he’s still out there. his latest noble cause? terrell owens. that’s right. the talented WR who bullied the 49ers into trading him, who called out the organization and his QB jeff garcia loudly and often, has a friend in ralph nader. t.o. is up to the same old tricks with the eagles, and the eagles did the right thing by not giving in to his nonsense. this has been going on way too long between those two parties, and now the long national nightmare is over, as it should be. nader argues in the above linked bloomberg news article that this is a violation of owens’ free speech rights. that could be true, if you can’t get fired for saying something negative about your boss. he says that the eagles also deprive their fans of seeing t.o. play. well..boo-hoo. does he really want to ask philly fans (who boo santa claus, btw) what they want to see happen to t.o.?

anyway, back to ralph nader. eric schmeltzer over at huffpost calls out nader, and it’s a beautiful piece of work. this may be the first, last, and only time i completely agree with something written at huffpost. i am also heartened to find out that nader has solved all of the world’s consumer and election problems, and is now defending the misunderstood NFL millionaires from their own short-sighted stupidity. great work, nader. just don’t run for president again, ok?

maybe i’m being too hard on ralph nader. it must be difficult to be sidelined in favor of natalie holloway, paris hilton, and tom/katie, especially since he has so many important things to tell the american people. it must absolutely kill nader to be out of the spotlight. i feel sorry for him. i really do. his strategy is flawed, though. there are better ways to get your name in the paper than defending terrell owens.

sister toldjah asks this question:

Would you let someone’s political affiliation stop you from dating them?

it’s an interesting question, and something that i have wondered about as well. i can’t imagine how a dyed-in-the-wool liberal and a hard-core conservative could co-exist well in a dating relationship. on the other hand, we have the ragin’ cajun james carville (liberal democrat) and mary matalin (conservative republican) who not only have figured out the dating part…they’re married! however, i think this is a unique example. this can’t possibly be common in this country, can it? liberals dating conservatives? conservatives dating liberal, tree-hugging, flag-burners…who are rumored to be kicking puppies in their spare time? i can’t get my mind around that idea.

i think it’s about more than ideology, though. the main consideration in a relationship is shared core values and similar interests. each person has their own view of what that means. to some people, abortion is a deal-breaker. to others, it’s religion. it all depends on what we consider important enough to break up an otherwise great relationship over. that’s the key to deciding whether something like that would ever stand a chance of working for you.

at the end of the day, though, i will agree with sister toldjah, who said that she didn’t mind which side of the aisle he was on, as long as he worshipped her. ditto that.

matt margolis weighs in on this subject as well.

it’s that time again–the christmas season. time for my inner scrooge to show its ugly face. those who can truly take the time to enjoy the season are the fortunate ones. there is so much that is great about christmas. its cultural significance and religious importance to us are without question two characteristics that set it apart from all the other holidays, if we actually had the time to pay attention to those things. but we don’t. this is not another one of those let’s get back to basics, give away all of our money, and just celebrate being with family and friends type blog posts. i think that we would all like to believe that that at our core, we are altruistic, selfless good-hearted people, and maybe we are. let’s be honest here, though. we do want nice gifts. we do want our friends and family to spoil us rotten and to spend insane amounts of money on presents for us. it’s easy not to admit this, because it’s the polite thing to do, and we are, after all, not the french (not that there is anything wrong with that).

the significance of christmas has been lost for me for several years now. for those to whom their faith in God is an irreplaceable part of their lives, christmas is about the birth of Christ, and everything else should be less important in the glow of that prism. every year this is repeated by some well-meaning person, but does it really sink in permanently? obviously not.

we get distracted by the same things everyone else does this time of year, and it shouldn’t be this way. this is not to condemn anyone, because i struggle with this too. when you work in a retail environment, there are quite a few things that can get to you that distract you from how cool the whole season is. the cheesy music piped in to some stores sometimes lightens my mood a little bit, but at other times it drives me nuts. sometimes the shoppers are evil and ask stupid questions. sometimes the stress level can rise without much provocation at all from external sources. if only it was just the music that summoned that inner scrooge…

like i said before, christmas is a wonderful concept… sharing quality time with family and friends, eating really good food, maybe going to a candlelight christmas service at church, listening to some christmas CDs, and maybe snagging yourself one of those cool video IPods. because it’s all about the IPODs.

christmas is more than the external stresses, wrapped packages, colored lights, and sparkling trees. it shouldn’t be a time to be depressed or to second-guess everything about our lives. it has so much more to offer us, if only we had the time to see it.

