of the templars, but I did not. I had seen what unchecked magic could do, seen men writhe and scream as their skin melted away in the grip of my wrath, and I understood the necessity of the templars.

I had seen my mother die. What could frighten me after that?

And a year or so after I arrived, I met Jowan.

His father had abandoned him at the village Chantry, believing him to be a demon-possessed abomination. We soon became fast friends. Backgrounds of shared pain, I suppose; his mother had died of a plague, and we understood each other. He made me laugh. I don’t laugh very often.

I’ll forgive anyone almost anything if they can make me laugh.

#

After Arl Eamon sentenced Jowan, Leilanna asked me if I had been in love with him.

No. He was my best friend. My brother. He was charming and funny…but he was weak. He cut corners. Cheated. Loafed. More than once I had to save him from the consequences of his own mistakes, and I did it because he was my friend. I cared about him, and I didn’t want to see him come to harm.

Morrigan knew about that, too.

#

So when I heard that Jowan was a blood mage, a maleficar, that he would be made Tranquil, I couldn’t believe it. Surely Irving must have made a mistake. Jowan couldn’t be a blood mage.

He told me so himself.

So I helped him escape. I found his phylactery and watched him smash it. And less than an hour later, I saw him use blood magic on the templars sent to stop us.

He had lied to me. It had been so obvious. All the evidence had been there before my eyes. But I had refused to see it, because Jowan was my friend, and I couldn’t believe he would do something so heinous.

What Duncan saw in me, I’ll never know. Knight-Commander Greagoir probably would have executed me for it. But Duncan, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, stepped in, invoked the Right of Conscription, and proclaimed me the newest recruit of the Grey Wardens. Not even Greagoir could gainsay him.

And so I became a Grey Warden.

#

And then I met Alistair, at Ostagar, when the Grey Wardens and the army of Ferelden gathered to stop the darkspawn surging up from the south.

I don’t laugh often, or easily. But the first time I met Alistair, he was arguing with a mage.

“And here I was going to name one of my children after you,” he said. “The grumpy one.”

I stared at him for a minute, and burst out laughing. He flushed with embarrassment for a moment, and then grinned back. The mage stomped off in a huff.

I liked him at once.

#

Ostagar went bad. We would have won. We should have won. But Lord Loghain Mac Tir, the late King Maric’s right-hand, turned tail and fled north to seize his son-in-law’s throne for himself. The darkspawn slaughtered the king, slaughtered the army, and slew Duncan.

Alistair and I were the only Grey Wardens to get out alive.

#

Alistair and me. Even now, after everything, I still smile as I write this and think of him.

Everyone has heard the story by now, I suppose.

That damned song of Leilanna’s. Every bard in Orlais, I am told, now sings “The Song of the Warden” for their noble patrons.

How the Grey Warden, “fire-haired, elven-born, mage-trained” fell in love with Alistair, the bastard son of King Maric and the secret heir to the throne of Ferelden, how after surviving the nightmares of the Fade and the horrors of Uldred’s abominations, we pledged our hearts to one another in the shadow of the Circle Tower, and made love for the first time under the stars.

It didn’t happen that way at all.

It was actually closer to Denerim, not the Circle Tower.

But, otherwise, the song was mostly right.

Still, considering that Alistair married Queen Anora to secure his right to the throne, and we continued our relationship without a break, I can see how these rumors get started.

We were the last of the Grey Wardens, and with Alistair at my side, I set out to unite the land against the Blight, against the darkspawn hordes and the archdemon.

#

Morrigan asked me once what I saw in Alistair. She respected me, but she did not respect Alistair, not in the least, and she simply could not understand what I saw him.

He made me laugh, for one.

But there was steel in him. His heart was like a trumpet that he was too bashful to sound, a torch he was too shy to light. I knew he had it in him to be great. When he gave his speech to the troops outside of Denerim, when they rallied to his cry, I was so proud of him I could burst.

And Morrigan watched us, and filed it all away in that cold heart of hers.

#

A year after Ostagar.

