I just wanted to remind you all of something I said a few weeks ago.

In a previous post I predicted:

In the next 30 days, major media outlets will “marvel” at John Kerry’s “resurgence” in the “polls”. They will credit his “debate skills” and the fact that he is “winning over” Americans with his “firm stand” on Iraq and the economy.

It will happen. Also, everything that appears in quotation marks above will be entirely false and misleading.

And so, here is the latest bilge… er… news.

AP:
“…a recent Time magazine poll showed he [Kerry] has an edge with voters.”
In New Jersey “…polls this week showed Kerry with a single-digit advantage, 49-46 in one survey, 49-41 in another, in the contest for the state’s 15 electoral votes.”
AP’s poll: In September, Bush led 51 to 42. In October the poll is tied 47 to 47.

ABC News:
“Kerry has gained ground among women.”
“Voters trust Kerry over Bush…”
“Independents, key swing voters, divide about evenly, 47 percent for Kerry, 46 percent for Bush.”
“Kerry’s better showing in his base fits with a shift in underlying views…” after the debates.
“Amid rising disenchantment with the war in Iraq, President Bush has lost significant ground.”
“Kerry is scoring against Bush, running ahead in trust to handle five of nine issues tested in this poll, from taxes to education to health care;”
ABC’s poll: Last week, Bush led 50 to 46. This week, the poll is tied 48 to 48.

Reuters:
“President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry remain deadlocked in the White House race going into their final debate”
“Polls show Kerry leads Bush on handling the economy, jobs, health care, education and the environment.”
Reuters Poll: In September, Bush led 47 to 44. This week, the poll is tied, 45 to 45.

Well, I just wanted to remind everyone that I AM psychic, or at least I have a solid grasp on the liberal poo coodies that bring us the news every day.

Thank you berry mush.

As if apocalyptic “prophets” didn’t have enough to talk about these days, the US Food and Drug Administration today approved implantable computer chips for use on human patients.

According to the article, government workers in Mexico have been living with these chips for quite some time, using the small radio transmitters as access keys to secure government buildings. (Huh?! The Mexican government is using more advanced technology than the US government? Get out of town!)

A good friend of mine passed along an editorial from the Star-Telegram. The premise is that, for this year’s election, political lines can be drawn on which movie reflects your beliefs, Fahrenheit 9/11 or The Lord of the Rings.

The full article is on the web, but requires you to register. Sorry, but it is free.

It got me thinking about my own views, as a “Bush/Tolkien” voter. Tollers was a terrible writer who worked most of his life on the true masterpiece that is LOTR. He was inspired by his experiences as a soldier in WWI and a father and community leader during WWII. It’s fairly easy to see the Nazi war machine between the lines, though he flatly denied a direct link. But, in view of our current struggle, LOTR seems to be very prophetic. The links between the fantastic world of Middle Earth and the reality of our Earth are hard to ignore.

We have Sauruman the White, who became drunk with power and built a proud and mighty army only to be crushed by the powers of good and left powerless and bitter, all bark and no bite. Did you happen to see Saddam’s court appearance? Talk about bitter and powerless.

The Ents are the main component in the battle against Sauruman, the “boots on the ground” if you will. Ents are slow and methodical, but have tremendous power. They did their best not to get involved in the war, but when their own land and people were attacked by the forces of Isengard, their wrath exploded against their enemy. The battle itself was short and very one-sided.

Sauruman’s realm of Isengard is torn apart during the battle. The remnants are left to be rebuilt by the Ents. These lumbering giants occupy the land to return its former beauty. They are the perfect candidates for reconstruction since their work ethic and stubborn resolve will keep them at the job until it’s finished. If you will recall, the Kerry camp has used the word “stubborn” quite a bit lately.

We mustn’t forget, though, that Sauruman was not enemy number one. No, he was just a tool being used by the real foe, Sauron. Funny thing about Sauron, he’s not so much a person as a force. He has no physical body. Instead he is embodied by his evil emissaries. We hear so much about the hunt for Osama, but experts say that capturing Osama will not be the end of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has no single body that can be killed, no head that can be removed.

Instead, the militant Islamic movement has thousands, maybe millions, of tireless terrorists. They toil away, living in the most rudimentary conditions, training with antiquated equipment and make shift weapons. And most importantly, they have no respect for life, not even their own. They would gladly throw their body at the enemy, even if they accomplish nothing more than building a ramp of death up the side of the walls of freedom. This picture is not as evident in the movie, but in the book, at the battle of Helms Deep, there was a real concern that the dead orcs would pile up high enough that the survivors could clamber up the pile of corpses and over the wall.

If nothing else, this is a thought provoking analysis that some high schooler can steal from my blog to use in a term paper.

Update:
See!! Check out this “expose” video. (Link via Apropos of Something)

There is a blog that I read daily, but it’s not on my list of “Daily Reads”. That is because I only read this blog to keep up on the tripe and lunatic propaganda that extreme liberal media mouths vomit onto the web.

Here is just such a pool of bile. It’s a video detailing the conspiracy of war by the aptly named “Right Wing” and the defense industry. Priceless.

