Hey Folks

Hope you haven't been spied on or arrested lately. If I don't start getting more comments I might start to wonder (ha ha). Micheal Hayden's nomination is being met with some criticism I see. Sucks for him, but that's what happens when you want to be CIA director after running mass spy operations on innocent citizens. I don't really care that they are just monitering to see who calls who, that's none of their buisness. Employers can read any e-mail they want in hopes of nabbing some sort of sexual harassment, cities post cameras to watch cars run through red lights. The problem with that is there's no way to know who was driving, so the owner is automatically proven guilty. There's no point to that! Why don't we simply charge the cars with running red lights? Stranger things have happened in the world.


Roman Wolf

A brief discourse

Though less brief than the previous, I assure you.
Will the world end in fire or in ice? Discussion of the end of the world seems to be peaking lately. Will Armageddon happen? I am not a Christian, or any other organized religion, nor a cultist, unless you count libertarian. They (Christians) say there will be seven years of plague. Famine, death, and the AntiChrist. There's also an obscure reference to blooming deserts and an Jewish state in the Holy Land. Now, the anti-Christ is hardly anything to look at for a sign of Armageddon, if he arrived when the Church thought he would every single time the world never would have gotten past Emperor Nero of Rome. Famines and mass death happens, and has happened before, so the horrid conditions in Africa are hardly solid proof. Death, well, that is simply an offshoot of plague, famine and war, all three of which are present in abundance right now. Only a hundred or so humans have died, out of a total of approximately 6 billion on Earth, but this is just year one. Who knows, maybe it will wipe out a quarter or so of the Earth's population, no bible reference I can think of specifies Homo Sapiens, but I am neither Bible Scholar or Christian, as I have stated before. That brings us to plague, there are a couple options here. AIDS or Bird Flu. Bird Flu I rule out, otherwise Armageddon would have occurred in WWI. Maybe it did. Enough people died there for it to have been the end of the world for millions. And there shouldn't be a war involved. There weren't any arrows in the AntiChrist's bow. At least I think it was the antiChrist's bow. The Jewish state and blooming deserts, well, they go hand in hand because Israel is the country trying to spark life in the desert. Either way, not being a believer in the MonoGod I am either doomed to roast in hell or my belief in other things will lead me to that end which is fitting for my beliefs. That is what I think happens after death. Whatever you want. That's why so few people get that on Earth, because if they do the Afterlife would be a very repetitious place.

See you there

Lobolius

A Contrast from the one Below

I want to write a short blog? What should I blog about?

Me

Flaming Pen/2/diem

Twice in one day. You nonexistant frequent readers are lucky. If you happen to exist, please leave a comment now, so I can keep track of my membership. I wish to move on in my conversation from earlier today with another topic I wished to discuss on this twelve of May. What do you think of pizza? No, just joking. Are Americans so accostumed to living in a fairly safe and luxuriant society where there are no massive famines or truly great risk of dying of starvation day in and day out that we have decided not to fight for what is our own anymore? Can the awestricking possiblilities Emerson and Thoreau spoke of when they talked about a budding nation, concieved not in the old European mold but in a fresh one, the child of wilderness and liberty still be in store for us today? Or is all of that just a bunch of rambling from some guys nobody can understand anymore and therefore not worth our time? I disagree. The idea of Thoreau, his idea of a government where even the malcontents could be free to think and act on their own in keeping with the structures of civilization cannot and must never become an outdated idea of some garbled thinker by a pond. Did any of you even know that he went to jail rather than pay taxes to a government that acted on a preemtive strike for more land and to suit the greedy desires of buisnessmen? Did you know that part of the reason behind the acquision of Texas and the war America started with Mexico was so that the railroads wouldn't have to waste time and money burrowing through a mountain? Now all of that was for nothing, it seems. 7% in a recent poll said that we should just sell the southwest back to Mexico so we don't have to deal with their immigrants. That won't solve anything! Get at the root when you want to take out a stump, a weed! Dig it out of the ground, toss it aside, spray it, but don't just wall off the entire garden because of some unwanted things! That is all we ever seem to do in this country where once ideals of liberty and justice for all were planted in the soil where people like my ancestors dug and plowed, and millions came by the hideous storage of boats just to have a chance! A chance. That is what every immigrant who struggles to come to this country throughout it's history has wanted, nothing more, nothing less. Shame on all who would deny people that chance and would wall it off in the name of whoever you want. Border Security! Ha, I spit on that convienient excuse. What terrorist of 9/11 snuck across the dangerous border of Mexico, where so many people have died trying to make it to America? What terrorist even would? Lot of good your bones will be doing in some jihad if the buzzards are picking at them. So what are those people in power afraid of, with these people coming across the border? What has any nativist been afraid of throughout America's history? In the 1920's it was communists, the Red Scare, Sacco and Vanzetti. Now it is terrorists. Even that was not a threat to the average American, just the powerful buisness owners who feared worker's rights would ruin their profit margin, so anyone who stood up for them was a godless commie. Today, what danger do immigrants wanting a job pose to me, the average American? When they stand before my work, gun in hand, ready to shoot me over a paycheck, there is a danger, but I insist-IT HASN"T HAPPENED! So what do they fear, those who would attack anyone differant? A piece of themselves, the unknown element of desperation they hope they and their families never have to face.