I had crushed and outwitted every enemy I had ever faced. I had saved Redcliffe from the undead, slain the demon that possessed Arl Eamon’s son, saved the Circle from Uldred and his pet abominations. I had found the lost Urn of Sacred Ashes and restored Arl Eamon to health, and they whispered that Andraste herself had guided me. I had saved the Dalish elves, and convinced Zathrien to repent of his hatred, and freed the werewolves from their curse. I had dared the darkness of the Deep Roads, where no dwarf had trod for centuries, and smashed the Anvil of the Void, and brought back a Paragon-forged crown to place upon the brow of Orzammar’s new king. I had convinced the Legion of the Dead to march to the surface, to wage war against the darkspawn under the sun for the first time in their history.

I had defeated Loghain Mac Tir, the Traitor of Ostagar, and slain him before the assembled lords of the Landsmeet. I had set Alistair and Anora upon the throne of Ferelden, and united the nobles of the land behind them. And the Dalish and the dwarves of Orzammar and the magi of the Circle and the templars of the Chantry and lords and knights of Ferelden marched at my call, an army unlike any seen for centuries, and turned to face the Blight.

They claimed I was Garahel come again, a champion risen to defeat the Blight. They already called me the things Leilanna would put in that damn song of hers, the “soul of a warrior, the heart of mercy, the torch in the darkness and the trumpet in the night.”

What nonsense.

I had done what was necessary. Mostly, I wanted to take Alistair, slip away, and find someplace quiet to live out our lives. But we were Grey Wardens, and we could not turn away, not while the Blight raged.

Then Riordan told us what needed to be done to stop the Blight.

The price we would have to pay.

#

Leverage, I told Morrigan once, when she asked me how I managed to defeat so many creatures and people more powerful than myself, her mother among them. It was all a matter of leverage. Anything has a weakness. You just have to find it, and throw all your strength at it.

She listened to me too well.

#

The archdemon was the heart of the Blight, Riordan said. While it lived, the Blight could not be stopped. Yet if a mortal man struck down the archdemon, it would live again, in the body of another darkspawn.

But if a Grey Warden struck down the archdemon, then the dark power would possess the Warden, and both archdemon and Warden would perish. And the Blight would end, and the world would be saved.

Riordan, as the eldest surviving Grey Warden in Ferelden, volunteered to make the killing blow.

But if he was slain, it fell to Alistair and me to take the killing blow.

If Riordan failed, one of us would have to watch the other die.

#

I walked back to my rooms, Sophia Dryden’s ancient armor heavy against my back and shoulders. I barely felt it, through the darkness pooled in my heart.

Morrigan was waiting for me.

We always understood each other, Morrigan and I. She was dark…but so was I. Had I been raised by someone like Flemeth, I would have been just like her. Perhaps even worse. We told each other secrets. I told her about my mother, how she died, how I burned the men who slew her. She told me about the horrors Flemeth had conjured up, how the ancient witch had danced with the abominations in the shadows of the night. We had become something like sisters. Two sides of the same dark coin.

And now Morrigan had come to whisper one last secret in my ear.

There was a way, she said. A spell. A ritual. No Grey Warden need die. I could save Alistair.

Let her lie with Alistair, this one night. A child would be conceived of their coupling. And when I struck down the archdemon (for she had no doubts that I would be the one to do so), the dark power would not consume me…but pass into the child. At such a young age, the unborn child would not perish from the taint. Morrigan would vanish, and I would never see her or the child again.

What would she do with the child?

Morrigan would not tell me.

No, I told her. No. This was madness. I was a Grey Warden. It was my duty to stop the Blight. Whatever the cost to myself…or to Alistair…

Morrigan did not believe me. She understood me too well.

“You are as a sister to me,” said Morrigan. “I knew nothing of friendship, before I met you. I joined you for this child, aye, but our friendship makes me all the more determined to see it done. You told me how your mother perished. Surely you do not want to see Alistair die in the same way? Or for him to see you die? Because you will sacrifice yourself for him, tis certain, and he will suffer as you have suffered. It is in my power to save you both. Let me use it.”

She was utterly sincere, I think. And she was manipulating me. She knew exactly what to say to get what she wanted. She always did.

I closed my eyes, nodded, and went to find Alistair.

#

He listened to me, of course. He always listens to me.

Even when he should not.

