I’m going to explain my views on a few things in this entry, and they may not agree with yours. In lieu of a disclaimer, I will just say that if you are not capable of accepting opposing opinions without calling people names, you probably shouldn’t read this. I will be generalizing, stereotyping, and simplifying the hell out of a few things, so deal with it. My diary. If you choose to write me nasty notes in response, remember that I can and will make a public spectacle of you, and you won’t like it. I live in America, I love America, and I won’t fault you for loving your country, so don’t fault me for loving mine. If you want to email me a note asking about why I think a certain way without calling me a fucking idiot, feel free, you will be responded to with as much respect as you give me. Okay. That was totally a disclaimer.

First, the Space shuttle “contingency”. NASA needs to call it what it is. A jillion people watched the most complicated machine ever made by mankind explode over the southwestern United States and teeth hair and armpits rained down over three states. It is a catastrophic failure, to put it in aviation terms. It could also be called a result of the law of averages. It is not a contingency.

Entry: Contingency

Pronunciation: k&n-’tin-j&n(t)-sE

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural -cies

Date: 1561

1 : the quality or state of being contingent

2 : a contingent event or condition: as a : an event (as an emergency) that may but is not certain to occur
b : something liable to happen as an adjunct to or result of something else

So it was a contingency until it happened. I hate euphamisms. They make me feel like I am being lied to. And not lied to very well.

I don’t really think it was a “fuck up” either, as non-fans of the space program are fond of saying. A certain number of planes will crash in a given number of years, a certain number of people will be hit by trains every day, and so on. If you shoot a rocket into space a hundred times, one or two of them is bound to explode. That being said, I would now like to take a slightly contrary stance on our latest media feeding frenzy. Seven people died. Seven very elite pilots and scientists died who had a role in advancing the space program, for what it is worth. While I wish it had been seven drug addicts, child molesters, or rappers, it wasn’t that way. However, these folks knew very well the risks inherent in their job, and went to work fully aware that not much has to go wrong at 12,000 mph to make your day really suck. I think the death of any worthwhile human being is tragic, and I feel for their families and so on, but I don’t think that this is a national disaster of epic proportions, and all I am really interested in is what went wrong. All finished grieving, thanks. No need for the sad violin music that accompanies any picture of Columbia. That’s my cold, logical viewpoint.

I fly airplanes, and I plan on flying for as long as I am able. I love it. I know that there could come a day when everything goes to shit and I don’t make it home. I don’t want that to happen, but it is the same risk you take when you get in your car. I just hope I am lucky enough to spend the week prior to my demise floating around in zero gravity, watching the sun rise from space, and when the time comes, I would very much like to be going mach 18, the outside of my ship glowing red from the heat, 43 miles above the ground with half of the United States watching. That would be so totally hardcore metal. In fact, I’d also like some really kickass electric guitar solo playing very loudly from huge speakers. I’d bet any pilot (and almost any human male) you talk to would agree if they had to go, that would be the way to do it. I’d also hope my asshole landed in Utah.

You may now think I am the biggest dickhead in Atlanta, but that will only be true until this weekend, when 65,000 morons are expected to arrive in Atlanta for a basketball game. Not sure if it is the superbowl, the playoffs, or what, but this weekend should bump the crime statistics up enough to put us firmly in the lead for most violent state in the union. Joy. The three groups of people who cause the most trouble by making stupid decisions are professional athletes, sports fans, and rappers. This weekend, guess what groups will be coming out in force? I don’t know how many of you have heard of freaknic (the black college spring break they used to have in Atlanta, renamed “freedom fest” in hopes that the citizens would forget that it was a frenzy of rape, murder, public indecency, robbery, beatings, traffic jams, people acting like idiots, and not nearly enough arrests), but it really sucked. For three days, the taxpaying citizens of Atlanta were held hostage in their own city while every thing that wasn’t nailed down was stolen, and the stuff that was nailed down was spraypainted or set on fire. And I’m not just saying this because I wasn’t personally enthusiastic about it, either. There is news footage. I have a feeling that the NBA game will be a clusterfuck of Freaknic-esque proportions. I’ll retract this statement and change my views if I am proven wrong, but I won’t be. Eminem is renting a club across the street, and we all know that punk is just looking for an opportunity to kill a bunch of people. Puff Douchebag or P-nis or whatever he’s calling himself this week is renting out an entire mall a couple of blocks from here for a party. Pardon me for sounding cynical, but this all sounds like “Felon Fest 2003”. You will be safer in Iraq than Atlanta this weekend. Now you can add “racist” to all of the other names you may want to call me.

Speaking of Iraq, I am very tempted to cause blunt force trauma to everyone who has a “war is not the answer” sign in their yard or on their car. What, pray tell, is the answer? We all hate war, and this particular one may be questionable in its necessity, but there are times when war is the only answer. If these folks understood that not every country on the planet holds your civil rights so dear, they might clue in to the fact that the only reason this country is able to protect things like civil rights is because we have beaten the shit out of everyone who threatened our ability to do so. Almost sounds contradictory, but not everything has to make sense in order to work. I would rather be sure that their ability to produce anything of consequence is destroyed than wait and see what they might be cooking up for us.

So let’s say you are standing on top of a building with your clone, who is naked. You push your clone off the building. Is this murder, suicide, or just making an obscene clone fall?

*rim shot*

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