Roman Wolf

Greetings.

I hope all of you out there are not AT&T Bell South or Verizon customers, because the government once more has records of your phone calls just before a major nomination. Has anyone else noticed a pattern in this? Supreme Court Justices, and now the CIA director, all nominated just before a leak so they can be questioned hard about them. Hm. Fascinating coincidence, isn't it? Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I am a bipartisian one because I will accuse both sides Pro and Anti Bush of the same thing. This is truly a time of conspiracies. I agree with this one bumper sticker I saw the other day, "Bring Back Monica Lewinski". At least the lies there didn't lead to anyone innocent's private information being given out, if you want to have sex with some intern Mr. President, go right ahead, but don't rape and don't violate my constitutional rights.

THE RIGHTS HEREIN SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED EXCEPT IN CASES OF INVASION OR REBELLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you ever read the constitution? I have, and especially the bill of rights among other amendments. Read them please, and after you finsh 1984 move on to Animal Farm, and pay close attention to their bill of rights, and what happens when the animals are too ignorant to read what they were promised.

Ta

Best of Luck to You all, and the Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan too. You need it.

Roman Wolf

The Politically Sniffing Wolf Returns to You All

Today I return to discussing politics. Have you nameless commentless Lobolians missed that esteemed subject? Putin called the United States a wolf the other day. In my world, that is a complement, there it is an insult. "Comrade Wolf" he said. Was that what they were called when he was growing up in the Soviet Union? Anyway, he felt that America shouldn't be using his domestic policy against him when deciding if he should join the world trade organization, as some Senators visiting Moscow apparently threatened to do. Now, if Putin were intelligent he would know that American Senators lie a lot. Quite likely they were lying then, because it is in their nature. Especially Republicans seemed to have formed a habit of lying like crazy to cover things up and dishing out empty threats. Now, maybe all powerful politicians do that. Even the John Adams presidency got the power bug, and they were smart enough to make the Sedition Act end before the other party, the Anti-Federalists of Jefferson, seized political power by the ballot. He did, and democracy survived yet another century. Now that was over two hundred years ago. Who has placed a permanent limit on the current threats, not just the Patriot Act, but the root cause of the fears which are leading this country into a deep pit of viciousness and dislike? The odd thing about this war is that it is so Orwellianly perfect from a power hungry person's point of view. How can one defeat their enemy, when their enemy is fear? That will ironically keep the people fearful forever, because very few things breed more fear than war. Read George Orwell's 1984, please. That will inform you far more eloquently than one lone wolf on a public computer.

Roman Wolf

Hello out there good folks. I apologize for the ferocity of my last blog, I was having a horrid morning and wanted to expel my inner demons and chose to chuck them out at my blog. The title is Lobolian Rant after all. So, I am just over here because the crazy life I lead has left me at a dead end for yet another morning. I've been trying to get at this one book that I'm going to review but it hasn't shown up yet. Oh well. I hope things are better out in the world, or if they're not, keep trying to make them better, okay folks? That's all I have to say for this am.

TTFN, Ta Ta for Now!

(Remind you of a certain bouncy black and orange character from our collective disneyfied childhood?)

Lobolius

Oddiest of them All

Warning:

Do not be alarmed by the strangeness of this blog. Many things in life are strange. I am trying to make them stranger.

There are only 206 bones in the human body.

Roman Wolf

A Brief, non Greek Dialouge

So. Moussaoui has been sentanced to life in prison. Kalid Sheik Mohammad sits, very much alive, in jail as well. How awesome. The only one who has been charged for a few thousand deaths was the bumbling fool who didn't even understand the laws of gravity. Not even the simple one that states what goes up must come down. The reason he was caught was that a flight school in Eagan got suspicious of a man who wanted to learn how to fly a plane, but not how to land. What was he thinking, that the teachers would believe that Allah would grace him with the power to land a plane on command? Clearly, being a terrorist conventional wisdom would tell us he couldn't think, that he was simply a killer without conscious or mind. I think the opposite. The terrorists have to have some degree of cunning, or else we'd have caught them by now. Of course, that also assumes that military intelligance is something other than a folk tale told to reassure little kids by the campfire.
"But never fear. The ghost of Old Bin Laden cannot strike while the mighty Texans roam the hills of Iraq."
"But mommy, I thought Bin Laden wasn't IN Iraq"
"Don't talk like that my son. The soldiers need our help."
"To do what mommy?"
"Don't ask me what I cannot know. Do you want me to tell the story of Pecos Bill again?"
"Yes mommy. I'd like that very much."