#

And we came at last to the Battle of Denerim, and the archdemon itself.

I led my army into the city, outnumbered three to one, and we stormed through the market district and saved the Alienage. And we battled our way to the pinnacle of Fort Drakon, where Riordan’s last gallant, doomed stand had trapped the archdemon. And Dalish elves stood shoulder to shoulder with the dwarves of Orzammar and the Knights of Redcliffe. But in the end, as Morrigan predicted, I stood alone against the archdemon as my companions and my army struggled against the darkspawn horde, my power and my spells contesting against the ancient might of the terrible thing.

And the archdemon fell before me, beaten.

I seized a fallen blade and raced at the nightmarish form. I would take the final blow. Morrigan might have lied. Morrigan might have been wrong about her spell. If necessary, I would sacrifice myself, not Alistair.

Alistair tried to stop me, but I was too quick for him. I raised the blade, all my terror and rage and pain behind it, and buried it to the hilt in the archdemon’s misshapen skull.

And then…

I only remember snatches of the next few moments. The power, the terrible power, exploding out of the archdemon’s bleeding hulk like a fountain, like a tower of fire. It poured into me, filling me, choking me. An ocean of flame and darkness, and I drank it all in, felt it started to devour me…and then it drained away.

Morrigan’s laugh. I distinctly remember hearing her laugh.

An explosion. They say that when the archdemon died, they saw the burst of light and heard the explosion as far away as Amaranthine.

And then, darkness.

For a long time I floated in nothingness.

The sound of the bells brought me back to consciousness. Hundreds of bells, every Chantry bell in Denerim, ringing in celebration. The roaring cheer of a hundred thousand throats, men shouting and laughing and weeping and falling to their knees in prayer. The archdemon was dead. The darkspawn were broken. The Blight was over.

I woke up with Alistair kneeling over me.

I was alive.

Morrigan had told the truth.

#

The celebration was tremendous. The Grand Cleric herself crowned Alistair king, and he proclaimed me the Chancellor of the Court, Arlessa of Amaranthine, and the Hero of Ferelden. I felt like a sham.

But Alistair was still alive. That was the only honor I wanted.

Morrigan vanished.

#

Months later, I heard a report that she had been spotted heading west into Orlais, visibly pregnant.

Pregnant with a child bearing the soul of an archdemon, the soul of an old god.

#

I think I made a mistake.

Morrigan is going to do something horrible with the power I have given her, I am sure of it. She was my friend, my sister. But she is still cold and cruel at heart…and I handed her a child with the powers of a god. A child she can raise in her own dark image. A child she can mold and twist into whatever she wishes, as Flemeth molded her.

I made a mistake.

But would I do it again?

I look at Alistair as he sleeps, and I know that I saved his life. Tens of thousands of people might die because of my decision, and hundreds of thousands more might suffer.

But I saved his life.

Yes. I would do it again. Wynne was right about me. May the Maker forgive me, but I would do it again.

Lenin’s Birthday

Happy Earth Day, comrades!

I myself plan to demonstrate my regard for the green lifestyle in the usual fashion: by eating a Big Mac in my car with the air conditioner on.

And now, some Earth Day reading:

-An activist planned to travel unassisted to the North Pole to demonstrate the dangers of warming temperatures and vanishing Arctic ice. He promptly developed frostbite and had to be rescued. The best part? He wasn’t the first activist to have to turn back due to cold temperatures on one of these little awareness-raising trips.

-The coordinator of the original Earth Day decries the “holiday’s” growing commercialism:

“This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” said Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day and is returning to organize this year’s activities in Washington. “It is tragic.”

If by “tragic” he means “bloody hilarious”, then yes. Perhaps the marketers will be visited by the Ghosts of Earth Days Past, Present, and Future, who will teach the true spirit of Earth Day:

Joyless secular Puritanism? Self-righteous nagging? Meaningless feel-good bromides? Neglecting personal hygiene because it’s good for the environment?

Now that would make for a fun Earth Day card.

-JM

Computer Security: Sword & Sorcery Style!

I took a certification test for network security today. I passed. What was the experience like?

It was…it was…harrowing.