Now honestly. If people are mentally malleable (a.k.a play-dough-brained) enough to believe a word of this, I’d prefer they didn’t vote. They are the manifestation of the argument AGAINST democracy that was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries (a la Thomas Hobbes).

“The most part are too busy in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand.”

In other words, the general public is too stupid to elect it’s own government. Hmmm.

I looked like a third grader trying to seal a jar of pickles using oven mitts dipped in petroleum jelly.

If you surf the web enough, you can find the most unusal statements.

Like here or here.

What a weekend.

Friday, after work, Tammy and I spent a great evening with Galyn and Kristin Black playing board games and eating some warm-from-the-oven cookies. Regrettably, we were having such a good time, we completely missed the presidential debate.

On Saturday, we did a little shopping in celebration of a surprise windfall. (I got my first profit sharing check from GIS2 last week. Let’s just say the economy around here is better than Mr. Kerry wants you to think.)

Later we picked up Sarah, one of our many “kids”. She is in our youth drama group and it was her 17th birthday. We went to Six Flags and enjoyed four hours of riding rollercoasters in the rain. It was a complete blast and ruined my singing voice for Sunday morning.

Sunday, we put on our first adult drama sketch (not skit, long story) for the church in both services. It was a real tear jerker about divorce and had just that effect in both services. (It seems weird to gage the success of your script by how many people you make cry.) The youth drama group, The Bottom Line, also performed two sketches in high school Sunday school, both comedies. Because God is so awesome and omnipotent, I was able to attend all four performances, even when a couple of them should have been performed simultaneously.

Right after church, we had a two hour session with the Master’s Players, a 5th, 6th, and 7th grade group that Tammy co-leads. They do sign-language, dance and mime to music. This workshop was a first in that we had one adult, and several high schoolers involved in miming the story of one of the songs (“If We Are the Body”, by Casting Crowns).

Then, an hour after that, we had the final audition for the church Christmas play. (Actually, the “play” is a set of scenes that appear between songs in the musical that the choir is doing. If you’ve gone to church much in your life, you know what I’m talking about.) I’m not the director of the play, but I am a co-director of the burgeoning adult drama group, so I had to be involved in the auditions. I’ve also been tasked with rewriting the script, since most dramas that come with published church musicals tend to be… well… not very interesting.

The auditions wrapped up just in time for evening church. Glenview only does evening services once a month and they usually involve communion and baptisms. Another of our “kids”, Shereen, was baptized. It was very emotional.

Tammy and I made it back home, Burger King in hand, at 8:15. We were both completely exhausted. Nothing like a good restful weekend to get you charged up for another week at the grind.

Improv Everywhere is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. I love doing stuff like this and actually pulled off a few such pranks in college. But these guys are pros!

In their Celebrity Trash “conquest”, the following exchange took place between one of the members and a 10-year-old boy in Time Square:

Agent Keech: We got this doorknob out of Sara Jessica Parker’s trash just last week. Since it’s a doorknob, you know she must have touched it a million times.
10 Year Old Boy: Who?
Agent Keech: Sarah Jessica Parker.
(pause)
10 Year Old Boy: …You mean… the whore?
Agent Keech: Whoa.

Priceless.

(Link courtesy of cockeyed.com)

Dave Berry made a short but meaningful post to his blog about installing SP2. The comments on that post are even funnier. Check it out.

(Thanks to Randy for the link.)

Once upon a time I interned at Hewlett Packard. Toward the end of my stay there, the company split in two with the HP moniker going to the public facing PC, printer, scanner market; and the companies foundation of testing and medical equipment was renamed Agilent. New logo, new name, and new attitude, or so we were told.

Once upon a yesterday I was talking to my current boss about our company’s new logo and how much it reminded me of Agilent’s logo.

With the tender memories all afresh, I decided to pay the old neighborhood a visit. A quick google search took me to a site that I was quite sure was not the official Agilent site. Oh, but I was wrong. It IS the official Agilent site. This horrible mash of text links; slow loading and slower reading; is in fact the face that Agilent offers the world. “Hey! Look at us! We suck at making web sites, but our network testing tools are great!”

And don’t make the mistake I did and try out the Japanese version of the site. It seems they set a cookie (or fortune cookie) on your browser and after you load the page with all the squiggle marks instead of letters, you CAN’t GET OUT! Their home page reads the cookie and says, “Oh, you silly user. You meant to go to the Japanese site! Here let me take you there without asking.”

GAH!! How does a billion-dollar company end up with a web site that looks like it was done by a college intern?! Oh yeah… here come those tender memories again.

The White Board Quip of the Week is a tradition reaching back to my first cubicle white board (interning at Hewlett Packard in 1998). About once a week I put some off-the-wall saying or sound bite on my cubicle white board. Now that SYNS is fully functional, I will be sharing my WBQotW here as well. Now, through the magic of the internet, all the world can reap the rewards previously available only to those few souls who could physically meander into my cube.

And now (*trumpet fanfare*) I present WBQotW #1:

If God had meant people to run around naked, they’d be born that way!

Thank you. Thank you very much.