Okay, the other one from this day was simply a test to see if the dratted thing will publish. I lost a blog yesterday, luckily it was a sickly little thing and not much credit to Lobolian Rant. But still, it was my blog which I spent a whole five minutes on and it deserved better than to die in a technical malfunction.

Oh Yea which die so sadly
A miserable little rag dirty and soiled
Have you no feelings, no love
For that which cannot be yours?
There are some in this world
For whom there can be no friendship
Nothing of the emotions
Blazing in the hearts of humans
Eternally beautiful, ever aggravating
Are there not some who would whisper
Hateful slander, malicious anxiety
Windswept plains glow in sunlight
Mania cannot approach
The nearest thing to knowledge
Farthest things from joy
Though that is what I'm given
To dance away the night

That is a poem I just wrote, obviously. By the way, in addition to being a freelance astrogator I happen to be a poet. Bitsy Run is hardly a classy poem, but that's not the one I wrote today, skim down if you want to read it.

Have you skimmed down?

Ta Ta For now
Roman Wolf

Ignore this slight little blog

Test blog to see if it works this time.

Greetings this spring

Greetings once more my pals. it is a gorgeous spring day, get outside and enjoy it. I won't be. Because I have to work away my glorious spring day, yippee day OOOOOHHHHH! Yeah.
So.
I really don't have anything to talk about. The Epic Hero by Miller. I'm in a library right now so I'll write whatever I can think of about that book. It is about Epic Heroes.
Oh I give up on this today. I have places to wander, planets to explore, buddies to visit. And I am refusing to write about G_A_S_O_L_I_N_E P_R_I_C_E_S

There's been WAY too much focus on that. So I refuse to add to the chatter.

Adios Amigos

Lobolius
(No translations today)

Greetings this spring

Greetings once more my pals. it is a gorgeous spring day, get outside and enjoy it. I won't be. Because I have to work away my glorious spring day, yippee day OOOOOHHHHH! Yeah.
So.
I really don't have anything to talk about. The Epic Hero by Miller. I'm in a library right now so I'll write whatever I can think of about that book. It is about Epic Heroes.
Oh I give up on this today. I have places to wander, planets to explore, buddies to visit. And I am refusing to write about G_A_S_O_L_I_N_E P_R_I_C_E_S

There's been WAY too much focus on that. So I refuse to add to the chatter.

Adios Amigos

Lobolius
(No translations today)

Greetings once more my pals. it is a gorgeous spring day, get outside and enjoy it. I won't be. Because I have to work away my glorious spring day, yippee day OOOOOHHHHH! Yeah.
So.
I really don't have anything to talk about. The Epic Hero by Miller. I'm in a library right now so I'll write whatever I can think of about that book. It is about Epic Heroes.
Oh I give up on this today. I have places to wander, planets to explore, buddies to visit. And I am refusing to write about G_A_S_O_L_I_N_E P_R_I_C_E_S

There's been WAY too much focus on that. So I refuse to add to the chatter.

Adios Amigos

Lobolius
(No translations today)

A tale of two Countries

As I was reading BBC news this morning, I came across an article explaining how Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to support moving an oil pipeline away from lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world and home to many rare and endangered species such as the Amur Leopard. I didn't even know there were leopards in Siberia. Tigers, certainly, but not leopards. Then on American news, the fact that George W. Bush planned to ease oil prices by impeding his old adversary, enviromental protection. What sort of world is this? Anyone who wants to know my plan for saving gas money can just skim down to the next blog and read it. That would be a much better idea than destroying the enviroment just so some people can save a few extra bucks. I am young enough that I don't want to be develping asthma or something by thirty because the stupid anti-enviromentalists want to have a cheap SUV. It won't save anything whatsoever. All that will happen is that the air will be smoggier, gas will still be rising in price-China's not going anywhere-and the oil companies get just what they've always wanted. Free rein to destroy our world. Somebody, please, write to your senators. I plan on doing just that, it takes more than a blog to protect the only planet we'll have in the foreseeable future.