(maniacal laughter)

Sorry, sorry. It’s just that I’ve spent the last five weeks pouring arcane information into my mind, twisting my brain to hold information that man was simply not meant to know, and that…that tends to have a bit of an effect. A little mental backlash. So what was the experience really like?

Only the genre of sword & sorcery can truly convey the experience…

###

Behold! For long years have I studied the arcane path of the technomancer, and the secrets of Windows are mine, and Mac OS X yields to my commands, and the daemons of Linux come at my summons. Yet ever these is the need for greater knowledge, for greater power, to delve ever deep into the arcane secrets of technomancy.

So at dawn I arose and took up my staff and cloak, my USB Key of Fourfold Gigabytes and my Multitool Of Many Things, and I went forth to be tested. Long I journeyed through empty lands, snow-choked and wreathed in mist, the sky and the plains alike gray and lifeless. And at last I came through many perils to the fabled Testing Center, wherein technomancers come to be tested…or defeated.

There the aged Monks of the Testing Center greeted me.

“Hail, technomancer,” they spake. “Present us now with two Tokens of Identification, one of them with a current picture, or else we shall cast you out, and your registration fee shall be forfeit forevermore!”

But I had prepared for this cunning trap, and produced my two tokens of identification, both current, and the Monks took them, and bowed before me.

“Then we bid you welcome, technomancer, and urge you to brace yourself. For here your skill, your knowledge, and your cunning shall be tested. But first swear to never reveal the questions upon our test to any living soul, yea, even to your mother or your father or your espoused bride, or even to God Himself. Reveal our secrets, and your lineage shall be cursed forever, and your children and your children’s children shall be abhorrent and outcast, even unto the ending of days. Also, you will be banned from all Testing Centers nationwide.”

“I do so swear,” I spake.

“Now lay aside your staff and cloak and other accoutrements of your power and skill,” spake the Monks. “For only with your will and mind alone may you face the dread Daemon of Testing.”

I did as they bid, and laid aside my staff and cloak, my USB Key of Fourfold Gigabytes and my Multitool Of Many Things.

“Also, turn out your pockets,” said the Monks. “You wouldn’t believe some of the crap folks try to sneak into the tests these days, let me tell you.”

I did as they bid, and the Monks inspected the interior of my pockets to their satisfaction.

“Now proceed forth into the Chamber of Testing,” spake the Monks, “and may fortune smile upon you.”

The hour of doom had come at last, and I strode alone into the Chamber, and beheld the dread Daemon of Testing.

Twelve feet tall he stood, his face hidden beneath a mask and crown of iron. From head to to black plate armored him, black and hard as a miser’s heart, adorned with the names and sigils of those he had defeated. On his arm he bore a firewall shield, and in his hand he wielded a mighty spear. Written upon its shaft were BLUESCREEN OF DEATH and HARD DRIVE FAILURE and WINDOWS VISTA and other words of fearful doom.

The Daemon of Testing looked upon me and laughed with scornful derision.

“You are to be my foe, craven worm?” he spake, his voice as thunder. “Fool! I have faced men of skill broad and deep, men who have practiced the technomantic arts from the ancient days of MS-DOS 3.3 and earlier, yea, even the elder days of UNIX when the Internet was yet young, and I crushed them all! I drove them before me, and tread their PCs beneath my feet, and the lamentations of their women were as music to my ears. And you presume to face me, charlatan who claims the title of technomancer? You, with your feeble knowledge and petty tricks? I shall overthrow you utterly!”

Despair filled me, and fear threatened to overthrow my reason, and I thrice-cursed myself as a fool. What folly had driven me to this? What rank madness? Better to have stayed home than to have attempted this lunacy. Too high had I reached, too boldly had I dared, and at last had I brought ruin crashing down upon my head.

But no! Fear is the killer of the will, and only through the will could I triumph in this place. And should this be my defeat, I vowed, then I would make such a defeat that men would still speak of it and tremble seven generations hence!

“I tire of your haughty words, braggart,” I spake. “If my defeat is so easily accomplished, then why have you not already wrought it? Come forth, and let us see if you have the strength to match your boasts.”

The Daemon of Testing roared, and lifted its spear, and the point blazed with flames the color of a Bluescreen of Death. “Then perish, worm!”