Technorati : christmas, ipod

“I ask you to remember this when weighing out our failings. We are flesh and blood, and not angels after all.”

-stephen lawhead, from the iron lance

i’m tired of all this political wrangling. i’m ready to call a cease-fire in the political battle, at least for today. it’s much easier just to accept the status quo and convince yourself that things can never change in our political system. it requires much less effort to believe that our screams of frustration with that system have been buried in a deep, dark hole, never to see the light of day. life would be so much simpler if i could ignore everything happening right now that disproves this theory, but i can’t do that. the future of this country is too important to me to let it be destroyed from within. we all have a part to play here, and i hope that more people will take advantage of the opportunity we have to influence that future.

it does matter. it absolutely does. but today, i don’t want to fight this battle. i will leave the arguments to those who still have the strength to make them. maybe i will feel differently tomorrow. i hope so. in the meantime, check out the following links to some of my favorite blogs.

WHAT ALEX SAID–And Why We Should Listen–from california conservative
Wake Up, America; It’s Time to Take Our Ball and Go Home–from the great frank j. of IMAO fame. in case you don’t get it…this could be considered satirical.
God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat–from the division of labour blog, an outstanding explanation by p.j. o’rourke (originally taken from his book parliament of whores). he is so quotable.

more tomorrow. enjoy monday.

“Too many journalists seem unable to break free of their old assumptions, even when new evidence should cause some new thinking. Three articles in the Sept. 22 edition of the Washington Post endorsed the view that giving more money to poor people and poor countries can solve the problem of domestic and global poverty. It’s remarkable that so many smart people in our society are unaffected by the evidence that such transfer programs just don’t work.”

from Time for New Thinking About Poverty by David Boaz

read the whole article at the cato institute website. it has become conventional wisdom that throwing money at poverty would help to eradicate it. if only the U.S. wasn’t so “stingy” with our foreign aid, africa wouldn’t be suffering today. if only we cared more and sent more money to poor, depressed areas in this country, we could save the people from living in depressed neighborhoods or on the street. in fact, what we had always believed about poverty is wrong, as the rest of the article points out.

• we have spent over $10 billion(counting $3 billion in food stamps and other federal aid) in louisiana trying to fight poverty. how has that worked out? not well. we have seen the evidence of this.
• this article even suggests that there is a relationship between government dependence on welfare and illegitimacy rates. they make a convincing case here.
• we have spent over $1 trillion on foreign aid. according to boaz:
  

  “Government-to-government aid has tended to strengthen governments in poor countries at the expense of business and individuals and has made governments increasingly dependent on their rich lenders. Few countries have “graduated” from aid to self-sufficiency. After all that aid, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study, sub-Saharan Africa is actually poorer than it was 30 years ago.”

why is that? it’s a distribution problem for some of those poor countries. some of these governments cannot be trusted to pass the aid along to their citizens instead of lining their own pockets. even when the money actually gets to the people, it doesn’t improve their lives simply by being there. this is true especially in this country. people with jobs are less likely to get caught in the cycle of poverty. that’s the right approach here: encouraging the creation of more jobs, not writing more big checks that ensure dependence on the government.

it’s worth the experiment. the current approach doesn’t appear to be working very well.

Technorati : foreign aid, poverty, welfare

welcome to today’s edition of stupid human news.

Oh, heavens! Thug sues God –good luck with that. no lawyer would take THIS case.
Police: Former bar employee stole six-pack marked ‘busted’–this guy’s a real risk-taker.
Man Parked Near Police Headquarters Has Meth On Him–but not as much as this guy.

from the good idea/bad idea file:
After Burger King Crash, Man Parks, Eats— bad idea. it’s so much easier to get arrested that way.
Woman returns bag of full of cash to Dunkin’ Donuts–$771 worth. good for her.

that should be enough linkage to keep you busy. 🙂 serious stuff returns tomorrow at the regularly scheduled time.