It's a MAd Wolrdkljs

Has the world gone mad under our noses? The United States is fighting a war on fear, Japan and South Korea are at daggers again over a bunch of uninhabited rocks, and to top off the madness GAS IS OVER THREE DOLLARS A GALLON! Okay, face it people, in light of Iranian nukes, what's a few bucks at the pump? Mind, I confess to biking more than driving but that's no large sacrifice. Americans need to lose some weight. It's a fact. There should be a new reality show, biggest loser, Bikefest to work each day. Save the bucks, lose the pounds. Piece of cake. Pun intended.
Ta
Roman Wolf

The hypocrisy is killing me

How hilarious. The President of the United States brags about our freedom of speech while a legit member of the press gets arrested for shouting out how the Chinese government is persecuting a religious group which I cannot spell with any sort of dignity. What happened to the thing I've been told about all these years, that America is a free country where you can say whatever you want to the President of the United States and not get killed for it? I guess you don't get killed, but nobody ever says anything about not being sent to Belarus and killed there.
Good bye from a disgruntled Roman Wolf

Return of the Native Blogger

Sorry to have taken so long, I've been experiancing slight technical difficulties on this end for the last few days. About my idea, well, I've already explained it in the best detail I can. But can people truly influence government at the national level? The ideal democracy, according to the Greeks who invented it, consists of about 100,000 people. The United States has far more than that. Of course, they were referring to a true democracy, not a republic like the USA, so that doesn't matter as much.
Or does it? So many people say that there vote doesn't matter, that with so many ideas floating around, no politician can possibly serve their needs, or that there simply isn't such a thing as American. Now the impossibility of being an American, a true American, not just a citizen or a member of some action group, or an apathetic person who is sick and tired of hearing about politics. Some of those probably wish that I would start rambling about my sore throat or something. Too bad. I won't. But I do have a sore throat and think I will leave off for today. Ta for now.
Roman Wolf

Well, what can I say? I don't want to talk about the Media today, and I'm sorry about not doing it on Tuesday but life is like that. I had an idea this morning as I was making my sandwitch and trying to ignore my golden's buttery brown eyes that stared me down and chanted silently, "Give me food. Give me food." Then, as I often do early in the morning, I started thinking about politics, and what the citizen can do about them. This citizen often does little more than rant under a Roman Wolf alias and explain political theory to a canus familiaris but one day no doubt I'll be doing a lot more, and under my real name at that. As I was going to say before going off on a tangent, I had an idea to try and make government more under citizen's control, or at least reason's. Say there was a commision, not composed of equal number of Democrats and Republicans but of the lesser political parties who have far less say in the elected government and composed a silent and often disgruntled minority. That commision would serve as a check on all three branches of government, writing regular reports on the performance of all three that could be acessed by the general public. This would serve to correct certain disparities of American government.
Firstly, many people feel that the third parties are worthless, and hesitate to vote for them for fear that it would be "Throwing away their votes". This might show those people that the third parties can act, and would, if given the chance. In the long run, it may even increase the number of powerful political parties on the spectrum at a time when neither party seems to be worth voting for. John Kerry was not a very good candidate for president in 04, he simply was somebody other than Bush. If there were more dominant parties, there would be more viable options for president.
Secondly, many Americans feel out of touch with politics, and this could be a chance for them to feel something is being done at the higher levels.
Thirdly, with only minorities, party loyalty and subsequent covering for their friends could be eliminated. Anyone who thinks that this isn't a problem should google Scooter Libby and remember that Bush once swore that people who leaked information should be punished. Then the punishment stopped before Cheney, and far below himself.
If you like this idea, please, please leave me a comment. I am always open to discussion.

Roman Wolf

newspapers, part one of a two part series

Hello Again, whatever folks happen to read this. Few people do, which makes me insignificant. Why, Whoeveryouare asks, are you starting a blog with such self-absorbed pity? There are many blogs for me to read, blogs of Note and Importance and Circumstance! How can I find time to read the blog of some Roman Wolf?
(There's a moral here soon, let me assure you)
Well, that's the situation newspapers are in. People want to read things that seem worth their while, so to find things worth their while reporters have to track down stories that will sell the paper. Whatever sells the paper makes up the contemporary definition of good journalism. Low key as I am, even I have faced that. Seems nobody cares about the Bandy World Cup, although the TV News picked up and carried that story instead of me because the paper didn't bother publishing it. That's the one that gets to me.
Then we come to another aspect of media. Reporters are portrayed in movies as snobby, nosy fools who interfere with people for no good reason. There is always a good reason. But this is Monday and I will cover that tomorrow, I promise. Don't fret, I'll Be BAck.