And lo! Long we struggled, and fierce was our contest. The air writhed with encrypted networking protocols, and we spoke Command Line Utilities that shredded the very air, and we traced the secret runes of Network Topology Diagrams, each more arcane than the last. The Testing Center shuddered and rang with our battle, the reports rebounding from the heavens themselves. My mind and will strained to their uttermost, every scrap of learning and knowledge struggling against the Daemon’s insidious power.

Until at last the Daemon’s spear was shivered and his shield shattered, and I had the mastery, and I cast down my opponent, and he fell to the earth at my feet.

“I am vanquished!” spake the Daemon. “Sorely have I underestimated you, and I am overthrown. Truly, you have earned the title you have claimed. Take my gauntlet, and deliver it unto the Monks, and they shall print forth a scroll proclaiming your triumph.”

And then the Daemon shivered into dust, and boasted no more.

Exhausted from my battle, I took the proffered gauntlet, and issued from the Chamber of Testing, where the Monks stood to issue congratulations.

“You have been victorious,” spake the Monks, “and succeeded where many have fallen. Hail, technomancer, and receive now from our printer the scroll of victory!”

The printer made a strange grinding noise, and nothing issued forth.

“Um,” spake the Monks, smiting the printer until the scroll of victory issued forth. “Er. Sorry about that. Sometimes the printer jams up.”

-JM

If Senator Ted Kennedy were still alive…

…I imagine he would have a message like this for his fellow Democrats:

I mean, a Republican Senator from Massachusetts? Holy crap, Batman!

We do indeed live in chaotic times.

-JM

a speech for writers

BLOOD ALONE MOVES THE WHEELS OF HISTORY!

Have you ever asked yourselves in an hour of meditation – which everyone finds during the day – how long we have been striving for greatness? Not only the years we’ve been at war -the war of writing- but from the moment as a child, when we realize the world could be conquered.

It has been a lifetime struggle, a never-ending fight, I say to you, and you will understand that it is a privilege to fight. WE ARE WARRIORS!

Writers of the Internets, I ask you once more rise and be worthy of this historical hour. No revolution is worth anything unless it can defend itself. Some people will tell you writer is a bad word. They’ll conjure up images of slashfic writers, of poem-scribbling teenagers. This is our duty to change their perception. I say, writing men and women of the Internets… unite. We must never acquiesce, for it is together… TOGETHER THAT WE PREVAIL. WE MUST NEVER CEDE CONTROL OF THE MOTHERLAND…FOR IT IS TOGETHER THAT WE PREVAIL!

-JM

Global Warming Activists Praise Ebenezer Scrooge For Responsible Carbon Footprint

Following the release of the “10 Worst Environmental Offenses Of The Holidays”, a broad spectrum of environmentalists praised the carbon-friendly lifestyle of local usurer Ebenezer Scrooge.

“During the Christmas season, people have the regrettable habit of traveling long distances to eat rich foods with their loved ones,” said Nobel-prize winning global warming activist and former vice president Al Gore. “However, Mr. Scrooge’s courageous choice to eschew these irresponsible activities and live a carbon-neutral lifestyle is a real inspiration for us all in the fight against global warming.”

Scrooge has lived alone since separating with his former fiancée Belle over her decision to pursue an environmentally unsound lifestyle. His gloomy, unfurnished home is a model of sustainable living.

“Scrooge’s solitary lifestyle reflects a heroic commitment to environmentally friendly living,” said Gore in an interview from his cavernous mansion. “From his refusal to turn on lights, thereby reducing electricity consumption, from his adamant resistance to heating his home, thereby preventing the production of greenhouse gases, Mr. Scrooge maintains a responsible carbon footprint.”

Gore also praised Scrooge’s approach to the eco-unfriendly Christmas holiday.

“Scrooge’s refusal to make himself or anyone else merry during the holidays is a responsible use of the Earth’s resources,” said Gore. “Note his refusal to spend money on wasteful gifts or holiday meals with meat in them. Instead, he eats simple, nourishing gruel, which is quite eco-friendly. Inspired by his example, I have canceled Christmas for all of my employees.”

Gore especially contrasted Scrooge’s lifestyle with the profligate, wasteful ways of one Robert Crachit, Scrooge’s sole employee.

“Crachit’s lifestyle is a disgusting model of waste and excess,” said Gore. “Note how he brings his entire family home for Christmas, generating colossal amounts of greenhouse gases in the process. Or his insistence upon having a bird for Christmas, given the environmental damage caused by the fatcat bird farmers.”

However, Gore said that the Crachits’ gravest environmental sin was their decision to have six children.

“The wasteful and irresponsible reproduction of the Crachit clan only emphasizes the need for better sex education in preschool and kindergarten,” said a visibly angry Gore. “If the Crachtis had access to government-provided condoms, they might not have had contributed to the surplus population.  And that leads to the matter of Tiny Tim. The medical care required by Tiny Tim generates an enormous carbon footprint, at least three times larger than that of a healthy child. Honestly, if only the Crachits had access to taxpayer-supported government healthcare, then Mrs. Crachit might have made the correct choice and aborted Tiny Tim. Just think of how much smaller their carbon footprint might have been!”

In closing, Gore added that the efforts of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to alter Scrooge’s ways were “as bad as Holocaust denial”.

-JM

EPA Bans Breathing To Fight Global Warming

WASHINGTON – In a landmark ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled today that the act of human respiration produces greenhouse gases dangerous to the environment, and called for immediate government regulation of all breathing.

“This is a historic day for America,” said EPA commissioner Russ Cargill. “For too long, our government has ignored the dangers posed by unchecked exhalation. And given the obesity epidemic in this country, the resultant wheezing and panting means that Americans for too long have produced more than their fair share of greenhouse gases.”

“It’s time that the deniers realized that global warming is a real threat,” added Cargill, “and is in no way based upon deliberately falsified science.”

Cargill then canceled the press conference due to record snowfalls and low temperatures.

President Obama lauded the move.

“It’s time for Americans to wake up,” the President said in a statement. “You can’t be allowed to heat your house at whatever temperature you want, or to drive an SUV whenever you want, or to breathe whenever you want. On behalf of America, I apologize to the world for all the carbon dioxide our mouth-breathing electorate has produced, and I vow to bow to as many foreign heads of state as possible to rectify the situation.”

The President stressed that Iran and China would be allowed to breathe “as much as they liked” while promising to crack down harshly on Israeli respiration.

Under the proposed EPA guidelines, American would be required to hold their breath for at least ten to fifteen seconds every minute. Strenuous exercise would be forbidden, due to the large quantity of greenhouse gases produced. Members of Congress, government employees, and anyone worth more than ten million dollars would be exempt from these guidelines. However, average Americans can purchase “respiration credits” from a respiration credit company run by former Vice President Al Gore.

“It is the great moral challenge of our generation to defeat global warming, which is based upon settled science that couldn’t possibly have been faked,” said Gore in an interview. “The fact that I have grown enormously wealthy from fighting global warming is merely a pleasant coincidence, and in no way connected. I urge all Americans to immediately purchase respiration credits from my company, which takes cash, check, all major credit cards, and PayPal.”

“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a breath from the EPA guidelines springs,” added Gore.

-JM

vegans are great fun at parties

An unintentionally hilarious article from the New York Times, arguing the virtues of veganism as we approach the annual Great Turkey Holocaust. Or as those of us guilty of mass-turkicide call it, Thanksgiving. Not that I have anything against vegetarianism; people have the right to eat whatever they please. Whether Big Macs or tofu. It’s the people who want to ban Big Macs that you have to watch carefully. Like this guy.

Here are some of the more ridiculous quotes, with commentary:

None of these questions, however, make any consideration of whether it is wrong to kill animals for human consumption.

Well, it could be worse. At least we don’t eat them alive.

And even when people ask this question, they almost always find a variety of resourceful answers that purport to justify the killing and consumption of animals in the name of human welfare. Strict ethical vegans, of which I am one, are customarily excoriated for equating our society’s treatment of animals with mass murder.

That’s because equating society’s treatment of animals with mass murder is stupid and deserves to be mocked. One hopes the author can distinguish between a chicken farm and, say, Dachau.

And even when people ask this question, they almost always find a variety of resourceful answers that purport to justify the killing and consumption of animals in the name of human welfare.

Well, they taste good. Plus it turns out that people actually need protein and fat to live. Whodda thunk?

Many people soothe their consciences by purchasing only free-range fowl and eggs, blissfully ignorant that “free range” has very little if any practical significance. Chickens may be labeled free-range even if they’ve never been outside or seen a speck of daylight in their entire lives. And that Thanksgiving turkey? Even if it is raised “free range,” it still lives a life of pain and confinement that ends with the butcher’s knife.

Are the lives of wild turkeys any better? They get eaten, a lot, and often starve to death and die in great pain. And what about the coyotes, cougars, and eagles that eat wild turkeys? We must stop them! They’re guilty of murder, of genocide…a TURKEY genocide!

How can intelligent people who purport to be deeply concerned with animal welfare and respectful of life turn a blind eye to such practices?

Because meat, when eaten in proper quantities, is actually quite good for you. And delicious!

And how can people continue to eat meat when they become aware that nearly 53 billion land animals are slaughtered every year for human consumption?

Yeah! All those stupid hungry people! Why don’t they just do us a favor and starve to death? If they are want to die, then let them do it, and decrease the surplus population!

What were once the most straightforward activities become a constant ordeal…To be a really strict vegan is to strive to avoid all animal products, and this includes materials like leather, silk and wool, as well as a panoply of cosmetics and medications. The more you dig, the more you learn about products you would never stop to think might contain or involve animal products in their production — like wine and beer (isinglass, a kind of gelatin derived from fish bladders, is often used to “fine,” or purify, these beverages), refined sugar (bone char is sometimes used to bleach it) or Band-Aids (animal products in the adhesive). Just last week I was told that those little comfort strips on most razor blades contain animal fat.

Yes, becoming a joyless scold is really a lot of work. Why don’t people respect that the way they should?

Is it O.K. to eat dinner with people who are eating meat?

It’s actually kind of funny how so many secular ideologies inevitably devolve into legalistic religion. Like, can you shake hands with someone who eats meat? Or would that make you ritually unclean? Or what if the shadow of someone who eats meat falls upon you? Are you ritually unclean then?

Let me be candid: By and large, meat-eaters are a self-righteous bunch.

That’s because we’re, you know, right. And healthier, too!

These uses of animals are so institutionalized, so normalized, in our society that it is difficult to find the critical distance needed to see them as the horrors that they are: so many forms of subjection, servitude and — in the case of killing animals for human consumption and other purposes — outright murder.

And this is where we descended from joyless scoldhood to outright craziness. So much for distinguishing the turkey farm from Dachau.

Here’s the bottom line: there’s nothing wrong with a vegetarian diet, or a vegan diet, if you’re sufficiently obsessed and need a fashionable hobby. But it is way wrong to say that killing an animal is equivalent to killing a human, because if you follow the logic, that means that killing a human is about the same as killing an animal. In other words, humans are animals, and it’s a lot easier to convince people that certain other groups of people are animals than it is to talk people out of killing animals. And if you’ve got no problem with killing animals, and people are really animals, that means you can kill a lot of inconvenient people. By the truckload! As history has demonstrated. Over and over and over again.

One final point. Vegans are frequently “childfree” types who go on and on about how kids track enormous carbon footprints all over a weeping Mother Nature’s pristine white environment, so we should all stop reproducing right now. I think we’ll let this little quote from Dr. House have the final word:

Dr. House: She has gone from the 25th weight percentile to the 3rd in one month. Now I’m not a baby expert, but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to shrink.

Baby’s mother: Well there’s this diet we put her on when she stopped breast feeding…

Baby’s father: But it’s healthy, um, raw food. We’re vegans. Almond milk, tofu, uh, vegetables…

Dr. House: Raw food… If only her ancestors had mastered the secret of fire. Babies need fat, proteins, calories. Less important: sprouts and hemp. Starving babies is bad and illegal in many cultures. I’m having her admitted.

Yes, if only our ancestors had mastered the secret of fire! Then we could hunt and kill animals and not bother with this vegan stuff.

Oh, wait. They did!

-JM